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.

Joan Baez - Baez Sings Baez, Volume 4: 1977-1983 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's a guest post by Fabio from Rio. It's another volume in the "Baez Sings Baez" series. This is a collection of all the songs written by Joan Baez. Fabio wanted to make that point that although she has been primarily as someone who sings cover songs, she's written a lot of good songs herself.

The first six songs are from studio albums in 1977 and 1979. But after that, it seems she had trouble getting record companies interested in releasing more of her studio albums. New wave, punk, and disco came along and made her style of folk music seem out of fashion. She wouldn't release another studio album until 1987.

But that leads us to some of the more interesting songs here, because around 1980, she recorded material for an album that never got released, and she was backed by the Grateful Dead for all the songs! So there are five songs here with the Dead (tracks 8 through 12), all of them still unreleased.

There's a lot more to say about this Dead connection and other matters. But I'll leave that to Fabio, who wrote more extensive notes that are included in the download zip. 

This album is an hour long. 

01 Luba the Baroness (Joan Baez)
02 The Altar Boy and the Thief (Joan Baez)
03 Honest Lullaby (Joan Baez)
04 Michael (Joan Baez)
05 For Sasha (Joan Baez)
06 Free at Last (Joan Baez)
07 Cambodia (Joan Baez)
08 Don't Blame My Mother (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
09 Happy Birthday Leonid Brejnev (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
10 Lady Di and I (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
11 Marriot U.S.A. (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
12 Lucifer's Eyes (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
13 Children of the Eighties (Joan Baez)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GjgtvAKU

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/TACY7VBfYSTtFMj/file

The cover photo is from 1982. Fabio found the picture, so I don't know the details. 

Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes with Junior Wells - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 10-12-1979

Here's another album from the "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one stars Southside Johnny and the Ashbury Jukes. It also features blues great Junior Wells as a guest star. Wells sang and played his harmonica on two songs in the middle of the show, plus another one near the end.

I wanted to use the intro to the band's Wikipedia entry, but it's very badly written. It defines the band almost entirely in terms of their connections to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. And while it's true they had a lot of links to that band, they have been a fine band in their own right as well.

Here's the Wikipedia entry anyway: 

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes - Wikipedia 

The popularity of the band peaked in the late 1970s, in my opinion. So this is a good time for this concert. At the time, I believe Little Steven Van Zandt was still one of the band's two main leaders and songwriters, along with Southside Johnny. Van Zandt left the band in 1980, probably due to his commitments to being a member of the E Street Band. 

Junior Wells is very famous in the blues world. He's especially known for his collaboration with Buddy Guy over several decades, with Wells playing harmonica and Guy playing lead guitar.

Here's his Wikipedia entry:

Junior Wells - Wikipedia 

This album is 59 minutes long. 

01 All I Want Is Everything [Edit] (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
02 Your Reply (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
03 talk (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
04 Living in the Real World (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
05 I'm So Anxious (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
06 talk (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
07 Little by Little (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes with Junior Wells)
08 Hoodoo Man (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes with Junior Wells)
09 I Don't Want to Go Home (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
10 Paris (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
11 Trapped Again (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
12 Vertigo (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
13 Bring It on Home to Me (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
14 Havin' a Party (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)
15 Messin' with the Kid (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes with Junior Wells)
16 Hearts of Stone (Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QfLwpvZR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/dy4MNN7jhWnt2XG/file

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from this exact video. Junior Wells is the one wearing a hat. 

Covered: Shel Silverstein, Volume 2: 1974-2010

Here's the second and final volume celebrating the songwriting of Shel Silverstein for the "Covered" series.

As with all these Covered albums, the songs are in loose chronological order, usually by year. Silverstein was active writing lots of new songs in the 1970s, and a lot of cover versions resulted. Some of his songs were hits, especially on the country charts. But, typically, his songs were more memorable and interesting than the usual hit material. Not many songwriters could write children's songs, funny songs, and even erotic songs. (Hopefully not all in the same song though!)

Silverstein gradually slowed his songwriting, as people do. He only released one album of new songs after 1985. So a lot of the later songs here were actually originally written earlier, sometimes much earlier. He died of a heart attack in 1999, at the age of 68.

It just occurred to me that I don't think I included a link to his Wikipedia page in the Volume 1 write-up, so here it is:

Shel Silverstein - Wikipedia 

To be honest, I know the well known songs written by Silverstein, but not all the lesser known ones. But he's the type of songwriter who wrote quirky gems. So if any of you know of some excellent songs he wrote that I left out, and especially covers of them, please let me know and I'll consider adding them in. 

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Marie Laveau (Bobby Bare)
02 Queen of the Silver Dollar (Emmylou Harris)
03 Alimony (Bobby Bare)
04 I Got Stoned and I Missed It (Dr. Hook)
05 The Danger of a Stranger (Stella Parton)
06 More like the Movies (Dr. Hook)
07 The Ballad of Lucy Jordan (Marianne Faithfull)
08 Put Another Log on the Fire (Bill & Boyd)
09 Numbers (Bobby Bare)
10 I'm Checkin' Out (Meryl Streep)
11 Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out (Tori Amos)
12 The Twistable, Turnable Man Returns (Andrew Bird)
13 The Winner (Kris Kristofferson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Mha2Sjvi

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/FojQ9dwYjS5kuAi/file

I don't know when or where the cover photo was taken. Clearly though, he's older than in the Volume 1 photo, judging from the grey in his beard. The original photo was a black and white one, showing him in a crouching pose in front of some trees. I stripped out the background. Then I used the Kolorize program to colorize the picture.

Covered: Tom Waits, Volume 1: 1973-1994 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

It's high time I post more for the "Covered" series, highlighting great singer-songwriters. This time, we're looking at the songs of Tom Waits. Enough material has been found for four volumes. Here's the first one. As with all albums in this series, the focus is on cover versions, instead of versions done by the songwriter.

First off, I've gotta say I wouldn't be posting this now had it not been for the help of musical friend Fabio from Rio. It was he who suggested making Covered albums for Waits. I would have wanted to tackle him eventually, but that probably would have been well into the future. I have an issue with Waits: I can't stand his voice. As a result, even though it's easy for me to see he's a very talented songwriter, I haven't been that familiar with his songs. But Fabio is a big fan. He sent me literally hundreds of Waits cover versions, with recommendations on the best ones. I went through that and narrowed it down quite a lot. Hopefully this will make a strong collection that can turn the curious on to Waits' music.

Fabio from Rio helped with all aspects of putting this together. He even wrote the write-ups for the four volumes for Waits. So first I'm posting the relevant Wikipedia page:

Tom Waits - Wikipedia 

And now, take it away, Fabio (and a big thanks to him for all his work on this!):

For the general public, Tom Waits is "that guy with the raspy wino voice and the weird songs. Wasn't he one of the convicted fellows in that offbeat Jim Jarmusch movie?" A few music aficionados may also know him as the writer of songs like Springsteen's "Jersey Girl" or Rod Stewart's "Downtown Train", but that is usually where the story ends.

What many are not aware of is that Waits is widely recognized by his peers and by musical experts as an exceptional and influential songwriter. He is praised for his unique voice, vivid storytelling, poetic lyrics, and innovative musical style that blends genres like blues, jazz, vaudeville, and experimental rock. Waits is also known for creating three-dimensional characters and detailed narratives, often exploring life on the fringes. His lyrics are celebrated for their specificity, humor, melancholy, and ability to evoke strong moods, often drawing comparisons to Beat poets and Mark Twain.

Waits is a "songwriters' songwriter," with songs covered by literally hundreds of artists, many of them great composers themselves. He has been subject to many tributes. While searching for tracks for that project, I collected about three dozen different albums fully dedicated to his songs, and around 400 assorted covers, adding up to almost 1,200 tracks and 80-plus hours of music!

I initially selected about 220 different tunes (an almost fully comprehensive "Tom Waits songbook" that would comprise about 15 hours) which Paul wisely helped reduce to around 60 tracks across four volumes. We could have another four or eight volumes with additional top-notch Tom Waits songs - there is enough quality material for that - but I feel this reduced version is just the right size for a first dive into Tom Waits vast catalog. I hope you enjoy it!

Some listeners may find Waits' music difficult to approach due to his peculiar tone (which, contrary to popular belief, was not destroyed by booze and cigarettes, but was conscientiously cultivated as a vocal persona, as he mentioned in some interviews). The fact that some of his more experimental work sounds like monkeys loose in a crystal store doesn't help either. For those, a "Covered" collection focusing on his more melodic output is a great starting point, where one may discover the essence of Waits' music (often through soothing, frequently female, voices).

This first volume includes performances from a long range of years (1973 to 1994), but most of the songs here were composed during Waits' early and middle phases (the seventies and early eighties). His first albums feature piano-led ballads, romantic melancholy, and a relatively smooth, crooning voice. The character is that of a late-night drifter, nostalgic and tender. As his career progressed, Waits' voice grew tougher (both literally and figuratively) and his narratives darker and more cinematic. His late seventies and early eighties albums introduced sardonic humor, social misfits, and a sharper sense of irony, while still rooted in jazz, blues, and cabaret traditions.

Waits started as a folk singer/songwriter in the early seventies, with heavy jazz influences, when his voice was still not so rough. You can hear this in the first selection of this collection, "Rosie," from his 1973 first album. It's the only song in these four volumes that is the composer's own interpretation. He also first caught the ear of the public with an early cover of "Ol' 55" by The Eagles (which we skipped in favor of Sarah McLachlan's 1993 version, which both Paul and myself prefer). Other famous interpreters at the first volume are Johnny Cash and Marianne Faithfull (with songs Tom composed specifically for them), and also 10,000 Maniacs, Elvis Costello, Crystal Gayle and Canned Heat, which showcases the full range of styles and performers reached by Waits' compositions.

---

Thanks again, Fabio. I'll just add that there were only a few cases where Waits wrote hit songs, so we weren't tied down much by that factor. ("Downtown Train" is probably his biggest hit, thanks to the 1989 Rod Stewart version, included here.) And often, his songs didn't get a lot of covers until many years after they were written. So if you don't see some of his songs you really like from this era, wait before you judge. There's a good chance those songs could show up on one of the later volumes.

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Rosie (Tom Waits)
02 Foreign Affair (Manhattan Transfer)
03 Jersey Girl (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Is There Any Way Out of This Dream (Crystal Gayle)
05 I Hope that I Don't Fall in Love with You (10,000 Maniacs)
06 Strange Weather (Marianne Faithfull)
07 Downtown Train (Rod Stewart)
08 Gun Street Girl (Canned Heat)
09 San Diego Serenade (Nanci Griffith)
10 Tom Traubert's Blues [Waltzing Matilda] (Rod Stewart)
11 More than Rain (Elvis Costello & Brodsky Quartet)
12 Ol' 55 (Sarah McLachlan)
13 Down There by the Train (Johnny Cash)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FBZaqvMS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/IJ5fbwJ3YDrAHXl/file

The cover photo was taken in Chicago, Illinois, on May 30, 1986.

Dan Fogelberg - Best of Live: 1974-1995 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

I just posted a "best of" album guest poster Mike Solof made of his favorite studio tracks by singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg. He wanted to divide his music up into a studio best of and a live best of, so here's the companion live best of.

Mike is a really big fan of Fogelberg's music and is making these to help me, and others like you, better enjoy his music. As he usually does, Mike made a PDF with more information and pictures, which is included in the download zip. I encourage you to give that a look. It's the exact same one as for the studio best of.

For the studio best of, all the songs are officially released, and usually from his studio albums. For this one, most of the songs come from official live albums as well. But four of the songs here come from bootlegs. Specifically, tracks 10, 11, 13, and 16. But they're excellent sounding ones, just as good as the live albums.

By the way, Fogelberg's last concert was for the "PBS Soundstage" concert in 2003. (He died of cancer in 2007 at the age of 56.) I would really like to post that here, but I've only found a few songs from it on YouTube. If anyone has all of it, please let me know. Thanks. 

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long. 

01 Songbird (Dan Fogelberg)
02 The Power of Gold (Dan Fogelberg)
03 Blow Wind Blow (Dan Fogelberg)
04 Hard to Say (Dan Fogelberg)
05 Innocent Age (Dan Fogelberg)
06 Looking for a Lady (Dan Fogelberg)
07 Once upon a Time (Dan Fogelberg)
08 Make Love Stay (Dan Fogelberg)
09 The Chauvinist Song (Dan Fogelberg)
10 Morning Sky (Dan Fogelberg)
11 Someone's Been Telling You Stories (Dan Fogelberg)
12 Part of the Plan (Dan Fogelberg)
13 talk (Dan Fogelberg)
14 Song from Half Mountain (Dan Fogelberg)
15 Souvenir (Dan Fogelberg)
16 To the Morning (Dan Fogelberg)
17 Here Comes the Sun (Dan Fogelberg)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9q7tK9se

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/QZQOzX6EPddIoQh/file

As with the cover to the studio album, Mike picked this one. I don't know exactly where or when it comes from. 

Dan Fogelberg - Best of Studio: 1974-1987 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Recently, I mentioned to my musical friend Mike Solof that I wasn't very familiar with the music of the band Kansas, other than their big hits. He went and made me a "best of" album, which I've posted here. Then I happened to mention I wasn't familiar with the music of Dan Fogelberg either, again other than the big hits. So boom, once again he made me a "best of." I really need to be careful about what I say around Mike, it seems, or my music collection will keep growing too much! ;)

It turns out Mike is a very big fan of Fogelberg's music, just like he is of the music of Kansas. In fact, he likes Fogelberg's stuff so much that he made two albums. He made a studio album and a live one. As you can see from the title, this is the studio one. The live one will follow shortly.  

As is his habit, Mike has included a PDF to explain his thoughts, as well as provide some good pictures. So please check that out for more information. In this case, the PDF is the same for both the studio and live albums. 

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long. 

01 Nexus (Dan Fogelberg)
02 The Power of Gold (Dan Fogelberg with Tim Weisberg)
03 Lonely in Love (Dan Fogelberg)
04 In the Passage (Dan Fogelberg)
05 Better Change (Dan Fogelberg)
06 Beggar's Game (Dan Fogelberg)
07 Sweet Magnolia [And the Traveling Salesman] (Dan Fogelberg)
08 Tell Me to My Face (Dan Fogelberg with Tim Weisberg)
09 Times like These (Dan Fogelberg)
10 The Reach (Dan Fogelberg)
11 Empty Cages (Dan Fogelberg)
12 Tucson, Arizona [Gazette] (Dan Fogelberg)
13 As the Raven Flies [Alternate Version] (Dan Fogelberg)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/2MFP7NnJ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ZhEqShKlvNQ1RV8/file

The cover image was selected by Mike. I don't know exactly where or when it's from.

Kansas - Best Of / Sampler (1974-1980) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's an album that came into being as a result of the Kansas concert that was posted here a few days ago. After guest poster Mike Solof suggested making an album of a concert from Kansas's 1979 Monolith tour, I agreed, but I mentioned that I was really familiar with the band's music. I only knew their big hits, especially "Dust in the Wind" and "Carry On Wayward Son." He really likes the band and thought that was a shame, so he offered to make a "best of" type album for newbies like me. I agreed again, and suggested that he post that on my blog too.

He went ahead and did that, so here we are. Of course, there are official "best of" albums for the band already. But Mike felt none of those had the ideal selection of songs that he wanted. He focused on just their 1970s heyday, because in the early 1980s they lost key members and became a kind of Christian rock band for a while, before returning to their roots (and getting some key members back) later in the decade. 

If you want to know more, Mike has made a PDF with his explanation, as he usually does. If you think some essential songs were left off, or there are songs that shouldn't have been included, leave a comment. Perhaps Mike will make an updated version.

Unusually for this blog, everything here is released and from the studio albums. But hopefully this is a sampler that will inspire some people to dive deeper into the Kansas catalog. 

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

Before I get to the usual song list, here's the song list with names of the albums each song is from, and the year that album was released: 

01 Song for America - Song for America (1975)
02 Journey from Mariabronn - Kansas (1974)
03 Down the Road - Kansas (1974)
04 Carry On Wayward Son - Leftoverture (1976)
05 The Wall - Leftoverture (1976)
06 Miracles Out of Nowhere - Leftoverture (1976)
07 Point of Know Return - Point of Know Return (1977)
08 Dust in the Wind - Point of Know Return (1977)
09 How My Soul Cries Out for You - Monolith (1979)
10 A Glimpse of Home - Monolith (1979)
11 People of the South Wind - Monolith (1979)
12 Loner - Audio-Visions (1980)

And here's the usual song list: 

01 Song for America (Kansas)
02 Journey from Mariabronn (Kansas)
03 Down the Road (Kansas)
04 Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)
05 The Wall (Kansas)
06 Miracles Out of Nowhere (Kansas)
07 Point of Know Return (Kansas)
08 Dust in the Wind (Kansas)
09 How My Soul Cries Out for You (Kansas)
10 A Glimpse of Home (Kansas)
11 People of the South Wind (Kansas)
12 Loner (Kansas)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/y1GhCvdC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/h9B4sSiXYzdWPLl/file

Mike found the photo of the band. I don't know the details of where or when it's from. 

Kansas - Monolith Live - Springfield Civic Center, Springfield, MA, 9-2-1979 - Studiofied (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's a concert by the American prog rock band Kansas. 

This is a Mike Solof guest post. Kansas are best known for their songs from earlier in the 1970s, like "Dust in the Wind" and "Carry On Wayward Son." But Mike believes the band's 1979 album "Monolith" is very underrated. It turns out there's really only one bootleg recording of the tour promoting Monolith with soundboard quality. But while the sound quality was fundamentally good, there were issues. For instance, it was in stereo, but there was very little separation. Mike went to great lengths to improve the sound quality still further, running each song through the MVSEP program nine times or more, to separate out each of the instruments and then put them together with better stereo separation. He also stripped out all of the crowd noise, so one can better hear the band's instrumentation without crowd noise getting in the way.

As usual, there are more details in the PDF file Mike wrote that's included in the download zip. But if you like Kansas, this could be their ultimate live album from the end of their prime era. 

This album is hour and 23 minutes long.

01 Intro (Kansas)
02 On the Other Side (Kansas)
03 People of the Southwind (Kansas)
04 Away from You (Kansas)
05 talk (Kansas)
06 Point of Know Return (Kansas)
07 Closet Chronicles (Kansas)
08 The Wall (Kansas)
09 Reason to Be (Kansas)
10 Dust in the Wind (Kansas)
11 Angels Have Fallen (Kansas)
12 Opus Insert (Kansas)
13 Stay Out of Trouble (Kansas)
14 The Spider [Instrumental] (Kansas)
15 Portrait [He Knew] (Kansas)
16 A Glimpse of Home (Kansas)
17 How My Soul Cries Out for You (Kansas)
18 talk (Kansas)
19 Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HDWyJ3Hd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/XteNaMyxGhpOgNR/file

The cover photo is the front design from a T-shirt sold during the band's 1979 tour. I added some text at the bottom.

Gordon Lightfoot - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 9-8-1979

Here's another episode of the excellent "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This is another episode starring Gordon Lightfoot. I say "another" because he also performed for the show in 1973. I've posted that album here already.

This album caught Lightfoot halfway between the release on his "Endless Wire" album in early 1978 and "Dream Street Rose," which would be released in 1980. He played two songs from each. Otherwise, this mostly consists of his classics from previous albums.

Two of the songs have edits to them. I edited track 12, a talk track, because it contained an interview. I cut that out, since it wasn't part of the concert. But I kept a section between songs there where he introduced the members of his band. The other edited track is the last one, "Canadian Railroad Trilogy." Unfortunately, that's a long song, and the episode ended after only three minutes of it. So I found a different bootleg soundboard version from the time period, and used that to patch in the last four minutes. That's why those two tracks have "[Edit]" in their titles.

This album is 59 minutes long. 

01 Cotton Jenny (Gordon Lightfoot)
02 The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (Gordon Lightfoot)
03 Endless Wire (Gordon Lightfoot)
04 Summertime Dream (Gordon Lightfoot)
05 talk (Gordon Lightfoot)
06 Don Quixote (Gordon Lightfoot)
07 If You Could Read My Mind (Gordon Lightfoot)
08 Ghosts of Cape Horn (Gordon Lightfoot)
09 Beautiful (Gordon Lightfoot)
10 Hangdog Hotel Room (Gordon Lightfoot)
11 Sundown (Gordon Lightfoot)
12 talk [Edit] (Gordon Lightfoot)
13 Early Morning Rain (Gordon Lightfoot)
14 Whisper My Name (Gordon Lightfoot)
15 On the TV (Gordon Lightfoot)
16 Old Dan's Records (Gordon Lightfoot)
17 talk (Gordon Lightfoot)
18 Canadian Railroad Trilogy [Edit] (Gordon Lightfoot)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/a9ij6YWw

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/m7ic8ZlRKUWfuiR/file

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

Dr. Hook with Shel Silverstein - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 1-14-1979

Here's another episode of the "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one primarily features the American band Dr. Hook. But it also has a significant solo spot for singer-songwriter Shel Silverstein.

From 1972 until 1980, Dr. Hook had quite a few hits in the U.S. So this was a good time for this episode, coming near the end of their hit-making era. Few bands are as closely tied to an outside songwriter as this band was with Shel Silverstein, so it's fitting that he was a part of this concert. In fact, all the songs for their first two albums consisted of songs written by Silverstein, and they covered many more of his songs from the rest of the 1970s.

Silverstein had an extremely varied and fascinating career as a writer, poet, songwriter, and author of children's books. But with so many interests, it seems he almost never performed his songs in concerts, although he put out many albums. So his appearance in this concert is probably the most prominent public performance that's available.

This concert is split into four parts. At the start and the end are sections featuring Dr. Hook. In the middle are two sections featuring Silverstein. Silverstein wrote many different types of songs, but he was particularly well known for both lewd songs and children's songs. Those two styles aren't meant to go together, for obvious reasons. So Silverstein did one of his lewd songs, "Show It at the Beach" about nude beaches, to an adult audience. But the rest of his songs here consisted of children's songs and were performed for a small audience made up entirely of little children, with some audience interaction. 

By the way, I already have two albums of Silverstein's songs ready for my Covered series. It's just a matter of getting around to posting them, since there's a big backlog of those albums. 

The last song, "Happy Trails," originally ended without any applause at the end, just silence. I thought that was strange. So I copied and pasted in some applause from earlier in the concert, to give it a satisfying ending. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title. 

This album is 52 minutes long. 

01 Walk Right In (Dr. Hook)
02 talk (Dr. Hook)
03 Ray's Yodel (Dr. Hook)
04 Only Sixteen (Dr. Hook)
05 What a Way to Go (Dr. Hook)
06 talk (Dr. Hook & Shel Silverstein)
07 Show It at the Beach (Shel Silverstein)
08 Boa Constrictor (Shel Silverstein)
09 talk (Shel Silverstein)
10 Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out (Shel Silverstein)
11 talk (Shel Silverstein)
12 Unicorn (Shel Silverstein)
13 A Little Bit More (Dr. Hook)
14 Red Winged Blackbird (Dr. Hook)
15 Everybody's Making It Big but Me (Dr. Hook)
16 Sharing the Night Together (Dr. Hook)
17 The Cover of 'Rolling Stone' (Dr. Hook)
18 Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms (Dr. Hook)
19 Happy Trails [Edit] (Dr. Hook)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6pc2daJ2

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/JOrXX0CzKJ0VMpN/file

The cover photo of Ray Sawyer, one of the band's two lead singers, is a screenshot from this exact concert. The video the screenshot came from was pretty low-res, so I used the Krea AI program to improve the image quality.

Various Artists - Lowell George Tribute Concert, The Forum, Los Angeles, CA, 8-4-1979

Lowell George was the lead guitarist and a key songwriter for the band Little Feat throughout the 1970s. In 1979, the band split up due to creative differences, and George released a solo album. He announced plans to restart the band with a slightly different line-up. But on June 29, 1979, while on tour to support his solo album, he died of a heart attack related to an accidental heroin overdose. He was only 34 years old. Only a couple of months after his death, a tribute concert was held in Los Angeles to celebrate his life and his music. Here is what remains available from that concert.

I'm posting this album almost entirely due to the efforts of musical friend Lil Panda. A couple of days ago (as I write this in August 2025), he sent me this concert out of the blue. He'd found a video from the concert on YouTube. The sound quality was fundamentally good, but had issues. I asked him what he did to fix it, and this was his reply: "Phase correction, azimuth adjustment, de-clicking, music rebalance (different for almost every song... trial and error), the repair assistant (vocal work), and spectral repair." So, thanks to his work, this should sound much better than ever before.

Furthermore, I made some additional changes, since I'm more willing to make changes to bootlegs if I think it improves the overall recording. I noticed some minor drop-outs here and there, usually only a second or less of silence. I patched those up when I found them. That's why three of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. 

In addition, the video did something strange with the songs "Running on Empty" and "All That You Dream." If you watch the video, they're edited to seem complete, but in fact both of them were edited way down, to less than two minutes long each. By sheer luck, the only officially released performance from this concert is "All That You Dream," from the Little Feat album "Hoy Hoy," and it's the entire song. So I used that instead. For "Running on Empty," most of the song except for the first verse and some of the end was missing. I used a different live version of this song, from the 1979 No Nukes concerts that I've posted elsewhere on this blog, to fill in the missing part of the song. But there are some differences between the versions, so you might notice the edits. Still, I prefer that over having a weirdly short version. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title too.

In addition, I made another edit to all the songs. That's because the video usually cut the cheering at the ends of the songs short, to just a couple of seconds. It didn't sound right to me. So I did some copying and pasting of cheering from one song to another until all the songs had a decent amount of applause. 

I found a 1979 New York Times article about the concert, so I know a little bit about it. Here's the article link (though it may not work for you if you don't have a subscription):

https://www.nytimes.com/1979/08/06/archives/pop-coast-tribute-to-lowell-george.html 

According to the concert, the proceeds from the concert were given to George's family. The concert lasted almost three hours. In addition to the big names included in this album, some others also took part, like Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers, Eric Kaz, Craig Fuller, J. D. Souther, Ted Tempelman, and the Tower of Power. But the video here is less than an hour long, and a lot got cut out. Either their roles were cut entirely or they only had minor roles. For instance, Michael McDonald sang back up on one song here, and the Tower of Power horns played on a few of the songs. Generally speaking, Little Feat was the backing band. But I didn't include them in most of the song credits because that would have made the song names longer and I didn't know for sure who played on which song.

The article states that some big musical stars, like Bob Dylan and the Eagles, wanted to perform at the concert as well. However, the surviving Little Feat band members who organized the concert decided to keep it to just the other musicians who knew George well. There also was pressure to have more than one concert, since interest was extremely high, but they decided not to go that route either.

The concert was filmed and recorded with the idea of later releasing an album or film of it. But so far, only that one song mentioned above has been officially released, on a Little Feat album. I've read on social media that it is believed the rest of the film footage has been lost. So this is probably all we're ever going to get. I couldn't even find any information about what other songs were performed, though there must have been many since this is only about one-third of the entire concert.

Thanks again to Lil Panda for digging this up, improving it, and sending it to me. 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Tears, Tears and More Tears (Nicolette Larson)
02 Rhumba Girl (Nicolette Larson & Linda Ronstadt)
03 Oh Atlanta [Edit] (Little Feat with Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt & Nicolette Larson)
04 Runaway [Edit] (Bonnie Raitt with Michael McDonald)
05 Here, There and Everywhere (Emmylou Harris)
06 For a Dancer [Edit] (Jackson Browne)
07 Running on Empty [Edit] (Jackson Browne)
08 talk (Jackson Browne)
09 Your Bright Baby Blues (Jackson Browne)
10 Poor, Poor Pitiful Me (Linda Ronstadt with Nicolette Larson)
11 Blowin' Away (Linda Ronstadt & Bonnie Raitt)
12 All That You Dream (Linda Ronstadt with Nicolette Larson & Rosemary Butler)
13 Willin' (Linda Ronstadt with Emmylou Harris, Rosemary Butler & Nicolette Larson)
14 Dixie Chicken (Little Feat & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bLDhuADx

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/dwuvGZGMKED7Jiy/file

I had difficulty finding any decent photographs from this concert. There's an entire video of it on YouTube, as mentioned above, but the image quality is very low-res. I eventually found one image I was okay with, which I used as the cover. From right to left, it shows Nicolette Larson, Jackson Browne, J.D. Souther, and Linda Ronstadt. Souther's prominent role is a bit ironic, since he doesn't feature in the actual music here, due to whatever songs he was in not making it to the video. It kind of looks like I edited the photo to squish everyone close together, but in fact that's how it was in the original.

The image was still in pretty poor shape, so I tried to use the Krea AI program to improve it. But I could only do so much, so it's still rough. I also couldn't change the lighting that turned most everything orange, though I tried to make it more colorful.

Elkie Brooks - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1977-1987

Here's a third volume (out of four) of British singer Elkie Brooks performing for the BBC. In this case, every song comes from appearances on BBC TV shows.

The first album in this series consisted of BBC studio sessions. It ended in 1977, which was the year Brooks had her first big hits. The second one was a full concert from 1977. In Volume 1, I only had two of her hits, "Pearl's a Singer" and "Lilac Wine." But from 1977 until 1987, she had lots of hits in Britain (while she never had any hits in the U.S.). So I tried to put this collection together to deal with that period. 

Everything here is unreleased. I often had to dig deep to find the material. For instance, I found she did some appearances on the BBC TV show "The Two Ronnies" in 1980, but none of them were on YouTube. So I downloaded all the episodes of that show that year from SoulseekQT and went through them, found the songs she did, and turned them into mp3s. Those are tracks 4, 5, and 6.

As for the other tracks, the first three plus tracks 9 and 13 are from the "Top of the Pops" BBC TV show (not to be confused with the BBC radio show of the same name). I rarely use that as a source for my BBC projects, because the vast majority of performers on it lip-synced when on the show. However, Brooks usually did not. In ease case, I carefully compared those versions with the album versions to make sure. They're from 1977, 1978, 1979, 1982, and 1987 respectively.

Tracks 7 and 8 are from the TV show "Parkinson" in 1982. Tracks 10 and 11 are from a 1983 TV show hosted by singer Leo Sayer. Track 12 is from a TV show called "Wogan" in 1987. Generally speaking, I used the MVSEP program to get rid of crowd noise on the songs where there was crowd noise.

I searched for more BBC TV appearances after 1987, but I couldn't find any good ones until way later, and those were mostly repeats of earlier hits. That makes sense, because she didn't have any significant appearances after that year. Between this volume and "Volume 1" in this series, you'd have a pretty good "greatest hits" collection for her entire career, with only a couple of key songs missing.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Sunshine After the Rain (Elkie Brooks)
02 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Elkie Brooks)
03 The Runaway (Elkie Brooks)
04 Don't Cry Out Loud (Elkie Brooks)
05 Paint Your Pretty Picture (Elkie Brooks)
06 Dance Away (Elkie Brooks)
07 Fool [If You Think It's Over] (Elkie Brooks)
08 Superstar [Groupie] (Elkie Brooks)
09 Nights in White Satin (Elkie Brooks)
10 Gasoline Alley (Elkie Brooks)
11 Giving You Hope (Elkie Brooks)
12 We've Got Tonite (Elkie Brooks)
13 No More the Fool (Elkie Brooks) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/me7Fh3Yn

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/V2ubR7qCxIoT7jV/file

The cover photo was taken circa 1980. I don't know more details.

Joan Armatrading - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 12-5-1979

It's time for another episode of the "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This one stars Joan Armatrading.

This concert took place at a strange time for Armatrading. She had been releasing an album a year for most of the 1970s, but she didn't release one in 1979. This was due to a financial dispute with her record company, which was later resolved. To fill the gap, a live album called "Steppin' Out" was released in Britain. But the record company didn't deem her popular enough to release the album there (though it did get released there many years later). Also to fill the gap, an EP was released in November 1979. One song on that, "Rosie," was a hit in 1980. This concert included a version of "Rosie," as well as "Love Song," which was otherwise only included on the "Steppin' Out" live album.

It's been a while since I put this album together, so I don't remember why two of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. Probably, it was due to voiceovers, since that was all too common a practice for this TV show. The sound quality is very good, despite this remaining unreleased. 

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Barefoot and Pregnant [Edit] (Joan Armatrading)
02 Rosie (Joan Armatrading)
03 talk (Joan Armatrading)
04 Cool Blue Stole My Heart [Edit] (Joan Armatrading)
05 talk (Joan Armatrading)
06 Back to the Night (Joan Armatrading)
07 Baby I (Joan Armatrading)
08 Love Song (Joan Armatrading)
09 Mama Mercy (Joan Armatrading)
10 Love and Affection (Joan Armatrading)
11 Show Some Emotion (Joan Armatrading)
12 You Rope Me, You Tie Me (Joan Armatrading)
13 Kissin' and a Huggin' (Joan Armatrading)
14 Tall in the Saddle (Joan Armatrading)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/66RaLUo2 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/DYKHlGSZ0nKXtNE/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Chicago, but not this concert. It's from the Park West venue, in July 1979. The original version was in black and white. But I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Covered: Bob Crewe & Bob Gaudio, Volume 2: 1974-2024

Here's the second of two "Covered" volumes highlighting the songwriting of Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio.

In Volume 1, the vast majority of the songs were written by Crewe and Gaudio together. In this volume, all or nearly all of the new songs (meaning new at the time) were written by either Crewe with others or Gaudio with others. However, as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem that they had a falling out, or even stopped writing songs together. For instance, as late as 1983 they co-wrote a couple of minor hit songs for the duo of Roberta Flack and Peabo Bryson. It's just that it seemed both of them had better success with other songwriters when it came to big hits in this era.

As I mentioned in my write-up for Volume 1, by the start of 1974, it seemed as if the songwriting success of both Crewe and Gaudio had petered out. Also around 1971, Gaudio phased himself out of being a member of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, apparently due to stage fright and introversion. However, he retained a key financial stake, and continued to write songs for the group. So their musical futures were looking bleak. But both of them had a series of stunning songwriting successes, especially in 1974 and 1975.

For instance, I consider the first song here, "Lady Marmalade" by Labelle, one of the greatest dance songs of all time. It was a Number One hit in the U.S. in 1974, and then a cover of it was an even bigger Number One hit by Christina Aguiliera, Pink, and others in 2001. It was co-written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan, another professional songwriter Crewe started working with around this time. Crewe also wrote "My Eyes Adored You" and "Get Dancin'" with Nolan, as well as "Swearin' to God" with another songwriter.

Crewe's "My Eyes Adored You" totally turned out the fortunes of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, as it was a Number One hit in the U.S. in early 1975. (As with Volume 1, I've tried to avoid having lots of songs by that act, so I chose a duet version by Isaac Hayes and Dionne Warwick instead.) But then Gaudio also rose to the occasion in 1975, writing "Who Loves You" and "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" with Judy Parker, who would later become his wife. "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" in particular was a massive hit, not only reaching Number One in both the U.S. and Britain, but was the fourth best selling song of the year. (Again not wanting to include too many Franki Valli and the Four Seasons performances, I chose an interesting mostly acappella version from 2024.)

Unfortunately, the revived successes of Crewe and Gaudio didn't last that long. Gaudio co-wrote "Silver Star," which was a big hit in 1976. But after that, the new hits for both of them became smaller and fewer, and petered out altogether in the early 1980s. However, they still had more big successes with earlier songs that eventually became hits with cover versions. For instance, "Bye Bye Baby," a minor Franki Valli and the Four Seasons hit in the 1960s, was a Number One hit in Britain for the Bay City Rollers in 1975. 

Some songs kept coming around again and again. For instance, "Let's Hang On," a Four Seasons hit in 1965, was a big hit by the Darts in Britain in 1980, then again by Barry Manilow in 1981. And "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," a hit first for Franki Valli in 1967, has been hits by other musical acts so many times that it's hard to keep track, including making Number Four in Britain in 1982 by the Boys Town Gang.

Crewe, who was 13 years older than Gaudio, died in 2014 at the age of 84. Gaudio is still alive at the age of 82 years old as I write this in 2025.

As I said in Volume 1, I think these two are very underrated songwriters. I could have included many more hits, enough for another volume or two, but I wanted to give this a stronger appeal by including only their biggest hits. It seems some of their songs are going to be hits forever, periodically revived with new cover versions. For instance, "Beggin'," a minor hit when first released by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons in 1967, is another one that keeps getting covered to big success, with Madcon having a Number Five hit in Britain with it in 2008, and then Maneskin having a Number Six hit with it there in 2020.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Lady Marmalade (Labelle)
02 Get Dancin' (Disco Tex & the Sex-O-Lettes)
03 Swearin' to God (Frankie Valli)
04 Sherry (Adrian Baker)
05 Bye Bye Baby [Baby Goodbye] (Bay City Rollers)
06 My Eyes Adored You (Isaac Hayes & Dionne Warwick)
07 Silver Star (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
08 Rag Doll (Steeleye Span)
09 Buzz Buzz a Diddle It (Matchbox)
10 The Night (Lene Lovich)
11 Let's Hang On (Barry Manilow)
12 Walk like a Man (Mary Jane Girls)
13 Barbarella (Wondermints)
14 Who Loves You (Murray Head)
15 December, 1963 [Oh, What a Night] (Jared Halle)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/8irSCEPX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Ia2z6pVWw86bXGm/file

As with Volume 1, I couldn't find good photos of the two of them together. So I found individual photos and put them on the cover. The Bob Crewe one (with red hair) is from 1976. I don't know the date of the Bob Gaudio one, but I'd guess it's from the 1970s. Both were in black and white, but I colorized them using the Kolorize program. Then I improved the quality with the Krea AI program.

Covered: Nile Rodgers & Bernard Edwards, Volume 1: 1977-1980

With my Covered series, highlighting talented songwriters who often didn't find fame as performance artists, I still have lots of albums I want to post that go back to the 1950s and 60s. But just for fun, I want to go forward to the late 1970s and after to showcase a songwriting duo who are all about getting you to dance: Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. I have two albums of their songs. Both of them would make a great mix tape to play at a dance party, as they're filled with some of the biggest and best dance songs of all time.

Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards both grew up in New York City. They met in 1970 as touring musicians in 1970 when their music careers were just getting started. They formed a band in 1972 which would eventually evolve in Chic. Rodgers played guitar (in 2023, Rolling Stone Magazine would list him as the seventh greatest guitarist of all time for his massive influence) and Edwards played bass. They finally got their first big break in 1977 with the song "Dance, Dance, Dance," which they wrote for their band Chic. For the next few years, they repeatedly rode the disco wave to the top of the charts. "Le Freak" by Chic in particular was massive, selling seven million worldwide and becoming one of about 20 best selling singles of all time up until that point. "Good Times" also deserves special note. In addition to hitting Number One in the U.S. singles chart, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked it number 68 in their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

"Good Times" also turned out to be one of the most sampled songs of all time. That's why "Rapper's Delight" is included here as well. Normally, I don't include songs in any Covered series albums if they are basically just prominent samples with rap lyrics on top. But I'm making a special exception for "Rapper's Delight." It's one of the first and most important rap songs of all time. It introduced the term "hip hop" to the world in its lyrics. Rolling Stone Magazine also put it in the last of the 500 greatest songs of all time. It also is so heavily based on "Good Times" that Rodgers sued for a copyright violation as soon as he heard the song. He and Edwards were quickly added as songwriters and received royalties.

But while Rodgers and Edwards wrote Chic's hits and also produced them, they didn't stop there. They also began writing and producing songs for others, and had yet more massive hit singles doing so. During this time period, they especially had success writing songs for Sister Sledge and Diana Ross.

Here are the Wikipedia entries for Rodgers:

Nile Rodgers - Wikipedia 

and Edwards:

Bernard Edwards - Wikipedia 

I don't think Rodgers and Edwards get the credit they deserve, probably because dance music isn't highly valued by music critics. But I'd argue they've had far greater musical impact on the world than most famous "serious" singer-songwriters. Keep in mind this is only Volume 1. Volume 2 will follow shortly.  

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 Dance, Dance, Dance [Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah] (Chic)
02 I Want Your Love (Chic)
03 Lost in Music (Sister Sledge)
04 Le Freak (Chic)
05 Rapper's Delight (Sugarhill Gang)
06 He's the Greatest Dancer (Sister Sledge)
07 Spacer (Sheila & B. Devotion)
08 Good Times (Chic)
09 I'm Coming Out (Diana Ross)
10 We Are Family (Sister Sledge)
11 My Old Piano (Diana Ross)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uAdbwKHa

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/38L4D6zbNKGVsCA/file

I couldn't find a good photo of Rodgers and Edwards together. However, I found a photo of the entire Chic band posing for a French TV show in 1979. I removed the other three band members and moved Rodgers and Edwards together. Edwards is the one wearing glasses.

Peter Gabriel - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, Reading Festival, Little John's Farm, Reading, Britain, 8-26-1979

Some weeks ago, I posted a poll asking which musical acts you'd like me to post BBC albums from. (Two polls, actually, but I'm going with the second, bigger poll.) I got sidetracks in recent weeks with posting lots of "PBS Soundstage" concerts I newly discovered, and I'm still kind of focused on that. But I'm going to finally start posting BBC albums from the most popular artists in that poll. I'm starting with Peter Gabriel, who got the most votes. I've found five BBC concerts from him. Here's the first one, from 1979.

The annual Reading Festival started in the early 1970s and is still a big festival as I write this in 2025. The 1979 festival lasted three days and had lots of big names, such as the Police, Motorhead, Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, Whitesnake, the Climax Blues Band, and the Ramones. Peter Gabriel was the headliner for the third and final night. 

We're lucky that the BBC broadcast this, because while it has often broadcast parts of the Reading Festival in recent decades, it rarely did so back in the 1970s. In this case, it broadcast more of Gabriel's set, but not all of it. Specifically, the last two songs, "Here Comes the Flood" and "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," were not included in the broadcast. However, a decent audience bootleg exists for those two songs, so I've used those.

Even though most of this is from a BBC broadcast, the recording was a little rough compared to usual BBC standards. Perhaps they weren't accustomed to recording at really big outdoor festivals. Whatever the case may be, I did a couple of my usual tricks to try to improve the sound. First, I noticed that the lead vocals were somewhat low in the mix compared to the instruments. So I fixed that with the use of the UVR5 audio editing program. Then I noticed the audience noise was rather loud during some (but not all) of the songs, especially the last two from the audience boot. I got rid of most of the cheering where it wasn't needed with the use of the MVSEP program.

Gabriel's first four solo albums were all named "Peter Gabriel." This concert took place after the release of the second one, often known as "Peter Gabriel 2" or "Scratch," released in 1978. However, interestingly, the first song performed, "Biko," was unreleased at the time. It would appear on his next album in 1980. This was only the second time he performed it in public, with the first being a warm-up concert a couple of days earlier.

I find it interesting that Phil Collins played drums on at least a couple of songs. I only know for sure he played on "Mother of Violence" and "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway," but it's possible he played on more. You can hear Gabriel introduce him in the band intros right after "Mother of Violence." Of course, as any Genesis fan knows, Gabriel was the lead vocalist for Genesis until he left for a solo career in 1975. Collins had been the band's drummer from early in the band's career, but took over as lead vocalist and became a big star. But Gabriel and Collins actually have remained good friends and sometimes played on the other's albums.

This album is an hour and 14 minutes long.

01 Biko (Peter Gabriel)
02 On the Air (Peter Gabriel)
03 D.I.Y. (Peter Gabriel)
04 talk (Peter Gabriel)
05 Humdrum (Peter Gabriel)
06 No Self Control (Peter Gabriel)
07 White Shadow (Peter Gabriel)
08 Mother of Violence (Peter Gabriel)
09 talk (Peter Gabriel)
10 Animal Magic (Peter Gabriel)
11 I Don't Remember (Peter Gabriel)
12 Modern Love (Peter Gabriel)
13 Moribund the Burgermeister (Peter Gabriel)
14 Perspective (Peter Gabriel)
15 Solsbury Hill (Peter Gabriel)
16 Here Comes the Flood (Peter Gabriel)
17 The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Peter Gabriel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PkAQoovW

alternate:

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

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

The Doobie Brothers - PBS Soundstage, Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy, WI, 7-21-1979

Here is an episode of the Doobie Brothers performing for the TV show "PBS Soundstage," from 1979. They also did an episode in 1977. I've found about 70 episodes of this show so far, and I believe this is one of only two times a musical act had two episodes so close in time. It was very rare for the same act to get two episodes at all.

Soundstage ran from 1974 to 2018, with some significant gaps in there. Sometimes, during that long run, the concerts would be edited horribly to fit the hour long time slot. Plus, some producers got cute and liked to jazz things up by cutting in interviews and other scenes not from the concerts. Unfortunately, both Doobie Brothers episodes were butchered pretty badly. I'm posting the 1979 show first because I still have to figure out how to fix some of the problems in the 1977 show.

For this show, I found three different versions, all with slightly different song lists and different edits. This was a lucky thing, though also a pain in the butt, because I was able to combine them to make the longest version, while avoiding some of the problems that were present in only some of the versions. For instance, the songs "Sweet Maxine - It Keeps You Runnin'" and "Minute by Minute" are not found in the most commonly traded versions of this bootleg.

Unfortunately though, some stupid edits were present in all versions. For instance, right in this middle of the song "Don't Stop to Watch the Wheels," a song about motorcycles, an interview with a band member about his love of motorcycles was overdubbed over the music. Ugh! It was the same deal with a couple of other songs, with interview segments right in the middle of them, during instrumental solos. In other cases, songs were faded in or out early. Luckily, I was able to use parts of different versions to fix those. For instance, one version of "Listen to the Music" was cut short, and another version had one of those damn annoying interview sections over the soloing. By combining the two, I was able to get the full version without the overdubbed interview. 

However, note there are a couple of places where the sound quality gets a bit rough. I used the UVR5 audio editing program to separate out the talking of the interview from the music, but sometimes there was some damage to the music. Luckily, those damaged parts that remain are petty short, half a minute or so.

Another problem is it turns out the song order in the video was all jumbled up. For instance, "What a Fool Believes" was the third song, which didn't make sense since it was their huge Number One single at the time. I found the correct song list and reordered it to match. (There are a bunch of missing songs, unfortunately.) That meant some of the song transitions didn't sound good. So I fixed those up by adding in more applause. 

Also by the way, many versions of this bootleg state the date was July 20, 1979. But during the banter between songs, a band member clearly stated this was the second night of a two night stand at the venue, which makes it July 21st instead, since they played this venue two nights in a row.

This album is an hour and ten minutes long.

01 Take Me in Your Arms (Doobie Brothers)
02 talk (Doobie Brothers)
03 Clear as the Driven Snow (Doobie Brothers)
04 Dependin' on You (Doobie Brothers)
05 Jesus Is Just Alright (Doobie Brothers)
06 Long Train Runnin' (Doobie Brothers)
07 Sweet Maxine - It Keeps You Runnin' [Edit] (Doobie Brothers)
08 Minute by Minute (Doobie Brothers)
09 talk (Doobie Brothers)
10 Don't Stop to Watch the Wheels [Edit] (Doobie Brothers)
11 Black Water (Doobie Brothers)
12 Slack Key Soquel Rag [Instrumental] (Doobie Brothers)
13 Takin' It to the Streets [Edit] (Doobie Brothers)
14 I Cheat the Hangman [Instrumental] (Doobie Brothers)
15 China Grove (Doobie Brothers)
16 What a Fool Believes (Doobie Brothers)
17 Listen to the Music [Edit] (Doobie Brothers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BJ2kFoiQ 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/tc7vZHS4kYR1WpV/file

The cover shows lead vocalist Michael McDonald. I took a screenshot from a video of this exact concert. I used the Krea AI program to improve the image quality.

The writing on his T-shirt intrigued me. I looked at the video to read the whole thing, and found out it was what I'd thought from taking this screenshot: it reads "Bruce Hornsby Band." The odd thing about that is that Hornsby didn't get famous until his first hit single in 1986. I looked it up at his Wikipedia page, and in 1979 his musical career was just getting started. He was only playing small clubs in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia. So why the heck was McDonald wearing a shirt with his name on it?!

I did a little more digging and found out there was an interesting story there. It turns out that in 1979, Hornsby boldly went in search of the Doobie Brothers when they were playing a concert near Williamsburg. He found McDonald in the lobby of a hotel, and invited him to see them perform in a small club that night. Remarkably, McDonald went to the club later that night, despite the band being so unknown that only about 15 people were there. McDonald liked the band so much that he invited the entire Doobie Brothers band to see Hornsby's band the next night, which they did. This then led Hornsby to Los Angeles, where he stayed in McDonald's house for about ten days while they did some recording and tried to get a record company. Ultimately, that didn't work out and it would take many more years for Hornsby to even get a record contract. 

You can read the whole interesting story here:

Don't Call It A Comeback - Style Weekly

That story certainly explains the unusual T-shirt. Kudos to McDonald for recognizing Hornsby's talent so early.

Covered: Stevie Wonder, Volume 4: 1976-1981

Here we are again with another "Covered" album consisting of songs written or co-written by Stevie Wonder. This volume deals with the years 1976 to 1981.

I my opinion, the peak of Wonder's music career was from about 1972 to 1981. So this represents the latter half of that. But keep in mind that covers always come after the original versions, sometimes decades later. So many of the songs he wrote during this time don't show up until later volumes.

However, just like with previous sessions, there are some songs here that Wonder didn't release himself. This time, those are tracks 5, 6, 7, 8, and 11.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Boogie On Reggae Woman (Slickers)
02 Creepin' (Herbie Mann feat. Cissy Houston)
03 You Are the Sunshine of My Life (Ella Fitzgerald)
04 Love Having You Around (First Choice)
05 The Real Thing (Sergio Mendes & New Brasil 77)
06 Stick Together (Minnie Riperton)
07 Don't Make Me Wait Too Long (Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway)
08 I Can't Help It (Michael Jackson)
09 I'm Wondering (Amy Holland)
10 Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours (Syreeta Wright)
11 Let's Get Serious (Jermaine Jackson)
12 Pastime Paradise (Ray Barretto)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Psmhz2QD

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/4WAUE3LanH8uQY8/file

All I know about the cover image is that it's from 1982.