Fifth Harmony - Better Together (2013)

In 2012, Ally Brooke, Camila Cabello, Normani Kordei, Dinah Jane and Lauren Jauregui auditioned as solo contestants on the second season of the American TV series The X Factor, and although the latter four failed to progress in the "Teens" category, and Brooke didn't make the "Young Adults" category, they were later brought back and put together to form a five-piece girl group, thus qualifying for the "Groups" category. Initially, the group's name was Lylas (an acronym for Love You Like a Sister), but another group called The Lylas claimed that the show stole their name, so the girls changed their name to 1432 (a colloquial term for I Love You Too). Lead judge Simon Cowell was critical of the new name, and he suggested that the group be renamed again, so after winning a place in the top 12 contestants, a new name was chosen by a public vote, with Fifth Harmony winning out. In the semi-finals stage of the show, the group performed Ellie Goulding's 'Anything Could Happen', and the following night's public vote results advanced the group to the final three, along with Tate Stevens and Carly Rose Sonenclar, but after the first round of the finals they did not receive enough votes from the public to reach the Top Two. About a month after The X Factor season finale in January 2013, Fifth Harmony was officially signed by their mentor Simon Cowell to his record label, Syco Music, and they started recording covers of songs which were uploaded to YouTube, with three of them receiving public praise from the original artists, including Ed Sheeran, Ariana Grande and Mikky Ekko. Their debut single 'Miss Movin' On' was released in July 2013, as the lead from their debut EP 'Better Together', and it peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 76, with the EP following in October and reaching Number 6 on the Billboard 200. An acoustic version and two Spanish versions of the EP, 'Juntos' and 'Juntos Acoustic', were released in November, and the latter two records peaked at number 2 and 12 respectively on the Billboard Top Latin Albums chart. After recording a dozen or so songs for the EP, a number of them were discarded when the final five were chosen to be released, but luckily they have since surfaced online, and if they are slotted back into the running order of the EP you end up with an excellent album, which could have preceded their official debut 'Reflection' the following year. So that's what I've done, and with a revamped version of the EP cover, here is what could have been Fifth Harmony's first full length introduction to the general public who had voted for them on the X Factor. 

Track listing

01 Me & My Girls

02 Better Together
03 No Boys Allowed
04 Try Everything
05 Young & Beautiful
06 Leave My Heart Out Of This
07 Don't Wanna Dance Alone
08 Better Days
09 Miss Movin' On
10 Who Are You
11 Drown On Solid Ground
12 Anything Could Happen
13 One Wish

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing James Taylor (2020)

James Taylor's interest in music started at an early age, taking cello lessons as a child, before learning the guitar at the age of 12. Spending summer holidays with his family on Martha's Vineyard, he met Danny Kortchmar, an aspiring teenage guitarist from Larchmont, New York, and the two of them began listening to and playing blues and folk music together. Taylor wrote his first song on guitar at 14, and he continued to learn the instrument effortlessly, so that by the summer of 1963, he and Kortchmar were playing coffeehouses around the Vineyard, billed as "Jamie & Kootch". In 1965 they moved to New York City to form a band, recruiting Joel O'Brien, formerly of Kortchmar's old band King Bees, to play drums, and Taylor's childhood friend Zachary Wiesner to play bass, calling themselves The Flying Machine. They played songs that Taylor had written, and by the summer of 1966 they were performing regularly at the high-visibility Night Owl Cafe in Greenwich Village, alongside acts such as the Turtles and Lothar And The Hand People. At this time Taylor associated with a motley group of people and began using heroin, much to Kortchmar's dismay, but in late 1966 they did record a single for Jay Gee Records, comprising two Taylor compositions, 'Night Owl' and 'Brighten Your Night With My Day', and it did receive some radio airplay in the Northeast, but only charted at No. 102 nationally. During the final throes of The Flying Machine, Taylor's drug use had developed into full-blown heroin addiction, and after being taken back to North Carolina by his father, he spent six months getting treatment and making a tentative recovery. He then decided to try being a solo act with a change of scenery, and so in late 1967, funded by a small family inheritance, he moved to London. 

His friend Kortchmar gave him his next big break, introducing him to Peter Asher, who was A&R head for the Beatles' newly formed label Apple Records, and later became his manager. After Paul McCartney and George Harrison heard his demo tape they signed him to Apple, and he recorded what would become his first album from July to October 1968 at Trident Studios. During the recording sessions, Taylor fell back into his drug habit by using heroin and methedrine, and returned to New York for treatment at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, while back in the UK Apple released his debut album, 'James Taylor', in December 1968. Critical reception was generally positive, including a complimentary review in Rolling Stone, but it suffered commercially due to Taylor's inability to promote it because of his hospitalization, and so it sold poorly. In late 1969 Taylor broke both hands and both feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha's Vineyard and was forced to stop playing for several months, although he continued to write songs while recovering, and in October 1969 he signed a new deal with Warner Bros. Records. Once he'd recovered from his accident he moved to California, keeping Asher as his manager and record producer, and in December 1969 he held recording sessions for his second album, 'Sweet Baby James', which was released in February 1970. This record was Taylor's critical and popular breakthrough, buoyed by the single 'Fire And Rain', with both the album and the single reaching No. 3 on the Billboard charts. 'Sweet Baby James' went on to be listed at No. 103 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, with 'Fire And Rain' listed as No. 227 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004. This song is one of Taylor's most covered tracks, but other songs from the record soon began attracting other artists to give their take on them, from Merry Clayton's bluesy version of 'Steamroller', to 'Country Road' by UK folk-rockers Unicorn and 'Lo And Behold' by blues-rockers Mother Earth, featuring Tracy Nelson. Every track from the album has now been covered (omitting 'Oh, Susannah', which he didn't write, and to make up for that I've added another song from the same period), and so enjoy this alternate look at the album which added James Taylor to the list of classic US singer/songwriters of the 70's.     

Track listing

01 Sweet Baby James (The Seldom Scene 1972)               
02 Lo And Behold (Mother Earth 1971)
03 Sunny Skies (Tico de Moraes 2019)
04 Steamroller (Merry Clayton 1971)
05 Country Road (Unicorn 1971)
06 Fire And Rain (McKendree Spring 1970)
07 Blossom (Christine Smith 1971)
08 Anywhere Like Heaven (Warren Marley 1971)
09 Oh Baby, Don't You Loose Your Lip On Me (Gregg Cagno 2020)
10 Suite For 20G (The Meters 1976)

11 Riding On A Railroad (Tom Rush 1970)

Avril Lavigne - Never Let Go (2001)

This collection, also known as 'Let Go: B-Sides', is a promotional album by Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne, which was intended to be distributed before her debut studio album 'Let Go' was issued by Arista Records in 2002. The compilation contains demos and original tracks that were written and produced in 2001, under the management of Nettwerk in Los Angeles, along with her post manager Clifford Fabri, the production team the Matrix, and songwriter Cliff Magness. It was Arista's idea to send her to Terry McBride, CEO of Nettwerk, in an attempt to fit her image and attitude with her voice, and although she would release 'Let Go' through Arista, she continued with Nettwerk for her management. Some songs were eventually released by Arista, but they differ from these versions, with the demo of 'I Don't Give' being an explicit version in which Lavigne sings "I don't give a damn/I don't give a shit", whereas the clean version, in which she sings "I don't give it up/I don't give a damn", appeared as a b-side on some formats of Lavigne's debut single 'Complicated', as well as on the 'American Wedding' soundtrack. 'Why' also appears as a b-side on some formats of 'Complicated', along with 'I Don't Give', and is also included as the only studio track on a live album that comes with the DVD 'Avril Lavigne: My World'. 'Get Over It' is included as a b-side for some releases of Lavigne's second single 'Sk8er Boi', where she sings 'Don't turn around, I'm sick and I'm tired of your face', whereas here she sings 'Don't turn around, or you will get punched in the face' in the this version. Lavigne recorded two songs called 'Take Me Away', and the one on this album is completely different to the one on her 2004 album 'Under My Skin'. 'Falling Into History' was covered by Brie Larson in 2005, while 'Falling Down' is featured on the soundtrack for the 2002 film 'Sweet Home Alabama'. A different version of 'Things I'll Never Say' made the tracklist of the final 'Let Go' album, although despite the record being named after the song, 'Let Go' itself was not included on the album. It doesn't seem that this CD was ever intended to be released to the public, but was a way for Arista to gauge their reaction to her music before committing to an album. It seems to have worked, with 'Let Go', and particularly the 'Sk8er Boi' single, being the start of a significant career for the singer, so here are those early demos now retitled and housed in new artwork.  

Track listing

01 I Don't Give (demo version)
02 Why
03 Get Over It (demo version)
04 Take Me Away
05 Headset
06 Falling Into History
07 Falling Down
08 Tomorrow You Didn't
09 Things I'll Never Say (demo version)
10 All You Will Never Know
11 Once And For Real
12 Make Up
13 Not The Only One
14 Stay (Be The One)
15 Move Your Little Self On
16 You Never Satisfy Me
17 Let Go

Dave & Ansel Collins - Doing Their Own Thing (1974)

David John Crooks, aka Dave Barker (born on 10 October 1947 in Kingston, Jamaica) is a session vocalist, and Ansell (sometimes Ansel or Ansil) Collins (born 1949, also in Kingston) is a keyboard player, and both worked for producer Lee "Scratch" Perry in Kingston in the late 1960's, joining forces in 1970 to release a single 'Double Barrel'. It was released in late summer by Techniques Records, which was part of the Trojan Records label, and it topped the Jamaican and UK charts in May of the following year. It was the first record that 18 year old drummer Sly Dunbar played on, and an album of the same name soon followed in the US on Big Tree Records. A second single was released from the record, and 'Monkey Spanner' also enjoyed international success. After cutting the album, Collins and Barker parted company, with Collins becoming a session player and Barker, now resident in the United Kingdom, singing with several soul groups. In 1986 Collins appeared as one of Ernest Reed's (played by Jimmy Cliff) back-up musicians in the reggae-themed comedy film 'Club Paradise', while Collins has played and worked with The Upsetters, Black Uhuru, The Mighty Diamonds, Barrington Levy, Gregory Isaacs, U-Roy, Pama International and Jimmy Cliff. Madness sampled two of Barker's introductory exclamations, adding "Don't watch that, watch this!" from 'Funky Funky Reggae' and "This is the heavy, heavy monster sound!" from 'Monkey Spanner' into the introduction to their single 'One Step Beyond'. A second album appeared in 1974, credited to Dave & Ansil Collins on the cover and to Dave Barker & Ansil Collins Group on the labels, and in 1976 they issued 'In The Ghetto' under their original name, but they will mostly be remembered for those two classic singles from 1971. Luckily they recorded a number of extra tracks at the sessions, some of which were later used as b-sides, and they actually laid down two versions of those singles, with version one of 'Double Barrel' and version two of 'Monkey Spanner' becoming the hits. By adding the out-takes to the unused versions of the singles, plus a couple of 7"s from 1973 and 1974, we can enjoy one more album from the original classic line-up of the band.   

Track listing

01 You Ain't Got A Heart At All (previously unreleased)
02 I Feel Alive (previously unreleased)
03 Doing Your Own Thing (b-side of 'Karate' 1971)
04 Point Blank (previously unreleased)
05 Double Barrel (Version 2) (b-side of 'Double Barrel' 1970)
06 Lonely Man (I Can Count The Days) (previously unreleased)
07 Iron Joe (Elfrego Bacca Version) (single 1970)
08 The Heart Of A Man (previously unreleased)
09 Your Love Is A Game (previously unreleased)
10 Monkey Spanner (Version 2) (single 1971)
11 Lonely Lonely Man Am I (previously unreleased)
12 Nuclear Weapon (previously unreleased)
13 Ton Up Kids (single 1973)
14 Bandwagon (b-side of 'Ton Up Kids')

15 It's Summer (single 1974)

Florence + The Machine - Tantalus (2016)

In 2011, Florence + the Machine released their second studio album, 'Ceremonials', which was their second consecutive release to peak at number one on the UK Albums Chart, as well as the first to reach the top 10 of the US Billboard 200, peaking at number six. In late August 2012 Welch announced that she would be taking a year-long break from music, although it wasn't as relaxing as it sounds, as she apparently had "a bit of a nervous breakdown", and that time off was fairly chaotic. The break was new for her, having been almost constantly at work during the making of the band's first two albums, but the break did allow her to reassess her musical approach to reflect her own life experiences. Welch began composing the material for the next album after concluding the band's touring in support of 'Ceremonials' in 2014, and at one point it was to be a concept album about a witch that goes on trial. The song 'Which Witch' was actually the beginning of this idea of a young witch who is utterly in love with someone, and then an accident occurs and he dies, and people think that she was responsible for his death, and she is put on trial for his murder.  

After this idea was ditched, she wrote some songs which referenced characters from Greek mythology, and at one point the album was going to be titled 'Tantalus', after the figure who was cursed by the gods to stand in a pool of water under a fruit tree, so that he could see the fruit but he was never able to get it, and he could see the water but was never be able to drink it. Welch felt that this concept was very present in the record, in that she could see the result that she wanted, but she just couldn't reach it. This idea was also abandoned, and work carried on in earnest on new songs, with the retitled 'How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful' being released on 29 May 2015 by Island Records. In comparison to the band's two previous studio albums, it was much more refined and stripped-down instrumentally, and incorporates a mixture of musical influences such as folk, blues and gospel, and it was met with positive reviews from music critics, who commended the album for its cohesion, production and Welch's vocal delivery. It's come to light that a title track for the 'Tantalus' concept was recorded, along with some other songs which didn't make the revised track-listing, while the following year the band released a number of non-album tracks for use on film, TV, and video games. By collecting these stray recordings we can compile a follow-up to 'How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful', which could have been released around 2016. It's a surprisingly cohesive album, and even includes a rewrite of Dua Lipa's 'Electricity', after composers Mark Ronson and Diplo struggled to complete the song, and Welch added new lyrics to their backing track. 

Track listing

01 As Far As I Could Get (bonus track from 'How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful')
02 Honey (out-take)
03 Baptize (re-write of 'Electricity' by Dua Lipa) 
04 I Will Be (from the video game 'Songs From 'Final Fantasy XV' EP')
05 Tantalus (out-take)
06 Pure Feeling (bonus track from 'How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful')
07 Throwing Bricks (out-take)
08 Too Much Is Never Enough (from the video game 'Songs From 'Final Fantasy XV' EP')
09 Wish That You Were Here (from the film 'Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children')
10 Jenny Of Oldstones (from the TV series 'Game Of Thrones')
11 Covered In Blood (WTF) (out-take)

Just a reminder.....

I've had a few requests recently for links to the albums on the site, so just a reminder that links to all the albums are in the comments of the most recent post. I've enlarged the note at the top right of the blog so that hopefully it's more visible for new visitors. 

pj

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Joe South (2008)

Joe South was born Joseph Alfred Souter on 28 February 1940, and was first encouraged to make a career in music by Bill Lowery, an Atlanta music publisher and radio personality. He began his recording career in Atlanta with the National Recording Corporation, where he served as staff guitarist along with other NRC artists Ray Stevens and Jerry Reed, but he soon returned to Nashville with The Manrando Group, and then on to Charlie Wayne Felts Promotions. He had his first top 50 hit in July 1958 with a cover version of the b-side of The Big Bopper's hit single 'Chantilly Lace', a novelty song called 'The Purple People Eater Meets The Witch Doctor', but thereafter he would concentrate mainly on song-writing. In 1959 he wrote two songs which were recorded by Gene Vincent, and he was also a prominent sideman, playing guitar on Tommy Roe's 'Sheila', bass guitar on Bob Dylan's 'Blonde On Blonde' album, and the classic tremolo guitar intro on Aretha Franklin's 'Chain Of Fools'. Responding to late 1960's issues, South's writing style changed radically, most evident in his biggest single, 1969's pungent, no-nonsense 'Games People Play', which was a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Accompanied by a lush string sound, an organ, and brass, the production won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Song and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year, and he followed that with 'Birds Of A Feather', most successful as a cover by The Raiders, which peaked on the Hot 100 at No. 23 in 1971. 'Games People Play' was first released in 1968 on South's debut album, 'Introspect', which some consider to be the first ever country-soul album, and it reached number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and so the record company decided to cash in on this by not only adding it again to his next album in 1969, but also titling the record after the hit single. Luckily there were plenty of other outstanding songs on the record to make up for this duplication, and it wasn't long before they were being picked up and covered by some pretty famous groups, with possibly the most notable being Deep Purple's version of 'Hush'. South's old comrade from Atlanta, Ray Stevens, released his version of 'Party People' as a single, and The Tams had a hit with 'Concrete Jungle', while most of the other songs had received covers by 1971. One oddity about this album is that it states on the front cover that it includes 'Down In The Boondocks', but this song is actually missing from the track listing, and so I've added Gary Lewis & The Playboys' version to make this reinterpretation of the album more complete. 

Track listing

01 Games People Play (Paper Lace 1972)  
02 Party People (Ray Stevens 1965)  
03 Untie Me (The Weedons 1966)  
04 Concrete Jungle (The Tams 1965)  
05 Hole In Your Soul (The Black Crowes 2008)  
06 Hush (Deep Purple 1969)
07 Birds Of A Feather (The Raiders 1971)  
08 Heart's Desire (Billy Joe Royal 1966)  
09 Leanin' On You (The Yo Yo's 1966) 
10 I Knew You When (Wade Flemons 1964)
11 These Are Not My People (Johnny Rivers 1969)
12 Down In The Boondocks (Gary Lewis & The Playboys 1966)

Patsy Ann Noble - I Did Nothing Wrong (1967)

Patricia Ann Ruth Noble was born on 3 February 1944 in Australia, and began her singing career as a teenager in the early 1960's under the name Patsy Ann Noble, appearing regularly on the Australian music and variety television series 'Bandstand'. Her singing career was encouraged by Brian Henderson, the compere of 'Bandstand', and she was signed to the Australian HMV Records and released her first single 'Like I'm In Love'/'I Love You So Much It Hurts' in November 1960, with the record being promoted as 'a Bandstand discovery'. She became good friends with a young Peter Allen, who had formed the successful Allen Brothers with Chris Bell, and released one of his compositions 'Busy Lips' in January 1961. However, it was not until Johnny Devlin, a New Zealand singer-songwriter, handed her the lyrics of 'Good Looking Boy' in November 1961 that she had her first Top 10 hit in Melbourne, and Top 20 hit in Sydney. This resulted in her winning the 'Best Female Singer of the Year' Logie Award for 1961, presented by TV Week. By December 1962 she had scored herself two No. 1 and four Top 10 singles in Australia, and so she travelled to London where she was given a two-year contract with Columbia Records. Between 1963 and 1964 she released eight singles, including 'Sour Grapes', 'I'm Nobody's Baby', and 'Accidents Will Happen', and while none of them received any commercial success in the UK, she did continue to score hits between 1963 and 1965 in her native Australia. In 1963, she appeared in the British musical film 'Live It Up!', although only in a singing role, and in June 1965 she released 'He Who Rides A Tiger', which peaked at No. 21 on the British Top 30, and No. 15 on Australia's Top 40.

During the 1960's, Noble released six albums in Australia and one in England, but by 1965 she was turning her hand to acting, and made her dramatic screen debut in a 1965 BBC television production entitled 'The Snowball'. She soon found herself appearing on other television series, including a 1966 'Danger Man' episode which featured her recording of 'He Who Rides A Tiger', an episode of 'Callan' in 1970, and the 1966 film 'Death Is A Woman', in which she had a lead role as the femme fatale. After 1967, she changed her name to Trisha Noble in order to distance herself from her years as a teen singer, and she re-located to the United States, appearing on a number of US TV shows, including 'Buck Rogers In The 25th Century', 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show', and 'Columbo'. She released one more single in 1967, this time as Trisha Noble, and she continued to work as an actress until her death on 23 January 2021, at the age of 76. She recorded a lot of music in her six years as a singer, and you can certainly hear her voice mature as she moves from those teen-pop singles of the early 60's to a more sophisticated sound in 1965 and 1966. In fact there are so many songs available that this is a two-disc set, and the only thing that lets it down is that, like 'Say Hello' from the Valerie Masters post, 'The Guy Who Can Mend A Broken Heart' had to be taken from a poorly recorded Youtube video. Despite trying to improve the sound quality it's still noticeably tinny compared to the rest of the album, so if anyone has a better quality copy that I can have then it would be much appreciated.  

Track listing

Disc One 1960-1963
01 I Love You So Much It Hurts (single 1960)
02 Like I'm In Love (b-side of 'I Love You So Much It Hurts')
03 Once In A Lifetime (single 1961)
04 Busy Lips (single 1961)
05 It's Always The Way (b-side of 'Busy Lips')
06 I'm Not Supposed To Know (single 1962)
07 Oh, My Little Baby Darling (I Love You) (b-side of 'I'm Not Supposed To Know')
08 Good Looking Boy (single 1962)
09 The Guy Who Can Mend A Broken Heart (b-side of 'Good Looking Boy')
10 Don't You Ever Change Your Mind (single 1963)
11 Sour Grapes (b-side of 'Don't You Ever Change Your Mind')
12 Heartbreak Avenue (single 1963)
13 I'm Nobody's Baby (b-side of 'Heartbreak Avenue')
14 I Was Only Foolin' Myself (single 1963)
15 Ordinary Love (b-side of 'I Was Only Foolin' Myself')

Disc Two 1963-1967
01 Accidents Will Happen (single 1963)
02 He Tells Me With His Eyes (b-side of 'Accidents Will Happen')
03 It's Better To Cry Today (single 1963)
04 Don't Tell Him I Told You (b-side of 'It's Better To Cry Today')
05 I Did Nothing Wrong (single 1964)
06 Better Late Than Never (b-side of 'I Did Nothing Wrong')
07 Private Property (single 1964)
08 Crack In The Door (b-side of 'Private Property')
09 Tied Up With Mary (single 1964)
10 Green Eyed People (b-side of 'Tied Up With Mary')
11 Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye (single 1965)
12 This Is Love (UK entry in the Sopot International Song Festival 1965)
13 If You Wanna Be More Than Friends (b-side of 'Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye')
14 He Who Rides A Tiger (single 1966)
15 Live For Life (single as Trisha Noble 1967)

Amelia Lily - Be A Fighter (2013)

Amelia Lily Oliver was born on 16 October 1994, and began her musical career as a secondary school pupil by posting videos of herself singing on YouTube, with her cover of Adele's 'Someone Like You' garnering over 1 million views. From the age of 13, she began writing songs with her guitar, aspiring to be a country singer, and in 2011 she auditioned for the eighth series of TV talent show The X Factor in Liverpool, in front of judges Louis Walsh, Gary Barlow, Kelly Rowland and Tulisa, singing Erma Franklin's 'Piece Of My Heart', and winning praise from all four judges. She progressed through to bootcamp and then to judges' houses, but she was the first to be eliminated from the show on 9 October by her mentor, as there was no public vote in the inaugural live show. Prior to the sixth live show of the series, it was announced that Frankie Cocozza was to be removed from the show after breaking competition rules, and that the public would be given the chance to reinstate a contestant eliminated during the first live show, and Lily was voted back into the competition after winning 48.8% of the vote. She progressed through the rounds to reach a place in the show's final at Wembley Arena by finishing third on the semi-final public vote, and finished the competition in third place with 26.5% of the public vote. 

After she embarked on the X Factor tour 2012, it was announced that she'd signed a £500,000 record deal with Sony subsidiary Xenomania, and in September 2012 she released her debut single 'You Bring Me Joy', which charted at number two in the UK. Subsequent singles 'Shut Up (And Give Me Whatever You Got)' and 'Party Over' only reached numbers 11 and 40 respectively, but despite that her debut album was planned to be released on 29 April 2013, and was to be titled 'Be A Fighter'. In July 2013 she announced that the album's release had been postponed to record new material, as she wanted it to be "perfect", and later that year it appeared on online retailers with a new release date of 4 February 2014, but it was subsequently taken down. In 2013 she was the support act for Girls Aloud, and also main support for Olly Murs at the INTRO Festival, while in July 2014 she announced the release of a new single titled 'California' with Warner Music, due for release in September. In November 2014, it was announced that Lily would be replacing Marcus Collins in the UK tour of 'Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat', and in May 2015 the London Evening Standard announced that she would be taking on the role of Whatsername when Green Day's 'American Idiot' came to London. In 2017 she competed in the twentieth series of Celebrity Big Brother, leaving the house on Day 25 as the runner up behind Sarah Harding, but all this stage and TV activity seemed to have over-shadowed her musical career, and as nothing had been heard about it since 2013, I think that we can safely say that 'Be A Fighter' has been abandoned. Various tracks from the album have leaked over the years, and so an approximation of it can be pieced together to see what this elusive debut record could have sounded like.   

Track listing

01 You Bring Me Joy
02 Party Over
03 The Hills
04 Shut Up (And Give Me Whatever You Got)
05 Walk In My Shoes
06 Just Can't Take The Rumours
07 Promises
08 Be A Fighter
09 Over And Out
10 Heartbeat
11 Blue
12 Truth Or Dare

13 Look Who's Laughing Now

The Rubettes - If You've Got The Time (1983)

The Rubettes are an UK pop/glam rock band put together in 1974 after the release of the single 'Sugar Baby Love', which was recorded by a bunch of session musicians in 1973. It was written by the song-writing team of Wayne Bickerton, the then head of A&R at Polydor Records, and his co-songwriter, Tony Waddington, but their pastiche of doo-wop and 1950's American pop-influenced songs had been rejected by a number of existing acts, and so they recorded it themselves using a session band. 'Sugar Baby Love' and three other songs were recorded for Polydor in October 1973 at Lansdowne Studios in Holland Park, London, and they all featured the distinctive falsetto lead vocals of Paul Da Vinci. However, when 'Sugar Baby Love' was a surprise hit, a band had to be hastily put together to perform the song on Top Of The Pops, and when Da Vinci did not want to join the group, preferring to pursue his solo career, his place was taken by Alan Williams, who re-recorded the vocals for the Top Of The Pops appearance, meaning that most people's first experience of the song would have been his version of it. As most of the band members were in other rock bands at the time, and because they didn't want to cut their hair in case they couldn't successfully follow up the single, they tied it up under white cloth caps, which soon became their trademark. Perfectly timed at the tail end of the glam-rock movement, 'Sugar Baby Love' was the band's only UK No. 1 and sole US Top 40 entry, and it went on to sell three million copies globally. 

The initial line-up of The Rubettes was Alan Williams (whose vocals never appeared on the original 1973 recording of 'Sugar Baby Love', but who would sing lead on all remaining songs), John Richardson, Pete Arnesen, Tony Thorpe, Mick Clarke and Bill Hurd, and they went on to have a number of other top ten hits across Europe during the mid-1970s, such as 'Tonight', 'Juke Box Jive' and 'I Can Do It', mostly written by the Bickerton–Waddington song-writing team. The band's success enabled Bickerton and Waddington to set up State Records, so that ten months after the release of 'Sugar Baby Love', the fourth Rubettes single 'I Can Do It' was on State. In 1976 the band abandoned glam nostalgia to enter more serious territory, and their 1976 single 'Under One Roof', which was sung by John Richardson, was a portrayal of a gay man disowned and later murdered by his father, and along with Rod Stewart's 'The Killing Of Georgie' was one of the few songs that tackled the topic of homophobia. Their most successful self-composed hit was the country rock styled ballad 'Baby I Know' in 1977, sung by Tony Thorpe, which reached number 10 in the UK and Germany. 

During this period the band continued to cater for the much bigger European market by continuing to release the more commercial Williams-fronted pop singles, such as 'Julia', 'Allez Oop', and 'Ooh La La'. The band became a quintet in early 1975 with the departure of Arnesen, and later became a quartet in mid-1976 when Hurd departed, and they have remained as a four-piece ever since. Thorpe later left the group and was replaced by Bob Benham, but he departed shortly thereafter, and dwindling success led to the band dissolving in 1980. They reformed in 1982, with a line-up consisting of Williams, Clark, Hurd, and drummer Alex Bines, in an attempt to exploit the German market for 1970's nostalgia, and this line-up remained relatively stable until 1999. As so often happened with bands whose hits were penned by professional songwriters, they were allowed to record their own songs on the b-sides of their singles, mostly Richardson/Williams compositions, and these tended to be left off their albums, so here they all are in one place, alongside a couple of stand-alone singles, so that we can get an idea of what the band really wanted to sound like.   

Track listing

01 You Could Have Told Me (b-side of 'Sugar Baby Love' 1974)
02 Silent Movie Queen (b-side of 'Tonight' 1974)
03 When You're Falling In Love (b-side of 'Juke Box Jive' 1974)
04 If You've Got The Time (b-side of 'I Can Do It' 1975)
05 With You (b-side of 'Foe-Dee-O-Dee' 1975)
06 Cherie Amour (single 1977)
07 Come On Over (b-side of 'Cherie Amour')
08 Little 69 (single 1978)
09 Lola (single 1979)
10 Stay With Me (single 1979)
11 Au Revoir (b-side of 'Stay With Me')
12 Kid Runaway (single 1979) 
13 Southbound Train (b-side of 'Kid Runaway')
14 I Can't Give You Up (single 1981)
15 We're Doing It Wrong (b-side of 'I Can't Give You Up')
16 Stuck On You (single 1981)
17 Don't Come Crying (single 1982) 
18 Breakdown (b-side of 'Don't Come Crying')
19 Keep On Dancing (single 1985)

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Lou Reed (2018)

After leaving the Velvet Underground in August 1970, Lou Reed moved to his parents' home on Long Island, and took a job at his father's tax accounting firm as a typist, by his own account earning $40 a week. He began writing poetry, which was published later in 2018 by Anthology Editions, and he then signed a recording contract with RCA Records in 1971, recording his first solo album at Morgan Studios in Willesden, London with session musicians including Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman from the band Yes. The album, 'Lou Reed', contained versions of unreleased Velvet Underground songs, some of which had originally been recorded for 'Loaded' but shelved, but it was overlooked by most pop music critics, and did not sell well. Reed's commercial breakthrough was his next album, 'Transformer', released in November 1972, and co-produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson. It introduced Reed to a wider audience in the UK, especially the single 'Walk On The Wild Side', which was a salute to the misfits and hustlers who once surrounded Andy Warhol in the late 60's. Each of the song's five verses describes a person who had been a fixture at The Factory during the mid-to-late 1960's, and its transgressive lyrics somehow evaded radio censorship. Ronson's arrangements brought out new aspects of Reed's songs, with 'Perfect Day' featuring delicate strings and soaring dynamics, and while the album contains some of Reed's most commercial compositions, it was some years before other artists felt confident enough to tackle them. This was spearheaded by Eurythmics take on 'Satellite Of Love' in 1983, followed by the choice of 'Perfect Day' as the Children In Need single in 1997, and this seemed to have opened up the floodgates for artists to plunder the album and record their unique takes of the songs. This album is a bit different so most of the others in this series, as the artists tend to take an irreverent view of the songs, witness the versions by A.C. Marias, Enzo Pietropoali and Bikini The Cat, but they are also done with much love for the original material, and so this album has become one of my most played from the series. 

Track listing

01 Vicious (A.C. Marias 1989)  
02 Andy's Chest (Damn Hippie Freaks 2016) 
03 Perfect Day (Kirsty McColl & Evan Dando 1995)  
04 Hangin' Round (Squeeze 2015) 
05 Walk On The Wild Side (Edie Brickell & New Bohemians 1990)  
06 Make Up (B.E.F. featuring Boy George 2013)  
07 Satellite Of Love (Eurythmics 1983)  
08 Wagon Wheel (The Satellites 2015)    
09 New York Telephone Conversation (Enzo Pietropaoli 1997)  
10 I'm So Free (Bikini The Cat 2005) 
11 Goodnight Ladies (Justin Vivian Bond 2018)

Ten Years After - Blues (1971)

I've always considered Ten Years After to be a blues-based band, possibly because their debut album from 1967 was very much in the British Blues style of Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack, but from their second studio album onward they drifted into more of a rock style, although they did still include the odd straight blues track on their records. Listening to 'I Woke Up This Morning' from their 'Ssssh' album recently, I realised just what a great blues band they could be when they felt like it, and so I decided to put together an album of just their straight-out blues recordings from the first five years of their career. My opinion of the change in style after that debut was proved correct, when I found that there were really only eleven tracks that could be called "blues" on their seven albums to 1971, and one of them was a single b-side which never even appeared on an album. The scarcity of suitable recordings means that this album is a very concise 46 minutes, but it's a nice mix of electric and acoustic blues, most of which showcase Alvin Lee's superb guitar chops. So as a companion-piece to similar albums on the blog from Led Zeppelin, Johnny Winter and Pat Travers, here is Ten Years After at their bluesiest best. 

Track listing

01 I Woke Up This Morning
02 Don't Want You Woman
03 A Sad Song
04 Year 3000 Blues
05 I Want To Know
06 One Of These Days
07 My Baby Left Me
08 Woman Trouble
09 Turned Off T.V. Blues
10 Two Time Mama
11 Spider In My Web

Victoria Beckham - Come Together (2004)

Following the cancellation of her electropop album 'Open Your Eyes', Victoria Beckham teamed up with producer Damon Dash to record some songs with a more urban feel, and a Dash-produced track 'It's That Simple' featuring M.O.P. premiered on radio stations in July 2003 as a promotional single, generating mixed reviews. As she was still unsure of her new direction, her first single for her new label Telstar was a double A-side, featuring 'Let Your Head Go' from the abandoned 'Open Your Eyes' album, and 'This Groove' from the new sessions with Damon Dash. It was released in the UK on 29 December 2003, with heavy promotion and many TV appearances across the Christmas period, and with the video being directed by Andy Hylton, it all resulted in a number three chart single in the UK. The idea behind releasing the double A-side was to gauge the public's reaction to the two different styles of music, and if 'Let Your Head Go' was more successful, she would release the 'Open Your Eyes' album, but if 'This Groove' was better rated then she would release the R&B album 'Come Together'. Outside of the UK, Dash had plans for her in the US, including a potential release of 'This Groove', and he was sure that she'd be successful because R&B was in vogue, and her music style was similar to Jennifer Lopez. However, in April 2004 Telstar announced bankruptcy, and both albums were cancelled, leaving Beckham thoroughly exasperated at all the wasted time in studio, so she gave up music to focus on her fashion career. In this post we have the cancelled 'Come Together' album, and so we can now be the judges of which is the better style, much as the public was asked to do when the double A-side was released in 2003. 

Track listing

01 This Groove

02 Jealous Ones

03 Me And You This Time

04 That Dude (feat. Old Dirty Bastard)

05 Freedom

06 Resentment (Elvis Song)

07 He's My Lover

08 I'll Take You There

09 Valentine

10 Spell On Me

11 This Groove (Part 2)

12 So Cold

13 Come Together

14 DAT Simple (feat. M.O.P.)