Covered: Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart: 1959-1987

Next up for my Covered series highlighting the careers of great songwriters is the duo of Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, usually just known as Boyce and Hart. These guys definitely knew how to write catchy songs. They were sometimes successful performing their own music, including having one big hit, but mostly they wrote songs for others.

Boyce was the first to have songwriting success. In 1959, when he was about 20 years old, he wrote the song "Be My Guest," and wanted rock star Fats Domino to sing it. He waited hours outside of Domino's hotel room, and got him to promise to listen to a demo of the song, which Domino actually did. It was a big hit later that year, selling over a million copies. 

Boyce and Hart first met later in 1959. Hart was the same age and was trying to make it as a singer, without much success. Not much happened for a few years, except for Boyce writing another big hit, "Pretty Little Angel Eyes" by Curtis Lee, in 1961. Gradually, Boyce and Hart started writing songs together. Their first big success as a duo was "Come a Little Bit Closer" by Jay & the Americans, which may or may not have reached Number One in the U.S. in 1964, depending on the chart. 

In late 1965, things really got cooking for Boyce and Hart when they got involved with the very start of the Monkees TV show. In fact, at first the duo practically was the Monkees! For the first season of the TV show, and the band's first album, they produced and recorded nearly all of the songs, using their own backing band, and wrote many of the songs as well. The actual Monkees starring in the show only replaced the guide vocals sung by the duo with their own for the final product. However, after the debut album came out, the band's musical supervisor Don Kirshner fired the duo, after claiming they were secretly using studio time for their own projects. That may well have been true. But they continued to write songs for the Monkees, despite no longer being involved with the production and recording. Every Monkees album released in the 1960s had at least one song by them, except for "Head."

Their success with the Monkees, including writing many of their biggest hits, gave them the prominence to have success as a recording duo. Their biggest hit on their own was "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight," which was released at the end of 1967. It didn't have a big chart peak, only reaching Number Eight in the U.S., but it sold a million copies, which was typical of songs at or near the very top. They also had two more songs make the U.S. Top Forty, "Out and About" and "Alice Long [You're Still My Favorite Girlfriend]." I've included all three of those, as well as one more song they performed together that I like, "We're All Going to the Same Place."

Commercially, the duo peaked in the late 1960s, when they were writing hit after hit for the Monkees, themselves, and other musical acts. But musical trends were changing fast, and their style didn't fit in so well with the 1970s and after. They still did have occasional successes - the last five songs here are from after 1970 - but not so many. And some of those songs I chose at the end were actually written much earlier but not hits until later. "Hurt So Bad," written by Teddy Randazzo, Bobby Weinstein, and Bobby Hart, was a hit for Little Anthony and the Imperials in 1965. But I chose a 1980 version that was a hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1980. Similarly, "Under the Moon of Love," written by Tommy Boyce and Curtis Lee, was a minor hit for Curtis Lee in 1961. But in 1976, the band Showaddywaddy had a Number One hit with it in Britain.

In the mid-1970s, Boyce and Hart joined Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz for a reunion of the Monkees, essentially replacing the two missing original Monkees members. They put out a new album in 1975, but for legal reasons they weren't allowed to call themselves the Monkees, so they went by the name "Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart." But the earlier magic was gone, and their album didn't have much success. I chose not to include any songs from that album. In the 1970s, both Boyce and Hart tried releasing their own solo albums, but to even less success.

Hart is still alive as I write this in 2025. However, Boyce died in 1994. He was suffering from depression, and then had a brain aneurysm, which put him in a lot of pain. So he shot himself with a gun.

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

Boyce and Hart - Wikipedia 

Strangely, Boyce has his own Wikipedia entry, here, but Hart does not:

Tommy Boyce - Wikipedia 

This album is an hour and one minute long. 

01 Be My Guest (Fats Domino)
02 Pretty Little Angel Eyes (Curtis Lee)
03 Come a Little Bit Closer (Jay & the Americans)
04 Peaches 'N' Cream (Ikettes)
05 [Theme From] The Monkees (Monkees)
06 Action, Action, Action (Keith Allison)
07 [I'm Not Your] Stepping Stone (Paul Revere & the Raiders)
08 The Last Train to Clarksville (Monkees)
09 I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight (Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart)
10 She (Del Shannon)
11 Out and About (Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart)
12 Words (Monkees)
13 I Wanna Be Free (Keith Allison)
14 Alice Long [You're Still My Favorite Girlfriend] (Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart)
15 Valleri (Monkees)
16 We're All Going to the Same Place (Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart)
17 Tear Drop City (Monkees)
18 Something's Wrong with Me (Austin Roberts)
19 Keep On Singing (Helen Reddy)
20 Under the Moon of Love (Showaddywaddy)
21 Hurt So Bad (Linda Ronstadt)
22 Dominoes (Robbie Nevil)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YWEcVX4i

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/q01I8u3QJF4SfvS/file

I don't know the details of the cover photo, but based on the clothes, I'd guess it's from around 1967. That's Boyce on the left and Hart on the right (with the red jacket).

Covered: Henry Mancini: 1959-1998

I have so much material for Covered series albums that I'm going to try to make another concerted effort to post a lot more of them. So here's another, focusing on the songwriting of Henry Mancini.

Mancini is a bit of a left field choice for the Covered series, since he mostly composed instrumental music for movies, and is far removed from rock and roll. But he was responsible for so many classic songs that I feel I can't leave him out. The intro to his Wikipedia article sums him up well, stating that Mancini "was an American composer, conductor, arranger, pianist and flutist. Often cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film, he won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards, plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995."

Mancini was born in 1924 and grew up in rural Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school, he studied at the prestigious Julliard School of Music in New York City for two years. But then he was drafted in the U.S. Army and fought in World War II from 1943 to 1945. After the war, he became a pianist and arranger for the Glenn Miller Orchestra (which continued despite the fact Miller died in World War II). In 1952, he got a job writing music for movies for Universal Pictures, a major movie studio in Hollywood. 

However, he didn't really become famous until after he left that company in 1958 to become an independent composer and arranger. One of his first jobs was writing the theme for a new TV show called "Peter Gunn." His song, the "Peter Gunn Theme," was a big hit for Duane Eddy, and has since become an often covered classic. It won an Emmy award and two Grammys, and put Mancini in high demand writing for more TV and movie projects.

Mancini typically only wrote music, usually instrumentals. But sometimes he would work with another songwriter who would write the lyrics. His next major hit, "Moon River," was such a case, with the lyrics written by famed songwriter Johnny Mercer. The version sung by actress Audrey Hepburn in the movie of the same name in 1961 went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, as well as Grammys for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.

After that, Mancini kept steadily releasing music for decades, including scores for dozens of movies. He recorded over 90 albums on his own, from big band to jazz to light classical. He became, and remains, one of the biggest names in the "easy listening" genre. 

For this album, I tried to boil the selections down to just his very best known songs, so that even people who aren't typically into can easy listening style can enjoy this. For instance, I find it hard to believe there's anyone out there who doesn't enjoy hearing the highly creative "Pink Panther Theme." Like that song, the vast majority of songs here are instrumentals. "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet" wasn't actually written by him, but his arrangement changed the song so drastically that I've included it here anyway.

Most of Mancini's best known songs date from the 1960s. After that decade, he switched more to arranging songs written by other people, though he did sometimes write his own material. Some of the songs near the end of this album are covers of songs from much earlier in his career. I generally tried to avoid Mancini's own versions, as I usually do with these Covered albums. But I have two songs by him here since I couldn't find good versions of those ones otherwise.

He was still composing and arranging, though less prolifically, when he died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 70 years old. His music made such a cultural impact that in 2004 he was the subject of a U.S. postage stamp. 

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Peter Gunn Theme (Ray Anthony & His Orchestra)
02 Moon River (Audrey Hepburn)
03 Baby Elephant Walk (Lawrence Welk & His Orchestra)
04 Theme from Hatari (Henry Mancini & His Orchestra)
05 A Shot in the Dark (Shirley Scott)
06 The Shadows of Paris (Elsie Bianchi)
07 Pink Panther Theme (Those Fantabulous Strings)
08 Slow Hot Wind (Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66)
09 Two for the Road (Peggy Lee)
10 Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet [A Time for Us] (Johnny Mathis)
11 Send a Little Love My Way (Anne Murray)
12 Newhart (Henry Mancini)
13 Days of Wine and Roses (Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Pass)
14 Dreamsville (Dave Grusin with Diana Krall)
15 Charade (Monica Mancini)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YcfTBdHW

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/nDvHfXT0X64bFSQ/file

The cover photo dates from 1985. I don't know any other details.

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.  

Covered: Jesse Stone: 1942-1985

Until a few days ago (writing this in May 2025), I had never heard of Jesse Stone. But I found out about him while research possible additional subjects for my Covered series on well-covered songwriters. What really caught my eye was that he was the one who wrote the song "Shake, Rattle and Roll." That was one of the most pivotal songs that launched the popularity of rock and roll music. Rolling Stone Magazine has rated it as 127 on their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

But while Stone is best known for that song, he wasn't a songwriting one-hit wonder. Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic Records, the most important R&B record company in that era, once stated that "Jesse Stone did more to develop the basic rock and roll sound than anybody else."

Stone's music career went way back. He actually came from a family who put on minstrel shows, and began performing at the age of four! His first big success as a songwriter came with the song "Idaho," which sold over a million copies in 1942. That's not really a style of song I like, but I've included it since it was a pivotal song in his career. Things got more interesting as the rock and rock era dawned in the early 1950s. Another big success for him was "Money Honey" by the Drifters, which Rolling Stone Magazine also put on their list of the top 500 greatest songs of all time. "Flip, Flop and Fly" by Big Joe Turner and "Don't Let Go" by Roy Hamilton were also especially big hits.

Stone had his own career as a singer, as well as a producer and arranger. He had a fine voice, but never had any hits of his own. He certainly stood out for being a successful Black songwriter in the 1950s when there were very few others. (Although Otis Blackwell comes to mind as another key exception.) His success as a songwriter petered out in the early 1960s as musical styles change. Most of these songs are the original versions, except for the last three, which came significantly later. He died in 1999 at the age of 97.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on him:

Jesse Stone (musician) - Wikipedia

This album is 47 minutes long. 

01 Idaho (Benny Goodman with Dick Haymes)
02 Cole Slaw [Sorghum Switch] (Louis Jordan)
03 Losing Hand (Ray Charles)
04 Money Honey (Drifters)
05 Shake, Rattle and Roll (Bill Haley & His Comets)
06 As Long as I'm Moving (Ruth Brown)
07 Razzle-Dazzle (Bill Haley & His Comets)
08 Flip, Flop and Fly (Big Joe Turner)
09 Crazy, Crazy Party (Cues)
10 Don't Let Go (Roy Hamilton)
11 Love Is A-Breakin' Out (Roberta Sherwood)
12 Red Hot Love (Billy Williams)
13 Private Eye (Buddy Wilkins)
14 Like a Baby (Elvis Presley)
15 Smack Dab in the Middle (Ray Charles)
16 Your Cash Ain't Nothing but Trash (Steve Miller Band)
17 Liptstick, Powder and Paint (Shakin' Stevens)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AhbgKxJs

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BtYyaOvcEyjyV9q/file

I don't know much about the cover photo except that it looks to be a promotional photo from the 1950s. It was originally in black and white, but I colorized it using the Krea AI program.

Covered: Bob Crewe & Bob Gaudio, Volume 1: 1957-1974

The songwriting team of Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio is another one that doesn't get as much respect as it deserves. So they're a good subject for this next installment in my "Covered" series. They were responsible for writing most of the big hits by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons. But they had many songwriting successes for other musical acts as well.

Note that since many of the songs here were first hits by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, I wanted to avoid turning this into mostly a "best of" by the band. So I tried hard to select versions of those songs by other musical acts. I've made two volumes, and many of the hit songs in this time period (1957 to 1974) aren't included until cover versions that happened in the time of the second volume. Examples that were 1960s hits but don't show up until later covers include "Sherry," "Rag Doll," "Walk like a Man," "Bye Bye Baby," and "Barbarella." Also keep in mind that these two wrote most Franki Valli and the Four Seasons hits, but not all of them.

Bob Crewe was thirteen years older than Bob Gaudio, so his music career started first. In 1953, he partnered with another songwriter, Frank Slay, Jr. Four years later, in 1957, they had their first hit with "Silhouettes" by the Rays. I haven't included that, because I chose another version of the song by Herman's Hermits, which was a big hit in 1965. The B-side was another song they wrote together, "Daddy Cool." The Diamonds had a hit with it in 1957, so I included that version here. They also had a big hit in 1957 with "Tallahassee Lassie" for Freddy Cannon in 1959.

Meanwhile, Bob Gaudio was starting his music career. In 1958, at only the age of 15 years old, he wrote the hit "Short Shorts" for the band he was in at the time, the Royal Teens. Not long after that, he came across a band led by Franki Valli, and joined them as a piano player and songwriter. They soon were renamed "Franki Valli and the Four Seasons." From the very start, they were produced by Bob Crewe, which is how Crewe and Gaudio met each other. It probably helped that both of them were from New Jersey.

The very first hit by the Four Seasons in 1962, "Sherry," was written by Gaudio alone. But soon, Crewe and Gaudio were generally writing the hits together. From 1962 to about 1968, they wrote dozens of hits together, just for the Four Seasons. 

Meanwhile, with Gaudio busy a lot of the time as a member of the Four Seasons, Crewe had a whole other career going on as a producer, which often also included more songwriting with others. He even formed his own record label, Dyno Voice Records, and had over 20 hits with artists on that label other than the Four Seasons. One hit was actually in his own name - the "Bob Crewe Generation" - an instrumental called "Music to Watch Girls By," in 1967. However, that's not here because although he produced it and performed it, he didn't write it. In 1968, his group the Bob Crewe Generation wrote and performed all the songs for the soundtrack to the hit movie "Barbarella." I put a cover of the theme song on Volume 2.

So the 1960s were an extremely successful time for both Bobs. Generally speaking, songs Gaudio helped write ended up first being performed by the Four Seasons, though sometimes other groups ultimately had the big hit. For instance, the Four Seasons version of "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine (Anymore)" didn't even make the Top 100 singles chart in 1965. But the Walker Brothers did a version in 1966 using the same arrangement and hit Number One in the singles chart in Britain with it. Meanwhile, Crewe had his fingers in other pies, and sometimes wrote songs with other songwriters.

However, in the late 1960s, the style of music favored by the Four Seasons fell out of favor, with musical trends changing rapidly and drastically. Gaudio teamed up with another songwriter, Jake Holmes (best known for writing "Dazed and Confused"), and made the 1969 Four Seasons album "The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette." It was their attempt to stay relevant with a quasi-psychedelic album. (Crewe wasn't involved with the songwriting, but he produced the album.) It was too strange to sell well, but it's reputation has grown over time, and it's actually a pretty good, interesting album, in my opinion. John Lennon reportedly considered it one of his favorite albums.

Overall though, the time from 1968 to 1973 was rough for both Crewe and Gaudio. It looked like both of their music careers were petering out. However, both would have great successes starting in 1974. But that will be saved for Volume 2. (The one song here from 1974, "You're Ready Now," is actually a cover of a song they first wrote and released in 1966.)

Here's links to their Wikipedia pages:

Bob Crewe - Wikipedia

Bob Gaudio - Wikipedia

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Daddy Cool (Diamonds)
02 Short Shorts (Royal Teens)
03 Tallahassee Lassie (Freddy Cannon)
04 Big Girls Don't Cry (Orlons)
05 Navy Blue (Diane Renay)
06 Big Man in Town (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
07 Silhouettes (Herman's Hermits)
08 The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine [Anymore] (Walker Brothers)
09 Dawn [Go Away] (Rockin' Berries)
10 I'm Going Out [The Same Way I Came In] (Kiki Dee)
11 Sock It to Me Baby (Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels)
12 Silence Is Golden (Tremeloes)
13 [You're Gonna] Hurt Yourself (Bystanders)
14 Beggin' (Timebox)
15 Can't Take My Eyes Off You (Nancy Wilson)
16 Mrs. Stately's Garden (Four Seasons)
17 Stone Liberty (Diana Ross)
18 You're Ready Now (Guy Darrell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/do5dtFze

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6uSrZKGp9dqYhGe/file

There are very, very few photos of Crewe and Gaudio together, and those didn't show their faces well. So I found individual photos and put them together for the cover. The one of Gaudio (with black hair) is from 1966 while the one of Crewe (with reddish hair) is from 1959.

Covered: Neil Sedaka & Howard Greenfield, Volume 1: 1958-1970

I have to admit that, until very recently, I hadn't given much thought to the musical career of Neil Sedaka. I just assumed he was one of many pop stars that had hits mostly or entirely written by others from the 1960s, like Bobby Darin or Bobby Dee. But it turns out that he not only wrote most of his hits, but he wrote plenty of hits for others. Most of his songwriting was done with Howard Greenfield, who avoided the spotlight and didn't have a recording career of his own. I found enough for two volumes. Here's the first one.

Neil Sedaka grew up in a middle class Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York. From a young age, he developed a talent for playing classical music on the piano. He even won a piano scholarship for the prestigious Julliard's School of Music as a teenager, and he's retrained an interest in playing classical music his entire life. While only 13 years old, he met another teenager living in the same apartment building, Howard Greenfield, who already was an aspiring lyricist and poet. 

The two started writing show tunes, but they soon got turned on to pop music. In 1958, they got hired to be professional songwriters for a company that eventually moved their offices to the Brill Building, a building in New York City where as tremendous number of hit songs were written. But Sedaka also got signed by a record company as a recording artist. He began having hits almost immediately. Eventually, he would sell over 25 million records on his own. Soon, much of Sedaka's time was taken up with promoting and touring to support his recordings. His songwriting with Greenfield continued. But Greenfield had more free time, so Sedaka was okay with Greenfield cowriting with others when Sedaka was too busy. In particular, Greenfield often wrote songs with another professional songwriter named Jack Keller.

The point of my "Covered" series is to focus on songwriting careers. So I've tried hard to avoid having lots of songs here performed by Sedaka. I managed to include only one in this volume, "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do." But I didn't have that self-imposed rule, probably more than half of the songs here would have been performed by him. Sometimes I had to look hard to find good versions of songs that he had a hit with. But there are plenty of songs here that were first hits for others, such as the four performed by Connie Francis.   

From 1958 to 1963, Sedaka and Greenfield had hit after hit after hit, both recorded by Sedaka and by others. I've only included some of the best and most popular ones here. But then in 1964, their songwriting style fell out of fashion, when the Beatles and Bob Dylan drastically changed things. For much of the rest of the 1960s, they struggled. 

However, they still did find some successes. For instance, Greenfield wrote some popular TV show themes with Jack Keller (who I already mentioned above). That's represented by the inclusion of "Theme from Bewitched" here. They also had some successes with songs recorded by the Fifth Dimension. That includes "Puppet Man," which appears on Volume 2. They also had a quirky minor hit in 1970 with "Rainy Day Bells," which has a throwback sound to an earlier era. It was supposedly recorded by the comedic basketball team the Harlem Globetrotters. But in fact it was recorded by some professional soul singers.

But still, by 1970, it looked like most of the successful years of both Sedaka and Greenfield were behind them, due to changing musical trends. However, they would come back with many successes in the 1970s, which will be dealt with in Volume 2. 

Here are the Wikipedia pages of both:

Neil Sedaka - Wikipedia 

Howard Greenfield - Wikipedia

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Stupid Cupid (Connie Francis)
02 Since You've Been Gone (Clyde McPhatter)
03 My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own (Connie Francis)
04 Stairway to Heaven (Gary Sherbert)
05 Everybody's Somebody's Fool (Connie Francis)
06 Fallin' (Wanda Jackson)
07 Where the Boys Are (Connie Francis)
08 Oh Carol (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
09 Venus in Blue Jeans (Jimmy Clanton)
10 Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (Neil Sedaka)
11 Foolish Little Girl (Cookies)
12 Calendar Boy (Dee Dee Sharp)
13 Get Rid of Him (Dionne Warwick)
14 It Hurts to Be in Love (Gene Pitney)
15 Theme from Bewitched (Warren Barker)
16 Workin' on a Groovy Thing (5th Dimension)
17 Rainy Day Bells (Globetrotters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4jCdUgiy

alternate: 

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

The cover image is a composite that I made. The picture of Sedaka is from 1962. I don't know when the picture of Greenfield was taken, but clearly it's from when he was young. (He's the one with the visible tie.) Both pictures I started with were in black and white. But I converted them to color with the use of the Kolorize program. 

COVERED: Luther Dixon: 1957-1972

I'm trying to use my Covered series to shine a spotlight on some talented songwriters who aren't widely known. Luther Dixon definitely qualifies as little known. I didn't select a lot of songs written or co-written by him. All I came up with was one relatively short album. But he wrote a fair number of classics. For instance, two of his songs, "Tonight's the Night" by the Shirelles and "Big Boss Man" by Jimmy Reed, have been included on a Rolling Stone Magazine list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

Dixon was born in Florida in 1931, but grew up in New York City. He was probably lucky his family made the move, since there was more economic opportunity for a Black man in a northern city back in that era of segregation. There were very few successful Black professional songwriters in the 1950s. But while Dixon started out as a member of a doo-wop group, he quickly discovered he preferred songwriting and producing to performing. His first big success was "Why Baby Why," a hit for Pat Boone in 1957. 

 

In 1959, he found a ideal job working as a producer for an up-and-coming record label, Scepter Records. What made the job ideal was that he was given great independence to produce and record as he liked. He soon began working with the Shirelles, and largely pioneered the classic "girl group" sound with his song "Tonight's the Night." (That, presumably, is why Rolling Stone put that song in its top 500 list.) He had a lot of success in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Two of his songs, "Boys" and "Baby, It's You," were recorded by the Beatles. That second one was co-written by  Burt Bacharach.

 
However, the Beatles were also largely to blame for a drastic change in musical tastes away from his 1950s style, along with Bob Dylan and others. He did have some hits in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but few compared to what he'd accomplished before. He died in 2009 at the age of 78. Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more about him:

Luther Dixon - Wikipedia

Generally speaking, I included the original hit versions of each song, in rough chronological order. However, "Baby, It's You" was first a big hit for the Shirelles in 1961, but I already included that version on a Burt Bacharach and Hal David "Covered" album. So instead I used the version by Smith, which also was a big hit in 1969.

This album is 43 minutes long. 

01 Why Baby Why (Pat Boone)
02 Sixteen Candles (Crests)
03 So Close (Brook Benton)
04 Lovin' Up a Storm (Jerry Lee Lewis)
05 Tonight's the Night (Shirelles)
06 Big Boss Man (Jimmy Reed)
07 A Hundred Pounds of Clay (Gene McDaniels)
08 Mama Said (Shirelles)
09 Irresistible You (Bobby Darin)
10 Soldier Boy (Shirelles)
11 Boys (Beatles)
12 Sha La La (Manfred Mann)
13 With This Ring (Platters)
14 Soul Serenade (Aretha Franklin)
15 Baby It's You (Smith)
16 I Don't Wanna Cry (Ronnie Dyson)
17 Funk Factory (Wilson Pickett)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Hzg8N4eA

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/JUCGAftRRNsKQZT/file

I don't know when or where the cover photo is from. I was lucky to find a good photo of Dixon at all. But I'd guess it's from the 1950s or early 1960s. The original was in black and white, but I converted it to color with the use of the Palette program.

Covered: Berry Gordy: 1957-1982

As I move forward with my Covered series highlighting great songwriters, it's time I start to unravel the big ball of wax that is the Motown Records hit making machine. Although there were some key exceptions, the hits at the Motown record company were generally written by professional songwriters. It turns out a relatively small number of them wrote nearly all the hits, so they are ideal subjects for my Covered series.

When it comes to dealing with the Motown Records company, it's fitting to start with Berry Gordy, who is practically Motown Records personified. He started the company in 1959 and it was a massive success nearly from the start. Being Black, he turned Motown into the most successful Black-run private business in the U.S. for decades. Gordy became a household name, thanks to Motown's distinctive sound and his innovative business practices. 

That said, I don't think a lot of people appreciate that, on top of all of his business success, he was actually a very talented songwriter! He was a songwriter first, and he had a lot of success writing or co-writing hits for Jackie Wilson, Etta James, and others before Motown Records even existed. The reason he formed the company was because he was frustrated at how little money he was getting writing hit songs. He correctly realized that he was getting ripped off by very ruthless music companies.

A challenging question here though is just how much he actually participated in the writing of the songs presented here. Gordy wasn't above being ruthless himself sometimes. For instance, I haven't included any version of the song "You've Got What It Takes," even though it was a big hit multiple times by different artists, and Berry is typically considered one of the co-writers. That's because soul guitarist Bobby Parker wrote it and released it in 1958. Then, in 1959, Marv Johnson put out a version on Motown Records and simply ignored the songwriting credits of the earlier version, giving the songwriting credit to Gordy, his wife, and two others instead.

So if Gordy did that once, he could have done it other times. That said, it seems he generally played it straight while running Motown. I've read a bunch about Motown, and other people like Motown star Smokey Robinson have said that Gordy's songs were treated the same as those of any other songwriter at the time. Motown was run much like an assembly line, with strict rules about every aspect of the business. As part of that, over a dozen company leaders had weekly meetings to decide which songs would get released as singles. Majority vote ruled, and songs written or co-written by Gordy got rejected just like everyone else. 

Furthermore, there's plenty of evidence that Gordy was a talented songwriter, even putting aside his songwriting success prior to Motown. He usually co-wrote songs with others, but not always. For instance, the Contours song "Do You Love Me," reached Number Three on the U.S. single chart in 1962, and it was written solely by him. Some other songs here were also credited just to him. In fact, songwriting legend Smokey Robinson says that in the late 1950s, Gordy was actually his songwriting mentor, since Robinson was just starting out at the time and Gordy already had multiple hits he'd been involved with. Robinson seemed very impressed with Gordy's songwriting talent.

What seems to have happened is that, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Gordy wrote a lot of songs. But as the 1960s progressed, he was increasingly preoccupied by running the Motown company, and he realized he could delegate most of the songwriting to other very capable people. So his songwriting credits steadily declined as the decade went on.

Then something curious happened around 1969. Motown's top songwriters, the Holland-Dozier-Holland team, left the company in 1968 due to a dispute over not getting enough royalties. By that time, Holland-Dozier-Holland had gotten very famous due to writing so many hit songs. Gordy wanted to make sure this didn't happen again. So he created something called "The Corporation." This was a group of four songwriters who wrote most of the songs for Motown's hot new act, the Jackson 5. Their records were credited simply to "The Corporation" so the individuals wouldn't get too famous and thus later make big demands on him. The four main songwriters involved were Freddie Perren, Alphonso Mizell, Deke Richards, and... Gordy himself. 

But was he actually involved in co-writing the songs, or was this a new scheme to take some of the profits by a new songwriting team? I suspect it was a bit of both. The first big hit by the Corporation, which turned out to be one of the greatest songs of all time, was "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5. Since it's such a famous, classic song, I was able to find out some about how it came to be. It turns out it was originally written by the other three in the team. (Perren, in particular, would go on to great songwriting success. I plan on having an album of his songs in this series.) However, when the song was first presented to Gordy, it was a very different song, including having the title "I Want to Be Free." Gordy made numerous improvements to it, so he definitely deserves songwriting credit for that one.

I suspect that was the case for the other big hits by the Jackson Five. Gordy promised the band that their first three songs at least would all be Number Ones, and that surprisingly turned out to be the case. He really, really wanted this band to succeed, and it seems he pulled out all the stops to make them a success, including getting directly involved in the songwriting. But the Corporation is credited with writing dozens of songs around the early 1970s, and I'm making the guess that Gordy was too busy running Motown to be involved with most of those. 

If anyone has a better idea about this, please let me know. Gordy's songwriting is rarely discussed, since his success running Motown totally dominates any discussion about his life. (Remarkably, as I write this in 2024, he is still alive at the age of 94.) 

Anyway, it seems after this final flurry of songwriting activity for the Jackson 5, Gordy essentially gave up songwriting altogether. The songs here are presented in rough chronological order (check the mp3 tags for details). The last two songs, "Good Thing Going" and "I'll Be Satisfied," were hits by Sugar Minott in 1981 and Shakin' Stevens in 1982 respectively. However, both songs were actually written and first released by others in the 1960s. The last new song Gordy was involved with that's included here is "Get It Together" by the Jackson 5 in 1973.

Here's Gordy's Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

Berry Gordy - Wikipedia

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 Reet Petite (Jackie Wilson)
02 To Be Loved (Jackie Wilson)
03 It's So Fine (LaVern Baker)
04 Lonely Teardrops (Jackie Wilson)
05 Come to Me (Marv Johnson)
06 That's Why [I Love You So] (Jackie Wilson)
07 I'll Be Satisfied (Jackie Wilson)
08 All I Could Do Was Cry (Etta James)
09 Shop Around (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
10 Seven Day Fool (Etta James)
11 Do You Love Me (Contours)
12 Shake Sherrie (Contours)
13 Money [That's What I Want] (Beatles)
14 Try It Baby (Marvin Gaye)
15 Do Right Baby, Do Right (Chris Clark)
16 I Want to Go Back There Again (Chris Clark)
17 I Want You Back (Jackson 5)
18 I'm Livin' in Shame (Supremes)
19 ABC (Jackson 5)
20 You've Made Me So Very Happy (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
21 I'll Be There (Jackson 5)
22 Mama's Pearl (Jackson 5)
23 The Love You Save (Jackson 5)
24 Get It Together (Jackson 5)
25 Good Thing Going [We've Got a Good Thing Going] (Sugar Minott)
26 I'll Be Satisfied (Shakin' Stevens)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17282873/COVRDBRRYGRDY19571982_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZN5vFGt8

The cover photo is a very early publicity photo of Berry Gordy. (It might be hard to tell from just this much, but he has a black jacket slung over one shoulder.) I'm guessing this is from around 1960. The photo was in black and white, but I colorized it using the Palette program.

Cliff Richard - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1958-1960

Here's another artist for my BBC project. British singer Cliff Richard is a minor musical footnote in the U.S., but he's a household name in Britain. He's sold over 250 million records worldwide, making him one of the top ten musicians of all time. He's also the third most successful singles artist in Britain, behind only Elvis Presley and the Beatles. Furthermore, he's been in the charts for an astoundingly long time, having had Number One hits in Britain for five decades in a row.

Due to all of that success, it's not surprise that he's done many BBC sessions over the years. I've prepared six BBC albums for him, and that only deals with his career from the late 1950s to the end of the 1970s.

There are some fair critiques one can make of Richard's musical career as a whole. It's very mainstream and show-biz, and he never was much for writing songs himself. However, his 1950s material, the subject of this volume, is different. Back then, plain ol' rock and roll was all the rage, and that's what he specialized in at the time. This album consists of a mix of songs that Richard made famous, such as his first hit, "Move It," which went to Number Two in Britain in 1958, and covers of rock and roll classics, with occasional change of pace ballads.

His rocking backing band would become quite accomplished in their own right. First known as the Drifters, they changed their name to the Shadows in 1959 due to legal problems because of the already established Drifters soul group in the US. They would go on to have many instrumental hits in Britain, including five Number Ones, while staying Richard's backing band until 1968. 

All of the recordings here have been officially released on a BBC compilation album called "Let Me Tell You Baby... It's Called Rock and Roll." I removed a few songs that were performed more than once. I also removed a bunch of instrumentals by the Drifters/Shadows, since I wanted to keep the focus on Richard. However, I kept one instrumental, "Apache," since it was such a huge hit, staying at Number One for five weeks in Britain in 1960. (A cover version by Jorgen Ingmann topped the charts in the U.S.) I put that at the very end though, as a quasi-bonus track.

The sound quality starts out a bit rocky. The first four songs come from a 1958 recording session, and the quality of those songs are merely good, not excellent. But hang on, because it sounds much better for the rest. We're lucky these recordings survived at all, since the BBC didn't generally keep copies of their shows and these date all the way back to the 1950s.

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Move It (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
02 My Babe (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
03 Summertime Blues (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
04 Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
05 Baby I Don't Care (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
06 Down the Line (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
07 C'mon Everybody (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
08 Steady with You (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
09 Ready Teddy (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
10 Apron Strings (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
11 Never Mind (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
12 Danny (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
13 Don't Bug Me Baby (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
14 Dream Lover (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
15 Mean Streak (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
16 Rip It Up (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
17 Living Doll (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
18 Dynamite (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
19 I'm in Love Again (Cliff Richard & the Drifters)
20 You're Just the One to Do It (Cliff Richard & the Shadows)
21 What'd I Say (Cliff Richard & the Shadows)
22 Where Is My Heart (Cliff Richard & the Shadows)
23 Please Don't Tease (Cliff Richard & the Shadows)
24 Hang Up My Rock and Roll Shoes (Cliff Richard & the Shadows)
25 Apache [Instrumental] (Shadows)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687689/CLIFFRCHRD1958-1960_BBSessonsVlum1_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a 1959 concert in England. I believe that's Bruce Welch of the shadows on guitar behind Richard.

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.

J. J. Cale - The Early Years, 1958-1967

J. J. Cale had a long and successful career with his laid back singing and lead guitar style, from his first album in 1972 until his death in 2013. But did you know that he spent well over a decade in the music industry before he could put out his first album? That's what this album is about, Cale's little-known early years.

This album isn't for everyone. It took a long time for Cale to find his distinctive style. Some of his early stuff is fairly generic and forgettable. But there are some gems there too, including a version of his classic "After Midnight" that was released as a B-side in 1966. If you're a J. J. Cale fan, you may well find this interesting, but if you're not, this isn't the place to start.

Cale spent many early years mostly as a sideman prized for his lead guitar skills. But even so, he sang lead as far back as 1958 on some fairly obscure singles, and wrote a lot of songs too. I've created two versions of this album. The first one is 39 minutes long, and contains just the songs where Cale sang lead vocals, or instrumentals that prominently featured his guitar work. The second one is an hour and 12 minutes long (32 minutes longer than the other version). That one includes all the same songs, plus many more songs where he played lead guitar on other people's songs. A lot of those extra songs aren't that great, so the long version is more for the J. J. Cale die-hard fan.

Before I say any more, I should point out that this album is almost entirely the work of MZ, a musical friend of mine. You may recognize his name because he's helped with audio editing from time to time. A few days ago, he came to me with this idea, and a list of songs for it. I told him "go for it." I didn't do much except to come up with the idea of creating two versions. So here's a big, big thanks to MZ. 

Note the first batch of songs are credited to "Johnny Cale." He switched to "J. J." at some point in the mid-1960s. Apparently, a club owner made the suggestion, saying that there were too many other guitarists at the time named Johnny, such as Johnny Rivers, and J. J. would stand out more. I've put the "J. J. Cale" part in parentheses for consistency's sake. And rest assured that for band like the Starlighters and the Leathercoated Minds, Cale was a member. He bounced around a lot in the 1960s, joining and leaving bands while doing studio work. He often worked with keyboardist Leon Russell. You'll see Russell's name a few times in the credits for the full version (including when he went by "Leon Russell Bridges"). but there are quite a few additional songs where he and Russell worked on the same songs, but just didn't get their names on the records.

Thanks again to MZ for making this. He says he's going to follow this up with one or more albums of Cale rarities from the rest of his career, so look forward to that soon, knock on wood.

Here's the streamlined 39 minute version:

01 Shock Hop [Instrumental] (Johnny Cale [J. J. Cale])
02 Sneaky [Instrumental] (Johnny Cale [J. J. Cale])
03 Ain't That Lovin' You Baby (Johnny Cale [J. J. Cale])
04 She's My Desire (Johnny Cale [J. J. Cale])
05 Purple Onion [Instrumental] (Johnny Cale Quintette [J. J. Cale])
06 Troubles, Troubles, Troubles (Johnny Cale Quintette [J. J. Cale])
07 Creepin' [Instrumental] (Starlighters)
08 Hot Licks [Instrumental] (Starlighters)
09 It's a Go-Go Place (J. J. Cale)
10 Dick Tracy (J. J. Cale)
11 In Our Time (J. J. Cale)
12 Outside Looking In (J. J. Cale)
13 After Midnight (J. J. Cale)
14 Slow Motion (J. J. Cale)
15 Sunset and Clark [Instrumental] (Leathercoated Minds)
16 Non-Stop [Instrumental] (Leathercoated Minds)
17 Arriba [Instrumental] (Leathercoated Minds)
18 Pot Luck [Instrumental] (Leathercoated Minds)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/d7gaahQV

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BQNk0LmUg2hRPUv/file

And here's the longer 112 minute version, including songs where Cale prominently played lead guitar on other people's records:

01 Shock Hop [Instrumental] (Johnny Cale [J. J. Cale])
02 Sneaky [Instrumental] (Johnny Cale [J. J. Cale])
03 I Hate Myself (Al Sweatt with Johnnie Cale & the Valentines)
04 Let's Paint the Town Red (Al Sweatt with Johnnie Cale & the Valentines)
05 There's a Big Wheel (Jerry Adams & the Starlighters)
06 Old Black Joe (Jerry Adams & the Starlighters)
07 All Right (Leon Russell Bridges & the Starlighters)
08 Swanee River (Leon Russell Bridges & the Starlighters)
09 Ain't That Lovin' You Baby (Johnny Cale [J. J. Cale])
10 She's My Desire (Johnny Cale [J. J. Cale])
11 Purple Onion [Instrumental] (Johnny Cale Quintette [J. J. Cale])
12 Troubles, Troubles, Troubles (Johnny Cale Quintette [J. J. Cale])
13 Creepin' [Instrumental] (Starlighters)
14 Hot Licks [Instrumental] (Starlighters)
15 Black Cherry (Junior Markham & the Tulsa Review)
16 Gonna Send You to Georgia (Junior Markham & the Tulsa Review)
17 It's Alright with Me (Leon Russell)
18 Everybody's Talking 'bout the Young (Leon Russell)
19 It's a Go-Go Place (J. J. Cale)
20 Dick Tracy (J. J. Cale)
21 In Our Time (J. J. Cale)
22 Outside Looking In (J. J. Cale)
23 After Midnight (J. J. Cale)
24 Slow Motion (J. J. Cale)
25 The Green Hornet [Instrumental] (Super Dupers)
26 I'm Puttin' You On (Sunday Servants)
27 Who Do You Love (Sunday Servants)
28 Lazy Me (Jimmy Boyd)
29 Sunset and Clark [Instrumental] (Leathercoated Minds)
30 Non-Stop [Instrumental] (Leathercoated Minds)
31 Arriba [Instrumental] (Leathercoated Minds)
32 Pot Luck [Instrumental] (Leathercoated Minds)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/F7pZuLeD

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/0qOKxTmASJTDVfE/file

It should come as no surprise that good photos of Cale before he became famous in the 1970s are few and far between. In fact, I couldn't find a single color photo of him from that time. The photo I used is black and white and I colorized it. I'm not sure when and where it was taken, but I would guess roughly 1966 to 1969. MZ found another photo of him in 1965 with a similar "poofy" haircut, though it was much more combed and slicked back.

In February 2025, I upgraded the image with help of the Krea AI program.

Various Artists - Covered: Chuck Berry, Volume 1: 1959-1969

Here's the next in my "Covered" series, focusing on the most successful songwriters of all time. This time, I'm looking at Chuck Berry.

Berry's influence can't be overstated. Here's a couple of telling quotes. John Lennon once said, "If you had to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry.'" And Stevie Wonder said, "There's only one true king of rock and roll. His name is Chuck Berry."

Berry had a long successful career as a performer, scoring many hits on his own. But his role as a songwriter was arguably more important. Starting in 1955, the same year rock and roll broke big, he specialized in wordy, literate, and clever lyrics. He raised the bar for rock and roll songwriting,  and served a model as one of the few major stars of the time who wrote their own songs.

If you want to know more about Berry and his life, here's his Wikipedia entry:

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

Not a lot of other artists had big hits with Berry's songs, relatively speaking, probably because Berry almost always had his own hits with them. But it seems that any musician who ever got into rock and roll covered Berry's songs. So my challenge this time around wasn't to compile lots of hit versions (as I did some other artists in the "Covered" series) so much as it was to compile the best and most interesting versions out of hundreds and hundreds of covers by well known artists. I've found enough material to make three albums.

As usual with this "Covered" series, I've forced myself to only include one version of each song. However, I've made an exception this time by including two very different versions of "Johnny B. Goode," as you'll see with later albums.

I've also tried hard to limit each artist to only one song, to spread the musical wealth around. But, I made two exceptions, both on this album: the Beatles and the Yardbirds. For the Beatles, I considered it a must to include their version of "Rock and Roll Music," which they nailed. But I also included their version of "I Got to Find My Baby," since they're pretty much the only artist to ever cover that rare but good Berry song. With the Yardbirds, their version of "Too Much Monkey Business" is widely seen as a classic, and it's my favorite for that song. But I felt I couldn't miss "Jeff's Boogie" as well. This later instrumental is supposedly a Yardbirds original, but in fact it's a note for note copy of a song by Berry called "Guitar Boogie."So I've added "Guitar Boogie" to the song subtitle.

Speaking of stealing songwriting credits, the first song here, "Forty Days" by Ronnie Hawkins, needs some explanation. This very clearly is a version of Berry's song "Thirty Days," with only the title changed. So why 40 days instead of 30?! It seems that Hawkins thought he could claim the songwriting credit simply by changing the title. But that didn't work and he ended up having to pay royalties to Berry. I've put "Thirty Days" in as a subtitle to make clear what the song title really should have been.

But that's not the last songwriting credit controversy here. I've included the Beach Boys' "Surfin' U.S.A." That may seem strange to you unless you know that song is just Berry's "Sweet Little Sixteen" with new lyrics. At first, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys tried to take full credit for writing the song, but a deal was made to give half the credit to Berry. Wilson later freely admitted that he just rewrote the Berry song.

I listened to a ton of Berry covers in putting these albums together. That enabled me to select some obscure covers, as well as choosing some obscure Berry songs. For this album in particular, some garage bands did some lively, punky versions that deserve more attention.

By the way, each of the three Berry albums I've put together are about 50 minutes long.

01 Forty Days [Thirty Days] (Ronnie Hawkins)
02 Sweet Little Sixteen (Jerry Lee Lewis)
03 I Got to Find My Baby (Beatles)
04 Brown Eyed Handsome Man (Buddy Holly)
05 Downbound Train (Hoyt Axton)
06 Surfin' U.S.A. (Beach Boys)
07 Too Much Monkey Business (Yardbirds)
08 Maybellene (Johnny Rivers)
09 Beautiful Delilah (Kinks)
10 Carol (Rolling Stones)
11 Rock and Roll Music (Beatles)
12 Oh Baby Doll (Pretty Things)
13 How You've Changed (Animals)
14 Reelin' and Rockin' (Dave Clark Five)
15 I Want to Be Your Driver (Blues Project)
16 Almost Grown (Lovin' Spoonful)
17 Jeff's Boogie [Guitar Boogie] (Yardbirds)
18 Nadine [Is That You] (Smokestack Lightnin')
19 No Money Down (Duane Allman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687917/COVRDChuckB_1959-1969_Volum1_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I went with a photo of Berry from 1964.

Various Artists - Covered: Burt Bacharach & Hal David, Volume 1: 1957-1963

Here's a big project. Continuing my "Covered" series, this is the first of five albums dealing with songs written by Burt Bacharach and/or Hal David.

I'd like to think that Burt Bacharach is a household name. If he isn't anymore, he should be. If you don't know him, you must know many of his songs. Hal David is much less known, because he avoided publicity while Bacharach has been a public performer and a hobnobbing celebrity. But, generally speaking, Bacharach created the melodies and David wrote the lyrics. Together, they were one of the greatest songwriting teams of all time.

As usual with this series, I don't want to go into great detail about their life stories. Instead, here are their Wikipedia pages if you want to know more:

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

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

I feel obliged to say some more, to make clear who wrote what. David was seven years older than Bacharach, and got started with songwriting much earlier. He began writing songs professionally in the early 1940s. I only listened to a few of those early efforts, and I didn't judge any of them worthy of inclusion. He didn't really get on a winning streak until he met up with Bacharach in 1957 and they began collaborating.

Thus, most of the songs on this album were co-written by the two of them. But not all, because sometimes they would collaborate with others. For instance, "Sea of Heartbreak," Broken-Hearted Melody" and "Johnny Get Angry" were all written by David with someone other than Bacharach.

There's a very important point I want to make clear: for all five albums in this series, I have not included any songs performed by Dionne Warwick, unless I simply couldn't find any other versions of a particular song. The reason for that is because Bacharach-David songs are so closely linked to Warwick that her 1960s greatest hits albums are like 90 percent songs by them. She did many albums where virtually every song was written by them. I figure that anyone who is even remotely a fan of Bacharach-David songs has a Warwick's greatest hits at the very least, so I wanted to try something different here and see how their music fared with other singers. (If you don't have that, then please get one now! She really was the best singer for their style of music.)

Generally speaking, I've tried to include the hit versions, unless I deem those not very good. Bacharach and/or David were such successful songwriters that almost all the songs here were hits.

That said, I didn't include all their hits. Sometimes, they could get dangerously close to "easy listening" or Muzak-styled music. I generally don't like that kind of music, and I make these albums mainly for my own listening enjoyment, so if there was something I didn't like, I didn't include it. One example for the time period of this album is "American Beauty Rose," a song co-written by David that was a hit for Frank Sinatra in 1961. It just seemed generic for that kind of music, and not worthy of making the cut.

Each album in this series is about 45 to 50 minutes long.

01 The Story of My Life (Michael Holliday)
02 Magic Moments (Perry Como)
03 Broken-Hearted Melody (Sarah Vaughan)
04 Mexican Divorce (Drifters)
05 Sea of Heartbreak (Don Gibson)
06 I Wake Up Crying (Chuck Jackson)
07 Baby, It's You (Shirelles)
08 Tower of Strength (Gene McDaniels)
09 Please Stay (Drifters)
10 [The Man Who Shot] Liberty Valance (Gene Pitney)
11 Only Love Can Break a Heart (Gene Pitney)
12 It's Love that Really Counts [In the Long Run] (Shirelles)
13 Any Day Now [My Wild Beautiful Bird] (Chuck Jackson)
14 Johnny Get Angry (Joanie Sommers)
16 Blue Guitar (Richard Chamberlain)
18 Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa (Gene Pitney)
19 Don't Make Me Over (Dee Dee Sharp)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17175671/COVRDBACHDAVD1957-1963Vlum1_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/X1EysT49

Photographs of Bacharach are easy to find, because he was a prominent public figure. But photos of Bacharach and David are very hard to find, because David was so low profile. I don't know when or where this photo is from, but I think it's from the early 1960s, judging by the way David's hairline receded over the years. David is standing and Bacharach is sitting at a piano.

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 2: 1959-1962

I've put together three albums of the best of the songwriting team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. I feel like posting all three at once, so here's the second one in the series.

This volume covers the years of their commercial and creative peak. So it only deals with four years, a lot less than for the other two volumes. The first volume was dominated by Elvis Presley songs, with nine. There are only two songs performed by him this time.

There are five song by the Coasters. There would have been one more, but I went with a version of "Three Cool Cats" by the Beatles. The Coasters had a minor hit with the song, while the Beatles were nobodies at the time. In fact, their recording comes from an early audition to try to win a record contract. But of course, they're the Beatles. ;)

01 Kansas City (Wilbert Harrison)
02 Along Came Jones (Coasters)
03 Dance with Me (Drifters)
04 That Is Rock and Roll (Coasters)
05 Love Potion No. 9 (Clovers)
06 There Goes My Baby (Drifters)
07 Charlie Brown (Coasters)
08 Smokey Joe's Cafe (Buddy Holly)
09 Saved (LaVern Baker)
10 Dirty, Dirty Feeling (Elvis Presley)
11 Shoppin' for Clothes (Coasters)
12 Stand by Me (Ben E. King)
13 Don Juan (LaVern Baker)
14 Little Egypt [Ying-Yang] (Coasters)
15 Spanish Harlem (Ben E. King)
16 Your Old Lady (Isley Brothers)
17 Some Other Guy (Richie Barrett)
18 She's Not You (Elvis Presley)
19 I Keep Forgettin' (Chuck Jackson)
20 Three Cool Cats (Beatles)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17180180/COVRDLeibStllr1959-1962Volum2_atse.zip.html

alternate link:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5UCKqKFD

As I mentioned in my write-up for volume 1, I don't like using black and white photos for the cover art. Luckily, I figured out a way to colorize such photos, so that's what I did for this one.

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

Carole King - It Might as Well Rain until September - More Legendary Demos, Volume 1 (1959-1965)

Carole King is one of the best and most successful songwriters of all time. Incredibly enough, she wrote or co-wrote 118 top 100 hits in the U.S.!

Her musical career is really split into two. From the late 1950s until about 1970, she was pretty much a pure songwriter, rarely releasing music under her own name and never playing in concert. Then, in 1971, she had a huge hit with the "Tapestry" album, which was one of the most successful albums of all time, and was the start of a long and successful career for her as a performer.

In the first phase of King's career, although she rarely publicly released singles, she usually made private demos of her songs for other artists to work from. She had a good voice (as her success with "Tapestry" and after showed), and good musical and production instincts, and easily could have had a lot of hits on her own if she wanted to. This is shown by the fact that one of her few early singles in her own name, "It Might as Well Rain until September," was a hit in 1962, even reaching number three in Britain.

An album's worth of her demos were officially released in 2012 as "The Legendary Demos." But this album just scratched the surface of all the demos she did. I've collected many more, most of which are still officially unreleased, though available on some bootlegs pretending to be legitimate and sometimes sold in stores. I've made three such albums, which I call "More Legendary Demos." This is the first one.

Only five of the songs here have been officially released. Two were singles at the time, and three more came out on "The Legendary Demos" album. But the sound quality of the others are just about as good as the officially released ones.

I could have included many more songs. But I only selected the ones I liked. Frankly, in King's early years, she wrote (and demoed) a lot of formulaic songs that haven't stood the test of time. But sometimes, magic would strike, and she would come up with some all time classics. Not all such classics are represented here, because she either didn't make demos of them or the demos haven't become publicly available. For instance, here are just a few of the songs from the early 196s0 I wish I had demos of, but don't: "Chains," "The Locomotion," "I'm into Something Good," "One Fine Day," and "Halfway to Paradise." She really was a hit-making machine!

By the way, note the song "Bad Boy" on this album. Does the melody ring a bell? In my opinion, it's extremely similar to "Pocahontas" by Neil Young, which of course was written many years after this one. I wonder if Young was aware of "Bad Boy", which was officially released in 1962 but obscure, or if the similarity is just a coincidence.

This album is 43 minutes long.

UPDATE: On August 6, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. I discovered one song I'd previously missed: "Yes I Will." It was a hit for the Hollies in 1965. This actually is a song King didn't have a hand in writing, the only one like that on this album. But her main songwriting collaborator at the time, her husband Gerry Goffin, was one of the two co-writers.

01 Samson and Delilah (Carole King & Gerry Goffin)
02 Every Breath I Take (Carole King)
03 Take Good Care of My Baby (Carole King)
04 Disappointed (Carole King)
05 He's a Bad Boy (Carole King)
06 It Might as Well Rain until September (Carole King)
07 Crying in the Rain (Carole King)
08 Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (Carole King)
09 Go Away Little Girl (Carole King)
10 Up on the Roof (Carole King)
11 Oh Oh, It Started Over Again (Carole King)
12 Hey Girl (Carole King)
13 Oh No, Not My Baby (Carole King)
14 Don't Let Me Stand in Your Way (Carole King)
15 Yes I Will (Carole King)
16 Just Once in My Life (Carole King)
17 Stage Door (Carole King)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XL9x4mqB

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/rnU3z4ZzgIsCacE/file

There are very few early photos of Carole King. For the album cover, I used a popular publicity photo. For the rest of the cover art, I used much of the artwork from the "It Might as Well Rain until September" single. The photo originally was in black and white, but over a year after originally posting this, I colorized it.