Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Warren Zevon (2018)

Warren William Zevon was born on 24 January 1947 in Chicago, and began his musical career early, forming a duo with his high school friend, Violet Santangelo, called lyme and cybelle. Bones Howe produced their first single, the minor hit 'Follow Me', which was written by Zevon and Santangelo and reached number 65 on the Billboard pop charts in April 1966. A follow-up single, a cover of Bob Dylan's 'If You Gotta Go, Go Now' flopped, and Zevon left the duo, spending time as a session musician and jingle composer. He wrote several songs for his White Whale labelmates The Turtles, such as Like The Seasons' and 'Outside Chance', and another early composition 'She Quit Me' was included in the soundtrack for the film 'Midnight Cowboy' in 1969. His first attempt at a solo album, 'Wanted Dead Or Alive' in 1970 was spearheaded by 1960's cult figure Kim Fowley, but received almost no attention and did not sell well, and so for the next few years he returned to session work with other musicians. During the early 1970's he toured regularly with the Everly Brothers as keyboard player, band leader, and musical coordinator, and he worked particularly closely with Phil, arranging and playing keyboards on his first and third solo albums, 'Star Spangled Springer' in 1973 and 'Mystic Line' in 1975. These small successes were not particularly rewarding financially, and his dissatisfaction with his career and lack of funds led him to briefly move to Spain in the summer of 1975, playing in the Dubliner Bar, a small tavern in Sitges, near Barcelona. By September 1975 Zevon had returned to Los Angeles, where he roomed with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham, who had at this time become members of Fleetwood Mac. He also collaborated with Jackson Browne, who produced and promoted Zevon's self-titled major-label debut in 1976, which featured contributions from Nicks, Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, members of the Eagles, Carl Wilson, Linda Ronstadt, and Bonnie Raitt, with Ronstadt later recording many more of his songs. 

'Warren Zevon' was his first album to chart in the United States, peaking at No. 189, and the Rolling Stone Record Guide called it his "most realized work". In 1978, Zevon released 'Excitable Boy', once again produced by Jackson Browne with guitarist Waddy Wachtel, which gained both critical acclaim and popular success. The title tune is about a juvenile sociopath's murderous prom night, and referred to "Little Susie", the heroine of the song 'Wake Up Little Susie' made famous by his former employers the Everly Brothers, while songs such as 'Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner' and 'Lawyers, Guns And Money' used deadpan humour to wed geopolitical subtexts to hard-boiled narratives. Tracks from this album received heavy FM airplay, and the single release 'Werewolves Of London', which featured Mick Fleetwood and John McVie, was a relatively light-hearted work featuring Zevon's signature macabre outlook, and it reached No. 21 on the charts. This new-found success prompted other artists to investigate his work, with cult rockers The Flamin' Groovies later tackling 'Werewolves Of London', and Jerry Garcia recording a cover of 'Accidentally Like A Martyr' in 1977. Since then all of the other songs from the album have been covered by a variety of artists, and so here is their interpretation of Warren Zevon's 1978 album 'Excitable Boy', with a classic Linda Ronstadt  cover plus one of his earliest songs added to close the post.   

Track listing

01 Johnny Strikes Up The Band (Phil Cody 2014) 
02 Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner (The Escatones 2014)
03 Excitable Boy (Dreadnaught 2005)
04 Werewolves Of London (The Flamin' Groovies 1979)   
05 Accidentally Like A Martyr (Jerry Garcia 1977)
06 Nighttime In The Switching Yard (Dotline 2018)  
07 Veracruz (Casey Brents 2018)
08 Tenderness On The Block (Shawn Colvin 1992)
09 Lawyers, Guns And Money (Derringer 1978)
10 Hasten Down The Wind (Linda Ronstadt 1976)
11 Outside Chance (The Turtles 1966)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Laura Nyro's 'Eli And The Thirteenth Confession' (2017)

Soon after the release of Laura Nyro's debut album 'More Than A New Discovery', David Geffen approached Mogull about taking over as her agent. She successfully sued to void her management and recording contracts on the grounds that she had entered into them while still a minor, and Geffen became her manager. The two of them established a publishing company, Tuna Fish Music, under which the proceeds from her future compositions would be divided equally between them. Geffen also arranged Nyro's new recording contract with Clive Davis at Columbia Records, and purchased the publishing rights to her early compositions. Around this time, she considered becoming lead singer for Blood, Sweat & Tears after the departure of founder Al Kooper, but was dissuaded by Geffen, and so she concentrated on recording her second album.  Her new contract allowed her more artistic freedom and control, and so her 1968 record 'Eli And The Thirteenth Confession', received high critical praise for the depth and sophistication of its performance and arrangements, which merged pop structure with inspired imagery, rich vocals, and avant-garde jazz. It was her first chart entry, reaching No. 181 on the Billboard 200, and many musicians, including Elton John and Todd Rundgren, were directly influenced by the album. It is second only to its predecessor in producing hit songs for other artists, with Three Dog Night taking 'Eli's Comin'' to the US top 10, while The 5th Dimension went to No. 3 with 'Stoned Soul Picnic' and No. 13 with 'Sweet Blindness'. Once again, it wasn't long before nearly all of the other songs from the record had been taken up and covered,  and such was their quality that they were still being recorded in the 2000's. Here is a nice collection of some of the very best versions of Nyro's songs from her rightly-regarded classic album 'Eli And The Thirteenth Confession'. 

Track listing

01 Luckie (Judy Kuhn 2007)
02 Lu (Peggy Lipton 1969)
03 Sweet Blindness (The 5th Dimension 1968)
04 Poverty Train (The Ark 1967)
05 Lonely Women (Linda Hoyle 1971) 
06 Eli's Comin' (Three Dog Night 1969)
07 Stoned Soul Picnic (The Supremes And The Four Tops 1970)
08 Emmie (Frankie Valli 1970)
09 Woman's Blues (Green Lyte Sunday 1970)
10 Once It Was Alright Now (Farmer Joe) (Rastus 2016)
11 December's Boudoir (Denise Mangiardi 2017)
12 The Confession (Billy Childs featuring Becca Stevens 2014)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Leon Russell (2008)

Claude Russell Bridges, aka Leon Russell, was born on 2 April 1942 in Lawton, Oklahoma, and began playing the piano at the age of four, with his musical career starting in 1956, when at the age of 14 he played in the nightclubs of Tulsa. In high school, he played piano in a band, the Accents, with David Gates, who would later achieve fame in the band Bread, and with the band The Starlighters, which included J. J. Cale, Leo Feathers, Chuck Blackwell, and Johnny Williams, which was instrumental in creating the style of music known as the Tulsa Sound. After settling in Los Angeles in 1958, he studied guitar with James Burton, and in the early years of his career he was known mostly as a session musician. In Los Angeles he played as a first-call studio player on many of the popular songs of the 1960's, including some by The Byrds, Gary Lewis & The Playboys, Bobby Pickett, and Herb Alpert. He also played piano on many Phil Spector productions, including recordings by the Ronettes, the Crystals, and Darlene Love, as well as the 1963 'A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector' album. In the mid-1960's, he wrote or co-wrote songs, including two hits for Gary Lewis and the Playboys, with 'Everybody Loves A Clown' and 'She's Just My Style', and in 1967 he played with Glen Campbell, whose 1967 album 'Gentle On My Mind' credited him as "Russell Bridges" on piano. Russell released his first solo single, 'Everybody's Talking 'Bout the Young' for Dot Records in 1965, and by 1968 he'd joined up with Marc Benno to form The Asylum Choir, whose album 'Look Inside The Asylum Choir' was released by Smash Records in 1968. 
In 1969 Russell and Denny Cordell established Shelter Records, and at the same time he was a member of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, playing guitar and keyboards on their albums and as part of their touring band, and it was through this group that he met George Harrison, with  whom he would work over the next couple of years. Russell's first commercial success as a songwriter came when Joe Cocker recorded the song 'Delta Lady' for his 1969 album 'Joe Cocker!', while his 'Superstar' co-write was recorded by The Carpenters and other performers. During Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen tour, Shelter Records released his 1970 solo album, 'Leon Russell', which included the first recording of 'A Song For You', which is one of his best-known songs. Also in 1970, Russell played piano on Dave Mason's album 'Alone Together', notably on the song 'Sad And Deep As You', and he had his first hit single with 'The Letter', credited to Joe Cocker with Leon Russell & the Shelter People. As well as his own versions of 'Delta Lady' and 'A Song For You', the 'Leon Russell' album included some other great songs, as evidenced by the fact that nearly all of them have been covered, mostly contemporaneously in 1970 and 1971. This album collects together some of the very best takes of these songs, and I try to limit the tracks to one per artist, so although Joe Cocker's version of 'Delta Lady' is probably more well known, he's already represented on here, so I've opted for the Gary Puckett version instead, and I think he does a pretty good job of it.  

Track listing

01 A Song For You (Donny Hathaway 1971)  
02 Dixie Lullaby (Clint Black with Bruce Hornsby 1999) 
03 I Put A Spell On You (Sam Bush 2000)

04 Shoot Out On The Plantation (Vicki Britton 1972)
05 Hummingbird (Duffy Power 1970) 
06 Delta Lady (Gary Puckett 1971)
07 Prince Of Peace (The Raiders 1971)
08 Give Peace A Chance (Joe Cocker 1970)
09 Hurtsome Body (The Fabulous Rhinestones 1973)
10 Pisces Apple Lady (Tucky Buzzard 1971)

11 Roll Away The Stone (Ashley Cleveland 2008)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Elton John's 'Tumbleweed Connection' (2002)

As a result of the reasonable success of the 'Elton John' album, John recruited former Spencer Davis Group drummer Nigel Olsson and bassist Dee Murray, and flew to America for his first US concert at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on 25 August 1970. It was a such a success that the next day he received a telegram from Bill Graham, America’s most important promoter, offering him $5,000 to play at the Fillmore East in New York. Two months later, in October 1970, the concept album 'Tumbleweed Connection' was released, reaching number two in the UK and number five in the US. Co-writer Bernie Taupin has confirmed that despite people thinking that he was influenced in his lyrics by Americana and by seeing America first hand, the album had been written and recorded before they'd even been to the United States, and it was more influenced by The Band's album, 'Music From Big Pink', and Robbie Robertson's songs. Basic tracks for three of the album's titles, 'Come Down In Time', 'Country Comfort' and 'Burn Down The Mission', had been recorded at Trident during the sessions for the previous LP, 'Elton John', and Dee Murray and Nigel Olsson appeared for the first time together on this album as the rhythm section on 'Amoreena'. No singles were released from the record in the US, but 'Country Comfort'/'Love Song' (the latter a Lesley Duncan composition) was released as a single in Australia, New Zealand and Brazil. Once again, other artists clamoured to record these songs, and this time the big names included Al Kooper, Rod Stewart, Spooky Tooth and Sergio Mendes and Brasil '77, and new artists were still looking to 'Tumbleweed Connection' for inspiration in the 1980's and 2000's, with this album closing with a rousing version of 'Burn Down The Mission' by Toto from 2002. 

Track listing

01 Ballad Of A Well Known Gun (Kate Taylor 1971)
02 Come Down In Time (Al Kooper 1971)
03 Country Comfort (Rod Stewart 1970)
04 Son Of Your Father (Spooky Tooth 1969)
05 My Father's Gun (Miranda Lambert 2018)
06 Where To Now St. Peter (Sergio Mendes & Brasil '77 1976)
07 Amoreena (Panhandle 1972)
08 Talking Old Soldiers (Michael Callen 1988)
09 Burn Down The Mission (Toto 2002)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Fred Neil (2020)

Fred Neil was born Frederick Ralph Morlock Jr. on 16 March 1936, and he started singing when he was in first grade, coached by his mother. Around 1947, when in sixth grade, he started playing guitar, and by the late 1950's he was one of the singer-songwriters who worked out of New York City's Brill Building, a center for music industry offices and professional songwriters. While composing at the Brill Building for other artists, he also recorded six mostly rockabilly-pop singles for different labels as a solo artist, and early rock and roll songs of his were recorded by such artists as Buddy Holly, with 'Come Back Baby' in 1958, and Roy Orbison, with 'Candy Man' in 1961. He later moved on to a more folk-influenced sound, and with his 12-string guitar and spectacularly deep baritone voice, he was considered the King of the MacDougal Street/Greenwich Village folksingers. Neil met Vince Martin in 1962, and they formed a singing partnership, with their first album 'Tear Down The Walls' being released in 1964, and during 1965 and 1966 Neil was joined on many live sets by the Seventh Sons, a trio led by Buzzy Linhart on guitar and vibes. In 1965 he released is second album 'Bleecker & MacDougal' on Elektra Records, and his eponymous release in 1967 was relaunched in 1969 as 'Everybody's Talkin'', following the huge success of Harry Nilsson's version of his song. It was 'Everybody's Talkin'' which brought him to the attention of the public and other musicians, and it wasn't long before they started to explore his back catalogue. 'Bleecker & McDougal' was plundered by bands and singers in 1969 and 1970, although groups such as The Animals and H.P. Lovecraft were ahead of the game and had already covered songs from the album when it was first released. Since then nearly every song on it has been covered, and so here are a choice selection of the many versions of Neil's songs which are out there, with two of his most famous ones added at the end to bulk up the record to a satisfactory 43 minutes. Something that I didn't know until researching this post was that Jefferson Airplane considered Neil a major influence, and he was a frequent visitor to their Haight-Ashbury house in San Francisco. Neil reminded Grace Slick of Winnie the Pooh, with her nickname for him being 'Poohneil', and their song 'The Ballad Of You And Me And Pooneil' was written for him. 

Track listing

01 Bleecker & MacDougal (H.P. Lovecraft 1967) 
02 Blues On The Ceiling (The Bintangs 1969) 
03 Sweet Mama (Charlie Brown 2020)
04 Little Bit Of Rain (Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Poneys 1967)
05 Country Boy (Tim Krekel 2018) 
06 Other Side To This Life (The Animals 1966)
07 Mississippi Train (Roger Bartlett 2018)
08 Travelin' Shoes (Tea And Symphony 1969)
09 Yonder Comes The Blues (Michael Parks 1970)
10 Candy Man (Dale Hawkins 1969)
11 Handful Of Gimme (Vince Martin 2018) 
12 The Dolphins (It's A Beautiful Day 1970)
13 That's The Bag I'm In (Buzzy Linhart 1970)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Laura Nyro (2007)

In the mid-60's, Laura Nyro's mother Louis Nigro's work brought her into contact with record company executive Artie Mogull and his partner Paul Barry, who auditioned Nyro in 1966 and became her first managers, with Mogull negotiating a recording and management contract for her. On 13 July 1966, Nyro recorded 'Stoney End' and 'Wedding Bell Blues', as well as an early version of 'Time And Love', at Bell Sounds Studios in Manhattan, for possible inclusion on her debut album. About a month later, she sold 'And When I Die' to Peter, Paul And Mary for $5,000, and on 17 September 1966, Verve Folkways released 'Wedding Bell Blues'/'Stoney End' as a single under her own name. 'Wedding Bell Blues' became a minor hit, especially on the West Coast, and she completed her debut album in New York on 29 November 1966. In February 1967, Verve Folkways released 'More Than A New Discovery', with songs from the record later becoming hits for The 5th Dimension, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Barbra Streisand. On 17 June 1967, Nyro appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival, and although some accounts described her performance as a fiasco that culminated in her being booed off the stage, recordings later made publicly available contradict this version of events. Over the next few years more songs from 'More Than A New Discovery' were noticed by other artists and covered on their records, particularly The 5th Dimension, who had a couple of hit singles with her songs. Peter, Paul And Mary turned their investment in 'And When I Die' into a hit, and Barbara Streisand followed them with 'Stoney End'. By 1971 nearly every song on the album had been covered, and so here are some of the best of them, reinterpreting Laura Nyro's first steps into the music business.  

Track listing

01 Goodbye Joe (Carmen McRae 1970)  
02 Billy's Blues (B. J. Ward 1970)  
03 And When I Die (Blood Sweat And Tears 1968)
04 Stoney End (Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Poneys 1968)
05 Lazy Susan (Amy London 2007)   
06 Hands Off The Man (The Sunshower 1970)
07 Wedding Bell Blues (Bobbie Gentry 1970)
08 Buy And Sell (Chris Connor 1971)
09 He's A Runner (Mama Cass 1969)
10 Blowin' Away (The 5th Dimension 1969)
11 I Never Meant To Hurt You (Barbara Streisand 1971)
12 California Shoe-Shine Boys (Karen Wyman 1970)

Thanks to Ergon3 for supplying the Amy London track.

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Elton John (2018)

In 1967 Reginald Dwight (as he then was) answered an advertisement in the British music paper New Musical Express, placed by the A&R manager for Liberty Records Ray Williams, looking for prospective song-writers. At their first meeting, Williams gave him an unopened envelope of lyrics written by Bernie Taupin, who had answered the same ad, and so he wrote music for the lyrics and then sent them to Taupin, beginning a partnership that still continues. When the two first met in 1967, they recorded the first John/Taupin song, 'Scarecrow', and six months later, Dwight began going by the name Elton John, in homage to two members of his old band Bluesology: saxophonist Elton Dean and vocalist Long John Baldry. The team of John and Taupin joined Dick James's DJM Records as staff songwriters in 1968, and over the next two years wrote material for various artists, among them Roger Cook and Lulu. Taupin would write a batch of lyrics in under an hour and give it to John, who would write music for them in half an hour, disposing of the lyrics if he could not come up with anything quickly. For two years they wrote easy-listening tunes for James to peddle to singers, and their early output included a song for Lulu's entry for the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest 1969, called 'I Can't Go On (Living Without You)', but it came sixth of the six songs up for consideration. 

On the advice of music publisher Steve Brown, John and Taupin began writing more complex songs for John to record for DJM, with the first being the single 'I've Been Loving You', produced by Caleb Quaye, Bluesology's former guitarist. In 1969, with Quaye, drummer Roger Pope, and bassist Tony Murray, John recorded another single, 'Lady Samantha', and his debut album, 'Empty Sky'. For their follow-up album, 'Elton John', John and Taupin enlisted Gus Dudgeon as producer and Paul Buckmaster as musical arranger, and the record was released in April 1970 on DJM Records/Pye Records in the UK and Uni Records in the US. It established the formula for subsequent albums: gospel-chorded rockers and poignant ballads, and the album's first single, 'Border Song', peaked at 92 on the Billboard Hot 100. The second, 'Your Song', reached the top ten in both the UK and US, becoming John's first hit single as a singer, while the album soon became his first long-playing success, reaching number four on the US Billboard 200 and number five on the UK Albums Chart. With the success of the singles and album, it wasn't long before other artists began to take notice of this new talent, and wanted to cover his songs, with big names like Three Dog Night, The Lettermen and The 5th Dimension giving us their versions. Before long nearly every track on the album had a cover version out there, even rare singles and obscure b-sides, and so here are the best of those artists re-interpreting Elton John's classic 1970 album, with just The Band Perry post-1975, covering the flip to Elton's 1970 stand-alone single 'Rock And Roll Madonna'.   

Track listing

01 Your Song (Three Dog Night 1970)

02 I Need You To Turn To (Euson 1971)

03 Take Me To The Pilot (The Orange Bicycle 1970)

04 Mijn Eerste Kiefde (First Episode At Hienton) (Connie Vandenbos 1975)

05 Sixty Years On (Hayden Wood 1970)

06 Border Song (The 5th Dimension 1972)

07 The Greatest Discovery (The Lettermen 1971)

08 The Cage (Brainchild 1970)

09 Bad Side Of The Moon (Toe Fat 1970)

10 Friends (The Square Set 1972)

11 Grey Seal (The Band Perry 2014)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Carole King (1973)

In the late 1950's Carole King attended Queens College, where she met Gerry Goffin, who was later to become her song-writing partner. When she was 17, they married in a Jewish ceremony on Long Island in August 1959, after King became pregnant with her first daughter, Louise. After they quit college they took day jobs, with Goffin working as an assistant chemist and King as a secretary, writing songs together in the evening, and after writing the Shirelles' Billboard Hot 100 number 1 hit 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow', they gave up their daytime jobs to concentrate on the song-writing. In the 1960's, with King composing the music and Goffin writing the lyrics, the two wrote a string of classic songs for a variety of artists, including 'Chains' (later recorded by the Beatles), 'The Loco-Motion' and 'Keep Your Hands Off My Baby' (both for their babysitter Little Eva), and 'It Might As Well Rain Until September', which King recorded herself in 1962, charting at number 22 in the US and number 3 in the UK. Other songs from her early period, up to 1967, included 'Half Way To Paradise' for Billy Fury, 'Take Good Care Of My Baby' for Bobby Vee, 'Up On The Roof' for the Drifters, 'I'm Into Something Good' for Earl-Jean (later recorded by Herman's Hermits), 'One Fine Day' for the Chiffons, and 'Pleasant Valley Sunday' for the Monkees. By 1968, Goffin and King were divorced and were starting to lose contact, and King moved to Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles with her two daughters. There she reactivated her recording career by forming 'The City', a music trio consisting of Charles Larkey, her future husband, on bass, Danny Kortchmar on guitar and vocals, and King on piano and vocals. The group produced one album, 'Now That Everything's Been Said', in 1968, but King's reluctance to perform live meant sales were slow, and the group disbanded in 1969. While in Laurel Canyon, she met James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, as well as Toni Stern, with whom she collaborated on songs, and when  King made her first solo album, 'Writer', in 1970, Taylor played acoustic guitar and provided backing vocals. It peaked at number 84 in the Billboard Top 200, and was followed the next year by 'Tapestry', which featured new compositions as well as reinterpretations of 'Will You Love Me Tomorrow' and '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman'. 'Tapestry' was an instant success, with numerous hit singles, including a Billboard No.1 with 'It's Too Late', and every song on it has since become a classic. It's therefore no surprise that they have all been covered by a huge variety of artists, and so here are the best of them, reinterpreting this classic album of the 70's.

Track listing

01 I Feel The Earth Move (Design 1973)
02 So Far Away (Marlena Shaw 1972)
03 It's Too Late (The Sandpipers 1971)
04 Home Again (Kate Taylor 1971)
05 Beautiful (Petula Clark 1971)
06 Way Over Yonder (Cornelia 1972)
07 You've Got A Friend (James Taylor 1971)
08 Where You Lead (Barbara Streisand 1971)
09 Will You Love Me Tomorrow? (Roberta Flack 1971)
10 Smackwater Jack (Quincy Jones 1971)
11 Tapestry (Alice Babs 1973)
12 (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman (Aretha Franklin 1967)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Nilsson (1971)

By 1958, Harry Nilsson was intrigued by emerging forms of popular music, especially rhythm and blues artists like Ray Charles, and he had made early attempts at performing by forming a vocal duo with his friend Jerry Smith and singing close harmonies in the style of the Everly Brothers. After learning to play the guitar and piano he started writing original songs, and after singing lessons courtesy of his uncle, along with his natural talent, he got a job singing demos for songwriter Scott Turner in 1962. After a couple of unsuccessful independent singles he started working with Phil Spector in 1964, writing three songs with him. In 1966 he signed to Tower Records, who released the first singles actually credited to him by name, as well as the debut album 'Spotlight On Nilsson', and although none of his Tower releases charted or gained much critical attention, his songs were being recorded by Glen Campbell, Fred Astaire, The Shangri-Las, The Yardbirds, and others. Later in 1966, he signed with RCA Victor and released the 'Pandemonium Shadow Show' album the following year, which was a critical success, with music industry insiders impressed both with the songwriting and with Nilsson's pure-toned, multi-octave vocals. 'Pandemonium Shadow Show' was followed in 1968 by 'Aerial Ballet', an album that included Nilsson's rendition of Fred Neil's song 'Everybody's Talkin'', which was a minor US hit at the time of release, but which became much more popular a year later when it was featured in the film 'Midnight Cowboy'. With the successes of 'Everybody's Talkin'' creating a demand for Nilsson recordings, a reissue of his first two RCA Victor albums, 'Pandemonium Shadow Show' and the out of print 'Aerial Ballet', was considered, but he thought that his early albums already sounded a bit dated by 1971, so he went back into the studio with the master tapes, and remixed, tweaked, and re-recorded vocals, and came up with a new consolidation that he titled 'Aerial Pandemonium Ballet'. This included four songs from 'Pandemonium Shadow Show' and eight songs from 'Aerial Ballet', and over the following years nearly all of these songs were picked up and covered by other artists. Because some of the tracks on 'Aerial Pandemonium Ballet' were his own covers of classics like 'River Deep, Mountain High' and 'Everybody's Talkin'', I've gone back to the original albums and added some of the tracks which were ignored in the re-issue, in order to make this post a reasonable length. Once again, it's a nice mix of famous and not so famous artists, all doing justice to some fine songs by Nilsson. 

Track listing

01 Introduction
02 1941 (Billy J. Kramer 1968)
03 Daddy's Song (The Casuals 1969)
04 Bath (Doris 1970) 
05 Sleep Late, My Lady Friend (Harry Belafonte 1968) 
06 Don't Leave Me (Hugo Montenegro 1969)
07 Without Her (Blood, Sweat & Tears 1968)
08 Together (Sandie Shaw 1968)
09 One (Three Dog Night 1969)
10 I Said Goodbye To Me (The Glass Menagerie 1968)
11 Little Cowboy (The Buffoons 1969)
12 Wailing Of The Willow (Friday Brown 1971)
13 Cuddly Toy (The Fruit Machine 1968)
14 It's Been So Long (Kenny Everett 1968)
15 Ten Little Indians (The Yardbirds 1967)
16 Closing

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Neil Diamond (1972) **UPDATED**

I know 'The Long Way Home' had a dodgy beginning, and I tried pitch correcting and got nowhere, but then I had a brainwave and patched it with sections from the middle of the track, so download again for a better copy of the song.  

Neil Diamond started his musical career writing and singing his own songs for demos, and his first recording contract was billed as "Neil and Jack", an Everly Brothers-type duet with high school friend Jack Packer. They recorded the singles 'You Are My Love At Last'/'What Will I Do', and 'I'm Afraid'/'Till You've Tried Love', both released in 1962, and despite positive reviews from Cashbox and Billboard magazines they were not successful. Diamond signed with Columbia Records as a solo performer later in 1962, and in July 1963 they released the single 'Clown Town'/'At Night', which once again received complimentary reviews, but it still failed to make the charts. Columbia dropped him from their label and he went back to writing songs in and out of publishing houses for the next seven years. He wrote wherever he could, including on buses, and used an upright piano above the Birdland Club in New York City, but he was only able to sell about one song a week during those years, barely enough to survive. The privacy that he had above the Birdland Club allowed him to focus on writing without distractions, and this freedom resulted in more interesting songs beginning to appear, including 'Cherry, Cherry' and 'Solitary Man', and the latter was the first record that Diamond recorded under his own name which made the charts. He spent his early career in the Brill Building, and his first success as a songwriter came in November 1965 with 'Sunday And Me', a Top 20 hit for Jay and the Americans, but that was just the beginning, as this was followed by 'I'm A Believer', 'A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You', 'Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow)', and 'Love To Love', all performed by the Monkees. 'I'm A Believer' became a gold record within two days of its release and stayed at the top of the charts for seven weeks, and other notable artists who recorded his early songs were Lulu, Cliff Richard and Deep Purple. In 1966, he signed a deal with Bert Berns's Bang Records, then a subsidiary of Atlantic, and his first release on that label was 'Solitary Man', which was his first true hit as a solo artist, and he followed that with 'Cherry, Cherry' and 'Kentucky Woman'. He began to feel restricted by Bang Records because he wanted to record more ambitious, introspective music, such as 'Brooklyn Roads', but Berns wanted to release 'Kentucky Woman' as a single, while Diamond proposed 'Shilo', which was about an imaginary childhood friend. Berns believed that the song was not commercial enough, so it was relegated to being an LP track on 'Just for You', his second album for Bang. Diamond wrote every song on 'Just For You', and it included his own versions of the hit singles 'I'm A Believer' by The Monkees and 'The Boat That I Row' by Lulu, but it wasn't long before all of the songs on the record had been noticed and covered by other artists, and so this post is Neil Diamond's second album as interpreted by some well-known and some not so well-known artists of the late 60's. To flesh out the post to a reasonable length I've also included the b-sides to a couple of his 1967 singles, taken from his previous album on Bang. 

Track listing

01 Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon (Cliff Richard 1968)
02 The Long Way Home (Quentin E. Klopjaeger With The Gonks 1968)
03 Red Red Wine (Jimmy James And The Vagabonds 1968)
04 You'll Forget (The Wanderer's Rest 1967)
05 The Boat That I Row (Lulu 1967)
06 Cherry Cherry (Wishful Thinking 1967)
07 I'm A Believer (The Monkees 1966)
08 Shilo (Springbok 1971)
09 You Got To Me (Gene Pierson 1968)
10 Solitary Man (The Kitchen Cinq 1967)
11 C'est Pour Vous Que Je Chante (Thank The Lord For The Night Time) (Les Hou-Lops 1967)
12 Oh, No No (I Got The Feeling) (Wool 1972)
13 Do It (Keith Allison 1967)

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) 

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Tony Hazzard (1969)

Anthony Hazzard was born on 31 October 1943 in Liverpool, and is best known as a successful songwriter of the late 60's. He learned the guitar and ukulele when young, but didn't start his music career until he finished his education at Durham University, and with the encouragement of Tony Garnett of the BBC, he moved to London where he signed a contract with publisher Gerry Bron. Bron could see potential in Hazzard's songs, and wanted him as a solo artist, releasing his first single 'You'll Never Put Shackles On Me' in 1966. Although it didn't chart, another of his songs was submitted to Herman's Hermits, who had a Top 20 hit with 'You Won't Be Leaving' in 1966. Following a dry spell where he struggled to write anything that he considered worthy, he gave 'Ha! Ha! Said The Clown' to Manfred Mann, who took it to the upper reaches of the UK charts. In 1968 his psyche-tinged 'The Sound Of The Candyman's Trumpet' was recorded by Cliff Richard and entered into the 1968 'Songs For Europe' preamble for the Eurovision Song Contest, although it lost out to 'Congratulations' in the final vote. Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, The Casuals, The Family Dogg, and The Swinging Blue Jeans all turned to Hazzard's pop tunes in the late 1960's, and many of them scored hit singles with their recordings. In the midst of all this success as a writer, Hazzard released his first solo album 'Tony Hazzard Sings Tony Hazzard' in 1969, and despite the fact that every single track had been successfully released as a single by another artist, it was commercially unsuccessful, although his second album, 'Loudwater House', fared much better. It could have been the fact that he was a relatively unknown singer which caused that first album to flop, as it certainly wasn't the quality of the songs, and so to make it appeal to a wider audience I've replaced Hazzard's own versions of his songs with the hit single versions from a wide variety of 60's artists, and we end up with a great tribute album by some of the biggest names of the era, and a fitting celebration of Hazzard's songwriting. 

Track listing

01 Listen To Me (The Hollies)
02 Brown Eyed Girl (The Family Dogg)
03 Me, The Peaceful Heart (Lulu)
04 The Sound Of The Candyman's Trumpet (Cliff Richard)
05 Hello It's Me (The Casuals)
06 Fox On The Run (Manfred Mann)
07 Hello World (The Tremeloes)
08 Goodnight Sweet Josephine (The Yardbirds)
09 Ha! Ha! Said The Clown (Manfred Mann)
10 Hey Mrs. Housewife (The Swinging Bluejeans)
11 You Won't Be Leaving (Herman's Hermits)
12 Fade Away Maureen (Cherry Smash)