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 Carole Bayer Sager (1980)

Carole Bayer was born on 8 March 1944 in Manhattan, New York City, and while still a student at New York City High School she wrote her first pop hit, 'A Groovy Kind Of Love', with Toni Wine, which was recorded by UK group The Mindbenders, whose version was a worldwide hit and reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. She wrote many hits during the 1970's, often collaborating with Melissa Manchester on songs that would appear on Manchester's solo albums of the period. Her songs from this time include 'Come In From The Rain' and 'Midnight Blue', which would go on to be covered by many other artists, and she also scored major hits collaborating with Albert Hammond on 'When I Need You' and Bruce Roberts with 'You're The Only One'. She married record producer Andrew Sager in 1970, and from then on worked under the name Carole Bayer Sager, under which name she released her first recording as a singer with her 1977 self-titled album 'Carole Bayer Sager', produced by Brooks Arthur. It included the hit single 'You're Moving Out Today', a song which she co-wrote with Bette Midler and Bruce Roberts, and it topped the charts in Australia, and also reached number 6 in the UK Singles Chart. The album also included her own versions of two songs previously recorded by Melissa Manchester – 'Home To Myself' and the oft-covered 'Come In From The Rain', but it wasn't long before other artists picked up on the rest of the songs on it, and by 1980 all bar one track had received a cover version, so here are the best of them in a reinterpretation of Carole Bayer Sager's debut release, with a lovely Gladys Knight cover added to the end to make up for the missing 'Aces'.   

Track listing

01 Come In From The Rain (Diana Ross 1977)  
02 Until The Next Time (Torill 1978)  
03 Don't Wish Too Hard (Jack Jones 1980)
04 Sweet Alibis (Carmen McRae 1980) 
05 I'd Rather Leave While I'm In Love (Dusty Springfield 1978)
06 Steal Away Again (Joey Travolta 1978)
07 You're Moving Out Today (Bette Midler 1976)
08 Shy As A Violet (Peter Allen 1975)
09 Home To Myself (Brenda And The Tabulations 1976)
10 I'm Coming Home Again (Gladys Knight 1978)

Dusty Springfield - Longing (1974)

'Longing' was to have been Dusty Springfield's second LP for the ABC Dunhill Records label, and her ninth studio album overall, and was recorded in New York and produced by Brooks Arthur, best known for his work as a sound engineer for Phil Spector and Bert Berns throughout most of the 1960's. The working title during the recording sessions was 'Elements', but it was later re-christened 'Longing', and was even given a catalogue number: DSD-50186, and advertised in the press as a forth-coming release. The sessions were fraught, however, with Dusty feeling uninvolved in her own work (owing partly to her own reported perfectionist tendencies), and at the same time suffering from self-esteem issues and problems with substance abuse, and so she abandoned the 'Longing' album altogether late in the year. This was her last attempt at recording an album for four years, finally returning to the music scene with the 1978 album 'It Begins Again', which included re-recordings of two of the 'Longing' songs, the Motown classic 'A Love Like Yours (Don't Come Knocking Everyday)', and Chi Coltrane's 'Turn Me Around'. Some of the tracks used incomplete or 'practice' vocals, done to enable a release of the album in any form; and 'Corner of the Sky' is one of these, with Dusty never actually singing a whole verse. However, in 2007 Petula Clark was recording an album of duets and wanted to sing with Dusty, and she chose this song to sing on, so her producer was able to complete the track with the two vocalists, and that is the version I've used here.  
Despite not being officially released, 'Longing' is generally considered by those who've heard the songs to contain some of Dusty's most critically acclaimed work, with Janis Ian and Melissa Manchester praising her versions of their songs. The album itself was quite short, so I've added on a German single from the same year, as although the song was originally recorded some years earlier it seemed to fit perfectly with the rest of the album, and as a bonus I've tracked down the theme song to the TV series 'The Six Million Dollar Man', which Dusty recorded in 1974, and I've tried to stretch out the 45 second snippet to something that's worth hearing.

Track listing

01 Exclusively For Me
02 Beautiful Soul
03 Home To Myself
04 Angels
05 Corner Of The Sky
06 In the Winter
07 Make The Man Love Me
08 I Am Your Child
09 Turn Me Around
10 A Love Like Yours (Don't Come Knocking Everyday)
11 If You Go Away (Ne Me Quitte Pas)
12 The Six Million Dollar Man