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)

Slash - ...and on guitar (2008)

Saul Hudson was born in Stoke-on-Trent on July 23, 1965, and was immersed in music from the outset. His father, Anthony Hudson, was an artist who created album covers for musicians such as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, while his mother Ola J. Hudson was an African-American fashion designer and costumier from the United States, whose clients included David Bowie (whom she also dated), Ringo Starr, and Janis Joplin. During his early years, he was raised by his father and paternal grandparents in Stoke-on-Trent while his mother moved back to her native United States to work in Los Angeles, and when he was around five years old, they both joined his mother in Los Angeles. Following his parents' separation in 1974, Hudson became a self-described "problem child", living with his mother, but often being sent to live with his beloved maternal grandmother whenever she had to travel for her job. He sometimes accompanied his mother to work, where he met several film and music stars, and was given the nickname "Slash" by actor Seymour Cassel, because he was "always in a hurry, zipping around from one thing to another". In 1979, Slash decided to form a band with his friend Steven Adler, and although the band never materialized, it prompted him to take up an instrument, and since Adler had designated himself the role of guitarist, Slash decided to learn how to play bass. Equipped with a one-string flamenco guitar given to him by his grandmother, he began taking classes with guitar teacher Robert Wolin, but during his first lesson he decided to switch from bass to guitar after hearing Wolin play 'Brown Sugar' by the Rolling Stones. In 1981 he joined his first band Tidus Sloan, and a couple of years later he reunited with Alder and formed Road Crew, named after the Motörhead song '(We Are) The Road Crew'. He placed an advertisement in a newspaper looking for a bassist, and received a response from Duff McKagan. They auditioned a number of singers, including one-time Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes, but they couldn't find one that suited them and so the band broke up the following year. Slash and Adler then joined  local group Hollywood Rose, which featured singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin, and after that he played with Black Sheep, and also unsuccessfully auditioned for glam-metallers Poison. 

In June 1985, Slash was asked by Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin to join their new band Guns N' Roses, along with Duff McKagan and Steven Adler, replacing founding members Tracii Guns, Ole Beich and Rob Gardner, respectively, and they began playing Los Angeles-area nightclubs‍ ‌such as the Whisky a Go Go, The Roxy, and The Troubadour‍. Before one of the shows in 1985, Slash shoplifted a black felt top hat and a Native American-style silver concho belt from two stores on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, combining them to create a piece of custom headwear which would become his trademark. After being scouted by several major record labels, the band signed with Geffen Records in March 1986, and they released their debut album 'Appetite For Destruction' in 1987, eventually selling over 28 million copies worldwide. However, as their success grew, so did interpersonal tensions within the band, and in 1989, during a show as opening act for the Rolling Stones, Axl Rose threatened to leave the band if certain members didn't stop "dancing with Mr. Brownstone," a reference to their song of the same name about heroin use. Slash was among those who promised to clean up, but the following year Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction, being replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult. In May 1991, the band embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour, and the following September they released the long-awaited albums 'Use Your Illusion I' and 'Use Your Illusion II', which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart. In the four years since the release of 'Appetite For Destruction', Slash had gained an enviable reputation as a guitarist, and so it was no surprise that he was asked to guest on albums from other artists, and one of the first that he accepted was an invitation from Iggy Pop, adding his guitar to Pop's 1990 'Brick By Brick' album, followed swiftly with a guest appearance on Bob Dylan's 'Under The Red Sky' album (even though Dylan later cut his solo), and collaborations with Alice Cooper, Motörhead, Michael Jackson, and Spinal Tap, and even though Spinal Tap don't take themselves too seriously, Slash pulled out all the stops for his contribution to their 'Break Like The Wind'. In November 1991 Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band, and was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Candy and Kill for Thrills, and after the Use Your Illusion Tour had ended in 1993, the band released 'The Spaghetti Incident?', a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. Slash then wrote several songs for what would have become the follow-up album to the 'Use Your Illusion' double set, but they were rejected by Rose and McKagan, and so with the band's failure to collaborate resulting in no album being recorded, Slash announced in October 1996 that he was no longer a part of Guns N' Roses. 

In 1994 he added his guitar to band-mates Gilby Clarke's solo album, and then formed Slash's Snakepit, a side project that featured his Guns N' Roses bandmates Matt Sorum and Gilby Clarke on drums and rhythm guitar respectively, as well as Alice in Chains' Mike Inez on bass and Jellyfish's Eric Dover on vocals. Their 1995 album 'It's Five O'Clock Somewhere' included Slash's rejected material that was intended for Guns N' Roses, and was critically praised for ignoring the then-popular conventions of alternative music. Faring well on the charts, the band toured in support of the album, before disbanding in 1996. Slash then toured for two years with the blues rock cover band Slash's Blues Ball, as well as adding his guitar to albums from Sammy Hagar and Insane Clown Posse, before deciding to regroup Slash's Snakepit in 1999, with Rod Jackson on vocals, Ryan Roxie on rhythm guitar, Johnny Griparic on bass, and Matt Laug on drums. Their second album 'Ain't Life Grand' was released in October 2000 through Koch Records, but it didn't sell as well as the band's previous release, and its critical reception was mixed. In 2002 Slash reunited with Duff McKagan and Matt Sorum for a Randy Castillo tribute concert, and realizing that they still had the chemistry of their days in Guns N' Roses, they decided to form a new band together. Izzy Stradlin was initially involved, but left after the others decided to find a lead singer; a task that took many months listening to demo tapes, before former Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland got the Velvet Revolver gig. In 2003 they released their first single 'Set Me Free' followed by their debut album 'Contraband' in June 2004, which crashed in at No. 1 on the U.S. chart, eventually selling two million copies. In July 2007 Velvet Revolver released their second album 'Libertad', and embarked on a second tour, but during a show in March 2008 Weiland announced to the audience that it would be the band's final tour, following which he was fired from the band, with Slash insisting "chemical issues" had led to his departure. Despite the loss of their singer, the band did not officially disband, and in early 2010 they began writing new songs and auditioning new singers. By January 2011 they'd recorded nine demos, and was reportedly due to make a decision on their singer, but Slash eventually admitted that they had been unable to find a suitable vocalist and that Velvet Revolver would go on hiatus for the next few years while its members focused on other projects. So that's the perfect place to end this collection of Slash's extra-curricular work between 1990 and 2008, so settle down and listen to some superb rock guitar on a wide variety of genres from a stellar group of artists. 

Track listing

Disc One
01 Home (from 'Brick By Brick' by Iggy Pop 1990)
02 Wiggle Wiggle (from 'Under The Red Sky by Bob Dylan 1990)
03 Always On The Run (from 'Mama Said' by' Lenny Kravitz 1991)
04 Hey Stoopid (from 'Hey Stoopid' by Alice Cooper 1991)

05 Give In To Me (from 'Dangerous' by Michael Jackson 1991)

06 Break Like The Wind (from 'Break Like The Wind' by Spinal Tap 1992)

07 You Better Run  (from 'March Ör Die' by Motörhead 1992)

08 I Don't Live Today (from 'Stone Free: A Tribute To Jimi Hendrix' by Various Artists 1993)

09 Tie Your Mother Down (from 'Resurrection' by Brian May & Cozy Powell 1993)

10 Hold Out For Love (from 'Colour Of Your Dreams' by Carole King 1993)

11 Believe In Me (from 'Believe In Me' by Duff McKagan 1993)

Disc Two

01 Cure Me...Or Kill Me... (from 'Pawnshop Guitars' by Gilby Clarke 1994)

02 Where You Belong (from 'Carmine Appice's Guitar Zeus' by Carmine Appice 1995)

03 Communication Breakdown (from 'Stairway To Heaven' by Various Artists 1997)

04 Moja Mi Corazón (from 'Azabache' by Marta Sánchez 1997) 

05 Little White Lie (from 'Marching To Mars' by Sammy Hagar 1997)

06 Hall Of Illusions (from 'The Great Milenko' by Insane Clown Posse 1997)

07 Human (from 'Human' by Rod Stewart 2001)

08 Over, Under, Sideways, Down (from 'Birdland' by The Yardbirds 2003) 

09 The Blame Game (from 'Hollywood Zen' by Matt Sorum 2003)

08 Street Child (from 'Street Child' by Elan 2003)
09 Mustang Nismo (from the soundtrack to the film 'The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift' 2006)
10 Gioca Con Me (from 'Il Mondo Che Vorrei' by Vasco 2008)

Rod Stewart - ...featuring Rod Stewart (1969)

Roderick David Stewart was born in North London in 1945, the son of a Scottish master builder from Edinburgh, and consequently has always maintained his Scottish heritage. The family was mostly focused on football, as his father had played in a local amateur team, and in the summer of 1960 Stewart went for trials at Third Divisiion club Brentford F.C., but nothing came of it, and so he instead opted for the life of a musician. In 1962 Stewart began hanging around with folk singer Wizz Jones, busking at Leicester Square and other London spots, and taking up playing the then-fashionable harmonica. Over the next 18 months Jones and Stewart took their act to Brighton and then to Paris, sleeping under bridges over the River Seine, and then finally to Barcelona, where he was deported from Spain for vagrancy during 1963. Disillusioned by rock and roll, he saw Otis Redding perform in concert and began listening to Sam Cooke records, becoming fascinated by rhythm and blues and soul music. After returning to London in 1963, Stewart joined a rhythm and blues group, the Dimensions, as a harmonica player and part-time vocalist. A more established singer from Birmingham, Jimmy Powell, then hired the group and it became known as Jimmy Powell & the Five Dimensions, with Stewart being relegated to harmonica player. 
Relations soon broke down between Powell and Stewart over roles within the group and Stewart departed, and shortly after that, as he was waiting at Twickenham railway station after having seen Long John Baldry and the All Stars at Eel Pie Island, Baldry heard him playing 'Smokestack Lightnin'' on his harmonica, and invited him to sit in with the group. When Baldry discovered Stewart was a singer as well, he offered him a job for £35 a week, and in June 1964, Stewart made his recording debut (without label credit) on 'Up Above My Head', the B-side to Baldry's 'You'll Be Mine' single. While still with Baldry, Stewart made some solo demo recordings, and after being scouted by Decca Records at the Marquee Club, he signed to a solo contract in August 1964. Turning down Decca's recommended material as too commercial, Stewart insisted that the experienced session musicians he was given, including John Paul Jones, learn a couple of Sonny Boy Williamson songs he had just heard, and the resulting single 'Good Morning Little Schoolgirl' was released in October 1964. 
Stewart left Baldry's band after a disagreement, but later patched things up when legendary impresario Giorgio Gomelsky put together The Steampacket, which featured Baldry, Stewart, Brian Auger, Julie Driscoll, Micky Waller, Vic Briggs and Ricky Fenson. The group was conceived as a white soul revue, like The Ike & Tina Turner Revue, with multiple vocalists and styles ranging from jazz to R & B to blues. The Steampacket was unable to enter the studio to record any material due to its members all belonging to different labels and managers, although Gomelsky did record one of their Marquee Club rehearsals. Stewart departed from The Steampacket in March 1966, joining a somewhat similar outfit, Shotgun Express in May as co-lead vocalist with Beryl Marsden. The other members included Mick Fleetwood and Peter Green (who would later go on to form Fleetwood Mac), and Peter Bardens (soon to form Camel), and they released one unsuccessful single in October 1966, the orchestra-heavy 'I Could Feel The Whole World Turn Round' (with a couple of great instrumentals on the flip), before disbanding. In 1967 guitarist Jeff Beck recruited Stewart for his new post-Yardbirds venture, joining as vocalist and sometime songwriter. This would become his biggest break, and was also where he first played with Ronnie Wood, whom he'd first met in a London pub in 1964. Following two well-received albums, 'Truth' in 1968 and 'Beck-Ola' in 1969, Stewart and Wood both left, joining Wood's brother Art in his new band Quiet Melon, who recorded a couple of tracks before disbanding, one of which featured Rod on lead vocal. 
Stewart had signed a solo contact with Mercury Records in 1968, but contractual complexities delayed recording until July 1969, and in the meantime he'd been invited to join Ron Wood in a band put together by ex-Small Faces members Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan, and Kenney Jones, who soon decided to call the new line-up The Faces. In April 1969 Stewart sang guest vocals for the Australian group Python Lee Jackson on their 'In a Broken Dream' album, and in 1972 the title track was re-released as a single and became a massive hit. His payment was a set of seat covers for his car. From this point on, Stewart's solo and band career took off, with hit singles and albums in both capacities, but for this album I'm looking just at the bands who Stewart lent his distinctive vocals to before he hit the big time. I've chosen just songs where he is the sole vocalist, which means omitting some Steampacket duets, but with the exception of the Long John Baldry track, which is worth hearing as it was his debut outing as a singer, and the Shotgun Express single. I've also omitted his time with the Jeff Beck Group, whose studio albums, BBC sessions and live bootlegs are all freely available if you want to sample his work with them - and please do as it's all great stuff.

Track listing

01 Up Above My Head (I Hear Music In The Air) (Long John Baldry 1964)
02 Ain't That Loving You Baby (The Steampacket 1965)
03 Mopper's Blues (The Steampacket 1965)
04 Keep Your Hands Off Her (The Steampacket 1965)
05 Bright Lights, Big City (The Hoochie Coochie Men 1965)
06 Just Like I Treat You (The Steampacket 1965)
07 Can I Get A Witness (The Steampacket 1965)
08 Don't You Tell Nobody (The Hoochie Coochie Men 1965)
09 It's Alright (The Steampacket - BBC session 1965)
10 I Could Feel The Whole World Turn Round (Shotgun Express 1966)
11 Stone Crazy (The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, with Peter Green and Jack Bruce 1967)
12 Doin' Fine (Cloud Nine) (Python Lee Jackson 1969)
13 In A Broken Dream (Python Lee Jackson 1969)
14 The Blues (Python Lee Jackson 1969)
15 Diamond Joe (Quiet Melon 1969)

The Faces - A Fifth Of The Faces (1975)

I've always thought that 'Pool Hall Richard' and 'You Can Make Me Dance...' were two of the best things that The Faces ever did, and if they had managed to complete an album while they were producing songs of that quality then it would have been their best ever. For a number of reasons - Ronnie Lane leaving, Stewart's solo career taking off, etc - the band broke up and so the album was not to be. Here we have all the tracks that they recorded before the split, as well as those two singles, and a couple of solo tracks from Stewart, Wood and Lane where the rest of the Faces helped them out. As this would have been their fifth album, and they were notoriously fond of a tipple, I've called it 'A Fifth Of The Faces'

Track listing

01 Pool Hall Richard
02 Open To Ideas
03 You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything
04 Rock Me
05 Bye & Bye (Gonna See The King)
06 Take A Look At The Guy
07 Gettin' Hungry
08 As Long As You Tell Him
09 Sailor
10 Mystifies Me
11 Dixie Toot