Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Nilsson (1971)

By 1958, Harry Nilsson was intrigued by emerging forms of popular music, especially rhythm and blues artists like Ray Charles, and he had made early attempts at performing by forming a vocal duo with his friend Jerry Smith and singing close harmonies in the style of the Everly Brothers. After learning to play the guitar and piano he started writing original songs, and after singing lessons courtesy of his uncle, along with his natural talent, he got a job singing demos for songwriter Scott Turner in 1962. After a couple of unsuccessful independent singles he started working with Phil Spector in 1964, writing three songs with him. In 1966 he signed to Tower Records, who released the first singles actually credited to him by name, as well as the debut album 'Spotlight On Nilsson', and although none of his Tower releases charted or gained much critical attention, his songs were being recorded by Glen Campbell, Fred Astaire, The Shangri-Las, The Yardbirds, and others. Later in 1966, he signed with RCA Victor and released the 'Pandemonium Shadow Show' album the following year, which was a critical success, with music industry insiders impressed both with the songwriting and with Nilsson's pure-toned, multi-octave vocals. 'Pandemonium Shadow Show' was followed in 1968 by 'Aerial Ballet', an album that included Nilsson's rendition of Fred Neil's song 'Everybody's Talkin'', which was a minor US hit at the time of release, but which became much more popular a year later when it was featured in the film 'Midnight Cowboy'. With the successes of 'Everybody's Talkin'' creating a demand for Nilsson recordings, a reissue of his first two RCA Victor albums, 'Pandemonium Shadow Show' and the out of print 'Aerial Ballet', was considered, but he thought that his early albums already sounded a bit dated by 1971, so he went back into the studio with the master tapes, and remixed, tweaked, and re-recorded vocals, and came up with a new consolidation that he titled 'Aerial Pandemonium Ballet'. This included four songs from 'Pandemonium Shadow Show' and eight songs from 'Aerial Ballet', and over the following years nearly all of these songs were picked up and covered by other artists. Because some of the tracks on 'Aerial Pandemonium Ballet' were his own covers of classics like 'River Deep, Mountain High' and 'Everybody's Talkin'', I've gone back to the original albums and added some of the tracks which were ignored in the re-issue, in order to make this post a reasonable length. Once again, it's a nice mix of famous and not so famous artists, all doing justice to some fine songs by Nilsson. 

Track listing

01 Introduction
02 1941 (Billy J. Kramer 1968)
03 Daddy's Song (The Casuals 1969)
04 Bath (Doris 1970) 
05 Sleep Late, My Lady Friend (Harry Belafonte 1968) 
06 Don't Leave Me (Hugo Montenegro 1969)
07 Without Her (Blood, Sweat & Tears 1968)
08 Together (Sandie Shaw 1968)
09 One (Three Dog Night 1969)
10 I Said Goodbye To Me (The Glass Menagerie 1968)
11 Little Cowboy (The Buffoons 1969)
12 Wailing Of The Willow (Friday Brown 1971)
13 Cuddly Toy (The Fruit Machine 1968)
14 It's Been So Long (Kenny Everett 1968)
15 Ten Little Indians (The Yardbirds 1967)
16 Closing

Johnny Marr - ...and on guitar (2010)

John Martin Maher (aka Johnny Marr) was born on 31 October 1963, and originally had aspirations to become a professional footballer, being approached by Nottingham Forest, and securing trials with Manchester City. At the age of 13, Marr's family moved him to a new neighbourhood in Manchester where he met up with a bunch of guitar players which changed his life, including The Cult guitarist Billy Duffy, who Marr would listen to rehearsing across the street from his new house. He formed his first band at 13 with Andy Rourke and Kevin Williams, and The Paris Valentinos performed at a Jubilee party in Benchill in June 1977, playing Rolling Stones and Thin Lizzy covers. In 1979 he re-united with Rourke in White Dice, who won a demo-tape competition organised by the NME, for which the prize was an audition with F-Beat Records, although it didn't result in a record deal. In October 1980, Marr enrolled at Wythenshawe College, and after White Dice dissolved in 1981, he and Rourke formed a funk band, Freak Party, with Simon Wolstencroft on drums. By early 1982 Freak Party had fizzled out, being unable to find a vocalist, so Marr approached Rob Allman, singer in White Dice, who suggested Steven Morrissey, a singer with the short-lived punk band the Nosebleeds. Marr approached a mutual friend asking to be introduced and they visited Morrissey at his house in Kings Road, Stretford in May 1981. With the line-up of The Smiths completed with he addition of Mike Joyce on drums, the band signed to Rough Trade Records and released their first single 'Hand In Glove' in 1983. 

By February 1984, the band's fanbase was sufficiently large to launch the band's long-awaited eponymous debut album to number two in the UK chart. Early in 1985, the band released their second album 'Meat Is Murder', which was more strident and political than its predecessor, becoming the band's only album (barring compilations) to reach number one in the UK charts. In 1986 the band released 'The Queen Is Dead', an album which has consistently topped polls of the greatest albums ever made, but despite their continued success, personal differences within the band, including the increasingly strained relationship between Morrissey and Marr, saw them on the verge of splitting. In July 1987, Marr left the group, and auditions to find a replacement for him proved fruitless. By the time 'Strangeways, Here We Come' was released in September, the band had split. The breakdown in the relationship has been primarily attributed to Morrissey's becoming annoyed by Marr's work with other artists, and this collection shows that he did offer his services to a number of artists between 1984 and 2010, although seemingly not that many while he was still a member of The Smiths. In August 1987, he was very briefly an official member of the Pretenders, touring with the band and appearing on the single 'Windows Of The World', and after leaving The Pretenders he recorded and toured with The The from 1988 to 1994, recording two albums with the group. He simultaneously formed Electronic with New Order's Bernard Sumner, releasing three albums during the 90's, and in 1992 he recorded a cover version of Ennio Morricone's 'The Good, The Bad And The Ugly' with Billy Duffy for the NME compilation 'Ruby Trax'. He's also worked as a session musician and writing collaborator for artists including Pet Shop Boys, Billy Bragg, Tom Jones, Kirsty MacColl, Black Grape, Talking Heads, and Beck, and this double disc set shows the wide variety of artists who have felt that having Marr added to their music would make it just that little bit special.  

Track listing

Disc One
01 Hand In Glove (single by Sandie Shaw 1984)
02 Greetings To The New Brunette (single by Billy Bragg 1986)
03 Windows Of The World (single by The Pretenders 1988)
04 (Nothing But) Flowers (from 'Naked' by Talking Heads 1988)
05 Still Feel The Rain (single by Stex 1990)
06 This Must Be The Place I Waited Years To Leave (from 'Behaviour' by Pet Shop Boys 1990)
07 Walking Down Madison (from 'Electric Landlady' by Kirsty MacColl 1991)
08 This Is Your Life (from 'Ripe' by Banderas 1991)
09 The Good, The Bad And The Ugly (from the 'Ruby Trax' compilation 1992)
09 Dogs Of Lust (single by The The 1993)
10 Rays Of The Rising Sun (single by Denise Johnson 1994)

Disc Two
01 Fat Neck (single by Black Grape 1996)
02 Rhythm And Blues (from 'Fresco' by M People 1997)
03 Lust For Life (from 'Reload' by Tom Jones 1999)
04 Milk And Honey (from 'Midnite Vultures' by Beck 1999)
05 Fool's Mate (from 'Crimson Tide' by Bert Jansch 2000)  
06 (Probably) All In The Mind (from 'Heathen Chemistry' by Oasis 2002)
07 Even A Child (from 'Time On Earth' by Crowded House 2007)
08 Enough Of Me (from 'The Empyrean' by John Frusciante 2009) 
09 The Whale Song (from 'No One's First, And You're Next' by Modest Mouse 2009)
10 Ordinary Millionaire (from 'Propellor Time' by Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3 2010) 

Thanks to the Anonymous comment just before Christmas for suggesting this one.