Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Tony Hazzard (1969)

Anthony Hazzard was born on 31 October 1943 in Liverpool, and is best known as a successful songwriter of the late 60's. He learned the guitar and ukulele when young, but didn't start his music career until he finished his education at Durham University, and with the encouragement of Tony Garnett of the BBC, he moved to London where he signed a contract with publisher Gerry Bron. Bron could see potential in Hazzard's songs, and wanted him as a solo artist, releasing his first single 'You'll Never Put Shackles On Me' in 1966. Although it didn't chart, another of his songs was submitted to Herman's Hermits, who had a Top 20 hit with 'You Won't Be Leaving' in 1966. Following a dry spell where he struggled to write anything that he considered worthy, he gave 'Ha! Ha! Said The Clown' to Manfred Mann, who took it to the upper reaches of the UK charts. In 1968 his psyche-tinged 'The Sound Of The Candyman's Trumpet' was recorded by Cliff Richard and entered into the 1968 'Songs For Europe' preamble for the Eurovision Song Contest, although it lost out to 'Congratulations' in the final vote. Simon Dupree and the Big Sound, The Casuals, The Family Dogg, and The Swinging Blue Jeans all turned to Hazzard's pop tunes in the late 1960's, and many of them scored hit singles with their recordings. In the midst of all this success as a writer, Hazzard released his first solo album 'Tony Hazzard Sings Tony Hazzard' in 1969, and despite the fact that every single track had been successfully released as a single by another artist, it was commercially unsuccessful, although his second album, 'Loudwater House', fared much better. It could have been the fact that he was a relatively unknown singer which caused that first album to flop, as it certainly wasn't the quality of the songs, and so to make it appeal to a wider audience I've replaced Hazzard's own versions of his songs with the hit single versions from a wide variety of 60's artists, and we end up with a great tribute album by some of the biggest names of the era, and a fitting celebration of Hazzard's songwriting. 

Track listing

01 Listen To Me (The Hollies)
02 Brown Eyed Girl (The Family Dogg)
03 Me, The Peaceful Heart (Lulu)
04 The Sound Of The Candyman's Trumpet (Cliff Richard)
05 Hello It's Me (The Casuals)
06 Fox On The Run (Manfred Mann)
07 Hello World (The Tremeloes)
08 Goodnight Sweet Josephine (The Yardbirds)
09 Ha! Ha! Said The Clown (Manfred Mann)
10 Hey Mrs. Housewife (The Swinging Bluejeans)
11 You Won't Be Leaving (Herman's Hermits)
12 Fade Away Maureen (Cherry Smash)

Steve Noonan - Songs (1967)

Steve Noonan was an early contemporary of Jackson Browne, and like Browne he recorded some publishing demos for Nina Records, so that when Nina decided to press up a double album of Browne's demos, they added ten of Noonan's songs on side 4 of the record. Noonan actually managed to beat Browne to the record racks with his 1968 self-titled album for Elektra, which included four Browne songs and one Noonan/Browne co-write, but unfortunately he never made another album, while Browne, although he had to wait until the 1970's to make his LP debut, became a big star. Noonan's sole album contained pleasant, arty folk-rock-pop tunes that were somewhat reminiscent of those by fellow Elektra artist and Southern Californian Tim Buckley, but not nearly as outstanding. One downside of the record was that Noonan's vocals were pretty thin and expressionless, making one wonder if he might have been better suited to remain a songwriter whose work was interpreted by others, which was a criticism aimed at Browne about his Nina demos. In the mid-'60s, Noonan had been hailed by the Los Angeles magazine Cheetah as one of the "Orange County Three," a trio of singer/songwriters from the area to watch out for. While Jackson Browne became a superstar, and Tim Buckley became one of the most esteemed cult rock singers of all time, Noonan is barely remembered at all. He did co-write a small hit single for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, 'Buy For Me The Rain', with Greg Copeland in 1967, prior to his solo recording debut. In fact Copeland figured strongly on the 'Steve Noonan' album, co-writing five of its songs, and he's also well-represented on these demos, co-writing eight of the ten tracks with Noonan, and one with Browne. Noonan's album must have sold few copies, judging by how hard it is to locate a copy today, and like several low-selling 1960's folk-rock albums on the Elektra label, it has escaped reissue in the CD age. These demos are almost as hard to track down, with only one very scratchy rip of the original vinyl available online, and after listening to the clicks and clunks I felt I had to do something, so I managed to find a de-clicking programme which has worked wonders on the songs, making them much easier to enjoy.   

Track listing

01 Street Singer (Noonan/Copeland)
02 Santana (Browne/Copeland)
03 High Journey (Noonan/Copeland)
04 Maid Of Cantontown (Noonan/Copeland)
05 The Tide Of Love (Noonan/Copeland)
06 Buy For Me The Rain (Noonan/Copeland)
07 Trusting Is A Harder Thing (Noonan/Browne)
08 Leaning Back And Laughing (Noonan/Copeland)
09 Back Alley Dream Street Song (Noonan/Copeland)
10 Another Kind Of Present Song (Noonan/Copeland)

If you want to hear just what the de-clicking programme can do, then compare this from Youtube to the version on here. 

The Chemistry Set - Don't Turn Away (2017)

As a follow-up to the recent post making The Chemistry Set's 1989 album 'Sounds Like Painting' available to a wider audience, here is a nice little collection of hard to find rarities, singles and b-sides from the band. It covers their whole career, from their first appearance on disc, with a free flexi-disc with Freakbeat Magazine in 1987, right through to their 2017 cover of the Moody Blues' classic 'Legend Of A Mind', which was spread over two sides of a 7" single, and released by the fantastic Fruits De Mer label. Along the way we get the Spanish top 20 hit single 'Don't Turn Way', along with the b-sides from the 12" version, their offering to the 1987 Syd Barrett compilation 'Beyond The Wildwood' (and see if you recognise the snippet of another song that they insert towards the end!), and the b-sides from the 12" and CD versions of their 'The Candle Burns' single. Following their break from the music biz, they returned in 2008 as a duo of Ashley Wood and Dave McLean, and began the most creative part of their career, releasing four albums and a number of singles, all of which included exclusive b-sides. They also went to their beloved Spain in 2011, where they co-wrote and recorded a song in Catalan with their Barcelona-based producer. 'La Logica Del Canvi' was released as the b-side to a Spanish single, and the record company sent a copy to the Catalan Ministry of Culture, receiving a reply from the minister congratulating them for being the first English band to sing in Catalan. The band love their covers as well, and most of the flips of recent singles have been their takes on classic psyche songs of the late 60's, so for the b-side of their 'Impossible Love' single they gave us a wigged-out version of the Rolling Stones 'We Love You', and on the flip of 2012's 'Time To Breathe' is a great take on Tomorrow's 'Hallucinations'. On their 'Elapsed Memories' EP we get an acid/folk take on the Hendrix classic 'Love Or Confusion', as well as a fine cover of Love's 'Live And Let Live', and we close with the afore-mentioned Moodies track. If you've been impressed by what you've heard here then do check out their albums, as they are all superb stuff.    

Track listing

01 Gibraltan Rock (from the free flexi-disc with Freakbeat magazine 1987)
02 Don't Turn Away (single 1991)
03 Pure Land (b-side of 'Don't Turn Away' 12" 1990)
04 I Don't Need You (b-side of 'Don't Turn Away' 12" 1990)
05 See Emily Play (from 'Beyond The Wildwood' tribute to Syd Barrett 1987)
06 Long Arm Of The Liar (b-side of 'The Candle Burns' 1991)
07 Improved Sensitivity (b-side of 'The Candle Burns' 1991)
08 La Lògica Del Canvi (b-side of 'She's Taking Me Down' 2009)
09 Impossible Love (single 2011)
10 We Luv You (Put That In Your Pipe And Smoke It Mix) (b-side of 'Impossible Love')
11 Hallucinations (b-side of 'Time To Breath' 2012)
12 Love Or Confusion (b-side of 'Elapsed Memories' 2014)
13 Live And Let Live (bonus track on 'Elapsed Memories' EP 2014)
14 Legend Of A Mind (single 2017)

Pink Floyd - Forever And Ever (Remix) (2019)

Magna Qualitas Records have updated their brilliant 2014 work 'Forever and Ever'. Due to the 2019 release of additional outtakes from the 'Division Bell' sessions and }{eywood's acquisition of the 'Colours Of Infinity' DVD bonus tracks, they felt it was time to expand some of the suites on this album and update it. Here are their notes on the update:  
'Forever and Ever', a mashup of 'The Division Bell' and 'The Endless River - Rev A' was designed to make 'The Division Bell' less radio-friendly and 'The Endless River' less...well...cobbled together. It is intended as a true final Pink Floyd record, an alternate reality version of what should have been released in 1994. When we first listened to 'The Endless River' we were sadly disappointed by the lack of any sort of actual songs on the record. Other that 'Louder Than Words', there was nothing with a traditional song structure to it or lyrics on the record. We heard  many pieces of things we had heard before, either on bootlegs or on the 'Colours Of Infinity' soundtrack, even pieces of the soundscape used as an opening act on the 1994 tour and later released on the P*U*L*S*E cassettes. Being mostly recorded in tandem with 'The Division Bell' it also contained a lot of  similar or duplicated sounds compared to what's on that album.
We see 'The Division Bell' as one of Pink Floyd's better efforts, the first record to sound like a band (rather than a solo album) since 'Animals'. It was, however, a bit heavy on the pop songs. Both albums are flawed, but after just one listen }{eywood had about 22.6 ideas that led to one big design concept: if the two were combined to form a single long album they might balance each other. So he spent a couple of days investigating the issue, and this is what he came up with. Using a couple of bootlegs, the 'Endless River' tracks from the album proper with the bluray and bonus disc extras, the 'Colour Of Infinity' isolated soundtrack, a bit of the PULSE soundscape and, of course, 'The Division Bell', he edited, resequenced and crossfaded the tracks into a new album, one that still has "songs" but is also far more floyd-y sounding, with spacey sections and a great deal of instrumental tracks, sort of like how they used to make records before Roger Waters took over the group and made it more about lyrics (and lists. Don't forget the lists) and less about music. There were several more pieces of music available on bootlegs that were not used for 'The Endless River', but the sound quality wasn't up to the standard set by these albums, and many were incomplete fragments anyway.  In case some diehards out there are wondering, we also originally intended to throw some of 'La Carerra Panamericana' in there too, but it's too hard to remove all the documentary sounds and dialogue to reveal the music. Also, it was released in 1992, a year before the TDB sessions began, and therefore doesn't technically belong with this material. 
The recent discovery of the four isolated songs on a certain version of 'The Colours Of infinity' DVD bonus features was a gift for }{eywood, who wanted to include this music from the start, but like 'La Carerra Panamericana', couldn't separate it from the dialogue. 

Flash forward to 2019 and the release of 7 songs on 'The Later Years' box set that were not used for 'The Endless River'; these songs were instantly destined to be sequenced into 'Forever and Ever'.  As expected, these included most of the 'Colours' soundtrack in pristine quality. The work began anew the day after 'The Later Years' release. Our original intent when making this the first time around was not to alter the running order of TDB, just add to it, but once the whole project was assembled we decided it was better for the overall flow of the record to move the pieces around. Influenced by the four album sides approach taken by 'The Endless River', we put together six suites of varying lengths, each separated from the others. Why didn't we use all the bonus material from TER and all the other known pieces of music like the 'Surfacing Full Demo'? 'Nervana' has no ending, just an abrupt fade out, and it really doesn't fit here because it sounds like Black Sabbath. 'TBS14' has a really bad drum sound, just a mic open in a room near drums, and it's not produced to be used for an album.  It also had no true ending. The other songs are just alternate/early mixes of the stuff on the albums, or they are of dubious quality.  We did, however, use parts of 'Evrika (A)' to add some additional lead guitar to the end of 'Wearing The Inside Out'. This is essentially every song/jam available in RELEASABLE quality. Many songs have obviously had alterations, intended to facilitate better segues: 

The intro to Cluster One has been extended by using the crackling earth noise and some voices from opposite ends of the PULSE soundscape.  
Allons-y has been extended by splicing in the first verse (without the 2014 overdubs) and the middle 8 (unused on the album version) from 209, a bootleg that Lordsnooty circulated around the time Pink Floyd began work on 'The Endless River'.   
"Autumn 68" has been renamed "Spring '69" because our research shows that is the correct date when Rick recorded himself playing the RAH organ.
Poles Apart has had the anomalous middle "carnival" section removed and Surfacing inserted in it's place. This is certainly the original middle section, sped up for use on 'The Endless River' so the fans don't notice the similarity (we did anyway). We slowed it back down and put it back in it's proper place.  
David's Blues has been added to the start of the (previously too short) 3rd suite. The scat vocal sections of this have been cut as they are reference vocals of a vocal melody and show the otherwise decent recording to be a demo. Removing the vocal verses un-demos it.
The Day Has Come, the 'One Of These Days' sounding jam from TCoI has been inserted before Wearing the Inside Out.
Wearing The Inside Out, as mentioned above, has additional lead guitar in the middle 8 and at the end, also taken from 'Evrika (A)'. The cymbal swell that cues it in is from 'Evrika (B)'
The final note of Night Light was reduced to just bass frequencies, stretched, and used to add low end to the first minute of Keep Talking.  
Stephen Hawking dialogue was added to Looking Forward (one of the unnamed pieces on TCoI) to connect it thematically with the songs around it.
The sounds at the end of Talkin' Hawkin' were moved from the end of the song to the beginning.  
Slippery Guitar, a piece from TCoI that I named Back to Basics, and  Rick's Theme were added to the start of Suite 4. 
A nature sounds montage extracted from the PULSE soundscape was laid into the segue between Rick's Theme and Take It Back in line with the theme of the following song. 
The extended ending for Take It Back from the 12" single was used to make a bridge into Sum.  
First In Space is a track we created out of parts of the PULSE soundscape and named after the "still first in space" slogan used on 'The Division Bell' Tour shirts. We included this because small fragments of it were used throughout The Endless River, noticeably at the start of the track Sum, but on Sum the keyboards that appear after the soundscape are from the end of Take It Back. We therefore joined Take It Back and Sum using those keys, leaving the soundscape portion of the track with an uncertain destiny. We then extended it and used it elsewhere.  
Carnival Relations is the middle section that was removed from Poles Apart, given a new home...and a new pitch. 
The Colour Of Infinity is the blues jam from TCoI, named as such because (obviously) the color of infinity is blue(s).
A bonus band quote has been added to Things Left Unsaid, this time by Roger Waters (we reunited the band virtually for their final record).  
It's What We Do has been removed from in between Things Left Unsaid and Ebb & Flow and placed elsewhere.  
TBS9 has had some extraneous drum sounds removed to clean up the start a bit, and a couple of small edits to remove sloppy playing. Although not a properly produced recording, it was recorded well enough that it could be used for this album with a few little fixes.
Blues 1 was re-edited and rearranged and added to suite 6. It was an unfinished wandering jam. We kept the guitar solo verse.
And finally, the end of High Hopes fades into the crackling earth noise again as it fades out, giving the endless-loop wraparound that all the best Floyd albums have. There's also a surprise if you crank it up.
Although we weren't trying to remix the songs, we did have to address Louder Than Words.  The vocals were too loud in this song, and conspicuously lacking in reverb. This made it stand out from the rest of the vocal tracks. Using phase manipulation we separated the vocals in the verses from the rest of the mix and added some effects, then put them back.
Influenced by the way 'The Endless River' is broken into four album sides, this is made up of six suites. Each is separate from the others with the pieces making up each being interconnected. It's sort of like 6 album sides, although not as short as the ones on 'The Endless River'.
By the way, we've taken great pains to keep Wearing The Inside Out as the centerpiece of the album. It still ends the first half just like TDB and our previous version of this album. So roll up The Big Spliff and check out what we've done to improve our already amazing upgrade of Pink Floyd's final studio album.

Track listing 

Suite One:
Cluster One
Allons-y 1 
Spring '69
Allons-y 2
What Do You Want From Me?
Unsung
Anisina
Poles Apart / Surfacing

Suite Two:
The Lost Art Of Conversation
On Noodle Street
Night Light
Keep Talking
Looking Forward
Talkin' Hawkin'
Lost For Words

Suite Three:
David's Blues
Calling
Eyes To Pearls
The Day Has Come
Wearing The Inside Out

Suite Four:
Slippery
Slush
Rick's Theme
Take It Back
Sum
Skins
Coming Back To Life

Suite Five:
First In Space
Carnival Relations
The Colour Of Infinity
Louder Than Words
Things Left Unsaid
Ebb & Flow
A Great Day For Freedom

Suite Six:
TBS9
Blues 1
It's What We Do
Marooned
High Hopes

Jackson Browne - Funny You Should Ask (1967)

On 7 January 1967 Jackson Browne booked some time in the studio to make some demos of his songs for Nina Music, with the label's idea being to showcase his songs to various artists on the Elektra roster. For some reason, Nina Music pressed thirty of Jackson's songs, along with ten of fellow musician Steven Noonan's, onto two LP's, although only about 2/3 of the songs were from the 1967 recording session at Jaycino Studio in New York, with the rest coming from a Columbia session from October of the previous year. One hundred copies of this unorthodox showcase LP, packed in plain white jackets, were distributed around the music community, and for fans of the singer these records, which came to be known collectively as 'The Nina Demos', are a treasure. Comprising virtually every demo-able song in Browne's repertoire at the time, they tell an enlightening tale of an eighteen-year-old doing his conscientious best to pin down his life as well as his art. The songs don't stray too far from Browne's own experience, with a favorite, and convincing, theme being that of the earnest, motivated and optimistic young man on the threshold of discovery and growth. From the 1967 sessions we have 'Holding', where he writes of holding his door open to the wind, while 'Love Me, Lovely' advises his girl in tried-and-true folk-song style to make the most of today with him because tomorrow he's out that door. The eighteen-year-old Browne was not shy about making his points, and the best is yet to come, he informs his going-through-the-motions friend in 'You've Forgotten', while a youthful preachiness pervades 'Someday Morning', and 'Somewhere There's A Feather' reads like a teen Sermon on the Mount with its exhortation to live, learn, and love. In sharp contrast to these songs are 'Melissa' and 'It's Been Raining Here In Long Beach', the fruit of Jackson's brief stint as a ragtime writer. For this second of the two posts I've used the 1967 recordings, with this second post being a bit longer than the 1966 one, so just one extra track, being another co-write with Greg Copeland, later covered to fine effect by Nico on her 'Chelsea Girl' album. As mentioned before, this is mostly just Jackson and his guitar, so will probably appeal more to his committed fanbase rather then the casual listener, but the sound quality is excellent for the year and circumstances of recording, so it's perfect for when you're in the mood for some gentle acoustic singer/songwriting from a budding star in the making.   

Track listing 

01 Holding (Browne) 
02 Somewhere There's A Feather (Browne)  
03 I've Been Out Walking (Browne)  
04 Funny You Should Ask (Browne) 
05 Love Me, Lovely (Browne) 
06 You've Forgotten (Browne) 
07 Someday Morning (Browne) 
08 Cast Off All My Fears (Browne) 
09 In My Time (Browne) 
10 Melissa (Browne) 
11 It's Been Raining Here In Long Beach (Browne) 
12 You'll Get It In The Mail Today (Browne) 
13 Shadow Dream Song (Browne) 
14 The Light From Your Smile (Browne) 
15 The Fairest Of The Seasons (Browne/Copeland)  

Comments on the songs taken from 'The Story Of A Hold Out' by Rich Wiseman; 

Dolphin Books.

Birth Control - Nostalgia (1976)

Birth Control formed in 1966 in West Berlin from the ashes of two other bands, the Earls and the Gents, with an original line-up of Bernd Koschmidder (bass), Reinhold Sobotta (organ), Rolf Gurra (saxophone, vocals), Fritz Gröger (vocals), Reiner Borchert (guitar), Hugo Egon Balder (drums), and Klaus Orso (guitar). In those early years they played a hybrid of jazz and rock compositions, and in January 1969 the band sailed to Lebanon, playing sold-out nights in Beirut night-clubs for three months, before five members returned to Berlin, losing Borchert, who stayed behind in Lebanon and was replaced by Bruno Frenzel. By late summer 1969 the band were recording original material, and they released their first single 'October' on the Amadeo label. Their fist album soon followed for the Metronome label, bringing to the fore their penchant for humour, both both their name and with the album cover illustration. In 1970 they released their second single 'No Drugs', followed quickly by the local hit 'Hope', and apart from the song 'No Drugs', none of these tracks appeared on their albums. When their second album 'Operation' was released in 1971, some record shops refused to stock it as the cover showed the Pope together with a baby-eating monster, and so the UK issue changed this to feature two huge condoms, which resulted in a strike of the female British packers. This was the best publicity that the band could hope for, and the album  was voted the second best record of the year by the readers of Musik Express. 'Operation' was a great improvement on their debut, adding a heavy rock sound to the subtle jazzy arrangements. 1972 saw some changes to the line-up, with Sobotta leaving the band for health reasons, and being replaced by Wolfgang Neuser. They also left Ohr and signed to CBS, who released the bands third album 'Hoodoo Man' in 1972. This record became a milestone in the history of German rock, with tracks such as 'Gamma Ray' becoming a cult song of the Krautrock era, and this song was also released as a two-part single in an edited version. In 1973 they released another non-album single in 'Nostalgia', and then followed this with their fourth album 'Rebirth', which was another successful progressive heavy rock album. In 1974 Steffens left the band, and so they carried on as a quartet, releasing the 'Plastic People' album in 1975, but in 1976 'Blackdoor Possibilities' was a commercial failure due to a more mainstream sound, and the inclusion of more jazz elements. They released a few more albums on the Brain label over the next few years, but following the death of Frenzel in 1983, the group disbanded, although they did reunite in 1993 with only Noske remaining from the previous lineup. Birth Control were one of the very best, and most popular in the UK, of the German progressive rock bands of the 70's, and they left behind a number of hard to find recordings from their stand-alone singles, so here they are all gathered up in one place, to remind us of what a great band they were. 

Track listing

01 All I Want (b-side of 'No Drugs' 1970)
02 October (single 1969)
03 Freedom (b-side of 'October')
04 Hope (single 1970)
05 Rollin' (b-side of 'Hope')
06 The Work Is Done (single 1971)
07 What's Your Name (single 1972)
08 Believe In The Pill (b-side of 'What's Your Name')
09 Nostalgia (single 1973)
10 Gamma Ray parts 1&2 (single 1975)
11 Fall Down (single 1976)
12 Laugh Or Cry (b-side of 'Fall Down')

Yandex update

Yandex finally reduced my storage on Tuesday, but it did give me an option to renew it monthly rather than annually, and so I can do that until the end of the year. For now, then, things are back to normal for downloading, and hopefully by December I'll have managed to move some funds over to renew for 2023. 

Porgy And The Monarchs - Magic Music Makers (1968)

Porgy Williams and his Monarchs recorded a handful of singles in the mid-sixties on a variety of labels, with their debut appearing in 1963 on Mala Records, before moving to Musicor where they scored two singles: 'That Girl'/'If It’s For Real Baby' and 'My Heart Cries For You'/'Think Twice Before You Walk Away'. All four sides were produced by Teddy Randazzo, all four are excellent, but incredibly didn't they see any chart action at the time. Fortunately all was not lost and, almost a decade later, 'My Heart Cries For You' became a much cherished dance floor anthem in the U.K. When it was re-issued in 1975 to cash in on this popularity, the intended b-side was accidentally replaced by an otherwise unheard track 'Hey Girl (It's A Dream I've Always Had)' which had been recorded in 1968 and left in the vault. The Musicor single 'My Heart Cries For You' is probably their best known 45, where Teddy Randazzo turned a fairly mediocre middle of the road Carl Sigmun & Percy Faith ballad, recorded by many singers such as Dinah Washington, Guy Mitchell, Dean Martin, and Connie Francis, into a stomper. The 1975 resissue gave it a new lease of life, especially with the mis-pressed b-side, and as it was withdrawn once the mistake was spotted, it's also now their rarest release, changing hands at up to £100.00. 'That Girl' is probably one of the hardest to find Porgy And The Monarchs singles, and this is because both sides are in-demand items as Northern Soul dancefloor fillers. Presumably, as 'My Heart Cries For You' wasn't a success, they were dropped by Musicor and their next release appeared on Sylves, with 'That's My Girl'/'The Girl And The Boy', followed by 'Love Chain'/'Magic Music Makers' and then a reissue on Verve of 'That's My Girl' with the slightly re-titled flip of '(That) Boy And Girl', which was a strange sounding tune that starts off as if it's going to be a psych/garage tune, but then stomps along with a double-time beat. A couple of previously unreleased tracks have since appeared, with 'Congratulations' being a Bell Sound acetate that was a popular sound at Northern Soul nights in the 80's, but certainly sounds like it was recorded in the mid 60's, possibly being an unreleased Mala recording, as Mala was a Bell subsidiary. In 1968 Porgy Williams tried his hand at a solo career, and released the 'Lonely Man's Hum' single on Sylves Records, which was one of only three releases on Sylves, which was distributed by Chess. The single was re-issued in 1975 with added strings on the vocal side and an instrumental version on the flip. This post collects together all the band's recordings, plus the solo Porgy single, for a great 40-minute collection of future Northern Soul stompers from a band who managed to stay together for five years and release half a dozen fine singles, and yet still slipped between the cracks when obscure soul groups of the 60's are mentioned.   

Track listing

01 Stay (single 1963)
02 Somebody Said (I'd Cry Someday) (b-side of 'Stay')
03 That Girl (single 1965)
04 If It's For Real Baby (b-side of 'That Girl')
05 My Heart Cries For You (single 1966)
06 Think Twice Before You Walk Away (b-side of 'My Heart Cries For You')
07 That's My Girl (single 1968)
08 The Girl And The Boy (b-side of 'That's My Girl')
09 Love Chain (single 1968)
10 Magic Music Makers (b-side of 'Love Chain')
11 Hey Girl (It's A Dream I've Always Had) (b-side of 1975 re-issue of 'My Heart Cries For You')
12 Keep A Hold On Me (previously unreleased)
13 Congratulations (previously unreleased)
14 Lonely Man's Hum (single by Porgy Williams 1968) 
15 Let's Form A Committee (b-side of 'Lonely Man's Hum')

Thanks to Fredrick for the suggestion, after he heard about the band on the Dogpatch podcast.

Jackson Browne - Sing My Songs To Me (1966)

In October 1966 Jackson Browne booked some time in Columbia studios, and spent two hours recording demos of his songs for Nina Music, with the label's idea being to showcase his songs to various artists on the Elektra roster. For some reason, Nina Music pressed thirty of Jackson's songs, along with ten of fellow musician Steven Noonan's, onto two LP's, although only about a third of the songs were from the 1966 recording session, with the rest being recorded at Jaycino Studio in New York on 7 January 1967. One hundred copies of this unorthodox showcase LP, packed in plain white jackets, were distributed around the music community, and for fans of the singer these records, which came to be known collectively as 'The Nina Demos', are a treasure. Comprising virtually every demo-able song in Browne's repertoire at the time, they tell an enlightening tale of an eighteen-year-old doing his conscientious best to pin down his life as well as his art. The songs don't stray too far from Browne's own experience, with a favorite, and convincing, theme being that of the earnest, motivated and optimistic young man on the threshold of discovery and growth. From the 1966 sessions, we find that water, specifically running water, is a favorite image for more aggressive striving, and in 'We Can Be' he declares himself to be as reckless as a mountain stream, whereas in 'And I See' he juxtaposes his perception of the open door with the river running relentlessly to the ocean. He also affords a lighthearted touch on his mythic tributes to friends and lovers, such as 'The Painter' and 'Marianne', as well as 'Lavender Bassman', written in honor of Jimmy Fielder, another Paradox regular who went on to play with Blood Sweat And Tears. If there is an issue with these demos, it isn't his folk/pop-flavored melodies, which are alternately bright and catchy, and with enough surprises to keep a listener's interest. Rather, the problem is how Browne himself sounds...like a singer in search of a voice. He's mechanically proficient, and knows how to hold his notes, and he seems to have done a noble job of ridding his voice of obvious cops from other singers, but his singing reveals that he hadn't learned a far more important lesson yet...how to feel with his voice. His vocals, dragging and wooden, tend to turn his more plaintive songs into dirges, and to sabotage his upbeat tunes. In short they illustrate why Browne, for all the Nina Demo evidence of his young genius, was signed to a songwriter contract instead of recording contract with Elektra Records in 1967. He wasn't particularly happy with the demo's, as he didn't see the purpose in bunching so many of his songs on long-playing records when artists and producers were typically plugged with only one or two tunes at a time for a given recording project. In fact he was so upset with Nina's decision that he personally hunted out and destroyed nearly half of the copies. I've split the original double album into two posts, one for the 1966 recordings and one for those from 1967, with this first one being a shortish 32 minutes, and so I've fleshed it out with a couple of co-writes, one with Greg Copeland and the other with Pamela Polland. As mentioned before, this is mostly just Jackson and his guitar, so will probably appeal more to his committed fanbase rather then to the casual listener, but the sound quality is excellent for the year and circumstances of recording, so it's perfect for when you're in the mood for some gentle acoustic singer/songwriting from a budding star in the making.   

Track listing 

01 Sing My Songs To Me (Browne)  
02 Lavender Windows (Browne)  
03 The Painter (Browne)  
04 Fourth And Main (Browne)  
05 Bound For Colorado (Browne)  
06 We Can Be (Browne)  
07 And I See (Browne)  
08 Ah, But Sometimes (Browne)  
09 Marianne (Browne)  
10 Tumble Down (Browne)  
11 You Didn't Need A Cloud (Browne)  
12 Lavender Bassman (Browne)  
13 She's A Flying Thing (Browne)  

14 Gotta See A Man About A Daydream (Browne/Copeland)   

15 Time Travel Fantasy (Browne/Polland)  

Comments on the songs taken from 'The Story Of A Hold Out' by Rich Wiseman; 

Dolphin Books.

Gina Thompson - If You Only Knew (1999)

Gina Thompson was born Lugenia Thompson in Vineland, New Jersey, on 10 November 1976, and began singing at an early age, signing her first recording contract with Mercury Records shortly after graduating high school. Her first album was 'Nobody Does It Better', which was released in 1996 and was produced by Missy Elliott and P Diddy, and featured appearances by Elliott, Diddy, and Craig Mack, among others. The first single from the album, 'The Things That You Do', peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and number 12 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart, although the follow-up 'You Bring The Sunshine' stalled at number 53 on the Hot 100. In 1996 she added background vocals for the song 'Cold Rock A Party' by MC Lyte featuring Missy Elliott and Puff Daddy, and also appeared on Lyte's 1998 album 'Seven & Seven'. Later work included 'Why Do Fools Fall in Love', a re-imagining of the 1955 Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers hit of the same name, and she also appeared on Missy Elliott's second album 'Da Real World'. By the latter part of 1998, her debut was certified Platinum by the RIAA after an estimate of one million copies were sold. Thompson's second album 'If You Only Knew' was all set to be released on 21 September  1999, on Elektra Records through Missy Elliott's The Goldmind Inc. imprint, and two singles were released in advance of the album's anticipated release date: 'Ya Di Ya', featuring Elliott, peaked at number 38 on the R&B chart, while 'Caught Up', featuring rapper Beanie Sigel, failed to chart, and so Elektra added the album to its growing list of cancellations, mainly in the urban department of the roster. After the album was shelved, Thompson asked to be released from her contract, and she left the label in 2001, continuing to perform as an independent artist, and beginning work on a third album in 2008. In July 2008 she released the song 'We Don't Talk No More (Dancehall Remix)' as the lead single for her official third studio album, 'Missing You', which appeared in February 2009. You wonder what the label were thinking after that first album went Platinum, but it's all about the money with these corporations, and one flop single can ruin a singer's career. Give this shelved album a listen and see if you think it deserved its fate. 

Track listing

01 If You Only Knew
02 Caught Up (feat Beanie Segal) 
03 Ladies' Anthem 
04 Ya Di Ya (feat Missy Elliott) 
05 It Hurts 
06 Don't Take Your Love Away 
07 Take My Number Down
08 Calling You
09 He'll Do It Again (Interlude) 
10 Up All Night (feat Jon B)
11 Turn Around 
12 Coolin' Out W/U 
13 As Long As God Allows 

Yandex files update 2

I don't really know what's going on with Yandex, as my subscription ran out on 19th July and yet I still have all the storage, so I'll carry on uploading for now. I've been corresponding with a visitor to the site who lives in Russia to see if he can help get some money to Yandex to pay for the subscription, but we had no luck today. I'm now in contact with Yandex themselves to see if they have any suggestions, but for now just keep using the site if you can't use Soulseek, and if the storage does get reduced I'll let you know how it will work.   

pj

The Fatima Mansions - Suicide Bridge (1994)

After the split of the criminally under-rated Microdisney, the band's acerbic and political frontman Cathal Coughlan surfaced with a new group and an uncompromising vision. The Fatima Mansions, named after a run-down Dublin housing estate, was to be a vehicle for his world-view, and Andrias O'Gruama (guitar), Hugh Bunker (bass), Nick Allum (drums) and Zac Woolhouse (keyboards) were enlisted for the supporting roles. Coughlan's lyrical fixations of religious bigotry, imperialism and death was spelled out in parables of increasing hysteria and black humour, while the safety of Microdisney's rock arrangements was abandoned in favour of an all-out aural assault, leading to the band becoming a cult favourite in the 90's. They introduced themselves in 1989 with the album 'Against Nature', which was lauded as a startlingly well-rounded debut, establishing a broad territory from the driving single 'Only Losers Take The Bus', to the synth-pop pastiche of '13th Century Boy', and the occasional brooding ballad like 'Wilderness On Time'. There was a new-found power and urgency in the vocal delivery, and an incisiveness to the sound, driven by Andrias's raw guitar lines. The single 'Blues For Ceausescu' followed in 1990, and took the band on to a higher level of ferocity and invention, heralding in the eighteen-track onslaught of the second album 'Viva Dead Ponies' later that same year. Meanwhile, regular gigging quickly built their reputation as an extraordinary spectacle, with Coughlan hurling his hulk around the stage like a man possessed while the band drove him on. 

In early 1991, Coughlan performed some acoustic gigs billed as 'Fatima Mansions Singular', and some of these more restrained songs emerged on 1991's 'Bertie's Brochures', including covers of Scott Walker's 'Long About Now' and Richard Thompson's 'The Great Valerio', and a barely recognizable dismemberment of R.E.M.'s 'Shiny Happy People'. Normal service was resumed with the release of Valhalla Avenue in 1992, which contained the customary doses of rancour and strident guitar riffing on tracks like 'Evil Man' and 'Go Home Bible Mike', but the album's ferocious tone did not prevent it from becoming their biggest seller yet, reaching number 52 on the UK albums chart. They even had a surprise Top 10 single later that year with a near-psychotic reworking of Bryan Adams' 'Everything I Do (I Do It For You)', although this was largely due to the Manic Street Preachers' flip-side cover of the M*A*S*H theme song 'Suicide Is Painless', with both songs coming from the NME tribute album in aid of the charity, the Spastics Society. While their uncompromising style may have ruled out any greater commercial success, their standing as a live act secured a support slot on a U2 tour, and Coughlan continued his prolific output by releasing '20 Golden Showers' in 1993 under the name Bubonique, featuring compatriot comedian Sean Hughes, followed by a new Fatima Mansions album, 'Lost In The Former West' the next year. Once again this was not for the faint-hearted, tackling international affairs with the usual rage and humour, and became the swansong for the band, as they went on hiatus while Coughlan worked on a new solo release. As well as all the superb music to be found on their albums, they also treated their fans to previously unheard tracks on the flips pf their singles, some of which never made it onto their albums either. This two-disc set gathers them all together for a double album of hard to find recordings from this uncompromising and much-missed band, made all the more poignant by Coughlan's death on 18 May 2022 after a long illness; he was just 61 years of age.

Track listing

Disc One
01 What? (b-side of 'Only Losers Take The Bus' 1989)
02 Dear Dad (from the 'Edward Not Edward' compilation 1989)
03 Blues For Ceausescu (single 1991)
04 On Suicide Bridge (b-side of 'Blues For Ceausescu')
05 Lady Godiva's Operation (from 'Heaven And Hell' tribute album to The Velvet Undeground 1991)

06 Hive (single 1991)
07 Stigmata (b-side of 'Hive')
08 The Holy Mugger (b-side of 'Hive')
09 A Singer Must Die (from 'I'm Your Fan' tribute album to Leonard Cohen 1991)
10 Paper Thin Hotel (b-side of '1000%' 1992)
11 1,000,000% (b-side of '1000%' 1992)

Disc Two
01 Everything I Do (I Do It For You) (split single 1992)
02 The Scarecrow (b-side of 'Evil Man' 1992) 
03 John The Gun (from 'Peace Together' charity album 1993)
04 As I Washed The Blood Off (b-side of 'Nite Flights' 1994)
05 Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne (b-side of 'Nite Flights' 1994)
06 It's So Cold.... I Think (b-side of 'Nite Flights' 1994)
07 Into Thinner Air With The Loyaliser (b-side of 'The Loyaliser' 1994)
08 Gary Numan's Porsche (b-side of 'The Loyaliser' 1994)
09 Arnie's Five (b-side of 'The Loyaliser' 1994)
10 Sleep Of The Just (b-side of 'Popemobile' 1994)

Yandex files update

This is just a heads-up for people who download the music from the blog via the Yandex hosting site. As you may know, Yandex is based in Russia, and so I had to make a decision about whether to carry on using it once countries started imposing sanctions on the country, but as I'm committed to them by the fact that they host all my albums, and I can't really start all over again with another service, even if I could find one that worked, I stayed with them. However, my subscription expires tomorrow, and because of the sanctions I can't purchase another year's storage, and I really don't know what's going to happen when that runs out. There was mention of my storage being frozen after 44 days of inaction, but I do have another subscription which doesn't expire until December, so I'm hoping that this will keep the files live.  All we can do is wait and see what happens on Wednesday, and if the files get locked then there won't be much point in updating the download list every week. I'll post another update on Thursday, once I can see what's happened. 

pj