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 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)

Manfred Mann - Instrumental Asylum (1967)

The Mann-Hugg Blues Brothers were formed in London by South African keyboard player Manfred Mann and drummer/vibes/piano player Mike Hugg, and the early line-up also featured Graham Bond. They brought a shared love of jazz to the British blues boom then sweeping London's clubs, and with addition of Mike Vickers on guitar, alto saxophone and flute, Dave Richmond on bass and Paul Jones as lead vocalist and harmonicist, the renamed Manfred Mann were born. Gigging throughout late 1962 and early 1963 they soon attracted attention for their distinctive sound, and in 1964 the group were asked to provide a new theme tune for the ITV pop music television programme 'Ready Steady Go!'. They responded with '5-4-3-2-1' which became their first hit single, reaching No. 5 in the UK Singles Chart. They followed this with more singles, all covers of blues/R'n'B songs like 'Doo Wah Diddy' and 'Sha La La', but when they recorded their first album in 1964 they went back to their roots and included a lot of those early R'n'B covers like 'Smokestack Lightning', 'I've Got My Mojo Working' and 'I'm Your Kingpin', although they did write their own stuff for B-sides and EP releases. They changed their style slightly around 1964, and with singles like 'Come Tomorrow' and covers of Bob Dylan songs such as 'With God On Our Side' and 'If You Gotta Go, Go Now' they became more of a pop band. Paul Jones left in 1966 to pursue an acting and solo recording career, and he was replaced by Mike D'Abo, who brought a softer, folkier sound to the group, but before he actually joined, the rest of the band went into the studio to record some jazz versions of then current pop hits. They were pleased with the results and the tracks were released as two four-track EP's - 'Instrumental Asylum' and 'Instrumental Assassination'. However, the public weren't as impressed and both EP's sold poorly. As I'd always liked their version of the jazz standard 'Autumn Leaves' from the 'As Is' album, I had to hear these EP's to see if they were really that bad, and of course they aren't. The band are all excellent musicians and started out playing in jazz clubs, so I thought these tracks sounded perfectly fine, and now you can make up your own mind, as they are all collected here, along with a few albums tracks, b-sides and out-takes from 1966 and 1967 to make a 43 minute album. It's not the Manfred Mann that most people are familiar with, and to me it sounds like a proper jazz album from the late 60's, but I love it. I've adapted the 'Instrumental Asylum' EP sleeve for the cover of this post, and I hope that it goes some way to show what an innovative and versatile band Manfred Mann were, as what other group have been as successful in genres as diverse as R'n'B, jazz, pop, folk/pop, jazz-rock (with Chapter 3) and progressive rock (with The Earth Band) as the Manfreds.  

Track listing

01 Still I'm Sad
02 Sunny
03 My Generation
04 God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
05 Spirit Feel
06 Wild Thing
07 Bare Hugg
08 I Got You Babe
09 Autumn Leaves
10 Get Away
11 One Way
12 With A Girl Like You
13 (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
14 Sweet Pea
15 Miss JD

Manfred Mann - Cubist Town (1968)

In 1966, during the recording of what was to become the 'As Is' album, Mike Hugg turned up clutching a copy of the new Beach Boys album 'Pet Sounds'. He'd grown increasingly tired of the rut that the band had fallen into, of recording a collection of singles and b-sides, adding in a few fillers and releasing it as an album, and he wanted the band to move more in the direction that the Beach Boys had with their latest record. The rest of the group were up for it, but felt that it was too late to change what they'd already recorded for 'As is', so they decided to compete the album and then go away and digest 'Pet Sounds', and then see what new songs they could come up with. Mike D'Abo presented 'No Better No Worse', Hugg contributed 'Harry The One Man Band', 'It's So Easy Falling' and 'Too Many People', and Tom McGuinness wrote 'There Is A Man', and what was to become the title track of the album 'Cubist Town'. Recording began in early 1967, with the band adding harpsicord and mellotron to their usual instruments, and filling any gaps there were left with harmony vocals. During the sessions Gerry Bron took a call from film director Peter Collinson, who wanted the band to provide the soundtrack to his new movie, and after much deliberation the band eventually agreed. One of the songs they'd written, 'Floating In A Dream', was renamed 'Up The Junction' in preparation for the  recording of the soundtrack, and another couple of completed songs were put to one side to be used in the film. However, because of this extra workload 'Cubist Town' ground to a halt, and when Hugg heard that the Zombies were also recording an album in a similar vein, he gave up his quest for this elusive masterpiece, and the band took some of the songs they'd recorded, added a few more in their old style, such as 'Ha Ha Said The Clown', and released the 'Mighty Garvey' album. 'Cubist Town' was never to be, and was consigned to the vaults.

Unfortunately none of the above is true, as this back story was put together by Joe Wiltshire, to go with this collection of Manfred Mann tracks that he'd compiled into an album that he'd like to have seen come out in 1968. It's apparently something of a hobby of his, with him also designing the cover and coming up with the track listing, but it all sounds so believable that you wonder if it isn't that far from the truth. Listen to the album and decide for yourself.


Track listing

01 No Better No Worse
02 It's So Easy Falling
03 Cubist Town
04 Harry The One Man Band
05 Up The Junction
06 Every Day Another Hair Turns Grey
07 The Funniest Gig
08 Budgie
09 Too Many People
10 There Is A Man
11 Just For Me
12 Eastern Street
13 Sleepy Hollow

I added the last two songs to make the album up to 36 minutes, and I've tried to segue them in the same style as the rest of the album, so I hope you don't spot the joins When I first heard this album I didn't know if I liked the segues, with each track running into the next, so I split them out and faded them, but now I understand the concept It's grown on me. Rather than waste my efforts, I've included both versions in the download for you to make your own choice.