Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Jackson Browne (2012)

Clyde Jackson Browne was born on 9 October 1948, in Heidelberg, Germany, where his father Clyde Jack Browne, an American serviceman, was stationed for his job assignment with the Stars and Stripes newspaper. At the age of three, Browne and his family moved to his grandfather's house, Abbey San Encino, Los Angeles, and in his teens he began singing folk songs in local venues, including Ash Grove and The Troubadour Club. After graduating from high school he joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, performing at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, California, where they opened for the Lovin' Spoonful. He left the Dirt Band after a few months and moved to Greenwich Village, New York, where he became a staff writer for Elektra's publishing company, Nina Music, before he was eighteen. For the remainder of 1967 and into 1968 he played in Greenwich Village, where he replaced Tim Buckley as backing musician for singer Nico of the Velvet Underground, later forming a romantic relationship with her, and he was a significant contributor to her debut album, 'Chelsea Girl', writing and playing guitar on several of the songs. In 1968, following his breakup with Nico, Browne returned to Los Angeles, where he formed a folk band with Ned Doheny and Jack Wilce, and carried on writing songs, some of which were recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Tom Rush, Nico, Steve Noonan, Gregg Allman, Joan Baez, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, the Byrds, Iain Matthews, and others. In 1971, Browne signed with his manager David Geffen's Asylum Records and released his eponymous debut album in 1972 (often mistakenly referred to as 'Saturate Before Using' as this was typed at the top of the sleeve), and it included the piano-driven 'Doctor My Eyes', which entered the Top Ten in the US singles chart. 'Rock Me On The Water' also gained considerable radio airplay, while 'Jamaica Say You Will' and 'Song For Adam' helped establish his reputation as an up and coming songwriter. 'Doctor My Eyes' was picked up by The Jackson Five and garnered them a UK Top Ten hit single in 1972, and with the Byrds covering 'Jamaica Say You Will' in 1971, other songs from the album began to be recorded by a variety of artists, and by 1973 most of them had been covered. So here are the best of those covers, illustrating what a talented songwriter Browne was right from the start of his long career. 

Track listing

01 Jamaica Say You Will (The Byrds 1971) 
02 A Child In These Hills (Penny Nichols 2012)  
03 Song For Adam (Kiki Dee 1973) 
04 Doctor My Eyes (The Jackson 5 1972) 
05 From Silver Lake (Hedge & Donna 1968)  
06 Something Fine (Leo Sayer 1978)
07 Under The Falling Sky (Bonnie Raitt 1972)  
08 Looking Into You (The Mick Fleetwood Band 2004)  
09 Rock Me On The Water (Brewer & Shipley 1971)
10 My Opening Farewell (Michael Johnson 1973)

Andrew Gold - ...and on guitar (1981)

Andrew Maurice Gold was born on August 2, 1951 in Burbank, California, and eventually followed his parents into show business, as his mother was singer Marni Nixon, who provided the singing voice for numerous actresses, notably Natalie Wood in West Side Story, Deborah Kerr in The King and I, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, while his father was Ernest Gold, an Austrian-born composer who won an Academy Award for his score for the movie 'Exodus'. He began writing songs at the age of 13, and while in school in the UK for one year, the 16-year-old Gold scored his first recording contract on the strength of a selection of demos he submitted to Polydor Records' London office. That contract resulted in the single 'Of All the Little Girls', which was recorded with his friend and collaborator Charlie Villiers, and released in 1967 under the name Villiers and Gold. By the early 1970's, Gold was working full-time as a musician, songwriter and record producer, as well as being a member of the Los Angeles band Bryndle, alongside Kenny Edwards, Wendy Waldman and Karla Bonoff, who released the single 'Woke Up This Morning' in 1970. Four years later he played a major role as multi-instrumentalist and arranger for Linda Ronstadt's breakthrough album 'Heart Like A Wheel', as well as her next two albums. After Ronstadt's 'Hasten Down The Wind', he began a career as a solo artist, but was still loyal to Rondstadt, playing the majority of instruments on her only No. 1 Billboard hit single 'You're No Good', as well as playing in her band from 1973 until 1977, and then sporadically throughout the 1980's and 1990's. In 1975 Gold played most of the instruments on Art Garfunkel's solo hit 'I Only Have Eyes For You' and also released his eponymous debut solo album. His second studio album 'What's Wrong with This Picture?' came out in 1976, and contained the hot single 'Lonely Boy', which reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1977. The same year he played guitar on two cuts of Eric Carmen's album 'Boats Against the Current', including 'She Did It', and in 1978 his single 'Thank You for Being A Friend' from his third album 'All This And Heaven Too', peaked at No. 25 in 1978, and later gained more popularity as the theme song for 'The Golden Girls' TV series, as performed by Cindy Fee. His biggest hit in the UK was 'Never Let Her Slip Away', which peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart on two occasions, firstly by Gold himself in 1978 and again by dance-pop group Undercover in 1992, with Gold's friend Freddie Mercury being an uncredited background singer. 

In 1981 Gold produced, co-wrote, sang and played on three songs that appeared as bonus tracks on the re-issue of the hit-making pop-rock band 10cc's 1981 album 'Ten Out Of 10', after which Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman invited him to become a member of the band, but business conflicts prevented him from joining their ranks. In late 1983 10cc broke up, and in the aftermath, Gold and Gouldman formed Wax, who recorded and toured for five years, enjoying international success, particularly in the UK, where the duo had several hits including 'Right Between The Eyes', and their biggest hit 'Bridge To Your Heart'. Gold played on Cher's hit 1989 album 'Heart Of Stone' and during the early '90s he wrote and composed hits for Trisha Yearwood as well as Wynonna Judd, for whom he co-wrote the No. 1 single 'I Saw The Light' with Lisa Angelle. In the 1990's, Gold once again joined forces with ex-bandmates Karla Bonoff, Wendy Waldman and Kenny Edwards to re-form Bryndle and release their first full-length album 'Bryndle', but left the band in 1996 to release the children's Halloween-oriented novelty album 'Halloween Howls With John Waite', featuring the track 'Spooky Scary Skeletons', and the same year he released his sixth solo album '....Since 1951'. In 1997 he released the 60's influenced psychedelic 'Greetings From Planet Love' under the pseudonym 'The Fraternal Order Of the All' on his own QBrain Records label, and if you love what XTC did with The Dukes Of Stratosphere then you really do have to hear this truly brilliant album. Gold essentially played all the instruments and sang all of the vocals on original songs in the style of his favorite 1960's bands such as The Beatles, The Byrds and The Beach Boys, and it's all done with much love and respect. He continued to record and release solo albums in the 2000's, as well as forming a Byrds tribute band Byrds Of A Feather, which performed in the Los Angeles area. In the late 2010's he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and although he responded well to treatment, on 3 June 2011 he died in his sleep from what is suspected to have been heart failure, at the criminally young age of 59. Gold truly was the consummate musician, being able to play a large variety of instruments, as well as writing and producing hits for himself and other artists, and helping them out whenever he could by playing piano, drums, ukelele and acoustic guitar on their albums, and this tribute includes just a small selection of them where he added his electric guitar to their songs.   

Track listing

Disc One
01 Of All The Little Girls (single by Villiers & Gold 1967)
02 Woke Up This Morning (single by Bryndle 1970)
03 Sweet Turnstyle Blues (from 'Gypsy Moth' by Stephen Ambrose 1972)
04 Train Song (from 'Love Has Got Me' by Wendy Waldman 1973)
05 Isn't It Always Love (from 'Isn't It Always Love' by Karen Alexander 1975)
06 Highway Affair (from 'Farewell Fairbanks' by Randy Edelman 1975)
07 Jesus For Tonight (from 'Michel Polnareff' by Michel Polnareff 1975)
08 Love Out In The Street (from 'Playing Possum' by Carly Simon 1975) 
09 Roll Um Easy (from 'Prisoner In Disguise' by Linda Ronstadt 1975)
10 Looking For The Right One (from 'Breakaway' by Art Garfunkel 1975) 
11 On And On (from 'Careless' by Stephen Bishop 1976)

Disc Two
01 If You Have Crying Eyes (from 'Black Rose' by John David Souther 1976) 
02 Complainte Pour Ste-Catherine (from 'Kate & Anna McGarrigle' by Kate & Anna McGarrigle 1976)
03 I Hear The Laughter (from 'Endless Flight' by Leo Sayer 1976)
04 She Did It (from 'Boats Against The Current' by Eric Carmen 1977) 
05 Isn't That So? (from 'Glenda Griffith' by Glenda Griffith 1977)
06 I Can't Hold On (from 'Karla Bonoff' by Karla Bonoff 1977)
07 Runnin' And Hidin' (from 'Mr. Lucky' by Fools Gold 1977) 
08 Don't Make Me Over (from 'Shot Through The Heart' by Jennifer Warnes 1979)
09 I Did My Part (from 'Heartbreak Radio' by Rita Coolidge' 1981)
10 Runaway (bonus track from 'Ten Out Of 10' by 10cc 1981)

Earl Slick - ...and on guitar (1998)

Frank Madeloni, aka Earl Slick, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on October 1, 1952, and first began to be noticed on the New York music scene in the early 70's while playing guitar in a band called Mack Truck, featuring both singer-songwriter Jimmie Mack and his brother, drummer Jack Mack. It was in 1974, however, that his name was plastered all over the press when the 22 year-old Slick was chosen by David Bowie to serve as his first proper replacement for Mick Ronson, after Bowie had split up The Spiders From Mars. Although Bowie supplied most of the guitar work for his hit 1974 release 'Diamond Dogs', he sought the then-unknown Slick to replicate his and Ronson's previous guitar parts on tour, and not only did Slick duplicate them, but the incredibly versatile guitarist managed to expand on them and inject his own style into the tunes, resulting in one of the greatest rock guitar live albums of all time 'David Live', recorded at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia. Slick remained with Bowie for his next two studio albums, which saw the singer transform into his "Thin White Duke" persona and take on the funk genre, resulting in the classic records 'Young Americans' in  1975 and the more experimental 'Station To Station' the following year. Almost immediately he started to be asked to guest on studio sessions, with Leo Sayer being the first to spot his ability, followed quickly by Ian Hunter, and in 1977 he added guitar to his wife's collaboration with her sister on June and Jean Millington's 'Ladies On The Stage'. Leaving Bowie's band just as the singer decided to pack his bags and relocate to Germany, Slick continued on as a 'gun for hire', and appeared on records by other more obscure hard rock artists such as Bad Boy and Tonio K. Also during this time, he attempted briefly to launch a solo career, resulting in the albums 'Razor Sharp' and 'Earl Slick Band', but it was his next job that would be one of the high points of his entire career, when in 1980 he was asked to play on what would become John Lennon's final all-new studio recording, the chart-topping 'Double Fantasy'. After Lennon's death the same year, Slick returned to the studio with Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, and appeared on what would become her highest-charting solo release, 1981's harrowing 'Season Of Glass', and his work can also be heard on the posthumous releases 'Milk And Honey' in 1984, as well as the CD box sets for both Ono, with 1992's 'Onobox', and on Lennon's 1998 'Anthology', including his own choice as some of his best work on 'I Don't Wanna Face It'. 

The early to mid-'80s saw Slick return briefly to Bowie's band for the Serious Moonlight world tour in support of 1983's 'Let's Dance', as although Stevie Ray Vaughan had played guitar on the album, he'd left the band right before the tour due to a dispute between his and Bowie's management, so Slick was asked to step in as a last-minute replacement, due to his prior working relationship with Bowie. When the Bowie tour was over he teamed up with ex-Stray Cats musicians Lee Rocker (bass) and Slim Jim Phantom (drums), replacing Bran Seltzer in the re-named trio Phantom, Rocker & Slick, with the short-lived outfit issuing a pair of moderately successful albums, in 1985's 'Phantom, Rocker & Slick' and 1986's 'Cover Girl', before disbanding. This allowed Slick to carry on his session work throughout the late '80s/early '90's, and after a break from the music biz to sort out his personal life (allegedly to kick a serious drug problem), he returned stronger than ever, and founded his own record label, Slick Music Inc., which specializes in his own solo releases, as well as archival sets by other artists, like Fanny and Kasim Sulton. In 1990, he collaborated with David Glen Eisley in the band Dirty White Boy, which released their only album 'Bad Reputation' in 1990, and he then played in Little Caesar during 1991/1992. Working with mentor Michael Kamen, he contributed to several film soundtracks in the 1990's, including 'Hudson Hawk' and 'Nothing But Trouble', as well as releasing another solo album in 1991. Although it might seem like Slick has had extraordinary luck in being catapulted into the spotlight after only paying his dues for a few years, you can hear from these tracks that he crammed a lot into that short time, and by the time he was nabbed by Bowie he was already a guitarist of some talent.  

Track listing

Disc One
01 Reflections (from 'Endless Flight' by Leo Sayer 1976)
02 Stay (from 'Station To Station' by David Bowie 1976)
03 Wild 'n' Free (from 'Overnight Angels' by Ian Hunter 1977)
04 You Need This Woman (from 'Ladies On The Stage' by Millington 1977)
05 Keep It Up (from 'Back To Back' by Bad Boy 1978)
06 Life In The Foodchain (from 'Life In The Foodchain' by Tonio K. 1978)
07 Is It Right (from 'Van Dunson' by Van Dunson 1979)
08 I Put A Spell On You (from 'Simplicity' by Tim Currie 1981)
09 Goin' For Broke (from 'Silver Condor' by Silver Condor 1981)
10 Walking On Thin Ice (single by Yoko Ono 1981)

11 My Little World (from 'Heart On A Wall' by Jimmy Destri  1982)

Disc Two
01 East Of Eden's Gate (from 'East Of Eden's Gate' by Billy Thorpe 1982)
02 Running (from 'Running' By June Millington 1983)
03 Shark Pretty (from 'Dead Center' by Game Theory 1984)
04 Nobody Told Me (from 'Milk And Honey' by John Lennon & Yoko Ono 1984)
05 Imagination (from 'Some People' by Belouis Some 1985)
06 Dancing In The Street (single by David Bowie & Mick Jagger 1985)
07 Running Away (from '2wo' by Strange Advance 1985) 
08 Simple Man (from 'Junkyard' by Junkyard 1989)
09 Cry Little Sister (from 'Slamdunk' by Henry Lee Summer' 1993)
10 I Don't Wanna Face It (out-take from 'Anthology' by John Lennon 1998)

Hank Marvin - ...and on guitar (2007)

Brian Robson Rankin, known professionally as Hank B Harvin, was born on 28 October 1941 in Newcastle upon Tyne, and as a child he played banjo and piano, but after hearing Buddy Holly he decided to learn the guitar, and also adopted Holly style dark-rimmed glasses. He chose his stage name while launching his career, being an amalgamation of his childhood nickname Hank, which he used to differentiate himself from friends also named Brian, and the first name of Marvin Rainwater, the country and rockabilly singer. When he was 16 Marvin and his Rutherford Grammar School friend, Bruce Welch, met Johnny Foster, who was Cliff Richard's manager, and who was looking for a guitarist for Richard's UK tour. He was considering Tony Sheridan, but instead he offered Marvin the position, which he accepted on condition that Welch could join as well, and so both became members of The Drifters, as Richard's group was then known. To avoid confusion with the American vocal group of the same name, The Drifters changed theirs to The Shadows, and both with and without Richard they ruled the UK charts throughout the 60's. In 1970, Marvin and Welch formed Marvin, Welch & Farrar with John Farrar, being a vocal-harmony trio which failed to appeal to either Shadows or contemporary music fans. After Welch left they then became 'Marvin & Farrar' for a vocal album in 1973 and they then reverted to the Shadows in late 1973 for the superlative instrumental 'Rockin' With Curly Leads' album. During the 60's Marvin wrote a number of songs, including 'Driftin'', 'Geronimo', and 'Spider Juice' for the Shadows, and 'The Day I Met Marie' for Richard, and this carried on after he left the band, writing and playing on 'Work's Nice – If You Can Get It' by Spaghetti Junction in 1972. In 1976 he was asked by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice to add his distinctive guitar to their 'Evita' album, and that seems to have given him a taste for guest spots, appearing on albums by Tracey Ullman, Roger Daltry, Wings, Dennis Waterman and Leo Sayer over the next few years. He co-wrote Olivia Newton-John's 1977 hit 'Sam' with John Farrar and Don Black, and produced albums for the British showman Des O'Connor, while in 1988 he collaborated with French keyboardist and composer Jean Michel Jarre on the track 'London Kid', and he is the only artist to appear on two volumes of the 'Guitar Speak' series. In 2005 he was immortalised on Richard Hawley's 'I'm Absolutely Hank Marvin', on which he also played, as his name has become the rhyming slang for "starving" (Marvin-starvin'), but obviously it will be as one of the best UK guitarist of all time, and a major influence on a host of young musicians of the 60's and 70's, that he will primarily be remembered. 

Track listing

01 Work's Nice – If You Can Get It (single by Spaghetti Junction 1972)
02 Buenos Aires (from 'Evita' 1976)
03 Another Whiskey Sour (from 'Waterman' by Dennis Waterman 1977) 
04 Parade (from 'One Of One Boys' by Roger Daltry 1977)
05 So Glad to See You Here (from 'Back To The Egg' by Wings 1979)
06 You Broke My Heart in 17 Places (from 'You Broke My Heart In 17 Places' by 

                                                                                                                Tracey Ullman 1983)
07 Don't Wait Until Tomorrow (from 'Have You Ever Been In Love' by Leo Sayer 1983)
08 Teardrops (single by Shakin' Stevens 1984)
09 London Kid (from 'Revolutions' by Jean Michel Jarre 1988) 
10 Captain Zlogg (from 'Guitar Speak' by Various Artists 1988)
11 All Alone With Friends (from 'Guitar Speak II' by Various Artists 1990)
12 You're My World (single by Jane McDonald 1998)
13 I'm Absolutely Hank Marvin (b-side of 'Coles Corner' by Richard Hawley 2005)
14 My Cup Of Tea (from 'Fingerprints' by Peter Frampton 2007)

Leo Sayer - Kings Avenue (1978)

Gerard Hugh Sayer was born in 1948 in Shoreham-by-Sea, Sussex, the middle child of three children.  He attended Blessed Robert Southwell in Goring-by-Sea, before studying commercial art and graphic design at West Sussex College of Art and Design in Worthing, Sussex. He was initially discovered by musician David Courtney, who then co-managed and co-produced him with former pop singer turned manager, Adam Faith, and began his music career co-writing songs with Courtney, including 'Giving It All Away', which gave Roger Daltrey of The Who his first solo hit in 1973. In the same year he began his own career as a recording artist under the management of Adam Faith, who signed Sayer to the Chrysalis label in the United Kingdom and Warner Bros. Records in the United States. His debut single 'Why Is Everybody Going Home' failed to chart, but he achieved national prominence in the UK with his second single, the music hall styled 'The Show Must Go On', which he performed on British television wearing a pierrot costume and makeup. The single went to #2 in the UK chart, as did his debut album 'Silverbird', co-written with David Courtney, who co-produced it with Adam Faith. 
Subsequent singles were all major hits in the UK, with 'One Man Band', 'Long Tall Glasses', and 'Moonlighting' establishing him as a major star. His albums in this period were also consistently successful in the UK, scoring five consecutive Top 10 placings on the UK album chart between 1973 and 1977. The peak of his career came in 1977, when he achieved two consecutive number one hits in the United States, first with the disco-styled 'You Make Me Feel Like Dancing', followed by the romantic ballad 'When I Need You', which reached number one in both the UK and the US, but I'm afraid that's when Sayer and me parted company, as they were just too overtly commercial for me. I still love his early work, though, and so this album of early singles, demo's, out-takes and rare A and B-sides from 1970 to 1978 tidies up the songs that I may have missed in his best period. His very first single was as part of the band Patches, who were also managed by David Courtney, and  'Let It Be' is one of three songs that Sayer recorded for the Beatles tribute album 'All This And World War II', and which was released as a single under his own name. 'Kings Avenue' is an early version of 'Get The Girl', which later appeared as the b-side to his 1977 single 'Thunder In My Heart', and I've corrected the issue with every copy that I found online, where the first 10 seconds or so were at a lower volume than the rest of the recording.  

Track listing

01 Living In America (as Patches 1970)
02 The Hour Is Love (b-side of 'Living In America')
03 Quicksand (b-side of 'Why Is Everybody Going Home' 1973)
04 Reasons (out-take 1973)
05 Praise The Land (session recording 1974)
06 Let It Be (single 1975)
07 Standing In The Rain (demo recording 1975)
08 Tears Of A Clown (session recording 1976)
09 Milky White Way (session recording 1976)
10 Kings Avenue (aka 'Get The Girl') (out-take 1977)
11 Tell Me Just One More Time (session recording 1977)
12 I've Been Lonely For So Long (session recording 1978)
13 New Orleans (session recording 1978)