Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Gordon Lightfoot's 'Summer Side Of Life' (2021)

In May 1971 Gordon Lightfoot released his sixth studio album 'Summer Side Of Life' on the Reprise Records label. The album marked a departure from the sound Lightfoot had established on 'Sit Down Young Stranger' in its use of drums and electric instrumentation, to which he would later return in the second half of the decade, and a song like 'Redwood Hill' even contains elements of bluegrass music. The title track was released as a single and peaked at number 98 on the pop singles chart while 'Talking In Your Sleep' reached number 64, while in his homeland of Canada they were both top 30 hits. Anne Murray took her cover of 'Cotton Jenny' into the top 20 on the U.S. country singles chart, while 'Love And Maple Syrup' was covered by Taylor Mitchell in 2009. Nanci Griffith tackled '10 Degrees And Getting Colder' on her 1993 album, 'Other Voices, Other Rooms', after the song had previously been recorded by J. D. Crowe & The New South on their eponymous album in 1975. As with other albums by Lightfoot in this series, the quality of the song-writing was immediately apparent to other artists, and the majority of the songs from this record had been covered by the following year, and so here is another fine collection of Lightfoot's songs as interpreted by other artists.

Track listing

01 10 Degrees & Getting Colder (Jeffrey Shurtleff 1972)
02 Miguel (Jim Donaldson 2011)
03 Go My Way (Val Doonican 1971) 
04 Summer Side Of Life (Blackie And The Rodeo Kings 2003)
05 Cotton Jenny (Anne Murray 1971)
06 Talking In Your Sleep (Caroline Wiles 2021) 
07 Nous Vivons Ensemble (Martin Peltier 1972)
08 Same Old Loverman (Percy Sledge 1971)  
09 Redwood Hill (The Country Gentlemen 1972) 
10 Love & Maple Syrup (Jack Hudson 1972)  
11 Cabaret (John McLachlan 2021) 

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Bob Dylan's 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' (2001)

Whereas Bob Dylan's previous albums, 'Bob Dylan' and 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan', combined original material and cover songs, 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' was the first to feature only original compositions. It consists mostly of stark, sparsely arranged ballads concerning issues such as racism, poverty, and social change, and the title track is one of Dylan's most famous, with many feeling that it captures the spirit of social and political upheaval that characterized the 1960's. Some critics and fans were not quite as taken with the album as a whole, citing its lack of humour or musical diversity, but it still peaked at No. 20 on the US chart, eventually going gold, and belatedly reaching No. 4 in the UK in 1965. Work had begun on 6 August 1963, at Columbia's Studio A, with Tom Wilson once again as producer for the entire album, and the session yielded a usable take of 'North Country Blues'. Another session at Studio A was held the following day, this time providing master takes of four songs: 'Ballad Of Hollis Brown', 'With God On Our Side', 'Only A Pawn In Their Game', and 'Boots Of Spanish Leather', after which sessions did not resume for more than two months. During the interim, Dylan toured briefly with Joan Baez, performing a number of key concerts that raised his profile in the media, and when he returned to Studio A on 23 October he had six more original compositions ready for recording. Master takes for 'The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll' and 'When The Ship Comes In' came from this date, and on 24 October final takes of 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' and 'One Too Many Mornings' were recorded. The final session took place on 31 October, and the entire session focused on one song — 'Restless Farewell'— whose melody is taken from an Irish-Scots folk song, 'The Parting Glass', and it produced a master take that ultimately closed the album. Almost as soon as the album appeared in February 1964, Peter, Paul and Mary covered 'When The Ship Comes In', and by the following year Manfred Mann had charted with their version of 'With God On Our Side', while The Seekers had recorded the title track and Nina Simone covered 'Ballad Of Hollis Brown'. Most of these versions are from the couple of years following the release of the album, but it took until 1988 before someone tackled 'Only A Pawn In Their Game', and 2001 for a cover of 'Restless Farewell' to follow Joan Baez's version in 1968, so here they all are on this tribute to a classic Dylan album.  

Track listing

01 The Times They Are A-Changin' (The Seekers 1965)
02 Ballad Of Hollis Brown (Nazareth 1973)
03 With God On Our Side (Manfred Mann 1965)
04 One Too Many Mornings (The Beau Brummels 1966)
05 North Country Blues (Joan Baez 1968)
06 Only A Pawn In Their Game (The Lenny Nelson Project 1988)
07 Boots Of Spanish Leather (The Silkie 1965)
08 When The Ship Comes In (Peter, Paul And Mary 1964)
09 The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll (Phranc 1985)
10 Restless Farewell (Norman Blake & Peter Ostroushko 2001)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Gordon Lightfoot's 'Did She Mention My Name?' (2023)

Gordon Lightfoot's second album 'The Way I Feel' was released in 1967, and to kick off Canada's Centennial year, the CBC commissioned Lightfoot to write the 'Canadian Railroad Trilogy' for a special broadcast on January 1, 1967. This was the centre-piece of his new album, which was generally well-received, if perceived as slightly inferior to its predecessor, and 'Did She Mention My Name?' followed in 1968, being his first to feature orchestration, and it included 'Black Day In July', about the 1967 Detroit riot. Weeks later, following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, radio stations in 30 states pulled the song for "fanning the flames", even though it was actually a plea for racial harmony. Lightfoot's reputation as a songwriter of note was still in evidence, confirmed by the fact that nearly every track on the album had been attempted by other artists by 1970, and so here are some of the best versions of the songs from Gordon Lightfoot's third studio album from 1968, with two songs from the same era added to the end to make up for 'May I' and 'Boss Man' not having available cover versions.    

Track listing

01 The Wherefore And The Why (The Johnstons 1968)
02 The Last Time I Saw Her (Glen Campbell 1971)
03 Black Day In July (The Tragically Hip 2003)
04 Magnificent Outpouring (The Triban 1969)  
05 Does Your Mother Know (The Sandalwood Candle 1970)
06 The Mountain And Maryann (Kenny Rankin 1969)
07 Pussywillows, Cat-tails (Pat Hervey 1970) 
08 I Want To Hear It From You (Lou Rawls 1968)
09 Something Very Special (Dylan Bell 2023)
10 Did She Mention My Name (George Hamilton IV 1968) 
11 Bitter Green (The Idle Race 1971)
12 The Gypsy (Petula Clark 1974)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Donovan (2014)

By 1966, Donovan had shed the Dylan/Guthrie influences and become one of the first British pop musicians to adopt flower power, immersing himself in jazz, blues, Eastern music, and the new generation of counterculture-era US West Coast bands such as Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead. He was entering his most creative phase as a songwriter and recording artist, working with Mickie Most and with arranger, musician, and jazz fan John Cameron, and their collaboration on Sunshine Superman was one of the first psychedelic pop records. Donovan's rise stalled in December 1965 when Billboard broke news of the impending production deal between Klein, Most, and Donovan, and then reported that Donovan was to sign with Epic Records in the US. Despite Kozak's denials, Pye Records dropped the single and a contract dispute ensued, because Pye had a US licensing arrangement with Warner Bros. Records. As a result, the UK release of the Sunshine Superman album was delayed for months, robbing it of the impact it would have had off the back of the hit single. Another outcome was that the UK and US versions of this and later albums differed, with three of his Epic LPs not being released in the UK, while 'Sunshine Superman' was issued in a different form in each country. By spring 1966 the American contract problems had been resolved, with Donovan signing a $100,000 deal with Epic Records, and he and Most went to CBS Studios in Los Angeles, where they recorded tracks for an album, much of which was composed during the preceding year. 

Although folk elements were prominent, the songs showed increasing influence of jazz, American west coast psychedelia and folk rock, especially from The Byrds. 'Sunshine Superman' was released in the US as a single in June, and reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart, and later number 2 in the UK. The US version of the album features instruments including acoustic bass, sitar, saxophone, tablas and congas, harpsichord, strings and oboe, and highlights include the swinging 'The Fat Angel', written for Cass Elliot of the Mamas & the Papas, 'Bert's Blues' (a tribute to Bert Jansch), 'Guinevere', and 'Legend Of A Girl Child Linda'. The driving, jazzy 'The Trip' was named after a Los Angeles club, and chronicled an LSD trip during his time in L.A., and is loaded with references to his sojourn on the West Coast. Because of the earlier contractual problems, the UK version of 'Sunshine Superman' was not released for another nine months, and as Donovan had released another record in the US by this time, the UK version was a compilation of tracks from the US 'Sunshine Superman', and its follow-up 'Mellow Yellow'. I think most of the better tracks on the UK version come from the US 'Sunshine Superman' album, so for this post I've used that as a basis, and every track has received a superlative cover version, all of which are included on this reimagining of arguably Donovan's best album. 

Track listing

01 Sunshine Superman (Mike Vickers 1967)
02 Legend Of A Girl Child Linda (Joan Baez, Judy Collins & Mimi Farina 1967)
03 Three King Fishers (Gabor Szabo 1968)
04 Ferris Wheel (Rick Wooley 1980)
05 Bert's Blues (Burnt Branch 2014)
06 Season Of The Witch (Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll & The Trinity 1967)
07 The Trip (Ryan Green 2013)
08 Guinevere (Paul Roland 1992)
09 The Fat Angel (Jefferson Airplane 1969)
10 Celeste (Scott McKenzie 1967)

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 Syd Barrett (2022)

In the second half of 1967 and through to early 1968, while still part of Pink Floyd, Syd Barrett's behaviour became increasingly erratic and unpredictable, with reports of him on stage with the group during this period strumming on one chord through an entire concert or not playing at all. Following an increasingly difficult US tour with him in 1967, and with David Gilmour drafted in to help out with live dates, the rest of the band decided that they couldn't work with Barrett any more, and on 6 April 1968 they officially announced that he was no longer a member of Pink Floyd. After Barrett left Pink Floyd, Peter Jenner and Andrew King, from the band's management, followed suit, feeling that as Barrett was the creative centre of the band, they would rather represent him than Pink Floyd. In May Jenner led Barrett into EMI Studios to record some solo material, but this was only partially successful, with most tracks having no vocals. Recording resumed in June and July, with better progress being made this time, but shortly after the July dates, Barrett abruptly stopped recording, breaking up with girlfriend Lindsay Corner, and then going off on a drive around Britain in his Mini, at the end of which he ended up in psychiatric care in Cambridge. 

By the start of 1969, a somewhat recovered Barrett decided to return to his musical career and revisit the Jenner-produced recordings, and so in April 1969 he began working on newer material, while reworking the 1968 recordings. After some months of work on the songs, Barrett told his flatmate that he was going off "for an afternoon drive", but instead followed Pink Floyd out to Ibiza, and during the trip, he asked David Gilmour for his help on the album, and so at the end of May, Malcolm Jones abandoned his production responsibilities and Gilmour and Waters took over. Although they were in the process of completing Pink Floyd's 'Ummagumma' album, they took time out and helped Barrett finish his album, managing to record a number of his songs during a June session, and then coming back to complete the project after taking a temporary break to mix 'Ummagumma' and undertake a tour of the Netherlands. After several months of intermittent recording, the album was finally deemed complete, and once the final recording sessions for the album had been completed, Gilmour and Waters mixed not just the tracks they had produced, but also the previously recorded songs with Malcolm Jones, in a matter of two days. 

'Octopus' was released as a single in November 1969, and 'The Madcap Laughs' followed on 2 January 1970, with both records appearing on the Harvest Records label. The album was fairly well-reviewed by music critics, and has since become something of a classic of the psychedelic music genre, and so the songs are ripe for interpretation by other bands with the same midset. Marc And The Mambas deliver a great take on 'Terrapin', and Slowdive's version of 'Golden Hair' is pretty much exactly as you would expect it to sound. REM have covered 'Dark Globe', and The Shamen and The Mock Turtles have both provided superb takes of a couple of songs from the record for official tribute albums to Barrett, while two of my personal favourite bands finally appear together, with The Green Pajamas and The Cleaners From Venus both giving it their best. I'll have to admit that this is one of the most idiosyncratic collections in this series, but every artist on here shows an obvious love for the source material, and so in the end it makes for an intriguing and enjoyable listen. 

Track listing

01 Terrapin (Marc And The Mambas 1982) 
02 No Good Trying (The Mock Turtles 1987)
03 Love You (The Besnard Lakes 2010)
04 No Man's Land (Race Horses 2010)
05 Dark Globe (REM 1989)  
06 Here I Go (The Balters 2022)
07 Octopus (Carnival Art 1990)
08 Golden Hair (Slowdive 1991)
09 Long Gone (The Shamen 1987)
10 She Took A Long Cold Look (The Green Pajamas 2000)
11 Feel (Marinus Pee 2015)
12 If It's In You (Jennifer Gentle 2010)
13 Late Night (The Cleaners From Venus 1985)

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)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Dolly Parton (2002)

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on 9 January 1946 in Pittman Center, Tennessee, and is the fourth of twelve children. For six or seven years, Parton and her family lived in their rustic, one-bedroom cabin on their small subsistence farm on Locust Ridge, and music played an important role in her early life. Her earliest public performances were in the church, beginning at age six, and by seven she'd started playing a homemade guitar. When she was eight, her uncle bought her first real guitar and she began singing on local radio and television programs in the East Tennessee area. By ten, she was appearing on The Cas Walker Show on both WIVK Radio and WBIR-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee, and at 13, she recorded a single 'Puppy Love' on a small Louisiana label, Goldband Records. After graduating from Sevier County High School in 1964, she moved to Nashville the next day, where her initial success came as a songwriter, having signed with Combine Publishing shortly after her arrival. With her frequent songwriting partner, her uncle Bill Owens, she wrote several charting singles during this time, including two Top 10 hits for Bill Phillips, with 'Put It Off Until Tomorrow' and 'The Company You Keep', and one for Skeeter Davis with 'Fuel To The Flame'. 

Her songs were recorded by many other artists during this period, including Kitty Wells and Hank Williams Jr., but when she was signed to Monument Records in 1965, she initially was pitched as a bubblegum pop singer. She released a string of singles, but the only one that charted, 'Happy, Happy Birthday Baby', did not crack the Billboard Hot 100. Although she expressed a desire to record country material, Monument resisted, thinking her unique, high soprano voice was not suited to the genre. After her composition 'Put It Off Until Tomorrow', was recorded by Bill Phillips and went to number six on the country chart in 1966, the label relented and allowed her to record country music. Her first country single was 'Dumb Blonde' (composed by Curly Putman, and one of the few songs during this era that she didn't write), which reached number 24 on the country chart in 1967, followed by 'Something Fishy', which went to number 17, and both songs appeared on her debut album 'Hello, I'm Dolly' in 1967. In order to showcase her song-writing talents, she recorded her own versions of the Bill Phillips and Skeeter Davis singles for inclusion on the record, and other songs from it were soon picked up and covered by other country artists. Only two tracks from the album were not self-penned, but because 'Dumb Blonde' is so associated with her I've included it on this collection anyway, and to flesh out a rather short album I've included a few tracks written during the same time-frame, which all go to show what a talented song-writer she was even in her teens. 

Track listing

01 Dumb Blonde (Liz Anderson 1968)         
02 Your Ole Handy Man (Priscilla Mitchell 1967)  
03 I Don't Wanna Throw Rice (Ursula West 2002)  
04 Put It Off Until Tomorrow (Loretta Lynn 1966)  
05 I Wasted My Tears (The Traditional Grass 1993)  
06 Something Fishy (Marie Strong 1968)  
07 Fuel To The Flame (Skeeter Davis 1967)  
08 I'm In No Condition (Hank Williams Jr. 1967)  
09 The Company You Keep (Bill Phillips 1966) 
10 You're Gonna Be Sorry (The Stonemans 1968)
11 Just Because I'm A Woman (Jeannie Seely 1968)
12 Why Why Why (Tracy Nelson 1969)
13 As Long As I Love You (Dottie West 1970)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Nick Drake (2018)

Nicholas Rodney Drake was born on 19 June 1948 in Burma, with the family, including his older sister the successful actress Gabrielle, moving back to England to live in Warwickshire in 1951. At school he played piano and learned clarinet and saxophone, and formed a band, the Perfumed Gardeners, with four schoolmates in 1964 or 1965. Drake contributed piano and occasional alto sax and vocals, and when Chris de Burgh asked to join the group, he was rejected as his taste was "too poppy". In 1966 Drake enrolled at a tutorial college in Five Ways, Birmingham, where he won a scholarship to study at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, but in his gap year before starting the course he travelled with friends to Morocco, returning to England in 1967 and moving into his sister's flat in Hampstead, London. That October, he enrolled at Cambridge to begin his studies in English literature, and in January 1968 he met Robert Kirby, a music student who went on to write many of the string and woodwind arrangements for Drake's first two albums. By this time, Drake had discovered the British and American folk music scenes, and was influenced by performers such as Bob Dylan, Donovan, Van Morrison, Josh White and Phil Ochs, and he performed in local clubs and coffee houses around London. After spotting him in one of these clubs, Fairport Convention bassist Ashley Hutchings introduced him to the 25-year-old American producer Joe Boyd, owner of the production and management company Witchseason Productions.  

Boyd was a respected figure in the UK folk scene, and he and Drake formed an immediate bond, with Boyd acting as a mentor to Drake throughout his career. Impressed by a four-track demo recorded in Drake's college room in early 1968, Boyd offered Drake a management, publishing, and production contract, and Drake recorded his debut album 'Five Leaves Left' later in 1968, with Boyd as producer. He sought to include a string arrangement similar to John Simon's on Leonard Cohen's debut, and to provide backing he enlisted contacts from the London folk rock scene, including Fairport Convention guitarist Richard Thompson and Pentangle bassist Danny Thompson. Ultimately, both Drake and Boyd were unhappy with arranger Richard Anthony Hewson's contribution, and so Drake suggested his college friend Robert Kirby as a replacement, and he provided most of the arrangements for the album, including its centrepiece 'River Man'. Post-production difficulties delayed the release by several months, and the album was poorly marketed and supported, receiving little radio play outside of shows by more progressive BBC DJs such as John Peel and Bob Harris. Despite this low-key reception at the time, 'Five Leaves Left' has since become regarded as a classic album of the folk scene, and despite a push by Boyd in 1970 to get Drake's songs more well-known, by arranging a session by Elton John and Linda Peters (later Linda Thompson) to record some of them to be sent out to publishers, most of the best covers have appeared since the turn of the last century. These ten versions of the songs from Drake's debut album all capture the delicacy of the music while still allowing the performers to add their own personality to their interpretation of the songs. 

  
Track listing

01 Time Has Told Me (Elton John 1968)
02 River Man (Norma Waterson 1999)
03 Three Hours (Keith James 2003)
04 Day Is Done (Charlie Hunter Quartet featuring Norah Jones 2001)
05 Way To Blue (In Gowan Ring 2007)
06 'Cello Song (The Books featuring Jose Gonzales 2009)
07 The Thoughts Of Mary Jane (Vashti Bunyan and Gareth Dickson 2018)
08 Man In A Shed (Beatrice Mason featuring Leoni 2018)
09 Fruit Tree (Green Gartside 2013) 
10 Saturday Sun (Alexis Korner 1971)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Joni Mitchell (2014)

Roberta Joan Anderson on 7 November 1943, in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada, and moved with her family to Saskatoon, which she considers her hometown, at age 11. She wanted to play the guitar, but as her mother associated the instrument with country music and disapproved of its hillbilly associations, she initially settled for the ukulele, although she eventually taught herself guitar from a Pete Seeger songbook. She started singing with her friends at bonfires around Waskesiu Lake, northwest of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and after dropping out of school after a year at age 20, she started to play gigs as a folk musician on weekends at her college and at a local hotel. In 1964, at the age of 20, she told her mother that she intended to be a folk singer in Toronto, and wrote her first song 'Day After Day' on the three-day train ride east to Ontario. In February 1965 she was playing gigs again around Yorkville, often with a friend, Vicky Taylor, and was beginning to sing original material for the first time, written with her unique open tunings. In March and April she found work at the Penny Farthing, a folk club in Toronto, where she met New York City-born American folk singer Charles Scott "Chuck" Mitchell, from Michigan. Chuck was immediately attracted to her and impressed by her performance, and he told her that he could get her steady work in the coffeehouses he knew in the United States. She left Canada for the first time in late April 1965, travelling with Mitchell to the US, where they began playing music together, and they later married, with Joni taking his surname, although the marriage and partnership ended with their divorce in early 1967. Following this, she moved to New York City to follow her musical path as a solo artist, and while she was playing one night in 1967 in the Gaslight South, a club in Coconut Grove, Florida, David Crosby walked in and was immediately struck by her ability and her appeal as an artist. She accompanied him back to Los Angeles, where he set about introducing her and her music to his friends, and soon she was signed to the Warners-affiliated Reprise label by talent scout Andy Wickham. 

Crosby convinced Reprise to let Mitchell record a solo acoustic album without the folk-rock overdubs in vogue at that time, and 'Song To Seagull' was released in March 1968. She toured steadily to promote the album, creating eager anticipation for her second LP, 'Clouds', which was released in April 1969. This contained her own versions of some of her songs already recorded and performed by other artists, such as 'Chelsea Morning', 'Both Sides, Now', and 'Tin Angel', and the covers of both albums were designed and painted by Mitchell herself.  In April 1970 Reprise released her third album, 'Ladies Of The Canyon', and her sound was already beginning to expand beyond the confines of acoustic folk music and toward pop and rock, with more overdubs, percussion, and backing vocals, and for the first time, many songs composed on piano, which became a hallmark of Mitchell's style in her most popular era. 'Ladies Of The Canyon' was an instant smash on FM radio and sold briskly, eventually becoming Mitchell's first gold album, but she made a decision to stop touring for a year and just write and paint. The songs she wrote during the months she took off for travel and life experience appeared on her next album, 'Blue', released in June 1971, which was an almost instant critical and commercial success, peaking in the top 20 of the Billboard albums chart in September and also hitting the British Top 3. The lushly produced 'Carey' was the single at the time, but musically, other parts of 'Blue' departed further from the sounds of 'Ladies Of The Canyon', with simpler, rhythmic acoustic parts allowed a focus on Mitchell's voice and emotions, while others such as 'Blue', 'River' and 'The Last Time I Saw Richard' were sung to her rolling piano accompaniment. With the music now so much more than just folk songs, they were soon picked up and recorded by a variety of artists in other fields, such as soul rendition of 'All I Want' by The Supremes, or the hard rock of 'This Flight Tonight' by Nazareth. The songs from 'Blue' have continued to be covered ever since, with Linda Ronstadt tackling 'River' in 2000, and Wilson Phillips taking on 'California' in 2004. 'Blue' is often cited as one of the best albums of all time, being rated the 30th best album ever made in Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", and so here is a unique interpretation of it by a variety of artists who appreciate the quality of her song-writing.   

Track listing

01 All I Want (The Supremes 1972)  
02 My Old Man (Sandbloom 2011) 
03 Little Green (Blue Tapestry 2002) 
04 Carey (Goldie Hawn 1972)  
05 Blue (Sarah McLachlan 1994)  
06 California (Wilson Phillips 2004) 
07 This Flight Tonight (Nazareth 1973) 
08 River (Linda Ronstadt 2000)  
09 A Case Of You (Phoebe Snow 1998)  
10 The Last Time I Saw Richard (Clare Maguire 2014)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Jim Croce (2022)

James Joseph Croce was born on 10 January 1943 in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, right outside of Philadelphia. Graduating in 1960, he studied at Malvern Preparatory School for a year before enrolling at Villanova University, majoring in psychology and minoring in German, and discovering an interest in music when he became a leader of the campus singing group The Villanova Singers. Using a $500 wedding gift from Croce's parents, who set a condition that the money must be spent to make an album as they believed that he would give up music after the album failed, he released his first album, 'Facets', in 1966, with 500 copies being pressed. Despite his parents misgivings, the album proved to be a success, and every copy was sold. Croce married his girlfriend Ingrid Jacobson in 1966, and from the mid-1960's to the early 1970's, Croce and his wife performed as a duo, initially including songs by artists such as Ian & Sylvia, Gordon Lightfoot, Joan Baez, and Arlo Guthrie, but they eventually began writing their own music. In 1968, the Croces were encouraged by record producer Tommy West to move to New York City, and they recorded their first album, 'Jim & Ingrid Croce', for Capitol Records. Becoming disillusioned by the music business and New York City, they sold all but one guitar to pay their rent and returned to the Pennsylvania countryside, settling in an old farm in Lyndell. 

When Croce discovered that he and Ingrid were going to have a child, he became more determined to make music his profession, and so he sent a cassette of his new songs to a friend who was a producer in New York City in the hope that he could get a record deal. In 1972, Croce signed a three-record contract with ABC Records, releasing two albums, 'You Don't Mess Around With Jim' and 'Life And Times', with the singles of the title track and 'Time In A Bottle' from the first record receiving some airplay. He toured the United States, performing in large coffee houses and college campuses, but his financial situation remained precarious, as the record company had fronted him the money to record, and much of his earnings went to repay the advance. In 1973 he performed in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Zurich and Dublin, and in July the single 'Bad, Bad Leroy Brown' reached No. 1 on the American charts. This propelled his name into the public orbit, and  a few astute artists recorded covers of his early songs, in particular 'Time In A Bottle', which has become something of a classic song for him. Other tracks from 'Life And Times' continued to be picked up and covered over the next 40 years, and every one of them has now been tackled by a wide variety of artists, so here is a re-interpretation of Croce's second album of 1972, with two of his most famous tracks tagged on the end to flesh out a rather short album. 

Track listing

01 One Less Set Of Footsteps (Tom Swift 2011)  
02 Roller Derby Queen (Pat Surface 2022)  
03 Dreamin' Again (Marisa Malvino 2010) 
04 Careful Man (Jerry Reed 1980) 
05 Alabama Rain (Steiner Albrigtsen 2011)  
06 A Good Time Man Like Me Ain't Got No Business (Singin' The Blues) (Randy Howard 1976) 
07 Next Time, This Time (Mary Hopkin 2008) 
08 Bad, Bad Leroy Brown (Justin Tubb 1974)
09 These Dreams (Maggie's Guitar 2008)
10 Speedball Tucker (Nancy Sinatra 2008)
11 It Doesn't Have To Be That Way (Frank Chiafari 2012)

12 I'll Have To Say I Love You In A Song (Mary Travers 1974)
13 Time In A Bottle (Glen Campbell 1999)

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 Neil Young (2016)

Neil Young had been recording music since 1963, when he had his first local hit single with 'The Sultan' by his band The Squires, through the late 60's with Buffalo Springfield', and then when he started his solo career in 1969. However, it could arguably be said that it wasn't until 1970's 'After The Goldrush' that he came up with a set of songs which could be said to stand the test of time as classics. The songs on that album have become some of his best-known works, and because of that have attracted numerous other artists attempts to give us their own take on them. Most of these artists recognised the quality of the songs straight away, and so the majority of the better covers come from 1970 and 1971, although it was worth the wait to hear Died Pretty's take on 'When You Dance'. Prelude even garnered a hit single with their a cappella version of the title track, and Francois Hardy's Gallic rendering of 'When The Morning Comes' just makes you wish that Young had written some verses to go with it, while Danish garage rockers The Teenmakers decided to add their take on 'Southern Man' to the flip a 1970 single. There's not much more that I can say about these songs, so I'll let the music do the talking, and as 'Oh Lonesome Me' from the album was itself a cover, I've added a couple of extra songs from his CSN&Y phase from the same period to make up the time.    

 

  
Track listing

01 Tell Me Why (Matthews Southern Comfort 1970)  
02 After The Goldrush (Prelude 1973)  
03 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Jackie DeShannon 1972)  
04 Southern Man (The Teenmakers 1970)  
05 Till The Morning Comes (Francois Hardy 1972)  
06 Don't Let It Bring You Down (Hookfoot 1971)
07 Birds (Linda Ronstadt 1972) 
08 When You Dance I Can Really Love (Died Pretty 1988)
09 I Believe In You (Rita Coolidge 1971) 
10 Cripple Creek Ferry (Anonymous Choir 2016)
11 Helpless (Buffy Sainte-Marie 1971)
12 Everybody I Love You (Morningstar 1979)
13 Ohio (The Isley Brothers 1971)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Bruce Springsteen (2020)

From 1969 through early 1971, Bruce Springsteen performed with the band Child, which later changed its name to Steel Mill, and included Danny Federici, Vini Lopez, Vinnie Roslin, and later Steven Van Zandt and Robbin Thompson. They quickly gathered a cult following, and in an attempt to shape a unique and genuine musical and lyrical style, he also performed with the bands Dr. Zoom & the Sonic Boom from early-to-mid-1971, and the Sundance Blues Band in mid-1971. After this he formed The Bruce Springsteen Band, which stayed together for about a year, but in October 1972 he formed a new group for the recording of his debut album, 'Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.', and they eventually became known as the E Street Band, although the name was not used until September 1974. In 1972 he signed to Columbia Records, and despite the expectations of Columbia executives that he would record an acoustic album, he brought many of his New Jersey-based colleagues into the studio with him for the recording sessions for his first album, taping a mixture of acoustic and rock-based songs. The gestation of the record was not without it trials, as when it was completed, his manager Mike Appel and Columbia's John Hammond preferred the solo tracks, while Springsteen preferred the band songs, and so a compromise was reached that the record would feature five songs with the band ('For You', 'Growin' Up', 'Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street?', 'It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City', and 'Lost in the Flood') and five solo songs ('Mary Queen Of Arkansas', 'The Angel', 'Jazz Musician', 'Arabian Nights' and 'Visitation At Fort Horn'). However, when Columbia Records president Clive Davis heard this early version he felt that it lacked a potential hit single, and rejected it. Springsteen quickly wrote and recorded 'Blinded By The Light' and 'Spirit In The Night', and Columbia accepted the revised album, with Davis eventually being proved correct when Manfred Mann's Earthband had massive hit singles with these two "commercial" songs. David Bowie was also an early fan, recording a version of 'Growing Up' during the sessions for his 'Pin-Ups' album in 1973, and tackling 'It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City' in 1989, and so here is a selection of covers of all the tracks from Springsteen's debut album, which for once includes two from the same band, as I think most people would agree that the Manfred Mann's Earthband versions are the definitive recordings of their two contributions, other than Springsteen's own, of course.  

Track listing

01 Blinded By The Light (Manfred Mann's Earthband 1976) 
02 Growin' Up (Any Trouble 1980)  
03 Mary Queen Of Arkansas (Dusty Wright 1997) 
04 Does This Bus Stop At 82nd Street? (Purple Ivy Shadows 1999) 
05 Lost In The Flood (Yirzov Schuynis 2013)
06 The Angel (Zachary Scott Johnson 2020)
07 For You (Greg Kihn 1977)  
08 Spirit In The Night (Manfred Mann's Earthband 1975)
09 It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City (David Bowie 1989)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Kris Kristofferson (2021)

Kristoffer Kristofferson was born on 22 June 1936 in Brownsville, Texas, to Mary Ann and Lars Henry Kristofferson, a U.S. Army Air Corps officer. Because of his father's military service the family moved around frequently, but they eventually settled in San Mateo, California. An aspiring writer, he immediately enrolled in Pomona College, and his early writing included prize-winning essays, with 'The Rock' and 'Gone Are The Days' being published in The Atlantic Monthly. In 1958 he won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, studying at Merton College, and while there he was awarded a Blue for boxing, played rugby for his college, and began writing songs, and with the help of his manager, Larry Parnes, he recorded for Top Rank Records under the name Kris Carson. Parnes was working to sell Kristofferson as "a Yank at Oxford" to the British public, and Kristofferson was willing to accept that promotional approach if it helped his singing career, which he hoped would enable him to progress toward his goal of becoming a novelist. In the early 1960's, under pressure from his family, he joined the U.S. Army and was commissioned as a second lieutenant, later attaining the rank of captain. He became a helicopter pilot after receiving flight training at Fort Rucker, Alabama, but while stationed in West Germany as a member of the 8th Infantry Division he resumed his music career and formed a band. After leaving the army in 1965 he decided to pursue a career in songwriting, resulting in his family disowning him. He got a job sweeping floors at Columbia Recording Studios in Nashville, where he met June Carter, and he asked her to give Johnny Cash a tape of his. She did, but Cash put it on a large pile with others and didn't listen to it, but as Kristofferson was also working as a commercial helicopter pilot for south Louisiana firm Petroleum Helicopters International (PHI) at the same time, he landed a helicopter in Cash's front yard, and gained his full attention. 

Although he now considers it an invasion of Cash's privacy, it did work, and Cash recorded his 'Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down', winning Kristofferson Songwriter of the Year for the song at the Country Music Association Awards. In 1967 he signed to Epic Records and released a single, 'Golden Idol'/'Killing Time', and although this was not successful, his songs were hitting the charts by other artists, such as Roy Drusky with 'Jody And The Kid', Ray Stevens with a cover of 'Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down', Faron Young with 'Your Time's Comin'', and Roger Miller with 'Me And Bobby McGee', 'Best Of All Possible Worlds', and 'Darby's Castle'. Kristofferson signed with Monument Records as a recording artist, and his debut album for the label was 1970's 'Kristofferson', which included a few new songs as well as many of his previous hits. Sales were poor, although they would improve when it was re-released under the title 'Me & Bobby McGee' the following year. Kristofferson's compositions were still in demand, with Ray Price recording 'For The Good Times', both Gladys Knight & The Pips and Sammi Smith taking 'Help Me Make It Through The Night' into the charts, and Waylon Jennings and Bobby Bare recording successful versions of his songs in the early 1970's. In 1971, Janis Joplin, who had dated Kristofferson, had a number one hit with 'Me And Bobby McGee' from her posthumous album 'Pearl', which was probably the biggest success the he had with one of his songs, staying at the number-one spot on the charts for weeks. As so many of his songs were recorded by other artists both before and after his debut album release, it's a perfect contender for inclusion in this series, and so here are some of the best versions of the songs that made up Kris Kristofferson's first record.  

Track listing
 

01 Blame It On The Stones (Fred Foster 2021)                       
02 To Beat The Devil (Waylon Jennings 1972)
03 Me And Bobby McGee (Janis Joplin 1971)  
04 The Best Of All Possible Worlds (Roger Miller 1969)
05 Help Me Make It Through The Night (Jeannie C. Riley 1971)
06 The Law Is For Protection Of The People (Bobby Bare 1969)
07 Casey's Last Ride (John Denver 1971)
08 Just The Other Side Of Nowhere (George Hamilton IV 1970)
09 Darby's Castle (The Country Gentlemen 1980)
10 For The Good Times (Kenny Rogers And The First Edition 1971)

11 Duvalier's Dream (Hank Beukema 2014)
12 Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down (R. Dean Taylor 1970)  

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Bill Withers (2020)

William Harrison Withers Jr. was born on 4 July 1938 in the small coal mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, and following his parent's divorce when he was three, he was raised by his mother's family in nearby Beckley, West Virginia. At 17 he enlisted in the United States Navy and served for nine years, during which time he became interested in singing and writing songs. He left the Navy in 1965, relocating to Los Angeles in 1967 to start a music career, releasing his first single 'Three Nights And A Morning' later that year, and although the song went unnoticed at the time, he later reworked it as the track 'Harlem'. He worked as a mechanical assembler for several different companies, including Douglas Aircraft Corporation, IBM and Ford during the day, while recording demo tapes with his own money, shopping them around, and performing in clubs at night. When he hit with the song 'Ain't No Sunshine' in 1971, he refused to resign from his job because he believed the music business was a fickle industry. In early 1970, Withers' demo tape was auditioned favourably by Clarence Avant, owner of Sussex Records, who signed him to a record deal and assigned former Stax Records stalwart Booker T. Jones to produce his first album. 'Just As I Am' was released in 1971 with the tracks 'Ain't No Sunshine' and 'Grandma's Hands' as singles, and with the album being a success he began touring with a band assembled from members of the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. 'Ain't No Sunshine' won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song at the 14th Annual Grammy Awards in 1972, with the track selling over one million copies, and being awarded a gold disc by the RIAA in September 1971. During a hiatus from touring, Withers recorded his second album, 'Still Bill', and the lead single 'Lean On Me' went to number one the week of 8 July 1972, being his second gold single, with confirmed sales in excess of three million. His follow-up record, 'Use Me' was released in August 1972, and it became his third million-seller, with the R.I.A.A. gold disc award taking place on 12 October 1972. With three million-sellers under his belt, other artists began coming to him to write for them, and he contributed two songs to Gladys Knight & the Pips' 1974 album 'I Feel A Song', but other artists were happy just to cover tracks from his first two records, with most of the songs from 'Still Bill' receiving this treatment by 1973. The final two tracks were covered in 2019 and 2020 and so we can now enjoy this alternate look at Bill Withers' second studio album in full. 

Track listing

01 Lonely Town, Lonely Street (Denny Greene 1973)
02 Let Me In Your Life (Barbara Mason 1972) 
03 Who Is He (And What Is He To You)? (Gladys Knight & The Pips 1973)
04 Use Me (Scott Walker 1973)
05 Lean On Me (Tom Jones 1973) 
06 Kissing My Love (Cold Blood 1973)  
07 I Don't Know (Caitlin Krisko And The Broadcast 2020)
08 Another Day To Run (Carla Hassett 2011)
09 I Don't Want You On My Mind (Carol Grimes 1974)
10 Take It All In And Check It All Out (Joseph Malik 2019)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing James Taylor (2020)

James Taylor's interest in music started at an early age, taking cello lessons as a child, before learning the guitar at the age of 12. Spending summer holidays with his family on Martha's Vineyard, he met Danny Kortchmar, an aspiring teenage guitarist from Larchmont, New York, and the two of them began listening to and playing blues and folk music together. Taylor wrote his first song on guitar at 14, and he continued to learn the instrument effortlessly, so that by the summer of 1963, he and Kortchmar were playing coffeehouses around the Vineyard, billed as "Jamie & Kootch". In 1965 they moved to New York City to form a band, recruiting Joel O'Brien, formerly of Kortchmar's old band King Bees, to play drums, and Taylor's childhood friend Zachary Wiesner to play bass, calling themselves The Flying Machine. They played songs that Taylor had written, and by the summer of 1966 they were performing regularly at the high-visibility Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village, alongside acts such as the Turtles and Lothar And The Hand People. At this time Taylor associated with a motley group of people and began using heroin, much to Kortchmar's dismay, but in late 1966 they did record a single for Jay Gee Records, comprising two Taylor compositions, 'Night Owl' and 'Brighten Your Night With My Day', and it did receive some radio airplay in the Northeast, but only charted at No. 102 nationally. During the final throes of The Flying Machine, Taylor's drug use had developed into full-blown heroin addiction, and after being taken back to North Carolina by his father, he spent six months getting treatment and making a tentative recovery. He then decided to try being a solo act with a change of scenery, and so in late 1967, funded by a small family inheritance, he moved to London. 

His friend Kortchmar gave him his next big break, introducing him to Peter Asher, who was A&R head for the Beatles' newly formed label Apple Records, and later became his manager. After Paul McCartney and George Harrison heard his demo tape they signed him to Apple, and he recorded what would become his first album from July to October 1968 at Trident Studios. During the recording sessions, Taylor fell back into his drug habit by using heroin and methedrine, and returned to New York for treatment at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, while back in the UK Apple released his debut album, 'James Taylor', in December 1968. Critical reception was generally positive, including a complimentary review in Rolling Stone, but it suffered commercially due to Taylor's inability to promote it because of his hospitalization, and so it sold poorly. In late 1969 Taylor broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months, although he continued to write songs while recovering, and in October 1969 he signed a new deal with Warner Bros. Records. Once he'd recovered from his accident he moved to California, keeping Asher as his manager and record producer, and in December 1969 he held recording sessions for his second album, 'Sweet Baby James', which was released in February 1970. This record was Taylor's critical and popular breakthrough, buoyed by the single 'Fire And Rain', with both the album and the single reaching No. 3 on the Billboard charts. 'Sweet Baby James' went on to be listed at No. 103 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, with 'Fire And Rain' listed as No. 227 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004. This song is one of Taylor's most covered tracks, but other songs from the record soon began attracting other artists to give their take on them, from Merry Clayton's bluesy version of 'Steamroller', to 'Country Road' by UK folk-rockers Unicorn and 'Lo And Behold' by blues-rockers Mother Earth, featuring Tracy Nelson. Every track from the album has now been covered (omitting 'Oh, Susannah', which he didn't write, and to make up for that I've added another song from the same period), and so enjoy this alternate look at the album which added James Taylor to the list of classic US singer/songwriters of the 70's.     

Track listing

01 Sweet Baby James (The Seldom Scene 1972)               
02 Lo And Behold (Mother Earth 1971)
03 Sunny Skies (Tico de Moraes 2019)
04 Steamroller (Merry Clayton 1971)
05 Country Road (Unicorn 1971)
06 Fire And Rain (McKendree Spring 1970)
07 Blossom (Christine Smith 1971)
08 Anywhere Like Heaven (Warren Marley 1971)
09 Oh Baby, Don't You Loose Your Lip On Me (Gregg Cagno 2020)
10 Suite For 20G (The Meters 1976)

11 Riding On A Railroad (Tom Rush 1970)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Joe South (2008)

Joe South was born Joseph Alfred Souter on 28 February 1940, and was first encouraged to make a career in music by Bill Lowery, an Atlanta music publisher and radio personality. He began his recording career in Atlanta with the National Recording Corporation, where he served as staff guitarist along with other NRC artists Ray Stevens and Jerry Reed, but he soon returned to Nashville with The Manrando Group, and then on to Charlie Wayne Felts Promotions. He had his first top 50 hit in July 1958 with a cover version of the b-side of The Big Bopper's hit single 'Chantilly Lace', a novelty song called 'The Purple People Eater Meets The Witch Doctor', but thereafter he would concentrate mainly on song-writing. In 1959 he wrote two songs which were recorded by Gene Vincent, and he was also a prominent sideman, playing guitar on Tommy Roe's 'Sheila', bass guitar on Bob Dylan's 'Blonde On Blonde' album, and the classic tremolo guitar intro on Aretha Franklin's 'Chain Of Fools'. Responding to late 1960's issues, South's writing style changed radically, most evident in his biggest single, 1969's pungent, no-nonsense 'Games People Play', which was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Accompanied by a lush string sound, an organ, and brass, the production won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Song and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year, and he followed that with 'Birds Of A Feather', most successful as a cover by The Raiders, which peaked on the Hot 100 at No. 23 in 1971. 'Games People Play' was first released in 1968 on South's debut album, 'Introspect', which some consider to be the first ever country-soul album, and it reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and so the record company decided to cash in on this by not only adding it again to his next album in 1969, but also titling the record after the hit single. Luckily there were plenty of other outstanding songs on the record to make up for this duplication, and it wasn't long before they were being picked up and covered by some pretty famous groups, with possibly the most notable being Deep Purple's version of 'Hush'. South's old comrade from Atlanta, Ray Stevens, released his version of 'Party People' as a single, and The Tams had a hit with 'Concrete Jungle', while most of the other songs had received covers by 1971. One oddity about this album is that it states on the front cover that it includes 'Down In The Boondocks', but this song is actually missing from the track listing, and so I've added Gary Lewis & The Playboys' version to make this reinterpretation of the album more complete. 

Track listing

01 Games People Play (Paper Lace 1972)  
02 Party People (Ray Stevens 1965)  
03 Untie Me (The Weedons 1966)  
04 Concrete Jungle (The Tams 1965)  
05 Hole In Your Soul (The Black Crowes 2008)  
06 Hush (Deep Purple 1969)
07 Birds Of A Feather (The Raiders 1971)  
08 Heart's Desire (Billy Joe Royal 1966)  
09 Leanin' On You (The Yo Yo's 1966) 
10 I Knew You When (Wade Flemons 1964)
11 These Are Not My People (Johnny Rivers 1969)
12 Down In The Boondocks (Gary Lewis & The Playboys 1966)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Lou Reed (2018)

After leaving the Velvet Underground in August 1970, Lou Reed moved to his parents' home on Long Island, and took a job at his father's tax accounting firm as a typist, by his own account earning $40 a week. He began writing poetry, which was published later in 2018 by Anthology Editions, and he then signed a recording contract with RCA Records in 1971, recording his first solo album at Morgan Studios in Willesden, London with session musicians including Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman from the band Yes. The album, 'Lou Reed', contained versions of unreleased Velvet Underground songs, some of which had originally been recorded for 'Loaded' but shelved, but it was overlooked by most pop music critics, and did not sell well. Reed's commercial breakthrough was his next album, 'Transformer', released in November 1972, and co-produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson. It introduced Reed to a wider audience in the UK, especially the single 'Walk On The Wild Side', which was a salute to the misfits and hustlers who once surrounded Andy Warhol in the late 60's. Each of the song's five verses describes a person who had been a fixture at The Factory during the mid-to-late 1960's, and its transgressive lyrics somehow evaded radio censorship. Ronson's arrangements brought out new aspects of Reed's songs, with 'Perfect Day' featuring delicate strings and soaring dynamics, and while the album contains some of Reed's most commercial compositions, it was some years before other artists felt confident enough to tackle them. This was spearheaded by Eurythmics take on 'Satellite Of Love' in 1983, followed by the choice of 'Perfect Day' as the Children In Need single in 1997, and this seemed to have opened up the floodgates for artists to plunder the album and record their unique takes of the songs. This album is a bit different so most of the others in this series, as the artists tend to take an irreverent view of the songs, witness the versions by A.C. Marias, Enzo Pietropoali and Bikini The Cat, but they are also done with much love for the original material, and so this album has become one of my most played from the series. 

Track listing

01 Vicious (A.C. Marias 1989)  
02 Andy's Chest (Damn Hippie Freaks 2016) 
03 Perfect Day (Kirsty McColl & Evan Dando 1995)  
04 Hangin' Round (Squeeze 2015) 
05 Walk On The Wild Side (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians 1990)  
06 Make Up (B.E.F. featuring Boy George 2013)  
07 Satellite Of Love (Eurythmics 1983)  
08 Wagon Wheel (The Satellites 2015)    
09 New York Telephone Conversation (Enzo Pietropaoli 1997)  
10 I'm So Free (Bikini The Cat 2005) 
11 Goodnight Ladies (Justin Vivian Bond 2018)

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)