Just a reminder.....

I've had a few requests recently for links to the albums on the site, so just a reminder that links to all the albums are in the comments of the most recent post. I've enlarged the note at the top right of the blog so that hopefully it's more visible for new visitors. 

pj

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Joe South (2008)

Joe South was born Joseph Alfred Souter on 28 February 1940, and was first encouraged to make a career in music by Bill Lowery, an Atlanta music publisher and radio personality. He began his recording career in Atlanta with the National Recording Corporation, where he served as staff guitarist along with other NRC artists Ray Stevens and Jerry Reed, but he soon returned to Nashville with The Manrando Group, and then on to Charlie Wayne Felts Promotions. He had his first top 50 hit in July 1958 with a cover version of the b-side of The Big Bopper's hit single 'Chantilly Lace', a novelty song called 'The Purple People Eater Meets The Witch Doctor', but thereafter he would concentrate mainly on song-writing. In 1959 he wrote two songs which were recorded by Gene Vincent, and he was also a prominent sideman, playing guitar on Tommy Roe's 'Sheila', bass guitar on Bob Dylan's 'Blonde On Blonde' album, and the classic tremolo guitar intro on Aretha Franklin's 'Chain Of Fools'. Responding to late 1960's issues, South's writing style changed radically, most evident in his biggest single, 1969's pungent, no-nonsense 'Games People Play', which was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Accompanied by a lush string sound, an organ, and brass, the production won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Song and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year, and he followed that with 'Birds Of A Feather', most successful as a cover by The Raiders, which peaked on the Hot 100 at No. 23 in 1971. 'Games People Play' was first released in 1968 on South's debut album, 'Introspect', which some consider to be the first ever country-soul album, and it reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and so the record company decided to cash in on this by not only adding it again to his next album in 1969, but also titling the record after the hit single. Luckily there were plenty of other outstanding songs on the record to make up for this duplication, and it wasn't long before they were being picked up and covered by some pretty famous groups, with possibly the most notable being Deep Purple's version of 'Hush'. South's old comrade from Atlanta, Ray Stevens, released his version of 'Party People' as a single, and The Tams had a hit with 'Concrete Jungle', while most of the other songs had received covers by 1971. One oddity about this album is that it states on the front cover that it includes 'Down In The Boondocks', but this song is actually missing from the track listing, and so I've added Gary Lewis & The Playboys' version to make this reinterpretation of the album more complete. 

Track listing

01 Games People Play (Paper Lace 1972)  
02 Party People (Ray Stevens 1965)  
03 Untie Me (The Weedons 1966)  
04 Concrete Jungle (The Tams 1965)  
05 Hole In Your Soul (The Black Crowes 2008)  
06 Hush (Deep Purple 1969)
07 Birds Of A Feather (The Raiders 1971)  
08 Heart's Desire (Billy Joe Royal 1966)  
09 Leanin' On You (The Yo Yo's 1966) 
10 I Knew You When (Wade Flemons 1964)
11 These Are Not My People (Johnny Rivers 1969)
12 Down In The Boondocks (Gary Lewis & The Playboys 1966)

Patsy Ann Noble - I Did Nothing Wrong (1967)

Patricia Ann Ruth Noble was born on 3 February 1944 in Australia, and began her singing career as a teenager in the early 1960's under the name Patsy Ann Noble, appearing regularly on the Australian music and variety television series 'Bandstand'. Her singing career was encouraged by Brian Henderson, the compere of 'Bandstand', and she was signed to the Australian HMV Records and released her first single 'Like I'm In Love'/'I Love You So Much It Hurts' in November 1960, with the record being promoted as 'a Bandstand discovery'. She became good friends with a young Peter Allen, who had formed the successful Allen Brothers with Chris Bell, and released one of his compositions 'Busy Lips' in January 1961. However, it was not until Johnny Devlin, a New Zealand singer-songwriter, handed her the lyrics of 'Good Looking Boy' in November 1961 that she had her first Top 10 hit in Melbourne, and Top 20 hit in Sydney. This resulted in her winning the 'Best Female Singer of the Year' Logie Award for 1961, presented by TV Week. By December 1962 she had scored herself two No. 1 and four Top 10 singles in Australia, and so she travelled to London where she was given a two-year contract with Columbia Records. Between 1963 and 1964 she released eight singles, including 'Sour Grapes', 'I'm Nobody's Baby', and 'Accidents Will Happen', and while none of them received any commercial success in the UK, she did continue to score hits between 1963 and 1965 in her native Australia. In 1963, she appeared in the British musical film 'Live It Up!', although only in a singing role, and in June 1965 she released 'He Who Rides A Tiger', which peaked at No. 21 on the British Top 30, and No. 15 on Australia's Top 40.

During the 1960's, Noble released six albums in Australia and one in England, but by 1965 she was turning her hand to acting, and made her dramatic screen debut in a 1965 BBC television production entitled 'The Snowball'. She soon found herself appearing on other television series, including a 1966 'Danger Man' episode which featured her recording of 'He Who Rides A Tiger', an episode of 'Callan' in 1970, and the 1966 film 'Death Is A Woman', in which she had a lead role as the femme fatale. After 1967, she changed her name to Trisha Noble in order to distance herself from her years as a teen singer, and she re-located to the United States, appearing on a number of US TV shows, including 'Buck Rogers In The 25th Century', 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', and 'Columbo'. She released one more single in 1967, this time as Trisha Noble, and she continued to work as an actress until her death on 23 January 2021, at the age of 76. She recorded a lot of music in her six years as a singer, and you can certainly hear her voice mature as she moves from those teen-pop singles of the early 60's to a more sophisticated sound in 1965 and 1966. In fact there are so many songs available that this is a two-disc set, and the only thing that lets it down is that, like 'Say Hello' from the Valerie Masters post, 'The Guy Who Can Mend A Broken Heart' had to be taken from a poorly recorded Youtube video. Despite trying to improve the sound quality it's still noticeably tinny compared to the rest of the album, so if anyone has a better quality copy that I can have then it would be much appreciated.  

Track listing

Disc One 1960-1963
01 I Love You So Much It Hurts (single 1960)
02 Like I'm In Love (b-side of 'I Love You So Much It Hurts')
03 Once In A Lifetime (single 1961)
04 Busy Lips (single 1961)
05 It's Always The Way (b-side of 'Busy Lips')
06 I'm Not Supposed To Know (single 1962)
07 Oh, My Little Baby Darling (I Love You) (b-side of 'I'm Not Supposed To Know')
08 Good Looking Boy (single 1962)
09 The Guy Who Can Mend A Broken Heart (b-side of 'Good Looking Boy')
10 Don't You Ever Change Your Mind (single 1963)
11 Sour Grapes (b-side of 'Don't You Ever Change Your Mind')
12 Heartbreak Avenue (single 1963)
13 I'm Nobody's Baby (b-side of 'Heartbreak Avenue')
14 I Was Only Foolin' Myself (single 1963)
15 Ordinary Love (b-side of 'I Was Only Foolin' Myself')

Disc Two 1963-1967
01 Accidents Will Happen (single 1963)
02 He Tells Me With His Eyes (b-side of 'Accidents Will Happen')
03 It's Better To Cry Today (single 1963)
04 Don't Tell Him I Told You (b-side of 'It's Better To Cry Today')
05 I Did Nothing Wrong (single 1964)
06 Better Late Than Never (b-side of 'I Did Nothing Wrong')
07 Private Property (single 1964)
08 Crack In The Door (b-side of 'Private Property')
09 Tied Up With Mary (single 1964)
10 Green Eyed People (b-side of 'Tied Up With Mary')
11 Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye (single 1965)
12 This Is Love (UK entry in the Sopot International Song Festival 1965)
13 If You Wanna Be More Than Friends (b-side of 'Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye')
14 He Who Rides A Tiger (single 1966)
15 Live For Life (single as Trisha Noble 1967)

Amelia Lily - Be A Fighter (2013)

Amelia Lily Oliver was born on 16 October 1994, and began her musical career as a secondary school pupil by posting videos of herself singing on YouTube, with her cover of Adele's 'Someone Like You' garnering over 1 million views. From the age of 13, she began writing songs with her guitar, aspiring to be a country singer, and in 2011 she auditioned for the eighth series of TV talent show The X Factor in Liverpool, in front of judges Louis Walsh, Gary Barlow, Kelly Rowland and Tulisa, singing Erma Franklin's 'Piece Of My Heart', and winning praise from all four judges. She progressed through to bootcamp and then to judges' houses, but she was the first to be eliminated from the show on 9 October by her mentor, as there was no public vote in the inaugural live show. Prior to the sixth live show of the series, it was announced that Frankie Cocozza was to be removed from the show after breaking competition rules, and that the public would be given the chance to reinstate a contestant eliminated during the first live show, and Lily was voted back into the competition after winning 48.8% of the vote. She progressed through the rounds to reach a place in the show's final at Wembley Arena by finishing third on the semi-final public vote, and finished the competition in third place with 26.5% of the public vote. 

After she embarked on the X Factor tour 2012, it was announced that she'd signed a £500,000 record deal with Sony subsidiary Xenomania, and in September 2012 she released her debut single 'You Bring Me Joy', which charted at number two in the UK. Subsequent singles 'Shut Up (And Give Me Whatever You Got)' and 'Party Over' only reached numbers 11 and 40 respectively, but despite that her debut album was planned to be released on 29 April 2013, and was to be titled 'Be A Fighter'. In July 2013 she announced that the album's release had been postponed to record new material, as she wanted it to be "perfect", and later that year it appeared on online retailers with a new release date of 4 February 2014, but it was subsequently taken down. In 2013 she was the support act for Girls Aloud, and also main support for Olly Murs at the INTRO Festival, while in July 2014 she announced the release of a new single titled 'California' with Warner Music, due for release in September. In November 2014, it was announced that Lily would be replacing Marcus Collins in the UK tour of 'Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat', and in May 2015 the London Evening Standard announced that she would be taking on the role of Whatsername when Green Day's 'American Idiot' came to London. In 2017 she competed in the twentieth series of Celebrity Big Brother, leaving the house on Day 25 as the runner up behind Sarah Harding, but all this stage and TV activity seemed to have over-shadowed her musical career, and as nothing had been heard about it since 2013, I think that we can safely say that 'Be A Fighter' has been abandoned. Various tracks from the album have leaked over the years, and so an approximation of it can be pieced together to see what this elusive debut record could have sounded like.   

Track listing

01 You Bring Me Joy
02 Party Over
03 The Hills
04 Shut Up (And Give Me Whatever You Got)
05 Walk In My Shoes
06 Just Can't Take The Rumours
07 Promises
08 Be A Fighter
09 Over And Out
10 Heartbeat
11 Blue
12 Truth Or Dare

13 Look Who's Laughing Now

The Rubettes - If You've Got The Time (1983)

The Rubettes are an UK pop/glam rock band put together in 1974 after the release of the single 'Sugar Baby Love', which was recorded by a bunch of session musicians in 1973. It was written by the song-writing team of Wayne Bickerton, the then head of A&R at Polydor Records, and his co-songwriter, Tony Waddington, but their pastiche of doo-wop and 1950's American pop-influenced songs had been rejected by a number of existing acts, and so they recorded it themselves using a session band. 'Sugar Baby Love' and three other songs were recorded for Polydor in October 1973 at Lansdowne Studios in Holland Park, London, and they all featured the distinctive falsetto lead vocals of Paul Da Vinci. However, when 'Sugar Baby Love' was a surprise hit, a band had to be hastily put together to perform the song on Top Of The Pops, and when Da Vinci did not want to join the group, preferring to pursue his solo career, his place was taken by Alan Williams, who re-recorded the vocals for the Top Of The Pops appearance, meaning that most people's first experience of the song would have been his version of it. As most of the band members were in other rock bands at the time, and because they didn't want to cut their hair in case they couldn't successfully follow up the single, they tied it up under white cloth caps, which soon became their trademark. Perfectly timed at the tail end of the glam-rock movement, 'Sugar Baby Love' was the band's only UK No. 1 and sole US Top 40 entry, and it went on to sell three million copies globally. 

The initial line-up of The Rubettes was Alan Williams (whose vocals never appeared on the original 1973 recording of 'Sugar Baby Love', but who would sing lead on all remaining songs), John Richardson, Pete Arnesen, Tony Thorpe, Mick Clarke and Bill Hurd, and they went on to have a number of other top ten hits across Europe during the mid-1970s, such as 'Tonight', 'Juke Box Jive' and 'I Can Do It', mostly written by the Bickerton–Waddington song-writing team. The band's success enabled Bickerton and Waddington to set up State Records, so that ten months after the release of 'Sugar Baby Love', the fourth Rubettes single 'I Can Do It' was on State. In 1976 the band abandoned glam nostalgia to enter more serious territory, and their 1976 single 'Under One Roof', which was sung by John Richardson, was a portrayal of a gay man disowned and later murdered by his father, and along with Rod Stewart's 'The Killing Of Georgie' was one of the few songs that tackled the topic of homophobia. Their most successful self-composed hit was the country rock styled ballad 'Baby I Know' in 1977, sung by Tony Thorpe, which reached number 10 in the UK and Germany. 

During this period the band continued to cater for the much bigger European market by continuing to release the more commercial Williams-fronted pop singles, such as 'Julia', 'Allez Oop', and 'Ooh La La'. The band became a quintet in early 1975 with the departure of Arnesen, and later became a quartet in mid-1976 when Hurd departed, and they have remained as a four-piece ever since. Thorpe later left the group and was replaced by Bob Benham, but he departed shortly thereafter, and dwindling success led to the band dissolving in 1980. They reformed in 1982, with a line-up consisting of Williams, Clark, Hurd, and drummer Alex Bines, in an attempt to exploit the German market for 1970's nostalgia, and this line-up remained relatively stable until 1999. As so often happened with bands whose hits were penned by professional songwriters, they were allowed to record their own songs on the b-sides of their singles, mostly Richardson/Williams compositions, and these tended to be left off their albums, so here they all are in one place, alongside a couple of stand-alone singles, so that we can get an idea of what the band really wanted to sound like.   

Track listing

01 You Could Have Told Me (b-side of 'Sugar Baby Love' 1974)
02 Silent Movie Queen (b-side of 'Tonight' 1974)
03 When You're Falling In Love (b-side of 'Juke Box Jive' 1974)
04 If You've Got The Time (b-side of 'I Can Do It' 1975)
05 With You (b-side of 'Foe-Dee-O-Dee' 1975)
06 Cherie Amour (single 1977)
07 Come On Over (b-side of 'Cherie Amour')
08 Little 69 (single 1978)
09 Lola (single 1979)
10 Stay With Me (single 1979)
11 Au Revoir (b-side of 'Stay With Me')
12 Kid Runaway (single 1979) 
13 Southbound Train (b-side of 'Kid Runaway')
14 I Can't Give You Up (single 1981)
15 We're Doing It Wrong (b-side of 'I Can't Give You Up')
16 Stuck On You (single 1981)
17 Don't Come Crying (single 1982) 
18 Breakdown (b-side of 'Don't Come Crying')
19 Keep On Dancing (single 1985)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Lou Reed (2018)

After leaving the Velvet Underground in August 1970, Lou Reed moved to his parents' home on Long Island, and took a job at his father's tax accounting firm as a typist, by his own account earning $40 a week. He began writing poetry, which was published later in 2018 by Anthology Editions, and he then signed a recording contract with RCA Records in 1971, recording his first solo album at Morgan Studios in Willesden, London with session musicians including Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman from the band Yes. The album, 'Lou Reed', contained versions of unreleased Velvet Underground songs, some of which had originally been recorded for 'Loaded' but shelved, but it was overlooked by most pop music critics, and did not sell well. Reed's commercial breakthrough was his next album, 'Transformer', released in November 1972, and co-produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson. It introduced Reed to a wider audience in the UK, especially the single 'Walk On The Wild Side', which was a salute to the misfits and hustlers who once surrounded Andy Warhol in the late 60's. Each of the song's five verses describes a person who had been a fixture at The Factory during the mid-to-late 1960's, and its transgressive lyrics somehow evaded radio censorship. Ronson's arrangements brought out new aspects of Reed's songs, with 'Perfect Day' featuring delicate strings and soaring dynamics, and while the album contains some of Reed's most commercial compositions, it was some years before other artists felt confident enough to tackle them. This was spearheaded by Eurythmics take on 'Satellite Of Love' in 1983, followed by the choice of 'Perfect Day' as the Children In Need single in 1997, and this seemed to have opened up the floodgates for artists to plunder the album and record their unique takes of the songs. This album is a bit different so most of the others in this series, as the artists tend to take an irreverent view of the songs, witness the versions by A.C. Marias, Enzo Pietropoali and Bikini The Cat, but they are also done with much love for the original material, and so this album has become one of my most played from the series. 

Track listing

01 Vicious (A.C. Marias 1989)  
02 Andy's Chest (Damn Hippie Freaks 2016) 
03 Perfect Day (Kirsty McColl & Evan Dando 1995)  
04 Hangin' Round (Squeeze 2015) 
05 Walk On The Wild Side (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians 1990)  
06 Make Up (B.E.F. featuring Boy George 2013)  
07 Satellite Of Love (Eurythmics 1983)  
08 Wagon Wheel (The Satellites 2015)    
09 New York Telephone Conversation (Enzo Pietropaoli 1997)  
10 I'm So Free (Bikini The Cat 2005) 
11 Goodnight Ladies (Justin Vivian Bond 2018)

Ten Years After - Blues (1971)

I've always considered Ten Years After to be a blues-based band, possibly because their debut album from 1967 was very much in the British Blues style of Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack, but from their second studio album onward they drifted into more of a rock style, although they did still include the odd straight blues track on their records. Listening to 'I Woke Up This Morning' from their 'Ssssh' album recently, I realised just what a great blues band they could be when they felt like it, and so I decided to put together an album of just their straight-out blues recordings from the first five years of their career. My opinion of the change in style after that debut was proved correct, when I found that there were really only eleven tracks that could be called "blues" on their seven albums to 1971, and one of them was a single b-side which never even appeared on an album. The scarcity of suitable recordings means that this album is a very concise 46 minutes, but it's a nice mix of electric and acoustic blues, most of which showcase Alvin Lee's superb guitar chops. So as a companion-piece to similar albums on the blog from Led Zeppelin, Johnny Winter and Pat Travers, here is Ten Years After at their bluesiest best. 

Track listing

01 I Woke Up This Morning
02 Don't Want You Woman
03 A Sad Song
04 Year 3000 Blues
05 I Want To Know
06 One Of These Days
07 My Baby Left Me
08 Woman Trouble
09 Turned Off T.V. Blues
10 Two Time Mama
11 Spider In My Web

Victoria Beckham - Come Together (2004)

Following the cancellation of her electropop album 'Open Your Eyes', Victoria Beckham teamed up with producer Damon Dash to record some songs with a more urban feel, and a Dash-produced track 'It's That Simple' featuring M.O.P. premiered on radio stations in July 2003 as a promotional single, generating mixed reviews. As she was still unsure of her new direction, her first single for her new label Telstar was a double A-side, featuring 'Let Your Head Go' from the abandoned 'Open Your Eyes' album, and 'This Groove' from the new sessions with Damon Dash. It was released in the UK on 29 December 2003, with heavy promotion and many TV appearances across the Christmas period, and with the video being directed by Andy Hylton, it all resulted in a number three chart single in the UK. The idea behind releasing the double A-side was to gauge the public's reaction to the two different styles of music, and if 'Let Your Head Go' was more successful, she would release the 'Open Your Eyes' album, but if 'This Groove' was better rated then she would release the R&B album 'Come Together'. Outside of the UK, Dash had plans for her in the US, including a potential release of 'This Groove', and he was sure that she'd be successful because R&B was in vogue, and her music style was similar to Jennifer Lopez. However, in April 2004 Telstar announced bankruptcy, and both albums were cancelled, leaving Beckham thoroughly exasperated at all the wasted time in studio, so she gave up music to focus on her fashion career. In this post we have the cancelled 'Come Together' album, and so we can now be the judges of which is the better style, much as the public was asked to do when the double A-side was released in 2003. 

Track listing

01 This Groove

02 Jealous Ones

03 Me And You This Time

04 That Dude (feat. Old Dirty Bastard)

05 Freedom

06 Resentment (Elvis Song)

07 He's My Lover

08 I'll Take You There

09 Valentine

10 Spell On Me

11 This Groove (Part 2)

12 So Cold

13 Come Together

14 DAT Simple (feat. M.O.P.)

Toto - Talk It Over (1979)

Before they got together and formed a band, the individual members of Toto were regular players on albums by Steely Dan, Seals and Crofts, Boz Scaggs, Sonny and Cher, and many other artists, contributing to some of the most popular records of the 1970's. Keyboardist David Paich, son of musician and session player/arranger Marty Paich, rose to fame after having co-written much of Scaggs' 'Silk Degrees' album, and he played on many sessions with drummer Jeff Porcaro (the son of session percussionist Joe Porcaro), whom he met while attending Grant High School. There they formed the band Rural Still Life, and Paich began to discuss seriously with Porcaro the possibility of them forming their own band, so they brought in bassist and fellow session veteran David Hungate, having played with him in the backing band for Scaggs. In addition, the duo asked fellow Grant High School students, guitarist Steve Lukather (who also played in Scaggs' band as a replacement for Les Dudek) and Jeff Porcaro's brother Steve Porcaro on keyboards to join the team. With the addition of former S.S. Fools singer Bobby Kimball, the group began to work on their first album in 1977, after signing with Columbia Records. Once the band came together, David Paich began composing what would become the eponymous debut album, 'Toto', and according to popular myth, in order to distinguish their own demo tapes from other bands' in the studio at their first recording sessions, Jeff Porcaro wrote the word "Toto" on them. In the early 1980's, band members told the press that the band was named after Toto the dog from 'The Wizard Of Oz', but in fact their first album was completed by the still un-named band, and after viewing the name on the demo tapes, David Hungate explained to the group that the Latin words "in toto" translated to "all-encompassing", and because the band members played on so many records and in so many musical genres, they adopted the name Toto as their own. Luthaker started his session work in earnest in 1977, and as most of the other players had been active during the early 70's, they started to appear together on various albums from the late 70's onwards, in groups of three, four, or even five on Kiki Dee's 'Stay With Me' album. From 1977, through the 1978 recording of their debut album and ending in 1979 following the release of their 'Hydra' album, they played on literally scores of recordings, and this collection brings together some of the best tracks that they recorded with girl singers in that three year period, making in effect a Toto album with a variety of female guest vocalists. 

Track listing

01 Top Of The World (Diana Ross 1977 SL/DH/JP) 
02 Talk It Over (Even Though My Body's Cold) (Lisa Del Bello 1977 SL/DP/MP/JP) 
03 I Don't Wanna Dance No More (Carole Bayer Sager 1978 SL/DH/SP/JP)
04 No Reason (Juice Newton 1978 SL/DH/MP/JP) 
05 Crazy (Valerie Carter 1978 SL/DH/SP/JP)
06 As We Fall In Love Once More (Evie Sands 1979 SL/DH)
07 Love Is A Crazy Feeling (Kiki Dee 1979 SL/DP/DH/SP/JP)
08 Why Can't We Fall In Love (Deniece Williams 1979 SL/DH/JP)
09 Hollywood (Lauren Wood 1979 SL/DH/JP/BK)
10 Prisoner (Cher 1979 SL/JP/DP co-writer)

SL - Steve Luthaker (guitar)
DP - David Paich (keyboards)
DH - David Hungate (bass)
SP - Steve Porcaro (keyboards)
JP - Jeff Porcaro (drums)
MP - Mike Porcaro (bass)
BK - Bobby Kimball (backing vocals)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Leonard Cohen (2013)

Leonard Norman Cohen was born on 21 September 1934, and is best known as a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist. He initially pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950's and early 1960's, with his first published book of poetry, 'Let Us Compare Mythologies', being published by Dudek in 1956, the year after his graduation. It was the first book in the McGill Poetry Series, and it contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20. By 1957 he working various odd jobs and focusing on the writing of fiction and poetry, including the poems for his next book, 'The Spice-Box Of Earth', published in 1961. He continued to write poetry and fiction throughout the 1960's and preferred to live in quasi-reclusive circumstances after he bought a house on Hydra, a Greek island in the Saronic Gulf. While living and writing on Hydra, he published the poetry collection 'Flowers For Hitler' in 1964, and the novel 'The Favourite Game' in 1963, which was an autobiographical tale about a young man who discovers his identity through writing. In 1967, disappointed with his lack of success as a writer, Cohen moved to the United States to pursue a career as a folk music singer/songwriter. His song 'Suzanne' became a hit for Judy Collins (who subsequently recorded a number of Cohen's other compositions), and was for many years his most recorded song. After performing at a few folk festivals, he came to the attention of Columbia Records producer John Hammond, who signed him to a record deal. His first album was 'Songs Of Leonard Cohen', released in the US in late 1967 to generally dismissive reviews, but it became a favourite in the UK on its release in early 1968, where it spent over a year on the album charts. Several of the songs on that first album were recorded by other popular folk artists, including James Taylor and Judy Collins, and the album has been continually dipped into by other musicians for inspiration ever since, resulting in every track being treated to a superlative cover by 2013, all of which can be heard on this reimagining of Leonard Cohen's debut album. 

Track listing

01 Suzanne (Roberta Flack 1973)
02 Master Song (John Bergaron 2004)
03 Winter Lady (Caecilie Norby 2013)
04 The Stranger Song (Tamco 2010)
05 Sisters Of Mercy (Dion 1968)
06 So Long, Marianne (Bell + Arc 1970)
07 Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye (Hamilton Camp 1969)
08 Stories Of The Street (The Low Anthem 2012)
09 Teachers (Omnia 2010)
10 One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong (Gregory Alan Isakov 2009) 

Micky Dolenz - Don't Do It (1983)

George Michael Dolenz Jr. was born in Los Angeles, California on 8 March 1945, and by the age of six he was already doing screen tests, landing his first recurring role as Corky on the TV series 'Circus Boy' at the age of 10. He toured the country with his elephant "Bimbo" promoting the show, which ran for three years, but when he reached his teens he started to develop an interest in music. He sang lead with a number of club-level rock bands, including Micky & The One Nighters, who specialized in covering The Rolling Stones and Jerry Lee Lewis songs, and it was during this period that he recorded his first single, 'Huff Puff'/'Don't Do It', although the record was not released until 1967. In 1965 Dolenz was cast in the TV series 'The Monkees', beating out over 400 other applicants for the role, and while he was initially meant to simply play the fictional group's drummer, his vocal skills meant he became lead singer on many of their songs. Along with Davy Jones, Michael Nesmith, and Peter Tork, Dolenz became first a TV star and then a rock & roll idol, as the fictional band had smash hit singles with 'Last Train To Clarksville', 'I'm A Believer', and 'Pleasant Valley Sunday'. They released nine albums, and sold over 60 million records worldwide, with 'The Monkees' TV show lasting two seasons, followed by their cult feature film 'Head', before they finally broke up in 1970. Dolenz was always interested in working behind the camera as well as acting and music, and he wrote and directed one of the final episodes of the TV series, but he kept a foot in the door of the music industry by cutting a handful of solo singles for MGM Records, as well as one 45 with producer Michael Lloyd under the name Starship. 

He stepped back into music in 1976 with the album 'Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart', in which he and Davy Jones teamed with Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, who wrote and produced many of The Monkees' most memorable tunes. The album and subsequent concert tour received favourable reviews but attracted few paying customers, and in 1977 Dolenz travelled to England to appear in the London production of 'The Point', a stage musical based on Harry Nilsson's 1971 concept album. While he expected to stay in London for three months, he ended up staying for twelve years, establishing himself as a successful director in television and the legitimate stage. 1993 saw Dolenz publish a memoir, 'I'm A Believer: My Life of Music, Madness And The Monkees', and as plans were set in motion to celebrate the Monkees' 30th Anniversary in 1996, the original four members reunited to cut the album 'Justus', with all the material written and performed by the group. While the foursome planned an international concert tour in support, Nesmith bowed out after a run of shows in the United Kingdom, and it marked the last time the classic line-up would work together. In 1998, Dolenz brought out a solo album titled 'Demoiselle', which presented his original demos for eight songs he had written in the '90s. Although he will always be most remembered for his distinctive vocals on many of the Monkees' hit singles, his attempt at a solo career both before and after The Monkees has remained largely unappreciated, and so to put that right here are all the singles and b-sides that he recorded between 1965 and 1983. It includes both tracks recorded in 1965 by Micky And The One Nighters, which were later released as two separate split singles in 1967 to cash in on his new-found fame, as well as one joint single with Davy Jones in 1971, and the one under the name Starship, long before Jefferson decided to use it.   

Track listing

01 Huff Puff (single as Micky And The One Nighters, recorded 1965, released 1967)
02 Don't Do It (single as Micky And The One Nighters, recorded 1965, released 1967)
03 Do It In The Name Of Love (single with Davy Jones 1971)
04 Lady Jane (b-side of 'Do It In THe Name Of Love')
05 Easy On You (single 1971)
06 Oh Someone (b-side of 'Easy On You')
07 Unattended In The Dungeon (single 1972)
08 A Lover's Prayer (b-side of 'Unattended In The Dungeon')
09 Johnny B. Goode (single as Starship 1972)
10 It's Amazing To Me (b-side of 'Johnny B. Goode')
11 Daybreak (single 1973)
12 Love War (b-side of 'Daybreak')
13 Ooh She's Young (single 1973)
14 Love Light (single 1979)
15 Alicia (b-side of 'Love Light')
16 To Be Or Not To Be (single 1982)
17 Beverley Hills (b-side of 'To Be Or Not To Be')
18 Tomorrow (split single with The Bugsy Malone Gang 1983)

Victoria Beckham - Open Your Eyes (2003)

On 14 August 2000 Victoria Beckham released her first solo single, 'Out Of Your Mind', in collaboration with Dane Bowers and Truesteppers, and this coincided with the release of 'Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)' by Spiller featuring Sophie Ellis-Bextor, resulting in a chart battle dubbed 'Posh vs. Posher' by the tabloids. Before the single's release, she made her public solo debut at London's Hyde Park on 8 July 2000 at a concert to raise money for the Prince's Trust charity, singing 'Out Of Your Mind' to a 100,000-strong audience. She then signed a recording contract with her group label Virgin Records, and her next single, 'Not Such An Innocent Girl', was released on 17 September 2001. Again, she faced competition in another hugely hyped chart battle, this time with Kylie Minogue's single 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head', but despite a huge promotional campaign, Kylie outsold her by eight to one, and her single could only reach number 6. Beckham's eponymous debut album was released on 1 October 2001, and although it reached Number 10 in the UK album chart, it reputedly cost £5 million to produce but only sold a modest 50,000 copies. The second and final single to be released from the album was 'A Mind Of Its Own', and although it reached number 6 in the UK chart and sold 56,500 copies, rumours were spreading that she was to be dropped by her label for not charting in the Top Three. A third single, a remix of 'I Wish' featuring Robbie Craig, was promoted but never materialised, as following the announcement of Beckham's second pregnancy, the single was shelved. She was reportedly dropped by Virgin Records along with fellow Spice Girls Emma Bunton and Melanie B, although this was denied by her publicist, who explained that the Virgin deal had just come to a natural end for both parties. In 2002, Beckham signed a contract with Telstar Records and 19 Management worth £1.5 million, and in 2003 she began recording an electropop-influenced album, 'Open Your Eyes', and chose 'Let Your Head Go' as the first single. After the album was finalized, many of the songs leaked onto the internet and so she decided to return to the studio to record new material, wanting a more urban sound, and choosing to work with producer Damon Dash on more R&B and hip hop influenced songs. 'Open Your Eyes' was therefore put on the back-burner while the new material was recorded, and has still to make an appearance, so here it is in the first of two posts which will let you make up your own mind as to whether you prefer the electropop of 'Open Your Eyes', or the later R&B/hip-hop tracks.

Track listing

01 Let Your Head Go 
02 Open Your Eyes
03 Be With You
04 Full Stop (feat. Nas)
05 Generate The Flow 
06 The Hustla
07 25 Minutes 
08 Me Without You 
09 Should've Known Better
10 I'd Give It All Away 
11 Gone (Bittersweet)
12 Can't Get Enough Of You DJ 
13 Right Back To You
14 Every Little Thing 

Go-Go's - This Time (1988)

Go-Go's were formed in Los Angeles in 1978, consisting initially of Belinda Carlisle (vocals), Jane Wiedlin (guitar, background vocals), Margot Olavarria (bass), and Elissa Bello (drums), and they were originally a punk band, with their roots in the L.A. punk community. They began playing gigs at punk venues such as The Masque and the Whisky a Go Go in Los Angeles, and in 1978 Charlotte Caffey was added on lead guitar, keyboards, and background vocals. The next year Gina Schock replaced Bello on drums, and with these line-up changes, the group began moving towards their more-familiar power pop sound. During late 1979, they recorded a five-song demo at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles, and in 1980, they supported the British ska revival groups Madness and The Specials in both Los Angeles and England. They subsequently spent half of 1980 touring England, earning a sizable following, and they released the demo version of 'We Got The Beat' on Stiff Records, which became a minor UK hit. In December 1980, original bassist Olavarria fell ill and was replaced by Kathy Valentine, who had played guitar in bands such as Girlschool and the Textones, but who had never previously played bass guitar. Go-Go's signed to I.R.S. Records in April 1981, and that year's debut album 'Beauty And The Beat' was a surprise hit, topping the U.S. charts for six weeks in 1982, and eventually receiving a double platinum certification. 

The follow-up album, 'Vacation', received mixed reviews and sold less than 'Beauty And The Beat', but was still certified gold in the U.S., and spawned another Top 10 U.S. hit with the title track. In 1984, the group returned with the Martin Rushent-produced 'Talk Show', and despite the album tracks 'Head Over Heels' and 'Turn To You' both being Top 40 hits in the U.S., the album sold less than the previous two, not reaching the U.S top 10 and not receiving any certification. Personality conflicts and creative differences within the group were also taking a toll, as were drug addiction problems for some band members, and Wiedlin announced her departure in October 1984. The band sought a replacement, selecting Paula Jean Brown (of Giant Sand) as their new bass guitarist, with Valentine moving to rhythm guitar. This line-up debuted at the 1985 Rock in Rio festival, playing two shows, but Carlisle and Caffey soon realized their hearts were no longer in the group and decided to disband Go-Go's in May 1985. After the split all of the members embarked on solo careers, with Carlisle's debut solo studio album 'Belinda' being released in 1986 on I.R.S. Records, including the hit singles 'Mad About You', a cover of Freda Payne's 'Band Of Gold', and the Charlotte Caffey-penned 'I Feel The Magic'. The musical style of 1987's 'Heaven On Earth' eschewed the 1960's-influenced pop of her debut studio effort in favour of slickly produced 1980's power pop, more in line with the music produced by her former band. 

As Weidlin was the first to leave the group, her debut solo album was was the first to gain a release, coming out in 1985, followed by 'Fur' in 1988, which included her Top Ten hit single 'Rush Hour'. Caffey remained friends with fellow band member Belinda Carlisle after the initial breakup of the Go-Go's, and wrote songs for Carlisle's solo albums, while from 1988 until 1992 she led her own band, The Graces, with Meredith Brooks and Gia Ciambotti, releasing the album 'Perfect View' in 1989. In 1987, Schock and Vance DeGeneres formed the band House of Schock, who released their eponymous debut album in 1988, but Valentine felt that her identity had become absorbed into being a Go-Go, and struggled to find a direction after the split. Returning to her rock roots, she formed the World's Cutest Killers, featuring former Girlschool guitarist Kelly Johnson, and although the group attracted the attention of producer Mike Chapman, and recorded some demos, they were eventually scrapped and the band split up. So we can see that by 1988/1989 four of the five members of the band had released albums of self-penned music, with Carlisle's including five songs written by Caffey, who also provided backing vocals, and so by taking the most Go-Go's sounding tracks from each of their records we can imagine what a fourth Go-Go's album could have sounded like if they'd stayed together just a few years longer.  

Track listing

01 Fear No Love (Caffey)
03 Should I Let You In? (Carlisle)
03 Just To Dream (Schock)
04 Lover's Night (Wiedlin)
05 Nobody Owns Me (Carlisle)
06 Lay Down Your Arms (Caffey)
07 Give! (Wiedlin)
08 We Can Change (Carlisle)
09 Walk In My Sleep (Schock)
10 Rush Hour (Wiedlin)
11 Love Never Dies (Carlisle)
12 This Time (Schock)
13 Out In The Fields (Caffey)

All four tracks from Belinda Carlisle's album were written by Charlotte Caffey, while The Graces' 'Out In The Fields' was co-written with Carlisle. 

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Warren Zevon (2018)

Warren William Zevon was born on 24 January 1947 in Chicago, and began his musical career early, forming a duo with his high school friend, Violet Santangelo, called lyme and cybelle. Bones Howe produced their first single, the minor hit 'Follow Me', which was written by Zevon and Santangelo and reached number 65 on the Billboard pop charts in April 1966. A follow-up single, a cover of Bob Dylan's 'If You Gotta Go, Go Now' flopped, and Zevon left the duo, spending time as a session musician and jingle composer. He wrote several songs for his White Whale labelmates The Turtles, such as Like The Seasons' and 'Outside Chance', and another early composition 'She Quit Me' was included in the soundtrack for the film 'Midnight Cowboy' in 1969. His first attempt at a solo album, 'Wanted Dead Or Alive' in 1970 was spearheaded by 1960's cult figure Kim Fowley, but received almost no attention and did not sell well, and so for the next few years he returned to session work with other musicians. During the early 1970's he toured regularly with the Everly Brothers as keyboard player, band leader, and musical coordinator, and he worked particularly closely with Phil, arranging and playing keyboards on his first and third solo albums, 'Star Spangled Springer' in 1973 and 'Mystic Line' in 1975. These small successes were not particularly rewarding financially, and his dissatisfaction with his career and lack of funds led him to briefly move to Spain in the summer of 1975, playing in the Dubliner Bar, a small tavern in Sitges, near Barcelona. By September 1975 Zevon had returned to Los Angeles, where he roomed with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, who had at this time become members of Fleetwood Mac. He also collaborated with Jackson Browne, who produced and promoted Zevon's self-titled major-label debut in 1976, which featured contributions from Nicks, Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, members of the Eagles, Carl Wilson, Linda Ronstadt, and Bonnie Raitt, with Ronstadt later recording many more of his songs. 

'Warren Zevon' was his first album to chart in the United States, peaking at No. 189, and the Rolling Stone Record Guide called it his "most realized work". In 1978, Zevon released 'Excitable Boy', once again produced by Jackson Browne with guitarist Waddy Wachtel, which gained both critical acclaim and popular success. The title tune is about a juvenile sociopath's murderous prom night, and referred to "Little Susie", the heroine of the song 'Wake Up Little Susie' made famous by his former employers the Everly Brothers, while songs such as 'Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner' and 'Lawyers, Guns And Money' used deadpan humour to wed geopolitical subtexts to hard-boiled narratives. Tracks from this album received heavy FM airplay, and the single release 'Werewolves Of London', which featured Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, was a relatively light-hearted work featuring Zevon's signature macabre outlook, and it reached No. 21 on the charts. This new-found success prompted other artists to investigate his work, with cult rockers The Flamin' Groovies later tackling 'Werewolves Of London', and Jerry Garcia recording a cover of 'Accidentally Like A Martyr' in 1977. Since then all of the other songs from the album have been covered by a variety of artists, and so here is their interpretation of Warren Zevon's 1978 album 'Excitable Boy', with a classic Linda Ronstadt  cover plus one of his earliest songs added to close the post.   

Track listing

01 Johnny Strikes Up The Band (Phil Cody 2014) 
02 Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner (The Escatones 2014)
03 Excitable Boy (Dreadnaught 2005)
04 Werewolves Of London (The Flamin' Groovies 1979)   
05 Accidentally Like A Martyr (Jerry Garcia 1977)
06 Nighttime In The Switching Yard (Dotline 2018)  
07 Veracruz (Casey Brents 2018)
08 Tenderness On The Block (Shawn Colvin 1992)
09 Lawyers, Guns And Money (Derringer 1978)
10 Hasten Down The Wind (Linda Ronstadt 1976)
11 Outside Chance (The Turtles 1966)

Jessi Malay - Here I Am (2007)

Jessi Malay was born Jessica Allison Megan Fried-Watters on 25 July 1986 in Glendale, California, and she began dancing at the age of two, taking lessons in ballet, jazz, tap, and hip-hop. At the age of eight she started singing, joining a professional performing group, and she began touring Disney World, The Big Red Boat, and the Bahamas. In 2001 she joined a girl group, No Secrets, singing lead vocals alongside Angel Faith, and Fried (as she was then known) sang the lead vocal on about half the songs on the group's self-titled debut album from 2002. The other members were Erin Tanner, Carly Lewis, and Jade Ryusaki, and their first single, 'That's What Girls Do', was very popular and was also used in 'The Powerpuff Girls Movie'. In 2003 the group recorded a cover of Atomic Kitten's hit single 'Whole Again' without Angel, who had left the group to pursue a solo career, and in early 2004, the remaining four members of No Secrets recorded 'Once Upon A Dream' for the DVD release of Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Disneymania 2'. They parted ways in 2005, and Jessica changed her stage name to Jessi Malay and signed with Reprise/Warner Bros. Records, releasing a number of songs with them, including a duet with Trey Songz. The majority of the tracks were written and produced by song-writing/production team TOJ (Andy Goldmark and Bruce Roberts), who have worked with artists such as Cher, Whitney Houston, 'N Sync, Donna Summer, and Elton John. Her first single was 'Gimme', featuring Lil Scrappy, which was released in the clubs in August 2006, and it was followed by 'Booty Bangs', featuring Yung Joc, in 2007. Once nearly all of the tracks were finalized for her self-titled debut album, she went on a mini-tour promoting her third single 'Cinematic', but while on the tour she injured her knee, which needed surgery, and as a result of this the album was cancelled, so Malay went back to school to finish her studies at UCLA. After finishing these she returned to music, co-founding and signing with Wolfiskin Productions, and recording new songs for her comeback. However, that had to be put on hold when she was cast as a co-host for the first season of Fox's TV show, 'Dish Nation' on the L.A station, filming a total of 26 episodes. In July 2011 she released her new single 'Like You', and carried on issuing singles over the next five years, but she never got around to making another album, and so this is the only long-player under her own name. I've titled it after one of the songs which seemed to sum it up perfectly. 

 
Track listing

01 Here I Am
02 Gimme
03 Topsy Turvy
04 Hpnotiq
05 King
06 Fetish
07 Booty Bangs
08 Last Night On Earth
09 Draw The Line
10 Beg
11 Cinematic
12 On You
13 The Edge

Valerie Masters - Say When (1966)

Valerie Masters was born on 24 April 1940 in Stepney Green, East London, and by the age of 17 she was working as a typist and personal secretary for the mayor of Stepney. It was while working there that she was introduced to band leader Ray Ellington, and shortly afterwards she joined his band as featured vocalist, replacing Marion Ryan. She remained with Ellington's band until 1959, while at the same time launching her career as a solo singer, with her first single 'Sharing'/'The Secret Of Happiness' appearing on the Fontana label in 1958. Three more singles quickly followed in 1958 and early 1959, before 'Jack O' Diamonds' was released in June 1959, followed by 'If There Are Stars In My Eyes' at the end of the year. As the 60's dawned, Fontana still had faith in her, releasing three singles in that year, and although none made the official UK Singles Chart, 'Banjo Boy' made the lower reaches of the New Musical Express's own chart. Between 1959 and 1961 she had her own show on Radio Luxembourg, Valerie and her Boyfriends, and in 1960 she represented Britain in the European Song Contest (unrelated to the Eurovision Song Contest), following which she became popular in Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands. In 1961, she failed in her attempt to represent the UK at Eurovision, finishing seventh in the 'A Song for Europe' competition with the song 'Too Late For Tears', but she did appear frequently on BBC radio and television. She also performed live in cabaret and clubs, often with Ellington's former pianist Dick Katz, who she married in 1961. In May 1960, she appeared on a short series of teen-oriented programmes, Young at Heart, for Tyne Tees Television, as well working for Border Television. Also in 1961 she sang the theme song for the film 'The Hellions', and also recorded commercials and worked as a backing singer. 1962 was a quiet year on the recording front, with just the one single, a cover of 'African Waltz', and the following year similarly yielded just the one single for the HMV label, while in 1964 she issued the single 'Christmas Calling', produced by Joe Meek and featuring session guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. After those two one-off deals she joined Polydor for two records in 1966, and then one last single in 1969 on the Columbia label rounded off her recording career. After leaving the music business, she stayed in entertainment, appearing in the role of a singer in the 1979 television drama series 'Secret Army', and in the early 1980's made appearances in 'Russ Abbot's Saturday Madhouse'. Some of her early singles are impossible to find now, but from late 1959 onwards they can be tracked down, and so here is a nice selection of some of her singles and b-sides from the early to mid-60's. I had to take 'Say Hello' from a poor quality TV appearance, and despite my best efforts at upgrading the sound, it does detract from the rest of the album, so if anyone has a better quality copy of it that I could have then it would finish off this album perfectly.  

Track listing

01 Jack O' Diamonds (single 1959)
02 Say When (b-side of 'Jack O' Diamonds')
03 Banjo Boy (single 1960)
04 Cow Cow Boogie (b-side of 'Banjo Boy')
05 Too Late For Tears (single 1961)
06 Birmingham Rag (single 1961)
07 African Waltz (single 1962)
08 All Night Long (b-side of 'African Waltz')
09 Christmas Calling (single 1964)
10 He Didn't Fool Me (b-side of 'Christmas Calling')
11 It's Up To You (single 1966)
12 The Next Train Out (b-side of 'It's Up To You')
13 Don't Ever Go (single 1966)
14 Say Hello (b-side of 'Don't Ever Go')

Have A Folky Christmas 2023

It won't be long before Christmas is upon us once again, so here is a fine selection of folk-inspired Christmas tunes, without a folkified carol in sight. 

Track listing

01 The Bells Of Dublin/Christmas Eve (The Chieftans 1991)
02 On A Quiet Christmas Morn (Mary Chapin Carpenter 2008)
03 Christmas For Cowboys (John Denver 1975)
04 The Coventry Carol (The Young Tradition with Shirley & Dolly Collins 1969)
05 Christmas Passing Through (The Roches 1990)
06 Gaudete (Steeleye Span 1973)
07 Song For A Winter's Night (Gordon Lightfoot 1967)
08 Upon A Winter's Night (Cara Dillon 2016) 
09 Christ Is Born On Christmas Day (John Fahey 1991)
10 River (Joni Mitchell 1971)
11 Silent Night All Day Long (John Prine 1993)
12 In Dulci Jubilo (Maddy Prior & The Carnival Band 2005)
13 Goodbye England (Covered In Snow) (Laura Marling 2009)
14 Sing We Noel (The Kingston Trio 1960)
15 Candlemas Eve (Kate Rusby 2008)
16 I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day (Burl Ives 1965)
17 Coventry Carol (Joan Baez 1966)
18 On Christmas Night All Christians Sing (The Christmas Albion Band 2003)
19 The Seven Rejoices Of Mary (Loreena McKennitt 2008)
20 Christmas Carolling (The Irish Rovers 1999)

Search 'christmas aiwe' for all my Christmas albums.

A gift from PowerPopTom - Part 5

Here's the next batch of CD covers from PowerPopTom, and I think the Pink Floyd one might get a few downloads.

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Laura Nyro's 'Eli And The Thirteenth Confession' (2017)

Soon after the release of Laura Nyro's debut album 'More Than A New Discovery', David Geffen approached Mogull about taking over as her agent. She successfully sued to void her management and recording contracts on the grounds that she had entered into them while still a minor, and Geffen became her manager. The two of them established a publishing company, Tuna Fish Music, under which the proceeds from her future compositions would be divided equally between them. Geffen also arranged Nyro's new recording contract with Clive Davis at Columbia Records, and purchased the publishing rights to her early compositions. Around this time, she considered becoming lead singer for Blood, Sweat & Tears after the departure of founder Al Kooper, but was dissuaded by Geffen, and so she concentrated on recording her second album.  Her new contract allowed her more artistic freedom and control, and so her 1968 record 'Eli And The Thirteenth Confession', received high critical praise for the depth and sophistication of its performance and arrangements, which merged pop structure with inspired imagery, rich vocals, and avant-garde jazz. It was her first chart entry, reaching No. 181 on the Billboard 200, and many musicians, including Elton John and Todd Rundgren, were directly influenced by the album. It is second only to its predecessor in producing hit songs for other artists, with Three Dog Night taking 'Eli's Comin'' to the US top 10, while The 5th Dimension went to No. 3 with 'Stoned Soul Picnic' and No. 13 with 'Sweet Blindness'. Once again, it wasn't long before nearly all of the other songs from the record had been taken up and covered,  and such was their quality that they were still being recorded in the 2000's. Here is a nice collection of some of the very best versions of Nyro's songs from her rightly-regarded classic album 'Eli And The Thirteenth Confession'. 

Track listing

01 Luckie (Judy Kuhn 2007)
02 Lu (Peggy Lipton 1969)
03 Sweet Blindness (The 5th Dimension 1968)
04 Poverty Train (The Ark 1967)
05 Lonely Women (Linda Hoyle 1971) 
06 Eli's Comin' (Three Dog Night 1969)
07 Stoned Soul Picnic (The Supremes And The Four Tops 1970)
08 Emmie (Frankie Valli 1970)
09 Woman's Blues (Green Lyte Sunday 1970)
10 Once It Was Alright Now (Farmer Joe) (Rastus 2016)
11 December's Boudoir (Denise Mangiardi 2017)
12 The Confession (Billy Childs featuring Becca Stevens 2014)

Marion Ravn - Nevermore (2010)

Marion Elise Ravn (also known as Marion Raven) was born on 25 May 1984 in Lørenskog, Norway, and enjoyed singing from a young age, sometimes writing lyrics for the songs she sang. She joined the gospel choir in a local church at the age of 5, and by the time she was eight she was taking piano lessons. In 1995, Raven's father arranged for her to make a demo in a studio in Oslo, together with her childhood friend, Marit Larsen, and as a result the duo got a record deal with EMI Norway and formed the group M2M. A year later they produced a children's album titled 'Marit And Marion Sing Well-Known Children Songs' for which they were nominated for the Norwegian Grammy, Spellemannprisen, the following year. In 1998, M2M started recording pop demos in English, collaborating with many songwriters from around the world, and the released their multi-platinum debut album, 'Shades Of Purple', on the Atlantic label in 2000. Their second album, 'The Big Room', which was recorded in a studio in Bearsville in Woodstock, New York, was released in 2002, and after world tours to promote the album ended, M2M joined Jewel on her This Way world tour as an opening act, but they lost that gig when they disbanded in September 2002. Raven was offered a recording contract with Atlantic Records, and set about recording her debut album, working with Swedish songwriters/producers Max Martin and Rami, as well as Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk and her husband Raine Maida. Initially the record company was not confident in her switch to a more rock image and a darker, more personal style of song-writing, and she had to fight to record her kind of music, which was rock with a pop element. 

The resulting 14-track 'Here I Am' saw her transformation from the candy-pop music of M2M to a more angsty, rock-oriented singer, and was released in Scandinavia, Japan, Latin America and Southeast Asia. It spawned three singles, 'End Of Me', 'Here I Am', and 'Break You', which was her top-selling single internationally. In early 2006, it was announced that Raven had quit her contract with Atlantic Records due to 'artistic differences', and she signed to indie label Eleven Seven Music, which was created by her management 10th Street Entertainment. In 2006 Raven performed a duet with Meat Loaf on the song 'It's All Coming Back To Me Now', released as the lead single from his tenth studio album 'Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose', and it peaked at No. 1 in Norway and reached the top ten in Germany and the United Kingdom. Raven later confirmed that her new album would contain new and old tracks from her Norwegian debut, and 'Set Me Free' appeared in March 2007, after which she toured around The Netherlands, Germany and the UK to help promote it. In 2008 she made a cameo appearance in the music video for the song 'Saints Of Los Angeles' by American heavy metal band Mötley Crüe, and in 2010 she became a panellist judge on the Norwegian version of the talent show The X Factor, and later on Norwegian Idol. Her third studio album 'Nevermore' was recorded in 2009 and was planned for a 2010 release, but due to internal issues with her record label Eleven Seven Music, it was never released. It dropped two singles 'Flesh And Bone' and 'Found Someone', exclusively released in Scandinavia, but the album has remained particularly elusive until I finally managed to locate a copy recently. Various reasons have emerged as being responsible for the album's cancellation, but the most pertinent was probably the dissolution of her label’s publishing arm while she was finishing work on the record, and what was originally supposed to be a temporary delay started to become longer, until it eventually killed the album completely. Having been searching for this record for over a year, I was thrilled to finally be able to hear it, and it certainly doesn't disappoint. 

Track listing 

01 Flesh & Bone 
02 Heartless  
03 Nevermore  
04 Rosemarie  
05 Found Someone 

06 Blackbird

07 Backstabbing Bitch  
08 Miss You Blind  
09 Vital Signs 
10 Up To No Good  
11 After You  
12 We Are Dead  
13 Surrender  
14 Drive  

Mya - Liberation (2007)

'Liberation' was intended to be the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Mya Harrison, and would have been her debut release with her then new record label Universal Motown, following her departure from Interscope in 2005 after the mediocre commercial success of her previous effort 'Moodring' in 2003. Before leaving, she had begun work on an album for Interscope called 'Control Freak', which was set for a summer 2005 release, with production by a host of other producers. In search of a new vibe for the album after the change of label, she drew inspiration by leaving Los Angeles and moving back to Washington, D.C., where she bought a house and enlisted her brother to build a recording studio, where she began experimenting, laying down rudimentary tracks and learning how to engineer. Pushed by her newfound abilities in mixing and production, she intensified work on the re-worked 'Control Freak' album, with most of it eventually being completed in a stretch of only three months. When complete, she submitted the album, now titled 'Liberation', to her new label, with production on the record being handled by Scott Storch and J.R. Rotem with additional contributions from Bryan Michael Cox, Kwame, Carvin & Ivan, longtime contributor Tricky Stewart, and it also featured guest appearances by Snoop Dogg, Charlie Baltimore and Lil Wayne. Two singles were extracted from it, the Storch collaboration 'Lock U Down' and R&B ballad 'Ridin'', but neither song made an impact on radio or in the charts, and so a proposed third single 'Walka Not A Talka' was cancelled, and due to the industry's budget cuts, the album suffered numerous delays and pushbacks. However, while delaying the album's release yet again, Universal Motown accidentally leaked it in Japan, and so they had no choice but to release it as a digital download only in Japan in October 2007. This digital release was the only thing that Mya ever issued on Universal Motown, leaving the label in 2008, and although 'Liberation' was never released officially, Mya did heavily promote the album at the time. She has said that she "felt as though 'Liberation' was her best project to date, and she wanted it released in the US, but things happen, so maybe it wasn't meant to be ...", and the digital version did garner some mixed reviews from the music press, and so it's certainly worth a listen to hear Mya "break out and swagger into an intriguing new role", as suggested in a review in Vibe magazine. 

Track listing

01 Liberation (Intro)
02 I Am (feat. Charli Baltimore)
03 Walka Not A Talka (feat. Snoop Dogg)
04 Still A Woman
05 No Touchin'
06 Lock U Down (feat. Lil Wayne)
07 Lights Go Off
08 Ridin'
09 Switch It Up
10 Give A Chick A Hand
11 All In the Name Of Love
12 Life's Too Short
13 Nothin' at All