Peter Cook & Dudley Moore - Pete & Dud On.... (1971)

My first post from the UK comedy legends Peter Cook & Dudley Moore received some positive comments, so I know that there's a fanbase out there that appreciate and miss them. This post came about as I found a 'Pete & Dud' clip on Youtube that I hadn't seen before, and this is bearing in mind that I have every vinyl album that they released, as well as the 'Missing Sketches' DVD, so I thought I'd heard everything that was available to hear. Sometimes previously lost tapes turn up in remote foreign TV studios, where they were sent by the BBC for broadcast in that country, and the studio then forgot to return them, so it's possible that these clips were re-discovered in that way, but however they came to be online, there were nearly an hour's worth of Pete & Dud duologues which had never appeared on any of their records, and so if you're a fan then you're in for a real treat. Because of the age of the recordings there are a couple of glitches here and there, but on the whole the quality is excellent, and if you want to you can search on Youtube to see the actual clips of the shows from which these audio files have been taken.  

Track listing

01 Nighttime Disturbances
02 Women's Liberation
03 U.F.O.s
04 The Worst Bloody Thing That Could Happen To You
05 Reptiles
06 Hollywood Stars

The Charlatans - Sidetracks (1968)

The Charlatans were one of the earliest bands to have an album shelved by their record company, way back in 1966. The band were an American folk-rock and psychedelic rock group that played a role in the development of the San Francisco Haight-Ashbury music scene during the 1960's, often being cited as being the first group to play in the distinctive San Francisco Sound. Exhibiting a more pronounced jug band, country and blues influenced sound than many bands from the same scene, the Charlatans' rebellious attitude and distinctive late 19th-century fashions exerted a strong influence on the Summer of Love in San Francisco. They were formed in mid-1964 by amateur avant-garde musician George Hunter on autoharp and music major Richard Olsen on bass, along with Mike Wilhelm on lead guitar, Mike Ferguson on piano/keyboards, and Sam Linde on drums, later replaced by Dan Hicks, who went on to form Dan Hicks And His Hot Licks after he left the group. One of the most striking things about the band was their penchant for dressing themselves in late 19th-century attire, as if they were Victorian dandies or Wild West gunslingers. This unconventional choice of clothing was influential on the emerging hippie counter-culture, with many young San Franciscans dressing in similarly late Victorian and early Edwardian era clothing, including The Beatles in their 'Sgt. Pepper' period. In the summer of 1965 they were given the chance to audition for Autumn Records, but weren't signed by them, partly due to conflicts between the group and Donahue over suitable material, and partly due to lack of money, as the label was on the verge of bankruptcy. The failed Autumn Records audition proved to be only a minor setback, with the Charlatans signing with Kama Sutra Records in early 1966, home of the Lovin' Spoonful, one of the earliest folk rock bands to find international success. 
The band had recorded a number of songs for the label, and chose to issue 'Codine' as their debut single, but the record company vetoed the release, citing the song's drug connotations. In fact the song was written by folk artist Buffy Sainte-Marie as a warning of the dangers of drugs, rather than promoting their use, but Kama Sutra was adamant and refused to release the single. Instead, two other songs from the Kama Sutra sessions, 'The Shadow Knows'/'32-20', were released by Kapp Records in 1966 as the band's first single, but had little success due to Kapp Records' failure to adequately promote the release. The remaining songs recorded during the Kama Sutra sessions for the Charlatans' debut album, including a couple with lead vocals by Lynne Hughes, remained unreleased until they were officially issued for the first time by Big Beat Records in 1996. Following major upheavals with the line-up, with nearly everyone getting fired and replaced, a new line-up of the band secured a recording contract with Philips Records and released their one and only self-titled album in 1969. The Big Beat issue of the shelved album included everything that they had recorded between 1966 and 1968, which to my ears included a lot of sub-standard material, novelty songs, and music that just didn't sit well with their reputation as one of the first and finest West Coast bands, so I've selected only the very best songs for this post, making a 40-minute album that would have cemented their standing in the history of West Coast music had it been released at the time. 

Track listing

01 Codine Blues
02 By Hook Or By Crook
03 Sidetrack
04 Jack Of Diamonds
05 East Virginia
06 I Saw Her
07 We're Not On The Same Trip
08 Number One
09 Devil Got My Man
10 Walkin'
11 Baby Won't You Tell Me
12 Alabama Bound

Elton John - Top Of The Pops (1970)

I would think that most Elton John fans will know that during 1969 and 1970 he supplemented his income by recording sessions for cheapo various artists albums such as 'Top Of The Pops', 'Hot Hits', and 'Chartbusters'. Even when he had his own hit single in the charts in 1970 with 'Your Song', he still did the sessions, as he's said that he had a ball doing them. There have been a number of compilations of these recordings over the years, but they tended to concentrate on more overtly 'pop' songs, whereas he did also record a number of prog and classic rock tracks which seem to have been ignored. For this collection I've tried to compile a more musically rewarding album, so I've removed the bubblegum pop of 'In The Summertime', 'Neanderthal Man', and 'Snake In The Grass', as well as the embarrassing attempts at reggae, as on Nicky Thomas' 'Love Of The Common People', and replaced them with songs by The Moody Blues, Simon and Garfunkel and The Bee Gees. The most surprising thing about listening to this album is that now that you know it's Elton singing, you ask yourself how you didn't recognise his vocals back in the 70's, as he often made no attempt to try to sound like the original artist. Now we know who was involved, it makes for a nice little collection of 70's pop hits as sung by an emerging superstar, but listening to them now I'm amazed that I was ever fooled into thinking that they sounded anything like the original recordings!

Track listing

01 Natural Sinner (Fairweather)
02 Come And Get It (Badfinger)
03 Let's Work Together (Canned Heat)
04 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Simon & Garfunkel)
05 Question (The Moody Blues)
06 August October (Robin Gibb)
07 Travellin' Band (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
08 Lady D'Arbanville (Cat Stevens)
09 Spirit In The Sky (Norman Greenbaum)
10 I Can't Tell The Bottom From The Top (The Hollies)
11 Up Around The Bend (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
12 It's All In The Game (The Four Tops)
13 Don't Forget To Remember (The Bee Gees)
14 United We Stand (Brotherhood Of Man)

The Rutles - Past Masters - Volume Two (1969)

For this second volume of 'Past Masters' from The Rutles, we've once again raided the back catalogues of The Flames, Neil Innes, GRIMMS, Timebox and The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band for 'singles and b-sides' that didn't appear on their albums. The Flames contributed some tracks that actually were from 1965 and 1966, and Neil Innes filled in the gaps from the later years. I'd already used every contemporary song from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, but in a recent post of theirs I unearthed a recording that they'd made for a radio session which actually fitted on here quite well, and so by adding that, plus the one suitable unused song from GRIMMS and two from Timebox, we now have a second volume of rarities from the Pre-fab Four, which finally completes their discography.

Track listing

01 Blue Colour (b-side of 'Hold My Hand' 1963) 

02 Bring Back The Time (single 1963) 

03 Stop, Look And Listen (b-side of 'Ouch!' 1964) 

04 Tell It Like It Is (b-side of 'Between Us' 1965)  

05 Busy Day (b-side of 'Nevertheless' 1966)  

06 Lost (single 1966)  
07 You've Got The Chance (b-side of 'Piggy In The Middle' 1967) 
08 Stoned On Rock (single 1967) 
09 We're Gonna Bring It On Home (b-side of 'Good Times Roll' 1967)
10 Feel No Shame (b-side of 'Hey Mister!' 1968)  
11 Black Dog (b-side of 'Get Up And Go' 1969) 
12 City Of The Angels (b-side of 'Easy Listening' 1969)    
13 Oo-Chuck-A-Mao-Mao (b-side of '9-5 Pollution Blues' 1969) 
14 Rock Of Ages (single 1969) 
 
PERFORMERS
 
*The Flames - 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 
*Neil Innes - 5, 8, 10, 12, 14
*The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - 9
*Timebox - 7, 11
*GRIMMS - 13

Larry Coryell - ...and on guitar (1976)

Larry Coryell was born Lorenz Albert Van DeLinder III in April 1943 in Galveston, Texas, and was encouraged by his mother to learn piano when he was four years old. In his teens he switched to guitar, and after his family moved to Richland, Washington, he took lessons from a teacher who lent him albums by Les Paul, Johnny Smith, Barney Kessel, and Tal Farlow. He graduated from Richland High School, where he played in local bands the Jailers, the Rumblers, the Royals, and the Flames, and after that he moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington. In September 1965, he moved to New York City, and his first major excursion into professional music was when he replaced guitarist Gábor Szabó in Chico Hamilton's quintet. In 1967–68, he recorded with Gary Burton, and during the mid-1960's he played with the Free Spirits, his first recorded band. In the eary 70's he led the group Foreplay with Mike Mandel, although the albums from this period, 'Barefoot Boy', 'Offering', and 'The Real Great Escape', were credited only to Larry Coryell, but he also lent his guitar skills to albums by Herbie Mann, Jim Pepper, and Leon Thomas, as well as showing that he didn't just play jazz by appearing with Jimmy Webb on his 1971 'And So: On' record. He formed his best-known band The Eleventh House in 1973, and recorded a number of well-received albums with them, and at the same time also managed to fit in guest appearances on records from Michael Urbaniak, Lenny White, and Larry Young. In 1979 he formed The Guitar Trio with John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucia, and the group toured Europe briefly, but in early 1980, his drug addiction led to his being replaced by Al Di Meola. Coryell died of heart failure on February 19, 2017, in a New York City hotel room at the age of 73. He had performed at the Iridium jazz club in Manhattan on the preceding two days. There were too many great tracks from him to cut them down to a single album, so this is a double disc post, with seven shorter pieces on Disc One, and Disc Two including a couple of extended workouts. 

Track listing

Disc One

01 Green Moss (from 'Nine Flags' by Chico O'Farrill  1967)

02 Rain (from 'Tomorrow Never Knows' by Steve Marcus 1968)           

03 Highpockets (from 'And So: On' by Jimmy Webb 1971)

04 Memphis Underground (from 'Memphis Underground' by Herbie Mann 1969)  

05 Straight No Chaser (from 'You Can't Make Love Alone' by Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson 1971)

06 Yon A Ho (from 'Pepper's Pow Wow' by Jim Pepper 1971)

07 C. C. Rider (from 'Blues And The Soulful Truth' by Leon Thomas 1972)

Disc Two

01 Turning Spread (from 'Knirsch' by Et Cetera 1972)

02 The Vamp (from 'Score' by Randy Brecker 1969) 

03 Bloody Kishka (from 'Fusion III' by Michal Urbaniak 1975)

04 Prince Of The Sea (from 'Venusian Summer' by Lenny White 1975)

05 Sticky Wicket (from 'Spaceball' by Larry Young's Fuel 1976)

Bruce Springsteen - Songs To Orphans (1973)

Bruce Springsteen's musical career began as far back as 1964, after he saw the Beatles' appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, and inspired by them he bought his first guitar and started playing for audiences with a band called the Rogues at local venues in Freehold. The following year he went to the house of Tex and Marion Vinyard, who sponsored young bands in town, and they helped him become the lead guitarist and subsequently one of the lead singers of The Castiles, who recorded two original songs at a public recording studio in Brick Township. In the late 1960's he performed briefly in a power trio known as Earth, and from 1969 to early 1971 he was a member of Steel Mill, which included Danny Federici, Vini Lopez, Vinnie Roslin, and later Steve Van Zandt and Robbin Thompson, recording three original Springsteen songs at Pacific Recording in San Mateo. Over the next two years, as Springsteen sought to shape a unique and genuine musical and lyrical style, he performed with Dr. Zoom & the Sonic Boom (early- to mid-1971), the Sundance Blues Band (mid-1971), and the Bruce Springsteen Band (mid-1971 to mid-1972). He came to the attention of Mike Appel and Jim Crecetos, managers of Sir Lord Baltimore, and in April and May 1972 they had him record his entire songbook for them, acoustically. He also recorded some sessions for John Hammond in May and June 1972, which led to his being signed to Columbia Records, where he went straight back into the studio to record his debut album 'Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.' between June and October 1972. Sessions for the follow-up 'The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle' took place between May and September 1973, and there were a number of out-takes left over, including the superb 'Evacuation Of The West'. Many of these recordings have appeared on various bootlegs over the years, and so I've picked the very best of the songs from these sessions which never made it to an official album, and added in a couple of edited live recordings from 1973 of otherwise unrecorded songs, to piece together a record which just confirms what a prolific talent Springsteen was at the start of his long and illustrious career. 

Track listing

01 Seaside Bar Song    
02 The Lady And The Doctor 
03 Bishop Dance     
04 War Nurse
05 Visitation At Fort Horn
06 Hey Santa Ana
07 Songs To Orphans
08 Jazz Musician
09 Thundercack
10 Family Song
11 Saga Of The Architect Angel   
12 No More Kings In Texas (Evacuation Of The West)  

Tracks 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10 Media and 914 Sound Studios, Blauvelt, New York City 06-07/72
Tracks 1, 6, 12 'The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle' studio sessions 07-08/73
Track 11 Media and 914 Sound Studios, Blauvelt, New York City 20/02/1973
Tracks 3, 9  Berkeley Community Theater, Berkeley 02/03/73

Mike Bloomfield - ...and on guitar (1977)

Michael Bernard Bloomfield was born into a wealthy Chicago Jewish-American family in 1943, a part of the family that ran Bloomfield Industries, formed by his grandfather Samuel Bloomfield. When he was twelve his family moved to suburban Glencoe, Illinois, where he attended New Trier High School for two years. During this time, he began playing in local bands, putting together The Hurricanes, which later led to his expulsion after his band performed a raucous rock and roll song at a 1959 school gathering. In 1957 Bloomfield had attended a Chicago performance by blues singer Josh White, and began spending time in Chicago's South Side blues clubs, playing guitar with such bluesmen as Sleepy John Estes, Yank Rachell, and Little Brother Montgomery, and by the early 60's he'd played with Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, and many other Chicago blues performers. At this time he met musicians who would later become part of his professional life, such as harmonica player and singer Paul Butterfield, guitarist Elvin Bishop, fellow Chicagoan Nick Gravenites, and Bronx-born record producer Norman Dayron. With help from his friend Joel Harlib, a Chicago photographer who became Bloomfield's de facto manager, they took an audition tape by Bloomfield to Columbia producer and talent scout John Hammond in 1964, and he was signed to Columbia's Epic Records label. He recorded a few sessions for Columbia in 1964 that remained unreleased until after his death, and in early 1965 he joined the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which included Elvin Bishop and keyboardist Mark Naftalin, along with drummer Sam Lay and bassist Jerome Arnold, and their debut album 'The Paul Butterfield Blues Band' was recorded in September and released the following month. In June 1965, Bloomfield had recorded with Bob Dylan, whom he had met in 1963 at a Chicago club called the Bear, adding his chiming Telecaster guitar licks to 'Like A Rolling Stone', and he also played on most of the tracks on Dylan's 1965 'Highway 61 Revisited' album. After Sam Lay fell ill after a series of dates in November 1965, the Butterfield Band brought Chicago-born drummer Billy Davenport into the group, and this line-up recorded the ground-breaking 'East-West', with the title track exploring modal music, being based on a song Gravenites and Bloomfield had been playing since 1965 called 'It's About Time'. 

Bloomfield played on a number of recording sessions between 1965 and 1967, and his guitar playing had a huge impact on San Francisco Bay Area musicians after he played with the Butterfield band at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West. Eventually Bloomfield tired of the Butterfield Band's rigorous touring schedule and, relocating to San Francisco, he sought to create his own group and he formed the short-lived Electric Flag in 1967, with two longtime Chicago collaborators, Barry Goldberg and vocalist Nick Gravenites. The band featured a horn section, and the rhythm section was composed of bassist Harvey Brooks and drummer Buddy Miles, and the first recordings were for the soundtrack of director-producer Roger Corman's 1967 movie 'The Trip'. Their first proper studio album 'A Long Time Comin'' was issued in April 1968, and critics complimented the group's distinctive, intriguing sound but found the record itself somewhat uneven. By that time, however, the band was already disintegrating, and shortly after the release of the album Bloomfield left his own band, with Gravenites, Goldberg, and bassist Harvey Brooks following. He next teamed up with keyboardist Al Kooper, who had also played on 'Like A Rolling Stone', and after playing together on Moby Grape's 1968 'Grape Jam' album, they decided to record an entire jam album, with the result being the classic 'Supersession' album, with Bloomfield, Kooper, and Stephen Stills, Barry Goldberg, Harvey Brooks, and Eddie Hoh. Bloomfield continued with solo, session and back-up work from 1968 to 1980, playing on Mother Earth's cover of Memphis Slim's 'Mother Earth', and producing the 1968 sessions for James Cotton's 1968 album 'Cotton In Your Ears'. He released his first solo album 'It's Not Killing Me' in 1969, and the same year he helped Janis Joplin assemble her Kozmic Blues Band for the album 'I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues, Again Mama!', playing the guitar solo on Joplin's blues composition 'One Good Man'. He also reunited with Paul Butterfield and Sam Lay for the Chess Records album 'Fathers And Sons', featuring Muddy Waters and pianist Otis Spann. 

During 1970 Bloomfield gave up playing because of his heroin addiction, and it wasn't until 1973 that he recorded his second solo album 'Try It Before You Buy It', which was rejected by Columbia, and didn't appear until 1990. Also in 1973, he cut 'Triumvirate' with Dr. John and guitarist and singer John Hammond Jr, and the next year he was back with The Electric Flag for their 'The Band Kept Playing' album. In 1975 he recorded an album with the group KGB with singer and songwriter Ray Kennedy, and Barry Goldberg, with the band name coming from their initials, but it was not well received by critics, and Bloomfield left soon after its release. The same year found him performing with John Cale on Cale's soundtrack for the film 'Caged Heat', and in 1976 he recorded an instructional album for guitarists, 'If You Love These Blues, Play 'Em As You Please', which was financed through Guitar Player magazine. In 1977, Bloomfield was selected by Andy Warhol to do the soundtrack for the pop artist's last film, 'Andy Warhol's Bad'(also known as 'BAD'), and an unreleased single 'Andy's Bad' was produced for the project. During 1979-1981 he often performed with the King Perkoff Band, sometimes introducing them as the 'Michael Bloomfield And Friends' outfit, and he continued to play live dates, with his performance at San Francisco State College on 7th February 1981, being his final appearance. Bloomfield died in San Francisco on 15th February 1981, at the age of just 37, found seated behind the wheel of his car, with all four doors locked. According to police, an empty Valium bottle was found on the car seat, but no suicide note was found, and the medical examiner who performed the autopsy ruled the death accidental. In his short life he became known as the epitome of the white bluesman, with his searing guitar gracing a multitude of songs from the early 60's right up until a few years before his death. 

Track listing

01 Flat Broke Blues (from 'Cherry Red' by Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson 1967)
02 Mother Earth (from 'Living With the Animals' by Mother Earth 1968)
03 Blues For Barry And... (from '2 Jews Blues' by Barry Goldberg 1969)
04 One Good Man (from 'Got Dem 'Ol Kozmic Blues Again, Mama!' by Janis Joplin 1969) 
05 Pigs Head (from 'Weeds' by Brewer & Shipley 1969)
06 Killing My Love (from 'My Labors' by Nick Gravenites 1969)
07 Mean Disposition (from 'Fathers And Sons' by Muddy Waters 1969)
08 Nose Open (from 'Taking Care Of Business' by James Cotton Blues Band 1970)
09 Sidewalk Stanley (from 'Brand New' by Woody Herman 1971)
10 Settle It In The Bedroom, Baby (from 'Casting Pearls' by Mill Valley Bunch 1973)

11 Andy's Bad (from the film 'Andy Warhol's Bad' 1977)
12 If You Love These Blues (intro) / WDIA (from 'If You Love These Blues...' 1976)

Kossoff - Tuesday Evening (1973)

The 2013 deluxe re-issue of Paul Kossoff's first solo album, 'Back Street Crawler', included a number of bonus tracks, including six alternate takes of the opening track 'Tuesday Morning', done in blues, boogie, groove and rock style. As soon as I realised that they totaled 40 minutes of music, I thought that I could do something with them, so I've mixed them all together into one continuous 36-minute piece of music, which is different enough from 'Tuesday Morning' to be renamed 'Tuesday Evening'. Trying to transition from groove to boogie to blues wasn't easy, as they are all different tempos and styles, but on the whole I'm quite pleased with the result, and it does contain some superb guitar-work from Kossoff, ably assisted by Back Street Crawler, so I think it was worth the effort.   

Track listing

01 Tuesday Evening

Elton John - The World Of Regimental Sgt. Zippo (1968)

Back in April 2018 I posted an album that I'd reconstructed after reading an article about the proposed psychedelic debut album that was being prepared for release by Elton John in 1968. The album was mixed and sequenced, and cut to an acetate, but then it was shelved, and the following year 'Empty Sky' became his official debut release. For my original post I managed to track down 10 of the 12 songs, but two of them eluded me and so I replaced them with contemporaneous recordings from the same time-frame. The big news now is that Elton has issued the retrospective box set 'Jewel', which includes 60 previously unreleased songs, including those two that I couldn't find in 2018. It's also come to light that the album was to have been named after one of the tracks, 'Regimental Sgt. Zippo', so I've completely updated the post so that it now includes all 12 songs which were originally intended for it, it has the correct title, and I've given it some new, suitably psychedelic artwork. I'll leave the old post up, as it does include three extra tracks that are no longer on this one.    

Track listing

01 When I Was Tealby Abbey
02 And The Clocks Go Round
03 Sitting Doing Nothing
04 Turn To Me
05 The Angel Tree
06 Regimental Sgt. Zippo
07 A Dandelion Dies In The Wind
08 You'll Be Sorry To See Me Go

09 You're My Woman
10 Tartan Coloured Lady

11 Hour Glass

12 Watching The Planes Go By

I see that Paul over at albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.co.uk has just beat me to this by taking all the demos from the 'Jewel' box set and adding in the missing tracks from bootlegs, but I was quite surprised to hear that a lot of the tracks from 'Jewel' are only piano demos, with just a couple of songs being the full band versions. I've therefore mostly kept the versions from my original post, and cleaned them up to match the missing songs from 'Jewel'. Despite the 'Jewel' version of the title track being a band version, I have kept my original post of that, as it is actually a different mix, with some suitably psychedelic effects added to it.     

Ricky Gervais / Stephen Merchant / Karl Pilkington - The Ricky Gervais Show - The Specials (2008)

As well as the regular episodes which were released from 2005 to 2008, the trio also released a number of one-off special podcasts, collected together here for this final post. 
Fame special
A special podcast was made available as a giveaway to people who went to see Gervais' standup tour Fame, which played from January to April 2007. It was later released for free to the public in October of that year.
Do We Need 'Em? 

A feature from the middle years of the XFM series, which originally was simply called 'Pilkington', where Karl interviewed a woman who claimed to have had a ghostly experience, prompting him to ask "You're not on crack?". This morphed into Do We Need 'Em?, in which Karl would call an animal expert and argue for the extinction of a certain animal species, which he felt was useless and "getting in the way". Karl became dismayed by the opposition he faced from the experts, believing there was a conspiracy to keep every animal from extinction, and thus ended the feature. At the beginning and end of the feature, the theme tune to Michael Parkinson's chat show was played.
White Van Karl
At the time, The Sun newspaper ran a feature called 'White Van Man' whereby questions on the stories of that week were put to white van drivers across the country, just to gain an insight into the views and opinions of 'the common man'. Stephen Merchant posed the same questions to Karl, to find out more about him. The best aspect of this was Karl's bizarre beliefs and theories. Gervais and Merchant also found humour in the very mundane answers the White Van Man of the week would give (the most famous of these being a comment about Sainsbury's bringing in square tins: 'That should be interesting for meatballs'). This feature was mainly used as a way to introduce new listeners to the mind of Karl Pilkington and was only used during the earlier days of the XFM shows.

XFM Special One Off Podcast

While Gervais and Merchant were broadcasting the XFM radio shows between 2001 and 2005, they also recorded a special one-off podcast in 2004. This might have had some influence in their decision to change the format of their broadcasting the following year, with their last show for XFM being aired on 2 July 2005, after which they chose to switch from radio to podcasting.

Bonus Hour Podcast
On 25 November 2007, Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington released a special bonus podcast for free. In it Ricky and Steve continued to probe Karl with questions from Inside the Actors Studio. Originally released as an extra on the audio CD release of series one, it was later made available free through iTunes.
NME Test Broadcast

Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington recorded a two-hour radio show as part of the test transmissions for the new radio station NME Radio. The episode aired on Monday 9 June 2008, and also featured music (edited out from this file).

Track listing

01 Do We Need 'Em  (2003)
02 White Van Karl  (2004)
03 XFM Special One Off Podcast  (2004)

04 FAME  (2007)
05 Bonus Hour  (2007)
06 NME Test Broadcast  (2008)

 

Dana Gillespie - Goin' Crazy (1974)

It's another case of great minds thinking alike, as no sooner had I prepared this post than Paul over at albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com posted an album of Gillespie's 60's singles, and there was me thinking that she was an artist who has been unjustly ignored by most people, only to find that she has at least two fans. 
Dana Gillespie was born Richenda Antoinette de Winterstein Gillespie on 30 March 1949, and has had a multi-faceted career, as a singer, songwriter, and stage and film actress, and she was even British Junior Water Skiing Champion in 1962. She recorded initially in the folk genre in the mid-60's, releasing two albums in 1968 and 1969, as well as some more pop-orientated singles as far back as 1965 (see Paul's blog). In the late 60's she became friendly with David Bowie, and he wrote the song 'Andy Warhol' especially for her. Both artists recorded versions of it, and Gillespie's version, along with four other songs from her and seven from Bowie, were pressed up on a promo album of just 500 copies, so that Bowie's manager Tony Defires could try to secure a record deal for either artist, who were both signed to his ManiMan agency. All the songs from the promo later appeared on Bowie's 'Hunky Dory' or Gillespie's 'Weren't Born A Man' albums, with her re-recording of 'Andy Warhol' featuring Mick Ronson on guitar. At the same time as recording the album, she was also appearing as Mary Magdalene in the first London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's 'Jesus Christ Superstar', which opened at the Palace Theatre in 1972, and she has continued to mix acting and singing throughout her career. In 1973 she formed a short-lived group called Libido, with Tony Ashton and Ray Dyke, later of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, and Mick Liber, who had recorded for John Peel's Dandelion label as a member of Python Lee Jackson. This band released one single, the b-side of which was a version of Gillepsie's 'Weren't Born A Man'. While her own 'Weren't Born A Man' album was a mixture of pop and soul, mostly written or co-written by Gillespie, later recordings shifted more towards a blues style, with the follow-up 'Ain’t Gonna Play No Second Fiddle' being very much in this style. Preparations were made for a third album in 1974, and demos were produced, but nothing ever came of it after MainMan collapsed, and they remained unreleased until they surfaced on a recent retrospective from her. In fact, she didn't release another album for eight years, until 'Blue Job' came out in 1982, but from then on the floodgates opened, and she has issued over 20 more blues albums since then. During the 1980's Gillespie was a member of the Austrian Mojo Blues Band, and is organiser of the annual Blues festival at Basil's Bar on Mustique in the Caribbean, now in its eighteenth year. In later years she became a radio presenter, living in Austria and hosting record shows on Vienna's Blue Danube Radio (the English-language service of the ORF) for 11 years. If you mention her name these days, and anyone has actually heard of her, it's always due to the Bowie connection, but I hope that this collection of rarities will prove that there’s more to her than just being mates with Bowie.
  

Track listing

01 Hold On To Your Fire (single by Libido 1973)
02 Lavender Hill (alternative version with Mick Ronson 1971)
03 Man Size Job (outtake 1974)
04 Never Knew (alternative version with Mick Ronson 1971)
05 Celandine's Blues (from the London Cast recording of 'Mardi Gras - A Musical' 1976)
06 Do The Spin (demo 1974)
07 Gone At The Game (demo 1974)
08 Say Goodbye To The Night (demo 1974)
09 Goin' Crazy With The Blues (demo 1974)
10 Stoke The Engine (demo 1974)

Bobbie Gentry - Gentrification (1969)

Bobbie Lee Gentry (born Roberta Lee Streeter on July 27, 1942) is one of the first female artists to compose and produce her own material, most noticeably with her 1967 Southern Gothic narrative 'Ode To Billie Joe' which spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and earned her Grammy awards for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1968. She was born in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, and after her parents divorced and her mother moved to California, she was raised on a farm in Chickasaw County by her paternal grandparents. After her grandmother traded one of the family's milk cows for a neighbor's piano, Gentry composed her first song, 'My Dog Sergeant Is a Good Dog', at the age of seven. After graduating from high school, she moved to Los Angeles to enter UCLA as a philosophy major, and supported herself with clerical jobs, and occasionally performing at nightclubs. She transferred to the Los Angeles Conservatory Of Music, where she took classes in composition, music theory and arranging, and while attending a Jody Reynolds concert in Palm Springs in 1966, Gentry asked if she could sit in on one of Reynold's recording sessions, which led to an invitation to sing on two duets with Reynolds. 'Stranger In The Mirror'/'Requiem for Love' was released as a single on Titan Records in 1966, but failed to chart. Her original ambition for a career in the music industry was to write songs to sell to other artists, and she only sang on the demo of 'Ode to Billie Joe' as it was cheaper than hiring someone to sing it. On hearing her demo of 'Mississippi Delta', Capitol Records signed her to the label in 1967, and her demo was to be issued as her first single, but after hearing 'Ode To Billie Joe' with a string section dubbed onto it, it was decided that this would be the A-side. The single was released on 10 July 1967, and it still her best-known song. Following the single's success, the rest of her first album was quickly assembled from the 12 demos Gentry recorded, with overdubs completed in a matter of days. The result was a unique combination of blues, folk and jazz elements, that furthered Gentry's recollections of her home, and felt more like a concept album than a hastily assembled collection of songs. 

In February 1968, Gentry took part in the Italian Song Festival competition in Sanremo, as one of two performers of the song 'La Siepe', and after her version placed ninth, it was released as a single by Capitol. Gentry's second album, 'The Delta Sweete', was released in February 1968, and was a definite step forward from her debut in its musical ambition. It was a concept album , drawing inspiration from Gentry's Mississippi delta roots, and as well as writing most of the songs, she also played almost every instrument on the album, including piano, guitar, banjo, bass and vibes. Although the album failed to match the success of its predecessor, only reaching number 132 on the Billboard 200, critics have since hailed it as one of the unsung masterpieces of the 1960's. Gentry's third album 'Local Gentry' was issued six months later, but failed to appear on any of the Billboard album charts, and just one month later, he third album of 1968 appeared, with the release of a duets record with label-mate Glen Campbell. This album did chart, peaking at number 11 on the Billboard Top LP's chart, and earned Gentry and Campbell the Academy Of Country Music award for Album of the Year, and Gentry was also nominated for Top Female Vocalist. Her fifth album, 'Touch 'Em With Love', was released in July 1969, and for the first time in her career it featured more cover versions than original material, with only two of the ten songs penned by Gentry. 

1970's 'Fancy' followed this trend, with only the title track being a Gentry original, but for the following year's 'Patchwork' album she wrote all the songs, producing a collection of short stories in song, ranging from country to pop to blues, all stitched together with cinematic interludes to make a cohesive whole. Around the time that 'Patchwork' was released, the entire executive board that had been at Capitol throughout Gentry's career was fired, and a major restructuring at Capitol took place, resulting in the artist roster being slashed from 247 to 81, and although Gentry remained at the label, negotiations stalled over the renewal terms of her contract, as all of her supporters on the board had been fired. Since she was unwilling to release an album with Capitol on the terms offered, she found herself unable to issue an album on another label, meaning she was left with no choice but to wait out the remaining option period of her contract. 'Patchwork' would turn out to be her final record, with a proposed comeback album in 1977 coming to nothing following the failure of the first single from the sessions, 'Steal Away', to make an impact on the charts, and the album being shelved. The 2018 retrospective collection 'The Girl From Chickasaw County' unearthed a number of previously unreleased demos and studio recordings, and so for this post I've picked what I consider to be the best of them, and added in that rare 1966 single, to give an alternative look at the career of one of the first, and the best, female singer/songwriters of the 60's.   

Track listing

01 Stranger In The Mirror (single as Jody And Bobbie with Jody Reynolds 1966)

02 Requiem For Love (b-side of 'Stranger In The Mirror')

03 I Didn't Know (demo 1968) 

04 Show-Off (previously unreleased 1967)

05 La Siepe (Italian single 1968)

06 La Citta E' Grande (b-side of 'La Siepe')

07 Morning To Midnight (demo 1968)

08 Seventh Son (previously unreleased 1968)

09 Cotton Candy Sandman (demo 1968)

10 Supper Time (previously unreleased 1968)

11 Hushabye Mountain (b-side of 'The Fool On The Hill' 1968)

12 Skip A-Long Sam (previously unreleased 1968)

13 Stormy (previously unreleased 1969)

14 Conspiracy Of Homer Jones (previously unreleased 1968)

15 Windows Of The World (previously unreleased 1969)

16 Here's That Rainy Day (previously unreleased 1969)

17 Spinning Wheel (previously unreleased 1969)

18 Since I Fell For You (previously unreleased 1969)

19 More Today Than Yesterday (previously unreleased 1969)

Ricky Gervais / Stephen Merchant / Karl Pilkington - The Radio 2 Shows (2005)

In 2005 Gervais, Merchant and Pilkington were given the opportunity to broadcast two two-hour long specials on Radio 2, during the 2005 holiday season. The first show aired on Christmas Eve and the second was broadcast on New Year's Eve, and as well as chatting they also played music, which has been edited out of these files.

Track listing

01 The Radio 2 Christmas Special   (24/12/2005)
02 The Radio 2 New Years Special  (31/12/2005)