Comments on the Trees album

I know that for some reason comments on the blog seem to have pretty much dried up since I reinstated it in December, but I'd love to hear from anyone who's downloaded Trees 'Tom Of Bedlam', and who also has either the original live album from 1989 or the bootleg 'demos' album, just to hear how they think they compare, and if my hours at the laptop were worthwhile. It would also be nice to hear from new visitors to the blog, who download thirty or so old albums in one go, but never let me know what they think of them. I'm always open to suggestions of albums that you'd like to hear, as 'Neu 4' would never have appeared were it not for a comment from martinf, and although the '...and on guitar' and 60's girls series have now ended, if you can think of anyone else that I can add to them then let me know. So thanks to everyone who has commented on the posts, as any feedback is always welcome. 

pj

    

Dana - All Kinds Of Dana (1971)

Rosemary Brown was born on 30 August 1951, and was one of seven children. Her father Robert Brown had moved to London to seek employment opportunities after World War II, but when Rosemary was five, the family moved back to Derry, where she grew up in the Creggan housing estate and Bogside, and at age six, she won her first talent contest. She attended Thornhill College, a girls' Catholic school in Derry, and other children in her community nicknamed her 'Dana' (Irish for bold or mischievous) because she would practice her judo moves. Shortly before turning 16, and with the help of teacher and music promoter Tony Johnston, Brown signed with the Decca Records subsidiary label Rex Records, and recording as Dana, she debuted with the single 'Sixteen', written by Tony Johnston, while the b-side 'Little Girl Blue' was her own composition. While still studying A-level music and English, she became popular in Dublin's cabaret and folk clubs at weekends, and was crowned Queen of Cabaret at Clontarf Castle in 1968. Rex Records' secretary Phil Mitton suggested she audition for the Irish National Song Contest, due to take place in February 1969, where the winner would represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest. With mixed feelings due to nerves she made it through to the final in Dublin where she sang 'Look Around' by Michael Reade, later released as her fourth single, but she ended up coming second to Muriel Day singing 'Wages Of Love', also written by Reade. 

In December 1969 Tom McGrath invited her to try again the next year, feeling that one of the entered songs, the ballad 'All Kinds of Everything', would suit her. Her second attempt to win the Irish contest was a success, and on Saturday 21 March 1970, the eighteen-year-old schoolgirl performed the song at the Eurovision finals held in the Amsterdam RAI Exhibition and Convention Centre, before an estimated viewing audience of two hundred million. Perched on a stool while wearing an embroidered white mini-dress, she was the last of twelve contestants to perform that night, and after the voting had finished she was declared the winner with 32 points, beating the favourite, UK's Mary Hopkin. The winning song was released as a single on 14 March, and it shot to #1 in the Irish singles chart before the contest had even begun and stayed there for nine weeks. It also spent two weeks at the top of the UK singles chart, and was a success in Australia, Austria, Germany, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland and Yugoslavia. Her debut album 'All Kinds Of Everything' was recorded at Decca Studios in West Hampstead, London, on the weekend of 25 April 1970, being released in June, and it included four tracks co-written by the singer, as well as a new recording of the album's title track. Her follow-up single was issued in September, but Jerry Lordan's 'I Will Follow You' failed to chart, and it took her next single to break the one-hit wonder tag which threatened to define her career, with a cover of Paul Ryan's 'Who Put The Lights Out', written for his brother Barry's third album, reaching number 5 in Ireland, and number 14 in the UK. It was, however, to be her last successful single for three years, broken only by the Irish chart showing of 'Sunday Monday Tuesday' in 1973. This lack of success caused her agent to recommend she join the former head of Bell Records Dick Leahy on his new label, GTO Records, and her first single for the label was 'Please Tell Him That I Said Hello'. Within a month of its release in October 1974 it was number 7 in Ireland, and after a slow start it eventually climbed to number 8 in the UK chart. Further singles for GTO followed, with mixed success, but 'It's Gonna Be A Cold Cold Christmas' did give her a Christmas number 4 in 1975. 

In September 1976, while promoting her new single 'Fairytale', she lost her voice, and her left vocal cord, which had been cauterized the year before, required urgent surgery to remove what turned out to be a non-malignant growth, as well as a small part of the cord itself. This caused some newspapers to report on the possibility that she might never sing again, but having failed to regain her singing voice after the operation, she contacted Florence Wiese Norberg, a respected singing teacher, and with her help she resumed live performances with a week-long engagement at Caesar's Palace in Luton in December 1977. Her career has taken many unusual turns along the way, playing the part of a tinker girl in the 1971 film 'Flight Of The Doves', a children's adventure film starring Ron Moody and Jack Wild, and presenting two shows on BBC Television: a series of 'A Day With Dana' in 1974 and four series of 'Wake Up Sunday' in 1979. In 1978 she married Damien Scallon, and in 1999, as Rosemary Scallon, she stood as an independent candidate in the European elections, winning a seat in the European Parliament, representing Connacht–Ulster. Considering that her career has encompassed singer/songwriter, actress, television presenter, cabaret star, and even member of Parliament, she will forever be remembered for singing one song, and so this collection will go some way to showing how she reached that point in her career, and then how it progressed after she'd achieved world-wide stardom in 1970.   

   
Track listing

01 Sixteen ‎(single 1967)
02 Little Girl Blue (b-side of 'Sixteen')
03 Come Along, Murphy (single 1968)
04 Patrick O'Donnell (b-side of 'Come Along, Murphy')
05 Heidschi Bumbeidschi (single 1968)
06 Ten Second Girl (b-side of 'Heidschi Bumbeidschi')
07 Look Around (single 1969)
08 No Road Back (b-side of 'Look Around')
09 All Kinds Of Everything (single 1970)
10 Channel Breeze (b-side of 'All Kinds Of Everything')
11 I Will Follow You (single 1970)
12 With A Little Love (b-side of 'I Will Follow You')
13 Who Put The Lights Out (single 1971)
14 Always A Few Things (b-side of 'Who Put The Lights Out')
15 The Far Away Place (Canadian single, from the film 'Flight Of The Doves' 1971)
16 Today (single 1971)
17 Don't Cry My Love (b-side of 'Today')
18 Isn't It A Pity (single 1971)
19 Swallow Fly Away (b-side of 'Isn't It A Pity')

Llovers - Feeling Sound (2020)

Llovers was formed in October 2016 by two friends who worked together in their local McDonalds. Jack Brooks had previously played with Violet Deep and Coquin Migale, and Joe had been part of KIDD, as was fourth member Marty, while David McNab was also in Violet Deep, and with Brighton band Capture. They spent the summer jamming, and decided to become Llovers, under which name they released their first single 'Borderlands' just one month after coming together, and the sumptuous, swooning four-minute mix of shoegaze, dreampop and jangly pop shimmer made them a band to watch in 2017. 'Feeling Sound' followed in that year, which felt like a shimmering b-side from French band Phoenix, and there are also more straight-forward pop moments, like on 'I Don’t Mind', which fidgets with jagged guitar riffs and twinkling electro-beeps. 'Just Lust' and 'Honestly' appeared over the next couple of years, with 'Just Lust' starting out like a more out-there version of Foals' epic 'Spanish Sahara', before exploding in a similarly volcanic fashion. 2020's 'I Don't Want To Be Alone' might sound like a plea against self-isolation in this year of the pandemic, but it was actually written in 2019 and is about the dependency we have on each other and how this can lead to anxieties about loneliness. The Teesside band have now posted enough examples of their infectious blend of alt-pop, smooth harmonies and dreamy guitar work on Soundcloud to release their debut album if they'd wanted to, so in preparation for the real thing, here's the first long-playing offering from the band.  

Track listing

01 Borderlands
02 A Second With You
03 Just Lust
04 I Don't Mind
05 Go Get Her, Go Getter
06 Without You
07 Coming Loose
08 Honestly
09 Change
10 Do You Know
11 Your Mind My Time
12 Feeling Sound
13 I Don't Want To Be Alone

Heart - Magazine (1977)

After the release of their debut album in 1975, Heart began recording new songs in Vancouver that were intended for their next studio album for Mushroom Records. However, the group had a falling out with Mushroom over an advertisement celebrating the sales of 'Dreamboat Annie', which was run as a full-page ad in the 30 December 1976 issue of Rolling Stone magazine. It was designed to resemble the cover of a salacious tabloid-style magazine (a satire of the National Enquirer), and showed the sisters bare-shouldered, with the suggestive caption "It Was Only Our First Time!". As well as that, as Heart had now proven themselves to be hit-makers, they expected Mushroom to raise their royalty rate, but to the surprise of the group and their producer Mike Flicker, the label refused to pay more. Recording sessions for the new album ceased after the band failed to re-negotiate their contract with the label, and so only five incomplete recordings were made during these 1976 sessions. Although the label kept the group under contract, they were apparently not interested in releasing a second album from them, and so Flicker then ended his relationship with the label. As their contract stipulated that Flicker would be the producer of all Heart recordings, the band took this to mean that since Mushroom was unable to provide the services of Flicker, they would be free to sign with another label, so they hired a lawyer to resolve the dispute, and they signed with Portrait Records. The change in labels resulted in a prolonged legal battle with Mushroom's creative director Shelly Siegel, with the label claiming they had the legal right to release a second Heart album, under their two-year contract. As the label were still in possession of the five unfinished studio recordings, as well as some unreleased live tracks recorded in 1975, Mushroom had them remixed by the band's recording engineer, adding another studio track, 'Here Song' (the b-side to the band's 1975 Canadian single 'How Deep It Goes'), and filled the rest of the album with two live songs recorded in 1975 at The Aquarius Tavern in Seattle. Mushroom released the collection as 'Magazine' in the spring of 1977, at the same time that the group was preparing their first album for Portrait titled 'Little Queen'. According to Flicker, about 50,000 copies of the original 'Magazine' album were pressed, with some of these copies being sold in stores in Los Angeles and Hollywood, where the records were manufactured, and  it was also briefly released in Europe through Arista Records, before copies were ordered off shelves by a second court action. 

Though the album was not officially released to radio stations in 1977, some stations such as KISW, a Seattle-based rock station, played songs from the unauthorized version, against the wishes of the group. The 1977 release carried a disclaimer on the back cover that read: "Mushroom Records regrets that a contractual dispute has made it necessary to complete this record without the cooperation or endorsement of the group Heart, who have expressly disclaimed artistic involvement in completing this record. We did not feel that a contractual dispute should prevent the public from hearing and enjoying these incredible tunes and recordings". Unhappy with the somewhat unpolished studio performances and the inclusion of the live recordings, the group took Mushroom to court with the aim of having the 1977 release of 'Magazine' withdrawn from the market, and the Seattle court ruled that Mushroom had to recall the album, but the terms of the settlement required that Heart provide a second album for Mushroom. Heart chose to fulfill this obligation by finishing the previously released songs to a quality of their satisfaction, and the whole record was re-recorded, remixed, edited and resequenced, with Ann Wilson adding new lead vocals to most of the existing studio tracks. One of the most obvious differences is that on the original recording of 'Heartless', Ann sings "The doc said come back again next week...", whereas on the re-recorded version she sings "doctor" instead. The new lead vocal on 'Heartless' is less controlled than the original, while the synthesizer solo on 'Just The Wine' was replaced by a flute solo, and the song is slightly edited. The ending of 'Magazine' fades about 30 seconds earlier, and the live 'Blues Medley' was edited to remove some of Roger Fisher's guitar solo sections and Ann's solo vocal parts, while there are also many other subtle differences between the two versions. The revised album was released by Mushroom Records in April 1978, with the disclaimer on the back removed. Although the band would profess to be much happier with the new recordings of these songs, it's still interesting to hear these early takes before they were polished in the studio, and so for fans of the band who might be unaware of the story behind this album, here they are for your enjoyment. 

Track listing

01 Heartless
02 Without You
03 Just The Wine
04 Magazine
05 Here Song
06 Devil Delight
07 Blues Medley: Mother Earth/You Shook Me Babe
08 I've Got The Music In Me

The Bluetones - Are You Blue Or Are You Blind? (1996)

The Bluetones formed in Hounslow in 1990 with an original line-up of Scott Morriss on bass, Eds Chesters on drums, Adam Devlin on guitar, and Scott's bother Mark James Morriss on vocals, and they spent the next four years practicing in garages and playing gigs, quickly establishing a strong fanbase - no less than three fanzines were dedicated to the band before they had released their third single. In 1994 they contributed 'No. 11' to the Fierce Panda compilation EP 'Return To Splendour', and that led to an appearance on Channel 4's The White Room TV series . The band then signed to Superior Quality Records, and their debut single 'Are You Blue Or Are You Blind? entered the UK Top 40 in June 1995. It was followed in October by 'Bluetonic', which was a re-recording of 'No' 11' from the Fierce Panda EP, and they ended the year by releasing the third single, and their biggest hit, 'Slight Return'. Their first album 'Expecting To Fly' (named after a classic Buffalo Springfield song) reached number 1 in the UK album charts in February 1996. Between their first single for Fierce Panda and the debut album in 1996 the band had already shown how prolific they were by including a dozen otherwise unreleased songs on the b-sides of their five singles, and this was to continue for the rest of their career, so the first of four posts collects all those songs that were issued between 1995 and 1996, plus their contribution to the 1994 Fierce Panda EP. 

Track listing

01 No. 11 (from the Fierce Panda EP 'Return To Splendour' 1994)
02 Colorado Beetle (b-side of 'Bluetonic' 1995)
03 Glad To See Y'Back Again (b-side of 'Bluetonic' 1995)
04 Are You Blue Or Are You Blind? (single 1995)
05 String Along (b-side of 'Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?' 1995)
06 Driftwood (b-side of 'Are You Blue Or Are You Blind?' 1995)
07 Marblehead Johnson (single 1996)
08 The Simple Things (b-side of 'Marblehead Johnson' 1996)
09 Nifkin's Bridge (b-side of 'Marblehead Johnson' 1996)
10 Castle Rock (b-side of 'Cut Some Rug' 1996) 
11 The Devil Behind My Smile (b-side of 'Cut Some Rug' 1996)
12 Nae Hair On't (b-side of 'Slight Return' 1996)
13 Don't Stand Me Down (b-side of 'Slight Return' 1996)

Trees - Tom Of Bedlam (1973)

Trees was a British folk rock band who formed in 1969, with the original line-up comprising Bias Boshell on bass and keyboards, Barry Clarke on guitar, David Costa on acoustic guitar, Unwin Brown on drums and singer Celia Humphris. David Costa was the son of British singer and radio presenter Sam Costa, and while reading Fine Arts at the University of East Anglia he met Barry Clarke through a mutual girlfriend, who had suggested that as they were both guitar players, that they should connect. Bias Boshell and Unwin Brown had both attended Bedales School in Petersfield, Hampshire, and within a short time all four were sharing their diverse musical experiences, exploring their different tastes and bringing together what they each enjoyed in common with each other. Lacking a singer, Costa suggested they audition the sister of an acquaintance of his, and introduced Celia Humphris into the mix, who had just left Arts Educational where she had studied dance, drama and singing. The five of them began rehearsing in the early spring of 1969, and played their first gigs and recorded early demo tracks throughout June and July of the same year. In 1969 the band signed to CBS, and released two studio albums in relatively quick succession, with 'The Garden Of Jane Delawney' coming out in 1970, and 'On The Shore' in 1971. Like their folk contemporaries, Trees was often compared with Fairport Convention, but they were regarded as delivering folk with a more psychedelic edge, and the group's material was divided between adaptations of traditional songs and original compositions. The original band disbanded in 1971 after recording the two albums, and a second incarnation formed in 1972, featuring Celia Humphris, Barry Clarke, Barry Lyons, Alun Eden, and violinist Chuck Fleming, but this line-up never released an official studio album, although recordings can be found on bootleg releases. Following the demise of the original lineup, Bias Boshell went on to work as a keyboard player and songwriter with The Kiki Dee Band, writing her hit song 'I've Got the Music In Me', before joining Barclay James Harvest and subsequently The Moody Blues, while Barry Clarke went on to join the Vigrass and Osborne band. David Costa became art director and designer for many notable artists such as Elton John, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, and Celia Humphris continued with Trees' second lineup, and subsequently went on to become a sought-after voice-over artist, providing the pre-recorded announcements for the Northern Line on the London Underground.

In 1973 the band had a couple of concerts recorded, possibly for the BBC, and an album was released in 1989 containing all the songs they played. The sound quality was fairly poor, but none of the songs had featured on their two albums, apart from the closer 'Polly On The Shore', and so it was definitely worth hearing. Some years later, an enterprising bootlegger took a tape of this live album and removed all the applause between the songs, releasing this edited version as purported demos for an unreleased third album by the band. Having heard both versions, the 'demos' one is much better quality, but the beginnings of some of the songs have been cut to remove the audience, and they are faded sharply at the end for the same reason. I've done quite a bit of work to this album, replacing the cut intros and smoothing the fades, fixing volume drop-outs, as well as boosting the bass on a couple of songs, so it now sounds more like the third album demos that it was pretending to be. In a way it was, as all the songs were previously unheard material, and if the band had been offered a new recording contract then these would probably have been the songs they would have recorded, possibly even under the title that I've given it. I've added one song from a BBC radio session from 1970 which they had not previously recorded, making a fine epitaph for a fondly remembered band, who were at the fore-front of the folk-rock movement, but who seem to have been unfairly over-looked when the history was written. 

Track listing

01 Prince Of Heathens 
02 Tom Of Bedlam
03 Cry Of Morning 
04 Burgen Polka
05 Friar Tuck Gets His
06 The Innocent Hare
07 Forest Fire
08 Van Dieman's Land

Fat Mattress - Hall Of Kings (1970)

Fat Mattress was formed in late 1968 by Noel Redding with vocalist Neil Landon, bass guitarist Jim Leverton and drummer Eric Dillon, and came together while Redding was a still member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, with a view to enabling Redding to both play guitar and sing lead, as well as to record original material. While he had done all three things with the Experience, they were restricted to rare occasions, and having his own band would give him the freedom to build on this more fully. The first major public exposure of the band was as the opening act to the Jimi Hendrix Experience on a tour of the United States, during which Redding would perform with both bands, with Landon, Redding, and Leverton all singing lead, allowing the group to employ a great deal of vocal harmonies. They signed to Polydor Records and released the eponymous 'Fat Mattress' album in 1969, with the single 'Magic Forest' becoming a hit in the Netherlands, and the album itself achieving some success. It was a distinct departure from the sound of the Experience, with a late 60's psychedelic feel to some of the songs, and with an overall gentler feel to the music. In August 1969 the band made an appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival in front of a crowd of an estimated 120,000 people, and the following month they appeared on the popular German TV show Beat-Club, performing 'Naturally', 'Mr. Moonshine' and 'Magic Forest'. In February 1970 the band headlined over David Bowie's new band Hype at the Roundhouse, before moving on to tour the US, although this was cancelled after completing only five dates of an initially anticipated thirty appearances. In the midst of recording 'Fat Mattress II', Redding and Leverton had a falling out, resulting in Redding's departure from the band. He was replaced by Steve Hammond at roughly the same time as Mick Weaver was added to relieve Leverton on keyboard duties, allowing Leverton to focus on bass and vocals. 'Fat Mattress II' was released to slightly less acclaim than their debut, and although there were plans for a third album, the band split in the middle of recording sessions, with only a handful of songs being completed. Although they remain primarily known as Noel Redding's band, he was only a member for about 18 months, and had a hand in writing just three of the tracks on their second album, but they were still an under-rated outfit, and nothing like I expected them to sound bearing in mind Redding's previous 'experience'. They left behind a couple of out-takes from their second album, plus some non-album b-sides, and if we combine them with those abandoned sessions then we end up with an idea of what that third album could have sounded like.    

Track listing

01 Little Girl In White (out-take 1969)
02 Eric The Red (out-take 1969)
03 Iridescent Butterfly (b-side of 'Naturally')
04 Black Sheep Of The Family (b-side of 'Highway' 1970)
05 Hall Of Kings (out-take 1970)
06 Margarita (previously unreleased 3rd album track)
07 Cold Wall Of Stone (previously unreleased 3rd album track)
08 Long Red (previously unreleased 3rd album track)
09 Words (previously unreleased 3rd album track)
10 The River (previously unreleased 3rd album track)
11 Future Days (previously unreleased 3rd album track)

I had to severely edit 'The River', as it seemed to be a perfectly good rocker up the three minute mark, where an entirely unrelated 14-minute instrumental was crudely grafted onto the end, so I've removed that completely, which also makes for a nice 43-minute album. 

The Boo Radleys - Lazarus (Remixes) (1994)

As a bonus post to end the short series of Boo Radleys rarities, here is a collection of recordings of their song 'Lazarus', from the 'Giant Steps' album. The band released the track as a single in 1993, and also issued a two-CD set of remixes by artists such as Ultramarine, St. Etienne and Augustus Pablo, as well as an extended 12" version. As so often with remixes, some of these are hardly recognisable as the original song, which means that nine versions of the same piece isn't as repetitious as you might first think. I've added the album version as well, so that we have all the different takes of the song, and it holds up pretty well as an album in its own right, so to round off the series, enjoy a bit of experimentation from a band who were always up for trying something a little different.

Track listing

01 Lazarus (7" Version)  
02 Lazarus (Ultramarine Remix)  
03 Lazarus (Acoustic Version)
04 Lazarus (St. Etienne Remix)
05 Lazarus (12" Version) 
06 Lazarus (Secret Knowledge Remix)
07 Lazarus (Flood Remix)
08 Lazarus (Augustus Pablo Remix)
09 Lazarus (Album Version)

Sauce - Shards Of Sunshine (2019)

Sauce began when George’s old band split and he began writing with Henry, who then introduced Lewis on bass, and a year later Dean Molyneux arrived after original guitarist Sean left, and with this line-up they started rehearsing and recording, with songs starting to appear on Souncloud around 2017. They got their name from a poster outside Kraak Gallery in Manchester, as it had a 70's psychedelic ring to it, like Cream for instance, and it also had the potential for bad gags and puns. Their influences encompass Tame Impala, Stone Roses, Mac DeMarco, Arctic Monkeys and The Vryll Society, and they released two singles in 2017, 'Love Shocks' and 'What Feels Better (Than You and I)?', followed by 'The Liquid Love EP' in 2018, and two further singles in the last two years. They are still going strong, although gigs have dried up due to the pandemic, so they've spent their time writing, and promise some great new songs when they return to live performing. In the meantime, here are all the songs that they've posted to Soundcloud, which makes for a perfect album-length introduction to the band. 

 
Track listing

01 Forgiveness Is Underrated
02 Gas Pipes Blown
03 Love Shocks
04 What Feels Better (Than You And I)?
05 There's A Fool
06 Give Up Everything
07 Shards Of Sunshine
08 Magick Trick
09 All Of Us
10 Sister Brother

Clodagh Rodgers - Mister Heartache (1968)

Clodagh Rodgers was born on 5 March 1947 in Warrenpoint, County Down, in Northern Ireland, and was raised in a musical household, where her father Louis was a dancehall tour promoter. At age 12 she was appearing as warm-up for acts such as Jim Reeves and Michael Holliday, and at 14, thanks to her father’s connections, she toured Europe with Johnny Cash. By the time the tour was over, she'd been offered a recording contract with Decca Records, and so her family moved to Willesden, in north London, to allow her to seize this opportunity – only to find that Decca would leave her languishing for 18 months. The Shel Talmy-produced 'Believe Me I'm No Fool' became her first single, issued in November 1962 and credited to Cloda Rodgers, but it was ignoed by the British record-buying public. For the follow-up she was billed as Cloda Rogers, but 'Sometime Kind of Love' seemed a little dated by the time of its release in March 1963, and a third single 'To Give My Love To You' fared no better on its release three months later, although fans now tend to flip the disk for its b-side, the catchy Country 'n' Western-style 'I Only Live To Love You'. She impressed audiences as part of the UK team at Belgium's Knokke Cup that year, and also gained exposure through an appearance in the comic caper 'Just For Fun', alongside the likes of Dusty Springfield, The Breakaways and Louise Cordet, in which she sang 'Sweet Sweet Boy'. 1964's 'Mister Heartache' was her final single for Decca, and she signed a new management deal with Keith Prowse, who secured her a deal with Columbia Records, but the release of the sophisticated 'Every Day Is Just The Same', did little to engage the record-buying pubic. A third Columbia release, an updating of Ethel Waters' 1930's track 'Stormy Weather', fared no better in 1966, although on a happier note she did meet John Morris on a two-month package tour of the UK with The Walker Brothers, and they later married, with him becoming her manager. Under his professional guidance she joined RCA in 1968, issuing a couple of great singles, 'Play The Drama To The End' and 'Rhythm Of Love', both ignored by the public. On a TV appearance to promote the singles, she was spotted by US songwriter Kenny Young, a former Brill Building writer who was best known for penning 'Under The Boardwalk' for The Drifters, and he contacted RCA to offer her his latest composition 'Come Back And Shake Me', and this classic piece of late-60's pop swept up the UK charts, reaching number three in the spring of 1969. The success of the single saw Rodgers whisked into the studio to cut her first album, and as well as including the hit, Young also gave her a clutch of new songs to record for the album. From this point on she became a regular on TV variety shows, and released over half a dozen albums in the new decade, but is now probably best remembered for representing the UK in the 1971 Eurovision Song Contest with the bouncy 'Jack In The Box'. To get to that point, though, she had to pay her dues with a handful of commercially unsuccessful but artistically worthwhile singles, which are gathered here for you to judge for yourself.

Track listing

01 Believe Me I'm No Fool (single 1962)
02 End Of The Line (b-side of 'Believe Me I'm No Fool)
03 Sometime Kind Of Love (single 1963)
04 I See More Of Him (b-side of 'Sometime Kind Of Love')
05 Sweet Sweet Boy (from the film 'Just For Fun' 1964)
06 Mister Heartache (single 1964)
07 Time (b-side of 'Mister Heartache')
08 My Love Will Still Be There (from the film 'It's All Over Town' 1964) 
09 Every Day Is Just The Same (single 1966)
10 You'll Come A'Running (b-side of 'Every Day Is Just The Same')
11 Stormy Weather (single 1966)
12 Lonely Room (b-side of 'Stormy Weather')
13 Play The Drama To The End (single 1968)
14 Room Full Of Roses (b-side of 'Play The Drama to The End')
15 Rhythm Of Love (single 1968)
16 River Of Tears (b-side of Rhythm Of Love')

The Creation - Ostrich Man (1968)

The Creation were formed from the ashes of the beat group The Mark Four, who operated in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire between 1963 and 1966. By late 1963 The Mark Four was a quintet consisting of Kenny Pickett (vocals), Eddie Phillips (guitars), Mick "Spud" Thompson (rhythm guitars), John Dalton (bass), and Jack Jones (drums), and this line-up played regularly in the UK and in Germany, before issuing two non-charting singles on Mercury Records in 1964, 'Rock Around The Clock' and 'Try It Baby'. Dalton then left the band, later joining The Kinks as a replacement for Pete Quaife, and was replaced by new bassist Tony Cooke. Around the same time, Thompson left and was not replaced, and this new four-piece line-up issued two further non-charting singles in 'Hurt Me If You Will' and 'Work All Day (Sleep All Night)'. In April 1966 the group signed a management deal with Tony Stratton-Smith, who promptly suggested replacing Cooke with new bassist Bob Garner, and also asked they change their name. The band took him up on both suggestions, and Pickett came up with the name The Creation, based on a reference he found in a book of Russian poetry. The band's style at this point was loud art pop, similar to early records by The Who, and their first single under the new name was the Pickett/Phillips original 'Making Time', which was the first recording to feature an electric guitar being played with a violin bow, predating the more famous solos by Jimmy Page by some years. The single reached No. 49 on the UK chart, but almost immediately the band suffered another line-up change when Jack Jones was fired and replaced by new drummer Dave Preston, although he was quickly reinstated after the band decided they were unsatisfied with Preston's live work. 

Their next single was released in October 1966, and the more pop-orientated 'Painter Man' became their biggest hit, reaching No. 36 on the UK chart, and breaking the top 10 in Germany. The band took their pop art experimentation even further, with Pickett spray-painting a canvas during their concerts, before a member of the road crew would set fire to the artwork on stage. 'Painter Man' was the last single issued by the original line-up, with Kim Gardner being brought in as their new bassist, and former bassist Bob Garner taking over the lead vocal slot, leaving Kenny Pickett out of the group. This line-up issued its first single in June 1967, but 'If I Stay Too Long'/'Nightmares' was not a success in the UK, although it did well in Germany, and so the band released 'Tom Tom' as a follow-up just in Germany, with their commercial momentum in that country being so strong that an album called 'We Are Paintermen' was released in mid 1967 for the German and continental European market, compiled from previously issued singles and several newly recorded songs. The band tried to break the US market by releasing four singles during late 1966 and 1967, but none of them met with any success, although they continued to remain popular in Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. At the end of 1967 they released 'Life Is Just Beginning' in the UK, but almost immediately afterwards guitarist Eddie Phillips announced his departure, and although he was replaced for several European tour dates by guitarist Tony Ollard, within a matter of weeks vocalist Bob Garner also quit the group, and by February 1968 The Creation had officially ceased to exist. 

However, demand was still strong in continental Europe for Creation records and live shows, and almost immediately after the band disbanded, drummer Jack Jones formed a new Creation line-up, bringing back Kenny Pickett as singer and Kim Gardner as bass player, and bringing in his old bandmate from The Birds, Ronnie Wood on guitar. This line-up debuted with the single 'Midway Down', which was released in the UK and Germany in April 1968, but shortly afterwards the band splintered again, and this time it was for good. 'Bonney Moroney' (sic) and 'For All That I Am' were issued as posthumous singles in Germany in 1968, and that was the end of the band. Despite their early demise and lack of hits, The Creation posthumously became highly influential, acknowledged as an inspiration by Paul Weller, Ride, Pete Townshend, and The Sex Pistols, while Alan McGee named his massively successful record label Creation after them, and took 'Biff Bang Pow!' as the name for his own band. For this album I've gathered together all the singles and b-sides that didn't appear on the 'We Are Paintermen' album, as that record is well worth seeking out in its own right, and I've added in a few previously unreleased recordings that have since surfaced on the many retrospectives, plus a couple of live takes, in particular the full length version of 'That's How Strong My Love Is'. If you have this album plus 'We Are Paintermen', then you have everything that the band recorded in their short career, and yet they influenced so many bands that it's hard to believe that this is their entire recorded output. 

Track listing

01 Instrumental #1 (previously unreleased 1966)
02 Life Is Just Beginning (single 1967)
03 Ostrich Man (previously unreleased)
04 I'm A Man (previously unreleased live recording 1966)
05 Midway Down (single 1968)
06 The Girls Are Naked (b-side of 'Midway Down')
07 Sweet Helen (previously unreleased 1968)
08 Bonney Moroney (German single 1968)
09 Mercy, Mercy, Mercy (b-side of 'Boney Moronie')
10 Sylvette (previously unreleased full take 1966)
11 Life Is Just Beginning (longer un-orchestrated version 1967)
12 For All That I Am (German single 1968)
13 Uncle Bert (b-side of 'For All That I Am')
14 That's How Strong My Love Is (previously unreleased live recording) 
15 I Am The Walker (previously unreleased)

The Boo Radleys - Almost Nearly There (1995)

In 1996 the Boo Radleys released their fifth album 'C'mon Kids', and while the group themselves have said that their aim was to try something new in order to keep themselves fresh and interested, critics accused them of deliberately attempting to scare away the fans they'd picked up with 'Wake Up!'. Early in 1997, the band finalized an American contract with Mercury, and 'C'mon Kids' was released in March, a half a year after its initial British release. Their final album 'Kingsize' came out in 1998, with 'Free Huey!' being released as the first single. Plans were under way to issue the title track as the next single, but while these were being finalised the band decided to call it a day, and broke up in 1999, resulting in the release of 'Kingsize' being cancelled. As we've already seen from posts from Elbow, Wah!, Dodgy and (spoiler alert) The Bluetones, indie bands of the 90's treated their fans really well, with exclusive songs on the flips of nearly all of their singles, although the Boos did reign this in a bit during their later years, and the songs on their EPs seldom found their way onto their albums either. They may have only been around for eight years, but they recorded so much music that it was relatively easy to find three dozen songs that never appeared on their albums to make up this trilogy of posts from a much-missed indie band.  

   
Track listing

01 Friendship Song (b-side of 'Wake Up Boo!' 1995)
02 ...And Tomorrow The World (b-side of 'Wake Up Boo!' 1995)
03 Janus (b-side of 'Wake Up Boo!' 1995)
04 Blues For George Michael (b-side of 'Wake Up Boo!' 1995)
05 This Is Not About Me (b-side of 'It's Lulu' 1995)
06 Tambo (b-side of 'It's Lulu' 1995)
07 Donkey (b-side of 'It's Lulu' 1995)
08 From The Bench At Belvidere (single 1995)
09 Hi Falutin' (b-side of 'From The Bench At Belvidere' 1995)
10 Crushed (b-side of 'From The Bench At Belvidere')
11 Almost Nearly There (b-side of 'From The Bench At Belvidere')
12 The History Of Creation Parts 17 And 36 (b-side of 'Wake Up Boo!' 1995)

I've put 'The History Of Creation Parts 17 And 36' at the end as you'll probably only want to listen to it once. 

The cover uses a photo by Elena Jo Melanson

Audience - Indian Summer (1972)

Audience were a cult British art rock band which was formed in 1969 by Howard Werth on nylon-strung electric acoustic guitar and vocals, Keith Gemmell on alto and tenor saxophone, flute and clarinet, Trevor Williams on bass guitar and vocals, and Tony Connor on drums and vocals. They rose from the ashes of a semi-professional soul band called Lloyd Alexander Real Estate, which had included all the Audience members except Connor, and they released one single under that name in 1967, but when Werth, Williams, and Gemmell decided to form their new band, they thought of Connor. Within weeks of starting rehearsals, Audience had acquired management, a publishing contract, a residency at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, and a recording contract with Polydor, with whom they recorded their first album 'Audience', an acoustic guitar-driven album featuring Gemmell's saxophone often electrically altered to resemble an electric lead guitar and with string and horn arrangements by Andrew Pryce Jackman. The band was dissatisfied with the record company's promotional approach and temporarily moved to Switzerland to avoid involvement in proposed publicity stunts, but by the end of the year they were drawing public and journalistic acclaim for their songs, arrangements, and stage act. After the debut album came out on Polydor, Tony Stratton-Smith of Charisma Records spotted the band supporting Led Zeppelin and signed them up to his label immediately, for which they recorded three albums. Their first two records were not issued in the U.S. until Elektra signed them, when their final two albums were issued in America, and although their 1971 single 'Indian Summer' took them into the lower reaches of the U.S. charts, by this time they were exhausted and fractious, having worked virtually non-stop for three years, and Gemmell left the band in January 1972. The unfinished 'Lunch' album was completed with the help of The Rolling Stones and Mad Dogs and Englishmen brass section, Jim Price and Bobby Keys, following which they went straight back on the road with new members Nick Judd on keyboards and Pat Charles Neuberg on alto and soprano saxophone. The band never recovered from Gemmell's departure, with Williams resigning eight months later, and when Judd received an offer to join Juicy Lucy shortly afterwards, the band folded. 'House On The Hill' has long been a favourite album of mine, including a superb remake of the title track from that unsatisfactory first album, and they were one of the great unsung British progressive rock bands, so if you like the sound of this collection then do check out their albums, and I guarantee you won't be disappointed.

Track listing

01 Watcha Gonna Do (When Your Baby Leaves You) (single by Lloyd Alexander Real Estate 1967)
02 Gonna Live Again (b-side of 'Watcha Gonna Do (When Your Baby Leaves You)')
03 Paper Round (previously unreleased 1969)
04 The Going Song (previously unreleased 1969)
05 Troubles (previously unreleased 1969)
06 House On The Hill (original version 1969)
07 The Big Spell (b-side of Belladonna Moonshine' 1971)
08 Indian Summer (single 1971) 
09 Grief And Disbelief (previously unreleased 1972)
10 Hard Cruel World (previously unreleased 1972)
11 Elixir Of Youth (previously unreleased 1972)
12 Buy Me An Island (John Peel session 1972)
13 Trombone Gulch (John Peel session 1972)
14 Barracuda Dan (John Peel session 1972)