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/xSguvDEM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/revo89NczNfZKK9/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. 

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/bm3YSnFy

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/pEoVVFc3lzQ7Bfp/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.

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/hVs6Rga9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0Qd4g12HWY8WrK4/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.

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/i6jjx6vk

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/JKPIcpuJQBtagaN/file

The cover photo is from 1968.

Denver, Boise & Johnson - The Bistro Inn, Columbus, OH, 6-1968

One can find such interesting music on YouTube these days. I was searching for more concerts from the Ebbets Field venue in Denver, Colorado, and the use of the search term "Denver" helped me find this concert. I checked, and it wasn't available anywhere else. It's nearly two hours of the folk trio Denver, Boise and Johnson, with excellent sound quality. If you're a fan of John Denver then you'll want this, because he was the "Denver" in "Denver, Boise and Johnson."

I should start by explaining who this trio were. I've actually posted half an album of their music on this blog before. I say half, because I posted an album that contained a John Denver solo set he did at the Philadelphia Folk Festival as well as a Denver, Boise and Johnson set from that same festival. The latter set lasted about 25 minutes. Here's the link to that one, in case you're curious:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2026/01/john-denver-plus-denver-boise-johnson.html

Anyway, when I posted that, I explained the background of the trio. Here's that same explanation:

The group was originally a popular folk group called the "Chad Mitchell Trio." But in 1965, Chad Mitchell left for a solo career, and was replaced by John Denver. It was his first big break into the music industry. The group changed its name to just the "Mitchell Trio." Then, by 1968, the last original member had left, so they were legally required to change their name again, to "Denver, Boise and Johnson." At this point, they consisted of John Denver, David Boise, and Michael Johnson. This version didn't last long, breaking up in 1969 without releasing any albums. 

Now, let me get back to how I found this concert on YouTube. It turns out that Michael Johnson posted it there in 2022. I mention that name, because this was the Michael Johnson who was a member of Denver, Boise and Johnson. Actually, it must be a family member who posted that, because Johnson died in 2017. But whoever posted it posted a handful of concert bootlegs from this trio, so if you're interested in more, go check out that person's YouTube page. I picked this one because it was the longest and most coherent, coming from a single concert.

Here's Johnson's website, if you want to see more pictures and other information about this trio: https://www.mjblue.com/mjdbj.html

At the time of this concert, this trio mostly performed cover songs. But occasionally they played John Denver originals. You can find a few sprinkled in here, like "Take Me to Tomorrow," "Like to Deal with the Ladies," "For Baby (For Bobbie)," "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Catch Another Butterfly," and "Sticky Summer Weather." I think those are all of his originals, but I might have missed one or two. A year after this concert, Peter, Paul and Mary would have a big hit single with "Leaving on a Jet Plane," turning it into a folk classic.

If you're wondering why Denver, Boise and Johnson didn't have a hit with "Leaving on a Jet Plane" before Peter, Paul and Mary did, it's because they basically couldn't get a record contract. By 1968, folk music was considered passe, especially if it was still acoustic and not folk-rock. The trio released a couple of singles that didn't make the charts. They broke up in 1969, having never released a studio album in the year or so that these three people made up the trio. John Denver, of course, went on to superstardom only a couple of years after that. Michael Johnson also went on to have a successful, long music career, including having a couple of Number One hits on the U.S. country singles chart in the 1980s.

This appears to be a soundboard recording. There were a few problems, mostly where songs got cut off. That happened three times. For "Let's Get Together," only the very end of the song was missing, literally the last sung note, plus the applause. So that was an easy fix. For "Coal Tattoo," nearly the entire song was missing. But Michael Johnson's YouTube page has some other Denver, Boise and Johnson live recordings, as I mentioned above, so I used one of those to fill in most of the song. It was a similar situation with "Both Sides Now" near the end of the concert. That was missing about the first minute, so I also filled that in with a different live version taken from that YouTube page.

It appears the band played three sets in this concert. I think this includes all of the first and second sets. But there may have been additional songs before "Coal Tattoo" at the start of the third set. There are very few repeats. Only the last three songs were played earlier. 

Oh, one last thing. I don't know the exact date of this concert, and I'm not even sure of the month. Michael Johnson's YouTube page merely says it took place in the summer of 1968. But I found another reference that said June 1968, so I'm going with that unless I hear something different. 

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long.

01 That's the Way It's Gonna Be (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
02 What This Country Really Needs Is Another Movie Star (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
03 We Didn't Know (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
04 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
05 Take Me to Tomorrow (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
06 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
07 Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
08 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
09 Red Velvet (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
10 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
11 Like to Deal with the Ladies (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
12 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
13 Bending the Strings [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
14 Everybody's Talkin' (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
15 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
16 Draft Dodger Rag (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
17 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
18 Both Sides Now (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
19 Love of the Common People (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
20 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
21 I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
22 If You Had Me in Shackles (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
23 The John Birch Society (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
24 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
25 For Baby [For Bobbie] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
26 You Certainly Have Got a Pretty Fantastic Bod (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
27 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
28 Victoria Dines Alone (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
29 Your Friendly, Liberal, Neighborhood Ku Klux Klan (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
30 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
31 Leaving on a Jet Plane (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
32 Yellow Cat (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
33 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
34 The '68 Nixon [This Year's Model] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
35 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
36 Turning Point (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
37 Blowin' in the Wind (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
38 Let's Get Together [Edit] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
39 Coal Tattoo [Edit] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
40 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
41 Asturias [Leyenda] [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
42 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
43 Business Goes On as Usual (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
44 Catch Another Butterfly (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
45 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
46 Foggy Mountain Breakdown [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
47 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
48 Cripple Creek [Instrumental] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
49 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
50 Sticky Summer Weather (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
51 Love of the Common People (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
52 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
53 Both Sides Now [Edit] (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
54 talk (Denver, Boise & Johnson)
55 I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free (Denver, Boise & Johnson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uGr1HA5x

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/a75hEoNov5OCOmm/file

I found the photo of this trio at Michael Johnson's website. From left to right: Michael Johnson, David Boise, and John Denver.

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 5: December 1968 to January 1969

Here's the fifth volume of the episodes I compiled of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. There are 11 in all. 

Just the first three songs were recorded in 1968. The rest date from 1969. As usual with the albums I post, check out the mp3 tags for more detail. I organized these by recording date. The broadcast dates usually took place a few months later.

Probably the most notable thing about the music here is the performance of the Grateful Dead. As I've mentioned previously, most of the music from this T.V. show has languished in obscurity (though I hope these posts are starting to change that). However, the Dead's performance has gotten around some, especially among Deadheads. As it should, because it's a rare treat to see them on T.V. all the way back in early 1969. Three of their songs are included here. "Mountains of the Moon" is special, because it was only performed 15 times by the band, and this was just the second time. The version of "St. Stephen" was very good too. The only disappointment is that the makers of the show faded the song out while the band was jamming on it. I also included what I could of a third song, "Turn On Your Lovelight." But this is less than half a minute. Basically, it was just a snippet that played as the credits rolled at the end of that episode.

An interesting fact is that the Dead's sound engineer, Owsley "Bear" Stanley, secretly put L.S.D. in the coffee that everyone on the set was drinking! So everyone from Hugh Hefner to the stagehands was tripping on acid during the taping of this episode. You can read more about this incident here:

https://www.openculture.com/2021/01/when-the-grateful-dead-performed-on-hugh-hefners-playboy-after-dark.html

That article also contains a link to the Dead's performance, if you want to see it and not just hear it. And there's another link to a later interview of drummer Bill Kreutzmann in which he talked about the spiking of the coffee. 

While that was probably the most interesting musical performance, there are many other good performances on this episode, with lots of rock and soul. Note, by the way, two songs with "[Edit]" in their titles. Sometimes, for this show, there were other people talking over parts of the music. In the second season this would get much worse, to the point that brief advertisements were even spoken over the end of the last song of each episode. So when you see "[Edit]" in this series, that's usually why.

I would also like to point out how odd it was that the Clara Ward Singers performed for this show. Consider that they exclusively sang gospel songs in churches. I wonder if they were appalled at all the "heathen" appearances and behavior all around them. But kudos to Hefner and Playboy for putting a wide variety of musical styles on this T.V. show. 

This album is 56 minutes long. 

01 River Deep, Mountain High (Bobby Doyle)
02 Blowin' in the Wind (Bobby Doyle)
03 Wear It on Our Face [Edit] (Checkmates, Ltd.)
04 Mountains of the Moon (Grateful Dead)
05 St. Stephen (Grateful Dead)
06 The Great Electric Experiment Is Over (Noel Harrison)
07 Hello Sun (Noel Harrison)
08 Turn On Your Lovelight [Edit] (Grateful Dead)
09 Turpentine Moan (Canned Heat)
10 On the Road Again (Canned Heat)
11 Mendocino (Sir Douglas Quintet)
12 She's about a Mover (Sir Douglas Quintet)
13 Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho (Clara Ward Singers)
14 Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Clara Ward Singers)
15 Chicken Wolf (Steppenwolf)
16 Don't Cry (Steppenwolf)
17 Get Out My Life Woman (Joe Williams & Joanne Vent)
18 Hurry On Down (Joe Williams)
19 That Face (Joe Williams)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1vPw9aH6

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/rd6je9jcQYVFtLU/file

The cover photo shows Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. This is a screenshot I took from the video of one of the episodes here.

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 4: November to December 1968

Here's the fourth volume of the episodes I compiled of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. 

Imagine having James Brown in his musical prime perform for you and a small circle of friends in your living room! As you can see from the cover art for this volume, that's exactly what happened on this T.V. show. Except instead of it being your living room, it was a duplicate of the living room of Hugh Hefner's Playboy mansion in Chicago, redone to allow filming in ideal conditions in Los Angeles. But basically all the performances on all the volumes in this series are like that, with a couple dozen of people gathered around the musical act. And, also as you can see from the cover image, there was a suspiciously high number of very beautiful women there. Naturally, a lot of them were Playboy models.

It so happens there's a good number of soul music acts on this volume. If anyone knows the name of the instrumental performed by Buddy Miles, tell me so I can fix the song title.

By the way, Three Dog Night appeared on the show another time, but that performance was lip-synced. But luckily, this one was not. 

It seems Playboy head Hugh Hefner had a lot of say over which musical acts were included. He seems to have had a personal preference from pre-rock and roll crooners. So we got an unusually big spot here for Sammy Davis, Jr., who got to play six songs instead of the usual two or three. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

01 Who Can I Turn To (Marva Whitney)
02 Celebrate (Three Dog Night)
03 Your Love (Marva Whitney)
04 Love Me So Hard (Three Dog Night)
05 If I Ruled the World (James Brown)
06 Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud (James Brown)
07 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay (Checkmates, Ltd.)
08 I Can't Turn You Loose (Checkmates, Ltd.)
09 I Got You Babe (Buddy Miles)
10 Instrumental (Buddy Miles)
11 Tell Me All the Things (Joanie Sommers)
12 I Feel Fine (Joanie Sommers)
13 Just Squeeze Me [But Don't Tease Me] (Lou Rawls)
14 That's You (Lou Rawls)
15 Washington at Valley Forge (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
16 talk (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
17 Alligator Man (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)
18 Your Red Wagon (Lou Rawls)
19 I've Gotta Be Me (Sammy Davis, Jr.)
20 The Joker Is Me - I'm Feeling Good - In My Dreams (Sammy Davis, Jr.)
21 What Kind of Fool Am I (Sammy Davis, Jr.)
22 Who Can I Turn To (Sammy Davis, Jr.)
23 Once in My Lifetime (Sammy Davis, Jr. & Anthony Newley)
24 Rockabye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody (Sammy Davis, Jr. & Jerry Lewis)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NDa7p1Cd

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/RayW1R6CnlrWuAa/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took of James Brown from one of the episodes in this volume. 

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 3: October to November 1968

Here's the third volume compiling episodes of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. 

I said most of what I wanted to say about this weird TV show in general in my write-ups for the first and second volumes. So this time I'll concentrate more on the music.

I'm especially psyched that this has Jackie DeShannon performing two songs. I've been looking for a concert recording from her for ages. I found one she did in 1963, and I've posted that at this music blog, but that's about all I've found. (There are a few YouTube videos of her performing, but most of them are from decades later.) So this is a real find, in my opinion.

As I keep posting these volumes, you'll probably notice a mix of famous musical acts and total obscurities. MC Squared is an example of an obscurity. They were a band many compared to Jefferson Airplane. But they only ever managed to release four singles, none of which dented the charts. 

However, I noticed that many of the obscurities "just happened" to be very attractive women. Cathy Carlson and Lynn Kellogg are examples of that on this volume. Both of them only had one single released under their own names at the time of this show, and neither of them went on to release even a single album. (Although Kellogg did have some minor success later in movie and Broadway play roles.) I surmise that Playboy head Hugh Hefner figured many people would watch his show as much for the many beautiful women shown in the crowd scenes as for the music, comedy, and other performances, so he probably preferred musical acts featuring beautiful women as well. Even MC Squared fits this pattern, since that band had an attractive female lead singer.

Also, unfortunately, as I mentioned in more detail in the write-up for Volume 2, Hefner was an expert in sexual manipulation and grooming. It's highly likely that he often tried to tempt women to have sex with him by dangling the prospect of them performing on this show (or even just being an extra in the party crowds), though it's impossible to say if he was successful with that in any specific instance. In some later episodes, there are cases of female singers on the show who posed nude for Playboy Magazine as well. Though I'll mention again that I didn't include all the musical performances in these compilations. There were the occasional few who just weren't very good, in my opinion, or I had other issues with them, so they were left out.

Something else just came to my mind about Hefner. One reason he got away with his sexual exploitation for so long was because people assumed he was an enlightened person due to his progressive social and political views. For instance, he was ahead of the curve promoting minorities and women in his business empire, as well as giving them opportunities in his magazines and T.V. shows and such. We can see examples of that enlightened reputation in this volume. Not only does it include liberal folk singers Pete Seeger and Joan Baez, but he gave them ample time to talk about their progressive causes, in addition to just singing songs. For instance, before singing, Baez led a discussion that lasted several minutes, arguing there was a moral imperative to oppose the Vietnam War. I highly doubt there were other T.V. shows in that era with a national audience that allowed that sort of discussion. But we now know Hefner could have both been progressive in some of his attitudes in public while also sexually exploiting many women in private. 

This album is an hour and one minute long. 

01 I Know You [Your Nature Is like Mine] (MC Squared)
02 Everybody's Talkin' (MC Squared)
03 The Pill (Pete Seeger)
04 I Got It Bad [And That Ain't Good] (Carmen McRae)
05 Come Live with Me (Carmen McRae)
06 I Got the Reason (Jackie DeShannon)
07 Holly Would (Jackie DeShannon)
08 Everybody's Got to Change Sometime (Taj Mahal)
09 E Z Rider (Taj Mahal)
10 You Could End the World (Cathy Carlson)
11 Hurt So Bad (Cathy Carlson)
12 And the Address [Instrumental] [Edit] (Deep Purple)
13 Hush (Deep Purple)
14 Ol' Man River (Lynn Kellogg)
15 It's Just a Game Love (Brenton Wood)
16 Gimme Little Sign (Brenton Wood)
17 California Earthquake (John Hartford)
18 Natural to Be Gone (John Hartford)
19 Hickory Wind (Joan Baez)
20 Tears of Rage (Joan Baez)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/n4say7Ry

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/rOgqrK3kEfKZ9SF/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from one of the videos of these episodes of Jackie DeShannon. Do you see the mostly bald-headed man standing right behind her? That's Barry White, who would become a big soul music star in the 1970s. At this time, he was a relative unknown, working mostly as a producer and backing vocalist. He was heavily involved in DeShannon's career around 1968. In fact, the first song she sang here, "I Got the Reason," was written by White.

Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention - L'Olympia, Paris, France, 10-26-1968 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

I've been working a lot with guest poster Fabio from Rio on various projects. I just posted a Joan Baez album he made yesterday, and many more are coming soon. A couple of days ago, he asked me why I hadn't posted any Frank Zappa albums. Was it because I didn't like his music? I like some of Zappa's music, though I haven't gone deeply into his vast musical discography. I told Rio the main reason I haven't posted anything from Zappa is because there has been a tremendous amount of archival material that has been officially released. Dozens and dozens of live albums, for instance. So I don't see much need to post his stuff, when it's been so well done already.

That said, I mentioned that I did have one Zappa concert on my list of albums I've been wanting to post. But that list is many hundreds of albums long, and I probably wasn't going to get to it anytime soon. So Fabio volunteered to step up and write the liner notes, so this concert could get posted sooner rather than later. Thus, you can thank Fabio for this one.

The reason I was interested in posting this despite the vast number of official live albums released already is because there aren't many excellent live recordings from the band this far back in time. Zappa had only released three albums at this point, which would end up being just a tiny portion of his vast output. Few concerts were recorded, period, by 1968, and most of them were badly recorded bootlegs. But this one comes from an FM radio broadcast, probably on French radio, so it sounds as good as an official live album from the time. Admittedly, there was an official live album released in 2024 called "Whisky a Go Go, 1968" that is from the same time period, sounds just as good, and is much longer. But if you want more live early Zappa than that, give this album a try.

There's a lot more to say about this concert, but I'll let Fabio say it. He wrote extensive liner notes, which are included in the download zip. That includes lots of interesting quotes from a newspaper review of this exact concert, so be sure to check that out.

This album is 51 minutes long. 

01 Improvisations [Instrumental] (Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention)
02 King Kong [Instrumental] (Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention)
03 Plastic People (Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention)
04 talk (Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention)
05 Hungry Freaks Daddy (Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention)
06 talk (Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention)
07 Son of Mr. Green Genes [Instrumental] (Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bjHdobd7 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/1D8SeuqXEL1IcrA/file

The cover photo was taken at this very venue in 1968. So the odds are good that it's from this exact concert, although it's possible he played at the venue more than once that year. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 2: September 1968

Here is the second volume out of eleven, in which I collected songs from episodes of the "Playboy After Dark" T.V. show.

In the write-up to the first volume, I explained a lot about the music on this unusual show. Here, I want to discuss some more about the show in general, to give some context and understanding about the music that was performed on it.

First off, the show has not aged well. AT ALL! In the 1960s and 70s, "Playboy Magazine" was seen as cool by many. The owner, Hugh Hefner, promoted an entire hedonistic lifestyle, and made himself the central character, turning himself into a household name. He died in 2017 at the age of 91. He was lucky he died when he did, because he missed the cultural reckoning of the "Me Too" movement that began after he died, starting with the public exposure of Harvey Weinstein only about a month later. It turns out that Hefner was a pretty horrible person. He had sex with countless thousands of women. In most cases, it was a blatantly transactional thing: women slept with him hoping that would give them a leg up to fame and fortune. Many hundreds of women in his media empire have signed onto letters defending him. But it has gradually emerged that in some cases, at least, things got ugly. He used grooming techniques to manipulate women in all kinds of awful ways. If you want to know more, check out a documentary series called "The Secrets of Playboy," released in 2020.

The reason I mention all that is because knowing what we know now sheds new light on how the "Playboy After Dark" T.V. show is perceived. I tried to skip past all the non-musical parts. Even so, I couldn't help but catch many cringey moments as I went looking for the songs. Although there was no nudity on the show, since it was on a major T.V. channel, there were scantily-clad beautiful women as scenery almost non-stop in every episode. Luckily, if you just listen to the music, you can avoid nearly all of the cringe. I made sure to only include the songs, even though there often were brief interviews with the musical stars, because the talking was usually, well, cringey too.

The T.V. show had a concept, which was that it tried to present the show as a party held in Hefner's Playboy mansion. You, the viewer, were supposedly an invited guest who got to have a fly on the wall perspective of the good times. The very start of each episode showed a limousine pulling up to a building, the door opening for you, and you got taken to the party where Hefner personally greeted you, and so on, all through each episode. The show wasn't actually filmed at the Playboy mansion, which was located in Chicago at the time. (In the early 1970s, shortly after this show finished, a new mansion was bought in Los Angeles and the Chicago one was slowly phased out.) Instead, to make this believable, exact duplicates of many rooms of the mansion were recreated in a Los Angeles recording studio. Every episode stuck to the party format, with dozens of people mingling about. (I noticed that most of them were the same people from episode to episode.) 

A lot of this obviously was contrived, especially many corny lines scripted in advance spoken for the T.V. cameras. But it seems that, to some extent, there was a real party going on. If you're going to have dozens of people lingering around together for the hours and hours it takes to film each episode, it's only natural that they would socialize. Normally, for shows like this, each star would appear when it's time for their performance, do their performance, and immediately leave. But interestingly, as I watched, I noticed that the various musical guests that appeared for each episode, and other performing guests, like comedians or famous actors, were in background scenes of the crowd too, just hanging out and talking to other people all throughout the episode. So you can see strange situations like Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead watching comedian Sid Ceasar make jokes, or actress Patty Duke dancing to the music of Ike and Tina Turner. The number of famous people from different entertainment fields crossing paths on this show is truly strange to see.

As part of this party conceit, supposedly, every now and then, some famous musical act would break into song to entertain those other party-goers. Often, Hefner would have a brief conversation with the lead singer and then ask them to play a song. Then the audience would be the fifty or so party-goers, usually completely surrounding wherever the musicians were playing. So you get bizarre situations like soul singer James Brown singing in the middle of a living room, with people (mostly beautiful women) sitting all around him, so much so that he could hardly move around like he normally did on stage.

The reason I mention all this is because it is relevant to how these songs were performed and recorded. At first glance, it seems like everything must have been lip-synced, given chaotic conditions like that. But on closer inspection, I believe the vast majority of it was live. Perhaps there were hidden microphones when there were no obvious ones in sight, and the crowd members were told to stay totally quiet. I say that because time and time again, I watched the lips of singers and I was convinced the performances had to be live. I've seen tons of lip-synced performances putting albums together for this musical blog, and I believe I can notice the slight timing discrepancies of lip-syncing. Furthermore, I double checked with the album versions of songs whenever I could find them. Also, even for the talking scenes between the songs, one can hear discussions taking place quite clearly, despite there often being no microphones in sight. Maybe some of that was rerecorded for clarity later, but if so, the way the lips matched the mouth movements is very impressive.

As I mentioned in my write-up to Volume 1, sometimes there were live vocals sung to partial or compete instrumental backing tracks. But I've included those, since I consider the different vocal performances worthy enough. Often though, there were backing musicians, but they would be hidden elsewhere in the room, with only brief glimpses of them. Other times, perhaps the entire thing WAS lip-synced, but it was done for a song that was completely unreleased. That happened a surprising amount, especially for the lesser known musical acts. 

One example of that last case on this album is Marvin Gaye. He sang two songs for the show, "Chained" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." "Chained" was a recent hit for him. I double checked with the album version, and that one was lip-synced. But there is no released version of him ever doing "By the Time I Get to Phoenix." So even if it was lip-synced (which it probably was), I still included that. That actually is a major find, in my opinion, given how rarely any "new" songs are discovered to have been sung by him this many years after he passed away in 1984. 

One great thing about this T.V. series, in my opinion, is that it often had live performances by musical acts with virtually no live performances available anywhere else. For instance, consider some of the performers on this album. O. C. Smith was a soul music star who had a couple of big hits in the late 1960s. But the only live album he ever released occurred early in his career, his 1966 debut album, before he had those hits. And I haven't found any bootlegs of him either. It's exactly the same with Checkmates, Ltd. Their 1967 debut album was live, before they had any hits. There are no other live albums or bootlegs from them. Rod Piazza and Gloria Loring would both go on to have long music careers, with most of their success coming much later. There's no other live performances from them that I could find until many years after this one. As for Angeline Butler, she only ever released one album, in 1970, which is an obscurity. This probably was her one time in a nationwide spotlight. 

And so it goes for many other musical acts all through this series. Time and time again, their appearances on this T.V. show was the only time they have a live performance recorded well, or at all, at least this early in their career. (Keep in mind that the number of bootlegs, truly live recorded TV shows, and official live albums skyrocketed in the 1970s and beyond, but were very rare in the 1960s.)

I want to add one detail about the Byrds, for serious Byrds fans. Founding member Chris Hillman left the band only two weeks prior to the taping of their appearance on this show, leaving Roger McGuinn as the only remaining founding member. The others in the band at this time were Clarence White, John York, and Gene Parsons.

This album is an hour and one minute long.

01 She's the One (Rod Piazza)
02 My Babe (Rod Piazza)
03 Little Green Apples (O. C. Smith)
04 The Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp (O. C. Smith)
05 It's Too Late [To Say You're Sorry] (Gloria Loring)
06 Did I Ever Really Live (Gloria Loring)
07 One of the Nicer Things (Jimmy Webb)
08 She's Lookin' Good (Checkmates, Ltd.)
09 Sunny (Checkmates, Ltd.)
10 Baby I Need Your Loving (Checkmates, Ltd.)
11 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Byrds)
12 This Wheel's on Fire (Byrds)
13 By the Time I Get to Phoenix (Marvin Gaye)
14 Turn Around Look at Me (Angeline Butler)
15 Goodbye Charlie (Angeline Butler)
16 Train (Buddy Miles)
17 Wrap It Up (Buddy Miles)
18 Lincoln's Train (John Stewart & Buffy Ford)
19 Signals to Ludi (John Stewart & Buffy Ford)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/g6vL9ys4

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/c0ZRRf50OW3aw1o/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from one of the episodes featured here. It shows Roger McGuinn, the lead singer of the Byrds. For some strange reason, he was wearing a military jacket. 

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 1: July to August 1968

Here's the start of a weird series of albums. In the 1950s, Hugh Hefner became famous due to his magazine "Playboy," featuring lots of pictures of naked women. He tried to make the magazine respectable by including a lot more than just the nude pictures, such as stories written by famous authors and interviews of prominent people. In 1968, he was able to launch a TV show, "Playboy After Dark," to help promote "Playboy," and it ended up running for two years. Since it was broadcast on a major TV network (CBS) across the U.S., any sort of nudity was out of the question. Instead, the show focused on music, comedy, and serious discussions with prominent people, as part of Hefner's effort to make his magazine more respectable. What interests me about the show is the music. So I've compiled no less than eleven albums with the best music from all the episodes of this show.

I love Western popular music from at least the 1950s until today, but in my opinion, the creative peak was in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This show happened to coincide with some of the very best years, and there was an attempt to include music of many different genres. So there was a lot of great music on this show. 

A big problem with most music on TV shows of this era is that the performances were usually lip-synced. That happened occasionally on this show, but I checked pretty carefully, and I believe the vast majority was performed live. (Admittedly, sometimes just the vocals were live, but that's still worth hearing, in my book.) In these albums I'm posting I believe I've weeded out all the lip-syncing, although it's possible I made the occasional mistake. 

As just one example, the rather obscure rock band the Collectors performed two songs on one of the episodes that makes up this first volume. I checked with the recorded versions of those songs, and one was lip-synced but the other one was performed live, so I only included the live one. (In that case, I surmise the harmony vocals and instrumentation were more complicated on one song, so that's why that one was lip-synced.) Or, in another example, Steppenwolf performed two songs live that are included on this album. But they later returned to the show and the songs they did then were all lip-synced. (In that case, those later songs were more musically complicated, with a group of female backing vocalists and other elements that would have been harder to reproduce live.) I was careful about detecting the lip-syncing like that all the way through this series.

Another big problem with most music on TV shows of this era is that most of it wasn't saved for posterity, since it was before the era of widespread ownership of video recording equipment. And when it was recorded, usually on those very first video recording machines, the quality often was low, and tended to degrade as copies were made of copies over the decades. 

But, luckily for us, this T.V. show is different. The people behind "Playboy" kept pristine copies of all the episodes. Then, in the 1990s, they started a Playboy cable channel, and broadcast all the episodes in full. I was able to find them via SoulseekQT. So for all the songs in all the albums in this series, the sound quality is truly excellent.

Despite that quality, the music from this show has generally been little known by music lovers. There are a few exceptions. The main one is that the appearance of the Grateful Dead for two songs on one episode has gotten around, because it's a very rare chance to see great video footage of that band from way back in 1969. Some of the other performances by famous rock bands have also been shared a bit, like performances by Fleetwood Mac, Canned Heat, the Byrds, and Steppenwolf. But that's well less than five percent of it. The vast majority hasn't been seen or heard, unless you've been one of the few people to watch the full episodes. The problem with that is that nearly all of the non-musical parts of those episodes are pretty dreadful. So I've taken it upon myself to "liberate" the music from these episodes so they can be properly appreciated by many more people. I went through all the episodes (quickly skipping over the non-musical parts), converted the video to audio, and saved the songs as mp3s.

I'll write more about the T.V. show, and especially about how very weird it was, in a later write-up in this series, because I don't want this write-up to get too long. But I do feel it's important to mention here with this first album that the music in this series is a very mixed bag. It seems Hugh Hefner had a lot of say about which musical acts would appear on his show - maybe even it was entirely up to him. But clearly, he had two competing desires. On one hand, it's obvious that he personally liked middle-of-the-road music, such as mood-setting cocktail jazz. He was in his forties when this show was on air, and he naturally preferred music in the style of what was popular when he was a teenager, which would have been the late 1940s. Thus one gets many acts like Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Johnny Mathis. But on the other hand, in this late 1960s era, rock and soul music were all the rage. If Hefner wanted the T.V. show to be successful and stay on air, he needed to cater to that audience as well. If you watch the episodes, over and over again, when he introduced rock and soul acts, he would say that that's "for the kids." Happily, he included a lot of music "for the kids," even though it's pretty obvious that he wasn't personally keen on it.

Here's the Wikipedia entry for the T.V. show, although it doesn't say much, other than listing the acts on each show:

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

I could have just collected all the rock and soul acts, and this album series would be considerably shorter. But I figured that I'm probably the only person who ever is going to take the time to "rescue" the music from this T.V. show. After all, it's been decades, and only a small percentage has been rescued up until now. So I tried to include all the musical performances I considered at least decent. There were some musical acts that I simply couldn't stand hearing, so they got the axe. Nearly all of that was the show-biz stuff based on pre-rock and roll music. Just guessing, maybe I cut out about 20 percent of all the music.

That said, the odds are strong that you'll like some parts of this, and dislike other parts. If that's the case, just delete the songs you don't like. That's another reason I tried to be more inclusive, because it's easy for people to delete songs, but I doubt anyone would bother to find and add any of the songs I left out.

I believe that everything on all the albums in this series is unreleased in any musical format. Back in 2006, a three DVD collection was officially released of highlights from the show. But that's just a small portion out of the 49 episodes. One can also find all the episodes on DVD, but I believe those are bootlegged copies recorded from the T.V. broadcasts in the 1990s. I highly doubt there ever will be any official releases of the music here, due to the difficulty of getting the legal rights to so many different musical acts.

The songs here are in the order they appeared, first by episode, and then within each episode. If you want to know the details of which songs are from which episodes, consult the mp3 tag info for each song. We're lucky that we know the recording dates for all the episodes, not the broadcast dates, as is usually the case for most shows. So I used the recording dates. 

There are two famous singers with the name Joe Williams. One, Big Joe Williams, was a blues singer. The other, just Joe Williams, was a jazz singer. The one here is the jazz singer. 

Also, it's quite nice to have a couple of songs from Harry Nilsson, because he almost never performed live in front of audiences. The setlist.fm concert archive only lists six concert performances in his lifetime, most of them only a couple of songs. There may be a few more than that, mostly at the beginning and end of his career, but not much. It is said he suffered from severe anxiety regarding public performance. Also, his recordings usually featured complex vocal overdubs, which were impossible to replicate in a concert setting. He also preferred a quiet life, enjoying being able to travel without being recognized.

Given all that, if you watch the video of his performance, he seemed quite at ease, even talking and joking around between songs. Maybe the fact that the audience was very small helped. It was much like playing in a person's living room instead of being on stage in a concert hall. 

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

01 I Wish It Would Rain (Chambers Brothers)
02 Love Is All I Have [Edit] (Chambers Brothers)
03 One Act Play (Collectors)
04 The Unicorn (Shel Silverstein)
05 I Know How It Feels to Be Lonely (Morgana King)
06 Sookie, Sookie (Steppenwolf)
07 Born to Be Wild (Steppenwolf)
08 Hallelujah, I Love Him So (Morgana King)
09 Yesterday I Heard the Rain (Tony Bennett)
10 There Will Never Be Another You (Tony Bennett)
11 Looking for a Boy (Sue Raney)
12 No One Will Ever Know (Sue Raney)
13 Worried Life Blues (James Cotton Blues Band)
14 Mercy, Mercy, Mercy [Instrumental] (Buddy Rich)
15 She's Murder [Murder in the First Degree] (James Cotton Blues Band)
16 Did I Ever Really Live (Joe Williams)
17 Young Man on the Way Up (Joe Williams)
18 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay (Pair Extraordinaire)
19 The Bright Lights and You Girl (Pair Extraordinaire)
20 Good Old Desk (Harry Nilsson)
21 Together (Harry Nilsson)
22 Cast and Crew (Harry Nilsson with Otto Preminger)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uT98ZKoW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BwV00LdWz4HJFkK/file

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from one of the episodes of this show. It shows John Kay, the lead singer of Steppenwolf. 

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/pgC1na27

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/6J8Pg2jDSyrxSmE/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, Volume 4: 1968 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

I am posting this while waiting in an airport for a flight inside Peru. So far, my vacation is going great after a rough start getting here. This is another volume of Dionne Warwick singing songs written by Hal David and/ or Burt Bacharach. At this point, their songwriting partnership was going strong and they were still writing all their songs together.

Thanks again to guest poster Mike Solof for putting these albums together.

This album is 45 minutes long.

048 As Long as There's an Apple Tree [Extended Version] (Dionne Warwick)
049 Do You Know the Way to San Jose (Dionne Warwick)
050 Let Me Be Lonely (Dionne Warwick)
051 Odds and Ends (Dionne Warwick)
052 Promises, Promises (Dionne Warwick)
053 The April Fools (Dionne Warwick)
054 Reach Out and Touch - All Kinds of People (Dionne Warwick)
055 This Girl's in Love with You (Dionne Warwick)
056 Wanting Things (Dionne Warwick)
057 Where Would I Go (Dionne Warwick)
058 Who Is Gonna Love Me (Dionne Warwick)
059 Whoever You Are, I Love You (Dionne Warwick)
060 Walkin' Backwards Down the Road (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PQUwnfKQ

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/VBcAZtk0uWxyYgh/file

The cover photo shows her on an unknown TV show in London, in 1968.

The Loading Zone - The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA, 2-10-1968

A few days ago (writing in late February 2026), I posted a 1968 concert by the fairly obscure band the Loading Zone. I was pleasantly surprised by the positive response that got. One commenter noted there is another concert bootleg by this band that took place just two days later. Turns out that is correct, so here it is.

For the basics about the Loading Zone, please check out my write-up for the other concert I've posted by them. Thanks to commenter johncream who pointed me to this recording. It only seems to exist as an audio recording on YouTube until now, so I converted that to audio format and chopped it into mp3s.

What's nice is that although this concert only took place two days after the other one I've posted, the set list is entirely different. Also, there isn't much overlap with their self-titled 1968 studio album. Only three songs from that were performed here: "Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead," "No More Tears," and "Shop Around." 

The only original song written by band members is "No More Tears." That also was a single they released. (It flopped.) The rest of the songs are generally classic hits. The band leans more into soul music here. Note they were a mostly white band but their lead singer, Linda Tillery, was a Black woman, which was rare for the San Francisco scene they were a part of. (She can be seen on the far left in the cover image.)

The album is 50 minutes long. This appears to be the full performance. They played a relatively short set because they were an opening act that night.

01 Got My Mojo Working (Loading Zone)
02 talk (Loading Zone)
03 Summertime (Loading Zone)
04 Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead (Loading Zone)
05 No More Tears (Loading Zone)
06 talk (Loading Zone)
07 Shop Around - 96 Tears (Loading Zone)
08 talk (Loading Zone)
09 Cold Sweat (Loading Zone)
10 talk (Loading Zone)
11 Try a Little Tenderness (Loading Zone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qi1w2bcn

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/MVWu06AA2ewhv5o/file

I had a hard time coming up with a cover for this album. It seems there are only two even halfway decent photos of the band on the Internet, and I used up the best one for the first album I posted by this band. I ended up using the second one for this cover, but with a twist: I found a version of it the band used for the cover to their single "No More Tears." I kept that for the middle section, with its tinted colors and everything exactly the same. But I got rid of all of the text above and below, and replaced it with my own text (but still with the same font and background colors). 

The Steve Miller Band - Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA, 5-11-1968

Here is an excellent Steve Miller Band concert from 1968 that I have drastically improved through audio editing. The source is a great soundboard bootleg, but there was one major flaw: the vocals were way, way down in the mix for most of the songs. In fact, they were so far down in the mix that it was almost like an all instrumentals version. I used the MVSEP program to bring the vocals back to their proper levels. So now, in my opinion, this becomes of the best live recordings of this band in the 1960s, if not the very best.

At the time of this concert, the band had only released one album, "Children of the Future," in 1967. Later in 1968, they would have a minor hit with "Livin' in the U.S.A.," a song from their second album. This concert contains a version of that song. Also, Boz Scaggs was still part of the band. He would leave in September 1968, just prior to the release of the second album. He would go on to have a long, successful solo career.

The band played at the Carousel Ballroom a lot around May 1968. I didn't realize this until recently, but in July 1968, the management of the venue was taken over by promoter Bill Graham, and it was renamed the Fillmore West. (I had thought the Fillmore West was just the Fillmore renamed due to there being a Fillmore East started in New York City around that time. But the original Fillmore was about a mile away, and also changed ownership and names.) Anyway, for some reason, there are a bunch of soundboard bootleg recordings of Steve Miller Band concerts at the Carousel Ballroom around this time, for instance on April 26, 27, 28, and May 10, 11, and 12. A lot of the other ones are incomplete or have other problems. Now that the vocals problem has been solved, I think this is the best one.

Actually, I did a lot of work on this recording, in addition to the vocals problem mentioned above. Another issue was that the recording captured very little of the audience noise, so it seemed like there was an odd lack of audience reaction at the ends of songs. To fix this, I ran many songs through the MVSEP program again, separating the crowd noise out, and then greatly boosting the volume. I also copied and pasted some crowd noise from one song to another where there wasn't enough crowd noise to use the other method. I made some other fixes too. There was a lot of annoying buzzing coming from one of the instruments on some songs. I made more edits to get rid of that. I didn't get rid of that entirely. But now there's only a little bit of it on a few songs. I did still more edits. As one example, the harmonica on "Just a Little Bit" was buried in the mix, but I fixed that by using MVSEP yet again. 

In short, this is way better than the previous version. But the original version had a lot going for it. One nice thing is that the lead guitar work is very prominent and clear. 

This actually combines two sets. The song "Living in the U.S.A." was played in both sets. However, the second version was cut off before it finished. So I chose not to include that one. That was a lucky break, that the one song that got cut off was the only one that was played twice. Also, this began with the song "Can't You Hear My Daddy's Heartbeat." But I didn't include that, because it was only the last two minutes out of an eight minute long song. It was played the night before, and since there's a soundboard recording of that, I tried to combine them, but the two versions were too different for that to work well. 

The recording I found ended with two unnamed jams featuring Steve Miller Band playing with Jorma Kaukonen and Elvin Bishop on lead guitars and Jack Casady on bass. I'm pretty sure this was some sort of backstage, after hours kind of thing, because there was no audience noise whatsoever. And there was several minutes of tuning and doodling between the jams that also had no hint of any audience. So I've included those as bonus tracks, since they weren't part of the concert.   

This album is an hour and 17 minutes long. 

01 Goin' to Mexico (Steve Miller Band)
02 Living in the U.S.A. (Steve Miller Band)
03 talk (Steve Miller Band)
04 Steppin' Stone (Steve Miller Band)
05 Blues with a Feeling (Steve Miller Band)
06 talk (Steve Miller Band)
07 Roll with It (Steve Miller Band)
08 Mercury Blues (Steve Miller Band)
09 talk (Steve Miller Band)
10 Sitting in Circles (Steve Miller Band)
11 talk (Steve Miller Band)
12 Junior Saw It Happen (Steve Miller Band)
13 talk (Steve Miller Band)
14 Me and My Woman (Steve Miller Band)
15 Feel So Good (Steve Miller Band)
16 Instrumental (Steve Miller Band)
17 I've Got My Eyes on You (Steve Miller Band)
18 Just a Little Bit (Steve Miller Band)
19 talk (Steve Miller Band)
20 Your Old Lady (Steve Miller Band)

Long Jam [Instrumental] (Steve Miller Band with Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady & Elvin Bishop)
Short Jam [Instrumental] (Steve Miller Band with Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady & Elvin Bishop)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Y7TAY7V5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/mhiVCLS5WseEoKW/file 

The cover is the concert poster for this exact concert. However, I made some changes. One is that I had to do some reshaping to get things to fit into a square shape. I kept the image in the middle unstretched, but there are parts that got cropped. Also, I removed the names of the supporting bands, which were right below where "The Steve Miller Band" is mentioned in the striped area. The other bands were Kaleidoscope and the Youngbloods.

The Loading Zone - The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA, 2-8-1968

As I've mentioned many times on this blog before, I think the late 1960s were a special time for music. It's my opinion that often even little known bands from that time were better than most bands that came later. I've been making an effort to post music from such talented less bands. Here's one: the Loading Zone. Although they never found critical or commercial success, somehow there's this one bootleg recording that sounds professionally recorded.

One thing that makes music of that time special, in my opinion, is that a lot of what was happening was brand new. The concert is a case in point. At the time, the Loading Zone were pioneering what would later be called "jazz rock." That would soon be made popular by groups like Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears. But "jazz soul" might be a better name, because there's a large soul element here.

The Loading Zone were formed in Berkeley, California at the start of 1966. In my opinion, they stood out by their musical talent, which was on a different level than most Bay Area bands of the time. Their lead vocals by Linda Tillery were a particular highlight. (Note that she had only recently joined the band in late 1967, but that's definitely her on this recording.) However, their weakness was they didn't come up with much original material. Thus, their self-titled debut album mostly consisted of covers. It wasn't that well received, being especially criticized for excessive production. Tillery left the band for a solo career in 1969. After some personnel changes, the band put out one more album in 1970, "One for All," then broke up in 1971.

Here's their Wikipedia page: 

The Loading Zone - Wikipedia 

In my opinion, the band probably would have been wise to release this concert instead of their debut album. It shows their musical talent without the overproduction issue. It's actually quite different from that album as well, with only three songs being on both: "Love Feels like Fire," "I Can't Please You," and "Kali Yuga-Loo."

By the way, it's frustrating that the recording ends with the emcee announcing that Arlo Guthrie would be on stage next. Too bad that recording doesn't exist (or at least hasn't been made public). Also, note that this took place at the Fillmore a few months before it changed its name to the "Fillmore West" (due to a "Fillmore East" opening up on the East Coast).

This album is 38 minutes long. 

01 Watermelon Man [Instrumental] (Loading Zone)
02 talk (Loading Zone)
03 Get Ready (Loading Zone)
04 talk (Loading Zone)
05 Call It Stormy Monday (Loading Zone)
06 talk (Loading Zone)
07 Love Feels like Fire (Loading Zone)
08 I Can't Please You (Loading Zone)
09 talk (Loading Zone)
10 The Monkey Time (Loading Zone)
11 talk (Loading Zone)
12 Kali Yuga-Loo (Loading Zone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ExpkS8BJ 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/nnUwUUvbmvCOi2M/file

I tried finding a photo of this band in concert, but I came up snake eyes. This was the best photo I could find, by far. It was used on the back side of their 1968 album, though more cropped than this. The version I found was in black and white (as it was on the album), but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. The only person I can identify is Linda Tillery, who is the Black woman in the leather jacket and cap second to the left.  

Northern California Folk-Rock Festival, Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, San Jose, CA, 5-19-1968, Part 2 - Country Joe and the Fish

This is the seventh and last album out of seven albums I'm posting from the 1968 Northern California Folk-Rock Festival. This set features Country Joe and the Fish.

The first five of the albums I've posted from this festival took place on May 18, 1968. But this one, and the previous one, the Electric Flag set, took place on May 19th. That's why I'm calling this "Part 2" in the title, instead of "Part 7," because it's Part 2 of May 19th. 

I said quite a lot in my write-up for the first album I posted from this festival, the Youngbloods set. I recommend you read that, because most of that applies to this set too. Most importantly, note that this is sourced from an audience bootleg, so the sound quality isn't up to my usual standards. I had to do a lot of work to fix all sorts of flaws. The final results sounds pretty decent for a 1968 concert, in my opinion, but you need to be tolerant about the flaws that still remain.

Out of all the sets, this one has the most issues. The main reason is because it almost certainly is incomplete. According the schedule listed before the festival began, the bigger names of the musical acts were given 45 minutes to perform. That was true of Country Joe and the Fish. To be specific, they were to perform from 3:45 P.M. to 4:30, after the Electric Flag and before the Doors. All the other acts stuck to their time allotments, give or take five minutes. But this recording is only 24 minutes long. Furthermore, the last song here is cut off. 

My theory is whoever was taping this festival had to stop recording in the middle of this set. They could have run out of batteries or run out of tapes to record on. Such problems were common in those early days of bootleg taping, especially when the costs of tapes were much higher relatively speaking than they would be later. That would also explain why there's no recording of the Doors, even though they were one of the two headlining acts for the festival. 

In fact, a majority of the last song here, "Superbird," was missing. So I filled it out with another version taken from another bootleg that same year. And a chunk of "Masked Marauder" was missing too, causing me to make a similar fix. That's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. 

In conclusion, the recordings from this festival were borderline unlistenable to my ears, especially due to the high buzzing noise I previously mentioned a few times. But thanks to recent audio editing technology advances, and a lot of grunt work on my part, I hope this festival now can be enjoyed. It still has issues, and probably always will, because audio editing can only go so far. For instance, missing sets, banter, and parts of songs can't be restored. But, in my opinion, the more time passes, the more the music of the late 1960s is seen as historically important and special, so I thought it was worth it to make what music survives from this festival accessible once again.

This album is 24 minutes long. 

01 Rock and Soul Music (Country Joe & the Fish)
02 Love (Country Joe & the Fish)
03 Masked Marauder [Instrumental] [Edit] (Country Joe & the Fish)
04 Flying High (Country Joe & the Fish)
05 Superbird [Edit] (Country Joe & the Fish)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/u9xRtcGV

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/86uy6hqxylL3AOD/file

The cover photo of Country Joe McDonald is from this exact concert. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. It's strange to me that he was wearing a suit and tie, given he was a major countercultural "hippie" figure, but maybe he was trying to be ironic or something, I don't know.