Various Artists - P. F. Sloan & Steve Barri, Volume 1: 1964-1967

Here's another songwriting team chosen for the seemingly neverending "Covered" series. This time, it's P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri. I've found enough music for two volumes.

First off, I want to point out that this seems to have been a lopsided partnership. I've read a bunch of articles and interviews about these guys, and I've come to the conclusion that Sloan did most of the songwriting and Barri mostly helped with production and fleshing things out. This can be seen in the way Sloan continued to write and release lots of songs after their partnership finished, while Barri moved into production and other record industry roles, only occasionally co-writing songs for musical acts he produced. Heck, even Barri later admitted that Sloan was the key to their success, saying of him, "He was a major, major talent. God, he was good."

So this write-up is mostly about Sloan, and what a weird life story he had. (He died in 2015 at the age of 70.) 

Sloan showed musical talent at a young age. He started playing guitar at the age of 13, but just one year later he released an obscure single. Two years after that, around 1961, he got a songwriting job in Los Angeles with Screen Gems, the largest music publishing company on the West Coast. Even though he was only 16 years old, with virtually no musical experience, apparently he was hired mainly because the publishing company wanted a teenager on staff to help them make money off teenagers buying rock and roll records. 

Soon, Sloan began working with Barri, who was three years older than him. They began writing songs together at a frantic pace. They also produced and played the instruments on their songs, and many more. But that wasn't all. They pretended to be entire bands, and released many singles and even albums under a variety of different names, such as the Rally-Packs, the Wildcats, the Street Cleaners, Themes Inc., the Fantastic Baggys, the Lifeguards, and many more. The first song here, "Meet Me Tonight Little Girl," was actually written and recorded by Sloan and Barri in 1964, though they used yet another different name based on their first names, "Philip and Stephan."

In 1963, producer Lou Adler recognized their talent and was able to get them to switch to working for his record company, Dunhill Records, by doubling their salaries. Once there, Sloan worked a lot with Jan Berry, the real musical force of the duo Jan and Dean. Sloan sang uncredited lead vocals on the Jan and Dean hit "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena," and most other Jan and Dean hits for the next couple of years. He also came up with the intro guitar riff for the massive hit "California Dreamin'" by the Mamas and the Papas. Sloan in particular had a knack for writing songs in the popular styles of the day. He wrote entire albums of surf music, songs in the style of the Beach Boys, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and more.

Their first, and probably biggest hit, was "Eve of Destruction," in 1965. This was an extremely unlikely hit. Nowadays, it's hard to see how controversial its critical social commentary lyrics were. But the singer of the song, Barry McGuire, didn't like it, and only sang it to fill out an album. The record company certainly didn't like it, and had no intention of releasing it as a single. Even Barri didn't like it, and apparently had no role in writing or producing it (although he was given a co-write credit, since he and Sloan shared writing credits on all the songs either one of them wrote at this time). But someone (Sloan, perhaps?) leaked a copy of the song to a Los Angeles radio station. The public response was so overwhelming that the record company was forced to release it as a single. Once released, hundreds of radio stations banned it for its controversial lyrics. But despite such widespread banning, it made it all the way to Number One in the U.S. singles chart in 1965! 

After such a massive success, it would have been a no-brainer to let the key songwriter of the song - Sloan - to pursue a solo career. And indeed, Sloan released solo albums in 1965 and 1966. However, they went nowhere. It seems pretty obvious that his record company, Dunhill Records, sabotaged his solo career as much as possible. This is because Sloan was writing many, many songs for the other acts on that record label, AND producing, AND playing the instruments, while getting paid very little for it, relatively speaking. If Sloan became a big star and just focused on his own career, they probably would have lost a lot of money on all their other acts. 

Some of the Top Forty hits they wrote in 1964 to 1966 include "A Must to Avoid" by Herman's Hermits, "Let Me Be" by the Turtles, "You Baby" by the Turtles, "Where Were You When I Needed You" by the Grass Roots, and "Secret Agent Man" by Johnny Rivers. But they really should have had many more hits, except Dunhill Records didn't have much distribution or promotion muscle. This can be seen by the fact that they had several more Top Ten hits in Canada. For instance, "Unless You Care" was a Number Two hit in that country in 1964. 

In fact, speaking of the Grass Roots, for that band's first album, Sloan and Barri basically were the band. This was yet another in a long series of fake bands fronted by them. They wrote, produced, and performed nearly all of the songs on the band's first album, released in 1966. But the song "Where Were You When I Needed You" had such success that a real band was hired to tour. Then that band actually performed on their next album. That was a success in 1967, mainly due to "Let's Live for Today," a song that was chosen and produced by Sloan and Barri, although they didn't write it.

However, the good times didn't last. Around the end of 1966, Sloan and Barri had a falling out, and their songwriting partnership (lopsided though it was) came to an end. The heads of Dunhill Records, especially an executive named Jay Lasker, really, really screwed Sloan over. In the 1960s, organized crime had a role in many record companies. Consider what happened to Jackie Wilson, who at one point was hung upside down out a window of a tall building until he agreed to sign a terrible record contract for a Mafia-controlled record label. Or consider Roulette Records. Even their Wikipedia entry states they "had known ties to New York City mobsters." Members of their biggest act, Tommy James and the Shondells, have said the company was a front for the notorious Genovese crime family, and the record company stole millions from them.

A similar thing happened to Sloan. Lasker, a rough guy from the New York City Mafia, repeatedly threatened to hurt or even kill him if he didn't do exactly what Dunhill Records told him to do. At one point, he forced him to sign away all his royalties, including everything he would earn for the next ten years, in return for letting him live. This is what caused the split between Sloan and Barri, because Barri sided with Dunhill Records. He continued working for them, and made lots of money from his continued royalties. 

But Lasker pushed too hard, and essentially killed the golden goose that was the reason for most of the record company's success. At some point in late 1967, Sloan couldn't take it anymore. He fled Los Angeles for the East Coast. There, his life slowly spiraled down into even worse circumstances. But that will be explained in the second and last volume in this series, since this volume only goes until 1967. 

Normally, in the "Covered" albums, I try not to have the songwriters also appear as performers. But I made a couple of exceptions here, because there are a couple of excellent songs in this time period that were best performed by Sloan: "Here's Where You Belong" and "Karma (Study of Divinations)." Also keep in mind that's him singing on the first song, as mentioned above.

Although I mentioned "Where Were You When I Needed You" as a hit in this time period, I haven't included it here. That's because I've chosen a later version by the Bangles that will appear in Volume 2.

Here's the Wikipedia link for Sloan:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._F._Sloan

And here's the one for Barri:

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

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Meet Me Tonight Little Girl (Philip & Stephan)
02 Unless You Care (Terry Black)
03 Eve of Destruction (Barry McGuire)
04 A Must to Avoid (Herman's Hermits)
05 Let Me Be (Turtles)
06 Sh-Down Down Song [You Better Leave Him Alone] (Ginger-Snaps with Dandee Dawson)
07 Little Liar (Terry Black)
08 You Never Had It So Good [Lollipop Train] (Barry McGuire)
09 Take Me for What I'm Worth (Searchers)
10 Here's Where You Belong (P. F. Sloan)
11 Sins of a Family (Ivans Meads)
12 What Am I Doing Here with You (Johnny Rivers)
13 You Baby (Turtles)
14 Tip of My Tongue (Grass Roots)
15 Bittersweet (Robbs)
16 From a Distance (Odin's People)
17 Can I Get to Know You Better (Turtles)
18 Secret Agent Man (Johnny Rivers)
19 Hold On (Herman's Hermits)
20 Is It Any Wonder (Turtles)
21 Karma [Study of Divinations] (P. F. Sloan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ckJi9NQv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xqtxOpGTnH6ML1P/file

The cover image is taken from an album by a band called "The Fantastic Baggys," supposedly consisting of four members. In fact, though, it was just Sloan and Barri, which is why there was a photo of just the two of them in the album art. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it. I also moved their heads closer together.

Covered: Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff, Volume 1: 1964-1970

It's time for another songwriting team in the "Covered" series. Here, I'm looking at the soul music giants Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. I have enough of the songs they wrote for four albums. Here's the first one.

You may not know Gamble and Huff by name, but I'll bet you know their songs. In the 1960s, soul music was dominated by the Motown sound coming out of Detroit. But in the 1970s, soul music was dominated by the Philly sound, which came out of Philadelphia. In 1991, the group Boyz II Men had a big hit with the song "Motownphilly." The title says it all, showing nostalgia for the two main soul music trends of earlier decades.

Motown Records had lots of great songwriters, with the Holland-Dozier-Holland team being the most prominent. It was a similar situation with the Philly sound, except the Gamble and Huff team was even more prominent. That's especially if you take into account all of their roles. They co-owned the main record label for the Philly sound, Philadelphia International. When they weren't writing hit songs, they were signing new acts and/or producing hits. Between writing and producing they were involved in a truly stunning 175 gold or platinum records!

So hopefully that's enough of an intro to entice you, if you weren't familiar with their names. Now, here's more about how the music on this first volume came to be.

Kenny Gamble was born in Philadelphia in 1943, and Leon Huff was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1942. Gamble was discovered by Jerry Ross when he was 17 years old, in 1963. At that time, Ross was an established record company owner, producer, and songwriter. Gamble and Ross wrote some songs together before the Gamble and Huff collaboration really took off. Their biggest success was "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," which was a hit for multiple artists. (I've included the original version, by Dee Dee Warwick in 1966, but it was a much bigger hit later for the Supremes and Temptations.) Through working with Ross, Gamble learned much about the music business, including how to run a record label.

The collaboration between Gamble and Huff began in the 1950s. They were members of a harmony group called the Romeos. That group didn't have much success. But another member of the Romeos was Thom Bell, who also would later have a key role in the Philly sound. (He'll be the subject of a separate "Covered" album.) They even occasionally wrote songs together as far back as the 1950s, such as "Lost," which was a minor hit for Jerry Butler in 1959.

The Gamble and Huff collaboration intensified with the very first song here, "The 81" by Candy and the Kisses, in 1964. Although the song was written by Gamble and Ross, Huff played keyboards on the song, and he helped produce it with Gamble. Huff also got to co-write the B-side. Bit by bit, they began writing more songs together. The first really big Gamble and Huff written song was "Expressway to Your Heart," which made the Top Five in both the pop and soul charts in the U.S. in 1967. Their songwriting grew more frequent and successful in 1968, with three big hits they wrote together: "Hey Western Union Man," "Cowboys to Girls," and "I Can't Stop Dancing." From that point on, they became a hit-making force, usually writing at least a handful of hits each year, for many years to come.

That takes us to the end of this volume. I'll continue with their story in the next one. But in the meantime, here's their Wikipedia link if you want to know more. And yes, I said "link," not "links" - the two of them are so closely associated with each other that there's only a "Gamble and Huff" Wikipedia page, not pages for each of them:

Gamble and Huff - Wikipedia 

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 The 81 (Candy & the Kisses)
02 Who Do You Love (Sapphires)
03 I Really Love You (Dee Dee Sharp)
04 I'm Gonna Make You Love Me (Dee Dee Warwick)
05 Girl Don't Make Me Wait (Bunny Sigler)
06 Expressway to Your Heart (Soul Survivors)
07 Together (Intruders)
08 I Can't Stop Dancing (Archie Bell & the Drells)
09 At the Top of the Stairs (Formations)
10 'Cause You're Mine (Vibrations)
11 Hey Western Union Man (Jerry Butler)
12 Cowboys to Girls (Intruders)
13 Love in Them There Hills (Vibrations)
14 [There's Gonna Be] A Showdown (Archie Bell & the Drells)
15 Moody Woman (Jerry Butler)
16 It's Been a Long Time (Betty Everett)
17 Only the Strong Survive (Jerry Butler)
18 A Brand New Me (Dusty Springfield)
19 What's the Use of Breaking Up (Jerry Butler)
20 Here I Go Again (Archie Bell & the Drells)
21 Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You (Wilson Pickett)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/T4D57AYn 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/LZ96W3r5vnKxxBk/file

The cover image is from 1968. I moved the two people closer using Photoshop. Also, the original picture was in black and white. But I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. That's Huff on the left (wearing a hat) and Gamble on the right.

Covered: Brian Wilson, Volume 1: 1963-1978 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

June 11th marks the first anniversary of the passing of musical genius Brian Wilson (1942–2025), who would have turned 84 on June 20th had he still been with us. This seems like the perfect moment to post "Covered" albums devoted to this extraordinary songwriter. Since Brian is, of course, closely associated with the Beach Boys, the "Covered: Brian Wilson" collection also serves as an indirect tribute to the legendary vocal group, highlighting the enormous influence they have had on generations of musicians since the 1960s.

This collection is another collaboration with Fabio from Rio. He is a devoted Beach Boys fan and, in fact, his first guest post here was a tribute to Brian Wilson, written and published just days after Brian’s death one year ago. You can find it here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/06/various-artists-songs-in-key-of-brian.html

It is therefore no surprise that he embraced this project wholeheartedly and came up with hundreds of potential covers, which were eventually trimmed down to exactly 100 tracks spread across five volumes. These 100 recordings represent 98 different compositions, since we made minor exceptions to my usual policy of avoiding duplicate songs by including two versions each of "God Only Knows" and "Good Vibrations", which will appear in later volumes.

Most of the songs here were not hits in their cover versions or at least were not big hits. But there is one important exception: “Surf City” was a Number One hit in the US in 1963 for Jan and Dean. The song was written by Wilson and Jan Berry of Jan and Dean fame. However, even though a lot of these were not the big hits, they were intended to be, it shows that Wilson’s songs were being widely covered practically from the very beginning of his career with The Beach Boys in 1962.

Note that during The time period of this album, 1963 to 1978, Wilson wrote or cowrote dozens of hit songs for the Beach Boys. Fabio and I were careful to never use the Beach Boys versions or solo Brian Wilson versions, but only covers by other musical acts. It just so happens that many of the best covers of those hits from this time come later. So if you don’t see some of your favorite songs, just wait to see what we come up with for the later volumes.

Out of these 23 tracks here, only 12 were recorded by the Beach Boys around the time of their first release. The remaining 11 tracks were originally recorded by other artists, demonstrating that Brian's talent was not limited to his own group.

These are the non-Beach Boys tracks: 

01 Drag City (Jan & Dean)

02 He's a Doll (Honeys)

03 Surf City (Jan & Dean)

04 The One You Can't Have (Honeys)

06 The New Girl in School (Jan & Dean)

08 Guess I'm Dumb (Glen Campbell)

13 Time to Get Alone (Redwood)

17 Good Time (American Spring)

19 Sweet Mountain (American Spring)

20 Had to Phone Ya (American Spring)

23 Almost Summer (Celebration)

A few of those songs - tracks 13, 17, and 20 - were later done by the Beach Boys. And Celebration was a side project for Beach Boys singer Mike Love.

Particularly noteworthy are the Honeys / American Spring (a.k.a. Spring), which together are represented here by five songs. The Honeys were a pop group formed by sisters Marilyn Rovell (later Marilyn Wilson), Diane Rovell, and Barbara Rovell (the latter eventually replaced by their cousin, Ginger Blake). In many ways, they were a female counterpart to the Beach Boys. They were discovered by Gary Usher at a talent show in 1961. Usher eventually introduced them to Brian, who renamed the group and began dating Marilyn. The couple married in December 1964.

The Honeys dissolved in 1970 when Ginger left the group to pursue a solo career. Marilyn and Diane then formed Spring, and later added "American" to the band's name after encountering trademark issues with a British group of the same name that threatened legal action. American Spring released a single album in 1972, produced by Brian Wilson, and recorded several additional tracks in 1977–1978 for a second album that was never released. Some of these recordings would later appear on compilations and anthologies. "Had to Phone Ya," recorded before the Beach Boys' own version, is one such example. 

This album is one hour long.

01 Drag City (Jan & Dean)
02 He's a Doll (Honeys)
03 Surf City (Jan & Dean)
04 The One You Can't Have (Honeys)
05 You're So Good to Me (Fireballs)
06 The New Girl in School (Jan & Dean)
07 Don't Worry Baby (Ivy League)
08 Guess I'm Dumb (Glen Campbell)
09 Here Today (Bobby Vee)
10 I'm Waiting for the Day (Peanut)
11 Don't Talk [Put Your Head on My Shoulder] (Carmen McRae)
12 The Little Girl I Once Knew (Bystanders)
13 Time to Get Alone (Redwood)
14 Aren't You Glad (Peggy March)
15 Darlin' (Paper Dolls)
16 Friends (Chicks)
17 Good Time (American Spring)
18 Vegetables (Jan & Dean)
19 Sweet Mountain (American Spring)
20 Had to Phone Ya (American Spring)
21 Sail On Sailor (KGB)
22 Breakaway (Wildfire)
23 Almost Summer (Celebration)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ypFoz44W

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/DdA0Xae8n72zlKI/file

The cover image is from 1964.

Covered: George Harrison, Volume 1: 1964-1971

It's time that I tackle a truly great songwriter for the "Covered" series: George Harrison. I hope and assume that anyone reading the blog already knows that he was a member of the Beatles. This series includes songs he wrote while in the Beatles with songs from his long solo career afterwards. I found enough for six volumes.

Harrison is such a famous musician that I'm not going to try to sum up his life or even just his music career. But I do want to write some about the early evolution of his songwriting.

When it came to writing songs, he was a late bloomer. In the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote about 100 songs separately or together before the Beatles released their first album in 1963. (A lot of them were discarded.) Harrison was watching and learning from one of the greatest songwriting teams of all time. But apparently it wasn't until 1963 when he wrote his first complete song, or at least one he considered good enough to show to the other Beatles. His "Don't Bother Me" would appear on the band's second album, "With The Beatles." He wrote it while sick in bed during the summer of 1963. He later said that it was as an exercise to see if he could write a song, and "at least it showed me that all I needed to do was keep on writing, and then maybe eventually I would write something good."

But despite this early success (which, in fact, was a good song), the next two Beatles albums went by without any original Harrison songs on them. (He occasionally sang cover versions on Beatles recordings instead.) He later said that he lacked confidence and found it hard to compete with what he called the many "wondrous hits" written by the Lennon-McCartney team. But then the 1965 Beatles album "Help!" contained two of his songs. From that point on, every Beatles album contained at least one of his songs, usually two, and once three. (There were four on 1968's "The White Album," but that can be seen as two albums with two of his songs each.) He also had the occasional song come out on a B-side or archival release. Ultimately, 22 of his songs were released while the Beatles were together, out of 188 original songs by the band in total. But a few more of his songs trickled out in archival releases, such as "You Know What to Do," "Not Guilty," and "All Things Must Pass." There are still more of his songs the Beatles tried in the studio but remain unreleased. Most of those eventually appeared on his solo albums.

Unfortunately, for many years, Lennon and McCartney underestimated Harrison's songwriting, and didn't do much to encourage him. The two of them were writing so many excellent songs that they weren't keen to find room for many of Harrison's songs as well. But by 1969, that changed. Harrison's two songs for the "Abbey Road" album that year, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun," aren't just great Beatles songs, they're some of the best and most acclaimed songs of all time. "Something" is one of the most frequently covered songs ever, and as I write this in 2026, "Here Comes the Sun" is the most listened Beatles song on Spotify. 

As a result, Lennon and McCartney could no longer downplay Harrison's songwriting talent. Lennon called "Something" the best song on "Abbey Road." And, in 1969, McCartney said, "I think that until now, until this year, our songs have been better than George's. Now this year his songs are at least as good as ours." Also, decades later, McCartney had this to say: "It was easy to underestimate George because me and John... had always written most of the stuff... and George was a late bloomer as far as writing was concerned. He wasn't that interested in the beginning but then he started to get interested and, boy, did he bloom, you know? He wrote some of the greatest songs ever."

On September 8, 1969, the Beatles had an important meeting about their future plans. Ringo Starr couldn't attend, so the other Beatles made a tape recording of the meeting. That means a recording of exactly what was said has survived. In the meeting, due to the undeniable success of Harrison's songs on "Abbey Road," Harrison was treated as a songwriting equal to Lennon and McCartney, perhaps for the first time within the band. 

Lennon had been drifting away from the Beatles for some time, distracted by his relationship with Yoko Ono and hobbled by a heroin addiction. But in the meeting, he suggested the Beatles record a new album and a new single before the end of 1969, which would have been an ambitious schedule. He also suggested that he, McCartney, and Harrison get four songs each on every Beatles album moving forward, with Starr getting one or two if he wanted. (At this point, Starr had only written two songs on Beatles albums credited solely to him.)

Here's an entire article about that meeting. It's fascinating reading if you're a Beatles fan, with a lot of discussion about Harrison's songwriting and his role in the band: 

https://www.guitarplayer.com/guitarists/john-lennon-plan-to-keep-the-beatles-together

Unfortunately though, later that month, Lennon took part in a rock festival in Toronto, Canada, as a solo artist. That experience went so well for him that it gave him the confidence to want to leave the Beatles and have a solo career instead. About a month after that, he told the other Beatles he was leaving the band, although they kept that a secret for another six months due to wanting to present a united front in a legal dispute they were having with their record company.

However, even after Lennon's announcement he was leaving, there was still a chance the Beatles would continue, releasing more solo albums mixed with Beatles albums where Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison would get four albums each. Here's the audio of a radio interview Harrison did in March 1970 where he talked about the Beatles getting back together later in 1970 to record another album after all four of them did solo albums:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-fNA3Ee5eM 

Unfortunately, growing problems prevented that from happening, most especially due to financial conflicts between the band members as they fought over management and ended up suing each other. But that meant that by 1970, Harrison had a big backlog of excellent songs he'd been writing. Many of them came out on his classic and very successful solo album "All Things Must Pass" later in 1970. (Technically, it was a triple album, but it's basically a double album of songs because the third album just contains some long jam sessions.) A lot of those were written much earlier, but had been ignored by the other Beatles. For instance, "Isn't It a Pity" was written back in 1966, and had been rejected by the others for both the "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper's" albums!

Anyway, let me steer this more to discussing the songs on this volume. Across the six volumes in this series, I have included ALL the songs Harrison wrote for the Beatles, but most of them don't show up until later volumes, just because what I considered the best cover versions didn't happen until years later. Instead, this volume has many songs that Harrison was writing with and/or for other musical acts at the time, since usually the best (and often the only) versions were the first ones. So, for instance, "Sour Milk Sea" was a song he wrote for Jackie Lomax, though Lomax's 1968 single of it didn't make the charts. He co-wrote "Badge" with Eric Clapton, and it was released by the band Clapton was in at the time, Cream. 

"Hurdy Gurdy Man" is an interesting case. Donovan wrote it when he was vacationing in India with the Beatles and others in 1968. It was a big hit, making the Top Five in both the U.S. and Britain that year. But it turns out Harrison helped him out, writing a verse of the song by himself. But when the song came out as a single, the Harrison verse was missing. It was cut by the producer, due to the pressure of keeping a single under three minutes. Donovan later regretted this, saying it was the best verse in the song. He has often performed the Harrison verse in concert ever since. Apparently, Harrison was also very disappointed the verse wasn't included. I've used a live solo acoustic version from 1973 that includes that verse. But I put it in 1968 chronologically, since that's when Donovan's version of the song first came out (and when the Harrison verse should have come out as well).

"Octopus's Garden" is another tricky case. Technically, and legally, that song was written solely by Ringo Starr, and was included on the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album. But, in fact, it's pretty obvious to me that while the original idea was Starr's, Harrison played a key role finishing the song. At the time, Starr had barely done any songwriting, and he needed help. Harrison did Starr a favor by not asking for a songwriting credit. In both the "Let It Be" and "The Beatles: Get Back" films, one can actually see footage of Harrison helping him write the song while also teaching songwriting techniques.

Basically, the exact same thing happened with "It Don't Come Easy." The song was released as a solo single by Starr in 1971, and it made the Top Five in both the U.S. and Britain. Here's an except from the Wikipedia entry about the song: "Although Starr received sole writing credit for 'It Don't Come Easy,' Beatles historian Bruce Spizer writes that he had 'substantial, but uncredited, assistance' from his bandmate George Harrison. In author Robert Rodriguez's description, the official songwriting credit was long thought to be 'bogus' and, notwithstanding Starr's involvement, a sign of Harrison's 'great generosity' in wanting to help the drummer establish himself independently of the Beatles." Starr started writing it in 1968 by himself, but he had trouble finishing songs. I would guess Harrison wrote half or more of it.

A couple of songs here you might not recognize, even if you're a big fan of Harrison's music, because he never released his own versions of them: "Ain't That Cute" by Doris Troy, "Sing One for the Lord" by Billy Preston, and "I'm Your Spiritual Breadman" by Ashton, Gardner and Dyke. In each case, he was involved in the production and/or recording of albums by those artists, and got involved enough to write or co-write some songs. "Try Some, Buy Some" by Ronnie Spector was another case of that, but he eventually did release his own version of that one.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Don't Bother Me (Gregory Phillips)
02 If I Needed Someone (Hollies)
03 Sour Milk Sea (Jackie Lomax)
04 Hurdy Gurdy Man (Donovan)
05 Badge (Cream)
06 Octopus's Garden (Ringo Starr)
07 My Sweet Lord (Billy Preston)
08 Something (Shirley Bassey)
09 Ain't That Cute (Doris Troy)
10 Sing One for the Lord (Billy Preston)
11 Here Comes the Sun (Richie Havens)
12 Taxman (Junior Parker)
13 It Don't Come Easy (Ringo Starr)
14 I'm Your Spiritual Breadman (Ashton, Gardner & Dyke)
15 Try Some, Buy Some (Ronnie Spector)
16 Let It Down (Stone the Crows)
17 The Inner Light (Jimmy McGriff & Junior Parker)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MtrvVGxu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/IIi6h8Vu3ZIF8Yh/file

The cover image is from 1965.

The Beatles and Various Artists (including Brenda Holloway and King Curtis) - Shea Stadium, New York City, 8-15-1965

Normally, I'm not that interested in recordings of Beatles concerts, because they generally played short sets with the same songs over and over again, and the sound quality is bad, with more screaming girls than music. But this is an exception, for three reasons. 

One: this was an incredibly important and historic concert. That's because it was the very first stadium-sized concert anywhere. The 55,000 person-sized crowd would remain the largest audience for any Beatles concert, and the largest concert in the U.S. by anyone until a concert by Led Zeppelin in 1973. After it proved to be a big success, stadium concerts have become a standard thing ever since. It also was highly symbolic, showing how the Beatles were a cultural phenomenon and the most popular music act in the world, by far. Even the cynical John Lennon later said, "I saw the top of the mountain on that glorious night."

Two: this is the only Beatles concert recording I've seen that includes the opening acts with worthy sound quality. So you get the full concert experience, complete with lots of local radio DJs and other emcees hyping things up. It's true the opening acts weren't the greatest, compared to other opening acts for other Beatles concerts. I'm mainly interested in King Curtis and Brenda Holloway. But still, all of them are interesting as a historical curiosity. Keep in mind that there are an extremely small number of concert recordings from rock concerts as far back as 1965, outside of the Beatles and a few other big stars. So we're very lucky to have the opening acts. 

Three: the sound quality is surprisingly good for all of it, including the Beatles set. That's surprising because most concert recordings of the Beatles are practically unlistenable, in my opinion, due to all the screaming. And we know this concert took the screaming to new levels. The Beatles were forced to use the stadium's P.A. system, which was woefully inadequate for the situation. That meant the Beatles could barely hear each other. For instance, John Lennon later said of the concert, "It was a happening. You couldn't hear any music at all." But somehow, this recording brought the crowd noise down to a normal, reasonable level. I've done a lot of audio editing of crowd noise for this blog in general, but I barely made any changes for the Beatles set. (To have no or very little crowd noise would sound weird as well.) Plus, the actual singing and playing by the Beatles sounds very good, considering the difficult circumstances. 

There's a lot more I could say about this concert. But I don't want to write a mini-tome. So instead, I'll suggest some links if you want to know more. There's no Wikipedia page just for this concert. So here's a page from the Beatles Bible website instead:

https://www.beatlesbible.com/1965/08/15/live-shea-stadium-new-york/

Here's a 17 minute long fan-made YouTube video that explains the story of the concert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sca-bR1b-qE&t=247s

And here's a Rolling Stone magazine article just about the concert: 

Why The Beatles’ Shea Stadium Show Is The Ultimate Pop Celebration 

Here's a Washington Post article from 2025, also just about the concert, written to mark the 60th anniversary of it. It has a lot of great photos and anecdotes, including extensive quotes for Brenda Holloway about her impressions of all of it:

The Beatles’ historic Shea Stadium concert, remembered 60 years later - The Washington Post 

Finally, and most importantly, here's the transcript of an interview of author Laurie Jacobson, who wrote an ENTIRE BOOK just about this one concert, called "Top of the Mountain." I highly recommend reading this one. It's not too long, and it's filled with interesting stories, for instance how Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were also at the concert, and what happened to them:

https://lovethatsongpodcast.com/the-beatles-play-shea-stadium-1965/

By the way, did you know a lot of then-current and future famous people were in the crowd of 55,000 people for that concert? Future Beatles wives Linda Eastman and Barbara Bach were there. So were Marvin Gaye, Bobby Vinton, John Sebastian, Ronnie Spector, and Mary Wilson of the Supremes. (Gaye actually got a brief mention by an emcee right before Brenda Holloway's set.) So were Joe Walsh, Steve Van Zant, Whoopi Goldberg, and Meryl Streep, all of them teenagers or younger at the time. (Streep held up an "I love Paul" sign.) And Bob Dylan did not attend the concert, but he hung out with the Beatles at their hotel after the concert ended. (He'd met them for the first time a year earlier.) 

Another aside. Some accounts claim that the Rascals, then known as the Young Rascals, performed at the concert. They did not. However, they did attend, and got prime seats in the third base dugout. At the time, they had signed a record contract, but were still unknown. Promoter Sid Bernstein wanted to hype them as the next big thing, and had the scoreboard sign flash the message "The Rascals are coming!" But Beatles manager Brian Epstein saw that and told Bernstein to stop it immediately, so it was stopped.

Now, let me address edits to this recording. I kept most of it, but I removed a song at the start called "Discotech Dancers Medley." It basically was a Muzak-like instrumental that played while a dance troupe called the Discotech Dancers showed off their moves. It was something I guess you needed to see more than hear. Also, there was very little cheering to be heard at the ends of songs for all the opening acts. So I generally upped the volume of the applause for all of those.

There also were extensive problems with most of the songs in the short set by Cannibal and the Headhunters. I did my best to fix those (which is why you see "[Edit]" in some song titles, but there was only so much I could do. The first half of "The Way You Do the Things You Do" is incomplete, and there's nothing I could do about that. There were the most problems with "Land of 1000 Dances," the band's sole hit, and the banter track right after that. I ran those though MVSEP multiple times to get rid of the strange crackling noises. Each pass got a rid of more, but I reached diminishing returns so I had to stop. It sounds a lot better than before, but there's still a lot of bothersome noise there.

The Beatles recorded this entire concert because they planned to make an hour-long BBC T.V. special out of it. And such a special was made, and shown in Britain in March 1966. However, there were a lot of flaws in the recording of the Beatles performance. For instance, Lennon's voice dropped out for one of the verses in "Help." I patched that using a different live version from 1965. Due to these problems, the Beatles went to a recording studio in January 1966 and completely rerecorded three of the songs: "Ticket to Ride," "I Feel Fine," and "Help." They used a different live version of "Twist and Shout." They also rerecorded other bits. For instance, Paul McCartney redid his bass parts for most of the songs. For Ringo Starr's vocals on "Act Naturally," they just patched in vocals from the studio version. This is the original recording of their concert performance, before the Beatles did their rerecordings (with the exception of the edit I made to "Help"). Perhaps I'll post that quite different BBC version of the concert at another time, since I like posting BBC stuff.

You can find a Wikipedia article about the BBC special of this concert, here:

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

One last comment. If anyone knows of any other recordings like this were the opening acts to the Beatles were recorded as well, please let me know. Like I said above, I'm just as interested in those parts as the Beatles' part, since there are so few live recordings of non-Beatles musical acts from this time period.

The music here is still officially unreleased, except for "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby," which made it onto the "Anthology" albums.  

This album is an hour and 25 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (King Curtis)
02 talk by emcee (King Curtis)
03 What'd I Say (King Curtis)
04 talk (King Curtis)
05 The Prance (King Curtis)
06 Soul Twist [Instrumental] (King Curtis)
07 talk by emcee (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
08 Out of Sight (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
09 talk (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
10 Now Lady Now [Edit] (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
11 The Way You Do the Things You Do [Incomplete] (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
12 talk (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
13 Land of 1000 Dances [Edit] (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
14 talk by emcee [Edit] (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
15 talk by emcee (Brenda Holloway)
16 Shake - [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Brenda Holloway)
17 I Can't Help Myself [Sugar Pie Honey Bunch] (Brenda Holloway)
18 talk (Brenda Holloway)
19 You Can Cry On My Shoulder (Brenda Holloway)
20 When I'm Gone (Brenda Holloway)
21 talk by emcee with outro (Brenda Holloway)
22 talk by emcee (Sounds Incorporated)
23 America - Fingertips (Sounds Incorporated)
24 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
25 The William Tell Overture [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
26 Instrumental (Sounds Incorporated)
27 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
28 In the Hall of the Mountain King [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
29 talk by emcee (Beatles)
30 talk (Beatles)
31 Twist and Shout (Beatles)
32 She's a Woman (Beatles)
33 talk (Beatles)
34 I Feel Fine (Beatles)
35 talk (Beatles)
36 Dizzy Miss Lizzy (Beatles)
37 talk (Beatles)
38 Ticket to Ride (Beatles)
39 talk (Beatles)
40 Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby (Beatles)
41 talk (Beatles)
42 Can't Buy Me Love (Beatles)
43 talk (Beatles)
44 Baby's in Black (Beatles)
45 talk (Beatles)
46 Act Naturally (Beatles)
47 talk (Beatles)
48 A Hard Day's Night (Beatles)
49 talk (Beatles)
50 Help [Edit] (Beatles)
51 talk (Beatles)
52 I'm Down (Beatles)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JXJAdAMN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NDfxXPlJ6q0RgxD/file

I had a lot of choices for a cover photo, since this concert was such a high profile event, with lots of photographers there. I chose this one, even though it only shows George Harrison and John Lennon, because they look so damn happy. I especially don't think I've ever seen any other photo of Lennon looking this overjoyed. When he later talked about the Shea Stadium concert being "the top of the mountain," this shows what he meant. 

And by the way, this photo was taken right at the end of the concert, when they were performing "I'm Down." Harrison and Lennon were especially amused and happy because Lennon had just played a short keyboard solo with his elbows.

Various Artists - Covered: Dennis Lambert & Brian Potter: 1965-1985

A week or two ago (as I write this in mid-May 2026), a commenter named Rich had the excellent suggestion that I should make a "Covered" album for the songwriting team of Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter. So thank you, Rich. They fit the format of the "Covered" series perfectly, because they had no careers as performers, but they wrote a lot of hits for others.

Lambert and Potter are a rare case of a successful trans-Atlantic songwriting partnership. Lambert was born in 1947 and raised in New York City. Potter was born in 1939 and raised in the Essex countryside of England. Lambert joined a record company in 1965, working in A&R, production, and songwriting. I'm not sure what Potter did at first (with him being almost ten years older than Lambert), but in 1965 he already had a big songwriting success, helping to write "What'cha Gonna Do about It," the first British hit for the Small Faces. Meanwhile, Lambert had a decent success in 1965 as well, co-writing "Do the Freddie," a hit for Freddie and the Dreamers.

Lambert and Potter met when Lambert was in London in 1969. The two of them decided to write songs together. They both moved to Los Angeles and began working with a record company there. One of their first songs they wrote together was "One Tin Solder." It made the Top Forty in the U.S. for the band the Original Caste. Then it would get higher on the charts in 1971 for the band Coven. Their first really big success together though was "Don't Pull Your Love," which was a Top Five U.S. hit in 1971 for Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds.

From that point on, they had many more hits all through the 1970s. I've only included the ones I like best here. There were others that were Top Forty hits. Their songwriting continued until about 1980. I don't know much about Potter's career, but it seemed he stopped writing songs around that time, because I don't find any more songwriting credits for him after 1980. 

However, Lambert kept going well into the 1980s, writing with others. He didn't have that many hits, but he had a couple of really big ones. He co-wrote "Nightshift" with a member of the Commodores, and the Commodores had a Top Five hit with it in both the U.S. and Britain in 1985. 

He also helped write "We Built This City." That song was originally written by Martin Page and Bernie Taupin (the latter being the main co-writer for Elton John). But their version was lacking something. So Lambert and a producer named Peter Wolf drastically changed it. (That's a different Peter Wolf than the one in the J. Geils Band, by the way.) The result was a smash, going all the way to Number One in the U.S. for Starship in 1985. Personally, I don't think it's a bad song, but it's hated by a lot of people, making several worst songs of all time lists by critics.

Since then, Lambert and Potter presumably both eventually retired. But both of them are still alive as I write this in 2026. 

Here's the Wikipedia page for Lambert:

Dennis Lambert - Wikipedia

And here's the one for Potter:

Brian Potter (musician) - Wikipedia  

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 What'cha Gonna Do about It (Small Faces)
02 Do the Freddie (Freddie & the Dreamers)
03 Delighted to See You (Honeybus)
04 One Tin Soldier (Original Caste)
05 Don't Pull Your Love (Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds)
06 Keeper of the Castle (Four Tops)
07 The Runway (Grass Roots)
08 Ain’t No Woman [Like the One I’ve Got] (Four Tops)
09 Love Music (Sergio Mendes)
10 Are You Man Enough (Four Tops)
11 Country Boy [You Got Your Feet in L.A.] (Glen Campbell)
12 One Chain [Don’t Make No Prison] (Four Tops)
13 It Only Takes a Minute (Tavares)
14 Open Invitation (Santana)
15 Don't Look Any Further (Dennis Edwards & Siedah Garrett)
16 We Built This City (Starship)
17 Nightshift (Commodores)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rrnJPb9s

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/oLZomJN7xtUUHiG/file

The cover image was the cover photo for an issue of Songwriter Magazine in 1977. That's Dennis Lambert on the left and Brian Potter (with the blue shirt) on the right.

Various Artists - Covered: Roquel 'Billy' Davis: 1957-2008

I was going through my "Covered" album collection to fix some broken links, and I saw that I haven't posted this one yet, even though I thought I did. So here it is now, better late than never. This highlights the songwriting of Roquel "Billy" Davis.

Chances are, you haven't heard of Davis. But he was involved in writing a lot of good soul hits. He was born in 1932 in Detroit. He got to know Berry Gordy in the 1950s, a few years before Gordy founded Motown Records. He got involved in writing some big hits with Gordy, and sometimes others, especially Gordy's sister Gwen, who was Davis's girlfriend at the time. Since I already posted a "Covered" album for Berry Gordy, I used the big hit versions for many of those. For instance, "Reet Petite" was a big hit for Jackie Wilson in 1957, "Lonely Teardrops" was an even bigger hit for Wilson in 1958, and "I'll Be Satisfied," was another Wilson hit in 1959, but I've used alternate versions for all of those.

Note that I'm not including "You Got What It Takes," although it was a big hit that has been credited to Davis, Gordy, and others. That's because I think there's an airtight case that it was actually written entirely by Bobby Parker, since the first version of it came out by Parker with him listed as the sole songwriter. Gordy simply stole it later, and falsely changed the songwriting credits.

Anyway, around 1960, Gordy got heavily involved with his new record company, Motown Records. Davis didn't become a part of that, so his songwriting partnership with Gordy faded away. Their last song together that I've included is "All I Could Do Was Cry," which was a hit for Etta James in 1960. Since I used that version elsewhere, I've chosen a 2008 version by Beyonce.

Davis continued to write hits without Gordy for most of the 1960s. He usually worked with Chess Records, even taking charge of many A&R and production duties for that record company. "Seven Day Fool" was a rare case of Davis getting the sole credit for a song. More typically, he wrote with others, but he didn't have any consistent co-writers. In fact, most of the songs after "Seven Day Fool" were written with a different co-writer.

Davis had a sudden career change in 1968. He used his success as a songwriter and producer to get a job at one of the top advertising agencies in New York City. His primary client was Coca-Cola, and he was responsible for many successful ad campaigns for that company. But unfortunately, this meant that his songwriting pretty much stopped, except for writing ad jingles.

But his work with Coca-Cola would lead to his biggest songwriting success of all. I've told this story in the write-up for the "Covered" album for Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, but I'll retell it here from Davis's point of view. Cook and Greenaway had already written a song called "True Love and Apple Pie." But it was released by an obscure artist and went nowhere. Then Cook happened to get stuck waiting in an airport in Ireland for many hours. Also stuck in the same airport was Davis, now working for Coca-Cola, and another Coca-Cola executive, Bill Backer. Backer came up with the line "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" while they waited for their plane. Later, back in New York City, Cook, Greenaway and Davis reworked "True Love and Apple Pie" into "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing," which became one of the biggest hits of the decade, as well as a massively successful ad campaign for Coca-Cola.

"Country Sunshine" is also a song Davis first wrote for a Coca-Cola ad. But it was so catchy that it was fleshed out and became a country hit for Dottie West in 1973. That seems to be the last new song Davis was involved in that made the charts, although some of his earlier songs were hits in new versions, sometimes several times over.

Davis died in 2004 at the age of 72. By the way, he's also responsible for "it's the real thing," "things go better with Coke," "have a Coke and a smile," all for Coca-Cola, "If you've got the time, we've got the beer," for Miller Beer, and many, many other advertisements.

Here's his Wikipedia page:

Billy Davis (songwriter) - Wikipedia 

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Jim Dandy Got Married (LaVern Baker)
02 To Be Loved (Malcolm Vaughan)
03 That's Why [I Love You So] (Jackie Wilson)
04 Seven Day Fool (Etta James)
05 Pushover (Etta James)
06 Reet Petite (Dinah Lee)
07 Two Sides to Every Story (Etta James)
08 Use What You Got (Sugar Pie DeSanto)
09 I Had a Talk with My Man (Mitty Collier)
10 We're Gonna Make It (Little Milton)
11 Recovery (Fontella Bass)
12 Who's Cheating Who (Little Milton)
13 I Can't Rest (Fontella Bass)
14 I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (Hillside Singers)
15 Country Sunshine (Dottie West)
16 Lonely Teardrops (John Fogerty)
17 I'll Be Satisfied (Shakin' Stevens)
18 All I Could Do Was Cry (Beyonce)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rGtRVEWA 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/h0hrXz1oG7qsojq/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of an interview he gave many years after his songwriting career had ended. I don't know the exact year, however.

Various Artists - Covered: Denny Randell & Sandy Linzer: 1964-1998

Here's another songwriting duo highlighted for my "Covered" series: Denny Randell and Sandy Linzer. I wouldn't be surprised at all if you have never heard of them. I hadn't either, until recently. But while they didn't write any massive hits, they have enough hits for a solid album.

Randell and Linzer were both born in 1941. They were introduced to each other in 1963, and immediately began co-writing songs. The first song here, "Dawn (Go Away)," was written by Linzer with Bob Gaudio, a member of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and an impressive songwriter in his own right. I've already posted a "Covered" album for the Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio songwriting team. 

Randell and Linzer wrote a lot of songs for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, sometimes with Gaudio. I've included three such songs here (and a Franki Valli solo one). But "Working My Way Back to You" was also a hit for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons in 1966. I included the 1979 version by the Spinners instead because that was a much bigger hit. In fact, it was the biggest hit this songwriting team ever had, reaching Number One in Britain and Number Two in the U.S. 

In a similar way, "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" was a small hit for Question Mark and the Mysterians in 1967, but not enough to make the U.S. Top Forty. I included the 1998 version by Smash Mouth instead, since that was a bigger hit, making the Top Forty chart.

Probably another success was the song "I Believe in You and Me." (Linzer wrote it with someone else.) Whitney Houston had a Top Five hit in the U.S. with it in 1996. But, frankly, I find Houston's typically histrionic over-singing hard to take. It turns out the song was first released by the Four Tops in 1982. So I've included that version instead. It wasn't a hit, but the singing is much better.

I've been posting a lot of "Covered" albums featuring songwriters who got started in the early or mid-1960s. Nearly all of them stopped having hits by the end of the 1970s, due to changing musical trends (except for later covers of their earlier songs). But Randell and Linzer were a rarity in that they kept writing more hits through the end of the 1980s. The last original hit here is "Talk It Over" by Grayson Hugh in 1989.

However, their songwriting partnership petered out at the end of the 1970s. The vast majority of the songs up to and including "Native New Yorker" in 1977 were written by both of them. But the songs that come after that were written by one of them or the other, usually with other songwriting partners (except for tracks 12 and 17, which I mentioned above are not the original hit versions). 

Both Randell and Linzer also worked in other aspects of the music business, for instance producing albums, and promoting and developing the musical careers of some acts. Both of them are still alive, and about 85 years old, as I write this in 2026.

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 Dawn [Go Away] (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
02 A Lover's Concerto (Toys)
03 Let's Hang On (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
04 Attack (Toys)
05 Opus 17 [Don't You Worry 'bout Me] (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
06 I'll Be Back Up on My Feet (Monkees)
07 Penny Arcade (Cyrkle)
08 Breakin' Down the Walls of Heartache (Johnny Johnson & the Bandwagon)
09 You Can Do Magic (Limmie & Family Cookin’)
10 Swearin' to God (Frankie Valli)
11 Native New Yorker (Odyssey)
12 Working My Way Back to You - Forgive Me Girl (Spinners)
13 Use It Up and Wear It Out (Odyssey)
14 I Believe in You and Me (Four Tops)
15 Fresh (Kool & the Gang)
16 Talk It Over (Grayson Hugh)
17 Can't Get Enough of You Baby (Smash Mouth)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qTodsFSL

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/KB4ibMU7sghsd7T/file

I guess it's pretty obvious that the cover is two photos put together in Photoshop, but I couldn't find any images of the two of them in the same frame. That's Sandy Linzer on the left, with the suit and tie, in 1977. I don't know the date of the Denny Randell photo on the right, but it's probably from the 1960s. 

Various Artists - Covered: Barry Mason & Les Reed: 1964-2002

Here's another album for my "Covered" series, highlighting the talents of singer-songwriters. This time, I'm tackling the songwriting team of Barry Mason and Les Reed.

I have to admit that I'm not terribly impressed by the songwriting of Barry Mason and Les Reed. But I'm posting this for two reasons. One, they wrote an undeniable number of big hit songs in the 1960s and 70s, so they shouldn't be forgotten. But also, they were part of a small group of professional songwriters working in Britain at the time, often writing songs with others, so they need to be included as part of that scene. At times, one or the other co-wrote songs with Geoff Stephens, Roger Greenaway, Roger Cook, Tony Macaulay, John Carter, Ken Lewis, Don Black, Mitch Murray, and Peter Callander. It's probable that you've heard of few to none of those songwriters. That was the case for me until I started making the "Covered" albums. But I'll bet you know a lot of their hit songs. I plan to post "Covered" albums for all of those other songwriters I just mentioned as well.

Both Mason and Reed were born in small towns in England in 1935. (Mason was born in Wigan and Reed was born in Woking.) Mason got started in profressional songwriting do to working as a producer. He later explained, "I met this boy called Tommy Bruce and I spent my last few pounds making a demo of him singing an old Fats Waller song, 'Ain't Misbehavin'' - and he had a hit. Suddenly, I was his manager, not knowing anything about the business. But the important thing was, I was in the business." 

However, Les Reed had the first big hit. "Tell Me When," written with Geoff Stephens, was a hit for the Applejacks in early 1964. Reed would go on to write many more songs with Stephens, though not as man as with Mason. Both of them worked with other songwriters from the start, and kept doing so. For instance, Mason co-wrote "She Just Satisfies" with Jimmy Page, future lead guitarist for Led Zeppelin. It was a failed solo single for Page in 1965.

I don't know how Mason and Reed met, but by 1964 they were writing songs together. Their first hit song together was "Here It Comes Again." The Fortunes took it to Number Four in Britain in 1965. After that, they began writing together more consistently, while still also working with other songwriters. In 1965, Reed had his first massive hit with "It's Not Unusual," which hit Number One in Britain and turned Tom Jones into a big star. It was co-written with Gordon Mills, a songwriter who also was Jones's manager. A year later, he had another banger with "There's a Kind of Hush," co-written with Geoff Stephens. Herman's Hermits had the big hit in 1966, but I chose to include a 1971 version by the Carpenters instead, since I put the Herman's Hermits version on a different "Covered" album. 

Their first really huge smash hit together was "The Last Waltz." Although Engelbert Humperdinck only had a Top Forty hit with it in the U.S., it Britain it went all the way to Number One in 1967. It stayed on top for five weeks, making it one of the best selling songs of the year.

I'm not a fan of "The Last Waltz." It's a sappy love song, oversung by Humperdinck, and overproduced, with lots of strings. I find it mystifying it dominated the charts for a portion of 1967, when that was one of the best years of hit music ever, in my opinion. I've included it because it's such a big hit, and so pivotal in their careers. But Mason and Reed began writing a lot of hit songs in that same style. I've elected to not include many of them, even when they were big hits, if I wasn't that impressed with them as songs.

Most of the songs here were co-written by Mason and Reed. I'll only mention the other exceptions. "Daughter of Darkness" was another one written by Mason and Stephens. "A Man without Love" was written by Mason with three other songwriters.n"Love Me Tonight" was written by Mason with two others. "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" was written by Mason and Tony Macaulay. I put the 1970 hit version by Edison Lighthouse and a "Covered" album for Macaulay, so I chose a interesting, non-hit version here. "There Goes My First Love" was written by Mason with Roger Greenaway.

Mason and Reed had most of their success in the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s, both together and with other songwriters. Their songwriting partnership faded away around the same time the hits slowed down. Reed moved into writing more for movie soundtracks and musical plays. Mason continued writing the occasional hit with other songwriters. He even co-wrote a Top 40 song as late as 2002, which is the last song here, "Tell Me Why." Reed died in 2019 at the age of 83. Mason died in 2021 at the age of 85.

Here's the Wikipedia link for Mason:

Barry Mason - Wikipedia

And here's the one for Reed:

Les Reed (songwriter) - Wikipedia  

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Don't Turn Around (Merseybeats)
02 Tell Me When (Applejacks)
03 Here It Comes Again (Fortunes)
04 It's Not Unusual (Tom Jones)
05 Leave a Little Love (Lulu)
06 The Last Waltz (Engelbert Humperdinck)
07 Delilah (Tom Jones)
08 Kiss Me Goodbye (Petula Clark)
09 Les Bicyclettes de Belsize (Johnny Worth)
10 Love Me Tonight (Tom Jones)
11 A Man without Love (Engelbert Humperdinck)
12 Daughter of Darkness (Tom Jones)
13 There Goes My First Love (Drifters)
14 Good Love Can Never Die (Alvin Stardust)
15 There's a Kind of Hush (Carpenters)
16 Love Grows [Where My Rosemary Goes] (Freedy Johnston)
17 Tell Me Why (Declan Galbraith)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KQVorvvk

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HuNK2DIvzlpnTsB/file

The cover image shows Barry Mason on the left and Les Reed on the right. I took two different pictures and put them together, using Photoshop. The Mason one is from 1966 and the Reed one is from 1967. Both were originally in black and white, but I colorized them with the use of the Kolorize program.

Various Artists - Covered: Van McCoy, Best Of: 1962-1985

Here's another artist for my "Covered" series. To remind you, this highlights the talents of songwriters by collecting cover versions of their songs. This time, the focus is on Van McCoy.

These days, McCoy is probably seen by many as a one-hit wonder, because he had one huge hit under his own name: "The Hustle." This instrumental was a huge hit in 1975. It went to Number One on the main U.S. singles chart, as well as on the soul chart. It reached at least the Top Ten in most other countries as well, including hitting Number Three in Britain. 

That was his only Top 40 hit in the U.S., so technically that makes him a "one-hit wonder" in that country. But he did have other hits in other countries. For instance, he had three more Top 40 hits in Britain. But more important, he had a very long and successful career as a songwriter and producer. The focus here will be just on the songwriting part though.

 

McCoy was born in Washington, D.C., in 1940. He started playing piano and singing in a church choir at a young age. He began writing songs at the age of 12. Eventually, he would have 700 of his songs recorded and released by himself or other musical artists. He started to study psychology at Howard University, but dropped out in 1960 to pursue a music career. 

 

He formed his own record company from the very start. He had a little success with his own recordings. His first single, "Mr. D.J.," was a minor hit in 1960. But he soon found more success writing and producing songs for others. He mostly concentrated on that, though he continued to release singles under his own name. His first really big hit as a songwriter was "Baby, I'm Yours." Singer Barbara Lewis took it to the Top Ten in 1965. He continued to write many more hits in the 1960s and 1970s. I've included the ones I liked the best here. Note these aren't necessarily all the biggest hits on the charts.

 

In the 1970s, he began focusing more on his own career. In the 1960s, he only released one album under his own name. But in the 1970s, he released ten. His solo career really took over after his 1975 hit "The Hustle." But he continued writing and producing songs for others as well. Unfortunately, his career was cut short, because he died of a heart attack on June 29, 1979, at the age of 39.

 

Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more. It's surprisingly detailed compared to other similar entries:

 

Van McCoy - Wikipedia 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long. 

01 Stop the Music (Shirelles)
02 Getting Mighty Crowded (Betty Everett)
03 Giving Up (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
04 Baby, I'm Yours (Barbara Lewis)
05 It’s Starting to Get to Me Now (Irma Thomas)
06 Where Does That Leave Me Now (Nancy Wilson)
07 Before and After (Chad & Jeremy)
08 Let It All Out (O'Jays)
09 Stop and Get a Hold on Myself (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
10 When You're Young and in Love (Marvelettes)
11 You're Gonna Make Me Love You (Sandi Sheldon)
12 The Way to a Woman’s Heart (Billy T. Soul)
13 I Get the Sweetest Feeling (Jackie Wilson)
14 So Soon (Aretha Franklin)
15 Lost and Found (Kenny Carlton)
16 Nothing Worse than Being Alone (Ad Libs)
17 Right on the Tip of My Tongue (Brenda & the Tabulations)
18 Let Me Down Easy (Derrick Harriott)
19 The Hustle (Van McCoy)
20 This Is It (Melba Moore)
21 Heavy Love (David Ruffin)
22 Baby Don't Change Your Mind (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
23 Sweet Bitter Love (Aretha Franklin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HhVWn2Gr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/kTvbsbNvI6VKdyA/file

The cover photo dates to 1975. I assume it's from an awards ceremony, but I don't know the details. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Dionne Warwick - Dionne, Burt and Hal: The Definitive Songbook, Bonus Volume: Foriegn Language Versions, 1964-1967 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's the finale for guest poster Mike Solof's collection of all the songs Dionne Warwick sang that were written by Hal David and/or Burt Bacharach. This is a bonus volume. That's because, while Mike was putting his collection together, he noticed that Warwick sang a number of Bacharach-David songs in foreign languages. There weren't a lot, but it's enough for a short album. 

Everything here is from 1964 to 1967. She sang three songs in French, then two songs in German, and finally four songs in Italian. All were released as singles in those countries. So this is an interesting curiosity, especially if you speak any of those languages.

This album is 28 minutes long. 

01 Un Toit ne Suffit Pas [A House Is Not a Home] [French Version] (Dionne Warwick)
02 Reach Out for Me [French Version] (Dionne Warwick)
03 How Many Days of Sadness [French Version] (Dionne Warwick)
04 You'll Never Get to Heaven [If You Break My Heart] [German Version] (Dionne Warwick)
05 Walk On By [German Version] (Dionne Warwick)
06 A House Is Not a Home [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)
07 The Windows of the World [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)
08 Walk Little Dolly [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)
09 Walk On By [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bD6LzqHD

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Mcve2ptBTCaZJi9/file

The cover photo was taken near the Nice Jazz Festival in Nice, France, on July 11, 1987. Since this is a foreign language version album, we wanted a photo of her in one of the foreign countries here, though unfortunately you totally can't tell that from the photo.

Dionne Warwick - Dionne, Burt and Hal: The Definitive Songbook, Volume 2: 1965 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here is the second volume collecting all the songs Dionne Warwick written by Hal David and/or Burt Bacharach. Like all the other albums in this series, this was mainly put together by guest poster Mike Solof.

Since I’m writing this on vacation, I’ll keep the comments short. Enjoy.

This album is 44 minutes long. 

019 Are You There [With Another Girl] (Dionne Warwick)
020 Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Dionne Warwick)
021 Don't Say I Didn't Tell You So (Dionne Warwick)
022 Forever My Love (Dionne Warwick)
023 If I Ever Make You Cry (Dionne Warwick)
024 Here I Am (Dionne Warwick)
025 Is There Another Way to Love Him (Dionne Warwick)
026 Wives and Lovers (Dionne Warwick)
027 Looking with My Eyes (Dionne Warwick)
028 In Between the Heartaches (Dionne Warwick)
029 Only the Strong, Only the Brave (Dionne Warwick)
030 Window Wishing (Dionne Warwick)
031 How Many Days of Sadness (Dionne Warwick)
032 That's Not the Answer (Dionne Warwick)
033 How Can I Hurt You (Dionne Warwick)
034 Long Day, Short Night (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dC4gq6mc

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/eODweEN1JWe1Yrp/file 

The cover photo was taken in Hyde Park, in London, in 1965. 

The Rising Sons - Ash Grove, Los Angeles, CA, 5-30-1965

The Rising Sons were a band in the mid-1960s that looked like they were headed for big things. But they broke up and never even released an album. However, the two main band members, Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder, both went on to have long successful solo careers. In 2021, I posted a short concert bootleg of this band recorded in 1966. Now, here's another one from 1965.

Given this band was only in existence from 1965 to 1966, and never achieved any commercial success, it's a miracle we have any live music from them at all. But it turns out there are multiple bootlegs with stellar sound quality, due to the fact that the often performed at the Ash Grove, a small club in Los Angeles, and the people running that venue often made soundboard recordings of the concerts there.

However, there was one big problem: these in-house recordings were often done in a sloppy manner, probably someone just turning the recording device on and walking away. As a result, the balances were usually off. For instance, with the Rising Sons concert I previously posted, the prominent harmonica playing by Taj Mahal was buried in the mix. That was the same problem here, with the harmonica sounded like it was recorded several rooms away from everything else. That's why, even though I had these recordings, I only posted the 1966 one.

Happily, now it's 2026, and audio editing technology has improved by leaps and bounds since 2021. The bad mix of that 1966 concert bugged me. So I went back and fixed the buried harmonica problem. Here's a link where you can get the fixed version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-rising-sons-ash-grove-los-angeles.html

Then I did the same thing here: I used the MVSEP program to separate out just the harmonica from everything else. Then I boosted that volume relative to everything else. While I was at it, I made some other fixes. For instance, Taj Mahal did most of the singing, but sometimes he would sing little asides with his mouth away from the microphone. In many cases, I was able to fix those so you could clearly hear those bits. Now, in my opinion, the sound quality here is really impressive, especially for 1965, when bootleg recording was rare and usually poorly done.

This recording is actually a combination of four different concerts. Most of it, tracks 1 through 20, is from May 30, 1965. But I had a few extra bits from partially recorded sets on other nights, so I added those in at the end. Tracks 21 through 24 are from May 29th. Tracks 25 to 30 are from May 31st. And the last two tracks, 31 to 32, are from June 29th.

All the studio recordings by this band were finally released an album in 1992, with the title "Rising Sons Featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder." But quite a few of the songs here were not recorded for that album, including an original by band member Jesse Lee Kincad, called "I'll Always Be There." (There actually were two versions of that song in these recordings, but I only included one. It was the only case of there being a duplicate.) 

These concerts used to be available at Wolfgang's Vault. But that site stopped working a few months ago. And they never spread very far. For instance, none of this music can be found at SoulseekQT as a type this, and SoulseekQT has an amazing amount of stuff. So hopefully this post will put this music into wider public circulation. 

If you aren't familiar with this band, you should check this out. Their sound doesn't seem that unique today, but that's because so many other bands went on to make music in a similar vein in later years. According to AllMusic, Rising Sons' "languid, bluesy, folksy sort of sound anticipated future recordings by outfits like Moby Grape, Buffalo Springfield, the Grateful Dead, and even the southern rock Allman Brothers, and the country-rock Byrds."

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long. 

01 Crawling King Snake (Rising Sons)
02 talk (Rising Sons)
03 It's All Over Now (Rising Sons)
04 talk (Rising Sons)
05 Statesboro Blues (Rising Sons)
06 talk (Rising Sons)
07 Walking the Dog (Rising Sons)
08 talk (Rising Sons)
09 Hambone - Band Introductions (Rising Sons)
10 Meet Me in the Bottom (Rising Sons)
11 talk (Rising Sons)
12 Baby, What Do You Want Me to Do (Rising Sons)
13 talk (Rising Sons)
14 I'm a King Bee (Rising Sons)
15 talk (Rising Sons)
16 I'll Always Be There (Rising Sons)
17 Fanny Mae (Rising Sons)
18 Corrina, Corrina (Rising Sons)
19 talk (Rising Sons)
20 Dust My Blues (Rising Sons)
21 talk (Rising Sons)
22 Too High to Fall (Rising Sons)
23 talk (Rising Sons)
24 Hush Hush (Rising Sons)
25 Who Do You Think You Is (Rising Sons)
26 talk (Rising Sons)
27 Blues in Three-Four Time [Instrumental] (Rising Sons)
28 talk (Rising Sons)
29 So Fine (Rising Sons)
30 Little Red Rooster (Rising Sons)
31 talk (Rising Sons)
32 Grown So Ugly (Rising Sons)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Fv7xM9z6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/LRYE8EbaSG5vtjx/file

The cover photo is from a photo shoot either in 1965 or 1966. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. Taj Mahal is the Black man wearing a hat, and Ry Cooder has a hand on his shoulder.

Various Artists - The Big TNT Show, Moulin Rouge, Los Angeles, CA, 11-30-1965

A few days ago (writing this in February 2026), I posted the audio to the "TAMI Show" concert. As I mentioned in my write-up, that's one of the all time great 1960s concerts, which was made into a movie in 1964. The people who made that movie basically repeated the formula in 1965 with this one, "The Big T.N.T. Show." Although this concert isn't as famous as the TAMI Show, I'd argue the star power and performances here are even better.

Just like the TAMI Show, what sets this apart from other musical shows on TV and the like is that there was no lip-syncing. Everything was done live in front of an audience. Actually, each act performed their set three times, and then the film footage from the best versions were used for the movie. 

By the way, technically "T.N.T." was an acronym for "Tune n' Talent," but clearly they just wanted to call it "T.N.T." for the "explosive" connotation, and then made up an acronym for it.

The idea was to use the most popular music acts popular with kids at the time. Musical trends had changed a lot in the year since the TAMI Show. One big change was that folk-rock was suddenly all the rage. So this concert had some folk music acts that had been lacking in the TAMI Show. In addition to folk rock like the Lovin' Spoonful and the Byrds, Joan Baez and Donovan performed in solo acoustic mode. One curiosity is that Baez sang "You Lost that Lovin' Feeling," which didn't seem like her type of song at all. But the music in the show was directed by legendary producer Phil Spector, and that's a song he actually co-wrote, so my guess is he got her to sing it.

Additional, some classic soul acts were included, like Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, Ike and Tina Turner. Country was represented by Roger Miller, and pop by Petula Clark. It was a very diverse line-up, with no repeats from the TAMI Show. 

It seems like this movie was commercially successful, as was the TAMI Show. So it's a shame no similar film was made in 1966 or after. However, I read one mention that the movie wasn't as successful as the TAMI Show. This was blamed on the fact that it was edited and released so quickly that there wasn't time for proper production. Remarkably, the movie was in the theaters by the end of 1965, less than a month after the concert!

Also, perhaps, with musical trends changing so fast, it grew too difficult to bring these many big stars together for one concert. These sorts of variety concerts with lots of acts performing short sets were rapidly fading away at the time, replaced by having just a couple of acts performing much longer sets.

Just as I did with the TAMI Show, I converted the video to audio format, then chopped it into mp3s. The sound quality was a little bit better with this one, so I didn't have to make any adjustments. 

Here's the Wikipedia article:

The Big T.N.T. Show - Wikipedia 

Here's an interesting article that discusses both this movie and the TAMI Show:

https://cavehollywood.com/the-t-a-m-i-show-and-the-big-t-n-t-show-out-on-blu-ray-dvd/

This album is an hour and 30 minutes long. 

01 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction [Instrumental Version] (David McCallum)
02 What'd I Say (Ray Charles)
03 Downtown (Petula Clark)
04 Do You Believe in Magic (Lovin' Spoonful)
05 You Didn't Have to Be So Nice (Lovin' Spoonful)
06 Hey Bo Diddley (Bo Diddley)
07 Bo Diddley (Bo Diddley)
08 500 Miles (Joan Baez)
09 There but for Fortune (Joan Baez)
10 Georgia on My Mind (Ray Charles)
11 Let the Good Times Roll (Ray Charles)
12 talk (Donovan)
13 You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling (Joan Baez)
14 Be My Baby (Ronettes)
15 Shout (Ronettes)
16 Dang Me (Roger Miller)
17 talk (Roger Miller)
18 Engine Engine No. 9 (Roger Miller)
19 King of the Road (Roger Miller)
20 talk (Roger Miller)
21 England Swings (Roger Miller)
22 talk (David McCallum)
23 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Byrds)
24 The Bells of Rhymney (Byrds)
25 Mr. Tambourine Man (Byrds)
26 You're the One (Petula Clark)
27 My Love (Petula Clark)
28 talk (David McCallum)
29 Universal Soldier (Donovan)
30 Summer Day Reflection Song (Donovan)
31 Bert's Blues (Donovan)
32 Sweet Joy (Donovan)
33 Shake (Ike & Tina Turner)
34 A Fool in Love (Ike & Tina Turner)
35 It's Gonna Work Out Fine (Ike & Tina Turner)
36 Please, Please, Please (Ike & Tina Turner)
37 Goodbye, So Long (Ike & Tina Turner)
38 Tell the Truth (Ike & Tina Turner)
39 1-2-3 [Instrumental Version] (David McCallum)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dTkPhgcn

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Kjs0z43hqpeffYb/file

The main picture in the cover art shows Tina Turner in this exact concert. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. The text and design at the top and sides are taken from a concert poster. I did some repositioning and cleaning up for those areas.

Dusty Springfield - Live in Concert: 1964-1966

Dusty Springfield was one of the most popular singers in Britain in the 1960s and early 1970s. For instance, in 1966, she won both the Melody Maker and N.M.E. polls for best female singer. But despite that popularity, there are shockingly few live recordings from her, even though she toured a fair amount. One official live album, "Live at the Royal Albert Hall," has been released. But, in my opinion, that was from the worst time in her career for a live album, 1979, at the height of the disco era and at a down era for her career. True, there are lots of recordings of TV and radio broadcasts, and I've compiled those as best I could. But in terms of actual concert recordings, there's almost nothing, especially from her 1960s and early 1970s peak era.

I decided to try to change there. When it comes to unreleased concert recordings, there also is very, very little. But I did find a few things from 1964 to 1966. Putting them together, it's just enough for a relatively short live album.

The first section of this concert comes from a concert in Melbourne, Australia, in 1964. She was part of a package tour of Australia with Johnny O'Keefe, Gene Pitney, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. An hour long concert was filmed for Australian TV. Decades later, this has been released on DVD only, under the title "The Liverpool Sound." I was able to find most of that, but not quite all. I'm missing the first song, "I Only Want to Be with You." So, for that, I used a live performance of that song she did for the Ed Sullivan Show. This Australian concert makes up the first 13 minutes of this album, tracks one through eight. The last song, "When the Saints Go Marching In," was the finale, where each of the lead singers got to sing a verse.

The other two sections here come from annual N.M.E. concerts. "N.M.E." stands for "New Musical Express," one of the main music-centric publications in Britain in that era. They had a yearly poll winners concert that brought together the biggest names in music at the time. I've already posted the full 1965 concert, which you can get here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/01/various-artists-nme-poll-winners.html

I have all of what's available of the 1964 and 1966 concerts, and I'd like to post those soon. Springfield wasn't featured in the 1964 one. But I've included her 1965 and 1966 performances here. Tracks nine through 13 are from the 1965 concert, and tracks 14 to 18 are from the 1966 concert. All of these N.M.E. concerts remain unreleased. Springfield's short 1965 set is repeated on the N.M.E. concert I linked to above, but I think there's value in putting all her concert recordings from the era together here.

Luckily, there are no repeats of songs from these three sources. That's probably because they were about a year apart each, so she had different hits to promote each year. When it comes to sound quality, this isn't amazing, but it's about as good as you could expect for the era. Like the Australian concert, the N.M.E. concerts were broadcast on T.V., so that's why we have recordings that survive.

This album is 32 minutes long. 

001 I Only Want to Be with You (Dusty Springfield)
002 talk (Dusty Springfield)
003 Stay Awhile (Dusty Springfield)
004 The Love of a Boy (Dusty Springfield)
005 talk (Dusty Springfield)
006 Shake It Up (Dusty Springfield)
007 talk (Johnny O'Keefe, Gene Pitney, Brian Poole & Dusty Springfield)
008 When the Saints Go Marching In (Johnny O'Keefe, Gene Pitney, Brian Poole & Dusty Springfield)
009 talk (Dusty Springfield)
010 Dancing in the Street (Dusty Springfield)
011 talk (Dusty Springfield)
012 Mockingbird (Dusty Springfield)
013 I Can't Hear You [No More] (Dusty Springfield)
014 talk (Dusty Springfield)
015 In the Middle of Nowhere (Dusty Springfield)
016 You Don't Have to Say You Love Me (Dusty Springfield)
017 talk (Dusty Springfield)
018 Shake (Dusty Springfield)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PkcQGKmR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/xmJw8otVzVvSA3I/file

The cover photo is from 1965, but I don't know the details beyond that.