Various Artists - P. F. Sloan & Steve Barri, Volume 2: 1967-2006

Here's the second and last volume celebrating the music of the songwriting team of P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri. However, as I discussed in my write-up for "Volume 1," it seemed a pretty lopsided partnership, with Sloan being the songwriting genius and Barri doing more of the arranging and production. So, in my write-up here, I'm going to mostly concentrate on the story of Sloan's life.

At the end of my write-up for "Volume 1," Sloan was facing an increasingly bad situation. He had been pressured by record company executives who behaved more like Mafia crime bosses - and the evidence suggests there actually was a connection there. By the end of 1967, he broke up his songwriting partnership with Barri, and fled his hometown of Los Angeles, fearing for his life.

Sloan settled in New York City. In 1968, he signed a record contract with a different label, and released his third solo album, "Measure of Pleasure." This was an interesting album that was keeping up with rapidly changing music trends. However, he didn't tour or otherwise promote it, so it attracted little notice. The problem was his life was coming apart. Falling into depression over losing his songwriting royalties (and even future royalties for the next ten years!) to his old record company, he discovered heroin and began using it. Also, he was beset by a series of medical troubles, both mental and physical. 

By 1969, his songwriting, and his music career in general, essentially came to a stop. He released another album in 1972, but his heart wasn't in it, and that one also quickly disappeared. Then, he simply disappeared for a long, long time, spending much of that in psychiatric hospitals. In a 2006 interview, he said, "I was ill I guess for a good 20, maybe 25 years. ... Catatonia for a long time." 

Even by 1968, practically all the people who had known him well in Los Angeles lost all contact with him. Once such person he'd known was another up-and-coming songwriter, Jimmy Webb, wrote a song about his mysterious disappearance, called "P. F. Sloan." It starts with these lyrics: 

"I have been seeking P. F. Sloan, but no one knows where he has gone
No one ever heard the song that boy set winging"

I haven't included it here, since neither Sloan nor Barri helped write it. But there are nice versions by Webb, the Association, Rumer, and others. Weirdly, for many years, Webb claimed it wasn't actually about Sloan, despite his name literally being the title! However, he eventually admitted that it was about him. 

Stranger still, Sloan totally disappeared for so many years, yet wasn't reported dead, that a person decided to falsely claim they were him. Eugene Landy was a very controversial psychologist who was in charge of the mental health of musical genius Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. In the 1980s, Landy mysteriously began appearing as a co-writer of many new Wilson songs, despite apparently having no previously known songwriting or musical skills whatsoever. When people questioned him on this, Landy claimed that he actually was a talented songwriter because he used to be known as P. F. Sloan! In 1991, this caused the real Sloan to write a letter that debunked that outrageously false claim. (Shortly thereafter, in 1992, Landy lost his psychology license and was barred from further contact with Wilson.)

Anyway, in the late 1980s, Sloan went on a religious pilgrimage to India. This got him interested in Indian religion and philosophy, and started him on a path to getting his life back together. But still, it was a slow road to a full recovery. In 1993, he gave a well-received concert at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. The opening acts, Johnny Rivers, the Turtles, and Jan Berry of Jan and Dean, all benefited greatly from his songwriting. He released another album in 1994, but he was a relatively forgotten figure by this time, and it only came out in Japan. Then, he disappeared again, spending more time in psychiatric hospitals.

Finally, in 2006, he released an album that got at least some attention in the U.S. and Britain, "Sailover." It had some well known guest stars on it, like Lucinda Williams, Frank Black, Buddy Miller, and Felix Cavaliere. Here's an except from the AllMusic.com review: "P.F. Sloan is still writing worthwhile pop songs with smart, impressionistic, and somewhat off-kilter lyrics, and 'Sailover' confirms time has been quite kind to his muse since he last entered a recording studio." He finally did some touring to support it. Other stars like Susanna Hoffs and Rumer sang with him in concert. 

Then, in 2014, he released a well-received autobiography. He also released another new album, a concept album called "My Beethoven" about the life of the classical composer Beethoven. But he died of cancer in 2015, at the age of 70.

Meanwhile, what happened to Steve Barri? He went on to have a fairly successful career in music, but as a producer and then a record company executive. He produced many hits in the 1970s, including "Dizzy" by  Tommy Roe, "Don't Pull Your Love" by Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds, "Theme from S.W.A.T." by Rhythm Heritage, and "Undercover Angel" by Alan O'Day. He also produced several albums for the Grass Roots, the Four Tops, and Bobby 'Blue' Bland. But as a songwriter, there's very little after he stopped writing with Sloan back around 1966. I've included three songs here that Barri co-wrote with others in the 1970s: "I Wouldn't Treat a Dog (The Way You Treated Me)" and "Who's Foolin' Who" by Bland and "Love Pains" by  the Pet Shop Boys & Liza Minnelli. If you look at his songwriting at secondhandsong.com, that's really about it for him without Sloan. That reaffirms the evidence that Sloan was the key partner in their songwriting partnership.

After that, Barri worked his way up the ranks in various record companies, eventually becoming a senior vice president for Gold Circle Entertainment/Samson Records. He is still alive and 84 years old as I write this in 2026. 

Now, fiiiiinally, let me discuss the music here. The first ten songs here were written by Sloan, probably around 1966 to 1969, and all released in those years. He continued to write some hits after ending his partnership with Barri in that era, though none of them were really big hits. "Turn on the Light" is from his 1972 album, and "Violence" is from his 2006, and both of those were performed by him. I would have liked to include more of his own recordings, to show his songwriting was still strong in his later years, but the point of these "Covered" albums is to collect covers. However, I couldn't resist bending my self-imposed rules to include at least those two.

As I mentioned in my write-up to "Volume 1," "Where Were You When I Needed You" is the only song here that's "out of order," meaning this came a lot later than when it was first released. The Grass Roots had a hit with it in 1966, but I prefer the version by the Bangles, which was done by them in 1984. 

One last thing. If you want to know more about Sloan's life, here's a good interview he did in 2014:

https://www.rebeatmag.com/whats-exactly-the-matter-with-p-f-sloan/ 

And here's another one from that same time period: 

https://www.goldminemag.com/articles/perception-reality-singer-songwriter-p-f-sloan/

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Things I Should Have Said (Grass Roots)
02 On a Quiet Night (Association)
03 A Melody for You (Grass Roots)
04 Another Day, Another Heartache (5th Dimension)
05 Bella Linda (Grass Roots)
06 I Get Out of Breath (Turtles)
07 Look Out Girl (Tommy Roe)
08 Baby, You Do It Well (Grass Roots)
09 New Design (Kenny Rogers & the First Edition)
10 I Can't Help but Wonder, Elizabeth (Grass Roots)
11 Turn on the Light (P. F. Sloan)
12 Who's Foolin' Who (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
13 Glory Bound (Grass Roots)
14 I Wouldn't Treat a Dog [The Way You Treated Me] (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
15 Where Were You When I Needed You (Bangles)
16 Love Pains (Pet Shop Boys & Liza Minnelli)
17 Violence (P. F. Sloan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/tDiLRAc3

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Abtx5RNkFo31Pri/file

The cover art was made from separate photos of Sloan and Barri. I don't know when either was taken, but I would guess (based on deleted backgrounds and such) the Sloan picture was taken in 1966 or 1967, while the Barri image was taken in the early 1970s. Both photos were originally in black and white. I colorized them, then put them together in Photoshop.

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.

The Jeff Beck Group - Marquee Club, London, Britain, 9-26-1967

There are surprisingly few decent sounding concert bootlegs by the early Jeff Beck Group, when Jeff Beck joined forces with Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood for three years in the late 1960s. This one has been shared as a bootleg for ages, but the sound quality was just okay, in my opinion. However, in 2023, a person named Goody made a bunch of sonic fixes to it. Goody always does good work, and indeed the Goody version sounds much better. However, there still were some issues. I made some more audio edits, so it sounds better still.

The Jeff Beck Group was formed in early 1967. Soon, the band recorded two singles, which were hits in Britain: "Hi Ho Silver Lining" and "Tallyman." However, these were songs imposed on them by pop producer Mickie Most, and the band didn't really like them much. You can actually hear Stewart mocking them a bit in banter between songs here, by asking the audience if the band should play "Hi Ho Silver Lining" or "Tallyman," and then playing neither of them. Despite the two hits, the band was still relatively unknown at the time of this concert. Stewart, especially, would go on to become a rock superstar later, but at this time he was an unknown. That's why the poster for this concert only mentioned "Jeff Beck," without even adding the "Group" part. Beck, at least, had developed an impressive reputation as a lead guitarist in the Yardbirds.

The band's first album, "Truth," wouldn't be released until July 1968. At this point, they were touring to improve their musical chemistry and boost their reputation. So it's interesting to have a concert recording of this band at this relatively early stage. Only three of the songs performed here, "Let Me Love You," "I Ain't Superstitious," and "Rock My Plimsoul," would make it onto "Truth."

Regarding the additional audio edits I made, as mentioned above, the big problem as I saw is was that the vocals were way too low in the mix. Goody has a different approach than I do, fixing problems like adjusting the azimuth, pitch, and phase, but not making drastic changes. Whereas I'm all in favor of drastic changes if I think it improves the recording. So I greatly boosted the vocals relative to the instruments. I think it sounds much better now, though note this is still an audience bootleg, not something of pristine soundboard quality.

The last song, "I Can't Hold Out," is the second time that song was performed in this concert. I'm guessing the band played two sets, but for some reason only a bit of one of the sets was recorded. One can hear right at the end of that song Stewart announcing "Let Me Love You" as the next song, which was exactly the same earlier in the album. Also, the first half a minute or so of that song was missing. It was a lucky thing we have the other version, because I was able to use that to patch in the missing part. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. 

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Stone Cold Crazy (Jeff Beck Group)
02 talk (Jeff Beck Group)
03 I Can't Hold Out (Jeff Beck Group)
04 talk (Jeff Beck Group)
05 Let Me Love You (Jeff Beck Group)
06 talk (Jeff Beck Group)
07 I Ain't Superstitious (Jeff Beck Group)
08 talk (Jeff Beck Group)
09 I Think I'll Be Leaving This Morning (Jeff Beck Group)
10 talk (Jeff Beck Group)
11 Rock My Plimsoul (Jeff Beck Group)
12 Jeff's Boogie [Instrumental] (Jeff Beck Group)
13 Wee Wee Baby (Jeff Beck Group)
14 [I Know] I'm Losing You (Jeff Beck Group)
15 talk (Jeff Beck Group)
16 Oh Pretty Woman (Jeff Beck Group)
17 I Can't Hold Out [Second Version] [Edit] (Jeff Beck Group)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TqU95Trd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/nps6CGHlyytFYfD/file

The cover art is rather strange this time. That's because I found the poster from a concert by this band that took place just three nights later. I liked it and decided to use it. 

If the style looks familiar to you, that's because it was made by Martin Sharp, the same person who made the cover art for the Cream albums "Disraeli Gears" and "Wheels of Fire." (He also wrote the lyrics of the Cream songs "Tales of Brave Ulysses and "Anyone for Tennis".) I had to make some adjustments to get the rectangular poster fit into a square space. The main thing I did was remove the venue name (UFO Roundhouse) and replace that with "Jeff Beck" from lower in the poster. Then I added some more text at the bottom. I've included the entire poster here, since it's so interesting.

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.

Various Artists - Musical Salad, Volume 1 (1939-2025) (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

As part of this music blog's ongoing Brian Wilson Week, here's another tribute to one of the most original musical minds of the Twentieth Century. If we've got our dates right, this should be appearing on June 17th, which happens to be National Eat Your Vegetables Day in the United States.

The idea for this collection emerged during a late-night Discord conversation with Fabio from Rio, when preparing the "Covered: Brian Wilson" discs. While discussing Brian Wilson's wonderfully eccentric song "Vegetables", we started wondering whether anyone else had ever written songs about vegetables. What began as a joke I made quickly turned into a challenge taken up by Fabio. A few days later, he returned with a surprisingly long list of candidates, and before long we realized there might actually be enough material for an entire compilation – or two.

The result is "Musical Salad." It's a collection of songs inspired by vegetables, salads, and assorted garden-related culinary adventures. Some tracks are genuinely great, some are bizarre, some are funny (either deliberate or not), and a few somehow manage to be all three at once. Taken together, they form one of the strangest and most entertaining themed collections we've assembled so far.

Note that there are many many songs that have a vegetable or something vegetable related in the title. We decided that wasn't good enough. The song has to actually be discussing something vegetable-related in the lyrics.  Furthermore, it had to hold up musically as well. I know this concept may seem strange. But just as your parents probably told you when faced with eating an unfamiliar vegetable for the first time, "try it, you'll like it." I was skeptical at first, but I think these ended up being fun albums.

There is a second volume coming, hopefully tomorrow.

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 Vegetables (Beach Boys)
02 Sam the Vegetable Man (Stuff Smith)
03 Cauliflower (Rattles)
04 The Onion Song (Marvin Gaye & Tammy Terrell)
05 Don't Touch Me Tomato (Phyllis Dillon)
06 Hot Potatoes (Kinks)
07 Eat Your Green Beans (Happy Campers)
08 Call Any Vegetable (Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention)
09 Potatoes, Tomatoes, Gravy and Peas (Terry Scott Taylor)
10 Carrot Juice Is Murder (Arrogant Worms)
11 Eggplant (Train)
12 Leaf and Lime (High Llamas)
13 [Don't Give Me That] Broccoli (Phenomenauts)
14 Vegetable Town (Barenaked Ladies)
15 The Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn (Johan Heldenbergh & Veerle Baetens)
16 Lettuce and Croutons with Fresh Daily (ScienZe)
17 Red Peppers (Peppes)
18 Hang On Little Tomato (Pink Martini)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wnZK6i25

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/zj3KlY4Ns9gV2Jq/file

The cover image was made by Fabio, using AI. Furthermore, he went above and beyond and used an AI art generator to create a visual picture of each of the songs. I was skeptical of that at first as well, especially since I'm not a big fan of AI art, or really AI much of anything. But I have to admit these pictures that Fabio made for the songs turned out really well. In fact, they turned out so well that I told Fabio they make me fear for the future, because if AI can make one of these in a matter of seconds, I don't see how people will be able to stay employed as artists. But that's a discussion for another time and place perhaps. Here is a sample of one such picture. This one illustrates the song "Carrot Juice Is Murder." You can find an entire booklet that he made with these AI created pictures as well as descriptions of each song in the download zip file.

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.

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: Joan Baez, Volume 1: 1967-2016 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another Fabio from Rio guest post. A couple of months ago (as I write this in May 2026), he really got into Joan Baez's music for the first time. In particular, he was struck by her songwriting talent, despite the fact that she's best known for covering songs written by others. So he put together five albums containing all of her original songs, which I recently posted. But he also made two "Covered" albums, showing off her songwriting in a different way. Some people don't like her singing. I have a friend like that, who finds it too high and shrill. So here you can enjoy her songs entirely through cover versions.

Probably the most unexpected cover here is the version of "Diamonds and Rust" by heavy metal band Judas Priest. Even more surprising, it went on to be quite popular, making their "best of" albums and inspiring more hard rocking cover versions. Here's what Baez had to say about it:

"I love that! I was so stunned when I first heard it. I thought it was wonderful. It's very rare for people to cover my songs. I think there are a couple of reasons. One is they're personal – they don't have a universal quality to them. And I think maybe it's because I've already sung them, and who wants to compete with that? But it's always flattering when somebody does." 

There's a lot more to be said about this album. But, as usual with Fabio guest posts, I'll leave that to the liner notes he wrote, which are included in the download zip. 

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 North (Tom Scott with the California Dreamers)
02 Saigon Bride (Gabor Szabo & the California Dreamers)
03 Sweet Sir Galahad (Gary & Randy Scruggs)
04 Song for David (Judy Collins)
05 Last Lonely and Wretched (Wild Rice)
06 Outside the Nashville City Limits (Mabel Joy)
07 Diamonds and Rust (Judas Priest)
08 For Sasha (Louise Tobestill)
09 All the Weary Mothers of the Earth (Annie Patterson)
10 Play Me Backwards (Sin Frontera)
11 Winds of the Old Days (Lori Blois)
12 Here's to You (Lisa Simmons)
13 Only Heaven Knows (Joanne Cooper)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/D4agojYd

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/NJ5kf1Y6ukB05fs/file

The cover image is from 1974.

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: Geoff Stephens: 1964-2002

I recently posted a couple of "Covered" albums dealing with British professional songwriters from the 1960s and 1970s (as I write this in May 2026). As I said elsewhere, there was a circle of a dozen or more who often collaborated with each other, and wrote lots of pop hits. Here's another one from that group, Geoff Stephens.

Many of the other songwriters in this group that I've been discussing came up with the British Invasion, the musical trend that started around 1963. But Stephens was slightly older - he was 29 years old in 1963- and his music career began before that. He served in the military for a couple of years and held a series of odd jobs before getting serious about songwriting. His first song was covered by a musical act in 1961. 

His first hit was "Tell Me When" in 1964, co-written by Les Reed, another songwriter in that group. I've already posted the hit version by the Applejacks in the "Covered" album for Barry Mason and Les Reed. So I went with a different version here. Later that same year, he had an even bigger hit with a song he wrote all by himself, "The Crying Game." The version by Dave Berry went all the way to the Top Five in Britain, although it wasn't a hit. (Boy George eventually had a hit in the U.S. with it in 1992.) It had an unusual melody, showing surprising musical sophistication for a pop hit 1964.

He had an even bigger hit in 1966 with "Winchester Cathedral," performed by the New Vaudeville Band. It actually was recorded by session musicians. The lead vocalist was John Carter, another songwriter I've profiled with a "Covered" album." Stephens had a fondness for vaudeville/ music hall music from the 1920s and earlier, and wrote the song in that vein. It was such a massive success - hitting Number One in the U.S. and some other countries, and selling three million copies worldwide - that it started a mini-vaudeville trend for the next couple of years. Few British artists could resist performing at least one or two songs in that style, for some reason.

Sometimes, Stephens was the sole songwriter, as was the case with "Winchester Cathedral." But more often, he wrote with other members of that unnamed British professional songwriter group. For instance, "There's a Kind of Hush" was written with Les Reed, "Sorry Suzanne" was written with Tony Macaulay, "My Sentimental Friend" was written with John Carter, "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" was written with Peter Callander, and so on. As you can see, Stephens didn't favor just one songwriting partner. In fact, he had many more, including Roger Greenaway, Barry Mason, Don Black, and Mitch Murray. All of those other people have their own "Covered" albums, or their albums are coming.

Stephens had many more hits through most of the 1970s, until about 1978. In fact, one of his biggest hits was one of his last, since "Silver Lady" by David Soul went to Number One in Britain in 1977. (That one was co-written with Tony Macaulay, by the way.) But musical styles changed drastically in the late 1970s, with the rise of disco, punk, and new wave. So his hits stopped at that time, as was the case with most of the other songwriters in that group he'd been working with since the mid-1960s. 

Starting in the early 1980s, he mostly switched to writing songs for musicals. In doing so, he still collaborated with people from that same group, writing different musicals with Don Black, Les Reed, and Peter Callander. He died in 2020 at the age of 86.

Here's his Wikipedia page:

Geoff Stephens - Wikipedia 

Because Stephens often wrote with other songwriters who have their own "Covered" albums, sometimes I've resorted to using non-hit versions, so the same versions don't appear on two different albums. So, for instance, I have "Sorry Suzanne" here by the Glass Bottle, instead of the hit version by the Hollies. "Smile a Little Smile for Me" is an outliner, because I chose a late cover for the same reason. The hit version was in 1970. Without that one, this album would end in 1980. 

This album is one hour long. 

01 Tell Me When (Jaybirds)
02 The Crying Game (Dave Berry)
03 Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James (Manfred Mann)
04 Winchester Cathedral (New Vaudeville Band)
05 My World Fell Down (Ivy League)
06 There's a Kind of Hush (Herman's Hermits)
07 Boy (Lulu)
08 Sunshine Girl (Herman's Hermits)
09 Lights of Cincinnati (Scott Walker)
10 My Sentimental Friend (Herman's Hermits)
11 Sorry Suzanne (Glass Bottle)
12 Knock, Knock, Who's There (Mary Hopkin)
13 Daughter of Darkness (Tom Jones)
14 Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast (Wayne Newton)
15 You Won't Find Another Fool like Me (New Seekers)
16 Doctor's Orders (Carol Douglas)
17 Silver Lady (David Soul)
18 It's Like We Never Said Goodbye (Crystal Gayle)
19 Like Sister and Brother (Frank Hooker & Positive People)
20 Smile a Little Smile for Me (Chris von Sneidern)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GVD6cdXe

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6MIhB6jKMNGt8K9/file

I don't know anything about the cover image except that it's "circa 1970." The original was in black and white. I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

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: Randy Newman, Volume 1: 1963-1973

Whenever I think about the "Covered" series of albums I've made, I get frustrated, because I've got dozens that I've never gotten around to posting. I guess I enjoy the making of the albums more than the steps needed to post them. It feels like unfinished homework. But I'm going to make more of an effort to fix that, starting with a triple-header of Randy Newman.

Here's some highlights from his Wikipedia entry:  

"[Newman] is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, composer, and arranger. Born in Los Angeles to an extended family of Hollywood film composers, he is known for his Americana-inspired songs, non-rhotic Southern-accented singing style, and typically mordant or satirical lyrics. Since the 1990s, he has worked mainly in film scoring, most popularly for Disney and Pixar. ... Newman has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards (out of 22 nominations), three Emmys, seven Grammy Awards, as well as nominations for a BAFTA Award and seven Golden Globe Awards. His award-winning film work includes 'Ragtime' (1981), 'The Natural' (1984), 'Toy Story' (1995), 'A Bug's Life' (1998), 'Pleasantville' (1998), 'Monsters, Inc.' (2001), 'Cars' (2006), 'The Princess and the Frog' (2009), 'Toy Story 3' (2010), and 'Marriage Story' (2019). He was honored with the Recording Academy's Governors Award in 2003, a Disney Legend award in 2007, and inductions into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013."

As mentioned above, he was born in Los Angeles. But he also spent many of his childhood summers in New Orleans. That would prove to be important, because his songwriting would be heavily influenced by New Orleans styles. And also as mentioned above, he was part of an extended family of Hollywood film composers. His mother and father had regular jobs (as secretary and internist, respectively), but three of his uncles were film composers, and so were three cousins. 

He began writing songs professionally by the age of 17. He put out a single under his own name in 1962, but it flopped. So he decided to try writing songs for others for a while. He began having successes almost immediately. The first song here, "Hold Your Head High" by Jackie DeShannon, is from 1963. 

Also very early on, he began writing instrumental music for TV shows, starting with an episode of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" in 1962. That talent would continue to grow, leading to him to eventually doing full movie soundtracks starting in 1971. More on that in a later volume though.

Alan Price helped boost Newman's songwriting career in 1967. For one thing, he had a hit with Newman's "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear." But also, he was so taken by Newman's songwriting that his 1967 album "A Price on His Head" had no less than seven songs by Newman. Harry Nilsson paid him an even bigger compliment by covering an entire album of his songs in 1970, "Nilsson Sings Newman."

Newman finally released his first album under his own name in 1968, "Randy Newman (Creates Something New Under the Sun)." It was a critical success, and it led to even more musical acts covering his songs, but it didn't sell well. It didn't even reach the top 200 U.S. albums chart. For the next ten years or so, he would continue to be a cult artist, meaning he was critically praised and beloved by a small group of fans, but didn't have much wider commercial success. 

Meanwhile, his songwriting continued to get better and better. It arguably peaked with his 1972 album "Sail Away," though he has maintained remarkably high consistency for his entire career. Rolling Stone Magazine has put that album on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. His 1974 album "Good Old Boys" would also make that list, though lower down it.

Newman's songwriting is extraordinary, but it's also idiosyncratic, with frequent heavy sarcasm. Some songs have general romantic themes that lend themselves to being covered a lot, for instance "I Think It's Going to Rain Today." There are over a 100 different cover versions of that one. But then consider a song like "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)." It's a sarcastic song about how God seemingly could care less about the human race, and even laughs at the calamities it throws at humanity. I think it's a great song, with deep meaning, but it's not exactly typical Top Forty subject material! So there are a lot of songs I would have wanted to include but didn't, because either there's no cover versions at all, or at least no worthy covers. And I've followed my usual rule for the "Covered" series of generally not including versions by Newman himself (although he'll show up with one song in a later volume, and in a duet in the other volume).

Note that some of the best songs written by Newman during this time period only show up in one of the later two volumes. So if you don't see a favorite, wait to see what's on those first. 

This album is 52 minutes long. 

01 Hold Your Head High (Jackie DeShannon)
02 Baby, Don't Look Down (Billy Storm)
03 I've Been Wrong Before (Cilla Black)
04 Nobody Needs Your Love (Gene Pitney)
05 Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear (Alan Price Set)
06 Snow (Claudine Longet)
07 Illinois (Everly Brothers)
08 I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Dusty Springfield)
09 Just One Smile (Blood Sweat & Tears)
10 Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad (Linda Ronstadt)
11 Love Story (Peggy Lee)
12 Dayton, Ohio, 1903 (Wayne Fontana)
13 Mama Told Me [Not to Come] (Three Dog Night)
14 Cowboy (Nilsson)
15 The Beehive State (Doobie Brothers)
16 Living without You (Manfred Mann's Earth Band)
17 God's Song [That's Why I Love Mankind] (Etta James)
18 Guilty (Bonnie Raitt)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/V6aqPKqW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/qo8CJZ7pNQ5aBBM/file

The cover photo is from 1968.

Joan Baez - Baez Sings Baez, Volume 1: 1967-1971 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's an album that was entirely made by guest poster Fabio from Rio. I just helped it along here and there, for instance making the cover art. Recently, Fabio really got into the music of Joan Baez, and devoured all 40 or so of her albums. He thought she was almost entirely about singing cover songs. But as he listened to those albums, he discovered many good songs that were written by her. So he came up with the idea of compiling all of her original songs, to show that she's had a lot of songwriting talent, as well as singing talent. He found about 70 songs, enough for five albums. This is the first one.

A well known Joan Baez compilation album has the title "Baez Sings Dylan," and consists just of her covers of Bob Dylan songs. Fabio came up with the idea of riffing on that, and calling this series "Baez Sings Baez." So that's what we're calling it. And the font type, color, size, and so on is a close match to the "Baez Sings Dylan" cover.

Fabio has a lot more to say about this. But, like guest poster Mike Solof does, he prefers to put his comments in a file that's included in the download zip. So please give that a read to learn a lot more. 

Everything here comes from officially released studio albums, so the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 North (Joan Baez)
02 Saigon Bride (Joan Baez)
03 A Song for David [David's Song] (Joan Baez)
04 Sweet Sir Galahad (Joan Baez)
05 Here's to You (Joan Baez)
06 Blessed Are... (Joan Baez)
07 Three Horses (Joan Baez)
08 Last, Lonely and Wretched (Joan Baez)
09 Outside the Nashville City Limits (Joan Baez)
10 When Time Is Stolen (Joan Baez)
11 Gabriel and Me (Joan Baez)
12 Milanese Waltz - Marie Flore (Joan Baez)
13 The Hitchhiker's Song (Joan Baez)
14 Fifteen Months (Joan Baez)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PMuEKXwc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/gZhw4tt48XqFdZv/file

I mentioned above how I made the cover art as an homage to the cover of the official album "Baez Sings Dylan." Fabio selected the photograph. All I know about it is that it dates to 1965.

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 3: 1966-1967 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here’s another Dionne Warwick album in Mike Solof’s series of all the songs she sang written by Hal David and/or Burt Bacharach. I’ll keep my comments short. But I’ll note I think the three of them were peaking around this time until the end of the 1960s, with songwriting, production, and singing.

This album is 39 minutes long.

035 I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself (Dionne Warwick)
036 Go with Love (Dionne Warwick)
037 Message to Michael (Dionne Warwick)
038 Trains and Boats and Planes (Dionne Warwick)
039 Here, Where There Is Love [Alternate Version] (Dionne Warwick)
040 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Dionne Warwick)
041 Alfie (Dionne Warwick)
042 The Windows of the World (Dionne Warwick)
043 Another Night (Dionne Warwick)
044 The Beginning of Loneliness (Dionne Warwick)
045 Walk Little Dolly (Dionne Warwick)
046 I Say a Little Prayer [Alternate Version] (Dionne Warwick)
047 [There's] Always Something There to Remind Me (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oLsc5LBu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NEh31dMotYhnVFJ/file

The cover photo was taken backstage during an engagement at the Copacabana nightclub in New York City, on May 2, 1967.

Various Artists - Covered: Neil Young, Volume 1: 1967-1989

I'm leaving for a vacation to the Amazonian region of Peru tomorrow. I'll be gone for nearly two weeks. But while I'm gone, I'm going to try to keep posting. I have two big music projects that I have all set up. So pretty much all I need to do is hit "publish" on my cell phone to post each album. We'll see how it works out. Given that I'm going to a pretty remote area, I might be out of Internet contact for days at a time. So cross your fingers. 

Anyway, this is one of the two projects: a "Covered" collection for one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Neil Young. This one was mostly done by musical friend Fabio from Rio. That includes writing really great liner notes. 

--- 

This is certainly one of the most daunting projects I've worked with Paul yet, and certainly the biggest and most demanding "Covered" collections at the "Albums That Should Exist" blog ever, at least at the time of writing these liner notes. 

I assume Neil Young needs no introduction. Everybody (or at least everybody who has not lived in an offline bunker for the last half century) knows that Neil is one of the most important rock artists of the last sixty years. He has been influencing generations of musicians since the 1960s, resulting in literally thousands of covers and tributes, officially and unofficially available on studio albums, tribute records, live performances, and YouTube uploads.

Our aim here was not to include every Neil Young composition (that would easily result in more than 25 volumes), but to present a good representation of his output, including not only the all-time hits but also deep cuts, some officially unreleased songs cherished by long-time fans (the so-called "Rusties"), and at least a few lesser-known but equally strong compositions from more recent years, since Neil has never stopped composing, performing and recording.

We would like this project to become "The Best Neil Young Cover Collection Ever" - not out of personal vanity, but as a tribute to the quality of the songs and artists featured. For that reason, we walked the proverbial extra mile in order to select what we believe are some of the best performances of each song. In some cases, this was quite difficult to determine and remains subject to endless debate, since certain songs have literally hundreds of different versions recorded by dozens of artists. Subjectivity inevitably played a part, since our personal tastes (mine and Paul's) may have resulted in some biased selections. However, we tried whenever possible to focus on performances that are widely recognized as among the best or most representative interpretations of a given song. At the same time, we also looked for unusual readings that might give a different or fresh spin to familiar melodies.

My initial selection comprised about 230 different songs, and I listened to more than a thousand performances (1,072 to be exact) in order to prepare the first short list, which was later shared with Paul. For some songs there were literally dozens of available covers, so our main challenge was deciding which one to include. For others, it was surprisingly difficult to find a strong version. In some cases - particularly with more obscure tunes - we had to resort to unofficial recordings, including some provided by the Rusties community, where both amateur and professional musicians share their interpretations.

Since my initial selection would result in too-long a collection even for die-hard fans standards, Paul made editorial cuts, excluding some songs (which I accepted with stoic dignity), but also requesting the inclusion of some of his personal favorites, which I happily complied. In the end, we settled on a 10-volume collection with about 150 tracks, with very little repetition (only two songs - "Heart of Gold" and "Cortez the Killer" - appear in more than one version, in different volumes). 

--- 

Note that Fabio wrote individual paragraphs about all the songs in this volume. To see that, please look at the Word file added to the download zip file. Thanks again to Fabio for his help putting these albums together.

I also want to add that these albums are ordered by the years the covers were recorded, not the years the songs were first recorded by Neil Young. So if you don't see songs you want included, please wait. There are no less than TEN albums! And for instance, some songs from this time period don't show up until the last one. 

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

01 Do I Have to Come Right Out and Say It (Gallery Production)
02 Sugar Mountain (Joni Mitchell)
03 Everybody, I Love You (Happy Day)
04 Round and Round (Bernie Schwartz)
05 Southern Man (Merry Clayton)
06 Birds (Linda Ronstadt)
07 Ohio (Isley Brothers)
08 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Jackie DeShannon)
09 See the Sky about to Rain (Byrds)
10 New Mama (Stephen Stills)
11 Love Is a Rose (Linda Ronstadt)
12 Mr. Soul (Cher)
13 The Loner (Stephen Stills)
14 Lotta Love (Nicolette Larson)
15 Look Out for My Love (Linda Ronstadt)
16 Like a Hurricane (Roxy Music)
17 Are You Ready for the Country (Jason & the Scorchers)
17 Winterlong (Pixies)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oE16d9b7

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Y8RaicNK2j2Donc/file

The cover photo is from 1966 or 1967. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. I also used the Krea AI program to add detail.