Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Barry Mann (1975)

Barry Imberman (aka Barry Mann) was born on 9 February 1939, and is best know for his song-writing partnership with his wife Cynthia Weil. His first successful song as a writer was 'She Say (Oom Dooby Doom)', a Top 20 chart-scoring song composed for the band The Diamonds in 1959, which was co-written with Mike Anthony. In 1961, Mann had his greatest success to that point with 'I Love How You Love Me', written with Larry Kolber, and scoring a number 5 hit for the band The Paris Sisters , and the same year Mann himself reached the Top 40 as a performer with a novelty song co-written with Gerry Goffin, 'Who Put The Bomp', which parodied the nonsense words of the then-popular doo-wop genre. Despite his success as a singer, Mann chose to channel his creativity into song-writing, forming a prolific partnership with Cynthia Weil, a lyricist he met while both were staff songwriters at Aldon Music, whose offices were located in Manhattan, near the composing-and-publishing factory the Brill Building. In the late 1960s, Mann and Weil left Aldon Music to head for Hollywood, where they continued to rack up the hits, working with Larry Kolber on Bobby Vinton's version of his earlier hit 'I Love How You Love Me' in 1968, and following up with Jay and the Americans' 'Walking in The Rain' in 1969, and B. J. Thomas's 'I Just Can't Help Believing' in 1970. Meanwhile, in addition to his role behind the scenes, Mann occasionally sought the limelight, and in 1971 he released his own album 'Lay It All Out', featuring himself as a singer, but it did not enjoy the success of his and Weil's works for others. As well as new songs it also included his own versions of some of his biggest hits, 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling', 'On Broadway', and 'Something Better'. Unsurprisingly, considering his standing as a songwriter, it wasn't long before all of the songs on the album had received cover versions, even those three afore-mentioned hits. Rather than use the original hit recordings of them, by The Righteous Brothers, The Drifters and Marianne Faithfull, I've chosen contemporary takes of the songs from around the same time as the album, although Bill Medley still gets to sing '...Lovin' Feeling', taken from his 1971 solo album 'A Song For You'. Three extra tracks from the following year round off this collection of songs from Mann's 1971 solo album.    

Track Listing

01 Too Many Mondays (Mary Travers 1973)
02 When You Get Right Down To It (Ronnie Dyson 1971)
03 I Heard You Singing Your Song (The Partridge Family 1973)
04 Holy Rolling (The New Seekers 1972) 
05 You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling (Bill Medley 1971)
06 On Broadway (Eric Carmen 1975)
07 Something Better (Harper's Bizarre 1969)
08 Sweet Ophelia (Wicked Lester 1971) 
09 Don't Give Up On Me (Suzanne 1973)
10 Ain't No Way To Go Home (The Grass Roots 1973)  
11 Rock And Roll Lullaby (B.J. Thomas 1972)
12 So Long Dixie (Blood, Sweat And Tears 1972)
13 The Last Blues Song (Helen Reddy 1972)

Wicked Lester - Wicked Lester (1971)

Wicked Lester was a New York-based rock band, formed (as Rainbow) in 1970, and is most notable for including in their lineup bassist Gene Klein (later Gene Simmons) and rhythm guitarist Stanley Eisen (later Paul Stanley). In 1971 they changed their name to Wicked Lester, and after a chance meeting with Electric Lady Studios engineer Ron Johnsen, they were given the opportunity to record some demos. Johnsen, who produced the demo tape, shopped it around to a few labels with no success, but eventually the tape was screened by Epic Records, who purchased the masters and agreed to fund the recording of a full album. The entire recording process, which adhered to a haphazard schedule, took nearly a year to complete, not helped when Epic demanded the group fire guitarist Steve Coronel and replace him with Ron Leejack. When the finished album was presented to Epic's A&R director Don Ellis, he said that he hated it and was not going to release it, and the next day Wicked Lester manager Lew Linet requested and received the group's release from Epic Records. It was at this time that Klein and Eisen (now using the stage names Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley) decided that one of the reasons for Wicked Lester's lack of success was that they didn't have a singular musical vision, incorporating rock and roll, folk rock and pop, so they made the decision to start a new version of the group, and began auditioning for a drummer in the fall of 1972. After recruiting Peter Criss, they decided to concentrate more of the straightforward rock and roll, as well as theatrics, and after another name change, KISS was born. The Wicked Lester album was a mixture of original material and covers, showcasing the group's eclectic style, and three of the songs would later resurface on KISS albums with varying degrees of similarity. The only part of Wicked Lester's album to actually be released was the cover art, which was re-used for The Laughing Dogs' debut album in 1979. CBS Records, who owned the rights to the album, remixed it and planned to release it in late 1976 to capitalize on KISS's commercial popularity, but the band and Neil Bogart, the president of Casablanca Records, purchased the album from CBS for $137,500 and locked it in their vaults. Bootlegs have since leaked online and so we are now able to hear it and make up our own minds if we agree with Paul Stanley's opinion that it's 'eclectic crap'.  

Track listing

01 Love Her All I Can (Stanley)
02 Sweet Ophelia (Barry Mann/Gerry Goffin)
03 Keep Me Waiting (Stanley)
04 Simple Type (Simmons)
05 She (Coronel/Simmon)
06 Too Many Mondays (Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil)
07 What Happens in the Darkness (Tamy Lester Smith)
08 When the Bell Rings (Austin Roberts/Christopher Welch)
09 Molly (aka Some Other Guy) (Stanley)
10 (We Want To) Shout It Out Loud (The Hollies)
11 Long, Long Road (Stanley)

Wicked Lester was:
Paul Stanley - lead vocals, guitar
Gene Simmons - lead vocals, bass guitar
Ron Leejack - lead guitar, banjo
Brooke Ostrander - piano, horns
Tony Zarrella - drums & percussion

Suggested by 'The Greatest Albums You'll Never Hear' by Bruno MacDonald


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