The Byrds - Byrdmaniax (1971)

'Byrdmaniax' was The Byrds' tenth studio album, released in June 1971 on Columbia Records, and is generally regarded as the low point of the band's illustrious career. There are a number of reasons for this, of which two are indelibly linked, and they are that the band didn’t bring great material to the studio to begin with, and so without telling the band, producer Terry Melcher brought in an orchestra and backing vocalists to embellish what he (probably rightly) felt was an underwhelming collection of songs. After the release of the Byrds' '(Untitled)' album, the band continued to tour extensively throughout late 1970 and early 1971 in support of the record, and with their career experiencing a revival of commercial fortunes, they elected to continue working with Melcher, who had produced their two previous albums. Unfortunately, the gruelling pace of the band's touring schedule meant that they were under-prepared for the recording of their next album, with little or no time to develop the material that they intended to include. Sessions commenced on 6 October 1970, just three weeks after the release of '(Untitled)', and continued throughout January and March 1971, but the group only managed to record twelve new songs, and so to make up an album's worth of material they revisited an outtake from the '(Untitled)' sessions, 'Kathleen's Song'. 

The album opens with 'Glory, Glory', a gospel song given a folk-rock treatment from McGuinn and the band, that is partially returned to its original gospel roots through the addition of a female choir. 'Pale Blue' was written by McGuinn and Gene Parsons, and is one of the album's highlights, but was buried by overproduction, while 'I Trust', based on McGuinn’s own personal, positive outlook, is another winner, though again Melcher does the band no favours. What follows are a pair of tracks written by Skip Battin and the sinister Kim Fowley that have absolutely nothing to do with The Byrds, with 'Tunnel Of Love' being a hackneyed melody married to cryptic lyrics, while 'Citizen Kane' is harder to shake, with its image of Hollywood excess, a sort of hell on earth, set to an ingratiating music hall melody, as if a psychedelic rock band were trying to be The Beatles or The Kinks circa 1968. 'Absolute Happiness' falls into that strange category too, and you have to wonder if Battin hadn’t wandered into the wrong band. The song-writing partnership between McGuinn and Jaques Levy leads to more predictable results, even though 'I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician' isn't as clever as it thinks it is, 'Kathleen's Song' is perhaps the prettiest song on the whole album. At the other end of the creative spectrum, Clarence White co-authors the banjo/mandolin/fiddle fireworks display, 'Green Apple Quick Step', and cherrypicks two covers to sing, 'My Destiny' (which is mugged in the final mix) and Jackson Browne's 'Jamaica Say You Will', which Browne himself would release on his debut album the following year. 

Following the completion of sessions for the album in early March 1971, the Byrds headed out on tour again, leaving Melcher and engineer Chris Hinshaw to finish mixing the album. In The Byrds' absence, Melcher and Hinshaw brought in arranger Paul Polena to assist with the overdubbing of strings, horns, and a gospel choir onto many of the songs, at a reported cost of $100,000, and allegedly without the band's consent. When they heard the extent of Melcher's additions, The Byrds protested to Columbia, campaigning to have the album remixed and the orchestration removed, but the record company held firm, citing budget restrictions, and the album was duly pressed up and released. For his part, Melcher defended his actions by explaining that the band's performances in the studio were lacklustre and that the orchestration was needed to cover up the album's musical shortcomings, although he later admitted that his decision was a mistake, and that he should have called a halt. 

The band themselves were far from happy with the album upon its release, being particularly vocal in press interviews about their dissatisfaction, and two years later Clarence White was still complaining to journalists that "Terry Melcher put strings on while we were on the road, we came back and we didn't even recognize it as our own album." The final nail in the coffin for the record was that, after the success of the sprawling double-album 'Untitled', they presented an album that was just 34 minutes long. After my previous experimentation with the MVSEP editing software, and at Paul's suggestion, I thought I'd see if I could improve this disappointing album by removing the strings, horns, and gospel choir, and ditching the despised 'Tunnel Of Love', replacing it with some out-takes from the same sessions. So here is a remixed, re-ordered, and longer version of 'Byrdmaniax', featuring only the band and with a new running order, so let me know what you think. 

Track listing

01 Glory, Glory
02 Pale Blue
03 I Trust
04 Just Like A Woman
05 Citizen Kane
06 I Wanna Grow Up To Be A Politician
07 Absolute Happiness
08 Green Apple Quick Step
09 Think I'm Gonna Feel Better
10 My Destiny
12 Kathleen's Song
12 Nothin' To It
13 Jamaica Say You Will

The Smoke - Jack's Back (1972)

The Smoke were formed in York, where bassist Zeke Lund and lead guitarist Mal Luker began

 playing together in a band called Tony Adams & the Viceroys, whose line-up eventually came to include drummer Geoff Gill. Though the band was successful locally, enjoying a decent fan base with a solid, basic rock & roll sound, they could hear the changes going on around them in music, with the rise of Merseybeat and the blues, R&B, and soul-based music coming out of London. They eventually decided to strike out on their own, playing a more ambitious repertory, and so linked up late in 1964 with singer Mick Rowley and rhythm guitarist Phil Peacock, refugees from a band called the Moonshots. The resulting band, the Shots, played a hard brand of R&B, similar to contemporaries The Small Faces, and they were taken on by London agents Jack Segal and Alan Brush, who fronted them money for rehearsals and equipment. They signed with independent producer and music publisher Monty Babson, who cut four sides with the group, two of which were issued as a single under license to EMI-Columbia in 1965, with 'Keep A Hold Of What You've Got' being backed with 'She's A Liar'. Around this time Peacock left the band, as he wasn't comfortable with the more complex sounds the rest of the group were interested in generating, and so the rest of the band decided to carry on as a quartet, with an edgier single-guitar configuration. 

After losing their financing, they were offered a rescue by a pair of twin London-based entrepreneurs, Ron and Reg Kray, renowned today the world over as notorious gangsters, but at the time they were also trying to engender a facade of respectability, and as they already had an interest in a few clubs, they thought that a more direct participation in the entertainment business might prove lucrative. They therefore signed the group and became The Shots' managers, but as they were never able to do anything with them in terms of bookings, the band decided to abandon the contract, and when they were served with an injunction, they were left unable to perform. As luck would have it, however, they still had a publishing and recording contract with Babson, and access to his studio, and so they took advantage of their ban on performing by writing and making records, and it was at this time that decided to change their name, dropping The Shots in favour of The Smoke. One of the songs they came up with was 'My Friend Jack', a mod-flavoured psychedelic number written by Rowley and Gill, although its drug references were so potent that the song had to be rewritten before EMI would touch it. EMI/Columbia did release it in February 1967, but almost immediately it was banned by the BBC due to its drug references, although this didn't stop it from becoming a massive hit in Europe, particularly in Germany, where the group performed on the German television show Beat Club, alongside Jimi Hendrix and The Who. 

The single charted high in Switzerland, France, and Austria as well, and suddenly there was demand for a Smoke LP in Germany, so they delivered this in the form of 'It's Smoke Time', comprised of the best of the year-old tracks recorded for Babson during 1966. The band actually relocated to Germany, while continuing to release records in England, and they cut some fine psychedelia, crossing paths with the members of Traffic in the studio during this period. After five years of work they were summoned back to the UK by their new manager Chris Blackwell, but they ignored his request, and so that was effectively the end of the band. Mick Rowley remained in Germany, where, as the voice and frontman for the band, he had a natural following, while Luker, Gill, and Lund did finally return home and went to work for Babson's Morgan Studios, working in various bands within Babson's orbit, including Blue Mink, Orange Bicycle, and Fickle Pickle. A latter-day version of The Smoke surfaced in a distinctly mid-70s mode, but made no great impression on anyone, although the reputation of 'My Friend Jack' continued to grow, being featured on any half-decent compilation of 60's psychedelia. Not everything that the band recorded in 1966 found its way onto 'It's Smoke Time', and so there is enough leftover material from then, plus a few tracks from their early 70's incarnation, to produce a passable follow-up to their 1967 debut.  

Track listing

01 Playing With Magic
02 That's What I Want

03 It Could Be Wonderful
04 Ring Me
05 Jack Is Back
06 Victor Henry's Cool Book

07 Have Some More Tea
08 Sweet Wilfred

09 Utterly Simple
10 Blown Away
11 Sydney Gill
12 My Lullaby
13 The Girl In The Park
14 Ride Ride Ride (Dick Turpin)

JoJo - All I Want Is Everything (2009)

Joanna Noëlle Levesque was born on 20 December 1990, in Brattleboro, Vermont, but raised in Keene, New Hampshire, and Foxborough, Massachusetts. She started singing when she was two years old by imitating everything from nursery rhymes to R&B, jazz, and soul tunes. In 1999, she auditioned on the television show 'Destination Stardom', singing Aretha Franklin's 1967 hit 'Respect', and 'Chain Of Fools', and in 2001 she recorded a demo disc titled 'Joanna Levesque' which featured covers of soul and R&B songs. In mid-2003, she competed on the television show 'America's Most Talented Kid' (losing to Diana DeGarmo), but record producer Vincent Herbert contacted her and asked her to audition for Blackground Records, who signed her at age 12 to its imprint Da Family Entertainment, and she began working with producers for her first album. Adopting her childhood nickname JoJo, she released her debut single 'Leave (Get Out)' in 2004, and then embarked on her first tour, the Cingular Buddy Bash with pop rock singer Fefe Dobson, hip hop duo Young Gunz, rap rock band Zebrahead, and teen pop stars Ryan Cabrera and Busted. It stopped at nine malls, starting at Atlanta's Northlake Mall and ending at South Shore Plaza near her hometown of Foxborough. When the single reached number one on the Mainstream Top 40 chart, she became, at age thirteen, the youngest solo artist to have a number-one single in the United States. 

Her first album, the platinum-selling 'JoJo', was released in 2004, peaking at number four on the U.S. Billboard 200 and reaching the top forty of the UK Albums Chart. In December she was nominated for Female New Artist of the Year and Mainstream Top 40 Single of the Year at the Billboard Music Awards, becoming the youngest artist ever to be nominated at the awards. In 2005 she was offered a role on the Disney Channel television series 'Hannah Montana', but she turned down the role in favour of developing her music career, although she did accept the role of Hailey in the 2006 film 'Aquamarine', starring opposite Emma Roberts and Sara Paxton. Her second major film, 'RV', a comedy starring Robin Williams, was released in April 2006, and grossed $69.7 million. JoJo's second album, 'The High Road', was released on 17 October 2006 to mainly positive reviews, and it debuted at number three on the Billboard 200. Three singles were released from the album, with 'Too Little Too Late' having the biggest success, breaking the record for the biggest jump into the top three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, moving from number 66 to number three in one week. In late 2007 she stated that she would be writing songs for her third album, to be released when she turned 18, as she wanted her fans to see the growth in her music. Writing and recording continued in Boston and Atlanta throughout 2008 and early 2009, and in June she stated on her YouTube account that she was waiting for her record label to sign a distribution deal to release her album, which was to be titled 'All I Want Is Everything'. 

In August 2009 she filed a lawsuit against her record label for putting her in musical limbo, under which she sought $500,000 in damages, and to be released from her contract. In October she reached a deal with Blackground Records and her third album was to be distributed by Interscope Records, but before that, in September 2010, she released her first mixtape 'Can't Take That Away From Me', which spawned the single 'In the Dark'. In February 2011 she announced that she had changed the title of her third studio album from 'All I Want Is Everything' to 'Jumping Trains', but a proposed single, 'The Other Chick', was withdrawn as she had a desire to move forward with a promotional push for a different song. Following the recording of new material, she released a re-interpretation of rapper Drake's song 'Marvin's Room' in June 2011, renamed 'Marvin's Room (Can't Do Better)', which garnered appreciation from Drake himself. On 29 August 2011 'Disaster' was released to U.S. radio, and although she was praised for not 'jumping on the synthpop bandwagon', it only made the Billboard Hot 100 for a week, and failed to impact any chart internationally. Wanting to go in a new direction with her third studio album, she released 'Demonstrate' to radio on 17 July 2012 as the new lead single from 'Jumping Trains', but its commercial release was eventually scrapped, despite a music video having been filmed. 

After Blackground Records lost their distribution deal through Interscope Records in late 2012, resulting once again in the delay of the release of an album, JoJo began recording new material specifically for a new mixtape to be released by the end of the year, as she didn't want to keep the fans waiting for new music any longer. In November she announced the release of the 'Agápē' mixtape, which was made available for free download to celebrate her 22nd birthday, and that seemed to seal the fate of 'Jumping Trains', which was cancelled due to the number of tracks which had leaked online. In July 2013 she filed a lawsuit against her labels Blackground Records and Da Family for "irreparable damages to her professional career", claiming that her 2004 contract with the labels should have expired in 2011, as she was a minor when it was signed, and under New York State law, minors cannot sign contracts that last more than seven years. The lawsuit was settled out of court, and in January 2014 it was announced that she'd been released from Blackground Records, and had signed a new recording contract with Atlantic Records, under which she immediately released the three track EP '#LoveJo'. She finally released her third album 'Mad Love' in 2016, but it was an extremely long and convoluted gestation, with around three dozen songs being junked along the way. To fill this major gap in her discography, here is a reconstruction of the first incarnation of that proposed third album 'All I Want Is Everything'. 

Track listing

01 Back Words 
02 Impossible To Love
03 25 To Life 
04 Keep Forgetting (To Forget About You)
05 Numbers 
06 Something In The Water 
07 Doorway To My Dreams (Fly Away) 
08 How You Did It 
09 My Heart Never Had A Hero 
10 I Hate Love 
11 Wrong Man For The Job 
12 Touch Down (Flippers Up) 
13 Underneath 
14 Fearless
15 Forever In My Life 
16 You Take Me (Around The World) 
17 All I Want Is Everything 

Mike Solof - Riding With The Kings At Christmas (2019)

As a special Christmas treat Mike has sent me a show that he put together to celebrate the festive season when he was working in a little bar in Medellin, Colombia. He used to do a weekly show from the bar that was built around his love of the blues, and at the end of 2019 he produced this show with a Christmas blues theme. The title of the show was inspired by the B. B. King & Eric Clapton album of the same name, hence the cover. 

Track listing

01 Blue Christmas Without You - Bruce Springsteen

02 It's Christmas Baby - Ms. Jody

03 Lonesome Christmas - Joe Bonamassa

04 Christmas Blues - Jimmy Witherspoon

05 Everyday Will Be Like A Holiday - William Bell

06 Christmas Tears - Eric Clapton

07 Christmas Time Pretty Baby - Robert Plant and The Honeydrippers

08 Back Door Santa - Clarence Carter

0. Run Run Rudolph - Chuck Berry

10 Christmas Love - B. B. King

11 Christmas In Jail - Ain't That A Pain? - Leroy Carr

12 Christmas Day Blues - Phil Wiggins and John Cephas

13 Please Come Home For Christmas - The Eagles

14 Christmas Train - Carey Bell

15 Sleigh Ride - The Ronettes and Phil Spector

16 Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - James Taylor

17 Santa Claus Is Coming To Town - Bruce Springsteen 

The Doors - The Soft Parade (1969) **UPDATE TO THE UPDATE**

One more update to this post, and that is that visitor KARK has just informed me that there was a Record Store day release in 2020 of exactly what I'd done here, with all the overdubs removed, and so as that was professionally done, and the end of 'Touch Me' has the organ brought more the the front so sounds much better, then I'm replacing my edits with those. It wasn't a waste of time as they were fun to do, and I now know how the programme works, but as I want the best possible quality for this post then I'll leave it to the professionals. 

Just after posting this album I was contacted by Paul at albumsthatshouldexist, telling me about a new programme that he'd just discovered which uses AI to split out the different elements of a piece of music, and he suggested that I could use it to remove the strings and horns overdubs from the four tracks on this album where they had been added against the band's wishes. It worked amazingly well, and I really can't imagine how it does it, but I now have band only versions of all four tracks, which I've replaced in the folder. The only part I wasn't sure about was the sax solo at the end of 'Touch Me', as without it there wasn't much going on at the end of the song (but it certainly shows the power of the programme), so I did one version with and one without. I've also used it to remove the crowd noise at the beginning of 'Someday Soon', which then enabled me to give it a better intro. I've added the original recordings plus the sax version of 'Touch Me' in a separate folder in the download, so give them both a listen and let me know which you prefer, and then I can update this to a definitive post. 

I was recently contacted by Soulseeker wolfdubz, asking if I still had a copy of expanded edition of The Doors' 'The Soft Parade' album. When I told them that this wasn't of mine, they located the original blog that had posted it, and although the link was dead, there was a copy on Soulseek which I managed to grab so that I could listen to it. Having done that I'm posting it here, as it's a great reimagining of a much maligned record. The blog was called Its Lost Its Found, and is sadly no more, but all the posts are still up and I spent an enjoyable few days going through them all, as it had somehow passed me by. As it would be a shame for all the hard work expended on this reimagining to go to waste, here are the original notes and the expanded version of 'The Soft Parade', housed in a cover that I found on Soundcloud, which was similar enough, and yet different enough, to fit the post. 
I've been dipping in and out of The Doors back catalogue for the last five or so years after a very long absence. I've always been intrigued by their fourth and most derided LP, 'The Soft Parade'. No one's favourite Doors album, 'The Soft Parade' had the band seemingly conforming to the commercial; horns, string arrangements, 'Touch Me'. The less ornate songs seemed unfocused, especially compared to the previous year's effort 'Waiting For The Sun', but there are fantastic songs on the album and also in recordings they made, both live and in the studio, around this time. The material for the original album took place from November 1968 into February 1969, with a couple of earlier recordings from 1968. The band had toured up until recording and had no new material written. Producer Paul A. Rothchild insisted the group record multiple takes of songs written in the studio and was also responsible for the insistence on horn and string overdubs over several of the songs. The album ran over budget and over time, and is disappointing compared to the earlier releases, not just in the material, but the album had only nine tracks and ran not much over 30 minutes. There are several Doors originals not included on 'The Soft Parade' that are the equal, and in some cases superior, to the released material. Put together as a whole, it makes a lot more sense and I think would have been viewed differently if The Doors had released a double album, including live recordings and more improvised material left off the original L.P. This re-imagining of 'The Soft Parade' is that of a double LP; 4 sides running approximately 18 minutes in length and is thematically sequenced.
Side 1 is a set of unreleased and original album songs that retain the familiar Doors sound. 'Wild Child', 'Shamen's Blues' and 'Do It' all feature on the original album, as does 'Easy Ride'; a leftover from 'Waiting For The Sun'. 'Whiskey, Mystics and Men' went unreleased. I'm not sure why, it sounds like classic Doors. 'Push Push' is a much bootlegged jam, presented here in an edited form.
Side 2 is a stretch of new, live Doors originals. For nearly a year between 1969 and 1970, The Doors recorded a lot of their performances to multitrack. The concept was to present an album of originals, including a definitive 'The Celebration of The Lizard', which was attempted during sessions for 'Waiting For The Sun'. The resulting album, 'Absolutely Live', was excellent, but the record label's insistence that the L.P. also include hits watered down the original concept. For this side of the re-imagined 'The Soft Parade' I have included songs from throughout the tour. It shows the band were not short on originals and already a wider picture of their 1969/70 output is revealed. 'The Woman Is A Devil' is actually a studio jam, but one I've always liked and it fits with the feel of this side.
Side 3 is for the string and horn overdubs material. It was producer Paul A. Rothcild that insisted on the overdubs, as well as multiple takes in an attempt for perfection. Presented together on one side, they provide another theme to an already sprawling album. 'Tell All The People', 'Touch Me', 'Runnin' Blue' and 'Wishful Sinful' are all from the original LP, but now with the horns and strings removed, as mentioned earlier. 'Who Scared You' was originally the b-side to the 'Wishful Sinful' single, bizarrely left off the album.
Side 4 is a come down of sorts, but contains longer and more strung out pieces. 'Orange County Suite' was infamously overdubbed by the surviving Doors in the 1990's. It is an original from 1969 and it remains a mystery as to why it never appeared on any contemporary Doors release. 'Whiskey, Mystics & Men' appears for a second time, slightly more demented than the first. The album finishes like the original, with its title track.
So, what The Doors might of done in 1969.

Track listing

Side 1
01 Whiskey, Mystics And Men (Version #1)
02 Wild Child
03 Shamen's Blues
04 Easy Ride
05 Do It
06 Push Push

Side 2
07 Away In India
08 Universal Mind
09 I Will Never Be Untrue
10 Someday Soon
11 The Woman Is A Devil

Side 3
12 Tell All the People
13 Touch Me
14 Who Scared You
15 Runnin' Blue
16 Wishful Sinful

Side 4
17 Orange County Suite
18 Whiskey, Mystics And Men (Version #2)
19 The Soft Parade

The Overlanders - Sing A Song Of Sadness (1966)

The Overlanders were formed in 1963 by Paul Arnold on piano and guitar, Lori Mason on piano and harmonica, and Peter Bartholomew on guitar, with all three singing in a vocal trio style. They focussed on the American folk/country style of music, and they were influenced by the likes of The Kingston Trio, The Brothers Four and The Four Freshmen. The group were signed to the Harold Hammond agency, who also handled The Settlers, and for a while The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and they were picked up by Pye Records in the Spring of 1963, who assigned recording manager Tony Hatch to the group. Their first release was 'Summer Skies And Golden Sands'/'Call Of The Wild', with both sides self-composed by the three members, and it could have been a hit single with a bit more luck. With the success of Lennon and McCartney as songwriters, group members were encouraged to write their own material, and so The Overlanders composed many of their own songs. The follow-up 'Movin'' also failed to chart, but their third release, a cover of Chad And Jeremy's 'Yesterday's Gone', managed to attain a high of No. 75 in July 1964 on the US Billboard chart. Their next single release was 'Don't It Make You Feel Good', which was written by Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch and had originally appeared on the album 'Dance With The Shadows', but it followed the same fate as their first two, as did the next five single releases. 

Their producer Tony Hatch obviously believed the group had hit potential, and gave them chance after chance, but after nine releases, with none of them charting in the UK, The Overlanders decided to bring in a rhythm section, and added Terry Widlake on bass and David Walsh on drums, which allowed the group to expand from a folk based trio to a more pop sounding quintet. In 1965 Hatch announced that he had procured The Beatles' 'Michelle' for recording, and immediately booked a session at Pye Studios for the band to record it. The single was rush-released on 31 December 1965, ahead of any potential competing versions, and the gamble paid off with the record peaking at No. 1 in the UK, remaining at that spot for three weeks. Pye capitalised on the hit single by releasing an EP and an album of the same name, but none of the material was new as it consisted of songs from their previously failed singles. It was hard finding a successful follow-up single, and both Hatch's 'My Life' and a cover of The Mamas and The Papas 'Go Where You Wanna Go' failed to chart, and so Arnold left to take his chances on a solo career, being replaced by vocalist/guitarist Ian Griffiths. The revised group carried on for a further twelve months, with the only release being 'Go! With The Overlanders And The Settlers', an album issued by Pye in a vain attempt to revitalize the careers of two of its floundering acts. 

The Overlanders finally parted ways in October 1967, with Widlake and occasional member Vic Lythgoe turning up in The Cuppa T for two singles on Deram. Paul Arnold reformed the band in April 1968 as The New Overlanders for two singles on RCA, but their time had passed, and nothing more was heard from them after they failed to chart. The band had continued to record following 'Michelle' becoming a hit, and if Pye hadn't wasted some of these recordings by pairing them with songs from The Settlers for the 'Go!...' album then they could have released a record of new material in 1966, which just might have shown the public that they weren't just a one-hit wonder. However, that didn't happen, and so we can only speculate on what such an album could have sounded like, and it could have been something like this, which adds a couple of their singles which didn't make the 'Michelle' album to tracks from the 'Go!...' album, plus some other unreleased recordings.  

Track listing

01 If I Gave You
02 My Life 
03 Anna Marie
04 Sing A Song Of Sadness 
05 Don't Let It Happen Again
06 Go Where You Wanna Go 
07 Rainbow
08 Girl From Indiana
09 Circle Line Blues
10 Movin'  
11 This Land
12 Cradle Of Love 
13 Delia's Gone
14 I Wonder Why
15 Shanghai Rooster

Giorgio Moroder - Moody Trudy (1972)

Giovanni Giorgio Moroder was born to Ladin parents on 26 April 1940 in Ortisei in Italy, and is one of three brothers, one of them being artist Ulrich Moroder. He grew up in a mixed Ladin/German/Italian-speaking environment in South Tyrol, and he began teaching himself to play the guitar at age 15, inspired by Paul Anka's 'Diana'. At 18 he was touring Europe as a professional musician, performing at night, and during the day making recordings with two Revox recorders. By 25 he'd moved in with his aunt in Berlin, and was working as a sound engineer, with Ricky Shayne's single 'Ich Sprenge Alle Ketten' ('I Break All The Chains'), composed by then-unknowns Moroder and Michael Holm, becoming a German hit. The second hit was Moroder's and Holm's cover of Sir Douglas Quintet's single 'Mendocino', and after two years in Berlin he moved to Munich. He made his first steps there in music in the Scotch Club in Aachen, and then released a few singles under the name Giorgio, beginning in 1965 with the self-composed 'Cerca (Di Scordare)' coming out on the Fontana Label in Holland, and then he followed that in 1966 and 1967 with a series of Schlager-influenced single such as 'Bla Bla Diddly', 'Yummy, Yummy, Yummy', 'Looky, Looky', and 'Reesy Beesy', which in the UK/US would be called 'bubblegum pop'. In fact, his first album, which was released on Hansa Records in 1969, was called 'That's Bubble Gum - That's Giorgio'. In 1968, he moved to Munich and came to prominence when 'Looky Looky' was awarded a gold disc in 1970, and with that success behind him he founded the Musicland Studios in the early 1970's. Moroder was an early fan of the Moog synthesizer, and began to implement the instrument into his work during the making of his album 'Son Of My Father' in 1972. 

Often collaborating with lyricist Pete Bellotte, Moroder had a number of hits in his own name, including 'Son Of My Father', although the more famous version is the UK No. 1 hit by Chicory Tip. Around 1973 he was pitching demos to American groups like Three Dog Night, and they hired vocalist Donna Summer, then completely unknown, as the singer. Moroder got along well with Summer, who had lived in Germany for several years and spoke German fluently, and he began to record her as a solo artist in addition to using her on demos and recordings for other artists. Summer's first solo album with Moroder, 1974's 'Lady Of The Night', went nowhere, but the following year she suggested building a song around the phrase "love to love you baby", and Moroder and Bellotte took the idea and ran with it. Adding elements from a steamy French duet by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, 'Je t'aime … moi non plus', the single that resulted, 'Love To Love You Baby', became a hit in Europe, and was released in the United States by the fast-rising Casablanca label. With its quasi-orgasmic moans from Summer, slinky beat, and lush orchestral textures, 'Love to Love You Baby' was as good a candidate as any other release of that time for the distinction of being the first disco record, and when Casablanca decided to release an album including the song, Moroder notched another first by creating a new version of 'Love To Love You Baby' that rearranged its basic musical elements and extended it to a length of more than 17 minutes, filling one entire side of the 'Love To Love You' LP. From this point he became more known as a producer than as a recording artist, although he did still release albums, but they were more electronic, such as the synthesizer-driven 'From Here to Eternity', a chart hit in 1977. To find how he got to that point in his career, here is a collection of his mid-60's/early 70's singles, mostly released on Hansa Records in Germany between 1966 and 1972. 

Track listing

01 Cerca (Di Scordare) (single 1965)
02 Full Stop (single 1966)
03 Believe In Me (b-side of 'Full Stop')
04 Bla Bla Diddly (single 1967)
05 How Much Longer Must I Wait, Wait... (b-side of 'Bla Bla Diddly') 
06 Lilly Belle (single 1968)
07 Love's Morning Land (b-side of 'Lilly Belle')
08 Cinnamon (single 1968)
09 Reesy Beesy (b-side of 'Reesy Beesy')
10 Looky Looky (single 1969)
11 Happy Birthday (b-side of 'Looky Looky')
12 Moody Trudy (single 1970)
13 Stop (b-side of 'Moody Trudy')
14 Underdog (single 1971)
15 Watch Your Step (b-side of 'Underdog')
16 Son Of My Father (single 1972)
17 I'm Free Now (b-side of 'Son Of My Father')
18 Today's A Tomorrow (You Worried 'Bout Yesterday) (single 1972)
19 Pauline (b-side of 'Today's A Tomorrow (You Worried 'Bout Yesterday)')

Wendy Carlos - The Shining - The Complete Unreleased Soundtrack (1980)

Time for another guest post from Mike Solof, and this one looks at the story behind one of the best horror films ever made, and how the soundtrack had almost as intriguing a story as the film itself. 

Mike Solof here with a strange post about one one of my favorite movies THE SHINING!
I've always loved creepy horror music soundtracks, and this one has always been one of my favorites. But what a tough nut to crack in terms of compiling this version I've created. 
The movie itself went through many struggles in its creation. Here's WIKI to tell you about the different cuts:
After its premiere and a week into the general run (with a running time of 146 minutes), Kubrick cut a scene at the end that took place in a hospital. The scene shows Wendy in a bed talking with Mr. Ullman, who explains that Jack's body could not be found; he then gives Danny a yellow tennis ball, presumably the same one that Jack was throwing around the hotel. This scene was subsequently physically cut out of prints by projectionists and sent back to the studio by order of Warner Bros., the film's distributor. This cut the film's running time to 144 minutes.
For its release in Europe, Kubrick cut about 25 minutes from the film. The excised scenes included: a longer meeting between Jack and Watson at the hotel; Danny being attended by a doctor, including references to Tony and how Jack once injured Danny in a drunken rage; more footage of Hallorann's attempts to get to the hotel during the snowstorm, including a sequence with a garage attendant; extended dialogue scenes at the hotel; and a scene where Wendy discovers a group of skeletons in the hotel lobby during the climax. Jackson and Burton are credited in the European print, despite their scenes having been excised from the movie. According to Harlan, Kubrick decided to cut some sequences because the film was "not very well received", and also after viewers had complained about its ambiguity and length. The scene when Jack writes obsessively on the typewriter "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" was re-shot a number of times, but changing the language of the typed copy to Italian, French, Spanish, and German, in order to match the respective dubbed languages.
Three alternative takes were used in a British television commercial. For the international versions of the film, Kubrick shot different takes of Wendy reading the typewriter pages containing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" in different languages. For each language, a suitable idiom was used: German (Was du heute kannst besorgen, das verschiebe nicht auf morgen / "Never put off till tomorrow what may be done today"), Italian (Il mattino ha l'oro in bocca / "The morning has gold in its mouth"), French (Un «Tiens» vaut mieux que deux «Tu l'auras» / "One 'here you go' is worth more than two 'you'll have it'", the equivalent of "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"), Spanish (No por mucho madrugar 
amanece más temprano / "No matter how early you get up, you can't make the sun rise any sooner."). 
Also causing me massive headaches was the fact that although a complete score was produced by Wendy Carlos for the film, Kubrick discarded almost all of it except for the two opening cuts used at the beginning of the film, much too the dismay of Carlos who spent two years creating the score, but never signed a contract to do so. Therefore she had no recourse but to let the score go unused and unheard from 1980-2005. Kubrick, in its place, instead choose to use the temporary score that had been added to the film during dailies, and the soundtrack album on LP was withdrawn due to problems with licensing of the music.
It also doesn't help that every single version I can find of both the soundtrack and the score has a different order of songs, and contains very different track lists!  
What my version is, is my attempt to combine everything I could find and place it in as proper an order as I can (being that the same tunes sometime pop up in various scenes throughout the entire move) and the notes for these various versions often contradict each other. So here is my best effort to combine into one giant musical experience, the original soundtrack, along with the unused original score, and with some key dialogue from throughout the movie to spice things up a bit.
WARNING: this is a hard and uncomfortable listening experience. You don't relax to music like this. But you do put it on during cold and wintery nights, climb under a warm down blanket and just try to survive the night!
Enjoy

Michael

Track listing

01 Warner Bros. Logo
02 The Shining Title Music
03 Danny
04 Colorado
05 Rocky Mountains
06 Grady's Story
07 The Overlook
08 Lontano For Orchestra (As From A Distance, Sustained With Expression)
09 Visitors
10 A Ghost Piano
11 Greetings Ghosties
12 Come Out And Play With Us Danny
13 Horror Show
14 A Haunted Waltz
15 Subliminal Ballroom
16 Masquerade
17 It's All Forgotten Now (Ray Noble & His Orchestra)
18 Paraphrase For Cello
10 Two Polymoog Improvisations
20 Paraphrase For Brass
21 Setting With Medea
22 Clockworks (Bloody Elevators) Trailer Music
23 Heartbeats And Worrying
24 The Awakening Of Jacob (aka The Dream Of Jacob) 
25 Psychic Shout - Room 237
26 Danny Bells Ascending
27 Danny's Gone Away
28 Music For Strings, Percussion And Celesta
29 'Dies'
30 A Horrible Nightmare
31 Psychic Scream
32 Thought Clusters
33 Day Of Wrath
34 Fanfare And Drunkenness - Dies Irae
35 Jack Takes Control
36 Where Is Jack
37 Polymorphia (Kryzysztof Penderecki)
38 Hair Of The Dog (incorporating Home by Henry Hall & The Gleneagles Hotel Band)
39 New Rules For Wendy
40 Bumps In The Night
41 Utrenja (Ewangelia) (Kryzysztof Penderecki)
42 Here's Johnny
43 Utrenja (Kanon Paschy) (Kryzysztof Penderecki)
44 De Natura Sonoris No. 1 (Kryzysztof Penderecki)
45 De Natura Sonoris No. 2 (Kryzysztof Penderecki)
46 Maze Madness
47 Canon for 52 Strings And Tape Delay
48 Maze Madness (Encore)
49 Midnight, The Stars And You (Ray Noble & His Orchestra)
50 Postlude
51 Trailer Music (Alternate Version Clockworks - Dies Irae)
52 Nocturnal Valse Triste
53 Reprise
54 Alternate Main Title 
55 Alternate Main Title 2
56 Dance Of Death Op. 457 - Dies Irae (Paraphrase Excerpt)
57 Snow Chase Music
58 Concerto For Cello And Orchestra (alt. Show Chase Music 2)
59 Home (Henry Hall & The Gleneagles Hotel Band)
60 Midnight, The Stars And You (Ray Noble & His Orchestra)
61 The Shining (Ambient Mix)

PS: I have thrown in a bunch of great bonus cuts for you to help soften the blow of this terrifying experience. These include some alternate versions of some of the cuts, a beautiful 18 minute suite of Ambient music from the film, a copy of my Beatles a Rama Christmas show from 2018 that is built around the film - listen for how the songs reflect what is going on in the film and how the songs help to examine what is going on in each character's mind during different parts of the film. And finally I've included something cool to watch to if you like conspiracy theories. It's a documentary on Kubrick, and skip to 35:04 to see how The Shining is actually a film about him confessing that he helped stage and film the Moon Landing of Apollo 11. I find it a fascinating take, but don’t believe it for a minute!!
Keep that night light on Kids!
M

Mike Solof - Off The Beatle Track - Episode 26 (2018)

As a companion piece to Mike's post on the soundtrack to the film 'The Shining', here is a Beatles-O-Rama Christmas special from 2018, where he chooses tracks from the Fab Four which complement the film. This file is included in the folder for Mike's soundtrack post, but if you just want to hear this show then here it is on its own.

Track listing 

01 Episode 26 - A Shining Christmas

The Remains - All Good Things (1966)

The Remains formed in 1964 at Boston University, where all four members were first-year students living in the same dorm in Kenmore Square. Comprising singer/guitarist Barry Tashian, keyboardist Bill Briggs, drummer Chip Damiani and bassist Vern Miller, they began playing r&b and rock'n'roll covers, as well as some Tashian originals, at a tavern across the square from their dorm, and soon fans were lining up from Kenmore Square to Fenway Park to see them. The band became a popular live act throughout New England, and after signing with Epic Records they enjoyed local hits with a catchy Tashian original, 'Why Do I Cry', and their hard-driving version of the Bo Diddley/Willie Dixon classic 'Diddy Wah Diddy'. In 1965 they relocated to New York City, and then after about a year they moved on to California, where they recorded a self-titled album, and released the soulful, hard-rocking single 'Don't Look Back. In 1966 came the opportunity which might have broken the band nationally, but proved instead to be their last hurrah, when they were offered a three-week stint as an opening act for the Beatles, on what would turn out to be the Fab Four's final tour. Immediately before the tour, Damiani quit the band, to be replaced by future Mountain drummer N.D. Smart, which meant that the band had to play a major tour with a new drummer who didn't have the same feel that they were used to, and so when the tour was over the band broke up in late 1966, and Epic finally released their debut album to little fanfare. Years later, however, it is now recognised as a classic of its genre, packed with great songs from Tashian, and boasting exciting, fiery performances. Luckily they recorded enough material during the album's sessions to release some non-album singles during 1965 and 1966, and if we take those songs and add in some of those other session recordings there are actually enough tracks available to make up a creditable second album, which could have been released as a posthumous tribute to them, after they'd broken up in 1966.    

Track listing

01 Me Right Now
02 I Can't Get Away From You
03 Ain't That Her
04 Like A Rolling Stone
05 When I Want To Know
06 But I Ain't Got You
07 Mercy, Mercy
08 Baby I Believe In You
09 I'm A Man
10 My Babe
11 I'm Talking About You
12 Gonna Move
13 All Good Things

Have A Soulful Christmas 2024

Christmas will soon be upon us, and so here is a nice collection of Christmas songs with a soulful feel to them to pass the time until it arrives.

Track listing

01 Someday At Christmas (Stevie Wonder 1967)

02 At Christmas Time (Luther 1976)
03 Merry Christmas Baby (Otis Redding 1968)
04 What Do The Lonely Do At Christmas (The Emotions 1973)

05 Santa Claus Goes Straight To The Ghetto (James Brown 1968)
06 Give Love On Christmas Day (The Jackson 5 1970)

07 Christmas Every Day (The Miracles 1963)
08 What Christmas Means To Me (Al Green 1983)
09 Ain't No Chimneys In The Projects (Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings 2009)
10 Every Day Will Be Like A Holiday (William Bell 1967)
11 Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) (Darlene Love 1963)

12 Presents for Christmas (Solomon Burke 1968)
13 The Mistletoe And Me (Isaac Hayes 1969)
14 What Christmas Means To Me (Stevie Wonder 1967)

15 I Want To Come Home For Christmas (Marvin Gaye 1972)
16 Back Door Santa (Clarence Carter 1968)
17 This Christmas (Donnie Hathaway 1970)
18 Christmas Here With You (Four Tops 1995)

Soulseek tip - search 'christmas aiwe' for all my Christmas albums.

The Misunderstood - End Of Time (1966)

The Misunderstood were formed in Riverside, California, and had their roots in the Blue Notes, an instrumental combo featuring George Phelps and Greg Treadway on guitars and Rick Moe on drums. Despite living in a landlocked town, Phelps and his friends developed a passion for surfing, frequently road-tripping to Encinitas to ride the waves, and a shared love of the beach brought Phelps together with Rick Brown, whose family had recently moved to Riverside. After the demise of the Blue Notes, Phelps, Treadway, and Moe decided to form a new band, and brought Brown on board as their lead singer. Billing themselves as Treadway & Company, they invited Steve Whiting to play bass, and began putting together a repertoire steeped in blues and covers of the tougher British Invasion groups, in particular the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, Them, and the Yardbirds. They also began writing songs of their own, and by mid-1965 they had enough material to cut a demo at a local recording studio, by which time they had dropped the name Treadway & Company and branded themselves The Misunderstoods, a reference to the Animals' hit 'Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood'. After a few months of rehearsing, playing teen clubs, and appearing at school dances, another recording session took place in December 1965, this time under the revised name of The Misunderstood. 

After recording some more material in January 1966, Phelps dropped out of the band, preferring to get a day job, and after seeing Glenn Ross Campbell playing steel guitar with his group the Answers, the members of the Misunderstood were certain his unique style was the right fit for them. Campbell had been playing in country and rock bands for years, and his use of a fuzzbox to add a beefier tone to his refashioned blues licks gave the Misunderstood a sound unlike any other group at that time. Not long after Campbell joined the act, they played a show at a shopping center in Riverside, and they were spotted by John Ravenscroft, a British disc jockey who had recently landed a job at a local FM radio station. Ravenscroft was blown away by what he heard, and he took the group under his wing, offering them advice and filling their ears with different musical influences. It would not be the last time the DJ helped a band get a break, as years later he would adopt the name John Peel, and became one of the most influential radio personalities in the U.K. In March 1966, Peel arranged for the band to record a session at Hollywood's Gold Star Studio, famed as Phil Spector's favourite recording facility, and the tapes showed a band who were moving beyond blues-rock into a more expressive and experimental sound that would anticipate psychedelic rock. 

Peel and the musicians became increasingly convinced that if they wanted to find the right audience for their work, they would be better off in England than California, and after pressing a single of two of the Gold Star tracks as a calling card, 'You Don't Have to Go' b/w 'Who's Been Talking', they began blocking out plans to relocate to the U.K., with Peel's brother acting as their representative in England. They staged a final show in Riverside, and left for the U.K. in June 1966, but to their dismay they discovered that Peel hadn't contacted his mother, who was supposed to let the band stay at her home when they arrived in London, and his brother had done little to lay groundwork for their mission to conquer Great Britain. They also lacked work permits, but they were still able to land gigs and began finding an audience for their bold sound, especially after they acquired a manager, Nigel Thomas. However, in August 1966, homesick Treadway quit the group and returned to California, and the band replaced him with new guitarist Tony Hill, who proved to be an excellent foil for Campbell's steel work, and who also wrote new material in tandem with Brown. A new demo was cut at London's I.B.C. studios, which Thomas took to Fontana Records, and they signed the band and issued the single 'I Can Take You To The Sun' b/w 'Who Do You Love' in December 1966. 

The group bowled over the press in a media event staged by Fontana and they were being talked up by the British music weeklies, but a dark cloud appeared on the horizon, as Brown had been called up for the military draft, and after ignoring numerous letters from America's Selective Service System, he was informed he would be officially indicted on charges on draft evasion if he didn't return home to meet the draft board, so he flew back to California. Brown hoped that his commitments to Fontana in England, as well as a letter from his doctor saying he was unfit for service, would permit him to return to London relatively soon. However, his pleas were rejected, and he was given the option of serving two years in the Army or five years in prison. Brown chose the Army, and though The Misunderstood found a new singer, Steve Colyer, their management had lost confidence in the band after Brown left. They were booked to play shows in France in early 1967, only to discover that Campbell's, Moe's, and Whiting's visas would not permit them to return to the U.K, and so they had no choice but to go back to California, which spelled the end of the group. 

After returning to America, Campbell was befriended by blues artist Rod Piazza, and he joined Piazza's group the Dirty Blues Band, appearing on their self-titled debut album, issued in 1967 by Bluesway Records. Meanwhile, Peel continued to champion the Misunderstood even after their breakup, and at his urging, Fontana released another single from their recordings of the band, 'Children Of The Sun' b/w 'I Unseen'. The single generated enough attention that Campbell returned to England and assembled a new edition of The Misunderstood, but rather than trade on his old band's reputation they named themselves Juicy Lucy, and signed with Vertigo Records, who put out their first album in 1969. In spite of their relatively small output, they were considered to be influential pioneers of the acid style of rock music, and many of these tracks sound like they could have been recorded about two years later, showing how far ahead of their time they were. There have been a number of compilation albums issued over the years, but none have tried to show what an actual 1966 album by the group could have sounded like, and I hope that this post fills that gap. 

Track listing

01 Children Of The Sun
02 I'm Not Talking
03 I Unseen
04 End Of Time
05 I Can Take You To The Sun 
06 Why
07 My Mind
08 Find The Hidden Door
09 Who Do You Love
10 Bury My Body
11 Who's Been Talking
12 Got Love If You Want It
13 Don't Break Me Down
14 She Got Me

Spear Of Destiny - March Or Die (1988)

Spear Of Destiny was formed by Kirk Brandon and Stan Stammers from the wreckage of Theatre of Hate, and named, with characteristic grandeur, after the weapon with which the Roman centurion Longinus pierced the body of the crucified Christ. Much of the group's debut album was already in place before Lasette Ames and Chris Bell joined, and 'The Grapes Of Wrath' was released on the band's own Burning Rome label in 1983. The original quartet did not survive for long, and the album had barely hit the street when Ames and Bell quit, the latter citing both personal and religious reasons, and Theatre of Hate's Nigel Preston, fresh from a stint with Sex Gang Children, and Diodes' saxophonist John Lennard were drafted in for live work. By the time the band began recording their second album, both had been replaced, by former Stiff Little Fingers drummer Dolphin Taylor, sax player Nick Donnelly, Neil Pyzer, and guitarist Alan St Clair. This became the definitive band aggregation, and they toured constantly, with three outings during 1984 alone, but this did not carry over to studio success, with none of their three singles from 1984's 'One Eyed Jacks' - 'Rainmaker', 'Prisoner Of Love' and 'Liberator' - breaking the UK Top 50. The failure of 'One Eyed Jacks' did much to knock Brandon back, dealing a blow from which he would not recover, even after 1985's 'World Service', a less cohesive, but occasionally superior album just missed the Top Ten. Two further singles, 'All My Love' and 'Come Back', were barely noticed, and when attempts to record a new album on the Manor Mobile collapsed in bad-tempered disarray, Brandon sacked the entire group. Spear Of Destiny vanished for much of the next two years, and when the band did return, it was with a completely new lineup of Brandon, bassist Chris Bostock, drummer Pete Barnacle, former Adam & the Ants guitarist Marco Pirroni, and keyboardist Volker Janssen. Ironically, it was now that the band finally achieved the destiny which had evaded them for so long, with 'Outland' being released on Virgin's 10 subsidiary in 1987, and spawning their biggest hits to date, with 'Stranger In Our Town', 'Never Take Me Alive', 'Was That You', and 'The Traveller' all performing well in the UK charts. 

The group also toured with U2, an outing which culminated at Wembley Stadium in June 1987, but before the group could capitalize on their sudden success, tragedy struck. Literally on the eve of an appearance at the Reading Festival, Brandon was diagnosed with Reiter's Syndrome and ordered to bed, where he spent a year flat on his back, barely able to move at a time when Spear Of Destiny's commercial stock had never been higher. 'Outland' was their biggest seller yet, and their first tour of America was beckoning, but Brandon's main concern was learning to walk again. He struggled back into action just in time to see Spear Of Destiny fall apart, with their 1988 album 'The Price You Pay' and single 'So In Love With You' foundering in the face of their inability to promote them. Brandon bravely tried to relaunch the group in 1990, reuniting with Stan Stammers alongside drummer Bobby Rae Mayhem and guitarist Mark Thwaite, but his future drifted even further out of reach when sundry legal problems meant he couldn't even continue using the band's name. Two largely unsatisfying albums document this era, the comeback 'Sod's Law', released in 1992, and 'Live At The Lyceum' 1993, but in the face of these set-backs the band drifted apart, with Brandon relocating to Philadelphia. While they were active, Spear Of Destiny amassed a devoted following, and it was just bad luck that they couldn't capitalise on their biggest success with 'Outlaw', but we can relive their early days with this collection of non-album singles and b-sides from their first incarnation.   

Track listing

01 The Wheel (single 1983)
02 The Hop (b-side of 'The Wheel')
03 Rosie (b-side of 'Prisoner Of Love' 1984)
04 Last Card (b-side of 'All My Love (Ask Nothing)' 1985)
05 Walk In My Shadow (b-side of 'All My Love (Ask Nothing)' 1985)
06 Cole Younger (b-side of 'Come Back' 1985)
07 Young Men (Return Of) (b-side of 'Come Back' 1985)
08 Somewhere Out There (b-side of 'Strangers In Our Town' 1987)
09 Times Of Our Lives (b-side of 'Strangers In Our Town' 1987)
10 Late Night Psycho (b-side of 'The Traveller' 1987)
11 March Or Die (b-side of 'So In Love With You' 1988)
12 The Jungle (b-side of 'So In Love With You' 1988)
13 Life Goes On (b-side of 'Radio Radio' 1988)