Bonnie McKee - Femme Fatale (2010)

In 2010 Britney Spears management approached Bonnie McKee to write some songs for Spears' new album, to be called 'Femme Fatale'. One of the first songs that she wrote was 'Hold It Against Me', and originally longtime collaborator Max Martin and executive producer Dr. Luke originally wanted to give the track to Katy Perry, but they later decided that it wasn't the right fit for her. They continued to work on the song, and Luke commented that before giving the song to Spears he wanted to make sure it sounded different from his previous recordings, and when it was eventually released as a single in 2010 it make the Billboard Top Ten. McKee carried on writing songs for the project, coming up with about twenty tracks, for which she recorded demos and then pitched them to Luke and Martin. In the end five of her compositions were chosen to be included on the record, being the afore-mentioned 'Hold It Against Me', 'Inside Out', 'How I Roll', 'Seal It With A Kiss', and 'Gasoline', and the rest of them were consigned to the vaults. All of the songs were written with Spears in mind, and so they all have a Britney vibe running through them, and it's a shame that they haven't been heard since they were demoed, so here is Bonnie McKee's very own 'Femme Fatale' album, made up of the tracks that Spears' producers rejected.

Track listing

01 Terminate 'Em
02 Catch Me If You Can
03 Battle Royale
04 Earthquake
05 License To Love
06 Risky Business
07 Lie Detector
08 Femme Fatale
09 I Dare You (feat. Ina Wroldsen)
10 U Won
11 Psycho
12 Kiss Kiss
13 RIP
14 The Rules Of Attraction

Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Bill Withers (2020)

William Harrison Withers Jr. was born on 4 July 1938 in the small coal mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, and following his parent's divorce when he was three, he was raised by his mother's family in nearby Beckley, West Virginia. At 17 he enlisted in the United States Navy and served for nine years, during which time he became interested in singing and writing songs. He left the Navy in 1965, relocating to Los Angeles in 1967 to start a music career, releasing his first single 'Three Nights And A Morning' later that year, and although the song went unnoticed at the time, he later reworked it as the track 'Harlem'. He worked as a mechanical assembler for several different companies, including Douglas Aircraft Corporation, IBM and Ford during the day, while recording demo tapes with his own money, shopping them around, and performing in clubs at night. When he hit with the song 'Ain't No Sunshine' in 1971, he refused to resign from his job because he believed the music business was a fickle industry. In early 1970, Withers' demo tape was auditioned favourably by Clarence Avant, owner of Sussex Records, who signed him to a record deal and assigned former Stax Records stalwart Booker T. Jones to produce his first album. 'Just As I Am' was released in 1971 with the tracks 'Ain't No Sunshine' and 'Grandma's Hands' as singles, and with the album being a success he began touring with a band assembled from members of the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. 'Ain't No Sunshine' won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song at the 14th Annual Grammy Awards in 1972, with the track selling over one million copies, and being awarded a gold disc by the RIAA in September 1971. During a hiatus from touring, Withers recorded his second album, 'Still Bill', and the lead single 'Lean On Me' went to number one the week of 8 July 1972, being his second gold single, with confirmed sales in excess of three million. His follow-up record, 'Use Me' was released in August 1972, and it became his third million-seller, with the R.I.A.A. gold disc award taking place on 12 October 1972. With three million-sellers under his belt, other artists began coming to him to write for them, and he contributed two songs to Gladys Knight & the Pips' 1974 album 'I Feel A Song', but other artists were happy just to cover tracks from his first two records, with most of the songs from 'Still Bill' receiving this treatment by 1973. The final two tracks were covered in 2019 and 2020 and so we can now enjoy this alternate look at Bill Withers' second studio album in full. 

Track listing

01 Lonely Town, Lonely Street (Denny Greene 1973)
02 Let Me In Your Life (Barbara Mason 1972) 
03 Who Is He (And What Is He To You)? (Gladys Knight & The Pips 1973)
04 Use Me (Scott Walker 1973)
05 Lean On Me (Tom Jones 1973) 
06 Kissing My Love (Cold Blood 1973)  
07 I Don't Know (Caitlin Krisko And The Broadcast 2020)
08 Another Day To Run (Carla Hassett 2011)
09 I Don't Want You On My Mind (Carol Grimes 1974)
10 Take It All In And Check It All Out (Joseph Malik 2019)

Emy Jackson - Crying In A Storm (1966)

Emy Eaton (later Jackson) was born to Japanese parents in Langsford in Essex in July 1946, moving to Japan as a teenager to study at St Morris Convent School in Yokohama. A few years later in 1964, she started working as an assistant/disc jockey for the Good Hit Parade programme on Radio Kanto, now known as Radio Japan, as they were looking for a bi-lingual assistant who could speak both English and Japanese. Her talent as a singer was discovered by a female music critic called Reiko Yukawa, who had been writing about jazz since the late 50's, and who was a regular on the station. She heard Jackson singing while strumming her guitar and was so impressed that she immediately advised an A&R man from Columbia Records to give her a chance as a recording artist. Yukawa insisted that she should sing songs by Japanese songwriters, but in her native language of English, and she even wrote the lyrics to her first single 'Crying In A Storm'. Due to a process in place at the time in Japan called the exclusive writers system, artists could only record songs written by songwriter under exclusive contract to the same record label, and as Yukuma was not a Columbia staff writer, Columbia Japan had to release the single as a foreign recording by a British artist, even though Jackson could speak Japanese and it was recorded in japan. Despite being sold at a higher price than a Japanese single because of being a "foreign" release, it still went on to sell close to one million copies when it was released in April 1965. Many Japanese music historians consider this excellent track to be the first Japanese pop song, with it's raucous backing which was very much influenced by the biggest band in Japan at the time, The Ventures. From her second single onwards she was backed by The Smashmen, who were in fact the well-regarded Japanese band The Blue Comets under an alias, and their superb instrumental backing is a huge part of the appeal of these songs. Jackson went on to release another six singles and one EP during 1965 and 1966, and it has been said that she revolutionized the music industry in Japan. Once outside writers began to have their songs accepted by record companies that they were not under contract to, and released as "foreign" records, this eventually led to the collapse of the exclusive writers system in Japan. Her last single in 1966, the oddly-titled 'Love Is A Crazy Sports Car', was the only song that she sang in Japanese, and although she did not release any more records, she carried on singing until 1973, when she left the music business to open a restaurant in Yokohama. Although she returned to singing again in the 90's, her finest hour was undoubtedly those two years in the mid-60s, when she led the Japanese pop market into a new age.  

Track listing

01 Crying In A Storm (single 1965)
02 Suddenly I'm Alone (b-side of 'Crying In A Storm')
03 Say Yes, My Boy (single 1965)
04 Don't Break My Heart (b-side of 'Say Yes, My Boy')
05 Blue Christmas (single 1965)
06 I Saw Mammy Kissing Santa Claus (b-side of 'Blue Christmas')
07 You Don't Know Baby (single 1966)
08 Heart Full Of Tears (b-side of 'You Don't Know Baby')
09 Pretend (single 1966)
10 If I Give My Heart To You (b-side of 'Pretend')
11 Angel Fish (single 1966)
12 Don't Say Good-bye (b-side of 'Angel Fish')
13 Love Is Crazy Sports Car (single 1966)
14 One Way Kiss (b-side of 'Love Is A Crazy Sports Car')

Thanks to Paul for the suggestion

Dina Carroll - Dina Carroll (1999)

Geraldine Carroll was born on 21 August 1968 in Newmarket, England to a Scottish mother and an American father, and started singing at age of five, where, despite the lack of formal vocal coaching, she won a local talent competition in 1981, at the age of thirteen. By sixteen she was signed to Morgan Khan's London-based StreetSounds record label, which was primarily a compilations company known for its electro music albums. She moved to West London and recorded two singles in 1985 for the company's StreetWave dance music singles label, with 'Set It Off' and 'One Nation' being credited to a non-existent group called Masquerade. After six unproductive months, she left StreetSounds/StreetWave, with Khan going on to use the Masquerade name again for further singles, while Carroll secured a recording contract with Jive Records/Zomba and released a number of singles in 1989 and 1990. After a short time at Jive, Carroll was spotted by Dennis Ingoldsby, one half of newly-founded First Avenue Management, who were already managing a dance production duo called Quartz. Quartz were made up of Ronnie Herel and Dave Rawlings, and so Carroll was brought in to provide vocals for the duo on their cover of Carole King's 'It's Too Late', which topped the dance charts and reached No. 8 in the UK Singles Chart in early 1991, and which was followed by the number 39 hit 'Naked Love (Just Say You Want Me)'. 

After these two singles with Quartz, First Avenue decided to relaunch Carroll as a solo artist, and she was signed to A&M Records by managing director Howard Berman. Her first solo single was 'Ain't No Man', released in June 1992, and which reached number 16 in the UK chart, and to capitalise on its success Carroll and her co-writer Nigel Lowis worked on future singles together, as well as recording songs for her debut album. The album 'So Close' was released in March 1993 and entered the top 10 of the UK Albums Chart, generating further hit singles with 'This Time' and 'Express'. One of the tracks on the album, 'Don't Be a Stranger', was a cover version of a song originally recorded by Chyna, and a new version was recorded for the single release, with the London Session Orchestra providing strings for a new backing track. This completely transformed the song, and when it was released, it became Carroll's biggest chart hit, reaching No. 3 and spending many weeks inside the top 10. She was named Best Female Artist at the BRIT Awards in February 1994, but then took a break from her recording and touring obligations, stating that she felt "burned out", although 'So Close' kept her name in the public eye by remaining in the UK Top Ten for most of 1994, and by being short-listed for the Mercury Music Prize. 

Rumours of new songs started to surface in the summer of 1995, but instead of releasing them, she found herself in the midst of contractual problems. Howard Berman, who had originally signed her to A&M, had moved to Mercury Records, but there were problems in convincing them to move Carroll with him. Eventually, Mercury agreed but it was not until May 1996 that the release of a new single was confirmed, with 'Escaping', a song written by Barry Blue, finally appearing in September, almost three years after her last record. The song entered the chart at No. 3, and a new album, 'Only Human', followed in October, debuting at No. 2 on the album charts. During the recording of 'Only Human', Carroll discovered that she had developed otosclerosis, a hereditary bone disease which affected her ears, but she postponed treatment until after all her recording duties had been fulfilled, and then had an operation to replace a whole eardrum, from which she made a reasonable recovery, despite some inevitable permanent hearing loss. She was nominated for "Best British Female Artist" in the 1997 BRIT Awards, but then went into artistic hibernation for a year, returning to the drawing board in 1998 for her third album. For this, she went to Los Angeles to work with producer Rhett Lawrence, and although the original collaboration was intended only for three tracks, they ended up recording a full album in Rhett's home studio, and the lead single 'One, Two, Three' was released in October 1998. 

The new album, 'Dina Carroll', was originally planned for release at the end of 1998, but it was postponed as Carroll was not totally happy with some of the mixes on the album. Instead, her record company decided to relaunch her as a dance diva, and a new up-tempo track 'Without Love' was chosen to be the next single, with a host of remixes to suit all sections of the club scene. A follow-up single, 'Say You Love Me', was scheduled for release in November 1999, and the remixed version of the album was planned to follow two weeks later, but Mercury suspended the release of the single, and both the single and the album were shelved. In 2000, First Avenue Management entered into a crisis phase when most of their artists were dropped by their labels, and along with Eternal, Louise, Dana Dawson, Kele Le Roc, Honeyz, Kéllé Bryan, and Michelle Gayle, Carroll left First Avenue at the end of 2000. Due to these issues with the record label and her management company, the 'Dina Carroll' album remains unreleased, and although Carroll issued a new single in 2001, followed by a greatest hits compilation, this was effectively the end of her recording career. It was an ignominious end for the double BRIT-nominated singer, and so to try and make up for it, here is that shelved third album for you to enjoy.

Track listing

01 Without Love 
02 Say You Love Me  
03 One, Two, Three  
04 Straight To My Soul 
05 Son Of A Preacher Man  
06 Good To Me  
07 Let It Go  
08 On And On  
09 I'll Be There for You  
10 Livin' For The Weekend  
11 Love Of My Life

12 Almaz

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