Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Randy Newman (1975)

Like the recent Tony Hazzard post, when Randy Newman's debut album came out in 1968, nearly all of the songs had already been released by groups and artists as singles or album tracks, generally in more fully-realised arrangements than Newman's own versions. Newman had been a professional songwriter since he was 17, and cited Ray Charles as his greatest influence growing up, and his first single as a performer was 1962's 'Golden Gridiron Boy', released when he was 18. The single flopped and so he chose to concentrate on songwriting and arranging for the next several years, with an early writing credit being 'They Tell Me It's Summer', which was used as the b-side of the Fleetwoods 1962 single 'Lovers By Night, Strangers By Day'. This led to further commissions from the Fleetwoods, as well as Pat Boone, and some of his other early songs were recorded by Gene Pitney, Jerry Butler, Petula Clark, Dusty Springfield, Jackie DeShannon, the O'Jays, and Irma Thomas, among others, with his work as a songwriter meeting with particular success in the UK. Top 40 UK hits written by Newman included Cilla Black's 'I've Been Wrong Before', Gene Pitney's 'Nobody Needs Your Love', and 'Just One Smile', and the Alan Price Set's 'Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear'. In fact, Price championed Newman by featuring seven of his songs on his 1967 album 'A Price On His Head'. Newman's eponymous 1968 debut album was a critical success but never entered the Billboard Top 200, and apparently the album sold so poorly that Warner offered buyers the opportunity to trade it in for another record in the company's catalog. It's hard to believe that the album was out of print for over 15 years until it was issued on CD in 1995, as Newman's songs have now been covered by an impressive number of artists, including Barbra Streisand, Helen Reddy, Bette Midler, Alan Price, Van Dyke Parks, Dave Van Ronk, Judy Collins, Glen Campbell, Cass Elliot, Art Garfunkel, the Everly Brothers, Claudine Longet, Bonnie Raitt, Dusty Springfield, Tom Odell, Nina Simone, Lynn Anderson, Wilson Pickett, Pat Boone, Neil Diamond and Peggy Lee, and 'I Think It's Going To Rain Today' has become something of a standard. Ten of the album's eleven tracks were covered both before and after its release, and despite Newman's undoubted songwriting skills, even his most ardent fans couldn't say that his vocals are particularly melodious, and so having professional singers performing his songs adds to them them immensely. As the original album was a bit short, I've added similar covers of half a dozen songs from his 1970 follow-up '12 Songs' to boost it to a very enjoyable 47 minutes.    

Track listing

01 Love Story (The Brothers 1967)
02 No One Ever Hurt This Bad (The Alan Price Set 1967)
03 Living Without You (Keith Shields 1967)
04 So Long Dad (Manfred Mann 1967)
05 I Think He's Hiding (Jack Sheldon 1969)
06 Linda (Jack Jones 1969)
07 Cowboy (Three Dog Night 1970)
08 The Beehive State (The Doobie Brothers 1971)
09 I Think It's Going To Rain Today (Eric Burdon & The Animals 1967)
10 Davy The Fat Boy (Joe Brown 1968)
11 Have You Seen My Baby? (Chris Smither 1970)  
12 Let's Burn Down The Cornfield (Lee Hazlewood 1969)
13 Lucinda (Joe Cocker 1975)
14 Yellow Man (Georgie Fame & Alan Price 1971)
15 Old Kentucky Home (The Beau Brummels 1967)
16 Rosemary (Blood, Sweat & Tears 1973) 

Andy Summers - ...and on guitar (1983)

Andrew James Somers was born on 31 December 1942, and is best known for his work with The Police under the name of Andy Summers. During his childhood he took piano lessons, but later took up the guitar, and inspired by seeing concerts by Thelonious Monk and Dizzy Gillepsie he started to play jazz guitar. By sixteen he was playing in local clubs and by nineteen he'd moved to London with his friend Zoot Money to form Zoot Money's Big Roll Band. This group eventually came under the influence of the psychedelic scene and evolved into the acid rock group Dantalion's Chariot, who released the classic psyche single 'The Madman Running Through The Fields' in 1967. After the demise of Dantalion's Chariot, Summers joined Soft Machine for three months and toured the United States, and for a brief time in 1968 he was a member of the Animals, then known as Eric Burdon and the Animals, with whom he recorded the album 'Love Is', featuring a recording of Traffic's 'Coloured Rain' which includes a 4 minute and 15 second guitar solo by Summers. After five years in Los Angeles, mostly spent studying classical guitar and composition in the music programme at California State University, he returned to London, where he recorded and toured with acts including Kevin Coyne, Jon Lord, Joan Armatrading, David Essex, Neil Sedaka and Kevin Ayers. In October 1975 he participated in an orchestral rendition of Mike Oldfield's seminal 'Tubular Bells', and in 1977, he was invited by ex-Gong bassist Mike Howlett to join his band Strontium 90, but was soon coaxed away by future Police bandmates Sting and Stewart Copeland. His session work wound down while he concentrated on helping to promote The Police to the stadium-filling band that they became in their heyday, and although he had a sideline in the early 80's with his recordings with Robert Fripp, there was only one guest appearance while a member of The Police, when he appeared on Carly Simon's 'Hello Big Man' album in 1983. Still, there's enough great material from before The Police to make a really interesting album of his guest appearances.

Track listing

01 Coloured Rain (from 'Love Is' by Eric Burdon and the Animals 1968)
02 Sunday Morning Sunrise (from 'Matching Head And Feet' by Kevin Coyne 1975)
03 Steppin' Out (from 'Back To The Night' by Joan Armatrading 1975)
04 Sarabande (from 'Sarabande' by Jon Lord 1976)
05 Room Service (from 'Sailing Down The Years' by Kevin Lamb 1978)
07 You Know What To Do (from 'Hello Big Man' by Carly Simon 1983)
06 Octogon (from 'Video-Magic' by Eberhard Schoener 1978)