Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Jimmy Webb (1974)

Although 'Sunshower' is considered to be the debut album of Thelma Houston, released in 1969 on Dunhill Records, it could also be classed as a Jimmy Webb album with Thelma Houston as the featured vocalist. It was all written by Webb, apart from a cover of 'Jumpin' Jack Flash', and was also produced and arranged by him, and it charted at number 50 on the Billboard R&B chart. By 1969 Webb had already established himself as one of the best songwriters of the late 60's, with such classic songs as 'By The Time I Get To Phoenix', 'Galveston', 'Wichita Lineman' and 'MacArthur Park' providing massive hits for Glen Campbell and Richard Harris. By 1969 Webb was looking to start a career as a singer/songwriter, but it didn't get off to a very good start when a set of early demo recordings were redubbed and orchestrated by Epic Records without Webb's participation or consent, and released as the 'Jim Webb Sings Jim Webb' album in 1968. None of Webb's hit songs from that period appear on the album, and the sound quality of the recording is distinctly inferior, with Webb later denouncing the release in the strongest terms. He followed this debacle by writing, arranging, and producing Thelma Houston's first album, 'Sunshower', which produced four singles: 'Everybody Gets To Go To The Moon', 'Sunshower', 'If This Was The Last Song' and 'Jumpin' Jack Flash'. The songs were up to his usual high standard, and so it's no surprise that within a year nearly all of them had been covered by other artists, with Frank Sinatra choosing to include his version of 'Didn't We' on his 'My Way' album, released the same year as 'Sunshower'. By 1974 every single Webb song from the album had been added to another artists records, and so here are the best of them, offering an alternate look at Thelma Houston's debut album, without Thelma Houston appearing on it.   

Track listing

01 Sunshower (Affinity 1972)
02 Everybody Gets To Go To The Moon (Judy Singh 1970)
03 To Make It Easier On You (Nancy Wilson 1974)
04 Didn't We (Frank Sinatra 1969)
05 Mixed-Up Girl (Dusty Springfield 1972)
06 Someone Is Standing Outside (The Fortunes 1970)
07 This Is Where I Came In (Richard Harris 1971) 
08 Pocketful Of Keys (Revelation 1970)
09 This Is Your Life (The 5th Dimension 1970)
10 Cheap Lovin' (The Supremes 1972)
11 If This Was The Last Song (Bill Medley 1970)

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)