Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Gordon Lightfoot (1977)

Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. was born on 17 November 1938 in Orillia, Ontario, and after his mother recognized his musical talent early on she schooled him to become a successful child performer. He first performed publicly in grade four, singing the Irish-American lullaby 'Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral', which was broadcast over his school's public address system during a parents' day event, and as a youth he sang in the choir of Orillia's St. Paul's United Church under the direction of choirmaster Ray Williams. As a teenager he learned piano and taught himself to play drums and percussion, holding concerts in Muskoka, a resort area north of Orillia, and performing extensively throughout high school, teaching himself to play folk guitar along the way. In 1958 he moved to Los Angeles to study jazz composition and orchestration for two years at Westlake College of Music, and to support himself while in California he sang on demonstration records and wrote, arranged, and produced commercial jingles. After his return to Canada he performed with the Singin' Swingin' Eight, a group featured on CBC TV's Country Hoedown, and also with the Gino Silvi Singers, and in 1961 he released two singles, both recorded at RCA in Nashville and produced by Chet Atkins, that were local hits in Toronto. In 1963 he travelled in Europe, and for a year in the UK he hosted BBC TV's Country and Western Show, returning to Canada in 1964. 

Around this time he began to develop a reputation as a songwriter, with Ian and Sylvia Tyson recording his 'Early Mornin' Rain' and 'For Lovin' Me', and a year later both songs were recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary. With this validation of his song-writing skill, artists such as Marty Robbins ('Ribbon Of Darkness'), Judy Collins ('Early Morning Rain'), Richie Havens and Spyder Turner ('I Can't Make It Anymore'), and the Kingston Trio ('Early Morning Rain') all achieved some chart success with Lightfoot's material. In 1965 he signed a management contract with Albert Grossman, and a recording contract with United Artists, who released his version of 'I'm Not Sayin'' as a single. 1966 marked the release of his debut album 'Lightfoot!', which brought him greater exposure as both a singer and a songwriter, and the record featured many now-famous songs, including 'For Lovin' Me', 'Early Mornin' Rain', 'Steel Rail Blues', and 'Ribbon Of Darkness'. On the strength of the 'Lightfoot!' album, he became one of the first Canadian singers to achieve definitive home-grown stardom without having moved permanently to the United States to develop it. The variety of artists featured on this collection just proves what a versatile songwriter Lightfoot was, with pop groups, folk bands, and R&B singers all covering his songs, and folk-rock legends Fotheringay rated him highly enough to include one of his songs on their debut album, despite having a number of renowned songwriters in the band. 'Lightfoot!' did include three covers, and so in a slight departure from the usual format of these albums I've included the original versions of those, so that all of the songs from the album are featured in versions other than Lightfoot's. 

Track listing

01 Rich Man's Spiritual (Ronnie Hawkins 1968)

02 Long River (Knoxville Grass 1977)

03 The Way I Feel (Fotheringay 1970)

04 For Lovin' Me (Chad & Jeremy 1965)

05 The First Time (Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger 1970)

06 Changes (Phil Ochs 1966)

07 Early Morning Rain (Peter, Paul And Mary 1965)

08 Steel Rail Blues (George Hamilton IV 1966)

09 Sixteen Miles (Bonnie Dobson 1972)

10 I'm Not Sayin' (The Ian Campbell Folk Group 1968)

11 Pride Of Man (Hamilton Camp 1964)

12 Ribbon Of Darkness (The Pozo Seco Singers 1967)

13 Oh' Linda (The Pacers featuring Bobby Crawford 1967)

14 Peaceful Waters (Ed Ames 1969)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Paul Simon (2000)

Paul Simon met Art Garfunkel when they were both 10, when they performed in a production of Alice in Wonderland for their sixth-grade graduation, and they began singing together when they were 13, occasionally performing at school dances. It was around this time that Simon wrote his first song, 'The Girl For Me', for him and Garfunkel to sing, and in 1957, while still in their mid-teens, they recorded the song 'Hey, Schoolgirl' under the name 'Tom & Jerry', which reached number 49 on the pop charts. Between 1957 and 1964 Simon wrote, recorded and released more than 30 songs, occasionally reuniting with Garfunkel as Tom & Jerry for some singles, including 'Our Song' and 'That's My Story'. Most of the songs Simon recorded during that time were performed alone or with musicians other than Garfunkel, and they were released on minor record labels including Amy, Big, Hunt, King, Tribute and Madison under several pseudonyms, such as Jerry Landis, Paul Kane and True Taylor. In early 1964, Simon and Garfunkel auditioned for Columbia Records, whose executive Clive Davis signed them to produce an album. Columbia decided that the two would be called Simon & Garfunkel instead of Tom & Jerry, and their first album, 'Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.', was released in October 1964. It contained five Simon compositions, but it was not successful, and so after its release Simon moved to England and performed in folk clubs. While in London he recorded 'The Paul Simon Songbook', which was a collection of his songs, a couple of which had already appeared on the first Simon & Garfunkel album.  The album was released along with the single 'I Am A Rock'/'Leaves That Are Green' in 1965, and as many of these songs were later re-recorded for Simon And Garfunkel albums, this is the perfect collection to offer to other artists to hear their takes on these early works. As often happens, these artists could see the quality of the songs from the start, and so most of these covers appeared between 1965 and 1967, and to round out what is rather a short album I've added two contemporary songs to the end.  

Track listing 

01 I Am A Rock (The Grass Roots 1966)
02 Leaves That Are Green (The Coterie 1969)   
03 A Church Is Burning (Cy, Maia & Robert 1965)
04 April Come She Will (Hamilton Camp 1969) 
05 The Sound Of Silence (The Ravers 1966)   
06 A Most Peculiar Man (The Cowsills 1967)
07 He Was My Brother (The Pilgrims 1964)
08 Kathy's Song (Eva Cassidy 2000)
09 The Side Of A Hill (The Paravrim 1972)
10 A Simple Desultory Philippic (Swamp Zombies 1988)
11 Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall (The MacDonald Folk Group 1968)  
12 Patterns (Tir Ni Nog 1970) 
13 We've Got A Groovey Thing Going (The Racket Squad 1968)
14 Homeward Bound (The Quiet Five 1966)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Leonard Cohen (2013)

Leonard Norman Cohen was born on 21 September 1934, and is best known as a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist. He initially pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950's and early 1960's, with his first published book of poetry, 'Let Us Compare Mythologies', being published by Dudek in 1956, the year after his graduation. It was the first book in the McGill Poetry Series, and it contained poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of 15 and 20. By 1957 he working various odd jobs and focusing on the writing of fiction and poetry, including the poems for his next book, 'The Spice-Box Of Earth', published in 1961. He continued to write poetry and fiction throughout the 1960's and preferred to live in quasi-reclusive circumstances after he bought a house on Hydra, a Greek island in the Saronic Gulf. While living and writing on Hydra, he published the poetry collection 'Flowers For Hitler' in 1964, and the novel 'The Favourite Game' in 1963, which was an autobiographical tale about a young man who discovers his identity through writing. In 1967, disappointed with his lack of success as a writer, Cohen moved to the United States to pursue a career as a folk music singer/songwriter. His song 'Suzanne' became a hit for Judy Collins (who subsequently recorded a number of Cohen's other compositions), and was for many years his most recorded song. After performing at a few folk festivals, he came to the attention of Columbia Records producer John Hammond, who signed him to a record deal. His first album was 'Songs Of Leonard Cohen', released in the US in late 1967 to generally dismissive reviews, but it became a favourite in the UK on its release in early 1968, where it spent over a year on the album charts. Several of the songs on that first album were recorded by other popular folk artists, including James Taylor and Judy Collins, and the album has been continually dipped into by other musicians for inspiration ever since, resulting in every track being treated to a superlative cover by 2013, all of which can be heard on this reimagining of Leonard Cohen's debut album. 

Track listing

01 Suzanne (Roberta Flack 1973)
02 Master Song (John Bergaron 2004)
03 Winter Lady (Caecilie Norby 2013)
04 The Stranger Song (Tamco 2010)
05 Sisters Of Mercy (Dion 1968)
06 So Long, Marianne (Bell + Arc 1970)
07 Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye (Hamilton Camp 1969)
08 Stories Of The Street (The Low Anthem 2012)
09 Teachers (Omnia 2010)
10 One Of Us Cannot Be Wrong (Gregory Alan Isakov 2009)