Moby Grape - Wow (1968)

Moby Grpae was formed in September 1966 in San Francisco at the instigation of Skip Spence and Matthew Katz, both of whom had previously been associated with Jefferson Airplane, Spence as the band's first drummer, playing on their first album, 'Jefferson Airplane Takes Off', and Katz as the band's manager. After they were both dismissed from the group, Katz encouraged Spence to form a band similar to Jefferson Airplane, with varied songwriting and vocal work by several group members, and with Katz as the manager. The band name was chosen by Bob Mosley and Spence, and came from the punch line of the joke "What's big and purple and lives in the ocean?". Lead guitarist Jerry Miller and drummer Don Stevenson (both formerly of the Frantics), joined guitarist Peter Lewis (ex-The Cornells), bassist Bob Mosley (of the Misfits), and Spence, now on guitar instead of drums. While Miller was the principal lead guitarist, all three guitarists played lead at various points, often playing off against each other, in a guitar form associated with Moby Grape as "crosstalk". All band members wrote songs and sang lead and backup vocals for their debut album, 'Moby Grape', which was released in 1967. Mosley, Lewis, and Spence generally wrote alone, while Miller and Stevenson often wrote together,  and the album is a classic of the period, being ranked at number 121 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In a marketing stunt, Columbia Records immediately released five singles at once, but this back-fired and the band was perceived as being over-hyped. 

The record was critically acclaimed and fairly successful commercially, with The Move covering the album's 'Hey Grandma' on their self-titled first album. Their second album, 'Wow/Grape Jam', released in 1968, was generally viewed as a critical and commercial disappointment, even though the album charted at No. 20 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts, partially due to the special low price double-album packaging. 'Wow' has a more heavily produced sound than the first Moby Grape album, and string and horn arrangements were added to many of the songs by producer David Rubinson. 'Murder In My Heart For The Judge' is a blues rock tune written by drummer Don Stevenson that was later recorded by other rock musicians such as Lee Michaels, Three Dog Night and Chrissie Hynde, while 'Bitter Wind' remains one of the group's most popular songs, even though it contains an ending that includes harsh wind noises and backward vocals. Other stand-out tracks include Jerry Miller's rocking shuffle 'Can't Be So Bad', Skip Spence's darkly comedic roots rocker 'Motorcycle Irene' and Peter Lewis's lush ballad 'He'. The album also includes an electrified re-arranged version of "Naked, If I Want To", which was on the first album as an acoustic track, while the most unusual track on the album is 'Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot', which was a 1930s-style tune written and sung by Spence, but which was cut into the LP at 78 rpm, with added scratchy sound effects to give it an authentic period effect. This meant that if your record player didn't have a 78rpm speed then you couldn't listen to the song. 

In a retrospective review for Rolling Stone magazine, music critic Robert Christgau felt that the album suffered from "Pepper-itis" because of how worthy songs such as 'Can't Be So Bad' and 'Murder In My Heart For The Judge' were diminished by superfluous effects such as horns, strings, stereo separations, and musique concrète. The general opinion of the album is that it suffers from far too much gimmicky production, and it is well overdue for a reappraisal based on the music alone. For this new version, 'The Place And The Time' is a more guitar-orientated alternate take, and although I couldn't hear any strings or brass on 'Murder In My Heart For The Judge' I stripped it back to just the band in case I'd missed them. The cacophony at the end of 'Bitter Wind' is now gone, by using an earlier, more gutsy take, and 'Just Like Gene Autry: A Foxtrot' has been completely removed and replaced with an undeservedly omitted out-take from the album sessions. I couldn't pitch-correct the 'chipmunk' vocals on 'Funky-Tunk' so I've removed them completely, at no detriment at all to the song, which now has the remaining vocals more up-front. The horns are gone from 'Miller's Blues', giving it a rawer blues feel, and anywhere else that strings and horns had been added, they have now been removed, apart from one solo on 'Can't Be So Bad' which nicely filled an empty space. I've also boosted the guitars on that track where the horns previously drowned them out. To my ears it now sounds like a completely different record, and one that I can play repeatedly without dreading the next piece of distracting, gimmicky production.

Track listing  

01 The Place and the Time
02 Murder In My Heart For The Judge
03 Bitter Wind
04 Can't Be So Bad
05 Loosely Remembered
06 He
07 Motorcycle Irene
08 Three-Four
09 Funky-Tunk
10 Rose Colored Eyes
11 Miller's Blues
12 Naked, If I Want To

The Bystanders - This World Is My World (1968)

The Bystanders formed in 1962, when two local Merthyr Tydfil groups, The Rebels and The Crescendos, merged together, with a line-up of Mickey Jones on guitar, Ray Williams on bass, Lynn Mittell on vocals, Clive John on organ, and Jeff Jones on drums, and while they looked for a name they called themselves The Mystery Men. The group became successful locally and did gigs with Unit Four Plus Two, Sounds Incorporated and Bert Weedon, but balancing  work and gigs became too strenuous and the group decided to go professional, giving up their day-jobs. Now called The Bystanders, they fashioned themselves musically along the lines of US harmony pop groups such as The Beach Boys, The Four Seasons and The Tokens, and when the group played in Swansea, local hairdresser Wynn David, who had a successful business there, became their financial backer due to his love of music. In 1965, with David's financing, the band travelled to ITC Studios in London to record a debut single, and 'That's The End' b/w 'This Time' was released on the Pylot label, which was created by David. The disc only sold in local shops, and without major distribution it received no airplay and consequently did not sell well. After Mittell left the group, Vic Oakley became the new vocalist, and their manager George Cooper took them to Pye Records, who signed them to their subsidiary Piccadilly label. The group moved to London and played gigs in the area to re-establish themselves, and their first Piccadilly release was a cover of '(You're Gonna) Hurt Yourself', which featured on Frankie Valli's first solo album. 

Their next release was 1966's 'My Love - Come Home', but this too failed to gather significant sales, which could have been because these two singles were quite middle of the road fare, due the fact Cooper was booking the group into cabaret clubs, and he felt these tracks would appeal to this audience. Their fourth single was a cover of Keith's '98.6', which was released in 1967, and although it was an improvement musically, it still failed to chart, and so they filled their time by recording demos at R.G.Jones Studios for songwriters signed to the George Cooper Organisation. Ronnie Scott wrote the group's next release 'Royal Blue Summer Sunshine Day', and this was followed by a cover of Jimmy Webb's 'Pattern People', and so their song choices did seem to taking a paisley pop turn . The Piccadilly imprint folded after the release of this single and the band moved to the parent Pye label, which released 1968's 'When Jezamine Goes', which was written by Marty Wilde and Ronnie Scott under the pseudonym of Maston and Gellar, but it was a dismal failure, even though The Casuals version soared to number two on the UK charts just three months later. Hidden on the flip side of 'When Jezamine Goes' was the brilliant 'Cave Of Clear Light', which is now considered a psych classic, but even that was not enough to make it a hit, and so they had one last stab at success with the recording of Albert Hammond's 'This World Is My World'. When this went the same way as the others, the band continued to gig on the cabaret circuit as The Bystanders, but eight months after the release of their last single, 'Sudden Life' was issued on Pye under the new group name of Man, following the recruitment of Deke Leonard on guitar and vocals. Martin Ace then came in to replace bassist Ray Williams and Terry Williams took over the drums following the departure of Jeff Jones, and this completed the transformation of The Bystanders to the newly-formed progressive rock artists Man. Even though some of The Bystander's singles were a bit pop-orientated, they did also produce some great psyche and rock tracks, and so as the band never managed to record an album in their lifetime, this is what one released around 1968 could have sounded like.  

Track listing

01 Make Up Your Mind
02 My Love - Come Home
03 98.6
04 Royal Blue Summer Sunshine Day
05 Cave Of Clear Light
06 Stay A Little While
07 (You're Gonna) Hurt Yourself       
08 Pattern People
09 My Way Of Thinking
10 This World Is My World
11 Have I Offended The Girl
12 Green Grass
13 When Jessamine Goes
14 Painting The Time

Fogey - Sea Elvis (2007)

Fogey is masterminded by Kevin Crow, who writes and sings the songs, and plays most of the instruments himself. 'Sea Elvis' is his second album, recorded in 2007 and posted to Spotify as a follow-up to his 2004 CD release 'It's Fun In The Green Room'. While 'It's Fun In The Green Room' was a more folky effort, 'Sea Elvis' could almost be called progressive rock, with its fuller sound and wider variety of instruments being used, and the result is a great indie-rock album. It's a shame that it was only ever posted to Spotify as it deserved the wider audience that could have been achieved with a physical release, and so to try and gain it that exposure, here is the second album from Kevin Crow's Fogey.  

Track listing

01 Let It Shine
02 In the Fog
03 Dead
04 Whiskey
05 Hellbound Train
06 Peninsula
07 Beautiful
08 Lay Me
09 Waiting
10 I'll Do It Tomorrow
11 Smoke

Kendrick Lamar - unfinished unreleased (2023)

In December 2014, while preparing for the release of his third album 'To Pimp a Butterfly', Kendrick Lamar performed an unreleased, untitled track as a musical guest on an episode of 'The Colbert Report', and in January 2016 he did the same again, and performed another untitled song on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon'. Following his acclaimed performance at the 2016 Grammy Awards, which included aspects of another new untitled track, Lamar revealed the existence of a collection of tracks that did not make it onto 'To Pimp A Butterfly', mostly because of issues with sample clearances. Following hints of a potential new release from Lamar's label Top Dawg Entertainment, he issued a collection of these tracks called 'untitled unmastered' in March 2016, which comprised eight untitled tracks, but with a date when the songs were written and recorded at various points between 2013 and 2016. 'unfinished unreleased' is an unofficial follow-up to that album, containing 18 more rare and unreleased songs from Lamar's vaults, but this time with actual titles. The tracks come from the sessions for the 'DAMN' and 'Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers' albums, and so span the years 2017 to 2022, making it a perfect companion to the official release. 

Track listing

01 Talk To Me
02 I'm Better
03 Make Me Happy
04 Bitchface
05 Lack Of Better Words
06 Real One
07 Don't Jump
08 Somebody
09 New Couple Alert
10 Handsome
11 One Of You
12 Want U 2 Want
13 Sexy Pause
14 Pure
15 Tranquilizer
16 Prayer
17 Loved Ones
18 Style 

Plato And The Philosophers - Thirteen O'Clock Flight To Psychedelphia (1967)

In 1962, 14-year old multi-instrumentalist Ken Tebow took up the bass guitar and formed a group called The Checkmates. He was joined by the similarly aged guitarist Mike Imbler, and the pair played mainly in Church basements and Jr. High School Proms until around 1965. The Checkmate's manager suggested a name change in 1965 as there was another popular group with the same name, and he suggested coming up with a name that sounded like Paul Revere and The Raiders or Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs, so the band became Plato and The Philosophers. By this time the line-up had expanded to include Barry Orscheln on keyboards and Mark Valentine on drums. Initially Tebow suggested they go on stage dressed in togas and sandals, and they did this twice, but just before they were to perform a third time in the outfits, he went out to the parking lot and saw a fire, where the other members were burning the outfits! The band's first single was 'C.M. I Love You', released in 1966 on the It Records label, and Tebow was intent on getting the band signed to a major label, so many of the 500 copies were mailed to other record labels, and eventually a company in Chicago called GAR Records got in touch , and was interested in issuing the record on their label. The band received statements from the label which stated that it had sold 10,000 copies, but no-one knows for sure how many it shifted. 

After the success of their first single, Tebow got in touch with a well respected studio in Columbia, Missouri called Fairyland Studios, and worked out a deal with the studio to issue a record on the Fairyland Records label by paying for all the studio and record pressing costs. About four hundred copies were pressed of their second single 'Wishes', but sales were not good enough for a re-pressing, although this was the first outing for the brilliantly-titled psyche effort 'Thirteen O'Clock Flight To Psychedelphia', which appeared on the b-side of the single. The band went back into Fairyland Studios in September 1967 to record two more sides for a single, but the 'Doomsday Nowhere City'/'I Knew' record never appeared, as once the recording time was paid for they couldn't afford to press up the discs. In 1968 Plato and The Philosophers began to change to a heavier sound, influenced in part by their admiration for Iron Butterfly, and their keyboard player studied that band's 'In A Gadda Da Vidda' intently, and persuaded the other members to play the full eighteen minute version at every gig. The next recording sessions were done in 1968 in Pekin, where they recorded 'Ima Jean Money' and 'Take It Easy', before moving to Buffalo and taping another clutch of songs. These demos got the band a tentative agreement with Cedarwood Music for an album and single release, but despite recording some more tracks in Nashville, neither the single not the album materialised, and by the end of 1970 Plato and The Philosophers was no more. If they had released an album in 1969 then it would have sounded very different to those early singles, and as they are the sides that I prefer then I would have liked to hear a long-player some time in 1967, and so that's what this record is. 

Track listing

01 Today I Died
02 In Good Time
03 Doomsday Nowhere City
04 Ima Jean Money
05 Take It Easy
06 Back Room Bar
07 C.M. I Love You
08 Wishes
09 I Knew
10 Through Your Heart
11 I Don't Mind
12 How I Won The War
13 Thirteen O'Clock Flight To Psychedelphia

The Stripes - The Stripes (1980)

Gabriele Susanne Kerner is better known by her stage name Nena, under which she rose to international fame in 1983 as the lead vocalist of the band Nena with the Neue Deutsche Welle song '99 Luftballons'. Later that same year, the band re-recorded this song in English as '99 Red Balloons', and it became a world-wide hit single. But she didn't suddenly appear out of nowhere, and had been paying her dues for some years as part of the band The Stripes. Her musical career began on in July 1979 when guitarist Rainer Kitzmann founded the Stripes and, on the basis of having seen her dancing at a local disco, asked her to audition for the position of the lead singer. The group were based in Hagen, and performed songs with English lyrics, acheiving a minor hit with the song 'Ecstasy', but never gaining mainstream success, and so they disbanded in March 1982. They had recorded an album for CBS in 1980, from which 'Ecstasy' was lifted as a single, and so when the band split, CBS offered Nena a record deal if she would move to Berlin and make music with German lyrics. In May 1982 she and her then-boyfriend Rolf Brendel moved to West Berlin, where they met future band members guitarist Carlo Karges, keyboard player Uwe Fahrenkrog-Petersen, and bass player Jürgen Dehmel, and together, they formed the band Nena. In June 1982, they released their first single, 'Nur geträumt', which became an instant hit in Germany after the band appeared on the German television show 'Musikladen', and the following year the band released its first album 'Nena', which contained the singles '99 Luftballons' and 'Leuchtturm', and from that point on they never looked back. Combined with the success of the Nena band years, she has sold over 25 million records, making her the most successful German pop singer in chart history, but everyone had to start somewhere, and so here is The Stripes' one and only album, featuring a young Nena on lead vocals. 

Track listing

01 Strangers
02 Tell Me Your Name
03 Observer
04 Don't You Think That I'm A Lady
05 Leaving The Suburbs
06 I'm Not...
07 Tres Chichi
08 You Must Be Good For Something
09 On The Telephone
10 Weekend Love
11 Kicks In Berlin
12 1:59
13 Radio In Stereo

Elvis Presley - He Touched Me (1972)

Elvis Presley recorded three gospel albums during his career, and this is the third and final of them, being distinct from both of his previous LPs as it was not only recorded five years after the prior album, but included a far different set of songs and musicians. This is his contemporary gospel record, including material from Bill Gaither (the title song), Andraé Crouch ('I've Got Confidence'), and Dallas Frazier ('He Is My Everything'), with vocal backgrounds from the Imperials and J.D. Sumner & the Stamps, and the instrumental arrangements leave space for electric guitar and electric bass. Though it's spiritual, it doesn't have the sacred feel of 1960's 'His Hand in Mine' or the first half of 1966's 'How Great Thou Art', and a number of the tracks were overdubbed with strings and horns after recording was completed. On a recent box set of Nashville sessions, the original undubbed versions of the songs were included, which was a thrill for the Elvis Today blog....until they heard them. Here is their opinion of the undubbed versions:

Having listened to the undubbed Christmas masters from Elvis 'Back In Nashville' all through the Holidays, I decided to turn my attention to the undubbed religious masters on the same CD set. Just like the Christmas masters, the track order is identical to the original album, in this case 'He Touched Me' released in 1972. The exception is 'Amazing Grace' which is included on disc one among The Country/Folk Sides. Unlike the Christmas material, the religious songs were recorded with background singers present in the studio, and most of the tracks were then left undubbed for release on the 'He Touched Me' album. I guess this was a decision on producer Felton Jarvis part, mimicking the sound of Elvis singing gospel privately with his friends and backup singers to help unwind after a show. A look in my well thumbed copy of 'Elvis Session III' by Joe Tunzi revealed that only four of the religious songs on the 'He Touched Me' album were overdubbed: 'Amazing Grace' and 'I, John' (both with more backup vocals), 'He Is My Everything' (with strings) and 'A Thing Called Love' (with strings and horns). Still, I was looking forward to the whole undubbed 'He Touched Me' experience, and it started well. The title track and album opener was as moving and soothing as ever, and the sound crystal clear. Then followed the more modern up tempo Christian number 'I've Got Confidence', sounding fantastic with the electrical guitar more prominent and the song lasting about 25 seconds longer than on the original album, with frantic hand clapping and the band cooking. What a treat! Next up was another pleasant surprise. 

Usually, when I listen to 'Amazing Grace', I almost wonder if Elvis is there at all due to all the backing vocals. But in the undubbed format, I noticed that Elvis' voice was more up front and the background singers more in the, well, background. The whole thing sounded so much clearer and less muddled. I then turned my attention to 'Seeing Is Believing', with electrical sparks flying from James Burton's guitar. As always, it reminded me of  'I've Got Confidence', and I noticed another few extra seconds at the ending here as well. I bet the writer of the song, Red West, was in the studio listening. How exciting it must have been for him to hear this. I was then unexpectedly disappointed, as while I listened to 'He Is My Everything' without the strings, I noticed that the original backing singers were gone, too. Slightly confused and irritated, my spirits lifted with the help of the next track, 'Bosom Of Abraham'. I always find it irresistible and infectious, reminding me of some of the spirituals on Elvis' earlier religious albums. The interaction between Elvis and the Imperials is pure joy. In my imagination, I then flipped the album to the B-side. The two first numbers, 'An Evening Prayer' and 'Lead Me, Guide Me' sounded beautiful as always, maybe even more so in this new mix. But then surprise, as disappointment struck again. 

As was the case of 'He Is My Everything', the background vocals had been eliminated on 'There Is No God But God'. Although a pleasant enough song, in my opinion it really benefits from the backing vocalists responding to Elvis' singing. Fortunately, the rest of the tracks from 'He Touched Me' were left undubbed as they were recorded in the studio. 'A Thing Called Love' without the strings and horns worked well, even though bass singer Armond Morales' vocals were mixed down (in the original recording he is singing in union with Elvis throughout the song). 'I, John' sounded more like a gospel quartet song without the overdubbed female singers and 'Reach Out To Jesus' ended with the passionate ending I remember so well. Two more religious tracks were recorded during the Nashville sessions 1971, and they are included after the 'He Touched Me' tracks. 'Put Your Hand In The Hand' and 'Miracle Of The Rosary' were eventually saved for 'Elvis Now', but it's evident they would have fit on Elvis' third religious album as well. All in all, I enjoyed the undubbed version of 'He Touched Me', but it annoyed me that two of the tracks had their backing vocals removed. It also rhymes badly with what is written in the booklet: NOTE: As the vocal interaction between Elvis and the backing singers is deemed fundamental to the gospel performances, they have been left as originally intended by Elvis and A&R man Felton Jarvis.

To put things right with this new version of this album, I've removed the strings from 'He Is My Everything', but left the backing vocals intact, and also run 'There Is No God But God' through the programme in case there were any strings hidden away on there, and slotted both of them back in among the other undubbed tracks. I've also removed the horns and strings from the original album version of 'A Thing Called Love' so that Armond Morales' vocals are back where they should be, and we now have the whole album as if it had been recorded in the studio and then pressed up and issued straight afterwards. I've also added those final two out-takes from the sessions, so that we have everything that was recorded at that time all in one place.

 
Track listing

01 He Touched Me
02 I've Got Confidence
03 Amazing Grace
04 Seeing Is Believing
05 He Is My Everything
06 Bosom Of Abraham
07 An Evening Prayer
08 Lead Me, Guide Me
09 There Is No God But God
10 A Thing Called Love
11 I, John
12 Reach Out To Jesus
13 Miracle Of The Rosary
14 Put Your Hand In The Hand

The Rockin' Berries - Across The Street (1968)

The Rockin' Berries were formed in the early '60s when guitarist Brian "Chuck" Botfield was performing with the Bobcats, a Birmingham band, at the Star Club in Hamburg. Several Bobcats broke off to form their own band, and Botfield brought in some Birmingham friends to regroup as the Rockin' Berries, with bassist Roy Austin, drummer Terry Bond, guitarist Geoff Turton, and singer Clive Lea. Vocal arrangements were the Berries' forte, with Lea taking the harder-rocking stuff and falsetto-voiced Turton pacing their most famous, Four Seasons-influenced material. After a couple of flop singles for Decca in 1963, the Rockin' Berries signed with the Pye subsidiary Piccadilly, and after a mild hit with a cover of the Shirelles' 'I Didn't Mean To Hurt You' in 9164, their cover of the Tokens' 'He's In Town', penned by star song-writing team Gerry Goffin and Carole King, took them to number three in the British charts in late 1964. 'He's In Town' was a gentle harmony number, like a less shrill Four Seasons, and the group turned to another cover of an American record, the Reflections' 'Poor Man's Son', for their follow-up. More sombre than 'He's In Town', this made number five in the U.K., while around the same time the band released a cash-in album, 'In Town', with a manic variety of material encompassing operatic ballads, R&B, harmony pop/rock, comedy, and the German 'Ich Liebe Dich', which was a fair success in Britain, making number 15. 

The Rockin' Berries' versatility, though a boon to their live work in enabling them to play more mainstream theatres and cabarets than some British Invasion acts, worked against them on record. They would frequently insert comic routines into their live shows, and their second album, 'Life Is Just A Bowl Of Berries', was half-occupied by terrible novelty/comedy numbers. They continued to record pop/rock by professional tunesmiths on their singles, including Goffin-King's 'You're My Girl', and material by British hitmakers John Carter, Ken Lewis, and Perry Ford, as well as a little-known tune co-written by a pre-Blues Project Al Kooper, 'The Water Is Over My Head'. Both 'You're My Girl' and 'The Water Is Over My Head' were minor British hits in 1965, but they couldn't seem to match the success of 'He's In Town', and so they continued to work on the cabaret circuit and record singles for Piccadilly and Pye through to 1968, when Turton left for a solo career, getting a Top 30 hit in the U.S. in early 1970 under the name of Jefferson with 'Baby Take Me in Your Arms'. Some of their singles should have been more successful, and they always took them more seriously than their live shows, so they could have collected the best of them together in 1968, added in a few out-takes from the vaults, and produced an album that would have surprised most people with its professionalism. However, by that time they'd pretty much given up with studio work, and so it wasn't to be....but if it had then it could have sounded very much like this.  

Track listing

01 The Water Is Over My Head
02 If You Find Somebody To Love
03 Sometimes
04 When I Reach The Top
05 Across The Street
06 Barterers And Their Wives
07 Money Grows On Trees
08 From One Who Knows
09 Mr. Blue
10 Land Of Love
11 Needs To Be
12 What Can I Do?
13 She's Not Like Any Girl
14 Pain
15 Yellow Rainbow
16 Goodnight

Marilyn Powell - All My Loving (1970)

Marilyn Powell was born in the Kennington borough of London, and started singing professionally in the sixties, taking to the stage at the age of three singing at concerts given by her local dancing school. In 1964 she signed to the Fontana Records label, and her first single was a cover of The Beatles' 'All My Loving', making her the first female singer to cover one of their songs for a single. Her next single of 1964 was a one-off recording for the Musicor Records label, with 'Please Go Away', and then she was back on Fontana for 1965's 'As Long As You Come Back To Me'. 1965 was her most productive year, with two more singles being released, and she followed those with 'Showdown' in 1966. That was her last record to appear on the Fontana label, as in 1968 she signed to CBS Records, and her first record for them was 'Kiss Me Again'. Things then slowed down a bit, with 'Have Another Dream On Me' appearing in 1969, followed by her final single 'Dear Madame' in 1970. During the 60's she also appeared on many TV shows, including 'Thank Your Lucky Stars' and 'The Simon Dee Show', and after a few years away from the record business she returned in 1978 with the 'For You' album on United Artists, which included songs written by some of the world's best songwriters, as well as some of her own. After some moderate success with that she followed it with 'Out Of Reach' in 1979 on the Manhattan label, and her most recent recordings are to be found on 1993's 'Seeds' album, but for many who remember her it was those 60's sides which evoke the best memories. So here is everything that she recorded in the 60's, topped off with an unreleased acetate of the song 'Brother Joe', year of recording unknown.

Track listing

01 All My Loving (single 1964)
02 After The Party (b-side of 'All My Loving')
03 Please Go Away (single 1964) 
04 Moon Of Yesterday (b-side of 'Please Go Away')
05 As Long As You Come Back To Me (single 1965)
06 Go Away (b-side of 'As Long As You Come Back To Me')
07 Where Did I Go Wrong? (b-side of Fontana re-issue of 'Please Go Away' 1965) 
08 Showdown (single 1966)
09 Came The Day (b-side of 'Showdown')
10 Kiss Me Again (Adios Amore) (single 1968)
11 Something To Hold On To (b-side of 'Kiss Me Again (Adios Amore)')
12 Have Another Dream On Me (single 1969)
13 Afraid To Love You (b-side of 'Have Another Dream On Me')
14 Dear Madame (single 1970)
15 Home (b-side of 'Dear Madame')
16 Brother Joe (unreleased acetate)

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Together Again (1970)

Ian Dunlop and Mickey Gauvin, formerly of Gram Parsons' International Submarine Band, founded the original Flying Burrito Brothers and named it after Parsons informed them of his new country focus, However, this incarnation of the band never recorded as such, and after they headed East it allowed Gram Parsons to take the name. With the original incarnation of the band out of the picture, the "West Coast" Flying Burrito Brothers were founded in 1968 in Los Angeles, California, by Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman, with the addition of bassist Chris Ethridge, pedal steel guitarist "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow and session drummer "Fast" Eddie Hoh. Though Hillman and Roger McGuinn had fired Parsons from the Byrds in July 1968, the bassist and Parsons reconciled later that year after Hillman left the group. The Flying Burrito Brothers recorded their debut album, 'The Gilded Palace Of Sin', without a regular drummer, as Hoh proved to be unable to perform adequately due to a substance abuse problem, and he was dismissed after recording two songs. After trying out a number of replacements, they ultimately settled upon original Byrd Michael Clarke, just before the commencement of their first tour. Despite widespread critical acclaim upon its release in February 1969 for its pioneering amalgamation of country, soul music, and psychedelic rock, 'The Gilded Palace Of Sin' stalled at No. 164 on the Billboard album chart. 

The band did embark on a comprehensive train tour of the United States (necessitated by Parsons' fear of flying), but this ultimately ended in disaster due to drug and alcohol use. Dissatisfied by the band's lack of success and unable to fully reconcile his predilection for R&B with the more conservative tastes of Parsons and Hillman, Ethridge departed the group in the autumn of 1969, and Hillman reverted to bass after the band hired lead guitarist Bernie Leadon, a Dillard and Clark veteran who had also played with Hillman in the early 1960s bluegrass scene. With mounting debt incurred from the first album and tour, and a failed single in 'The Train Song', A&M Records hoped to recoup some of their losses by marketing the Burritos as a straight country group. To this end, manager Jim Dickson instigated a loose session where the band recorded several traditional country staples from their live act, contemporary pop covers in a countrified vein, such as 'To Love Somebody', 'I Shall Be Released', and 'Honky Tonk Women', and Larry Williams's rock and roll classic 'Bony Moronie'. This effort was soon scrapped in favoru of a second album of originals on an extremely reduced budget, and so 'Burrito Deluxe' appeared in  April 1970, juxtaposing the band's inability to develop compelling new material with prominent covers of the Rolling Stones's hitherto unreleased 'Wild Horses', Dylan's 'If You Gotta Go, Go Now' and the Southern gospel standard 'Farther Along'. 

Unlike their debut, the album failed to chart entirely, and a month later, Parsons showed up for a band performance only minutes before they were to take the stage, visibly intoxicated and singing songs that differed from what the rest of the band were performing. A furious Hillman (already incensed by the singer's penchant for showing up at concerts in a limousine and his increasingly Jagger-influenced showmanship) fired him immediately after the show, to which Parsons responded, "You can't fire me, I'm Gram!". According to Hillman, this incident was merely the final straw, with Parsons' desire to hang out with the Rolling Stones rather than focus on his own band's career also being a significant factor, mirroring his 1968 dismissal from The Byrds. For some fans this was the end of their association with the band, as they couldn't imagine a Burritos without Parsons, while others remained faithful until Hillman left in 1972. Over the years a number of out-takes have surfaced from the original incarnation of the group, and so to complete the Parsons-led era of the Flying Burrito Brothers' recording history, here are all the tracks recorded with him before he left the group, including singles, b-sides, out-takes, and an extended edit of the snippet that was available of 'I Shall Be Released'.

     

Track listing

01 Sing Me Back Home (Version 1)
02 The Train Song
03 Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down
04 Your Angel Steps Out Of Heaven
05 Close Up The Honky Tonks
06 Green Green Grass Of Home
07 Break My Mind
08 To Love Somebody
09 Just Because
10 Dim Lights, Thick Smoke (And Loud, Loud Music)
11 Crazy Arms
12 Honky Tonk Women
13 Six Days On The Road
14 Bony Moronie
15 I Shall Be Released
16 Together Again
17 Sing Me Back Home (Version 2)

Thanks to the it's lost it's found blog for this post.

 

John's Children - Strange Affair (1967)

Drummer Chris Townson and singer Andy Ellison formed The Clockwork Onions in the town of Great Bookham in 1965, which later became the Few, and then the Silence. The Silence consisted of Townson and Ellison, plus Geoff McClelland on guitar and John Hewlett on bass guitar, and while performing in France in mid-1966, Townson met the Yardbirds's manager Simon Napier-Bell and invited him to come and see the Silence. Napier-Bell described them as "positively the worst group I'd ever seen", but still agreed to manage them, changing their name to John's Children, dressing them up in white stage outfits and encouraging them to be outrageous to attract the attention of the press. Their outrageous stage shows included on-stage fights, fake blood and feathers, and trashing their instruments, as the band whipped their audience into a frenzy. Napier-Bell signed them to the Yardbirds's record label, Columbia Records, and they released their first single in late 1966, being the Napier-Bell co-write 'Smashed Blocked'/'Strange Affair' (with the A-side released as 'The Love I Thought I'd Found' in the UK), but because of his lack of confidence in the band's musical abilities, Napier-Bell used session musicians on the recording. To everyone's surprise 'Smashed Blocked' broke into the bottom of the US Billboard Hot 100 and reached local top ten charts in Florida and California. In early 1967 they released their second single, 'Just What You Want – Just What You'll Get'/'But You're Mine', which also featured session musicians, plus a guitar solo from Jeff Beck on the b-side, and this one made it to the British Top 40. 

The band's third single, 'Not the Sort Of Girl (You'd Like To Take To Bed)', was rejected outright by their UK label, which prompted the band to switch to Track Records, publishers of artists like the Jimi Hendrix Experience and the Who. In the meantime, their US label, White Whale Records, asked for an album, and Napier-Bell and the group obliged, producing 'Orgasm'. This was a fake live album they recorded in the studio, with overdubbed screams taken from the Beatles' 'A Hard Day's Night', and it was Napier-Bell's idea to give the album a "live" feel to make it seem like the band was very popular in England. However, White Whale rejected 'Orgasm' because of its title, and pressure from Daughters of the American Revolution, and it was four years before it eventually appeared in 1971. In March 1967 Napier-Bell replaced guitarist McClelland with Marc Bolan, another of his clients, who took over as lead guitarist, and also took on the role of the band's singer/songwriter. Bolan composed and sang on the band's next single, 'Desdemona', which was banned by the BBC because of the controversial lyric, "Lift up your skirt and fly". In April 1967 Napier-Bell arranged for John's Children to tour Germany as support act to The Who.  

The Who were notorious for their own wild stage performances, which included smashing their instruments, and so John's Children pulled out all the stops and upstaged the Who with performances that included Bolan whipping his guitar with a chain, Townson attacking his drums, Ellison and Hewlett pretending to fight each other, and Ellison ripping open pillows and diving into the audience. In Düsseldorf they caused a riot at the venue, and The Who were not happy at being upstaged and so sent the band home mid-tour. Notwithstanding John's Children's antics in Germany, Townson was later asked to replace Keith Moon on drums near the end of the Who's UK tour in June that year after Moon had injured himself demolishing his drum kit on stage. With no time for rehearsal, Townson performed with the Who for five days, and did it so well that most of the audience didn't realise it wasn't Moon. John's Children played at The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream concert at the Alexandra Palace in London on 29 April 1967, and Bolan left two months later following disagreements with the way Napier-Bell was producing the band's next single, 'A Midsummer Night's Scene'. 

The single was never released, but in its place the b-side of 'Desdemona', 'Remember Thomas à Becket', was re-recorded with new lyrics and released as 'Come And Play With Me In The Garden'. After Bolan left, Townson switched to guitar and former roadie Chris Colville took over on drums, and the band recorded another single, 'Go Go Girl', which was a Bolan composition that he later recorded with Tyrannosaurus Rex as 'Mustang Ford'. They recorded one more single, 'It's Been A Long Time', which was issued as an Andy Ellison solo single, and then embarked on a 'disastrous' tour of Germany, after which they split up in 1968. Ellison went on to make several solo singles before resurfacing in Jet in 1974, along with drummer Chris Townson, who then metamorphosed into Radio Stars in the mid-Seventies. John's Children were active for less than two years and were not very successful commercially, having released only six singles and one (in my opinion) extremely disappointing album, but they are seen by some as the precursors of glam rock, and as their reputation has grown over the years their singles have become amongst the most sought-after British 1960's rock collectables. As the 'Orgasm' album is almost unlistenable because of the fake screams all over it, we need a collection of the band's music that actually represents what they were doing in the studio, and there was more than enough music recorded by 1967 to release an album, which would have included a few single tracks, some alternate takes, and some of their demos, and had they decided to do that then this is what it could have sounded like.  

Track listing

01 The Love I Thought I'd Found
02 But She's Mine
03 Midsummer Night's Scene
04 Hippy Gumbo
05 Strange Affair
06 Go-Go Girl
07 Remember Thomas À Becket
08 Desdemona
09 The Perfumed Garden Of Gulliver Smith
10 Casbah Candy
11 Sara, Crazy Child
12 Just What You Want - Just What You'll Get
13 Not The Sort Of Girl You Take To Bed
14 Sally Was An Angel
15 Jagged Time Lapse

Livvi Franc - Underground Sunshine (2008)

Olivia Charlotte Waithe was born on 31 May 1988 in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, and her stage name of Franc was inspired by her late maternal grandfather, Frank Wilson. Her first manager discovered her after hearing one of her cassette tape demos, and arranged for her to record proper demos in studios in Barbados and Miami, which is where she met her next manager. Soon after, she was in New York meeting label heads and auditioning, and she finally signed with Jive Records after months of negotiations. She was writing songs throughout these early years, with Jordin Sparks recording one of her songs, 'Walking On Snow', and she has also written for Cheryl Cole, Kelly Clarkson, Marié Digby, Michael Jackson, Britney Spears, Rihanna and Cher Lloyd. Her debut single, 'Now I'm That Bitch', was released in the summer of 2009, and topped the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart and became a top 40 hit in New Zealand and the UK. Another song, 'This Is A Raid' appeared on the reboot of 'Melrose Place', and an album was planned for release shortly afterwards, but this was delayed, and the next we heard from Franc was the release of her second single, 'Automatik' in 2010. Produced by RedOne, the single peaked at #6 on the US Hot Dance Club Songs chart, but around the end of 2010 the album was shelved by Jive, and so Livvi left the label and quickly signed to Beluga Heights/Warner Bros., where she is currently working on her debut album, although she has stated that she is delaying work on it in order to focus on writing for other acts. As she no longer seems committed to releasing a record under her own name, here is the cancelled 'Underground Sunshine' album from 2008, with a couple of contemporary recordings added to replace songs that haven't yet leaked. 

Track listing

01 Free  
02 This Is A Raid 
03 Now I'm That Bitch
04 Hummingbird  
05 She Loves Love 
06 Summer Love  
07 Lovey Dovey  
08 Shiver 
09 Trick Or Treat  
10 Underground Sunshine  
11 Untouchable
12 Sweet Satisfaction  
13 Bliss

The Pretty Things - Emotions (1967)

The Pretty Things grew out of Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys, which consisted of Dick Taylor, fellow Sidcup Art College student Keith Richards, and Mick Jagger, among others. When Brian Jones was recruiting for his own band, all three joined Brian and Ian Stewart and were dubbed Rollin' Stones by Jones in June 1962, but because there were too many guitar players in the band, Taylor switched to bass. He quit the Stones five months later, when he was accepted at the Central School of Art and Design in London, but Phil May, another Sidcup student, convinced him to form a new band, and so Taylor was once again playing guitar, with May singing and playing harmonica. They recruited John Stax on bass and harmonica, Brian Pendleton on rhythm guitar, and Pete Kitley on drums, who was soon replaced by Viv Andrews, and then in turn by Viv Prince. After signing a deal with Fontana Records, their first three singles appeared in the UK Singles Chart in 1964 and 1965, with 'Don't Bring Me Down' breaking the Top Ten. They never had a hit in the United States, but had considerable success in their native UK, and in Australia, New Zealand, Germany and the Netherlands. The first of what would be many personnel changes over the years also began, with Prince, whose wild antics had become too much for the other members to endure, being the first to go in November 1965, being replaced by Skip Alan. 

They released two albums in 1965, with the self-titled debut appearing in March, and 'Get The Picture' following in December. 1966 saw the R&B scene fall into decline and the Pretty Things began moving away, flirting with soul music, and in December 1966 came the single 'Progress', where the band were joined by a brass section. Sessions for their next album 'Emotions' were spread across a few months during which there were major changes in the band's line up. Their record company Fontana had not been happy with how their three 1966 singles 'Midnight To Six Man', 'Come See Me' and the Kinks cover 'A House In The Country' had sold, and so assigned them producer Steve Rowland, who was producing hits for Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. The band were not pleased by this intervention and were keen to leave Fontana, so they simply went along with Fontana's demands to fulfil the contract which included a third album. The first result of the sessions was the 'Progress' single, and though it was a fairly commercial record, it failed to sell. Pendleton was unhappy with the direction the band was heading in, and, with money being rather short, he quit the band that Christmas. A month later, bassist John Stax, similarly unhappy, also quit, so May called childhood friend Wally Waller to help record the rest of the album. In the event, Waller took over the bass duties, and brought in his ex-bandmate from Bern Elliott And The Fenmen, Jon Povey, as the drummer and keyboardist.

Waller and Povey were huge Beach Boys fans and between them had developed their own distinctive harmonies, which when paired with May's vocals gave the Pretty Things a new dimension. The style of 'Emotions' showed a fusion of hard blues and psychedelia, but Rowland decided the new songs sounded rather empty, so he enlisted arranger Reg Tilsley to write and conduct orchestral arrangements for most of the tracks. Again, the band were not pleased by this but to appease Fontana and be able to break free, they went along with the idea. Tilsley was given tapes of demos and work in progress of the songs, and wrote the arrangements, some of which were fairly simple, requiring a brass section, whilst others were more elaborate, bringing in strings. Whilst some of these arrangements were overdubbed on what had already been recorded, Taylor has recalled there were a couple of sessions where the band and Tilsley's ensemble were together in the studio. Because the songs had mostly already been written, new members Waller and Povey weren't able to contribute much to the writing, nor add their harmonies to most of the album, although they did appear on 'Out In The Night', 'Bright Lights Of The City', 'My Time', and 'Children', which was also issued as a single.

Outside the studio, the band's live sound had changed drastically as they became involved in the burgeoning psychedelic scene, and by the time 'Emotions' was released, the contrast between the band on record and on stage was enormous, and so they did nothing to promote it, and as soon as they could they left Fontana to seek out a new record contract. None of the songs from 'Emotions' were ever played live, and they simply carried on as if it didn't exist. The only exception was the single 'Children', which they did play live onstage in Paris, and which was broadcast live on French TV.

Paul over at albumsthatshouldexist had a pretty good go at fixing this album a few years ago, when a re-issue of the album included undubbed versions of a few of the songs, which could then just be replaced in the running order, but the only problem was that they were in mono, as opposed to the stereo versions on the original record. Also, a few tracks were not presented in this form, and so he found a version of the record with extreme stereo separation, and as the strings and horns were mostly in one channel then he could isolate and remove them. Since then, programmes to edit music have come on in leaps and bounds, and so I am now able to take the original stereo tracks and remove the strings and horns, and not only that, but by isolating the guitar and vocals and then putting the whole thing back together with some panning, I was even able to make a rudimentary stereo version of the stand-alone single 'House In The Country' to tag onto the end of the rather short album. To distinguish the cover from the original I've simply reversed the colours of the text.  

Track listing

01 Death Of A Socialite
02 Children
03 The Sun
04 There Will Never Be Another Day
05 House Of Ten
06 Out In The Night
07 One Long Glance
08 Growing In My Mind
09 Photographer
10 Bright Lights Of The City
11 Tripping
12 My Time
13 A House In The Country