Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Joe South (2008)

Joe South was born Joseph Alfred Souter on 28 February 1940, and was first encouraged to make a career in music by Bill Lowery, an Atlanta music publisher and radio personality. He began his recording career in Atlanta with the National Recording Corporation, where he served as staff guitarist along with other NRC artists Ray Stevens and Jerry Reed, but he soon returned to Nashville with The Manrando Group, and then on to Charlie Wayne Felts Promotions. He had his first top 50 hit in July 1958 with a cover version of the b-side of The Big Bopper's hit single 'Chantilly Lace', a novelty song called 'The Purple People Eater Meets The Witch Doctor', but thereafter he would concentrate mainly on song-writing. In 1959 he wrote two songs which were recorded by Gene Vincent, and he was also a prominent sideman, playing guitar on Tommy Roe's 'Sheila', bass guitar on Bob Dylan's 'Blonde On Blonde' album, and the classic tremolo guitar intro on Aretha Franklin's 'Chain Of Fools'. Responding to late 1960's issues, South's writing style changed radically, most evident in his biggest single, 1969's pungent, no-nonsense 'Games People Play', which was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Accompanied by a lush string sound, an organ, and brass, the production won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Song and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year, and he followed that with 'Birds Of A Feather', most successful as a cover by The Raiders, which peaked on the Hot 100 at No. 23 in 1971. 'Games People Play' was first released in 1968 on South's debut album, 'Introspect', which some consider to be the first ever country-soul album, and it reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and so the record company decided to cash in on this by not only adding it again to his next album in 1969, but also titling the record after the hit single. Luckily there were plenty of other outstanding songs on the record to make up for this duplication, and it wasn't long before they were being picked up and covered by some pretty famous groups, with possibly the most notable being Deep Purple's version of 'Hush'. South's old comrade from Atlanta, Ray Stevens, released his version of 'Party People' as a single, and The Tams had a hit with 'Concrete Jungle', while most of the other songs had received covers by 1971. One oddity about this album is that it states on the front cover that it includes 'Down In The Boondocks', but this song is actually missing from the track listing, and so I've added Gary Lewis & The Playboys' version to make this reinterpretation of the album more complete. 

Track listing

01 Games People Play (Paper Lace 1972)  
02 Party People (Ray Stevens 1965)  
03 Untie Me (The Weedons 1966)  
04 Concrete Jungle (The Tams 1965)  
05 Hole In Your Soul (The Black Crowes 2008)  
06 Hush (Deep Purple 1969)
07 Birds Of A Feather (The Raiders 1971)  
08 Heart's Desire (Billy Joe Royal 1966)  
09 Leanin' On You (The Yo Yo's 1966) 
10 I Knew You When (Wade Flemons 1964)
11 These Are Not My People (Johnny Rivers 1969)
12 Down In The Boondocks (Gary Lewis & The Playboys 1966)

The Black Crowes - Band (1997)

Personnel changes and label interference frustrated The Black Crowes' attempts to follow up their 1996 album 'Three Snakes And One Charm', as after recording an album during May and June 1997, which was to be called either 'Band', 'The Band' or 'Meet The Band', it was rejected by their label, American Recordings. Lead singer Chris Robinson said American "couldn't go with the vibe" and wanted something more "safe", and so after guitarist Marc Ford was fired due to a heroin habit that impaired his performances, and Johnny Colt left to become a yoga instructor, the band regrouped and began writing and recording an album that would be acceptable to their record company, eventually presenting them with 'By Your Side' in 1998. When 'Band' leaked online in 2002, the comments by fans were almost universal in saying that it should have been released and that it would have been a great addition to the band's discography, and it seems that the record company took note of this and so in 2006 they released 'The Lost Crowes', which consisted of sessions for a proposed album called 'Tall', where many of the songs were later re-recorded for the 'Amorica' record, and the aborted sessions for 'Band'. However, they couldn't help themselves from interfering, remixing the tracks and changing the running order, as well as removing two of the songs completely, and bizarrely renaming 'OK By Me' as 'Grinnin''. What fans were therefore left with was nothing like the rejected record, and even the addition of a previously unheard rehearsal take of 'Peace Anyway' (which I've added here) couldn't make up for their disappointment. The only track that eventually made it to 'By Your Side' was the horn-laden 'Only A Fool', although 'If It Ever Stops Raining' was re-recorded with different lyrics to become the title track of 'By Your Side', so 'Band' remains pretty much a completely new, unheard album, and it's therefore no surprise that it's been heavily bootlegged over the years. However, it's now getting much harder to find online, and so here it is so that fans of the band who haven't heard it can make up their own minds about whether the record company was right to reject it.   

Track listing

01 If It Ever Stops Raining
02 Predictable
03 My Heart's Killing Me
04 Only A Fool
05 Smile
06 Never Forget This Song
07 Wyoming And Me
08 Life Vest
09 Paint An 8
10 Another Roadside Tragedy
11 OK By Me
12 Peace Anyway