Nico - Chelsea Girl (1967)

After collaborating as a singer with the Velvet Underground on their first album, Nico toured with the band in Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI) multimedia roadshow, after which she took up residence in a New York City coffeehouse as a solo folk chanteuse, accompanied by guitarists such as Tim Hardin, Jackson Browne, and also her Velvet Underground bandmates Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison and John Cale. Some of these accompanists wrote songs for her to sing, and these formed the backbone of 'Chelsea Girl', her first solo album, released in 1967. Browne contributed 'The Fairest Of The Seasons', 'These Days', and 'Somewhere There's A Feather', while Hardin wrote 'Eulogy To Lenny Bruce', and 'Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams' was a Reed song that was part of the earliest Velvet Underground repertoire, but which didn't surface as a VU recording until it was included in the 1995 box set 'Peel Slowly And See'. 'I'll Keep It With Mine' was gifted to her by Bob Dylan, while Reed, Cale and Morrison in various combinations contributed the rest of the material. After the basic tracks were recorded, producer Tom Wilson added string and flute arrangements against the wishes of Nico, before which the musical backing was relatively simple, consisting of one or two guitars or, alternatively, a keyboard instrument, played by either Browne or her Velvet Underground colleagues, but there are no drums or bass instruments, hence the absence of Velvet's drummer Maureen Tucker. 

The chamber folk feel of the music was the result of the string and flute overdubs added to the initial recordings by Wilson and arranger Larry Fallon, without involving or consulting Nico. She was dissatisfied with the finished product, particularly the addition of the flute, commenting in 1981, "I still cannot listen to it, because everything I wanted for that record, they took it away. I asked for drums, they said no. I asked for more guitars, they said no. And I asked for simplicity, and they covered it in flutes! ... They added strings and – I didn't like them, but I could live with them. But the flute! The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all because of the flute". In retrospective 21st-century reviews, AllMusic described the album as "an unqualified masterpiece", while Trouser Press commented that the album "is sabotaged by tepid arrangements and weak production", and so in order to hear the album as Nico intended (apart from the lack of the drums that she wanted), I've removed all the strings and the flute, and boosted the organ on 'Little Sister' so that you can actually hear it without it being buried under the orchestration. In keeping with the stripped-back nature of the music, I've also stripped back the cover to just the main image. 

Track listing

01 The Fairest Of The Seasons
02 These Days
03 Little Sister
04 Winter Song
05 It Was A Pleasure Then
06 Chelsea Girls
07 I'll Keep It With Mine
08 Somewhere There's A Feather
09 Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams
10 Eulogy To Lenny Bruce

Thank to 'Unknown' for this suggestion, and if anyone else can recall the phrase 'strings and horns were added against the artist's wishes' then let me know and I'll attempt to put it right.  

Duffy Power - Power Station (1967)

Raymond Leslie Howard, aka Duffy Power, was born on 9 September 1941 in Fulham, South London and grew up loving music, with his influences including composers from George Gershwin to Edward Elgar, as well as singers ranging from Paul Robeson to Al Jolson. He was drawn to blues and jazz as a young teenager, and that eventually led him to the music of Elvis Presley and Ray Charles, and by the age of 15 he'd left school and was fronting a band as a singer and guitarist under the stage name Duffy Howard. His performances tended toward the bluesy side of rock & roll, and he was apparently as happy to cover a Leadbelly song as an Elvis Presley number. He was discovered at age 17 by promoter/manager Larry Parnes at a performance at a local theatre, and Parnes signed him up, and rechristened him Duffy Power, as he did with all his acts, like Marty Wilde, Billy Fury and Vince Eager. After seeing Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde perform in concert, he gave up the guitar to free himself up as a singer, and was later signed to Fontana Records, where he recorded a number of covers of songs from the commercial side of rock & roll, such as 'Dream Lover', 'Ain't She Sweet' and 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On'. Meanwhile, his heart still lay with the grittier side of American music, and while appearing on extensive package tours arranged by Parnes, he developed his skill as a singer in directions that gave him a range and flexibility far beyond the needs of the British teen idol image that his manager cultivated. 

In 1963, even as that brand of teenage singing star was fading from the charts, Power took steps to show what he could really do, releasing his cover of The Beatles' 'I Saw Her Standing There', some time before poaching the quartet's albums for singles became the thing to do. For this, and some of his later recordings, he was backed by The Graham Bond Organisation, who were already becoming an important part of the British blues scene in London, and whose members included Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. But the most impressive aspect of the recording, given its early date, was Power and the band's thorough reinvention of song, a strong hint of just how much talent and ambition resided behind that fading teen idol persona. Over the next several years, as he proceeded to develop his song-writing as well, reinventing himself as a serious blues singer, and he was often heard in the company of the latest version of Blues Incorporated, the band founded and led by his long-time idol Alexis Korner. Their major joint legacy was an LP entitled 'Sky High', which is regarded as one of Korner's stronger mid-to-late 60's efforts, and during this period Power also crossed paths with Danny Thompson and Terry Cox, later of Pentangle. 

Within a few years, it was clear that Power had a knack for attracting top up-and-coming talent to his orbit, as many of those former backing musicians became stars in their own right. Somehow, he was never able to find a proper vehicle to showcase his own talent to a wider public, as he could have been another Chris Farlowe or Long John Baldry, but he never managed the kind of pop hits that either of them did. Duffy's Nucleus, his late-'60s group, languished in relative obscurity, and a self-titled solo album release in 1972 failed to sell, even though it was co-produced by Andrew Loog Oldham, who had helped lift Farlowe into the pop charts in the previous decade. By the second half of the 70's, Power had taken a government job, leaving the music business behind, and although he did re-emerge slowly in the 1980's, his best work was to be found on the singles he released in the 60's. Although he loved to cover classic blues songs, his original compositions were equally as memorable, and by 1967 he'd written enough material to be able to release an excellent blue album, but he couldn't seem to get a label interested, with them preferring him to record yet another version of 'Hound Dog'. If he'd just managed to find an accommodating record label then he could have released this self-penned album in 1967, and it could have been just the breakthrough that he needed to put him up there with Farlowe and Baldry as one of the UK's best blues singers. 

Track listing

01 Love's Gonna Go
02 Rosie
03 I'm So Glad You're Mine
04 It's Funny
05 Little Girl
06 I Don't Care
07 Comin' Round No More
08 She Don't Know
09 Give Me One
10 What Now?
11 Just Stay Blue
12 Woman Made Trouble 
13 There You Go Again
14 Mary, Open The Door
15 If I Get Lucky Someday
16 Little Boy Blue

JoJo - Jumping Trains (2012)

After spending 2008 and 2009 writing and recording songs for her 'All I Want Is Everything' album in Boston and Atlanta, JoJo suddenly announced in February 2011 that she'd changed the title of the record from 'All I Want Is Everything' to 'Jumping Trains'. A proposed single, 'The Other Chick', was withdrawn as she wanted to move forward and record new material, and so instead she released a re-interpretation of rapper Drake's song 'Marvin's Room', renamed 'Marvin's Room (Can't Do Better)', in June. She then scrapped just about everything that she'd recorded up to that point and started afresh on her third album. By 2012 she'd recorded about 20 new tracks, and she planned to release 'Demonstrate' as the lead single, but the commercial release of the single was cancelled, followed shortly by the album itself, due to the fact that so many tracks had leaked online. She then concentrated her efforts into recording tracks for a mixtape that she could release herself, and 'Agápē' appeared in November 2012, signing the death warrant for 'Jumping Trains'. The new material that she'd recorded for it went the same way as the 'All I Want Is Everything' tracks, consigned to the vaults, but hoarded by her fans when they stumbled on leaked songs. So here is the second incarnation of JoJo's third album, this time the 'Jumping Trains' version from 2012. 

Track listing

01 Cold Blooded
02 Who's Gonna Fight For Me
03 Last Heart Standing
04 I Don't Wanna Cry (feat. Josh Milan)
05 Elsewhere
06 Disaster
07 The Other Chick
08 Paper Airplanes
09 Beautiful Distraction
10 Besos
11 Jumping Trains
12 Safe With Me
13 Lie 2 Me
14 Play This Twice
15 Guardian Angel
16 Sexy To Me
17 Hollywood

Brian Eno - Music For The Great Gallery (2012) ***UPDATE***

After my experimentation with the MVSEP programme yielded some impressive results, and following on from the recent Brian Eno post, I thought I'd see if I could remove the talking on the recording of Eno's 'Music For The Great Gallery'. I know it was hardly audible in most places, but I wanted to see if it could be done, so I listened to the whole thing and noted where it was most audible, and then split the file into 10 minute chunks, as that was the most that the programme could cope with, and ran it through. The very first part that I tested ended up with a vocal track with speaking exactly where I'd noted it, showing that it was doing exactly what I wanted, but then I tried the crowd noise removal programme, and I couldn't believe how much background chatter was hidden under the music. So the whole file has been run through the crowd noise splitter, and after it was pieced pieced back together we now have an almost perfect recording of the music that Eno composed for the Great Gallery. 

 Track listing 

01 Music For The Great Gallery

Brian Eno - Music For Films (1976)

'Music For Films' is one of Brian Eno's best-known albums, and it was the beginning of the 'ambient' phase of his career, where he would compose instrumental pieces that emphasize tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. If you own the album then it's unlikely that you have this version, as the basic core of tracks making up 'Music For Films' was originally assembled in 1976 in a limited edition of 500 copies, for inclusion in a promotional LP of prospective cues sent to film directors, alongside Eno's cryptic comment: "some of it was made specifically for soundtrack material, (and) some of it was made for other reasons but found its way into films". As with most things Eno, this led to a good deal of speculation and controversy, with one filmmaker long ago stating, "All of that is crap -- this music was never used in any films," and another film student who had tried out some of the cues commenting "this is the worst music for films ever. These cues don't synch to anything." However, the second filmmaker had unintentionally discovered the essence of 'Music For Films', as the 27 pieces here are actually little films, stimulating the visual part of one's brain and thus fulfilling their promotional purpose, and in that sense, 'Music For Films' was revolutionary. The US vinyl edition was notoriously crackly sounding, and impossible to track properly, and so when it finally gained a commercial release two years later in 1978 it was welcomed by fans, although they soon realised that this eighteen track version had ditched many of the pieces from the original album, while renaming or replacing others, and so it was a vastly different record. Here is the original vinyl edition of 'Music For Films', in all its crackly glory, cleaned up as much as possible. 

Track listing

01 Becalmed
02 Deep Waters
03 'There Is Nobody'
04 Spain
05 Untitled
06 The Last Door
07 Chemin De Fer
08 Dark Waters
09 Sparrowfall (1)
10 Sparrowfall (2)
11 Sparrowfall (3)
12 Evening Star
13 Another Green World
14 In Dark Trees
15 Fuseli
16 Melancholy Waltz
17 Northern Lights
18 From The Coast
19 Shell
20 Little Fishes
21 Empty Landscape
22 Reactor
23 The Secret
24 Don't Look Back
25 Marseilles
26 Final Sunset
27 Juliet

The Sorrows - Pink, Purple, Yellow & Red (1968)

The Sorrows first came together in 1963 in Coventry, England, and was formed by lead guitarist and singer Philip "Pip" Whitcher, rhythm guitarist and singer Terry Jukes, and bassist Philip Packham, all of whom were veterans of the Coventry music scene. Looking for a lead vocalist, they recruited Don Fardon, who has been frontman with a combo called Rocking Lord Docker & the Millionaires, and with the addition of Bruce Finlay on drums, the first edition of the Sorrows was complete. The band spent weeks trying to come up with a suitable stage name for Fardon; he was briefly billed as Will Pity and Don Maughn before he decided to use his real moniker, and after making a name on the local club circuit, the band honed their skills playing a month-long engagement in Germany, where the punishing schedule of playing as long as ten hours a night made them an estimable live act. Eager to make a record, the group recorded some sessions with legendarily idiosyncratic producer Joe Meek, but the material was shelved, and they had better luck when John Schroeder, an A&R Man with Pye Records, saw them in concert and quickly signed them to a deal with Pye's subsidiary Piccadilly Records. Their debut single, 'I Don't Wanna Be Free', was issued in January 1965, and led to several television appearances and more live work, though sales were slim. Recently married rhythm guitarist Terry Jukes left the band looking for a more dependable career, and he was replaced by Wesley "Wez" Price, formerly of the Autocrats, but this didn't change their fortunes, and a second single, 'Baby', was another disappointment. 

The third single, however, was the success that they'd been after, and August 1965's 'Take A Heart' became a chart hit, in large part thanks to extensive pirate radio airplay, and it reached Number 21 on the U.K. singles charts. In October the band followed up their hit with 'You've Got What I Want', which was a strong release, but which still failed to live up to the success of its predecessor, peaking at a disappointing chart placing of Number 47. However, the success of 'Take A Heart' led to Piccadilly releasing an album of the same name, appearing in stores in time for Christmas 1965. Disappointingly, the album bombed on the charts, and after another two singles came and went without notice, bassist Packham resigned, and vocalist Fardon soon followed. The rest of the group soldiered on, with Whitcher taking over lead vocal duties as well as being the guitarist, and Price moved over to bass, while Finlay continued as drummer. As the Sorrows plotted their next move, good fortune came their way, as the group had recorded phonetically translated foreign versions of 'Take A Heart', and the Italian version belatedly became a hit in Italy in June 1966, bolstered by a much-talked-about appearance at the Cantagiro Song Festival. 

The group was offered an extensive Italian tour, and they hit the road as a quartet, with the addition of second guitarist Roger Lomas, who was known in Coventry for his work with the R&B outfit The Clouds. RCA, who handled the Sorrows' recordings in Italy, was enthusiastic about them, and soon brought them into the studio to cut a pair of tunes for a movie starring Anita Ekberg, 'Come Imparai Ad Amare Le Donne' (aka 'How I Learned To Love Women') in 1967. They would also appear onscreen in a youth-oriented feature, 'I Ragazzi Di Bandiera Gialla' (aka 'The Lads Of The Yellow Flag'), and while in Italy the band continued to cut material for Italian and British release, but Whitcher missed British life and opted to go home. Lomas then announced that he was heading back for a short visit, but later sent his band-mates a letter saying he wasn't coming back to Italy and asking them to sell his gear and send him the money. As the Sorrows had paying gigs booked in Europe, Price and Finlay needed to round up replacement players quickly, and through a friend they found a pair of British musicians staying in Italy, guitarist Chuck Fryers and bassist Geoff Prior, who had been working with a group called the Warren J. Five. 

With Price moving back to rhythm guitar and taking on lead vocal duties, the band did live work and cut a single issued only in Italy, 'Zabadak', but they were reduced to a trio again when Prior moved on, and in early 1968 they returned to England, where they located a new fourth member, keyboardist Chris Smith. They demoed a handful of new songs written by Fryers for Pye, but the label wasn't impressed with the tracks, and the Sorrows were cut loose from their contract. Now that they were free agents, Whitcher returned to the line-up and drummer Mick Bradley replaced Finlay, and they headed to Milan and signed with an Italian label, Miura. The group cut a pair of singles for the label, one of which, 'Per Una Donna … No!', would fare well on the Italian charts, and the label asked them for an album. 1969's 'Old Songs New Songs' lived up to its title as a mix of new material, covers, and new versions of tunes from their back catalogue, but by the end of 1969, constant personnel changes and diminished interest in the group was taking its toll, and after honouring some European nightclub engagements, the band finally called it a day in January 1970. Although the band's second album didn't come out until 1969, they'd easily amassed enough material to release one by 1968, by just using the best single tracks, b-sides and those Pye demos, and if the label had been interested enough to back it, then this is what it could have sounded like. 

Track listing

01 Pink, Purple, Yellow And Red
02 Gonna Find A Cave
03 I Take What I Want
04 Ypotron
05 Which Way
06 Don't Start Me Talkin'
07 Zabadak
08 Baby All The Time
09 My Gal
10 Hoochie Coochie Man
11 You Got What I Want
12 My Way Of Thinking
13 Let The Live Live

Suzi Jane Hokom - Goode Tyme Music (1970)

Suzi Jane Hokom was one of the driving forces behind LHI Records, alongside founder Lee Hazelwood, and was possibly the first female producer, working on 'Safe At Home' by The International Submarine Band, among other records in the 60's. She also had a parallel career as a pop, folk and country singer, signing with Rally records under the name of Hillary Hokom, and releasing the single 'Can't Let You Go' in 1965. Following a switch to MGM Records, and a name change to Suzi Jane Hokom, she released 'Need All The Help I Can Get' in 1966, after which she met Lee Hazelwood, and appeared on his 1966 single 'Sand'. They soon embarked on a romantic relationship, and after they formed the Lee Hazelwood Industries label she signed to it and all her subsequent singles appeared on the label. In 1968 she recorded the single 'The House Song' with Virgil Warner, and this led to an album, with 'Virgil Warner & Suzi Jane Hokom' being released in 1969. While working with Hazelwood, she often recorded demos of Hazelwood's songs, and in 1966 she recorded 'Summer Wine', which was a hit for Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood in 1967, while one of her most well-known songs is the anti-war folk song 'For A Day Like Today', which was released as a single, and was also featured on Hazlewood's 1970 album 'Cowboy in Sweden'. She often appeared with Hazelwood on his albums, and in return he featured on some of her singles, and here is a selection of her best recordings, including that first single as Hillary Hokom, some duets with Hazelwood, and a couple of previously unreleased rarities. 

Track listing

01 Can't Let You Go (single 1965)
02 Tears Of Joy (b-side of 'Can't Let You Go')
03 Need All The Help I Can Get (single 1966)
04 Home (I'm Home) (b-side of 'Need All The Help I Can Get')
05 Sand (single with Lee Hazelwood 1966)
06 Goode Tyme Music (single 1967)
07 Little War (b-side of 'Goode Tyme Music')
08 Summer Wine (single with Lee Hazelwood 1967)
09 Come On Sunshine (previously unreleased 1967)
10 Same Old Songs (single 1969)
11 Alone (b-side of 'Same Old Songs', with Lee Hazelwood)
12 Reason To Believe (single 1969)
13 I'll Never Fall In Love Again (b-side of 'Reason To Believe', with Lee Hazelwood)
14 Califia (Stone Rider) (single with Lee Hazelwood 1970)
15 First Street Blues (previously unreleased 1970)
16 For A Day Like Today (promo single 1970)

The Byrds - Byrdmaniax (1971)

'Byrdmaniax' was The Byrds' tenth studio album, released in June 1971 on Columbia Records, and is generally regarded as the low point of the band's illustrious career. There are a number of reasons for this, of which two are indelibly linked, and they are that the band didn’t bring great material to the studio to begin with, and so without telling the band, producer Terry Melcher brought in an orchestra and backing vocalists to embellish what he (probably rightly) felt was an underwhelming collection of songs. After the release of the Byrds' '(Untitled)' album, the band continued to tour extensively throughout late 1970 and early 1971 in support of the record, and with their career experiencing a revival of commercial fortunes, they elected to continue working with Melcher, who had produced their two previous albums. Unfortunately, the gruelling pace of the band's touring schedule meant that they were under-prepared for the recording of their next album, with little or no time to develop the material that they intended to include. Sessions commenced on 6 October 1970, just three weeks after the release of '(Untitled)', and continued throughout January and March 1971, but the group only managed to record twelve new songs, and so to make up an album's worth of material they revisited an outtake from the '(Untitled)' sessions, 'Kathleen's Song'. 

The album opens with 'Glory, Glory', a gospel song given a folk-rock treatment from McGuinn and the band, that is partially returned to its original gospel roots through the addition of a female choir. 'Pale Blue' was written by McGuinn and Gene Parsons, and is one of the album's highlights, but was buried by overproduction, while 'I Trust', based on McGuinn’s own personal, positive outlook, is another winner, though again Melcher does the band no favours. What follows are a pair of tracks written by Skip Battin and the sinister Kim Fowley that have absolutely nothing to do with The Byrds, with 'Tunnel Of Love' being a hackneyed melody married to cryptic lyrics, while 'Citizen Kane' is harder to shake, with its image of Hollywood excess, a sort of hell on earth, set to an ingratiating music hall melody, as if a psychedelic rock band were trying to be The Beatles or The Kinks circa 1968. 'Absolute Happiness' falls into that strange category too, and you have to wonder if Battin hadn’t wandered into the wrong band. The song-writing partnership between McGuinn and Jaques Levy leads to more predictable results, even though 'I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician' isn't as clever as it thinks it is, 'Kathleen's Song' is perhaps the prettiest song on the whole album. At the other end of the creative spectrum, Clarence White co-authors the banjo/mandolin/fiddle fireworks display, 'Green Apple Quick Step', and cherrypicks two covers to sing, 'My Destiny' (which is mugged in the final mix) and Jackson Browne's 'Jamaica Say You Will', which Browne himself would release on his debut album the following year. 

Following the completion of sessions for the album in early March 1971, the Byrds headed out on tour again, leaving Melcher and engineer Chris Hinshaw to finish mixing the album. In The Byrds' absence, Melcher and Hinshaw brought in arranger Paul Polena to assist with the overdubbing of strings, horns, and a gospel choir onto many of the songs, at a reported cost of $100,000, and allegedly without the band's consent. When they heard the extent of Melcher's additions, The Byrds protested to Columbia, campaigning to have the album remixed and the orchestration removed, but the record company held firm, citing budget restrictions, and the album was duly pressed up and released. For his part, Melcher defended his actions by explaining that the band's performances in the studio were lacklustre and that the orchestration was needed to cover up the album's musical shortcomings, although he later admitted that his decision was a mistake, and that he should have called a halt. 

The band themselves were far from happy with the album upon its release, being particularly vocal in press interviews about their dissatisfaction, and two years later Clarence White was still complaining to journalists that "Terry Melcher put strings on while we were on the road, we came back and we didn't even recognize it as our own album." The final nail in the coffin for the record was that, after the success of the sprawling double-album 'Untitled', they presented an album that was just 34 minutes long. After my previous experimentation with the MVSEP editing software, and at Paul's suggestion, I thought I'd see if I could improve this disappointing album by removing the strings, horns, and gospel choir, and ditching the despised 'Tunnel Of Love', replacing it with some out-takes from the same sessions. So here is a remixed, re-ordered, and longer version of 'Byrdmaniax', featuring only the band and with a new running order, so let me know what you think. 

Track listing

01 Glory, Glory
02 Pale Blue
03 I Trust
04 Just Like A Woman
05 Citizen Kane
06 I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician
07 Absolute Happiness
08 Green Apple Quick Step
09 Think I'm Gonna Feel Better
10 My Destiny
12 Kathleen's Song
12 Nothin' To It
13 Jamaica Say You Will

The Smoke - Jack's Back (1972)

The Smoke were formed in York, where bassist Zeke Lund and lead guitarist Mal Luker began

 playing together in a band called Tony Adams & the Viceroys, whose line-up eventually came to include drummer Geoff Gill. Though the band was successful locally, enjoying a decent fan base with a solid, basic rock & roll sound, they could hear the changes going on around them in music, with the rise of Merseybeat and the blues, R&B, and soul-based music coming out of London. They eventually decided to strike out on their own, playing a more ambitious repertory, and so linked up late in 1964 with singer Mick Rowley and rhythm guitarist Phil Peacock, refugees from a band called the Moonshots. The resulting band, the Shots, played a hard brand of R&B, similar to contemporaries The Small Faces, and they were taken on by London agents Jack Segal and Alan Brush, who fronted them money for rehearsals and equipment. They signed with independent producer and music publisher Monty Babson, who cut four sides with the group, two of which were issued as a single under license to EMI-Columbia in 1965, with 'Keep A Hold Of What You've Got' being backed with 'She's A Liar'. Around this time Peacock left the band, as he wasn't comfortable with the more complex sounds the rest of the group were interested in generating, and so the rest of the band decided to carry on as a quartet, with an edgier single-guitar configuration. 

After losing their financing, they were offered a rescue by a pair of twin London-based entrepreneurs, Ron and Reg Kray, renowned today the world over as notorious gangsters, but at the time they were also trying to engender a facade of respectability, and as they already had an interest in a few clubs, they thought that a more direct participation in the entertainment business might prove lucrative. They therefore signed the group and became The Shots' managers, but as they were never able to do anything with them in terms of bookings, the band decided to abandon the contract, and when they were served with an injunction, they were left unable to perform. As luck would have it, however, they still had a publishing and recording contract with Babson, and access to his studio, and so they took advantage of their ban on performing by writing and making records, and it was at this time that decided to change their name, dropping The Shots in favour of The Smoke. One of the songs they came up with was 'My Friend Jack', a mod-flavoured psychedelic number written by Rowley and Gill, although its drug references were so potent that the song had to be rewritten before EMI would touch it. EMI/Columbia did release it in February 1967, but almost immediately it was banned by the BBC due to its drug references, although this didn't stop it from becoming a massive hit in Europe, particularly in Germany, where the group performed on the German television show Beat Club, alongside Jimi Hendrix and The Who. 

The single charted high in Switzerland, France, and Austria as well, and suddenly there was demand for a Smoke LP in Germany, so they delivered this in the form of 'It's Smoke Time', comprised of the best of the year-old tracks recorded for Babson during 1966. The band actually relocated to Germany, while continuing to release records in England, and they cut some fine psychedelia, crossing paths with the members of Traffic in the studio during this period. After five years of work they were summoned back to the UK by their new manager Chris Blackwell, but they ignored his request, and so that was effectively the end of the band. Mick Rowley remained in Germany, where, as the voice and frontman for the band, he had a natural following, while Luker, Gill, and Lund did finally return home and went to work for Babson's Morgan Studios, working in various bands within Babson's orbit, including Blue Mink, Orange Bicycle, and Fickle Pickle. A latter-day version of The Smoke surfaced in a distinctly mid-70s mode, but made no great impression on anyone, although the reputation of 'My Friend Jack' continued to grow, being featured on any half-decent compilation of 60's psychedelia. Not everything that the band recorded in 1966 found its way onto 'It's Smoke Time', and so there is enough leftover material from then, plus a few tracks from their early 70's incarnation, to produce a passable follow-up to their 1967 debut.  

Track listing

01 Playing With Magic
02 That's What I Want

03 It Could Be Wonderful
04 Ring Me
05 Jack Is Back
06 Victor Henry's Cool Book

07 Have Some More Tea
08 Sweet Wilfred

09 Utterly Simple
10 Blown Away
11 Sydney Gill
12 My Lullaby
13 The Girl In The Park
14 Ride Ride Ride (Dick Turpin)

JoJo - All I Want Is Everything (2009)

Joanna Noëlle Levesque was born on 20 December 1990, in Brattleboro, Vermont, but raised in Keene, New Hampshire, and Foxborough, Massachusetts. She started singing when she was two years old by imitating everything from nursery rhymes to R&B, jazz, and soul tunes. In 1999, she auditioned on the television show 'Destination Stardom', singing Aretha Franklin's 1967 hit 'Respect', and 'Chain Of Fools', and in 2001 she recorded a demo disc titled 'Joanna Levesque' which featured covers of soul and R&B songs. In mid-2003, she competed on the television show 'America's Most Talented Kid' (losing to Diana DeGarmo), but record producer Vincent Herbert contacted her and asked her to audition for Blackground Records, who signed her at age 12 to its imprint Da Family Entertainment, and she began working with producers for her first album. Adopting her childhood nickname JoJo, she released her debut single 'Leave (Get Out)' in 2004, and then embarked on her first tour, the Cingular Buddy Bash with pop rock singer Fefe Dobson, hip hop duo Young Gunz, rap rock band Zebrahead, and teen pop stars Ryan Cabrera and Busted. It stopped at nine malls, starting at Atlanta's Northlake Mall and ending at South Shore Plaza near her hometown of Foxborough. When the single reached number one on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, she became, at age thirteen, the youngest solo artist to have a number-one single in the United States. 

Her first album, the platinum-selling 'JoJo', was released in 2004, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard 200 and reaching the top forty of the UK Albums Chart. In December she was nominated for Female New Artist of the Year and Mainstream Top 40 Single of the Year at the Billboard Music Awards, becoming the youngest artist ever to be nominated at the awards. In 2005 she was offered a role on the Disney Channel television series 'Hannah Montana', but she turned down the role in favour of developing her music career, although she did accept the role of Hailey in the 2006 film 'Aquamarine', starring opposite Emma Roberts and Sara Paxton. Her second major film, 'RV', a comedy starring Robin Williams, was released in April 2006, and grossed $69.7 million. JoJo's second album, 'The High Road', was released on 17 October 2006 to mainly positive reviews, and it debuted at number three on the Billboard 200. Three singles were released from the album, with 'Too Little Too Late' having the biggest success, breaking the record for the biggest jump into the top three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, moving from number 66 to number three in one week. In late 2007 she stated that she would be writing songs for her third album, to be released when she turned 18, as she wanted her fans to see the growth in her music. Writing and recording continued in Boston and Atlanta throughout 2008 and early 2009, and in June she stated on her YouTube account that she was waiting for her record label to sign a distribution deal to release her album, which was to be titled 'All I Want Is Everything'. 

In August 2009 she filed a lawsuit against her record label for putting her in musical limbo, under which she sought $500,000 in damages, and to be released from her contract. In October she reached a deal with Blackground Records and her third album was to be distributed by Interscope Records, but before that, in September 2010, she released her first mixtape 'Can't Take That Away From Me', which spawned the single 'In the Dark'. In February 2011 she announced that she had changed the title of her third studio album from 'All I Want Is Everything' to 'Jumping Trains', but a proposed single, 'The Other Chick', was withdrawn as she had a desire to move forward with a promotional push for a different song. Following the recording of new material, she released a re-interpretation of rapper Drake's song 'Marvin's Room' in June 2011, renamed 'Marvin's Room (Can't Do Better)', which garnered appreciation from Drake himself. On 29 August 2011 'Disaster' was released to U.S. radio, and although she was praised for not 'jumping on the synthpop bandwagon', it only made the Billboard Hot 100 for a week, and failed to impact any chart internationally. Wanting to go in a new direction with her third studio album, she released 'Demonstrate' to radio on 17 July 2012 as the new lead single from 'Jumping Trains', but its commercial release was eventually scrapped, despite a music video having been filmed. 

After Blackground Records lost their distribution deal through Interscope Records in late 2012, resulting once again in the delay of the release of an album, JoJo began recording new material specifically for a new mixtape to be released by the end of the year, as she didn't want to keep the fans waiting for new music any longer. In November she announced the release of the 'Agápē' mixtape, which was made available for free download to celebrate her 22nd birthday, and that seemed to seal the fate of 'Jumping Trains', which was cancelled due to the number of tracks which had leaked online. In July 2013 she filed a lawsuit against her labels Blackground Records and Da Family for "irreparable damages to her professional career", claiming that her 2004 contract with the labels should have expired in 2011, as she was a minor when it was signed, and under New York State law, minors cannot sign contracts that last more than seven years. The lawsuit was settled out of court, and in January 2014 it was announced that she'd been released from Blackground Records, and had signed a new recording contract with Atlantic Records, under which she immediately released the three track EP '#LoveJo'. She finally released her third album 'Mad Love' in 2016, but it was an extremely long and convoluted gestation, with around three dozen songs being junked along the way. To fill this major gap in her discography, here is a reconstruction of the first incarnation of that proposed third album 'All I Want Is Everything'. 

Track listing

01 Back Words 
02 Impossible To Love
03 25 To Life 
04 Keep Forgetting (To Forget About You)
05 Numbers 
06 Something In The Water 
07 Doorway To My Dreams (Fly Away) 
08 How You Did It 
09 My Heart Never Had A Hero 
10 I Hate Love 
11 Wrong Man For The Job 
12 Touch Down (Flippers Up) 
13 Underneath 
14 Fearless
15 Forever In My Life 
16 You Take Me (Around The World) 
17 All I Want Is Everything 

Mike Solof - Riding With The Kings At Christmas (2019)

As a special Christmas treat Mike has sent me a show that he put together to celebrate the festive season when he was working in a little bar in Medellin, Colombia. He used to do a weekly show from the bar that was built around his love of the blues, and at the end of 2019 he produced this show with a Christmas blues theme. The title of the show was inspired by the B. B. King & Eric Clapton album of the same name, hence the cover. 

Track listing

01 Blue Christmas Without You - Bruce Springsteen

02 It's Christmas Baby - Ms. Jody

03 Lonesome Christmas - Joe Bonamassa

04 Christmas Blues - Jimmy Witherspoon

05 Everyday Will Be Like A Holiday - William Bell

06 Christmas Tears - Eric Clapton

07 Christmas Time Pretty Baby - Robert Plant and The Honeydrippers

08 Back Door Santa - Clarence Carter

0. Run Run Rudolph - Chuck Berry

10 Christmas Love - B. B. King

11 Christmas In Jail - Ain't That A Pain? - Leroy Carr

12 Christmas Day Blues - Phil Wiggins and John Cephas

13 Please Come Home For Christmas - The Eagles

14 Christmas Train - Carey Bell

15 Sleigh Ride - The Ronettes and Phil Spector

16 Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - James Taylor

17 Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - Bruce Springsteen 

The Doors - The Soft Parade (1969) **UPDATE TO THE UPDATE**

One more update to this post, and that is that visitor KARK has just informed me that there was a Record Store day release in 2020 of exactly what I'd done here, with all the overdubs removed, and so as that was professionally done, and the end of 'Touch Me' has the organ brought more the the front so sounds much better, then I'm replacing my edits with those. It wasn't a waste of time as they were fun to do, and I now know how the programme works, but as I want the best possible quality for this post then I'll leave it to the professionals. 

Just after posting this album I was contacted by Paul at albumsthatshouldexist, telling me about a new programme that he'd just discovered which uses AI to split out the different elements of a piece of music, and he suggested that I could use it to remove the strings and horns overdubs from the four tracks on this album where they had been added against the band's wishes. It worked amazingly well, and I really can't imagine how it does it, but I now have band only versions of all four tracks, which I've replaced in the folder. The only part I wasn't sure about was the sax solo at the end of 'Touch Me', as without it there wasn't much going on at the end of the song (but it certainly shows the power of the programme), so I did one version with and one without. I've also used it to remove the crowd noise at the beginning of 'Someday Soon', which then enabled me to give it a better intro. I've added the original recordings plus the sax version of 'Touch Me' in a separate folder in the download, so give them both a listen and let me know which you prefer, and then I can update this to a definitive post. 

I was recently contacted by Soulseeker wolfdubz, asking if I still had a copy of expanded edition of The Doors' 'The Soft Parade' album. When I told them that this wasn't of mine, they located the original blog that had posted it, and although the link was dead, there was a copy on Soulseek which I managed to grab so that I could listen to it. Having done that I'm posting it here, as it's a great reimagining of a much maligned record. The blog was called Its Lost Its Found, and is sadly no more, but all the posts are still up and I spent an enjoyable few days going through them all, as it had somehow passed me by. As it would be a shame for all the hard work expended on this reimagining to go to waste, here are the original notes and the expanded version of 'The Soft Parade', housed in a cover that I found on Soundcloud, which was similar enough, and yet different enough, to fit the post. 
I've been dipping in and out of The Doors back catalogue for the last five or so years after a very long absence. I've always been intrigued by their fourth and most derided LP, 'The Soft Parade'. No one's favourite Doors album, 'The Soft Parade' had the band seemingly conforming to the commercial; horns, string arrangements, 'Touch Me'. The less ornate songs seemed unfocused, especially compared to the previous year's effort 'Waiting For The Sun', but there are fantastic songs on the album and also in recordings they made, both live and in the studio, around this time. The material for the original album took place from November 1968 into February 1969, with a couple of earlier recordings from 1968. The band had toured up until recording and had no new material written. Producer Paul A. Rothchild insisted the group record multiple takes of songs written in the studio and was also responsible for the insistence on horn and string overdubs over several of the songs. The album ran over budget and over time, and is disappointing compared to the earlier releases, not just in the material, but the album had only nine tracks and ran not much over 30 minutes. There are several Doors originals not included on 'The Soft Parade' that are the equal, and in some cases superior, to the released material. Put together as a whole, it makes a lot more sense and I think would have been viewed differently if The Doors had released a double album, including live recordings and more improvised material left off the original L.P. This re-imagining of 'The Soft Parade' is that of a double LP; 4 sides running approximately 18 minutes in length and is thematically sequenced.
Side 1 is a set of unreleased and original album songs that retain the familiar Doors sound. 'Wild Child', 'Shamen's Blues' and 'Do It' all feature on the original album, as does 'Easy Ride'; a leftover from 'Waiting For The Sun'. 'Whiskey, Mystics and Men' went unreleased. I'm not sure why, it sounds like classic Doors. 'Push Push' is a much bootlegged jam, presented here in an edited form.
Side 2 is a stretch of new, live Doors originals. For nearly a year between 1969 and 1970, The Doors recorded a lot of their performances to multitrack. The concept was to present an album of originals, including a definitive 'The Celebration of The Lizard', which was attempted during sessions for 'Waiting For The Sun'. The resulting album, 'Absolutely Live', was excellent, but the record label's insistence that the L.P. also include hits watered down the original concept. For this side of the re-imagined 'The Soft Parade' I have included songs from throughout the tour. It shows the band were not short on originals and already a wider picture of their 1969/70 output is revealed. 'The Woman Is A Devil' is actually a studio jam, but one I've always liked and it fits with the feel of this side.
Side 3 is for the string and horn overdubs material. It was producer Paul A. Rothcild that insisted on the overdubs, as well as multiple takes in an attempt for perfection. Presented together on one side, they provide another theme to an already sprawling album. 'Tell All The People', 'Touch Me', 'Runnin' Blue' and 'Wishful Sinful' are all from the original LP, but now with the horns and strings removed, as mentioned earlier. 'Who Scared You' was originally the b-side to the 'Wishful Sinful' single, bizarrely left off the album.
Side 4 is a come down of sorts, but contains longer and more strung out pieces. 'Orange County Suite' was infamously overdubbed by the surviving Doors in the 1990's. It is an original from 1969 and it remains a mystery as to why it never appeared on any contemporary Doors release. 'Whiskey, Mystics & Men' appears for a second time, slightly more demented than the first. The album finishes like the original, with its title track.
So, what The Doors might of done in 1969.

Track listing

Side 1
01 Whiskey, Mystics And Men (Version #1)
02 Wild Child
03 Shamen's Blues
04 Easy Ride
05 Do It
06 Push Push

Side 2
07 Away In India
08 Universal Mind
09 I Will Never Be Untrue
10 Someday Soon
11 The Woman Is A Devil

Side 3
12 Tell All the People
13 Touch Me
14 Who Scared You
15 Runnin' Blue
16 Wishful Sinful

Side 4
17 Orange County Suite
18 Whiskey, Mystics And Men (Version #2)
19 The Soft Parade

The Overlanders - Sing A Song Of Sadness (1966)

The Overlanders were formed in 1963 by Paul Arnold on piano and guitar, Lori Mason on piano and harmonica, and Peter Bartholomew on guitar, with all three singing in a vocal trio style. They focussed on the American folk/country style of music, and they were influenced by the likes of The Kingston Trio, The Brothers Four and The Four Freshmen. The group were signed to the Harold Hammond agency, who also handled The Settlers, and for a while The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and they were picked up by Pye Records in the Spring of 1963, who assigned recording manager Tony Hatch to the group. Their first release was 'Summer Skies And Golden Sands'/'Call Of The Wild', with both sides self-composed by the three members, and it could have been a hit single with a bit more luck. With the success of Lennon and McCartney as songwriters, group members were encouraged to write their own material, and so The Overlanders composed many of their own songs. The follow-up 'Movin'' also failed to chart, but their third release, a cover of Chad And Jeremy's 'Yesterday's Gone', managed to attain a high of No. 75 in July 1964 on the US Billboard chart. Their next single release was 'Don't It Make You Feel Good', which was written by Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch and had originally appeared on the album 'Dance With The Shadows', but it followed the same fate as their first two, as did the next five single releases. 

Their producer Tony Hatch obviously believed the group had hit potential, and gave them chance after chance, but after nine releases, with none of them charting in the UK, The Overlanders decided to bring in a rhythm section, and added Terry Widlake on bass and David Walsh on drums, which allowed the group to expand from a folk based trio to a more pop sounding quintet. In 1965 Hatch announced that he had procured The Beatles' 'Michelle' for recording, and immediately booked a session at Pye Studios for the band to record it. The single was rush-released on 31 December 1965, ahead of any potential competing versions, and the gamble paid off with the record peaking at No. 1 in the UK, remaining at that spot for three weeks. Pye capitalised on the hit single by releasing an EP and an album of the same name, but none of the material was new as it consisted of songs from their previously failed singles. It was hard finding a successful follow-up single, and both Hatch's 'My Life' and a cover of The Mamas and The Papas 'Go Where You Wanna Go' failed to chart, and so Arnold left to take his chances on a solo career, being replaced by vocalist/guitarist Ian Griffiths. The revised group carried on for a further twelve months, with the only release being 'Go! With The Overlanders And The Settlers', an album issued by Pye in a vain attempt to revitalize the careers of two of its floundering acts. 

The Overlanders finally parted ways in October 1967, with Widlake and occasional member Vic Lythgoe turning up in The Cuppa T for two singles on Deram. Paul Arnold reformed the band in April 1968 as The New Overlanders for two singles on RCA, but their time had passed, and nothing more was heard from them after they failed to chart. The band had continued to record following 'Michelle' becoming a hit, and if Pye hadn't wasted some of these recordings by pairing them with songs from The Settlers for the 'Go!...' album then they could have released a record of new material in 1966, which just might have shown the public that they weren't just a one-hit wonder. However, that didn't happen, and so we can only speculate on what such an album could have sounded like, and it could have been something like this, which adds a couple of their singles which didn't make the 'Michelle' album to tracks from the 'Go!...' album, plus some other unreleased recordings.  

Track listing

01 If I Gave You
02 My Life 
03 Anna Marie
04 Sing A Song Of Sadness 
05 Don't Let It Happen Again
06 Go Where You Wanna Go 
07 Rainbow
08 Girl From Indiana
09 Circle Line Blues
10 Movin'  
11 This Land
12 Cradle Of Love 
13 Delia's Gone
14 I Wonder Why
15 Shanghai Rooster