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)
