Covered: Hank Williams, Volume 1: 1954-1995

It's time for more from my "Covered" series, highlighting widely covered songwriters. This one celebrates the music of Hank Williams, who has been called "the father of country music." I've found enough for two albums. Here's the first one.

There's no doubt that Williams was a pivotal musical figure. Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him number 74 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time, which is saying a lot, considering that magazine doesn't pay much attention to country music. Encyclopedia Britannica called him "country music's first superstar" and an "immensely talented songwriter and an impassioned vocalist." AllMusic.com said that he "established the rules for all the country performers who followed him and, in the process, much of popular music."

So far with this "Covered" series, I've generally selected songwriters from the rock and roll era, meaning 1955 and after. But Williams was from earlier. His recording lasted from 1947 to 1953. He died in 1953 at only the age of 29. His cause of death is controversial, but it seems he died of a heart attack caused by misuse of drugs and alcohol. 

I eventually want to go back and make "Covered" albums of songwriter greats like him from earlier eras. However, in Williams' case, his music often doesn't appeal to those who don't like country music. So instead of just going with the big hit versions of his songs, I made a concerted effort to pick covers that I liked but also often weren't country versions, or at least weren't hard-core country versions. So if you're not a big country music fan, you might still want to give this a try. There are some country versions early on, but less so as this album goes on, and even less so on the second volume. 

This album starts in 1954 and proceeds chronologically after that, so everything from here is after his death. In fact, Williams had a lot of success with people covering his songs during his life, but those generally are the hard core country type songs I've tried to avoid here. A pivotal cover was "Cold, Cold Heart" by Tony Bennett in 1951. Bennett was reluctantly convinced to cover it, doing it in a pop style. It was a Number One hit on the U.S. singles chart. This caused people in the music business to start to realize that Williams' songs could be popular outside of just the country music charts, and many covers followed. However, I didn't include Bennett's version or many other hit cover versions from that time period because I don't think they've dated well. But some songs from the time, including "Cold, Cold Heart," will appear on the second volume, done in more modern styles.

By the way, I have to say that I was surprised to find out that Williams co-wrote "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)." I had assumed that was a traditional New Orleans / Cajun song going way back. But Williams wrote it with Moon Mulligan, another country star, in 1952, basing the melody on a little-known traditional love song called "Grand Texas." His version was a massive hit, spending 14 weeks at Number One on the U.S. country singles chart. It also is his most covered song, with at least 500 recorded versions. Good luck going to New Orleans and not hearing it played a bunch of times!

Here's the Wikipedia entry about Williams, if you want to know more:

Hank Williams - Wikipedia 

This album is 49 minutes long. 

01 There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight (Tony Bennett)
02 Long Gone Lonesome Blues (Marty Robbins)
03 Jambalaya [On the Bayou] (Brenda Lee)
04 Moanin' the Blues (Marty Robbins)
05 Hey, Good Lookin' (Ray Charles)
06 Weary Blues from Waitin' (Vince Martin & Fred Neil)
07 Your Cheatin' Heart (Ray Charles)
08 Kaw-Liga (Charley Pride)
09 Settin' the Woods on Fire (Little Richard)
10 I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry (Al Green)
11 Move It on Over (George Thorogood)
12 You Win Again (Rolling Stones)
13 Why Don't You Love Me like You Used to Do (Elvis Costello & the Attractions)
14 I Saw the Light (Etta James)
15 Honky Tonk Blues (Huey Lewis & the News)
16 Mind Your Own Business (Saffire, the Uppity Blues Women)
17 Honky Tonkin' (The The)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CZJhCXUX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/DLOTfNuLcZ1oCt7/file

I don't know what year the photo is from. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Covered: Lee Hazlewood, Volume 1: 1956-1967

It's time to highlight another talented songwriter in my Covered series. This time, it's Lee Hazlewood. He's best known for writing hit songs for Nancy Sinatra, especially the huge hit "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'." But he did a lot more than that. He had a quirky style with songwriting, production, and his own singing so unique that he practically created his own musical genre. The intro paragraph to his Wikipedia entry states: "His collaborations with Sinatra as well as his solo output in the late 1960s and early 1970s have been praised as an essential contribution to a sound often described as 'cowboy psychedelia' or 'saccharine underground.'" I found enough interesting cover versions of his songs for two volumes.

Hazlewood had an unusual career, just like how he had an unusual sound. It seems he marched to the beat of his own drummer. Sometimes that meant big hits, sometimes obscure records. 

He was born in 1929, and mostly grew up in Texas. After serving in the military during the Korean War in the early 1950s, he began working as a DJ. This gave him a foot in the door into the music business. He soon started producing and well as selling songs he'd written. His first big hit was "The Fool" by Sanford Clark in 1956. After that, he had the most success in the late 1950s and early 1960s writing songs for guitarist Duane Eddy. His biggest success was with "Rebel-'Rouser," a Top Ten hit in the U.S. in 1958 and a true classic. He wrote a whole series of hits for Eddy, most (but not all) of them guitar-based instrumentals. I only included a few of those here because, in my opinion, most of them are similar to each other and don't really stand out.

Hazlewood's hits for Duane Eddy petered out by the end of 1963, probably due to a change in the public's musical tastes. That was right when the Beatles and the British Invasion hit it big. Hazlewood was so disappointed in the change that he took a break from the music business for most of 1964. 

But in 1965, his career resumed when he got a chance to work with Nancy Sinatra. She was both very beautiful and a talented singer. Plus she was the daughter of music legend Frank Sinatra. However, she'd had a series of nothing but failed singles from 1961 to 1965, and was in danger of being dropped from her record label. Then she began working with Hazlewood. He drastically changed her sound, including having her sing in a lower register, and with a more sultry style. Their first single in 1965 didn't do that well. But their second one was "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'," which went to Number One in the U.S. singles charts and instantly turned Sinatra into a big star. That led to a whole series of hit songs he for Sinatra through the end of the 1960s.

The Sinatra collaboration turned Hazlewood into a minor star as well. That's because not only did he write and produce all her hits, he sang on some hit duets with her as well. It was a very odd combination, since Hazlewood had a low, gruff voice that typically wasn't found on hit records. But the clash with Sinatra's conventionally pretty voice somehow worked, in large part due to Hazlewood's songwriting and production.

The account of his career will continue with the second volume. Note that, on this volume, I generally stuck with the hit versions, even though that means a big cluster of Nancy Sinatra songs in the second half. Those versions are so distinctive and definitive that it seemed wrong to use different ones.

This album is 48 minutes long. 

01 The Fool (Sanford Clark)
02 Snake Eyed Mama (Don Cole with Al Casey)
03 Don't Look Now, but I've Got the Blues (B.B. King)
04 Rebel-'Rouser (Duane Eddy)
05 The Girl on Death Row (Lee Hazlewood with Duane Eddy & His Orchestra)
06 Shazam (Duane Eddy)
07 Guitars, Guitars, Guitars (Al Casey with the K-C-Ettes)
08 [Dance With] The Guitar Man (Duane Eddy)
09 Baja (Astronauts)
10 These Boots Are Made for Walkin' (Nancy Sinatra)
11 Friday's Child (Nancy Sinatra)
12 Need All the Help I Can Get (Suzi Jane Hokom)
13 How Does That Grab You, Darlin' (Nancy Sinatra)
14 Sugar Town (Nancy Sinatra)
15 Guitar on My Mind (Duane & Miriam Eddy)
16 Sand (Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood)
17 Summer Wine (Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood)
18 The Last of the Secret Agents (Nancy Sinatra)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HjpmSyrP

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/J50fzMok1feovMx/file

I had a hard time finding good color images of Hazlewood when he was young, so I had to resort using an album cover photo. The cover image was taken from a 1960 album called "Something Special."

Covered: John D. Loudermilk: 1956-2002

Here's another album for my "Covered" series, highlighting the talents of songwriters who got covered a lot. This one is for John D. Loudermilk.

Loudermilk is probably best known for three big hits: "Indian Reservation," a Number One hit in the U.S. for Paul Revere and the Raiders in 1971, "Ebony Eyes," a Number One hit in Britain for the Everly Brothers in 1961, and "Tobacco Road." That last one wasn't as big of a hit, although the Nashville Teens did have a hit with it in 1964. But its one of those songs lots of musical acts love to cover. Wikipedia says it "has since become a standard across several musical genres." 

However, he wrote many more hits than just those three, and his songs have been widely covered. He had a reputation for writing songs that were a little bit quirky and different from the usual.

Loudermilk was born in 1934, and grew up in a musical environment in North Carolina. In fact, two of his cousins made up the Louvin Brothers, a very famous country music duo. The first big hit of one of his songs, "A Rose and a Baby Ruth," happened in 1956, while he was 21 years old and still going to college. After that, he tried having his own career as a performing musician, and he ended up releasing many singles and albums. However, he only saw modest success that way. He had two songs that barely made it into the Top Forty in the U.S., "Sittin' in the Balcony" in 1957, and "Language of Love" in 1961, and some smaller hits. He found much more success having other musical acts record his songs. 

Most of his successes came in the late 1950s and all through the 1960s. He wrote many hits for many different musical acts. This album includes most of his best known songs, but there are plenty more that I didn't include. For instance, he wrote lots of country hits, and I was more selective with those since I'm not such a big country fan. 

Most of the songs here are the original hit versions, if they were hits. I've included a couple of lesser known songs performed by Loudermilk himself, "Road Hog" and "The Jones'," to show some of the diversity of his songwriting talent. The last really big hit he had was "Indian Reservation" in 1971. The four songs that come after than on this album are covers of songs that generally were first released a lot earlier.

It seems he retired from songwriting in the 1970s, and apparently was able to live on royalty checks. That freed him up to pursue passion projects, and he had many. For instance, in the 1990s, he devoted himself to traveling, studying ethnomusicology, chasing hurricanes, and doing research on Native American burial mounds! 

Here's the Wikipedia entry about him, if you want to know more:

John D. Loudermilk - Wikipedia 

But here's a better article that sums up his career:

LifeNotes: Songwriting Great John D. Loudermilk Passes - MusicRow.com 

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 A Rose and a Baby Ruth (George Hamilton IV)
02 Angela Jones (Johnny Ferguson)
03 Ebony Eyes (Everly Brothers)
04 Road Hog (John D. Loudermilk)
05 [He's My] Dreamboat (Connie Francis)
06 Norman (Sue Thompson)
07 Watch Your Step (Brooks O'Dell)
08 Windy and Warm (Ventures)
09 Abilene (George Hamilton IV)
10 Tobacco Road (Nashville Teens)
11 Bad News (Johnny Cash)
12 This Little Bird (Marianne Faithfull)
13 I Wanna Live (Glen Campbell)
14 The Jones' (John D. Loudermilk)
15 Indian Reservation [The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian] (Paul Revere & the Raiders)
16 Break My Mind (Wreckless Eric)
17 You Call It Joggin' [I Call It Runnin' Around] (Mose Allison)
18 Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye (Maria McKee)
19 Turn Me On (Norah Jones)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/h2wgDDB2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Y1UEO9WQYOuk47p/file

There are very few color photos of Loudermilk from when he was young. So I had to resort to using the cover photo from the album "Blue Train." I don't know when the photo was taken because it's an archival album.

Covered: Aaron Schroeder: 1956-1978

Until recently, I had never heard of Aaron Schroeder. I'll bet that's the same for you. But he was the songwriter behind a lot of classic hits, especially for Elvis Presley, so here's a "Covered" album about him.

Aaron Schroeder was born in New York City in 1926. Once he became an adult, he went straight into songwriting. It's said that he wrote more than 1,500 songs, with about 500 of them recorded by professional musicians. 

He got an early connection with Elvis Presley, writing songs for him in 1956, a year after Presley became a star. He went on to write 16 songs done by him. That's the second most of anybody, behind only the great songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. (Check out the Covered albums I made for them.) He wrote or co-wrote no less than five Number One songs for Presley, more than anybody: "I Got Stung," "A Big Hunk o' Love," "Stuck on You," "It's Now or Never," and "Good Luck Charm." (Although note that "I Got Stung" was only Number One in Britain, not the U.S.) Unfortunately, he broke with Presley in 1962 due to a dispute about royalty rates. Presley's manager, Tom Parker, was notoriously stingy about paying for good songs.

Undoubtedly, Schroeder's biggest success was "It's Now or Never." That single sold about 20 million copies, making it the seventh best selling single of all time by anybody, as of 2025. The music was based on an Italian song written in the 1800s, "O Sole Mio." Presley heard the Italian version while stationed in Europe as a U.S. soldier. He liked it and wanted to sing an English version. Schroeder co-wrote the English lyrics (which were not a translation of the Italian) with another professional songwriter, Wally Gold, in less than half an hour. 

Schroeder generally co-wrote songs, and Gold was his most frequent collaborator. The two of them also co-wrote "It's My Party," "Good Luck Charm," "It's Now or Never," "Because They're Young," and others. And speaking of "It's My Party" (another Number One hit), Schroeder is not officially credited as a songwriter for that song, but it's well known that he was involved. The story is that both Schroeder and Gold took part, finishing a song started by a freelance songwriter named Seymour Gottlieb. But they were only given one songwriting portion between the two of them, so they flipped a coin for it, and Schroeder lost!

Schroeder's songwriting career declined after the early 1960s. But that's probably because he devoted most of his time to other music business. He started his own record label, Musicor Records. It was only moderately successful, but it did release a series of hits by Gene Pitney. He got even more involved with music publishing. Together with his wife Abby, he helped the music careers of many other performers and composers through their publishing agency, including Barry White, Randy Newman, Al Kooper, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and Jimi Hendrix. 

He did occasionally keep a hand in songwriting well into the 1970s. The three last songs on this album are examples of that. Note by the way that "Love's Theme" was a Number One hit as an instrumental for Love Unlimited in 1974. Schroeder wasn't involved with that, but he wrote the lyrics for a version that group put out on their next album, so that's the version I included here.

It seems Schroeder could be pretty ruthless as a music publisher. Another songwriter I've profiled in this "Covered" series, Tony Macaulay, had a protracted legal battle with Schroeder's publishing company in the early 1970s, claiming the terms of his contract weren't being fully honored. Macaulay won the battle in 1974, in a landmark decision which encouraged other artists to challenge the terms of their contracts. 

Schroeder died in 2009 at the age of 89. 

Here's the Wikipedia entry about Schroeder, which mentions the coin flip story:

Aaron Schroeder - Wikipedia    

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Cincinnati Fireball (Johnny Burnette)
02 Got a Lot o' Livin' to Do (Elvis Presley)
03 My Boy Elvis (Janis Martin)
04 I Got Stung (Elvis Presley)
05 Glad All Over (Carl Perkins)
06 A Big Hunk o' Love (Elvis Presley)
07 Rubber Ball (Bobby Vee)
08 Because They're Young (Duane Eddy)
09 Time and the River (Nat King Cole)
10 Stuck on You (Elvis Presley)
11 It's Now or Never (Elvis Presley)
12 Half Heaven, Half Heartache (Gene Pitney)
13 Good Luck Charm (Elvis Presley)
14 It's My Party (Lesley Gore)
15 Love's Theme (Love Unlimited)
16 Move Me No Mountain (Dionne Warwick)
17 She Can Put Her Shoes Under My Bed [Anytime] (Johnny Duncan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/64nmrvaP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/GRsIF8DWiDTBOT8/file

Aaron Schroeder is such an obscure and forgotten figure that it's lucky I was able to find any photo of him at all. The one I could find (which you can see in his Wikipedia article) was black and white and generally low-res. I colorized it via the Kolorize program. Then I had to do a lot of work with Photoshop and Krea AI to get the half decent result you see here.  

Various Artists - Covered: Fats Domino & Dave Bartholomew, Volume 1: 1949-1989

It's been a long time since the last time I posted something new for my long-standing "Covered" series. But never fear. This series will never die, not as long as I can help it. ;) I enjoy writing songs myself, so I really appreciate talented songwriters. And that's what this series is about, highlighting the songs of the best songwriters through cover versions others have done of their songs.

In most cases in the Covered series so far, the songwriters had most of their hits done by others, such as the team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. But in the case of the songwriting team of Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino had a couple dozen big hits with these songs. Bartholomew also had a solo career, but he just dabbled in that with a small number of records compared to Domino, and didn't have any big hits. However, I wanted to post something from this team, because I get the impression that Domino's songwriting talent isn't well known, compared to say, Chuck Berry from the same era, and Bartholomew's contribution is even less known. I've found enough material for two volumes.

Domino had most of his hits in the 1950s and early 1960s. They were such big hits that I think it took a while before many people decided to make their own versions. So even though this volume begins way early, in 1949, with the songs in chronological order, it quickly moves to the 1970s and after. I didn't include any of Domino's own versions, since the whole point is to highlight these songs through cover versions. However, I did include one song recorded by Bartholomew, since few people have heard his stuff. 

If you want to know more about these two, here are their Wikipedia pages:

Fats Domino - Wikipedia

Dave Bartholomew - Wikipedia 

Domino and Bartholomew had a long and fruitful songwriting collaboration, from Domino's first hit in the late 1940s until 1963, when Domino finally switched record companies. That put him in a different company than Bartholomew and effectively ended their partnership, although it seems they stayed on good terms. That probably was a bad move on Domino's part, since that's when his hits stopped, although the Beatles and the rest of the British Invasion coming the next year probably was a big factor as well. Generally speaking, the songs co-written by both of them were recorded by Domino. But Bartholomew was a producer as well, and he had a number of hits done by others, such as "I Hear You Knocking" and "One Night." Domino died in 2017, and Bartholomew died in 2019.

I'll have more to say in Volume Two. This volume is 44 minutes long.

01 3 x 7 = 21 (Jewel King)
02 Toy Bell (Bees)
03 I'm in Love Again (Fontane Sisters)
04 Shrimp and Gumbo (Dave Bartholomew)
05 I'm Walkin' (Ricky Nelson)
06 The Big Beat (Del Vikings)
07 Witchcraft (Elvis Presley)
08 Let the Four Winds Blow (Searchers)
09 The Land of a Thousand Dances (Wilson Pickett)
10 I Hear You Knocking (Dave Edmunds)
11 Grow Too Old (Bobby Charles)
12 I'm Ready (Band)
13 Sick and Tired [Return of Django] (Neville Grant)
14 Ain't That a Shame (John Lennon)
15 Blue Monday (Cat Stevens)
16 The Fat Man (Robbie Robertson)
17 One Night (Joe Cocker)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17301673/COVRDDOMINBARTH1949-1989Volum1_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Fo5fETaQ

I couldn't find any good photos of Domino and Bartholomew together when they were young (although I did find a good one for Volume 2), so I had to make one from scratch. I took a photo of Domino and another of Bartholomew and put them together. The one of Domino was in color, but it clearly was colorized by someone before I got my hands on it. I adjusted the colors somewhat to hopefully make the colorization less obvious. I took a black and white photo of Bartholomew and colorized it. He's in a grey jacket and Domino is in a blue one.

UPDATE: On September 29, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.

Various Artists - Covered: Willie Dixon, Volume 1: 1954-1966

Next up for the "Covered" series is Willie Dixon. You may not be familiar with him unless you're a blues fan, but he's a musical legend. I would guess that maybe half of all classic blues songs were written by him. And since blues has had such a massive impact on rock and soul music, he's a towering figure for those genres too. Chuck Berry has said of him, "He made me what I am, so far as the basics of my music." And Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones has said, "He is the backbone of post-war blues writing... the absolute." His nickname is "the poet laureate of the blues."

But despite his influence, he isn't as well known as he should be because he wasn't much of a performer. He did play bass on a lot of records, but he didn't sing much, or put out many albums under his own names. Instead, he was mainly content to write for others, most especially blues legends Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.

If you want to know more about him, here's the link to his Wikipedia entry:

Willie Dixon - Wikipedia

I've found enough great songs from him for three albums. I could fill those albums mostly with performances by Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and other blues greats. But since I want to introduce people to his musical legacy who aren't already big blues fans, I've tried to pick versions done by rock artists. In order to help with that, I'm limited myself to only one song for each musical artist for all three of his albums in this series. You'll still find some blues artists on this volume, but less so on the other two. The songs are sorted chronologically, and rock artists began covering him around 1964, which is in the later half of this album, when the Rolling Stones took his "Little Red Rooster" all the way to number one on the British charts.

This album is slightly longer than 45 minutes, and the other two volumes have similar lengths.

01 I'm Ready (Muddy Waters)
02 My Babe (Little Walter)
03 Pretty Thing (Bo Diddley)
04 I Don't Care Who Knows (Harrold Burrage)
05 I Cry and Sing the Blues (Buddy Guy)
06 Lovin' Up a Storm (Jerry Lee Lewis)
07 I Can't Hold Out (Elmore James)
08 For My Baby (Brook Benton)
09 Three Hundred Pounds of Joy (Howlin' Wolf)
10 Little Red Rooster (Rolling Stones)
11 Just like I Treat You (Rod Stewart & Long John Baldry & the Hoochie Coochie Men)
12 Meet Me in the Bottom (Everly Brothers)
13 Seventh Son (Johnny Rivers)
14 You Need Love [You Need Loving] (Small Faces)
15 Spoonful (Cream)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17180205/COVRDWilliDxon1954-1966Volum1_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9CESsGd6

I have no idea what year this photo of Willie Dixon is from. But pretty much all of the other photos I've found him show him at least partially bald, so I figure he's fairly young here. The original of this photo was in black and white, but I colorized it. His skin is fairly dark in the (actual color) photo I've chosen for the third volume in this series, so I darkened his skin some on this one to better match that one. 

UPDATE: On September 29, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.

Various Artists - Covered: Boudleaux Bryant & Felice Bryant: 1955-2004

The "Covered" series is back again. I thought I was done with all the great songwriters with careers that began before the 1960s, but boy was I wrong. Recently, I stumbled across a Rolling Stone Magazine list of who they consider the top 100 songwriters of all time. I disagree with some of their choices, but the list made me recall some songwriters I'd overlooked.

Here's one: Boudleaux Bryant & Felice Bryant. They were a husband and wife team all the way. They met in 1945, when they were young, and married right away. They stayed married Boudleaux passed away in 1987. Felice Bryant lived until 2003. There are some occasional examples where one of them wrote a song without crediting the other, but those are rare.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on them. I find it interesting that they're so closely linked to each other that there's just one entry for their partnership:

Felice and Boudleaux Bryant - Wikipedia

The Bryants didn't write as many songs I deemed worthy of inclusion as some others. For instance, I've posted six albums of songs by Bacharach and David, and seven albums of Goffin and King. But some of the songs they wrote are all time classics. For instance, Rolling Stone Magazine includes three of their songs in their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time: "Bye Bye Love," "Wake Up, Little Susie," and "All I Have to Do Is Dream."

Many of the songs they wrote were country songs. I can only take country in limited doses, and I'm sure others feel the same. So in deciding which songs to include, and which versions, I've focused on their more widely accessible material, often done by non-country artists. 

At first, I wasn't going to make a Covered album for them, because they're so closely associated with the Everly Brothers. One could make an excellent album just of the hits the Everly Brothers had that were written by the Bryants. But I decided there were a good number of their songs done for others, plus I could select alternate versions so this didn't basically turn into an Everly Brothers greatest hits of sorts. I tried hard not to have more than one song by any one artist. I mostly succeeded, although in the end I went with two by the Everly Brothers. I included their version of "Bye Bye Love" because it's so iconic, and there isn't a really famous version done by someone else. I also included their version of "Problems" because there were almost no cover versions of it I could find.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Nightmare (Jack Turner)
02 How's the World Treating You (Elvis Presley)
03 Bye Bye Love (Everly Brothers)
04 Problems (Everly Brothers)
05 Raining in My Heart (Buddy Holly & the Crickets)
06 Let's Think about Living (Bob Luman)
07 Mexico (Bob Moore & His Orchestra)
08 So How Come [No One Loves Me] (Beatles)
09 Some Sweet Day (Fairport Convention)
10 All I Have to Do is Dream (Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell)
11 Rocky Top (Laurie Anderson)
12 Take a Message to Mary (Bob Dylan)
13 Brand New Heartache (Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris)
14 Love Hurts (Nazareth)
15 Devoted to You (James Taylor & Carly Simon)
16 Poor Jenny (Rockpile)
17 Wake Up Little Susie (Simon & Garfunkel)
18 Bird Dog (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)
19 Like Strangers (Emmylou Harris)
20 Living with the Shades Pulled Down (George Thorogood & the Destroyers)
21 Sleepless Nights (Norah Jones) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/17180160/COVERDBoudlxBryntFelceBrynt_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MtwpaKtJ

For the album cover, I couldn't find a really good color photo of the Bryants together, so I took a black and white one and colorized it. I don't know what year it's from, but based on their appearance it has to be when they were young. In the original photo, Boudleaux was considerably higher up than Felice - he must have been a tall guy. I moved her up and closer to him so I could prominently feature their faces.

UPDATE: On September 29, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.

Various Artists - Covered: Otis Blackwell: 1955-1983

Who the heck is Otis Blackwell, you ask? He's not exactly a household name. But he's written some of the greatest songs of all time, including "Don't Be Cruel," "Return to Sender," "Fever," and "Great Balls of Fire." I'm continuing my "Covered" series with my personal favorites of the songs he wrote.

I don't want to recount his entire life story, so here's the Wikipedia link on him if you want to learn more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Blackwell

I've only made one album's worth of songs from him because although he wrote many songs over the years, in my opinion only a relatively small number were special. But boy were they special! It's estimated that over 150 million records sold have his name in the songwriting credits.

Blackwell tried being a professional singer before turning all of his attention to songwriting. The first song here is sung (and written) by him. He put out a bunch of singles from 1953 to 1958, but he had very little success despite being a good singer. In fact, he recorded demos for the songs Elvis Presley turned into hits. On a rare later song from 1970, "It's All Over Me," you can see he sounds very Elvis-esque.

As with the case with many other songwriting who found success in the 1950s, that success came to a drastic half around 1964, when the Beatles and Bob Dylan drastically changed the music industry. It seems he had almost no new songs after about that time, though I've included one, "Back Trail," that was first recorded by him in 1977.

As a general rule for this Covered series, I don't like to include two versions of the same song. But I couldn't resist in this case. I put a version of "Breathless" by X at the very end of the album even though I included the original version by Jerry Lee Lewis, because I love the X version so very much.

Blackwell died in 2002 after a long life. I hope putting this album together and presenting it here will help him get a tiny bit more recognition, which he very much deserves.

This album is 48 minutes long.

UPDATE: On May 20, 2025, I added a song, "My Pidgeon's Gone." I found it while investigating another Black songwriter from this era, Jesse Stone. Though written by Blackwell (under an alias), it's actually performed by Stone under an alias, Charles Calhoun.

01 Let the Daddy Hold You (Otis Blackwell)
02 Don't Be Cruel (Elvis Presley)
03 My Pidgeon's Gone (Charles Calhoun [Jesse Stone])
04 Paralyzed (Elvis Presley)
05 Great Balls of Fire (Jerry Lee Lewis)
06 All Shook Up (Elvis Presley)
07 Fever (Peggy Lee)
08 Breathless (Jerry Lee Lewis)
09 Hey Little Girl (Dee Clark)
10 Please Mister Mayor (Roy Clark)
11 Let's Talk about Us (Jerry Lee Lewis)
12 Brace Yourself (Ben E. King)
13 Handy Man (Jimmy Jones)
14 Livin' Lovin' Wreck (Jerry Lee Lewis)
15 Return to Sender (Elvis Presley)
16 Home in Your Heart (Solomon Burke)
17 Daddy Rolling Stone (Who)
18 It's All Over Me (Otis Blackwell)
19 Back Trail (Lonnie Brooks)
20 Breathless (X)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/y6e8L9Mg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/cGlgWtliw8h7Fpl/file

This is the third songwriter or songwriter team I've deal with so far in this series. As with the other two, I've had a heck of a time finding any color photos, unless they're from much later in life. But I'm really happy with this pic used for the cover art, because it shows Blackwell sitting at the piano in the process of writing a song.

Note that, months later, I figured out how to colorize the pic, and did so.

Various Artists - Covered: Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman, Volume 1: 1950-1962

A few days ago, I posted my first "Covered" series, which is made of three albums of songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. I plan to post a bunch more of these to highlight the works of great songwriters. Here's the next one.

I don't think the songwriting team of Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman is as famous as Leiber and Stoller. But I'd argue they were just as commercially successful and just as talented. I don't want to go into great detail about their personal histories, since these write-ups I write are probably too wordy already. Here are the relevant Wikipedia entries:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_Pomus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mort_Shuman

But I will say they were unusually colorful characters, especially Pomus. There's a fascinating documentary film about his life called "A.k.a. Doc Pomus," which I recommend you watch. He had an extremely eventful and interesting life. *By the way, both he and Shuman died in 1991.)

Pomus was hit with polio when a child, and it afflicted him the rest of his life to the point that he spent most of his life in a wheelchair. He also was a white Jewish guy. Yet as soon as he became an adult, he started a career as a blues singer. He wasn't that good a singer, to be honest, but he was able to make a modest living out of it doing concerts, probably due to the novelty factor of being a white Jewish guy singing the blues, and handicapped to boot. I have two songs here from his solo career, which petered out after a few years.

By about 1956, he switched his musical efforts to songwriting. He'd had some success with that already, especially the song "Chains of Love," which was a hit for Big Joe Turner. (Note that he's not credited for writing it through, because he sold his songwriting share for a small amount of money.) Starting around 1957, he began having a lot more success.

Around 1958, Pomus met Shuman through a family connection. Pomus was in his thirties and Shuman was only 18 and had no songwriting experience at all. But Pomus saw something in him, and figured it would be good to get a teenager's perspective since his songs were mainly aimed at teenagers. Shuman quickly learned the art of songwriting and they became a very successful team. Typically, Pomus wrote the lyrics and Shuman wrote the melody. But this wasn't always the case. This can be seen by the fact that both had hits writing songs all by themselves as well.

I've chosen the songs for this series mainly because I like listening to them. But I also have tried to include all the significant hits. Luckily, the hits are usually the best songs, so it's typically easy to include them.

For this album, the only major hit I'm missing is "Young Blood," a hit for the Coasters in 1957. The reason I didn't include it is because Pomus wrote it with none other than Leiber and Stoller, before he began working with Shuman, and I've included the Coasters version in my Leiber and Stoller collection. Instead, I'm including a different version of "Young Blood" here, but it goes on a later album. (Bad Company had a hit with the song in 1976.)

I've made three albums of Pomus and/or Shuman songs. Each one of them is about 45 to 50 minutes long.

01 Send for the Doctor (Doc Pomus)
02 Chains of Love (Big Joe Turner)
03 Heartlessly (Doc Pomus)
04 Lonely Avenue (Ray Charles)
05 Boogie Woogie Country Girl (Big Joe Turner)
06 Love Roller Coaster (Big Joe Turner)
07 A Teenager in Love (Dion & the Belmonts)
08 Hushabye (Mystics)
09 Turn Me Loose (Fabian)
10 A Mess of Blues (Elvis Presley)
11 Save the Last Dance for Me (Drifters)
12 This Magic Moment (Drifters)
13 Surrender (Elvis Presley)
14 I Count the Tears (Drifters)
15 [Marie's The Name] His Latest Flame (Elvis Presley)
16 Young Boy Blues (Ben E. King)
17 Little Sister (Elvis Presley)
18 First Taste of Love (Ben E. King)
19 Gonna Get Back Home Somehow (Elvis Presley)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17181041/COVRDPomsShumn1950-1962Volum1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xvouYk3A

I suspect the reason more people don't know about Pomus and Shuman is because they kept a very low public profile. One result of that is that I had a hard time finding any photos of them together. All the photos I could find are black in white. So I've colorized them to help distinguish them from each other. I'm not sure what year this photo was taken, but I'd guess it's from around 1960, give or take a couple of years.

UPDATE: On September 30, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.

Various Artists - Covered: Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller, Volume 1: 1952-1958

So far with this blog, I'm been prioritizing posting stray tracks compilation albums for individual artists, since those usually can't be found elsewhere. But there are other things I want to post, and one major category is various artists compilations. So far, I've posted a little bit of that, especially my series of "Nuggets" compilations sorted by country. I still plan on posting the US and Britain compilations in that series, but I have to figure out how to organize it into manageable pieces. In the meantime, I'm going to start this new series, which I call "Covered."

In my opinion, songwriters are drastically underappreciated. I believe that, in the long run, the quality of the song matters more than the performance. But of course the performer gets nearly all the fame and glory, in the same way that movie stars are usually much better known than directors, producers, or screenwriters. In this series, I want to highlight some of the greatest songwriters, or songwriting teams, of all time. Some in this series, such as Carole King or Smokey Robinson, have been major performing stars as well, but I plan on looking exclusively at songs performed by others.

Sometimes, there have been various artists collections along these lines. For instance, there have been a couple of pretty good box sets dealing with the music of Burt Bacharach and Hal David. But even with the best official efforts, there are licensing problems that mean key songs are left out. On the flip side, there usually are many songs included that aren't that good. I'm making exactly what pleases me. I'm trying to include all the big hits, but if there's one I don't like, I'll probably resort to using a version of that song by someone else, or maybe not include it at all. And there usually are rarities that I do like and weren't hits at all.

The first in this series is the team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, because their success goes way back to the early 1950s. I'm not going to recount their story. If you don't know who they are, check out their Wikipedia entry as a starting point to learn more:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Leiber_and_Mike_Stoller

In short, they wrote over 70 hits, mostly in the 1950s and 1960s, and are undoubtedly one of the best songwriting teams of all time. They produced a great number of hits as well, and ran their own record company. They especially fed a lot of hits to the Coasters and to Elvis Presley. I've usually selected the original hit, but sometimes I went with an alternate, especially because I didn't want to overload this with Coasters and Elvis performances. So, for instance, I went with Big Mama Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" instead of Presley's. Also, my rule is to only include one version of a particular song, even if two or more artists had big hits with it.

As I mentioned above, I try to include the hits, but not if I don't like them. For this album, probably the only controversial choice is that I don't like "Loving You" by Presley. I find it slow, it a boring and overdone manner. But it was a huge hit. So I found a rare fast version that I like much better, and I've included that instead.

I've broken up this collection into three albums of about 50 minutes of music each. This is the first. For all albums in this "Covered" series, the songs are ordered chronologically by year. But I don't go into enough detail to figure out the release order within each year.

01 Hard Times (Charles Brown)
02 Nosey Joe (Bull Moose Jackson)
03 Hound Dog (Big Mama Thornton)
04 Riot in Cell Block No. 9 (Robins)
05 I Smell a Rat (Big Mama Thornton)
06 Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots (Cheers)
07 Down in Mexico (Coasters)
08 Love Me (Elvis Presley)
09 Jailhouse Rock (Elvis Presley)
10 Fools Fall in Love (Drifters)
11 [You're So Square] Baby I Don't Care (Elvis Presley)
12 Lucky Lips (Ruth Brown)
13 Loving You [Fast Version] (Elvis Presley)
14 Santa Claus Is Back in Town (Elvis Presley)
15 Young Blood (Coasters)
16 Treat Me Nice (Elvis Presley)
17 Framed (Ritchie Valens)
18 Trouble (Elvis Presley)
19 King Creole (Elvis Presley)
20 Yakety Yak (Coasters)
21 Don't (Elvis Presley)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17180184/COVRDLeibStllr1952-1958Volum1_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kVpYpkqc

As usual, I don't like using black and white photos for the cover art. But I couldn't find any color photos of Leiber and Stoller from the 1950s, so I colorized this one. I believe it dates from 1959. Leiber is on the left.

UPDATE: On September 29, 2024, I upgraded the photo with the use of the Krea AI program.