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. 

The Carpenters - Imaginary Piano Recital, Volume 1: 1970-1975 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another Fabio from Rio guest post. It's the first of two volumes featuring the Carpenters. Basically, Fabio and I love Karen Carpenter's voice, but the production of Carpenters records usually left a lot to be desired. Too often, the songs were drenched with syrupy strings and other overproduction that detracted from the beauty of her voice, and the song, instead of adding to them. So we've tried to counter that in various ways. First, I posted a "Near Acappella" album that stripped the music just down to vocals, bass, and drums. Then, we posted two completely "Acappella" albums. Now, there's this. The idea is, an imaginary piano recital, with nothing but Karen Carpenter singing, and usually her brother Richard playing piano.

Fabio found all the songs for this. First, he found some other people on the Internet who already had used audio editing technology to strip official studio versions of songs down to just lead vocals and piano. But many songs he liked hadn't been given that treatment, or hadn't been stripped enough, so he did his own audio editing. So all the songs have been edited, heavily, but the ones with "[Edit]" in them specifically indicate the ones with Fabio's editing.

Fabio has a lot more to say on this. So check out his liner notes that are included in the download zip. 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 [They Long to Be] Close to You [Edit] (Carpenters)
02 Maybe It's You [Edit] (Carpenters)
03 For All We Know (Carpenters)
04 One Love [Edit] (Carpenters)
05 Rainy Days and Mondays [BBC Version] [Edit] (Carpenters)
06 Superstar [Groupie] [Edit] (Carpenters)
07 A Song for You [Edit] (Carpenters)
08 I Won't Last a Day without You [Edit] (Carpenters)
09 I Can't Make Music [Edit] (Carpenters)
10 Sing [Edit] (Carpenters)
11 The End of the World [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 Top of the World [Edit] (Carpenters)
13 Yesterday Once More [Edit] (Carpenters)
14 Love Me for What I Am [Edit] (Carpenters)
15 Solitaire [Edit] (Carpenters)

Top of the World [Country Singalong Version] [Edit] (Carpenters) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Jd2UdXrz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/7Kd3757bXETVnXz/file

For the cover image, we wanted to show Karen singing and Richard playing piano. Luckily, we found two, just enough for our two volumes. I don't know the details of where or when this image was taken though, except that it's "circa 1971."

Paul Simon with Art Garfunkel, Phoebe Snow and Randy Newman - Saturday Night Live, NBC Studios, New York City, 10-18-1975

Recently, a commenter suggested that I should compile the musical performances from the "Saturday Night Live" T.V. show in the same way I compiled them from the "Playboy After Dark" T.V. show. That's a good idea, and I'll probably do that at some point. But in the meantime, there's this, as a kind of teaser. Did you know that in 1975, the first season of "Saturday Night Live," there was an episode that was almost entirely dedicated to musical performances related to Paul Simon, including a short reunion of Simon and Garfunkel? There was, and here's the music from it.

When "Saturday Night Live" got started, the show was still figuring out just what it would be. For instance, the first episode was unusual since all the comedic skirts were very short, less than two minutes long. Then this one was the second episode. It seems to have been an experiment in making the show much more musical than it turned out to be. In fact, the entire show was basically turned over to Paul Simon, like it was his personal T.V. special. He performed some songs, and picked other musical guests to perform other songs. He also did a couple of skirts, including one where he played basketball against a professional basketball player (Connie Hawkins, who was six feet, eight inches tall). The joke was that Simon is short, at five feet, two inches, so he would make a terrible basketball player. The regular cast was barely seen at all, other than the news update section.

In 1975, Simon was having a moment. Simon and Garfunkel broke up in 1970, and at first the commercial success of his solo career was much lower. But his 1975 album "Still Crazy After All These Years" went all the way to Number One in the U.S. album charts, helped by the hit single "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," which also went to Number One. This show took place only a couple of weeks after that album was released. 

His new album contained "My Little Town," the first Simon and Garfunkel collaboration on record since they broke up in 1970. So Simon had Art Garfunkel on the show to perform that song, plus two others. Garfunkel also got to sing a song by himself. 

 

Simon also used the show to shine the spotlight on some of his favorite musical acts. Not only did Randy Newman perform a song, but Simon actually sang one of Newman's songs himself, "Marie." This is a really special treat, since Simon almost never did cover songs. I haven't seen this cover version anywhere. 

Phoebe Snow was also having her moment of commercial success, thanks to her hit single "Poetry Man." But she chose not to sing that, and did "No Regrets," a song done by Billie Holiday, instead. Plus, Snow and the Jessy Dixon Singers helped out on "Gone at Last," just like they did on Simon's previous album. 

I wasn't able to find this music circulating as an audio bootleg, except for the three Simon & Garfunkel songs. So I found a high quality version of the video, converted it to audio, and chopped it into mp3s. I cut out everything that wasn't related to the music, like the few comedic skirts. That was about 20 minutes of material. I carefully edited the transitions to cut out the commercial breaks and things like that, so it would sound like a continuous concert.

This album is 39 minutes long. 

01 Still Crazy After All These Years (Paul Simon)
02 talk (Paul Simon)
03 Loves Me like a Rock (Paul Simon & the Jessy Dixon Singers)
04 Marie (Paul Simon)
05 talk (Paul Simon)
06 Sail Away (Randy Newman)
07 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
08 The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel)
09 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
10 Scarborough Fair (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 My Little Town (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
13 I Only Have Eyes for You (Art Garfunkel)
14 talk (Paul Simon & Phoebe Snow)
15 No Regrets (Phoebe Snow)
16 Gone at Last (Paul Simon, Phoebe Snow & the Jessy Dixon Singers)
17 American Tune (Paul Simon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/m4tnWz4R

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/9k79ChfHUojnDep/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took of a video of this exact concert. It shows Phoebe Snow and Paul Simon singing "Gone at Last." For the font, I used the colors and style of the T.V. show.

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 2: 1973-1999

Here's the second out of three "Covered" albums for singer-songwriter Randy Newman.

As I mentioned in "Volume 1," in the early 1970s, Newman was considered a cult albums, very critically acclaimed, but with not much commercial success for his own career. Even the many covers of his songs were rarely hits, though there were exceptions, especially "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)," which was a Number One hit in the U.S. for Three Dog Night in 1970.

But things changed drastically for him in 1977, with the song "Short People." To pretty much everyone's surprise, his version was an massive novelty hit. It made it all the way to Number Two in the U.S., kept out of the top spot only by the all-time classic "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. It was wildly misunderstood, to say the least. A great many of his songs are sarcastic. For instance, his great song "Political Science" sarcastically advocates for blowing up the world with nuclear weapons. Many people who heard "Short People" didn't realize it was a sarcastic attack on prejudice by pointing out how silly it would be to hate short people for no reason, including ignoring the lyrics of the bridge, which explicitly run counter to the rest of the song. 

But in any case, the song made him a household name, even though his overall sales still didn't increase much. His only two really big hits on the singles charts remain "Short People" and "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)." Since Newman's version of "Short People" is so well known, it's the only song in this series I've included that's performed by him.

I also want to give a special mention to "Sail Away." I think it's an incredible song. But it also shows how unique his songwriting is, and how easy it can be for people to misunderstand his songs if they don't pay attention. It's basically an advertisement for a slave trader prior to the Civil War, attempting to coax Black Africans to come to the U.S. for a better life, when in fact the trader is tricking them into slavery. Yet somehow this sarcastic premise becomes a powerful song about the evils of slavery. It's been widely covered, including by the likes of Bobby Darin, Etta James, Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Gladys Knight, Joe Cocker, and Kirsty MacColl. It was hard for me to pick just one cover, but I thought the version by Etta James is extra powerful.

From the start of Newman's songwriting career, he'd had a sideline writing instrumental music for T.V. shows, which then led to movie soundtrack work. That began way back in 1962, as I mentioned in the previous volume. His first movie soundtrack was in 1971. He did a few more movies here and there over the next couple decades. But his career took a turn in 1995, when he did the soundtrack for the hit movie "Toy Story." One song he did for that, "You've Got a Friend in Me," wasn't a hit per se, barely reaching the singles chart. But it became widely known, and widely beloved by children, and it's gone on to sell over three million copies! Surely that makes it one of the best selling non-hits ever. 

For that song, I've included a duet version between Newman and Lyle Lovett, since it's an interesting one that's also much less well known than the version just featuring Newman.

This album is 50 minutes long. 

01 Have You Seen My Baby [Hold On] (Ringo Starr)
02 Sail Away (Etta James)
03 Last Night I Had a Dream (Fanny)
04 Let's Burn Down the Cornfield (Etta James)
05 Naked Man (Grass Roots)
06 Lucinda (Joe Cocker)
07 Short People (Randy Newman)
08 Baltimore (Nina Simone)
09 Mr. President (Marshall Tucker Band)
10 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Joe Cocker)
11 Louisiana 1927 (Aaron Neville)
12 Political Science (Everything but the Girl)
13 You've Got a Friend in Me (Randy Newman & Lyle Lovett)
14 Feels like Home (Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt & Dolly Parton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6SB3U9ZA

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/f6YT8V3gAvHLIQ3/file 

The cover image is from 1978.

Joan Baez - Baez Sings Baez, Volume 2: 1972-1975 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another guest post by Fabio from Rio. Joan Baez is mostly known as a singer of songs written by others. But Fabio has put together five volumes of songs written or co-written by Baez, showing that she's actually a pretty talented songwriter. Here's the second volume.

I don't have much to say, because Fabio has written extensive notes, which are included in the download file. But I'll just point out that Baez proved herself to be a talented songwriter by writing the classic "Diamonds and Rust," which was a hit in 1975. And that song is included here.  

All the songs here come from official releases. So naturally the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 19 minutes long.

01 Prison Trilogy [Billy Rose] (Joan Baez)
02 Love Song to a Stranger (Joan Baez)
03 Myths (Joan Baez)
04 Weary Mothers [People Union 1] (Joan Baez)
05 To Bobby (Joan Baez)
06 Song of Bangladesh (Joan Baez)
07 Only Heaven Knows [Ah, the Sad Wind Blows] (Joan Baez)
08 A Young Gypsy (Joan Baez)
09 Rider, Pass By (Joan Baez)
10 Windrose (Joan Baez)
11 Where Are You Now, My Son (Joan Baez)
12 Where's My Apple Pie (Joan Baez)
13 Diamonds and Rust (Joan Baez)
14 Children and All That Jazz (Joan Baez)
15 Winds of the Old Days (Joan Baez)
16 Dida (Joan Baez with Joni Mitchell)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2RefJk56

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/d26OuaQsQb5loJ8/file

I don't know any details about the cover photo, except that it's from 1973. Fabio picked it.

Chris Hillman - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-8-1975

Here's another concert from the radio broadcasts out of the tiny Ebbets Field venue in Denver, Colorado. This one stars Chris Hillman.

This concert found Hillman at an interesting point in his career, just starting a true solo career. Up until then, he had been in a surprising number of bands. He was a founding member of the Byrds in the 1960s. Then he was one of the leaders of the Flying Burrito Bros. from 1969 to 1972. After that, he joined Manassas, led by Stephen Stills, from 1972 to 1973. In 1973, he took part in a Byrds reunion that resulted in one album. Then in 1974, he became part of the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, a trio consisting of J.D. Souther, himself, and Richie Furay. They put out two albums, but broke up in 1975. 

I checked, and it looks like the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band didn't break up until 1976. However, it also looks like they barely toured at all in 1975 and 1976. I only saw evidence of two concerts. Their second album, released in 1975, was badly received. So it looks like the members were already going their own way. Hillman would release his first true solo album, "Slippin' Away," in 1976. I checked setlist.com, a concert database. It says he performed 16 concerts in 1975, and this one was the very first. If that's true, this concert may have been the very start of his solo career. 

However, that meant he hadn't much time to write songs for his own album. Only two songs here, "Down in the Churchyard" and "Blue Morning," would appear on the "Slippin' Away" album. The rest are from his time with the Byrds (tracks 7 and 24), the Flying Burrito Bros. (tracks 4, 5, 7, and 21), Manassas (track 13), and the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band (tracks 1, 8, and 11). It seems there actually were one or more songs at the end that didn't make the recording. There was a little bit of banter and tuning up right before the recording cut off. I got rid of that little bit. Having audience cheering fade out is a more satisfying way to end an album, in my opinion.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I love these Ebbets Field bootleg radio broadcasts due to the sound quality. A local company called Tuning Up recorded all of them, and did a better job than typical radio broadcasts from that era. But unfortunately, this concert doesn't sound good as most of them. Probably it's a copy of a copy, and so on, or something like that. However, I ran all the songs through a UVR5 program denoise filter, so at least the sound is better than it was before. I'm not saying this sounds bad; it's just it doesn't sound as good as most of the others I'm posting from this venue.  

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Chris Hillman)
02 talk (Chris Hillman)
03 Safe at Home (Chris Hillman)
04 talk (Chris Hillman)
05 Down in the Churchyard (Chris Hillman)
06 talk (Chris Hillman)
07 Time Between (Chris Hillman)
08 talk (Chris Hillman)
09 High Fashion Queen (Chris Hillman)
10 talk (Chris Hillman)
11 Colorado (Chris Hillman)
12 talk (Chris Hillman)
13 Fallen Eagle (Chris Hillman)
14 talk (Chris Hillman)
15 Christine's Tune (Chris Hillman)
16 talk (Chris Hillman)
17 Follow Me Through (Chris Hillman)
18 talk (Chris Hillman)
19 Blue Morning (Chris Hillman)
20 talk (Chris Hillman)
21 Six Days on the Road (Chris Hillman)
22 Move Me Real Slow (Chris Hillman)
23 talk (Chris Hillman)
24 So You Want to Be a Rock 'N' Roll Star (Chris Hillman)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Ef1f6W4Y

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/4l4Vwr75AByzZWV/file

The cover photo was apparently taken in 1976. It actually showed Hillman in a room that clearly wasn't a concert stage. So I turned the background to black to disguise that fact.

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: 1975-1976

Here is the ninth, and last, volume of Lulu performing for the BBC. 

All but the last four songs are from her 1975 BBC TV show, "Lulu." As I mentioned in previous volumes, I found all the episodes of that TV show for the 1975 season. I converted the episodes to audio and then chopped out the songs and turned them into mp3s. That was enough for all of the two previous episodes, plus most of this one and another previous one. 

Lulu had BBC TV shows under different names from 1968 to 1975. So one reason this series is coming to an end with this volume is there is a sudden drop in the amount of material I could find. Also though, music was changing. Disco, punk, new wave, and such came along and swept away a lot of earlier musical trends. Lulu was tied to those earlier trends, so it makes sense that her show came to an end right about this time.

With the end of the show, that just leaves the last four songs. The last episode of her show aired in April 1975. I found a few strays from the latter half of 1975, and well as 1976. Tracks 16 and 17 come from a BBC TV special called "Seaside Special." You might want to give it a look on YouTube, especially because it has ABBA performing two songs actually live on stage instead of lip syncing like they usually did on TV shows. Track 18 is from the BBC TV show "Top of the Pops." I included it here because Lulu actually performed that song live, when most performed on that show did lip syncing. The final song is from another BBC TV special, called a "Jubilee of Music." It's the only song here from 1976 instead of 1975. It's fitting that the song Lulu sang was "Shout," because that's the song that made her into a star back in 1964.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality varies some, but is generally excellent. Note that pretty much all the songs were performed in front of a cheering audience, but I used the UVR5 audio editing program to remove as much of the cheering as I could.

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 Son of a Preacher Man (Lulu)
02 Your Kiss Is Sweet (Lulu)
03 Song Sung Blue (Lulu)
04 Wouldn't It Be Luverly (Lulu)
05 Snowbird (Lulu)
06 Flash Bang Wallop (Lulu)
07 It May Be Winter Outside (Lulu)
08 A New Fangled Tango (Lulu)
09 You've Made Me So Very Happy (Lulu & David Clayton-Thomas)
10 I Just Don't Want to Be Lonely (Lulu)
11 Listen to a Country Song (Lulu)
12 Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie (Lulu)
13 Take Your Mama for a Ride (Lulu)
14 New York, New York (Lulu & Dickie Henderson)
15 When Will I See You Again (Lulu)
16 Raised on Rock (Lulu)
17 A Boy like You (Lulu)
18 Heaven and Earth and the Stars [Edit] (Lulu)
19 Shout (Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NFM1F2MZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/R0fWFGTY9gzqnFU/file

The cover image is from an unknown concert in November 1976. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. 

J. J. Cale - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 2-13-1975

Here's a concert by the king of the mellow Tulsa groove, J. J. Cale. It's rather short, but the sound quality is excellent, since it comes from an FM radio broadcast.

I've been trying to resist, because I have too much good music to post already. But yesterday I finally gave in and collected all the concerts from this venue, Ebbets Field, in Denver, Colorado, that I could find. It's a remarkable treasure trove of music because from 1973 to 1977, dozens of concerts from this venue were broadcast on a local radio station, and the professional recording of them was better than usual for that era. I kept finding more and more. I've already posted six, but I found about another 50! So you can look forward to seeing a lot more of those here in the near future.

There are a few I can't find that I'm pretty sure exist, because excerpts from their recordings have been posted here:

https://colomusic.org/music/ebbets-field-rarities-1973-1977/

If anyone has the Ebbets Field concerts from the following, please let me know:

Joan Armatrading
Jesse Colin Young
John Fahey
Loudon Wainwright III
Eric Andersen
Wet Willie
Minnie Riperton
Beau Brummels
Dr. Hook 

I'm happy to say I've found the vast majority of the other concerts mentioned on that webpage. Those should all get posted here eventually, knock on wood.

Anyway, back to Cale. One nice thing about this concert is that it's one of the earliest live recordings of him available. I've only come across one that's from earlier, and that's a strange one from 1971 that is almost entirely instrumental. So this could be the first "normal" concert recording that's publicly available. Another nice thing, at least for me, is that his music sounds more lively than usual. 

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

This album is 38 minutes long.

01 talk (J. J. Cale)
02 Louisiana Women (J. J. Cale)
03 talk (J. J. Cale)
04 Lies (J. J. Cale)
05 Nowhere to Run (J. J. Cale)
06 Mo Jo (J. J. Cale)
07 Call Me the Breeze (J. J. Cale)
08 Woman I Love (J. J. Cale)
09 Bringing It Back [From Mexico] (J. J. Cale)
10 talk (J. J. Cale)
11 Magnolia (J. J. Cale)
12 After Midnight (J. J. Cale)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QgzXyRZT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ETN67pX9otBhEwR/file

The cover image is from a concert in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1986.

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: 1975

Here's the eighth album of Lulu performing for the BBC. Like the previous volume, everything here is from 1975.

All the songs from the previous volume, and a good chunk from the volume before that one, come from the 1975 season of Lulu's BBC TV show. For most years, it was called "It's Lulu," but for its final season in 1975, it was just called "Lulu." This volume also contains nothing but songs from that show. As I mentioned previously, I found videos of all the episodes from that season on SoulseekQT, converted them to audio, and chopped out mp3s of the songs I wanted to post.

In the 1970s, Lulu became an all-around entertainer for her show, doing lots of comedy parts and singing music in many different pop styles. We see that again here. She sang just about any song that was popular, including "Rainy Days and Mondays" by the Carpenters, "Waterloo" by ABBA, and "If" by Bread. She also occasionally sang songs from decades earlier. 

 

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

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 I Can See Clearly Now - Montego Bay (Lulu)
02 Laughter in the Rain (Neil Sedaka & Lulu)
03 Rainy Days and Mondays (Lulu)
04 I've Never Seen Anything like It - Talk to the Animals (Lulu)
05 The Rhythm of Life (Lulu)
06 Sugar Candy Kisses (Lulu)
07 Sand and Sea (Lulu & Gilbert Becaud)
08 Waterloo (Lulu)
09 I'm a Brass Band (Lulu)
10 Please Mr. Postman (Lulu)
11 Just an Old Fashioned Girl (Lulu)
12 Getting to Know You (Lulu & Johnny Mathis)
13 Trouble - Blue Suede Shoes (Lulu)
14 Cabaret - An Englishman Needs Time - The White Rose of Athens - Big Spender [Edit] (Lulu)
15 And I Love Her So (Lulu)
16 If (Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/c2drG2Ns

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/yR9mrZgc9pp0Iys/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from one of her 1975 TV show episodes. 

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: 1975

Here's another album of Lulu performing for the BBC. This is the seventh volume out of nine that I plan to post.

With this album, I'm entirely into the 1975 material that mostly led to me adding a bunch of new Lulu BBC albums. As I mentioned in the last write-up in this series, I came across all the episodes to the 1975 season of Lulu's BBC TV show, "Lulu." There were 13 episodes of the show that season, which ran from January to April. Each episode had one or more guest stars, but most of it consisted of Lulu singing songs, or performing in comedy skits. Despite having a hit BBC TV show for many years (1968 to 1975), she put out surprisingly few albums during that time period (and the same goes for singles). For instance, she released an album in 1973, and another one in 1976. So the vast majority of the songs on this album (and the other 1970s BBC albums I've put together) consist of songs she never officially released.

Just to be clear, everything here is from her BBC TV show. And none of the songs were included on the previous Lulu BBC album I had made dealing with her early 1970s time period. 

I have to admit a lot of this stuff is pretty far from rock or soul. "On the Good Ship Lollipop," for instance, a song made famous by Shirley Temple in 1934. By this time, she had became a versatile middle of the road actress and singer, performing songs in pretty much any genre. That said, she was a good singer, and she generally picked good songs. So, while this isn't for everyone, I figured that it deserved to be remembered. So I went through the bother of going through all the episodes of converting the songs into mp3s. 

Lulu sang a duet with Labi Siffre, choosing the classic hit "This Guy's in Love with You." Since I've made some BBC albums for Siffre too, I put this song on one of those collections too, his "BBC Sessions, Volume 3."

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. Note that I tried to remove the audience cheering as much as possible, using the UVR5 audio editing program. But sometimes, some remnants remained. 

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 I've Got the Music in Me (Lulu)
02 Goldfinger - Diamonds Are Forever - The Man with the Golden Gun [Edit] (Lulu)
03 I'm Stone in Love with You (Lulu)
04 Everything Is Coming Up Roses - On the Good Ship Lollipop - Don't Sit under the Apple Tree (Lulu)
05 You Make Me Feel Brand New (Lulu)
06 I'm a Woman (Lulu)
07 You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You (Lulu)
08 That's When the Music Takes Me (Lulu)
09 Baby I'm-a Want You (Lulu)
10 After Midnight (Lulu)
11 Hang On in There Baby (Lulu)
12 Puppet on a String (Lulu)
13 Knock, Knock Who's There - Boom Bang a Bang (Lulu)
14 Congratulations (Lulu)
15 The Ash Grove (Lulu & the King Singers)
16 Put a Little Love Away (Lulu)
17 Jubilation T. Cornpone (Lulu)
18 Spinnin' and Spinnin' (Lulu)
19 This Guy's in Love with You (Labi Siffre & Lulu)
20 I Won't Last a Day without You (Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/j2PqwJkQ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/n9ootA9JZXQ2V8Q/file

The cover photo is taken from a screenshot from a 1975 episode of her TV show.

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: 1973-1975

Here's the next volume of Lulu performing for the BBC. Only three songs here were on the previous Lulu BBC album I'd made dealing with this time period: tracks, 7, 9, and 10. Everything else is music I recently discovered.

The main reason I discovered a bunch of Lulu music is that I found the entire 1975 season of videos of Lulu's BBC TV show. (For that season, the show was renamed from "It's Lulu" to just "Lulu.") The sound quality was excellent, so I converted those to audio and cut out the mp3s of the songs featuring her. That 1975 material starts with track 11, and continues until the end of the album. It also makes up the bulk of the three additional BBC albums I'll be posting after this one.

That still leaves the rest of the album, tracks 1 through 10. As I mentioned, three of those songs are ones I posted on the old version of "BBC Sessions, Volume 4" (now completely replaced). After finding the 1975 season, I looked around and more still more videos I'd previously missed, mostly from YouTube. It helps that there's an active Lulu YouTube page, and it's posted a bunch of new stuff since I originally made some BBC albums for her. Tracks 1 through 9 come from the 1973 edition of her BBC TV show. (I couldn't find anything from 1974.) Only track 10 ("The Man Who Sold the World") is different, coming from a BBC radio show.

All the music here is unreleased. The sound quality is generally excellent, though it varies somewhat. I removed the applause as best I could from nearly all of these using the UVR5 audio editing program. But I couldn't get rid of all of it on all the songs. 

This album is 49 minutes long. 

01 Touch Me in the Morning (Lulu)
02 Killing Me Softly (Lulu with Sergio Mendes)
03 That's When the Music Takes Me (Lulu)
04 When You Smile (Lulu)
05 She (Lulu & David Clayton-Thomas)
06 For the Good Times (Lulu)
07 Blue Suede Shoes - Hound Dog - Heartbreak Hotel - Love Me Tender - Teddy Bear - Jailhouse Rock (Lulu)
08 Mr. Tambourine Man (Lulu)
09 Lean On Me (Bill Withers & Lulu)
10 The Man Who Sold the World (Lulu)
11 Never Can Say Goodbye (Lulu)
12 Goodness Gracious Me (Lulu & Michael Bates)
13 The Man with the Golden Gun (Lulu)
14 Smile, Darn You Smile (Lulu)
15 Baby Love (Lulu)
16 Let's Put It All Together (Lulu)
17 Stand by Your Man (Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/z563zgfb

alternate:

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

The cover photo is from an appearance on Lulu's TV show "It's Lulu" at some point in 1973.

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.

Country Joe McDonald with Barry Melton - BBC Sessions, Volume 4, In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 1-28-1975

Here is the fourth, and last, album of Country Joe MacDonald performing for the BBC. This is a concert from 1975.

This album is a bit different from the others in the series and that it prominently features Barry Melton as well as McDonald. McDonald and Melton were the co-leaders of Country Joe and the Fish, with both of them, writing songs. Melton was generally known as "the Fish." Their band broke up in 1970, after band members lost enthusiasm for touring and recording. But both McDonald and Melton continued with their own solo careers. They remain friendly with each other, and sometimes performed together, such as in this concert. In this case, each of them perform songs solo near the beginning, but mostly did songs together.

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

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Karma (Barry Melton)
02 talk (Barry Melton)
03 Marshmallow Road (Barry Melton)
04 talk (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
05 The Man from Athabaska (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
06 talk (Country Joe McDonald)
07 Holy Roller (Country Joe McDonald)
08 talk (Country Joe McDonald)
09 Living in the Future in a Plastic Dome (Country Joe McDonald)
10 Fly So High (Country Joe McDonald)
11 On the Road Again (Country Joe McDonald)
12 talk (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
13 Entertainment Is My Business (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
14 I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
15 talk (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
16 The Hot Dog and Hamburger (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
17 talk (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
18 Happiness Is a Porpoise Mouth (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
19 Here I Go Again (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
20 Sing Sing Sing (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)
21 It's Finally Over (Country Joe McDonald & Barry Melton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ywihexA5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/fIOFXZZEO0RaRDz/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on the Old Grey Whistle Test BBC TV show in 1976. 

Neil Sedaka - BBC In Concert, Neil Sedaka, London, Britain, 4-26-1975

A couple of weeks ago (writing this in March 2026), a posted a couple of albums made up of performance of Neil Sedaka on the "Midnight Special" TV show. In the course of putting those together, I stumbled across this BBC concert Sedaka did at the same time. I'm not that big of a Sedaka fan, but I'm kind of fanatic about posting these old BBC concerts, so I figured what the heck and I'm posting it. 

By the way, I also found evidence that Sedaka did other BBC concerts, usually decades later. For instance, he did one in 2010. But I haven't been able to find any of those. If you have them and want to share them, I'll post those as well.

This concert was broadcast on BBC TV. It was relatively early in his mid-1970s comeback. But it includes the song "Laughter in the Rain," which was the key song that made him popular again. It also starts with "Love Will Keep Us Together," which he wrote. That was a huge Number One hit for Captain and Tennille. I looked it up, and that single was released in April 1975, the same month as this concert. But this is probably the broadcast date, not the recording date. So I think it's highly likely he recorded this before he knew that song would be such a big hit.

The "BBC In Concert" concert is only half an hour long. Since that's pretty short, I did a search to see if he did anything else for the BBC around that time. I did find a couple of things. Tracks 12 through 15 are from an appearance on the BBC TV show "Old Grey Whistle Test" in 1974. That was even earlier in his comeback. But he did have one minor hit in Britain in 1972, "That's When the Music Takes Me." The last song is from a 1975 episode of the BBC TV show "Lulu," starring the British singer Lulu. The song, "Laughter in the Rain," is the only repeat here, luckily enough. But this is a duet version sung by Lulu, so I figured that's different enough to justify including both.

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 42 minutes long. Just the "In Concert" portion is 30 minutes long.

01 Love Will Keep Us Together (Neil Sedaka)
02 talk (Neil Sedaka)
03 Laughter in the Rain (Neil Sedaka)
04 When You Were Lovin' Me (Neil Sedaka)
05 talk (Neil Sedaka)
06 Stephen (Neil Sedaka)
07 talk (Neil Sedaka)
08 The Queen of 1964 (Neil Sedaka)
09 New York City Blues (Neil Sedaka)
10 talk (Neil Sedaka)
11 Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (Neil Sedaka)
12 Betty Grable (Neil Sedaka)
13 A Little Lovin' (Neil Sedaka)
14 talk (Neil Sedaka)
15 Solitaire (Neil Sedaka)
16 Laughter in the Rain (Neil Sedaka & Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/S63g5A1b 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/YxjeaydmC3VxZCN/file

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from this exact concert.

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.  

Neil Sedaka with Captain and Tennille - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 11-14-1975

Neil Sedaka died on February 27, 2026, just a few days ago as I write this. It just so happened I had some music to post from him. In fact, this is the second of two albums I'm posting based on his appearances on the "Midnight Special" TV show.

The other album of his I recently posted was based on when he hosted the Midnight Special on February 14, 1975. He was back to host the show again on this date, November 14, 1975. It was unusual for anyone to host the show twice in one year, but his career had an extraordinary revival in the mid-1970s. He had been very successful in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but had a long stretch of no hits in between.

The peaks of his 1970s revival was when three songs he wrote all reached Number One in the U.S. singles chart. First, "Laughter in the Rain" in late 1974. Then Captain and Tennille had a massive hit with his "Love Will Keep Us Together" in 1975. Not only was did it hit Number One, but it was the best selling song of the year. Later in 1975, he had another Number One with "Bad Blood." All three of those songs were performed here. Captain and Tennille were one of his guests for the episode, so he performed a rare version of "Love Will Keep Us Together" with them. 

At the same time Sedaka was having his big comeback, Captain and Tennille were becoming big stars. The Captain, real name Daryl Dragon, became a member of the Beach Boys touring band in 1972 as a keyboard player. He met Toni Tennille and helped her also join the Beach Boys touring band as a second keyboardist. The two of them began playing clubs as a duo together. Their debut album (also called "Love Will Keep Up Together" was released in 1975, and it was a big hit. The two of them also got married on November 11, 1975, which was just three days before this episode was broadcast. However, it probably was taped maybe a month or two earlier.

Here's the Wikipedia entry about the duo:

Captain & Tennille - Wikipedia

Like the other Neil Sedaka Midnight Special album I've posted, this one draws from multiple episodes. The first eleven tracks are from the November 14, 1975 episode mentioned in the title. Tracks 12 and 13 are from the February 14, 1975 episode that was also hosted by Sedaka. Track 14, "Cuddle Up," is from the June 20, 1975 episode. The remaining tracks, 15 to 18, are from the November 29, 1974 episode.

Two of the songs here are Captain and Tennille performing without Sedaka. They did a cover of the famous Carole King song "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman." It looks like that was a song they never officially released. "Cuddle Up" is a song the Captain wrote with Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys when he was working with the Beach Boys. There is a Beach Boys version as well as a version on the debut Captain and Tennille album.

In case you're curious, the only other musical guests on the November 14, 1975 episode hosted by Sedaka were K.C. and the Sunshine Band and Helen Reddy. Freddie Prinze also did a comedy segment, and there was an interview with Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin.

This album is 43 minutes long. 

01 talk [Edit] (Wolfman Jack)
02 talk (Neil Sedaka & Helen Reddy)
03 Bad Blood (Neil Sedaka)
04 Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (Neil Sedaka)
05 talk (Neil Sedaka & Captain & Tennille)
06 Love Will Keep Us Together (Neil Sedaka & Captain & Tennille)
07 talk (Neil Sedaka & Captain & Tennille)
08 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Captain & Tennille)
09 talk (Neil Sedaka & Helen Reddy)
10 Lonely Night [Angel Face] (Neil Sedaka)
11 When You Were Lovin' Me (Neil Sedaka)
12 talk (Neil Sedaka)
13 Don't Let It Mess Your Mind (Neil Sedaka)
14 Cuddle Up (Captain & Tennille)
15 talk (Neil Sedaka)
16 Laughter in the Rain (Neil Sedaka)
17 talk (Neil Sedaka)
18 Standing on the Inside (Neil Sedaka)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Xoij3ph7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/VxuFgI0FmZGU51N/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from the YouTube video of this episode. It shows Tennille singing with Sedaka on "Love Will Keep Us Together."

The Carpenters - Full Acappella, Volume 1: 1966-1976 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Back in 2018, I posted an album by the Carpenters called "Near Acappella." It featured versions of their best songs done with very minimal instrumental backing, usually just vocals, bass, and drums. Lately, I've been collaborating with Fabio from Rio on some albums. He shares my appreciation for the vocals of Karen Carpenter. I don't know what it is, but there was something very special and unique about her singing. So Fabio wanted to make a "Full Acappella" album, and he did most of the heavy lifting to make it happen. It turns out we had enough material for two albums. Here's the first one.

The rest of this write-up here was written by Fabio:

Inspired by Paul's "Near Acappella" Carpenters collection from some years ago, I decided to check if there were "full acappella" versions of Carpenters songs available, since in recent years audio tools (with or without AI) have gotten better separating vocals from instrumentals. It turns out there are indeed a lot of acappella versions of Carpenters songs out there, so I selected the best ones I could find. At first, the album I made from the acappella versions I found made for a relatively short album. So Paul suggested "two or three more tracks." But I got excited with my "new toy" (the MVSEP online tool that makes it possible to segregate all kinds of tracks from a multitrack source) and ended up creating an additional dozen tracks myself, while also finding some more. That ended up being too much for a single disc. So, as per another suggestion by Paul, this became a "twofer", or two volume collection. These albums may be considered twin siblings of the earlier "Near Acappella" collection.

I got about half of the tracks from YouTube channels or Facebook fan groups, and the remaining were done with MVSEP. I used Audacity software to exclude instrumental breaks, intros, and outros, as well as cleaning up the occasional odd instrument (a drum roll, a sax riff), in order to keep this new collection truly "full acappella." All those that have "[Edit]" in their titles had some additional cleaning done by Paul or me (other than what was already done by whoever shared the acappella tracks originally).

We (myself and Paul) discussed a bit about pros and cons of including harmony vocals (by Richard and/or backing singers, or even occasionally a full choir, like in "Sing" and "Goodnight"). Paul was inclined to keep only Karen's leading vocals. But I argued that a full album with just Karen's voice, regardless of how beautiful it is, could sound a bit monotonous, while the harmony vocals help to provide additional color and variety. So, in the end, we decided to keep them.

---

There's more to Fabio's comments, including explanations of the sources of all the songs. Check out the Word file included in the download zip for that. However, here's one final comment from him, about the bonus track: 

While mining for tracks, I found two already done acappella versions of "We've Only Just Begun": one with only Karen's lead vocal track, and another with lead vocals and harmony vocals. Both are good - the "lead singing only" is more intimate and a bit melancholic, while the "lead vocals with harmonies" is quite exquisite. So, I suggested to Paul that we could keep them both, one at the official track list and another as a bonus track for Volume 1.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 I'll Be Yours [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)
02 Goodnight (Carpenters)
03 We've Only Just Begun (Carpenters)
04 Maybe It's You [Edit] (Carpenters)
05 [They Long to Be] Close to You [Edit] (Carpenters)
06 Baby It's You (Carpenters)
07 Rainy Days and Mondays [Edit] (Carpenters)
08 [A Place to] Hideaway (Carpenters)
09 Sometimes (Carpenters)
10 A Song for You (Carpenters)
11 Goodbye to Love [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 Sing [Edit] (Carpenters)
13 From the Heart Comes the Soul (Carpenters)
14 Aurora (Carpenters)
15 Only Yesterday [Edit] (Carpenters)
16 Solitaire [Edit] (Carpenters)
17 Love Me for What I Am [Edit] (Carpenters)
18 Eventide (Carpenters)
19 Good Friends Are for Keeps (Carpenters)
20 Ordinary Fool [Edit] (Carpenters)

We've Only Just Begun [Harmony Vocals Version] [Edit] (Carpenters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/En3Makbp

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/2L3B4h5poc7r7wm/file

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

Neil Sedaka with Helen Reddy - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 2-14-1975

Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka died just two days ago as I write this. Specifically, he died on February 27, 2026, at the age of 86. Reports say he was in good health, eating at a restaurant just two days earlier, then had a sudden medical emergency. I wasn't going to post something to mark his death if I didn't have some album worthy of posting. But, as it turns out, I actually have two worthy albums. I've been posting episodes of the "Midnight Special" TV show for months now. I hadn't gotten around to making albums for him. But I quickly did that after I heard about his death. So here's the first one.

Sedaka was a big star in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Unlike most big stars at that time, he not only co-wrote most of his hits, along with songwriting partner Howard Greenfield, he and Greenfield wrote many hits for others. But then musical tastes changed in 1964 with the rise of the Beatles and Bob Dylan and others, and he fell off the charts for a long time. However, he'd never lost his performing talent, or his songwriting talent, and he had a major comeback in the mid-1970s. His song "That's When the Music Takes Me" made the Top Forty U.S. singles chart in 1972. But he really came all the way back in 1974 with the song "Laughter in the Rain," which went all the way to Number One in the U.S. More hits followed from 1975 to 1977, especially "Bad Blood," which was another Number One in 1975, and a slow ballad version of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," which hit the Top Ten, also in 1975.

Because of this success, Sedaka was on the Midnight Special quite a lot from late 1974 onwards. In fact, he hosted the show a bunch of times: twice in 1975, once in 1976, and twice in 1977. As I write this in March 2026, high quality YouTube videos of this TV show have only reached the end of 1975, with more being slowly released chronologically. So all I can deal with are his appearances on the show in 1974 and 1975. It turns out there he played some songs twice. So I did a lot of moving around of songs for the two albums I've made to make sure no song appears twice on the same album.

Thus, this album is more Frankensteined together than any Midnight Special album I've posted up until now. It's taken from four different episodes. Tracks 1 through 6 come from the February 14, 1975 episode mentioned in the title. That was a unique episode, with three hosts, each getting exactly one third of the show time. The other two hosts were the Spinners and Todd Rundgren. I've already posted the Rundgren portion, and the Spinner portion will be posted eventually. 

Tracks 7 through 9 are from a July 25, 1975 episode. That included Sedaka singing "Love Will Keep Us Together." He wrote that song with Greenfield, and it was released on a 1973 Sedaka album. It was released as a single and failed to even make the charts. However, in 1975, Captain and Tennille released a version of it as a single in 1975, and it was a massive hit. Not only did it reach Number One in the U.S., it was the best selling song that year! In that same episode, he performed a duet with Helen Reddy, "Don't Let It Mess Your Mind."

Tracks 10 and 11 are from the November 14, 1975 episode. That actually is the date of the second Sedaka album I'll be posting. But I moved those songs here because one is another duet between Sedaka and Reddy, "Sad Eyes," and the other is a song just sung by Reddy, "Emotion." I wanted to put all the Reddy songs on the same album.

That leaves tracks 12 through 17. Those come from a November 29, 1974 episode. Together, they made up a big medley of his best early hits. I broke most of them into their own mp3 files though. 

By the way, note that I've created two "Covered" albums for Sedaka and his main songwriting partner, Howard Greenfield. So if you haven't listened to those yet, I suggest you do. Here are the links:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/04/covered-neil-sedaka-howard-greenfield.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/04/covered-neil-sedaka-howard-greenfield_24.html 

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 That's When the Music Takes Me [Edit] (Neil Sedaka)
02 talk (Neil Sedaka)
03 The Immigrant (Neil Sedaka)
04 Laughter in the Rain (Neil Sedaka)
05 talk (Neil Sedaka)
06 Standing on the Inside (Neil Sedaka)
07 talk (Neil Sedaka & Helen Reddy)
08 Don't Let It Mess Your Mind (Neil Sedaka & Helen Reddy)
09 Love Will Keep Us Together (Neil Sedaka)
10 Sad Eyes (Neil Sedaka & Helen Reddy)
11 Emotion (Helen Reddy)
12 talk (Neil Sedaka)
13 Oh Carol (Neil Sedaka)
14 Stairway to Heaven (Neil Sedaka)
15 Sweet Sixteen (Neil Sedaka)
16 Breaking Up Is Hard to Do - Next Door to an Angel (Neil Sedaka)
17 Calendar Girl (Neil Sedaka)

pixeldrain.com/u/6zAb4GYz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/t19NZPKdAZPuF0p/file

The cover image is from the July 25, 1975 episode, included here. It's a screenshot I took of Sedaka performing a duet with Helen Reddy.

The Guess Who with Bachman-Turner Overdrive - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 1-3-1975

A few days ago (writing this in February 2026), I posted a Midnight Special episode hosted by the Guess Who in 1974. They did another one that was broadcast in very early 1975 (though it was almost certainly recorded in late 1974). So here it is. The band broke up later in 1975, so this was their last appearance on the show.

As I mentioned in my write-up for the 1974 Guess Who album, the band had their first big hit in a few years that year with the song "Clap for the Wolfman." Wolfman Jack, host of the Midnight Special, loved the song, since it was about him, and he had some spoken lines in the recording. He performed the song with the band in their 1974 appearance, and did so again here. In fact, he was so keen on the song that the episode began straight away with the song before the usual introductions, then it ended with a short reprise of the song! 

Note the band Bachman-Turner Overdrive didn't appear on this episode of the show. They were only on the show once, in 1973, and played two songs. This album was rather short, and I didn't think any of the other musical acts from this episode were a good fit with the Guess Who. But the key member of Bachman-Turner Overdrive was Randy Bachman, former lead guitarist of the Guess Who, so I thought that made a very good fit. Thus, I included their songs from an earlier episode on this album, even though that took place over a year earlier. 

Between this album and the other Guess Who Midnight Special album I've posted, the band played most of their best known songs, with no overlap. For instance, in this performance they went back to some earlier songs, like "No Time" and "Bus Rider," as well as playing some that were new for the time. The band's last significant hit was "Dancin' Fool," which was performed here. That was released in October 1974, and made the Top Forty in the U.S. singles chart. 

In case you're curious, the other acts in this episode of the show were the Spencer Davis Group, Montrose, and the Charlie Daniels Band. 

This album is 39 minutes long. 

01 Clap for the Wolfman [Edit] (Guess Who with Wolfman Jack)
02 talk by Wolfman Jack [Edit] (Guess Who)
03 Dancin' Fool (Guess Who)
04 Bus Rider (Guess Who)
05 Sour Suite (Guess Who)
06 talk (Bachman-Turner Overdrive)
07 Hold Back the Water (Bachman-Turner Overdrive)
08 No Time (Guess Who)
09 Diggin' Yourself (Guess Who)
10 Gimme Your Money Please (Bachman-Turner Overdrive)
11 Dirty (Guess Who)
12 talk (Guess Who)
13 Clap for the Wolfman [Reprise] (Guess Who with Wolfman Jack)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/DZi5uFTV

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/jdsQMVECCUsLdOl/file

The cover photo is a screenshot I took of a video from this exact concert. Wolfman Jack is on the far left, wearing a blue shirt. Burton Cummings is on the far right, playing piano and apparently wearing the curtains from his living room for a suit.