The Byrds - Byrdmaniax (1971)

'Byrdmaniax' was The Byrds' tenth studio album, released in June 1971 on Columbia Records, and is generally regarded as the low point of the band's illustrious career. There are a number of reasons for this, of which two are indelibly linked, and they are that the band didn’t bring great material to the studio to begin with, and so without telling the band, producer Terry Melcher brought in an orchestra and backing vocalists to embellish what he (probably rightly) felt was an underwhelming collection of songs. After the release of the Byrds' '(Untitled)' album, the band continued to tour extensively throughout late 1970 and early 1971 in support of the record, and with their career experiencing a revival of commercial fortunes, they elected to continue working with Melcher, who had produced their two previous albums. Unfortunately, the gruelling pace of the band's touring schedule meant that they were under-prepared for the recording of their next album, with little or no time to develop the material that they intended to include. Sessions commenced on 6 October 1970, just three weeks after the release of '(Untitled)', and continued throughout January and March 1971, but the group only managed to record twelve new songs, and so to make up an album's worth of material they revisited an outtake from the '(Untitled)' sessions, 'Kathleen's Song'. 

The album opens with 'Glory, Glory', a gospel song given a folk-rock treatment from McGuinn and the band, that is partially returned to its original gospel roots through the addition of a female choir. 'Pale Blue' was written by McGuinn and Gene Parsons, and is one of the album's highlights, but was buried by overproduction, while 'I Trust', based on McGuinn’s own personal, positive outlook, is another winner, though again Melcher does the band no favours. What follows are a pair of tracks written by Skip Battin and the sinister Kim Fowley that have absolutely nothing to do with The Byrds, with 'Tunnel Of Love' being a hackneyed melody married to cryptic lyrics, while 'Citizen Kane' is harder to shake, with its image of Hollywood excess, a sort of hell on earth, set to an ingratiating music hall melody, as if a psychedelic rock band were trying to be The Beatles or The Kinks circa 1968. 'Absolute Happiness' falls into that strange category too, and you have to wonder if Battin hadn’t wandered into the wrong band. The song-writing partnership between McGuinn and Jaques Levy leads to more predictable results, even though 'I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician' isn't as clever as it thinks it is, 'Kathleen's Song' is perhaps the prettiest song on the whole album. At the other end of the creative spectrum, Clarence White co-authors the banjo/mandolin/fiddle fireworks display, 'Green Apple Quick Step', and cherrypicks two covers to sing, 'My Destiny' (which is mugged in the final mix) and Jackson Browne's 'Jamaica Say You Will', which Browne himself would release on his debut album the following year. 

Following the completion of sessions for the album in early March 1971, the Byrds headed out on tour again, leaving Melcher and engineer Chris Hinshaw to finish mixing the album. In The Byrds' absence, Melcher and Hinshaw brought in arranger Paul Polena to assist with the overdubbing of strings, horns, and a gospel choir onto many of the songs, at a reported cost of $100,000, and allegedly without the band's consent. When they heard the extent of Melcher's additions, The Byrds protested to Columbia, campaigning to have the album remixed and the orchestration removed, but the record company held firm, citing budget restrictions, and the album was duly pressed up and released. For his part, Melcher defended his actions by explaining that the band's performances in the studio were lacklustre and that the orchestration was needed to cover up the album's musical shortcomings, although he later admitted that his decision was a mistake, and that he should have called a halt. 

The band themselves were far from happy with the album upon its release, being particularly vocal in press interviews about their dissatisfaction, and two years later Clarence White was still complaining to journalists that "Terry Melcher put strings on while we were on the road, we came back and we didn't even recognize it as our own album." The final nail in the coffin for the record was that, after the success of the sprawling double-album 'Untitled', they presented an album that was just 34 minutes long. After my previous experimentation with the MVSEP editing software, and at Paul's suggestion, I thought I'd see if I could improve this disappointing album by removing the strings, horns, and gospel choir, and ditching the despised 'Tunnel Of Love', replacing it with some out-takes from the same sessions. So here is a remixed, re-ordered, and longer version of 'Byrdmaniax', featuring only the band and with a new running order, so let me know what you think. 

Track listing

01 Glory, Glory
02 Pale Blue
03 I Trust
04 Just Like A Woman
05 Citizen Kane
06 I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician
07 Absolute Happiness
08 Green Apple Quick Step
09 Think I'm Gonna Feel Better
10 My Destiny
12 Kathleen's Song
12 Nothin' To It
13 Jamaica Say You Will

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Jackson Browne (2012)

Clyde Jackson Browne was born on 9 October 1948, in Heidelberg, Germany, where his father Clyde Jack Browne, an American serviceman, was stationed for his job assignment with the Stars and Stripes newspaper. At the age of three, Browne and his family moved to his grandfather's house, Abbey San Encino, Los Angeles, and in his teens he began singing folk songs in local venues, including Ash Grove and The Troubadour Club. After graduating from high school he joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, performing at the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach, California, where they opened for the Lovin' Spoonful. He left the Dirt Band after a few months and moved to Greenwich Village, New York, where he became a staff writer for Elektra's publishing company, Nina Music, before he was eighteen. For the remainder of 1967 and into 1968 he played in Greenwich Village, where he replaced Tim Buckley as backing musician for singer Nico of the Velvet Underground, later forming a romantic relationship with her, and he was a significant contributor to her debut album, 'Chelsea Girl', writing and playing guitar on several of the songs. In 1968, following his breakup with Nico, Browne returned to Los Angeles, where he formed a folk band with Ned Doheny and Jack Wilce, and carried on writing songs, some of which were recorded by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Tom Rush, Nico, Steve Noonan, Gregg Allman, Joan Baez, the Eagles, Linda Ronstadt, the Byrds, Iain Matthews, and others. In 1971, Browne signed with his manager David Geffen's Asylum Records and released his eponymous debut album in 1972 (often mistakenly referred to as 'Saturate Before Using' as this was typed at the top of the sleeve), and it included the piano-driven 'Doctor My Eyes', which entered the Top Ten in the US singles chart. 'Rock Me On The Water' also gained considerable radio airplay, while 'Jamaica Say You Will' and 'Song For Adam' helped establish his reputation as an up and coming songwriter. 'Doctor My Eyes' was picked up by The Jackson Five and garnered them a UK Top Ten hit single in 1972, and with the Byrds covering 'Jamaica Say You Will' in 1971, other songs from the album began to be recorded by a variety of artists, and by 1973 most of them had been covered. So here are the best of those covers, illustrating what a talented songwriter Browne was right from the start of his long career. 

Track listing

01 Jamaica Say You Will (The Byrds 1971) 
02 A Child In These Hills (Penny Nichols 2012)  
03 Song For Adam (Kiki Dee 1973) 
04 Doctor My Eyes (The Jackson 5 1972) 
05 From Silver Lake (Hedge & Donna 1968)  
06 Something Fine (Leo Sayer 1978)
07 Under The Falling Sky (Bonnie Raitt 1972)  
08 Looking Into You (The Mick Fleetwood Band 2004)  
09 Rock Me On The Water (Brewer & Shipley 1971)
10 My Opening Farewell (Michael Johnson 1973)

Bob Dylan - The Hitmakers Sing 'Another Side Of Bob Dylan' (1993)

In February 1964, Bob Dylan embarked on a 20-day trip across the United States, riding in a station wagon with a few friends and heading towards California, with the primary motivation for the trip being to find enough inspiration to step beyond the folk-song form, if not in the bars, or from the miners, then by peering deep into himself. Dylan spent much time in the back of the station wagon, working on songs and possibly poetry on a typewriter, and it was during this trip that he composed 'Chimes Of Freedom'. With his commercial profile on the rise, Columbia was now urging him to release a steady stream of recordings, so on his return to New York, studio time was quickly scheduled, with Tom Wilson back as producer. The first, and only, recording session was held on 9 June at Columbia's Studio A, and while polishing off a couple of bottles of Beaujolais, he recorded fourteen original compositions, in a single three-hour session between 7pm and 10pm that night. Three were ultimately rejected, with 'Denise Denise', 'Mr. Tambourine Man', and 'Mama, You Been On My Mind' not being considered for the fourth album, although 'Mr. Tambourine Man' was revisited for his next album. As 'Another Side Of Bob Dylan' was being prepared for release, Dylan premiered his new songs at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1964, which was where he first met Johnny Cash. He was already an admirer of Cash's music, and vice versa, and the two spent a night jamming together in Joan Baez's room at the Viking Motor Inn. When the album was released, it was a step back commercially, failing to make the Top 40, and indicating that record consumers may have had a problem with the new music, just as critics had when they first heard the songs at Newport. Dylan soon defended his work, insisting that the songs were insanely honest, and that he and he alone wanted and needed to write them. Years later, mixed reactions over 'Another Side Of Bob Dylan' remained, but not for the same reasons, as critics later viewed it as a 'transitional' album, although contemporary artists could hear the quality of the songs, with nearly all of them being covered by 1968, and here are some of the best of them.  

Track listing

01 All I Really Want To Do (The Four Seasons 1965)
02 Black Crow Blues (The Silkie 1965)
03 Spanish Harlem Incident (The Pozo Seco Singers 1968)
04 Chimes Of Freedom (Julie Felix 1967)
05 I Shall Be Free No. 10 (Paul James 1990)
06 To Ramona (The Alan Price Set 1968)
07 Motorpsycho Nitemare (Strangelove 1993)
08 My Back Pages (The Byrds 1967)
09 I Don't Believe You (Ian & Sylvia 1967)
10 Ballad In Plain D (Michael Chapman 1977)
11 It Ain't Me Babe (The Turtles 1965)

The Byrds - Phoenix (1970)

For most of 1969 Roger McGuinn was busy writing songs for a country-rock stage production of Ibsen's Peer Gynt, but after writing twenty-six songs the project was eventually abandoned. Of those songs, just four turned up on The Byrds 1970 album '(Untitled)', with a few more being held over for 'Byrdmaniax', and the rest being locked away in the vaults. When the time came to start recording their next album proper, the band thought that it was about time they released a live album, and so two New York concerts in February and March 1970 were recorded, including a sixteen minute version of 'Eight Miles High', which would eventually take up one complete side of the double album. It was to be titled 'Phoenix', to signify the artistic rebirth that the band felt this album represented, but because they still hadn't made up their mind about a title when producer Terry Melcher had to submit paperwork to the record company, he put the placeholder '(Untitled)' on it, and due to a misunderstanding at the pressing plant that became the album's official title. For this reconstruction I've replaced the live 'Lover Of The Bayou' with the studio version, added in some of those songs from the aborted Gene Tryp stage show, and completed it with some alternate versions and out-takes recorded at the same sessions. I've also included a live recording of 'It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)', as this was recorded in the studio sessions, but has yet to appears on record. It's a shortish double album, but it does indicate that 'Phoenix' would have been an apt title.

Track listing

01 Lover Of The Bayou
02 Chestnut Mare
03 Truck Stop Girl
04 All The Things
05 Yesterday's Train
06 Hungry Planet
07 Just A Season
08 Take A Whiff On Me
09 Willin'
10 You All Look Alike
11 Kathleen's Song
12 Just Like A Woman
13 White's Lighting #1
14 Welcome Back Home
15 It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)
16 White's Lightning #2
17 Amazing Grace

Gram Parsons & The Byrds - Sweetheart Of The Rodeo (1968)

I saw a suggestion recently for a reconstructed album that piqued my interest, and that was what 'Sweetheart Of The Rodeo' would have sounded like if Gram Parsons hadn't left the band before it was released, resulting in nearly all his vocals being wiped and replaced by other members of The Byrds. 
In the end we only heard him on three of the songs on the album, but as the original idea of the album was his, he did actually sing nearly all the songs as they were recorded, with the exception of the two Dylan covers, Woody Guthrie's 'Pretty Boy Floyd', and the traditional 'I Am A Pilgrim'. Luckily these tapes still exist, and so this version of the classic album that started the whole Country/Rock sound can now be heard pretty much as Parsons intended.

Track Listing

01 You Ain't Going Nowhere
02 I Am A Pilgrim
03 The Christian Life
04 You Don't Miss Your Water
05 You're Still On My Mind
06 Pretty Boy Floyd
07 Hickory Wind
08 One Hundred Years From Now
09 Blue Canadian Rockies
10 Life In Prison
11 Nothing Was Delivered

Bonus tracks

12 All I Have Are Memories
13 Reputation
14 Pretty Polly
15 Lazy Days

Although Parsons sang his own composition 'Hickory Wind' on the original album, this is a stripped back version without the harmony vocals, but it's still a fine take. 'Lazy Days' is a Parsons original that didn't make the cut, while he'd been performing Tim Hardin's 'You Got A Reputation' for a couple of years before bringing it to the sessions.