Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Van Morrison (2021)

After the commercial failure of his first Warner Bros. album 'Astral Weeks' in 1968, Van Morrison moved to upstate New York with his wife and began writing songs for the follow-up album 'Moondance', attempting to produce a record that would be more accessible and appealing to listeners. The musicians who went on to record 'Moondance' with Morrison were recruited from Woodstock, and would continue working with him for several years, including guitarist John Platania, saxophonist Jack Schroer, and keyboardist Jef Labes. Recording sessions began at Century Sound in New York, accompanied by most of the musicians from 'Astral Weeks' and its engineer Brooks Arthur, but Morrison soon manipulated the situation and got rid of them all. He had his own ideas for how he wanted the music to sound, and so enlisted the help of a horn section and chorus, and brought in the musicians recruited from Woodstock. Recording then moved to Studio A penthouse of A & R Studios in New York from August to September 1969, coming to the studio with only the basic song structures written down, and the song's arrangements in his memory, and they were developed throughout the album's recording. Most of Morrison's vocals were recorded live, and he later said that he would have preferred to record the entire album that way, and the finished album was the first for which Morrison was credited as the producer, later saying that as no-one else knew what he was looking for, he just did it. The resulting album found him abandoning the abstract folk/ jazz compositions of 'Astral Weeks' in favour of more formally composed songs, and its lively rhythm and blues/rock music was the style he would become most known for in his career. 'Moondance' was released by Warner Bros. on 27 January 1970 in the UK and on 28 February in the US, receiving immediate acclaim from critics on both sides of the Atlantic, being hailed by both Greil Marcus and Lester Bangs jointly in Rolling Stone as a work of "musical invention and lyrical confidence; the strong moods of 'Into the Mystic' and the fine, epic brilliance of 'Caravan' will carry it past many good records we'll forget in the next few years." The title track is one of his most covered songs, attracting nearly 250 versions, and some of the other tracks aren't far behind, with soul stars like Ben E. King, Lorraine Ellison, Merry Clayton and Esther Phillips all recognising the soulful quality of the song-writing, so here are some of the very best takes of the songs from Van Morrison's classic 'Moondance'. As it's quite a short collection I've added a track from Miriam Makeba from the same time period to close the album. 

Track listing

01 And It Stoned Me (Jackie DeShannon 1971) 
02 Moondance (Irene Reid 1970)   
03 Crazy Love (Rita Coolidge 1971)
04 Caravan (Lorraine Ellison 1971) 
05 Into The Mystic (Ben E. King 1972)
06 Come Running (Lynn Anderson 1979)
07 These Dreams Of You (Jesse Colin Young 2021)
08 Brand New Day (Esther Phillips with The Dixie Flyers 1970)
09 Everyone (Elizabeth Mitchell 2012)
10 Glad Tidings (Merry Clayton 1970)
11 I Shall Sing (Miriam Makeba 1970)

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)

Jackie De Shannon - Trust In Me (1969)

Singer and songwriter Jackie DeShannon has quite a musical legacy. Her early singles crafted doo wop to intelligent lyrics, and she toured with the Beatles in 1964 and more than held her own. She wrote songs with Randy Newman and Jimmy Page, sang with Van Morrison, and was among the first artists to realize that folk and pop could work together, and was a behind-the-scenes innovator in the creation of folk-rock. She started out singing country songs on a local radio show by the time she was six years old, and by the age of 11 she was hosting her own show on the station. She was already single-minded about a career in music, and after the family moved to Illinois, she continued to work at singing and songwriting, and recorded regional singles under various names as a teenager, including sides as Jackie Dee and Jackie Shannon. Her versions of a pair of country songs, 'Buddy' and 'Trouble', caught the ear of rocker Eddie Cochran, who sought her out and introduced her to his girlfriend, singer and songwriter Sharon Sheeley, and they began collaborating on songs such as 'I Love Anastasia', which was a hit for the Fleetwoods, and 'Dum Dum' for Brenda Lee. Sharon Lee Myers, as she then was, signed a recording contract with Liberty Records in 1960, and by this point she had grafted the names Jackie Dee and Jackie Shannon together to become known as Jackie DeShannon, and it was under that name that her debut single 'Lonely Girl' appeared later that year. Although she continued to release fine singles, including the Sonny Bono/Jack Nitzsche classic 'Needles And Pins' and her own 'When You Walk In The Room' (both songs were later big hits for the Searchers), she only had moderate success in the charts. Her biggest break came when she opened for the Beatles on the group’s first U.S. tour in 1964 with a band that included a young Ry Cooder, and that same year the Byrds covered her song 'Don’t Doubt Yourself Babe' on their debut album for Columbia Records, which only added to her visibility. She moved briefly to England in 1965, where she began writing songs with a pre-Led Zeppelin Jimmy Page, including 'Don’t Turn Your Back on Me' and 'Dream Boy', as well as penning 'Come And Stay With Me' for Marianne Faithfull, and when she moved back to New York she teamed up with a pre-fame Randy Newman to write 'Did He Call Today Mama?' and 'Hold Your Head High', among others. In 1965 she finally conquered the pop charts with her version of Burt Bacharach and Hal David's 'What The World Needs Now Is Love', and two years later in 1967 she played a folksinger in the movie 'C'mon Let's Live A Little', where she starred alongside 60's hearth-throb Bobby Vee. 

Despite the eventual success of the single, she was a tough act to market, as she was obviously young and beautiful, but her natural intelligence made her seem out of place as a teen idol, and the singer/songwriter era was still a couple of years down the road. In 1967 she released the 'New Image' album, but the title was a misnomer, as it just consisted of pale cover versions, and her name only appeared on the credits of two of the tracks. 'For You' came out the same year, and was a bold experiment comprising 'standards' with orchestral arrangements, which was an idea borrowed more successfully by Linda Ronstadt some fifteen years later. 'Me About You' was released in early 1968, and was an excursion into soft rock, with songs by Tim Hardin and John Sebastian, alongside four of her own songs, but it was with 1968's 'Laurel Canyon' that she finally found her voice. Out went the well-groomed young female entertainer, to be replaced by the blonde hippie chick pictured sumptuously in a series of Sue Cameron photos on the album cover. The music was a revelation as well, with De Shannon contributing five songs, but picking others by Barry White, Paul Williams, Clapton/Bruce/Brown, and Robbie Robertson to accompany them, and employing a band that included Mac 'Dr. John' Rebennack, Barry White, Russ Titleman and Harold R. Battiste Jr., producing a loose, flowing sound, supporting her soulful voice in top form. Many of the songs celebrated Los Angeles, and particularly the Laurel Canyon area, as well as including her hit version of The Band's 'The Weight', and her own belated recording of the Marianne Faithful hit 'Come And Stay With Me'. Possibly because this was a new career path for her, she recorded way more tracks than were needed for the album, so that she could pick the best of them fr the final tracklisting, and a lot of them have since turned up on expanded re-issues. This companion album to 'Laurel Canyon' is made up of these out-takes, as well as a few in the same style from her follow-up album from the following year, and a non-album Christmas single that she released in 1969, and when you hear a great track like 'The Greener Side' you wonder how that could ever have been rejected. 

Track listing

01 Brighton Hill
02 Trust In Me
03 What Is This
04 Happy Go Lucky Girl
05 Ooh, You Did It Again!
06 What Was Your Day Like
07 Medley - Keep Me Hangin' On' / Hurt So Bad
08 Effervescent Blue
09 Mediterranean Sky
10 The Greener Side
11 Reason To Believe
12 Try A Little Harder
13 Children And Flowers
14 Christmas