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)

Mike Bloomfield - ...and on guitar (1977)

Michael Bernard Bloomfield was born into a wealthy Chicago Jewish-American family in 1943, a part of the family that ran Bloomfield Industries, formed by his grandfather Samuel Bloomfield. When he was twelve his family moved to suburban Glencoe, Illinois, where he attended New Trier High School for two years. During this time, he began playing in local bands, putting together The Hurricanes, which later led to his expulsion after his band performed a raucous rock and roll song at a 1959 school gathering. In 1957 Bloomfield had attended a Chicago performance by blues singer Josh White, and began spending time in Chicago's South Side blues clubs, playing guitar with such bluesmen as Sleepy John Estes, Yank Rachell, and Little Brother Montgomery, and by the early 60's he'd played with Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, and many other Chicago blues performers. At this time he met musicians who would later become part of his professional life, such as harmonica player and singer Paul Butterfield, guitarist Elvin Bishop, fellow Chicagoan Nick Gravenites, and Bronx-born record producer Norman Dayron. With help from his friend Joel Harlib, a Chicago photographer who became Bloomfield's de facto manager, they took an audition tape by Bloomfield to Columbia producer and talent scout John Hammond in 1964, and he was signed to Columbia's Epic Records label. He recorded a few sessions for Columbia in 1964 that remained unreleased until after his death, and in early 1965 he joined the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which included Elvin Bishop and keyboardist Mark Naftalin, along with drummer Sam Lay and bassist Jerome Arnold, and their debut album 'The Paul Butterfield Blues Band' was recorded in September and released the following month. In June 1965, Bloomfield had recorded with Bob Dylan, whom he had met in 1963 at a Chicago club called the Bear, adding his chiming Telecaster guitar licks to 'Like A Rolling Stone', and he also played on most of the tracks on Dylan's 1965 'Highway 61 Revisited' album. After Sam Lay fell ill after a series of dates in November 1965, the Butterfield Band brought Chicago-born drummer Billy Davenport into the group, and this line-up recorded the ground-breaking 'East-West', with the title track exploring modal music, being based on a song Gravenites and Bloomfield had been playing since 1965 called 'It's About Time'. 

Bloomfield played on a number of recording sessions between 1965 and 1967, and his guitar playing had a huge impact on San Francisco Bay Area musicians after he played with the Butterfield band at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West. Eventually Bloomfield tired of the Butterfield Band's rigorous touring schedule and, relocating to San Francisco, he sought to create his own group and he formed the short-lived Electric Flag in 1967, with two longtime Chicago collaborators, Barry Goldberg and vocalist Nick Gravenites. The band featured a horn section, and the rhythm section was composed of bassist Harvey Brooks and drummer Buddy Miles, and the first recordings were for the soundtrack of director-producer Roger Corman's 1967 movie 'The Trip'. Their first proper studio album 'A Long Time Comin'' was issued in April 1968, and critics complimented the group's distinctive, intriguing sound but found the record itself somewhat uneven. By that time, however, the band was already disintegrating, and shortly after the release of the album Bloomfield left his own band, with Gravenites, Goldberg, and bassist Harvey Brooks following. He next teamed up with keyboardist Al Kooper, who had also played on 'Like A Rolling Stone', and after playing together on Moby Grape's 1968 'Grape Jam' album, they decided to record an entire jam album, with the result being the classic 'Supersession' album, with Bloomfield, Kooper, and Stephen Stills, Barry Goldberg, Harvey Brooks, and Eddie Hoh. Bloomfield continued with solo, session and back-up work from 1968 to 1980, playing on Mother Earth's cover of Memphis Slim's 'Mother Earth', and producing the 1968 sessions for James Cotton's 1968 album 'Cotton In Your Ears'. He released his first solo album 'It's Not Killing Me' in 1969, and the same year he helped Janis Joplin assemble her Kozmic Blues Band for the album 'I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues, Again Mama!', playing the guitar solo on Joplin's blues composition 'One Good Man'. He also reunited with Paul Butterfield and Sam Lay for the Chess Records album 'Fathers And Sons', featuring Muddy Waters and pianist Otis Spann. 

During 1970 Bloomfield gave up playing because of his heroin addiction, and it wasn't until 1973 that he recorded his second solo album 'Try It Before You Buy It', which was rejected by Columbia, and didn't appear until 1990. Also in 1973, he cut 'Triumvirate' with Dr. John and guitarist and singer John Hammond Jr, and the next year he was back with The Electric Flag for their 'The Band Kept Playing' album. In 1975 he recorded an album with the group KGB with singer and songwriter Ray Kennedy, and Barry Goldberg, with the band name coming from their initials, but it was not well received by critics, and Bloomfield left soon after its release. The same year found him performing with John Cale on Cale's soundtrack for the film 'Caged Heat', and in 1976 he recorded an instructional album for guitarists, 'If You Love These Blues, Play 'Em As You Please', which was financed through Guitar Player magazine. In 1977, Bloomfield was selected by Andy Warhol to do the soundtrack for the pop artist's last film, 'Andy Warhol's Bad'(also known as 'BAD'), and an unreleased single 'Andy's Bad' was produced for the project. During 1979-1981 he often performed with the King Perkoff Band, sometimes introducing them as the 'Michael Bloomfield And Friends' outfit, and he continued to play live dates, with his performance at San Francisco State College on 7th February 1981, being his final appearance. Bloomfield died in San Francisco on 15th February 1981, at the age of just 37, found seated behind the wheel of his car, with all four doors locked. According to police, an empty Valium bottle was found on the car seat, but no suicide note was found, and the medical examiner who performed the autopsy ruled the death accidental. In his short life he became known as the epitome of the white bluesman, with his searing guitar gracing a multitude of songs from the early 60's right up until a few years before his death. 

Track listing

01 Flat Broke Blues (from 'Cherry Red' by Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson 1967)
02 Mother Earth (from 'Living With the Animals' by Mother Earth 1968)
03 Blues For Barry And... (from '2 Jews Blues' by Barry Goldberg 1969)
04 One Good Man (from 'Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again, Mama!' by Janis Joplin 1969) 
05 Pigs Head (from 'Weeds' by Brewer & Shipley 1969)
06 Killing My Love (from 'My Labors' by Nick Gravenites 1969)
07 Mean Disposition (from 'Fathers And Sons' by Muddy Waters 1969)
08 Nose Open (from 'Taking Care Of Business' by James Cotton Blues Band 1970)
09 Sidewalk Stanley (from 'Brand New' by Woody Herman 1971)
10 Settle It In The Bedroom, Baby (from 'Casting Pearls' by Mill Valley Bunch 1973)

11 Andy's Bad (from the film 'Andy Warhol's Bad' 1977)
12 If You Love These Blues (intro) / WDIA (from 'If You Love These Blues...' 1976)