Hayden Panettiere - A Life That Was Good (2026)

Actress and singer Hayden Panettiere died in an apartment in Greenville, South Carolina, on 16 August 2026, aged just 36. She was found unresponsive after a cardiac arrest, and first responders pronounced her dead at the scene after resuscitation efforts failed. Panettiere's former co-star, Viola Davis, called her "an amazing talent... so gifted", saying she was an "old, wise soul with such a deep heart". Bryan Fuller, who was a writer on the first season of the TV series 'Heroes', said that she was "more than an actress, she was a muse". Her former fiancé, Wladimir Klitschko, said she had "built an incredible career through immense talent". Her death also affected Mike Solof, who often posts on the site, as he met her in 2006, and found her a grounded and mature young woman. This is what he recalls of the meeting:

In my old line of business in the comic book and entertainment field I got a chance to meet a lot of actors and actresses but not usually spend a lot of time with them. She was a rare exception. Back in 2006, I had the pleasure to spend the day with Hayden at a convention. She was 16 and has just started appearing in the TV show Hero’s. The two things that struck me about her at that time were how grounded she was in the midst of the crazy super stardom she was just beginning to experience (even though she’d been in the business since she was less than a year old) and also how sweet and kind she was to her fans. At one point during the day, as she was sitting next to me signing autographs for the huge crowd that had come to meet her, We heard a commotion and looked up to see, back in the crowd, a lady just wailing on her 6 year old daughter (who was dressed as Hayden’s character, the Cheerleader, from the show). The mom was yelling at this little girl and then hit her, screaming that they'd waited long enough for an autograph and to quit complaining. 

Hayden didn’t hesitate. She didn’t send her security team, or ignore what was happening. She jumped right up and ran over to the mom and stopped her. She then kneeled down and gave the little girl a big hug and consoled her. The mom was shocked. Hayden then invited the girl to come and sit with us and talk while she signed autographs. She spent the next 45 minutes talking with the little girl in between signing as the mom stood off to the side fuming. Finally, as Hayden’s autograph session ended her gave the little girl another big hug and lots of free autographs and pictures. The smile on the little girls face was just incredible. As the girl and her mom left, she turned to the mom and said “ You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You daughter is lovely and doesn’t deserve the way you treated her!”. The whole interaction just blew me away. That’s how I’ll remember Hayden. As a sweet, kind, compassionate and caring young girl who truly loved her fans and cared about other people. 

R.I.P. HAYDEN. You were one of the good ones! 

That was a post I recently did on Facebook. I thought I would follow it up with this project. Weirdly, I found myself crying listening to this as I assembled it. You see, Hayden wasn’t just a sweet and caring person… she was loving mom who just happened to also be a tremendously talented actress and singer. She got a chance to show off many of these facets during her five years run on the TV show 'Nashville' back in 2012-2018. I thought I would take a moment in my reflections to showcase that side of her. Damn, What a loss. But we still have the music and I hope you enjoy this showcase of the highlights from her years on the show… and to those of you new to learning about Hayden, I hope you’ll find yourself smiling. 

Track listing

01 Fame (CMA promo)

02 Telescope (Radio mix)

03 He Ain't Gonna Change

04 Can't Say No To You

05 Last Honest Man

06 Is There Anybody Out There

07 Hypnotizing (Acoustic version) 

08 Boomtown

09 Used

10 Crazy

11 On My Way

12 You're Mine

13 Wrong Song

14 Disappear

15 Hole In The World

16 I'm A Girl

17 One By One

18 Dreams

19 I Always Will

20 A Life That's Good

If you enjoy this music as much as I do then PLEASE PASS IT ON! 

Mike S

The Parliaments - (I Wanna) Testify (1967)

The Parliaments were an American vocal quintet from Plainfield, New Jersey, who formed in the back room of a barbershop in 1956, naming themselves after the cigarette brand. The group initially performed doo-wop music, but after some early personnel changes their line-up solidified as George Clinton, Ray Davis, Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Grady Thomas, with Clinton as group leader and manager, as well as part owner of the barbershop where the group convened to entertain customers. Their sound was originally based on Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, but by the 1960's they'd developed a unique sound based on emerging styles of soul and funk music, with a notable penchant for bizarre lyrics. The group struggled for hits during most of the 1960's, recording singles on a variety of small record labels, switching labels many times, and releasing several double-sided singles without success, including 'Poor Willie' on Apt Records, 'Lonely Island' on Flipp Records and 'Heart Trouble' on Golden World. Eventually, Clinton gained employment at Motown Records as a songwriter and producer, making weekly trips to Detroit to produce for The Pets, Roy Handy, and other acts, while still recording with The Parliaments. In 1967 they released '(I Wanna) Testify' on Revilot Records, and finally achieved a hit single, with the song reaching No. 3 on the R&B chart, and No. 20 on the Pop Billboard charts. In reality, Clinton was the only member of the Parliaments to appear on the song, as the other members were unable to travel to Detroit for the recording session, and so session singers and musicians rounded out the recording. 

To capitalize on the single's success, Clinton put together a backing band for a tour, expanding the Parliaments to the five singers plus five backing musicians. After the success of '(I Wanna) Testify', Clinton became embroiled in a contractual dispute surrounding the bankruptcy of Revilot Records, and temporarily lost the rights to the name The Parliaments. In order to continue recording for other labels, Clinton renamed the entire ensemble Funkadelic (a name coined by bassist Billy Bass Nelson), and he positioned Funkadelic as a funk-rock band featuring the five backing musicians with the five Parliaments singers as uncredited guests. When Revilot declared bankruptcy, the Parliaments were sold to Atlantic Records, and Clinton abandoned doo-wop to avoid working for the label. Despite Funkadelic operating as a recording and touring entity, in 1970 Clinton relaunched the Parliaments as a new R&B-based funk band, now known as Parliament. The line-up still consisted of the five original singers plus the five backing musicians, with the two acts signed to different labels and marketed as performing different types of funk. Several songs from the early repertoire of the Parliaments would be re-recorded on future Parliament and Funkadelic albums, including 'Testify', 'The Goose', 'All Your Goodies Are Gone', and 'I Can Feel The Ice Melting'. A few years ago a track listing was discovered for a proposed album by The Parliaments, intended to cash in on the success of '(I Wanna) Testify' in 1967, but it was shelved due to the issues with their record label, and so here is that early example of the work of George Clinton. 

Track listing

01 (I Wanna) Testify
02 Let's Make It Last
03 Don't Be Sore At Me
04 I'll Wait
05 Look At What I Almost Missed
06 Time
07 The Loser's Seat
08 What You Been Growing
09 Golden Goose
10 Baby I Owe You Something Good
11 Little Man

12 Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Neil Young/International Harvesters - Grey Riders (1984)

The International Harvesters may not hold the same exalted status in the Neil Young story as Crazy Horse or the Stray Gators, but they were an integral part of a less celebrated stretch of his career during the mid-80's. Among all of Young's 80's genre exercises, the Harvesters country detour was the most musically in tune with his turn-of-the-70's work, but Young shot that music through with a persona every bit as calculated as the skinny-tied humanoid heard on 'Trans', or the ersatz Elvis seen on the cover of 'Everybody's Rockin''. For the Harvesters tour of 1984/85, Young wasn't so much playing country music as playing the role of a country-music singer, taking the stage in a Harley-Davidson ballcap, spouting over-the-top pro-America rhetoric in the press, and booking the band to play state fairs, rodeos, and variety TV shows instead of the usual big-market concert halls. Only Young knows how genuine his new image really was, but the music captured a very real desire to leave behind Geffen and the increasingly corporatized rock world, by taking refuge in the heartland, and if Young's label and old fans were frustrated by his Music City makeover, the middle American audience ate it up. Featuring long-time Young collaborators Ben Keith, Spooner Oldham, and Tim Drummond, and helped by the frenzied fiddling of Rufus Thibodeaux, the Harvesters transformed 'Harvest' warhorse 'Are You Ready For The Country' from FM-radio road-trip anthem into an advertising jingle for their own Nashville-bound sound, and a standout of their concerts was a show-stopping charge through 'Southern Pacific', that upgrades the 'Re-ac-tor' version's sluggish boogie into a banjo-powered barn-burner. Added to that were a number of new songs, heard here for the first time, such as 'Soul Of A Woman', 'Nothing Is Perfect', and the raging 'Grey Riders', which anticipates his 1989 return-to-form album 'Freedom'. 

Some of their concerts were recorded, with a live album titled 'A Treasure' being officially released, and some of the songs from it were supposed to be issued in 1985 as an EP in support of Farm Aid, with 'Grey Riders', 'Nothing Is Perfect' and 'Southern Pacific' being joined by 'Depression Blues' and 'Interstate', but it was blocked by Geffen Records who, at the time, were still involved in litigation with Young due to charges of him delivering "unrepresentative" product. After the tour finished in 1985, Young went back into the studio and recorded his country album, 'Old Ways', with some, but not all, of the musicians from the International Harvesters, and so we never got to hear a studio album featuring this backing band. To put that right I've taken the new songs that were heard on that tour, along with their interpretations of a couple of Young classics, and made them sound like studio recordings. Alongside those, I've added two songs that were only ever played once in 1982 on the 'Trans' tour, and which could well have been resurrected for an International Harvesters studio album a couple of years later. I've removed some annoying electronic percussion from 'Love Hotel' to make it fit in with the other tracks, and then added an out-take from a proposed second country album which was recorded with the International Harvesters, plus a solo rendition of 'Razor Love' from 1984, before it was radically reworked for 2000's 'Silver And Gold' album. This gives us a "studio" album that could have been recorded and released by Young and the band some time in 1984, comprising new songs and radical reworkings of some old classics, and preparing his fans for the full-on country album that was 'Old Ways'.

Track listing

01 Soul Of A Woman
02 It Might Have Been
03 Berlin
04 Beautiful Bluebird
05 Love Hotel
06 Grey Riders
07 Nothing Is Perfect
08 Are You Ready For The Country
09 Razor Love
10 Southern Pacific

Various Artists - Songs For A Rainy Evening (2022)

As a bit of a diversion, here's something that I found hidden away on the laptop the other day, and I can't really remember why I made it. I think that about four years ago I was experimenting with Audacity and playing around with overlaying and crossfading, and I decided to make a mixtape of relaxing instrumental music, but overlaid with the sounds of a thunderstorm, to give it a sort of meditative effect. Having played it after all this time, I can't even recall the names of all the tracks I used, although apart from the obvious ones like The Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac, Santana and Brian Eno, I know that Tortoise are in there somewhere, so you could treat it as a quiz, and try to work out what all the pieces of music are. Or you could just pop it on when you need to relax after a stressful day.

Track listing

01 Songs For A Rainy Evening
 

In case you want to try to guess what music I've used, the titles that I do know are in the comments, so don't look until you've listened, and if you do recognise any of the pieces that I can't recall then let me know who it is and we'll try to complete the track listing.  

 

Dire Straits - The Long Highway (1995)

Brothers Mark and David Knopfler were born in Glasgow, Scotland, and grew up in Blyth in the northeast of England, and with Leicester-based John Illsley and Pick Withers they formed Dire Straits in Deptford, south east London, in 1977. Withers was already a 10-year music business veteran, having been a session drummer for Dave Edmunds, Gerry Rafferty, Magna Carta and others through the 1970's, and he'd played with Mark previously in the pub-rock band Brewers Droop around 1973. The new band was initially known as the Café Racers, and the name Dire Straits was coined by a musician flatmate of Withers, allegedly thought up while they were rehearsing in the kitchen of a friend, Simon Cowe, of Lindisfarne. In 1977 the group recorded a five-song demo tape which included their future hit single 'Sultans of Swing', as well as 'Water Of Love' and 'Down To The Waterline', and after being turned down by MCA Records they sent a tape to DJ Charlie Gillett, presenter of Honky Tonk on BBC Radio London, and following the DJ playing 'Sultans Of Swing' on his show the band signed a recording contract with the Vertigo Records division of Phonogram Inc. In October 1977 the band recorded another set of demos, including two songs which have yet to make an appearance on record. The group's first album, 'Dire Straits', was recorded at Basing Street studios in Notting Hill, and was produced by Muff Winwood, coming out on Vertigo in June 1978. That same year, Dire Straits began a tour as opening band for Talking Heads, and after the re-released 'Sultans Of Swing' (backed with the 1977 demo 'Eastbound Train') started to climb the UK charts, the band were picked up by Warner Bros. Records for a US record deal, and this increased exposure resulted in the album topping the charts in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and going top 10 in every European country. 

Recording sessions for the group's second album, 'Communiqué', took place in December 1978 at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, and it was released in June 1979, peaking at No. 5 in the UK album charts. Featuring the single 'Lady Writer', it continued in a similar vein to their debut and displayed the expanding scope of Knopfler's lyricism on the opening track, 'Once Upon A Time In The West'. In July 1980, the band started recording tracks for their third album, to be produced by Jimmy Iovine along with Mark Knopfler, and 'Making Movies' was released in October 1980. During the recording sessions, tensions between the Knopfler brothers reached a point where David Knopfler left the band for a solo career, and the remaining trio continued recording the album with session guitarist Sid McGinnis on rhythm guitar. After the recording sessions, keyboardist Alan Clark and Californian guitarist Hal Lindes joined Dire Straits as full-time members for the On Location tour of Europe, North America, and Oceania. 'Making Movies' received mostly positive reviews and featured longer songs with more complex arrangements, a style which would continue for the rest of the band's career, and although a title track was recorded it was omitted from the record. Dire Straits' fourth studio album, 'Love Over Gold', filled with lengthy passages that featured Alan Clark's piano and keyboard work, was well received when it was released in September 1982, going gold in America on the strength of the FM rock radio single 'Industrial Disease'. The title was inspired by graffiti seen from the window of Knopfler's old council flat in London, with the phrase being taken from the sleeve of an album by Captain Beefheart. Love Over Gold was the first Dire Straits album produced solely by Mark Knopfler, and its main UK chart hit, 'Private Investigations', gave Dire Straits their first top 5 hit single in the United Kingdom, where it reached the number 2 position, despite its almost seven-minute length. 'Love Over Gold' also featured the 14-minute 'Telegraph Road', which has since become a live favourite, and although Knopfler wrote 'Private Dancer' during this time, a Dire Straits recording of the song has never been discovered, eventually being given to Tina Turner for her comeback album of the same name. 

Shortly after the recording sessions of 'Love Over Gold', drummer Pick Withers left the band, and his replacement, Terry Williams, formerly of Rockpile and Man, played on their January 1983 EP 'ExtendedancEPlay'. It featured the hit single 'Twisting By The Pool', plus three new tracks, and reached the Top 20 in the UK and Canada. During 1983 and 1984, Mark Knopfler was also involved with other projects outside of Dire Straits, and expressing his interest writing film music, producer David Puttnam responded, and he wrote and produced the music score to the film 'Local Hero'. The album was released in April 1983, receiving a BAFTA Award nomination for Best Original Film Music the following year, and Clark, Illsley, Lindes and Williams all played on the track 'Freeway Flyer', while Gerry Rafferty sang lead vocals on 'The Way It Always Starts'. At the end of 1984 the band began recording tracks at George Martin's AIR Studios in Montserrat for their upcoming fifth studio album, to be titled 'Brothers In Arms', and with the addition of Guy Fletcher as second keyboardist, he was able to add broader synthesizer tones to Clark's piano and organ. Released in May 1985, 'Brothers In Arms' entered the UK Albums Chart at number 1, spent a total of 228 weeks in the charts, and sold over 4 million copies. The album featured a more lavish production and overall sound than Dire Straits' earlier work and spawned several big chart singles, with 'Money For Nothing' reaching number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and number 4 in the UK Singles Chart, and the other singles all breaking into the top 20 in the UK and US. 'Money For Nothing' was the first video to be played on MTV in the UK, and featured guest vocals by Sting, who is credited with co-writing the song with Mark Knopfler, although it was the inclusion of the melody from 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' that triggered the copyright credit, as no lyrics were written by Sting. After the Brothers in Arms tour, Mark Knopfler took a break from Dire Straits, and during 1987 he concentrated on solo projects and film soundtracks, and the following year he announced the dissolution of Dire Straits. 

In 1990, Dire Straits reunited, with Knopfler, Illsley, Clark and Fletcher being joined in the studio by saxophonist Chris White, steel guitarist Paul Franklin, percussionist Danny Cummings and guitarist Phil Palmer, with drums split between Jeff Porcaro of Toto and Manu Katché. The band released their sixth studio album, 'On Every Street', in September 1991, which turned out to be their final studio release. It was met with more moderate success and mixed reviews, as well as a significantly reduced audience, although it still went straight to number 1 in the UK Albums Chart. Several singles were released from it, achieving some success in Europe, Australasia and the US, although none charted in the UK. The group embarked on a world tour to promote the album, and this lasted until October 1992, but it was not as critically acclaimed nor as commercially successful as previous tours, and this proved to be too much for Knopfler, leading to the second and final break-up. During their 1992 tour they took time out to visit Timothy White's radio show, where they played a new song, 'The Long Highway', and they also performed 'I Think I Love You Too Much', a song written in 1990 but never recorded, on the 1992 tour. Similarly. 'Secondary Waltz' was also written around this time, but it's earliest recording is a demo by Mark Knopfler from 1995, which he later reworked for his 'Kill To Get Crimson' album in 2007. All of these songs are on this album, along with David Knopfler's 'Bernadette', sung by him in 1979, the missing 'Making Movies' title track from their 'Arena' film, a few live recordings of songs which never made it to the studio, a smattering of b-sides, and one surprise, with a recording of 'Private Dancer' by Laszlo Buring, done as he imagines it would have sounded had Dire Straits recorded it in 1982.    

Track listing

Disc I - 1977-1983
01 Eastbound Train (b-side of 'Sultans Of Swing' 1978)
02 Real Girl (Honky Tonk demo 1977)
03 Sacred Loving (Honky Tonk demo 1977)
04 What's The Matter Baby (live in Rotterdam 1978)
05 Me And My Friends (previously unreleased 1978)
06 Bernadette (live in Boston 1979)
07 In My Car (live in Boston 1979)
08 Making Movies (from the 'Arena' film 1980)
09 Private Dancer (recreation by Laszlo Buring)
10 The Way It Always Starts (from the soundtrack to the film 'Local Hero' 1983)
11 Freeway Flyer (from the soundtrack to the film 'Local Hero' 1983)

Disc II - 1983-1995
01 Twisting By The Pool (from the 'ExtendeDancEPlay' EP 1983)  
02 Badges, Posters, Stickers, T-Shirts (from the 'ExtendeDancEPlay' EP 1983)  
03 Two Young Lovers (from the 'ExtendeDancEPlay' EP 1983)  
04 If I Had You (from the 'ExtendeDancEPlay' EP 1983)  
05 I Think I Love You Too Much (live in Nimes, France 1992)
06 The Long Highway (from the Timothy White sessions 1992)
07 Millionaire Blues (b-side of 'Calling Elvis' 1991)
08 Secondary Waltz (demo from the Golden Heart sessions 1995)
09 Kingdom Come (b-side of 'Heavy Fuel' 1991)

Ali Love - Love Music (2007)

Ali Love was born Alexander Williams on 15 September 1979, and is an English musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. In 2006 he released his first two singles, 'K-Hole' and 'Camera On A Pole', on his own independent I Love Records label, but he mainly rose to fame when he provided vocals for The Chemical Brothers hit, 'Do It Again', for their 2007 album 'We Are the Night'. The song was later picked up and synced to the worldwide commercial for Paco Rabanne's "1 Million" and "Lady Million" fragrances. He recorded his debut album 'Love Music' in 2007, but it only got as far a promo CDr's, and remains commercially unreleased. In April 2009 he signed a record deal with Back Yard Recordings and Blue Mountain Publishing, and in February 2011 he signed to Dim Mak Records in the USA. Later that year he sang and co-wrote the new Justice single 'Civilization', which was picked up and used in the biggest Adidas commercial to date, 'Adidas All In', starring David Beckham, Katy Perry and B.o.B. In 2012 he became part of two new dance groups - Infinity Ink and Hot Natured, with the latter's 'Forward Motion' single becoming the seductive summer anthem of 2011. In 2010 he finally released his official debut album 'Love Harder' on Back Yard Recordings, but he certainly wasn't chilling out during that time as he's released nearly 40 singles from 'Do It Again' to date. To find out what he was up to back at the beginning of his career, here is his unreleased debut album 'Love Music' from 2007.

Track listing

01 Late Night Session
02 Secret Sunday Lover
03 Shangri-La
04 Rebound Lover
05 Rock N Roll Control
06 Love Cliché
07 Vincent Brain
08 K-Hole
09 Video Dream Girl
10 Golden Cage
11 Doin' The Dirty
12 Untitled    

Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Sing Dylan (1998)

I've been listening to a lot of Manfred Mann's 60's output recently, and when I heard them again I fondly recalled their interpretations of the three Bob Dylan songs that gave them hit singles, with 'If You Gotta Go, Go Now' reaching #2 in 1965, 'Just Like A Woman' breaking the Top Ten in 1966, and 'The Mighty Quinn' hitting the top spot in 1968. That's not forgetting their version of 'With God On My Side' from their 'My Little Red Book Of Winners' album from 1965, and I wondered if they'd recorded any more Dylan songs that I wasn't aware of, After some investigation I found that those were the only four songs that they covered, but Manfred Mann's Earth Band were another story, with the outfit that Mann formed after the break-up of the jazz fusion-inspired Manfred Mann Chapter Three in 1971 releasing a Dylan cover as their very first single. Feeling that Chapter Three had suffered from too many self-imposed rules, being frustrated with mostly only playing Mike Hugg's compositions. and not being an economically feasible venture, Mann formed the new group with Mick Rogers on guitar and vocals, Mann himself on keyboards, Minimoog synthesizer and vocals, Colin Pattenden on bass guitar and Chris Slade on drums and vocals, and the quartet released a cover of Bob Dylan's 'Please, Mrs. Henry' as their debut record in 1971. An album, 'Stepping Sideways', was recorded but not released because the band's style was rapidly maturing, and the group felt it was not representative of their live act anymore. Their sound was very much grounded in the current progressive rock sound, and Mann's interest in English 20th century classical music saw him adapt Gustav Holst's Planets Suite and turn a version of the 'Jupiter' movement into a UK hit entitled 'Joybringer', while the accompanying 'Solar Fire' album included a cover of Dylan's 'Father Of Day, Father Of Night'. 

The title song to 1973's 'Messin'', was written by Mike Hugg and originally recorded by Chapter Three on their unissued third album, and it also included a rollicking take on Dylan's 'Get Your Rocks Off!'. Their 1974 album 'The Good Earth', tapped into ecological concerns, which was a recurring theme in Mann's music in later years, and it gave away a free piece of land in Wales with each album sold. The group's sixth album, 1975's 'Nightingales & Bombers', took its title from a World War II naturalist's recording of a nightingale singing in a garden as warplanes flew overhead, and the US edition included an extra track, which was a cover of Dylan's 'Quit Your Low Down Ways' sung by Mick Rogers. For 1978's 'Watch' album the band included a live version of their 1968 hit as Manfred Mann, and 'The Mighty Quinn' was also released as a single in a shortened version, while the following year, the 'Angel Station' album featured a cover of Dylan's 'You Angel You'. For their 1998 live album, 'Mann Alive', they included two new Dylan songs, with 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' and 'Shelter From The Storm' appearing for the first time on an Earth Band record, and so although my original idea of an album of Dylan cover by Manfred Mann came to nothing, this one of recordings by the later Earth Band is a perfectly acceptable replacement. 

Track listing

01 Get Your Rocks Off!
02 It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
03 Please, Mrs Henry
04 Father Of Day, Father Of Night
05 Quit Your Lowdown Ways
06 The Times They Are A-Changin'

07 You Angel You
08 The Mighty Quinn
09 Shelter From The Storm

Mike Solof - Off The Beatle Track - Episode 46 (2019)

While we wait for Mike to deliver the fifth instalment of his 'Rarities Row' series, let's take another dip into his radio show, where he looks back at the career of those four lovable popsters, who were at their very peak in the mid-to-late 1960's, examining how their songs were written, looking into their prowess in the live arena, and listening behind the scenes at the recording of one of their best albums. There's also a look at some of their solo work, examples of their off-beat humour, a critique of their film career, and songs showing their social conscience .........oh, wait.....it was all a dream.....

Track listing 

01 Episode 46 - Monkees-A-Rama

A gift from PowerPopTom - Part 10

PowerPopTom has been busy again with the graphic designing, and has sent me another batch of CD covers for you to download if you fancy burning some of these albums to CD. 

This batch includes:

Eric Clapton - Higher Power (interior)

Dylan & The Dead - Dead Man, Dead Man (interior)

Genesis - Abacab

George Harrison - Cloud 9

GTR - Nerotrend (interior)

Peter Gabriel - After The Flood

Peter Gabriel - I/O

Peter Gabriel - And...

Peter Gabriel - The Non Album

Prince - Plays Hendrix

Robin Trower - Earth Below Blues

Tears For Fears - Music For Tables

Thomas Dolby - Salsa Picante (1989)

Thomas Morgan Robertson (known professionally as Thomas Dolby) was born in in London on 14 October 1958, and at school in London he was good friends with Shane MacGowan of The Pogues, and used to sit with him in the back row of the English Literature class. The stage name Thomas Dolby originated from a nickname "Dolby" that he picked up in the early 1970's, when he was "always messing around with keyboards and tapes", and he adopted the stage name "Thomas Dolby" to avoid confusion with British singer Tom Robinson, who was popular when he began his career. In the late 1970's Dolby formed the Camera Club with Bruce Woolley, and after leaving them he joined Lene Lovich's band as keyboardist, and wrote her hit song 'New Toy'. In 1981 he launched his solo career with the release of the single 'Europa And The Pirate Twins, followed in 1982 by 'Airwaves' and 'Radio Silence'. His debut album, 'The Golden Age Of Wireless', appeared in 1982, but didn't include the signature hit 'She Blinded Me with Science', although after that track hit the charts the album was re-released with the single included. While much of the album's instrumentation is synthesisers and samplers, it does credit a long list of guest musicians as well, with instruments ranging from harmonica and violin to guitar and percussion. Beginning in 1983, Dolby collaborated with a number of artists in an occasional studio-bound project called Dolby's Cube, which was essentially a forum for him to release material that was more dance-oriented. In 1984 he released his second LP, 'The Flat Earth', which peaked at No. 14 on the UK Albums Chart and at No. 35 on the Billboard album chart in the US. 

With a wide range of influences including nostalgic jazz, funk-tinged Motown R&B, and world music, and including guest vocals from Robyn Hitchcock, Bruce Woolley, and others, 'The Flat Earth' further established Dolby's wide range of talents as musician, songwriter, and producer. In 1988 he released his third album, 'Aliens Ate My Buick', which was strongly funk and dance influenced, and included the single 'Hot Sauce', which was a cover of the George Clinton song. For 'Astronauts & Heretics' in 1992, Dolby expanded even further stylistically, starting the song-writing process at the piano, then again collaborating with a variety of guest musicians. Both Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia played guitar on 'The Beauty Of A Dream', and Eddie Van Halen plays on 'Eastern Bloc' and 'Close but No Cigar'. Following the release of this album Dolby took a lengthy hiatus away from recording, founding the Silicon Valley interactive audio technology company Beatnik, which took up his time until 2006, when he returned to his musical career. During his first dozen years of making music he kept extremely busy, releasing music under aliases, and collaborating with other musicians, and so it is relatively easy to collect a good selection of non-album tracks, including both side of the 'Field Work' single by Ryuichi Sakamoto, on which he is featured, as well as his 1981 cover of Joni Mitchell's 'The Jungle Line' as Low Noise. We also have one of his earliest singles, in 'Urges'/'Leipzig', some demos from the '...Wireless' era, and an exclusive mix of both sides of the 'Dissidents (The Search For Truth)' 12" single.   

Track listing

01 Therapy/Growth (b-side of 'Europa And The Pirate Twins' 1981)
02 Urges (single 1981)
03 Leipzig (b-side of 'Urges')
04 Sale Of The Century (demo 1982)
05 Pedestrian Walkway (demo 1982)
06 Jungle Line (single as Low Noise 1981)
07 Urban Tribal (b-side of 'Jungle Line')
08 Puppet Theatre (bonus track on the 2009 reissue of 'The Flat Earth' 1984)
09 Dissidents (The Search For Truth, Parts I & II) (single 1984)
10 Field Work (London Mix) (single by Ryuichi Sakamoto featuring Thomas Dolby 1986)
11 Field Work (Tokyo Mix) (b-side of 'Field Work (London Mix)')
12 Fantasmagoria (from the soundtrack to the film 'Gothic' 1987)
13 Salso Picante (b-side of 'Hot Sauce' 1988)
14 Ravivar Fiore (b-side of 'My Brain Is Like A Sieve' 1989)

Walkingseeds - Peter's Trip: The Best Of Walkingseeds (1992)

Frank Martin (vocals), Bob Parker (guitar), Martin Dempsey (bass), and John Neesam (drums) had met while students at Liverpool Art School in 1984, and formed a band called The Mel-o-Tones, releasing a mini-album and an EP on Liverpool label Probe Plus. After appearing as The Corinthians for a few months, and following Dempsey's departure, they recorded a seven-track demo, and decided on another change of name to Walkingseeds. Still signed to Probe Plus, they released their debut single in June 1986, with the sound of the 'Know Too Much' EP being characterised as "psychedelic grunge". When Neesam departed, the others drafted in former Marshmallow Overcoat guitarist Barry Sutton and drummer Tony Mogan. After the 'Mark Chapman' single on their own Moral Burro label, they returned to Probe Plus with their 1987 debut album, 'Skullfuck', with the title being influenced by a Grateful Dead album cover, and the album was later cited by Nirvana's Kurt Cobain as an influence. The band worked with Kramer on their second album, 'Upwind Of Disaster, Downwind Of Atonement', which was released on Glass Records in 1989, after which Sutton departed to join The La's and was replaced by Andy Rowan for the 'Shaved Beatnik' EP. When he left, the band drafted in Nick Saloman (aka The Bevis Frond) and brought in Lee Webster as a replacement for Rowan. 

The 'Sensory Deprivation Chamber Quartet Dwarf' mini-album followed in 1989, and was their last release for Glass, following the closure of the label. They then recorded 'Gates Of Freedom' for new label Paperhouse Records,  which included a b-side cover version of Pink Floyd's 'Astronomy Dominé', and this coincided with their next album, 'Bad Orb, Whirling Ball', a more considered but still aggressively garage-like effort. They tore through Bevis Frond’s 'Reflections In A Tall Mirror', backed by his interpretation of the band's 'Sexorcist' on a split single, but by this point the band were despondent about their lack of success, despite recruiting ex-Dinosaur Jr guitarist Don Fleming. A swan-song was offered in 'Earth Is Hell' on the Snakeskin label, housing live material recorded in Germany earlier that year, but the band disintegrated when Parker and Mogan set up The Del-Bloods, and issued the 'Black Rabbit' EP in 1991. The pair also surfaced in White Bitch for 'Animal Woman', and teamed up with Martin for Batloaf's 'Meat Out Of Hell' parody project. In their prime Walkingseeds proffered a fusion that combines the swirling, distorted guitars and raw intensity of 1960's psychedelia with the abrasive aggression of 1980's alternative rock, and if that appeals then give this collection of some of their best work a listen. 

Track listing

01 28If (from 'Upwind Of Disaster, Downwind Of Atonement' 1989)

02 Gates of Freedom (from 'Bad Orb, Whirling Ball' 1990)

03 Marque Chapman (from John Peel session 1987)

04 Hairy Who? (from 'Dwarf L.P.' 1989)

05 Kill Kill, Kill For Inner Peace (from 'Skullfuck' 1987)

06 He Said She Said (from 'Bad Orb, Whirling Ball' 1990)

07 Ocean Drain (from 'Upwind Of Disaster, Downwind Of Atonement' 1989)

08 Reflections In A Tall Mirror (from the split single with Bevis Frond 1989)

09 Obeying The Law (from 'Skullfuck' 1987)

10 Broken Cup (from 'Bad Orb, Whirling Ball' 1990)

11 Imperius, Vain, Selfish & Willfull (from 'Upwind Of Disaster, Downwind Of Atonement' 1989)

12 Can't Seem To Figure It Out (from 'Dwarf L.P.' 1989)

13 Peter’s Trip (from 'Bad Orb, Whirling Ball' 1990)

14 Night Of The Long Grass (from The Troggs tribute album 'Groin Thunder' 1992) 

The Byrds - The Great American Songbook (1968)

In a Hit Parader interview in 1968, Roger McGuinn explained that his proposed vision for the follow-up album to the brilliant 'The Notorious Byrd Brothers' was to be a double album, chronologically structured, and featuring different musical styles on each side of the discs. Side One would be folk and bluegrass, Side Two would be modern country, Side Three would be rock morphing into psych, with some synthesizer, with a Side Four of spacey futuristic electronic music, which according to McGuinn would be "pure synthesizer". This concept would be an examination of American traditional music from the folk and bluegrass of the 40's and 50's, through to country music of the 50's and 60's, rock music of the 60's morphing into the psychedelic music which was emerging at that time, and then closing with what McGuinn considered to be the music of the future. We're not sure how "nearly" it actually came to existing, although McGuinn was a gadget geek, and already had a Moog synthesizer. He was never a keyboardist, so he could only use it to make weird sounds, which he did quite creatively on 'Space Odyssey', from the 'The Notorious Byrd Brothers' album. Following Gene Clark's departure after a brief return to the group in 1967, the remaining members hired Gram Parsons to help with their live performances, and he soon began to assert his own musical agenda, in which he intended to marry his love of country and western music with youth culture's passion for rock. 

He and Chris Hillman convinced McGuinn to abandon the ambitious double album project, and instead to make a straight country album, which resulted in the classic country/rock of 'Sweetheart Of The Rodeo'. Although nothing was recorded for the double album, you could almost re-create it by taking some of the 'Sweetheart'-era tracks, a few from the following year's 'Ballad Of Easy Rider' album (skipping the same year's 'Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde' as it didn't included much usable material), and some of the moog-y outtakes which have since appeared. However, you'd still come up short of a two record set, so I've also included some tracks from Dillard & Clark's 'The Fantastic Expedition Of Dillard & Clark', which was released the same year, and also explores a similar country-based hybrid of styles, though with a greater emphasis on folk and bluegrass than rock. This recreation therefore assumes that Gene Clark didn't leave The Byrds in 1967, but stayed for one more album, contributing a number of songs to the record. The resulting album is split into the four sides that McGuinn envisaged, with folk and bluegrass dominating the first disc, country and country/rock on the second, a more rock-orientated third side, and a closing disc of instrumentals and moog experiments, but including a couple of straight-forward rock songs to make up the running time. 'Moog Raga' is the defining piece of side four, but it was quite short, so as a raga is based on repetition, I've extended it by repeating some sections, and it now clocks in at a tad under five minutes. As the album was conceived as a history of American music through the mid-20th Century, then the title reflects McGuinn's vision. 

Track listing

Side One (18:01)
01 I Am a Pilgrim
02 Pretty Polly
03 With Care From Someone
04 Blue Canadian Rockies
05 Pretty Boy Floyd
06 Git It On Brother (Git In Line Brother)

Side Two (20:50)
07 The Christian Life
08 Train Leaves Here This Morning
09 You're Still On My Mind
10 Tulsa County
11 You Ain't Going Nowhere
12 Hickory Wind

Side Three (18.39)
13 Don't Come Rollin'
14 Jesus Is Just Alright
15 Lying Down The Middle
16 Psychodrama City
17 The Radio Song
18 Fido
19 Gunga Din

Side Four (18.59)
20 Ballad Of Easy Rider
21 You Got A Reputation
22 Built It Up
23 Fiddler A Dram (Moog Experiment)
24 Flight 713
25 Moog Raga

Jimmy Powell And The 5 Dimensions - I've Been Watching You (1969)

Jimmy Powell was born in Selly Oak on 13 October 1942, and grew up in the West Heath area of Birmingham, where he attended Turves Green Boys School. After leaving school, he apprenticed as a lathe operator in Kings Norton, while at night he fronted a local band called The Detours, and his powerful vocal style soon began to attract attention. In 1961 he turned professional after joining an up-and-coming local group called The Rockin' Berries, who were one of the UK bands who had a residency at the Star Club in Germany, often sharing the stage with The Beatles. The following year, The Rockin' Berries were auditioned by TV pop producer/Decca Records talent scout Jack Good, who showed little interest in signing the band to a contract but indicated their vocalist Jimmy Powell had some potential. The rejected group went back to Germany to continue their bookings at the Star Club, but by the summer of 1962, Powell left and returned to Birmingham, where he contacted Good, who promptly signed him up to a recording contract. His first release for Decca Records label was an energetic cover of Buster Brown's 'Sugar Babe', after which two more singles followed, but by 1963 The Beatles were making a big impact on the British charts. and singing groups rather than solo performers were the new "in" thing. 

Powell went down to London where he became involved with the local blues scene at London's famous Marquee Club, and his manager introduced him to a hot blues act that he'd named The 5 Dimensions. Powell was soon given the position of lead vocalist, and about 6 months later they added a second vocalist/harmonica player called was Rod Stewart. Stewart stayed as part of the line-up for about a year, but rivalry between the two singers led to him leaving and taking some of the band with him to back Chuck Berry on a British tour. In 1964, The Dimensions were hired to provide backing for Jamaican singer Millie Small on her hit recording of 'My Boy Lollipop', and although it has long been thought that Rod Stewart played harmonica on the record, Powell claims that it was actually him who played on the session. The band signed to Pye Records in 1964, and their first single was the Powell original 'That's Alright', backed with Bo Diddley's 'I'm Looking For A Woman'. Due to changes in the group line-up, the second Pye single - a re-make of 'Sugar Babe' - had future Led Zeppelin members Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones on guitar and bass, along with drummer Clem Cattini, and this version may be the definitive one, as it shows Powell in fine form. 

In 1966, Powell recruited an existing Manchester group called The Puzzle, consisting of Steve Bolton on lead guitar, Alan Stone on bass, Paul Smith on tenor sax and Mick Green on drums, and he renamed them Jimmy Powell and the Dimensions (dropping the "5"), but they soon split up, and Powell took over a Coventry band called 'Willy's Cult', comprising Dave Fulford on vocals, Rod Godwin on guitar, Willy Morris on bass, Alan Shepherd on sax and flute, Stan Byers on trumpet, and Tom "Duke" Russell on drums. They performed together regularly on the British club and university circuit until 1968, and released two singles for Decca, with 'Unexpected Mirrors' coming out in 1967 and 'I Just Can't Get Over You' appearing in 1968. The singles failed to register with the public, however, despite a high-energy sound strongly reminiscent of the early Stones, and Powell formed a new version of the Dimensions in 1968, with Ray Spiteri on guitar, Bob Spiteri on bass and Derek Bunt on drums. They performed in Germany and on the UK college circuit, releasing four singles on the Young Blood label between 1969 and 1970, again without success. Later in the 1970's, Powell worked as the part-time manager of a furniture company, while still performing in pubs with a band, the Survivors, but during his time with the various incarnations of the (5) Dimensions he had already recorded enough material to be able to produce an album by 1969, just before his actual debut solo record, and this post shows what it could have sounded like. 

Track listing

01 I've Been Watching You

02 Sugar Babe
04 Time Mends Broken Hearts
04 That's Alright
04 I Just Can't Get Over You
06 Love Me Right
07 Unexpected Mirrors
08 Roosevelt & Ira Lee

09 I'm Looking For A Woman
10 Slow Lovin' Man
11 Real Cool
12 Nine Live Wire
13 Gonna Find A Cave
14 I Can Go Down