Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Laura Nyro (2007)

In the mid-60's, Laura Nyro's mother Louis Nigro's work brought her into contact with record company executive Artie Mogull and his partner Paul Barry, who auditioned Nyro in 1966 and became her first managers, with Mogull negotiating a recording and management contract for her. On 13 July 1966, Nyro recorded 'Stoney End' and 'Wedding Bell Blues', as well as an early version of 'Time And Love', at Bell Sounds Studios in Manhattan, for possible inclusion on her debut album. About a month later, she sold 'And When I Die' to Peter, Paul And Mary for $5,000, and on 17 September 1966, Verve Folkways released 'Wedding Bell Blues'/'Stoney End' as a single under her own name. 'Wedding Bell Blues' became a minor hit, especially on the West Coast, and she completed her debut album in New York on 29 November 1966. In February 1967, Verve Folkways released 'More Than A New Discovery', with songs from the record later becoming hits for The 5th Dimension, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Barbra Streisand. On 17 June 1967, Nyro appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival, and although some accounts described her performance as a fiasco that culminated in her being booed off the stage, recordings later made publicly available contradict this version of events. Over the next few years more songs from 'More Than A New Discovery' were noticed by other artists and covered on their records, particularly The 5th Dimension, who had a couple of hit singles with her songs. Peter, Paul And Mary turned their investment in 'And When I Die' into a hit, and Barbara Streisand followed them with 'Stoney End'. By 1971 nearly every song on the album had been covered, and so here are some of the best of them, reinterpreting Laura Nyro's first steps into the music business.  

Track listing

01 Goodbye Joe (Carmen McRae 1970)  
02 Billy's Blues (B. J. Ward 1970)  
03 And When I Die (Blood Sweat And Tears 1968)
04 Stoney End (Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Poneys 1968)
05 Lazy Susan (Amy London 2007)   
06 Hands Off The Man (The Sunshower 1970)
07 Wedding Bell Blues (Bobbie Gentry 1970)
08 Buy And Sell (Chris Connor 1971)
09 He's A Runner (Mama Cass 1969)
10 Blowin' Away (The 5th Dimension 1969)
11 I Never Meant To Hurt You (Barbara Streisand 1971)
12 California Shoe-Shine Boys (Karen Wyman 1970)

Thanks to Ergon3 for supplying the Amy London track.

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Carole King (1973)

In the late 1950's Carole King attended Queens College, where she met Gerry Goffin, who was later to become her song-writing partner. When she was 17, they married in a Jewish ceremony on Long Island in August 1959, after King became pregnant with her first daughter, Louise. After they quit college they took day jobs, with Goffin working as an assistant chemist and King as a secretary, writing songs together in the evening, and after writing the Shirelles' Billboard Hot 100 number 1 hit 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow', they gave up their daytime jobs to concentrate on the song-writing. In the 1960's, with King composing the music and Goffin writing the lyrics, the two wrote a string of classic songs for a variety of artists, including 'Chains' (later recorded by the Beatles), 'The Loco-Motion' and 'Keep Your Hands Off My Baby' (both for their babysitter Little Eva), and 'It Might As Well Rain Until September', which King recorded herself in 1962, charting at number 22 in the US and number 3 in the UK. Other songs from her early period, up to 1967, included 'Half Way To Paradise' for Billy Fury, 'Take Good Care Of My Baby' for Bobby Vee, 'Up On The Roof' for the Drifters, 'I'm Into Something Good' for Earl-Jean (later recorded by Herman's Hermits), 'One Fine Day' for the Chiffons, and 'Pleasant Valley Sunday' for the Monkees. By 1968, Goffin and King were divorced and were starting to lose contact, and King moved to Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles with her two daughters. There she reactivated her recording career by forming 'The City', a music trio consisting of Charles Larkey, her future husband, on bass, Danny Kortchmar on guitar and vocals, and King on piano and vocals. The group produced one album, 'Now That Everything's Been Said', in 1968, but King's reluctance to perform live meant sales were slow, and the group disbanded in 1969. While in Laurel Canyon, she met James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, as well as Toni Stern, with whom she collaborated on songs, and when  King made her first solo album, 'Writer', in 1970, Taylor played acoustic guitar and provided backing vocals. It peaked at number 84 in the Billboard Top 200, and was followed the next year by 'Tapestry', which featured new compositions as well as reinterpretations of 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' and '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman'. 'Tapestry' was an instant success, with numerous hit singles, including a Billboard No.1 with 'It's Too Late', and every song on it has since become a classic. It's therefore no surprise that they have all been covered by a huge variety of artists, and so here are the best of them, reinterpreting this classic album of the 70's.

Track listing

01 I Feel The Earth Move (Design 1973)
02 So Far Away (Marlena Shaw 1972)
03 It's Too Late (The Sandpipers 1971)
04 Home Again (Kate Taylor 1971)
05 Beautiful (Petula Clark 1971)
06 Way Over Yonder (Cornelia 1972)
07 You've Got A Friend (James Taylor 1971)
08 Where You Lead (Barbara Streisand 1971)
09 Will You Love Me Tomorrow? (Roberta Flack 1971)
10 Smackwater Jack (Quincy Jones 1971)
11 Tapestry (Alice Babs 1973)
12 (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin 1967)

Steve Lukather - ...and on guitar (1979)

Steven Lee Lukather was born on 21 October 1957 in the San Fernando Valley, California, and from an early age he was playing keyboards and drums, teaching himself how to play the guitar starting at age seven. His father had bought him a Kay acoustic guitar and a copy of 'Meet The Beatles', and it was an album which he later said changed his life, being particularly influenced by the guitar playing of George Harrison. At Grant High School he met David Paich, and the Porcaro brothers Jeff, Steve, and Mike, all of whom eventually became members of Toto, but by the early 70's he became interested in the idea of becoming a session musician, a vocation that provided opportunities to play with a variety of famous artists. Jeff Porcaro had been playing drums with Steely Dan since 1973, and became a mentor to Lukather, furthering his interest in session work. His first job in the music industry was studio work with Boz Scaggs, after which Paich and Jeff Porcaro asked Lukather to join them in forming a band with his brother Steve, Bobby Kimball, and David Hungate, naming themselves Toto, either after the dog in 'The Wizard Of Oz', or according to an urban myth, after writing 'toto' on their demo tapes to distinguish them from other bands, they then adopted the name, as 'in toto'  was Latin for "all-encompassing", referring to the band members playing on so many records and in so many musical genres. During the 70' and 80's Lukather achieved notability as one of the most sought-after session guitarists in Los Angeles, reputedly playing guitar tracks on more than 1500 albums in his 36 years as a session musician. Named by Gibson Guitar Corporation as one of the Top 10 session guitarists of all time, he has performed on many notable tracks, including Earth, Wind & Fire's 'Faces' album, soloing on the tracks 'Back On The Road' and 'You Went Away', two tracks from the Lionel Richie album 'Can't Slow Down', and on 'Richard Marx's 'Repeat Offender', as well recording virtually all of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' with Jeff Porcaro. With such a massive back-catalogue to choose from, compiling a representative album took quite a while, but in the end I decided just to concentrate of the period between the formation of Toto and the release of their first album, so all of these tracks are from just the two years from 1977 to 1978, with a couple from 1979 to flesh out the second disc. While I was collecting these recordings I noticed that he'd played on quite a lot of sessions for female artists, and in the end it was logical to split them into two discs, one for the guys and one for the gals. Most of the male artists were US singer/songwriters, not always well-known, but generally able to knock out a good song, and so while the original track listing also included songs from Alice Cooper, Peter Criss of KISS, and Japanese songsmith Tahao Kisugi, by excising those songs, it ends up a very cohesive, laid-back singer/songwriter album, so much so that it almost sounds like the work on one artist. The female singers are a more diverse bunch, ranging from Diana Ross and Barbara Streisand to Olivia Newton-John and Helen Reddy, and while he isn't always given the chance of a solo on some of the tracks, his work is nevertheless integral to the song. So enjoy this very small selection of the session-work of Steve Lukather, amounting to less that 1/50th of his total recorded output.  

Track listing

Disc One: The Guys
01 The War Was Over (from 'Terence Boylan' by Terence Boylan 1977)
02 Brother Of Mine (from 'Heart And Soul' by Danny Peck 1977) 
03 A Clue (from 'Down Two Then Left' by Boz Scaggs 1977)
04 But Love Me (from 'A Song Between Us' by Kenny Nolan 1978)
05 Back In Business (from 'Blue Virgin Isles' by Ted Gärdestad 1978)
06 Let The Fire Burn All Night (from 'Craig Fuller & Eric Kaz' by Craig Fuller & Eric Kaz 1978)
07 Can't Be Seen (from 'Dane Donohue' by Dane Donohue 1978)
08 Fly With Me (from 'Single' by Bill Champlin 1978)
09 Lady Of The Night (from 'A Long Time Coming' by David McCluskey 1978) 
10 Change Of Heart (from 'Touch Me' by Cory Wells 1978)
11 Long Time Till The First Time (from 'Yesterdaydreams' by Brian Cadd 1978)
12 Something's Missing (In My Life) From 'Keeping Time' by Paul Jabara 1978)
13 Sons And Daughters (from 'West Coast Confidential' by Steven T. 1978)

Disc Two: The Gals
01 Top Of The World (from 'Baby It's Me' by Diana Ross 1977)
02 Daydream (from 'Lisa Dal Bello' by Lisa Dal Bello 1977)
03 Love Breakdown (from 'Songbird' by Barbra Streisand 1978)
04 It's The Falling In Love (from '...Too' by Carole Bayer Sager 1978)
05 A Little More Love (from 'Totally Hot' by Olivia Newton-John 1978)
06 One After 909 (from 'We'll Sing In The Sunshine' by Helen Reddy 1978)
07 It's Not Impossible (from 'Well Kept Secret' by Juice Newton 1978)
08 Lady In The Dark (from 'Wild Child' by Valerie Carter 1978) 
09 You're The One (from 'Cheryl Lynn' by Cheryl Lynn 1978)
10 Love Is A Crazy Feeling (from 'Kiki Dee' by Kiki Dee 1978)
11 Think It Over (from 'Dance Forever' by Cheryl Ladd 1978)
12 Get Up (from 'Suspended Animations' by Evie Sands 1979)
13 Git Down (Guitar Groupie) (from 'Take Me Home' by Cher 1979)

For MAC users

Press command+shift+period (to show hidden files) and a grayed out folder '...and on guitar" will appear and the mp3s will be inside. Either drag those to another folder OR rename the folder without any periods at the beginning. Press command+shift+period to once again hide the hidden files.