Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Barry Mann (1975)

Barry Imberman (aka Barry Mann) was born on 9 February 1939, and is best know for his song-writing partnership with his wife Cynthia Weil. His first successful song as a writer was 'She Say (Oom Dooby Doom)', a Top 20 chart-scoring song composed for the band The Diamonds in 1959, which was co-written with Mike Anthony. In 1961, Mann had his greatest success to that point with 'I Love How You Love Me', written with Larry Kolber, and scoring a number 5 hit for the band The Paris Sisters , and the same year Mann himself reached the Top 40 as a performer with a novelty song co-written with Gerry Goffin, 'Who Put The Bomp', which parodied the nonsense words of the then-popular doo-wop genre. Despite his success as a singer, Mann chose to channel his creativity into song-writing, forming a prolific partnership with Cynthia Weil, a lyricist he met while both were staff songwriters at Aldon Music, whose offices were located in Manhattan, near the composing-and-publishing factory the Brill Building. In the late 1960s, Mann and Weil left Aldon Music to head for Hollywood, where they continued to rack up the hits, working with Larry Kolber on Bobby Vinton's version of his earlier hit 'I Love How You Love Me' in 1968, and following up with Jay and the Americans' 'Walking in The Rain' in 1969, and B. J. Thomas's 'I Just Can't Help Believing' in 1970. Meanwhile, in addition to his role behind the scenes, Mann occasionally sought the limelight, and in 1971 he released his own album 'Lay It All Out', featuring himself as a singer, but it did not enjoy the success of his and Weil's works for others. As well as new songs it also included his own versions of some of his biggest hits, 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling', 'On Broadway', and 'Something Better'. Unsurprisingly, considering his standing as a songwriter, it wasn't long before all of the songs on the album had received cover versions, even those three afore-mentioned hits. Rather than use the original hit recordings of them, by The Righteous Brothers, The Drifters and Marianne Faithfull, I've chosen contemporary takes of the songs from around the same time as the album, although Bill Medley still gets to sing '...Lovin' Feeling', taken from his 1971 solo album 'A Song For You'. Three extra tracks from the following year round off this collection of songs from Mann's 1971 solo album.    

Track Listing

01 Too Many Mondays (Mary Travers 1973)
02 When You Get Right Down To It (Ronnie Dyson 1971)
03 I Heard You Singing Your Song (The Partridge Family 1973)
04 Holy Rolling (The New Seekers 1972) 
05 You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (Bill Medley 1971)
06 On Broadway (Eric Carmen 1975)
07 Something Better (Harper's Bizarre 1969)
08 Sweet Ophelia (Wicked Lester 1971) 
09 Don't Give Up On Me (Suzanne 1973)
10 Ain't No Way To Go Home (The Grass Roots 1973)  
11 Rock And Roll Lullaby (B.J. Thomas 1972)
12 So Long Dixie (Blood, Sweat And Tears 1972)
13 The Last Blues Song (Helen Reddy 1972)