The Cowsills - Cocaine Drain (1978)

The Cowsills are an American singing group from Newport, Rhode Island, with the six siblings noted for performing professionally and singing harmonies at an early age. The band was formed in early 1965 by brothers Bill, Bob, and Barry Cowsill, with their brother John joining shortly afterwards. Originally Bill and Bob played guitar and Barry played the drums, but when John learned to play drums and joined the band, Barry began playing bass, and after their initial success, the brothers were joined by their siblings Susan and Paul along with their mother, Barbara. A handful of singles were released on JODA Records, a label owned by Danny Sims and Johnny Nash (of 'I Can See Clearly Now' fame), and Philips Records in 1965 and 1966, to only modest success. After Leonard Stogel took over management of the band, they were signed to MGM Records in 1967, and Barbara joined the group just in time to record the band's first album, including the hit single 'The Rain, The Park & Other Things', which sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold record. The band quickly became a popular act in the U.S., and achieved significant airplay in Britain and other parts of Europe, and the band released five albums in all for MGM Records between 1967 and 1970. Following the success of 'The Rain, The Park & Other Things' and their eponymous album, the title track from their second album, 'We Can Fly", peaked at number 21 in the spring of 1968, by which time Susan had been added to the group. 

Later that same year they scored another Top 10 hit with the song 'Indian Lake', produced by Wes Farrell, which reached No.10 on the US charts. It's parent album, the psychedelically-influenced 'Captain Sad And His Ship Of Fools', was produced by Bill and Bob, and was the first to feature Paul as a member of the group. From 1968 through 1972, the band played an average of 200 performance dates per year, and they even had their own comic book published by Harvey Comics in 1968. In February 1970, after they had an argument over Bill's association with Waddy Wachtel (whom Bud did not approve of), Bill left the group and Bob took over as the leader, releasing the album 'II x II' just a few weeks after's Bill's departure. Musically, it heavily featured Bill since he'd been present for the recording sessions and had written a number of the songs, and it spawned three singles, two of which were minor hits, but the album as a whole failed to get into the Billboard 200. The group parted ways with MGM in 1970, and 'On My Side' was released on London Records in February 1971, barely scraping into the Billboard 200, peaking at number 200. 

By 1972, Barbara, Paul and Susan had left the group, and shortly afterward, The Cowsills stopped playing together as a band altogether, with the individual members going on to various career attempts in and out of the music industry. In 1978 several of the Cowsills, including Paul, John, Barry, Bob and Susan, recorded an album called 'Cocaine Drain' with producer Chuck Plotkin, after the group had reportedly signed with Columbia Records and "were setting the stage for a nearly completed album". In March 2008 a digital version of the album was finally released, remastered from an acetate under Bob Cowsill's direction, but it was not cleaned up particularly well, and surface noise was noticeably evident on some tracks. It also included six previously unreleased tracks tacked onto the end, and so for this post I've taken that original digital release and cleaned it up to remove much of the surface noise, as well as removing the six bonus tracks, so that we just have the original album as it was intended to be released. Finally, I've tweaked the cover art so that the pictures are more defined and the text only refers to the original album. 

Track listing

01 Cocaine Drain
02 Give Me A Chance
03 Thinking Of You
04 Is Your Love Alive?
05 I Will Always
06 Gettin' Ready
07 Bitter Jest
08 That Particular Way
09 Part Of Me
10 Dance In A Dream

Thanks to Tom for the heads-up about this album. 

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Paul Simon (2000)

Paul Simon met Art Garfunkel when they were both 10, when they performed in a production of Alice in Wonderland for their sixth-grade graduation, and they began singing together when they were 13, occasionally performing at school dances. It was around this time that Simon wrote his first song, 'The Girl For Me', for him and Garfunkel to sing, and in 1957, while still in their mid-teens, they recorded the song 'Hey, Schoolgirl' under the name 'Tom & Jerry', which reached number 49 on the pop charts. Between 1957 and 1964 Simon wrote, recorded and released more than 30 songs, occasionally reuniting with Garfunkel as Tom & Jerry for some singles, including 'Our Song' and 'That's My Story'. Most of the songs Simon recorded during that time were performed alone or with musicians other than Garfunkel, and they were released on minor record labels including Amy, Big, Hunt, King, Tribute and Madison under several pseudonyms, such as Jerry Landis, Paul Kane and True Taylor. In early 1964, Simon and Garfunkel auditioned for Columbia Records, whose executive Clive Davis signed them to produce an album. Columbia decided that the two would be called Simon & Garfunkel instead of Tom & Jerry, and their first album, 'Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.', was released in October 1964. It contained five Simon compositions, but it was not successful, and so after its release Simon moved to England and performed in folk clubs. While in London he recorded 'The Paul Simon Songbook', which was a collection of his songs, a couple of which had already appeared on the first Simon & Garfunkel album.  The album was released along with the single 'I Am A Rock'/'Leaves That Are Green' in 1965, and as many of these songs were later re-recorded for Simon And Garfunkel albums, this is the perfect collection to offer to other artists to hear their takes on these early works. As often happens, these artists could see the quality of the songs from the start, and so most of these covers appeared between 1965 and 1967, and to round out what is rather a short album I've added two contemporary songs to the end.  

Track listing 

01 I Am A Rock (The Grass Roots 1966)
02 Leaves That Are Green (The Coterie 1969)   
03 A Church Is Burning (Cy, Maia & Robert 1965)
04 April Come She Will (Hamilton Camp 1969) 
05 The Sound Of Silence (The Ravers 1966)   
06 A Most Peculiar Man (The Cowsills 1967)
07 He Was My Brother (The Pilgrims 1964)
08 Kathy's Song (Eva Cassidy 2000)
09 The Side Of A Hill (The Paravrim 1972)
10 A Simple Desultory Philippic (Swamp Zombies 1988)
11 Flowers Never Bend With The Rainfall (The MacDonald Folk Group 1968)  
12 Patterns (Tir Ni Nog 1970) 
13 We've Got A Groovey Thing Going (The Racket Squad 1968)
14 Homeward Bound (The Quiet Five 1966)