Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Burt Bacharach (1971)

In 1956 Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David were both working in the Brill Building in New York City for Famous Music, which is where they published their first songs as co-writers. The songs published in 1956 included 'I Cry More' (featured in the motion picture 'Don't Knock The Rock'), 'The Morning Mail', and 'Peggy's In The Pantry', but their career breakthrough came when their song 'The Story Of My Life' was recorded by Marty Robbins, becoming a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Country Chart in 1957. Soon afterward, 'Magic Moments' was recorded by Perry Como for RCA Records, and reached No. 4 on the Most Played by Disc Jockeys chart, and these two songs were the beginning of a career in which they composed over 230 songs together for the pop market, motion pictures, television, and Broadway. In 1961 Bacharach discovered singer Dionne Warwick, who was working as a session backup singer at the time, and that year the two, along with Dionne's sister Dee Dee Warwick, released the single 'Move It On The Backbeat' under the name Burt and the Backbeats - the first time a record appeared under his name. Bacharach and David were both excited by Warwick's singing and decided to form a production company, Blue JAC Productions, so they could write for her and produce her recordings, and she signed with the new company, and the team subsequently secured a recording contract with Scepter Records for Warwick's recordings. Warwick made her solo recording debut in 1962 with 'Don't Make Me Over', which also became her first hit, and their partnership with Warwick became one of the most successful teams in popular music history. Bacharach released his first solo album in 1965 on the Kapp Records label, but 'Hit Maker!: Burt Bacharach Plays the Burt Bacharach Hits' was largely ignored in the U.S., although it rose to No. 3 on the UK album charts, where his version of 'Trains And Boats And Planes' had become a top five single. In 1967, he signed with A&M Records both as an artist and a producer, recording several solo albums, consisting of a mix of new material plus rearrangements of his best-known songs. In 1969 Bacharach released his second A&M album, 'Make It Easy On Yourself', which like its predecessor, featured outstanding song-writing. One of the highlights of the record was the great production between Bacharach and Phil Ramone, as well as the instrumental performances, and even songs that weren't immediately pleasing to the ear grew on the listener. 'I'll Never Fall In Love Again', 'Do You Know The Way To San Jose?' and the title track were all reclaimed and reworked for the record, and by the end of the year of it's release nearly all of the rest of the tracks had been picked up and recorded by other artists for their own records. So here are their takes on the songs from Bacharach's 'Make It Easy On Yourself' album, together with a few tracks from his 1971 eponymous release to make up the running time, and I've gone for less well-known versions of the biggest hits to give it a bit of variety.     

Track listing

01 Promises, Promises (Connie Francis 1968)  
02 I'll Never Fall In Love Again (Bobbie Gentry 1969)  
03 Knowing When To Leave (Kathy Kirby 1969)  
04 Any Day Now (Elvis Presley 1969)
05 Wanting Things (Dionne Warwick 1968)
06 Whoever You Are I Love You (Johnny Mathis 1969)
07 Make It Easy On Yourself (Long John Baldry 1966)
08 Do You Know The Way To San Jose (Rita Reys 1971)

09 Pacific Coast Highway (Jim Wilkas 2023)
10 This Guy's In Love With You (Georgie Fame 1969)
11 All Kinds Of People (The 5th Dimension 1971)
12 One Less Bell To Answer (Gladys Knight And The Pips 1971)

Georgie Fame - Kidney Stew (1966)

Following on from my post of Georgie Fame singles and b-sides, here is a companion album of demos and previously unreleased performances. There are some IBC sessions recordings, some solo tunes, and some with the Blue Flames, and they date from  1963 to 1966. It's based on the 'Bend A Little' album, but I've omitted any alternative versions of album tracks and the German versions of 'Yeh, Yeh' and 'Humpty Dumpty', leaving a nicely compact 42 minute disc. 

Track listing

01 Money (That's What I Want) (IBC session, with The Blue Flames)
02 Soul Stomp  
03 Tan Tan's Tune
04 Kidney Stew (IBC session, with The Blue Flames)
05 Jelly Jelly Blues
06 Lonely Avenue (IBC session, with The Blue Flames)
07 Saturday Night Fish Fry (with The Blue Flames)
08 Black Head Chinaman
09 Moanin' (with The Blue Flames)
10 Incense (with The Blue Flames)
11 This Is Always - This Isn't Sometimes
12 You're Driving Me Crazy (with The Blue Flames)
13 Red Number Nine

Georgie Fame - Bidin' My Time (1967)

Clive Powell was born in on 26th June 1943 in Leigh, Lancashire, England. He took piano lessons from the age of seven and on leaving Leigh Central County Secondary School at 15 he worked for a brief period in a cotton weaving mill, and played piano for a band called the Dominoes in the evenings. After taking part in a singing contest at the Butlins Holiday Camp in Pwllheli, North Wales, he was offered a job there by the band leader, Rory Blackwell, and at sixteen years of age he went to London and entered into a management agreement with Larry Parnes. Parnes had famously given new stage names to artists Marty Wilde and Billy Fury, and wanted to change Powell's name to George Fame, but Powell was very much against it, until Parnes threatened to drop him from his shows if he didn't change it. Over the following year Fame toured the UK playing beside Wilde, Joe Brown, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran and others, and played piano for Billy Fury in his backing band, the Blue Flames. When the backing band got the sack at the end of 1961, they were re-billed as Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames and went on to enjoy great success with a repertoire largely made up of rhythm and blues numbers. 
Fame was influenced by jazz, blues, and the musicians Mose Allison and Willie Mabon, and was one of the first white musicians to be influenced by ska after hearing it in cafés in Jamaica and Ladbroke Grove in England. In 1963, the band recorded its debut album 'Rhythm and Blues At The Flamingo', which was released in place of a planned single by EMI Columbia, but it failed to chart, although the October 1964 follow-up, 'Fame At Last', did reach No. 15 in the UK Albums Chart. Fame enjoyed continued chart success, enjoying three number one hits in the UK, with his version of 'Yeh, Yeh' spending two weeks there in 1965. 'Get Away' was another number 1 hit in 1966, being originally written as a jingle for a petrol commercial, and his version of the Bobby Hebb song 'Sunny' made No. 13 in the UK charts. However,  his greatest chart success was in 1967 when 'The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde' made number 1 in the UK, and No. 7 in the US. Fame continued playing into the 1970's, having a hit with 'Rosetta' with his friend Alan Price of the Animals in 1971, and in 1974, he reunited the Blue Flames and began to sing with European orchestras and big bands, but this album concentrates on his output between 1965 and 1967, when he released a flurry of 7" singles and EP's, many of which were not taken from his then current albums. This is a fine collection of jazz-tinged r'n'b, with a mixture of carefully chosen covers and original material, and highlights a much under-rated talent in the field of jazz and r'n'b. 

Track listing

01 In The Meantime (single 1965)
02 Telegram (b-side of 'In The Meantime') 
03 I'm In Love With You (single 1964)
04 Bend A Little (b-side of 'I'm In Love With You')
05 Do-Re-Mi (b-side of 'Yeh, Yeh' 1965)
06 No No (EP 1965)
07 Blue Monday (from the 'No No' EP)
08 So Long (from the 'No No' EP)
09 Sick And Tired (from the 'No No' EP)
10 Sunny (single 1966)
11 Knock On Wood (single 1967)
12 Bidin' My Time ('Cos I Love You) (single 1967)
13 Road Runner (b-side of 'Knock On Wood')
14 Because I Love You (b-side of 'Bidin' My Time')
15 Try My World (single 1967)
16 No Thanks (b-side of 'Try My World')