Covered: Van McCoy, Best Of: 1962-1985

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Van McCoy - Wikipedia 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long. 

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pgC1na27

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/6J8Pg2jDSyrxSmE/file

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

Dionne Warwick - Dionne, Burt and Hal: The Definitive Songbook, Volume 6: 1972-1985 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Things changed drastically for this volume of all the songs written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach and sung by Dionne Warwick. Since the start of Warwick’s hit-making years in 1963, she was signed to Scepter Records. She was their biggest star by far. But in 1971, her contract ended and she signed a new deal with Warner Brothers Records. (Scepter Records went bankrupt a couple of years later.)

For her first album on her new label, released in 1972, all seemed well, because all the songs were written by Bacharach and David. But in 1973, the two songwriters wrote the songs for the movie “Lost Horizon,” without Warwick’s involvement. This turned out to be a disaster. The movie was a flop and so was the soundtrack. But worst of all, Bacharach and David had a falling out during the making of the soundtrack. They wouldn’t write songs together for many years, and both of them had much less success without the other one. To make matters worse, Warwick’s new record company expected her to have most of her songs written by Bacharach and David. When that couldn’t happen anymore, that resulted in more lawsuits, including Warwick suing the songwriting duo.

Decades later, Bacharach wrote about this dispute in his autobiography: "It was all my fault, and I can't imagine how many great songs I could have written with Hal in the years we were apart. So I now know that on every level, it was a very bad mistake." But at other times, he suggested that both he and David were somewhat creatively exhausted, so they probably wouldn't have been able to keep their streak of hit songs going much longer anyway. That can be seen by the fact that the two of them had wrote very few hits for most of the rest of the 1970s. 

The first seven songs are from 1972. The eighth song, "One Less Bell to Answer," is from 1977, but was written in the 1960s. The Fifth Dimension had a hit with it in 1970. Warwick didn’t have much success without Bacharach and David for most of the 1970s, but she resumed having hits in 1979. 

In 1985, she resumed performing some songs written by Bacharach, but not David, since Bacharach and David wouldn’t reconcile until later. Instead, Bacharach was cowriting songs with Carole Bayer Sager at the time. The rest of the songs here are written by those two, from 1985. One of those songs,”That’s What Friends Are For,” was a massive hit, helped by Warwick being joined by some other big stars. Not only did it reach Number One in the U.S., it was the biggest selling song in 1986. 

Warwick had this to say about working with Bacharach again in 1985: "We realized we were more than just friends. We were family. Time has a way of giving people the opportunity to grow and understand... Working with Burt is not a bit different from how it used to be. He expects me to deliver and I can. He knows what I'm going to do before I do it, and the same with me. That's how intertwined we've been."

This album is 55 minutes long.

078 Be Aware (Dionne Warwick)
079 [They Long to Be] Close to You (Dionne Warwick)
080 Hasbrook Heights (Dionne Warwick)
081 I Just Have to Breathe (Dionne Warwick)
082 If You Never Say Goodbye (Dionne Warwick)
083 The Balance of Nature (Dionne Warwick)
084 One Less Bell to Answer (Dionne Warwick)
085 Early Morning Strangers (Dionne Warwick)
086 That's What Friends Are For (Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight & Stevie Wonder)
087 Extravagant Gestures (Dionne Warwick)
088 Finder of Lost Loves (Dionne Warwick)
089 How Long (Dionne Warwick)
090 Stay Devoted (Dionne Warwick)
091 Stronger than Before (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ku4tY3Qr

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/msqzMLVw1J3DQje/file

The cover photo shows her at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, on February 9, 1972.

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/esnnYxUY

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/vkDhlrs5SJscv2W/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. 

Covered: Billy Steinberg & Tom Kelly: 1980-2019

I don't keep a close eye on music news, but yesterday I happened to hear that songwriter Billy Steinberg died. Specifically, he died on February 16, 2026, at the age of 75. That probably doesn't mean anything to most people, because I don't think he's very well known as far as songwriters go. But it meant something to me, because I had already made a "Covered" album of the songs he and songwriting partner Tom Kelly made. (It's one of several dozen "Covered" albums I've made but haven't gotten around to posting yet.) Due to his death, I decided to post this sooner rather than later.

Steinberg and Kelly wrote a lot of hits from the 1980s to the 2000s that you probably know without ever knowing who wrote them. Even though they were male, somehow they had the most success with females covering their songs. They had five Number One hits in the U.S., all sung by women: "Like a Virgin" by Madonna (1984), "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper (1986), "Eternal Flame" (co-written with Susanna Hoffs and recorded by the Bangles in 1989), "So Emotional" by Whitney Houston (1987), and "Alone" by Heart (1987).

Billy Steinberg was born in Fresno, California, though his family moved to Palm Springs when he was a teenager. After graduating from college, he formed a band called Billy Thermal. However, they didn't have any success, and one album they recorded around 1980 wasn't released until decades later, after he made a name for himself as a songwriter. He had his first songwriting success with "How Do I Make You," which was a hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1980.  

Tom Kelly was born in a small town in Illinois in 1952. He went to a college in that state, but dropped out to pursue a music career. He was a backing musician for Dan Fogelberg in 1976 and 1977. He also did a lot of session work, for instance singing backing vocals on Toto albums. He had his first songwriting success with "Fire and Ice," a minor hit for Pat Benatar in 1981.

Both Steinberg and Kelly independently had songs on Benatar's 1981 album, "Precious Time." They met at a party that year, and soon began writing together. Previously, both of them had written lyrics and music. But they soon fell into a pattern where Steinberg generally wrote the lyrics while Kelly wrote the music. Their really big break as a songwriting team was "Like a Virgin" by Madonna. After that, they were in high demand. What's on this album is just the cream of the crop of the many dozens of songs they wrote for well-known musical acts.

Their partnership continued very fruitfully until the mid-1990s. At that point, Kelly tired of songwriting and dropped out of the music business. He'd already had enough success to live on the royalties he'd made. However, Steinberg kept going with new songwriting partners. From the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s, he mostly wrote with Rick Newels, who already was a successful professional songwriter. From the mid-2000s to about the mid-2010s, he mostly wrote with Josh Alexander.

Steinberg had a lot of songwriting success after he stopped working with Kelly. But I listened to his big hits and, to be honest, didn't like them very much after about 2000. They suffer the same problems as most popular pop music since about 2000: formulaic and forgettable. So I generally didn't include most of those. To be honest, even a lot of their earlier stuff was formulaic and forgettable, but sometimes, in fact many times, they had some real winners.

But in case you're curious, Steinberg's biggest later hits include "I Turn to You" by Melanie C (2000), "Love Doesn't Have to Hurt" by Atomic Kitten (2003), "Too Little Too Late" by JoJo (2006), "Don't Hold Your Breath" by Nicole Scherzinger (2011), and "Give Your Heart a Break" by Demi Lovato (2012). After that, the hits petered out, although some older songs keep getting rerecorded and making the charts again, especially "Alone" and "I Drove All Night." For instance, Alyssa Reid went all the way to Number Two in the British charts with "Alone" in 2012, although it was titled "Alone Again" and had the now practically obligatory rap section.

I'm not a fan of Whitney Houston's version of "So Emotional." But since it was a massive Number One hit, I wanted to include it in some form. I found a radically different cover version by Jon McLaughlin from 2019 that I like much better, so I used that instead. Had it not been for that song, this album would end in 2000.

Here are their Wikipedia pages: 

Billy Steinberg - Wikipedia

Tom Kelly (musician) - Wikipedia  

That album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 How Do I Make You (Linda Ronstadt)
02 Fire and Ice (Pat Benatar)
03 Like a Virgin (Madonna)
04 Sex as a Weapon (Pat Benatar)
05 True Colors (Cyndi Lauper)
06 Eternal Flame (Bangles)
07 Alone (Heart)
08 In Your Room (Bangles)
09 I Touch Myself (Divinyls)
10 My Side of the Bed (Susanna Hoffs)
11 I Drove All Night (Roy Orbison)
12 Night in My Veins (Pretenders)
13 Lucky Love [Acoustic Version] (Ace of Base)
14 I'll Stand by You (Pretenders)
15 Falling into You (Celine Dion)
16 California (Belinda Carlisle)
17 One and One (Edyta Gorniak)
18 Everytime It Rains (Ace of Base)
19 The Consequences of Falling (k.d. lang)
20 So Emotional (Jon McLaughlin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4xNLLW9p 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/uxa5jlpb5sQPr8t/file

I don't know the details of the cover photo. But that's Tom Kelly on the left and Billy Steinberg on the right. There are patches of white in Steinberg's hair, which went completely white in later photos of him. 

Kevin Gilbert - Rarities (1985-1996) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's the second out of three "best of" albums guest posted Mike Solof has made for singer-songwriter Kevin Gilbert. The first album, "Originals," focuses on Mike's favorite songs that were on Gilbert's studio albums (including albums for bands he led, such as Toy Matinee). This one digs deeper. 

Considering that Gilbert's music career only lasted about ten years, he created a remarkable amount of music. He only put out a few albums in his lifetime. But since his death in 1996, a couple dozen more albums have come out! Gilbert was one of those musicians, like Prince, who played practically every instrument he could get his hands on, and was always writing and creating. So there was a ton of rare material for Mike to draw on when making this album. (As usual, look to the mp3 tags for all the details on the sources of the songs.)

One interesting highlight of this album is "Leaving Las Vegas." That was a big hit for Sheryl Crow. But Gilbert co-wrote it, as well as co-writing most of the songs on Crow's debut album, "Tuesday Night Music Club." The two of them were romantically linked for a while, and Crow was a member of Gilbert's band for a time.  

Like Mike always does with his guest posts, he's created a PDF file with additional comments and photos and so forth. In this case, the PDF is the same for all three Gilbert "best of" albums he made.  

This album is 59 minutes long. 

01 National Public Radio (Kevin Gilbert)
02 Things She Said [Jazz Version] (Kevin Gilbert)
03 Circling Winds (Kevin Gilbert)
04 Goodbye L.A. (Kevin Gilbert)
05 Suit Fugue [Dance of the A & R Men] [Early Mix] (Kevin Gilbert)
06 God's Been Tapping My Phone (Kevin Gilbert)
07 Queen of Misery (Toy Matinee)
08 KMTT Jingle (Kevin Gilbert)
09 Leaving Las Vegas (Kevin Gilbert)
10 Tea for One [Sax Mix] (Kevin Gilbert)
11 Something Nice for My Dog (Kevin Gilbert)
12 Late for Dinner [Dark Mix] (Kevin Gilbert)
13 Souvenir (Kevin Gilbert)
14 Finally Over You (Kevin Gilbert)
15 All Fall Down [Toto Version] (Kevin Gilbert)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/N98cVBGz

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/pzxlRnsVOmw60ea/file

I don't know the details of where or when the cover image is from. It was selected by Mike. 

ZZ Top - Monsters of Rock, Donington Park, Castle Donington, London, Britain, 8-17-1985

Here's a full ZZ Top concert bootleg from 1985, when they were at the peak of their popularity.

There are surprisingly few excellent sounding live ZZ Top recordings from their prime 1970s and 80s time. There's a bunch from around 1980, including an officially released one, and a short one I've posted from 1983. But there's very little for many years before or after that with sound quality that I find acceptable. So I decided to take this one, the best 1980s audience boot I could find, and do some audio editing to improve it some more. The final result is close to sounding as good as a soundboard boot, but not quite there. Still, this is probably the best sounding recording from this time period (other than that short 1983 I've posted) that you're likely to find, until something new emerges.

ZZ Top were the headliners for the Monsters of Rock festival, which had been held in the same Castle Donington location since 1980. The festival mostly featured heavy metal acts, and it would peter out in the mid-1990s when the popularity of heavy metal declined due to the rise of grunge. The other acts at the festival in 1985 were Marillion, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Ratt, and Magnum. About 50,000 people attended. I wouldn't call ZZ Top heavy metal, but they'd become superstars with their 1983 album "Eliminator," which sold eleven million copies. It combined their bluesy hard rock sound with the synth-based sound popular at the time. Somehow, they managed to attract lots of new New Wave focused fans while still staying popular with the likes of heavy metal fans.

This audience bootleg sounded pretty good to begin with, so much so that it's sometimes claimed to be a soundboard or radio broadcast. But it clearly is an audience boot, based on the constant rumble of crowd noise through all the songs. So I ran the songs through the MVSEP program, separating the crowd noise, then removing it during the songs while keeping the cheering at the ends of songs. I also used MVSEP to boost the lead vocals relative to the instruments for some of the songs.

The final result is pretty good, though not great. The 1983 live album I've posted sounds better. But this is double the length of that one, containing a full concert. Note that the band was coming close to releasing their next album, "Afterburner." It would be released two months after this concert. They played just one songs from it, "Can't Stop Rockin'." The other songs are generally originals, other than the Elvis Presley classic "Jailhouse Rock."

This album is an hour and 23 minutes long.  

01 Got Me Under Pressure (ZZ Top)
02 talk (ZZ Top)
03 I Got the Six (ZZ Top)
04 Gimme All Your Lovin' (ZZ Top)
05 Waitin' for the Bus (ZZ Top)
06 Jesus Just Left Chicago (ZZ Top)
07 talk (ZZ Top)
08 Sharp Dressed Man (ZZ Top)
09 Ten Foot Pole (ZZ Top)
10 talk (ZZ Top)
11 TV Dinner (ZZ Top)
12 Manic Mechanic (ZZ Top)
13 I Heard It on the X (ZZ Top)
14 I Need You Tonight (ZZ Top)
15 talk (ZZ Top)
16 Pearl Necklace (ZZ Top)
17 talk (ZZ Top)
18 Cheap Sunglasses (ZZ Top)
19 talk (ZZ Top)
20 Arrested for Driving while Blind (ZZ Top)
21 Party on the Patio (ZZ Top)
22 Legs (ZZ Top)
23 Tube Snake Boogie (ZZ Top)
24 Can't Stop Rockin' (ZZ Top)
25 Jailhouse Rock (ZZ Top)
26 La Grange (ZZ Top)
27 Tush (ZZ Top)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Meb5KEaa

alternate: 

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

The cover image is taken from some promotional material for this exact concert. I used the Krea AI program to improve the colors and sharpen the details.

Kid Creole & the Coconuts - Le Zenith, Paris, France, 9-10-1985

Sometimes, there are musical acts I really love but I just don't have anything I consider worthy of posting from them. That's been the case for Kid Creole and the Coconuts. I think they're great, and very underrated. And now, I've finally found something worthy to post from them. This is a full concert from 1985, which was when they were in their prime.

Normally, I'm not that into dance music just as something to listen to, because it's designed for dancing. But Kid Creole and the Coconuts did something unusual, creating dance music for thinking people, with interesting lyrics and musical creativity while still making you want to get up and shake your ass. In a better world, they would have been massive.

Their failure to become as popular as they should have been must have been due to a lack of promotion or bad luck or some other factors not related to the music, because they were very popular for a little while. In 1982, their third album "Tropical Gangsters" reached Number Three in Britain, going Platinum there. It put three songs in the Top Ten there. And while that was one of their better albums, all of their early albums were about equally as good. If you look at the crowd-sourced ratings at rateyourmusic.com, for instance, their first five albums (from 1980 to 1985) got roughly similar scores. So why did just that one do well, and only in Britain? In the U.S., they never got close to having a Top Forty single or album, despite appearances on Saturday Night Live, the Johnny Carson Show, and other appearances in movies and TV. 

If you haven't heard of them before, I strongly suggest you give this a listen. It's ideal music for partying and dancing, and yet the lyrics are often surprisingly deep and about unusual topics. If anyone knows of other musical acts that managed that combination successfully, I'd love to hear about them.

Anyway, this is an officially released album called "Live in Paris." But I'm posting it here for two reasons. For one, it seems to be very obscure. For instance, it's not mentioned in the band's Wikipedia page, or at their rateyourmusic.com page. That makes me wonder if it might be some kind of grey market release. The second is that I noticed the lead vocals were low in the mix, so I used the UVR5 program to fix that. So this now sounds noticeably better than the soundboard source. 

This album is an hour and 24 minutes long. 

01 Don't Take My Coconuts (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
02 My Male Curiosity (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
03 Table Manners (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
04 Mr. Softie (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
05 Annie, I'm Not Your Daddy (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
06 I'm a Wonderful Thing, Baby (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
07 No Fish Today (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
08 Dear Addy (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
09 Stool Pigeon (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
10 Say Hey (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
11 Laughing with Our Backs Against the Wall (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
12 Mona (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
13 The Lifeboat Party (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
14 Endicott (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
15 Indiscreet (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)
16 Caroline Was a Dropout (Kid Creole & the Coconuts)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7Pd7MJyP

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/h0mfuLHfuy7xLsY/file

The cover photo shows the band's lead singer August Darnell in concert in Oostende, Belgium, on July 21, 1985.

Covered: Jesse Stone: 1942-1985

Until a few days ago (writing this in May 2025), I had never heard of Jesse Stone. But I found out about him while research possible additional subjects for my Covered series on well-covered songwriters. What really caught my eye was that he was the one who wrote the song "Shake, Rattle and Roll." That was one of the most pivotal songs that launched the popularity of rock and roll music. Rolling Stone Magazine has rated it as 127 on their list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

But while Stone is best known for that song, he wasn't a songwriting one-hit wonder. Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic Records, the most important R&B record company in that era, once stated that "Jesse Stone did more to develop the basic rock and roll sound than anybody else."

Stone's music career went way back. He actually came from a family who put on minstrel shows, and began performing at the age of four! His first big success as a songwriter came with the song "Idaho," which sold over a million copies in 1942. That's not really a style of song I like, but I've included it since it was a pivotal song in his career. Things got more interesting as the rock and rock era dawned in the early 1950s. Another big success for him was "Money Honey" by the Drifters, which Rolling Stone Magazine also put on their list of the top 500 greatest songs of all time. "Flip, Flop and Fly" by Big Joe Turner and "Don't Let Go" by Roy Hamilton were also especially big hits.

Stone had his own career as a singer, as well as a producer and arranger. He had a fine voice, but never had any hits of his own. He certainly stood out for being a successful Black songwriter in the 1950s when there were very few others. (Although Otis Blackwell comes to mind as another key exception.) His success as a songwriter petered out in the early 1960s as musical styles change. Most of these songs are the original versions, except for the last three, which came significantly later. He died in 1999 at the age of 97.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on him:

Jesse Stone (musician) - Wikipedia

This album is 47 minutes long. 

01 Idaho (Benny Goodman with Dick Haymes)
02 Cole Slaw [Sorghum Switch] (Louis Jordan)
03 Losing Hand (Ray Charles)
04 Money Honey (Drifters)
05 Shake, Rattle and Roll (Bill Haley & His Comets)
06 As Long as I'm Moving (Ruth Brown)
07 Razzle-Dazzle (Bill Haley & His Comets)
08 Flip, Flop and Fly (Big Joe Turner)
09 Crazy, Crazy Party (Cues)
10 Don't Let Go (Roy Hamilton)
11 Love Is A-Breakin' Out (Roberta Sherwood)
12 Red Hot Love (Billy Williams)
13 Private Eye (Buddy Wilkins)
14 Like a Baby (Elvis Presley)
15 Smack Dab in the Middle (Ray Charles)
16 Your Cash Ain't Nothing but Trash (Steve Miller Band)
17 Liptstick, Powder and Paint (Shakin' Stevens)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AhbgKxJs

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BtYyaOvcEyjyV9q/file

I don't know much about the cover photo except that it looks to be a promotional photo from the 1950s. It was originally in black and white, but I colorized it using the Krea AI program.

Richard Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1984-1987

Here's another BBC album by British singer-songwriter Richard Thompson. This album is a collection of studio sessions, plus a live performance that was too short to make its own album. 

The first song is from the "Old Grey Whistle Test" BBC TV show in 1984. The next three are from a BBC session in 1985. Then the majority of the album, tracks 5 through 13, are a live performance recorded for the BBC radio show "Folk on Two." It took place at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London on May 20, 1987. Finally, the last song is a live performance from the Cambridge Folk Festival in 1987.

Tracks 2, 3, 4, and 14 have been officially released. The first three are from the album "Live at the BBC," and that last one is from the "Life and Music Of" box set. Everything else is unreleased.

Also note that this album contains two versions of "She Twists the Knife Again." That's kind of unfortunate, but at least one was done in the studio while the other one was in concert.

This album is 49 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On November 8, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same. But I found an earlier volume in this series that I'd missed, so the volume number changed. That meant the title, cover art, and mp3 tags changed too.

01 Tear-Stained Letter (Richard Thompson)
02 You Don't Say (Richard Thompson)
03 She Twists the Knife Again (Richard Thompson)
04 When the Spell Is Broken (Richard Thompson)
05 Genesis Hall (Richard Thompson)
06 Wall of Death (Richard Thompson)
07 Valerie (Richard Thompson)
08 talk (Richard Thompson)
09 Air for Morris Ogg - Mrs. MacLeod's Reel [Instrumental] (Richard Thompson)
10 She Twists the Knife Again (Richard Thompson)
11 talk (Richard Thompson)
12 Al Bowlly's in Heaven (Richard Thompson)
13 I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (Richard Thompson)
14 Drowned Dog Black Night (Richard Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/p18hDkSW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/9WneWZconJYw9w3/file

The cover photo was taken at at Wolfgang's in San Francisco, California on October 7, 1983.

Elvis Costello - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1981-1986

In the BBC poll I conducted here in February 2025, Elvis Costello was tied for the third most votes. So here's something else from him. This is a collection of BBC studio sessions from 1981 to 1986.

This album was rather tough to compile, because Costello performed for the BBC many times, both for TV and radio shows. This gathers together eight different appearances, most of them unreleased. The first song is from an appearance on "Jim'll Fix It" in early 1981, and is a duet with Glenn Tilbrook, lead singer of Squeeze. The next two songs are from a 1981 benefit concert that was broadcast on the BBC. One of them, "Psycho Song," was released on a very obscure official album of the concert, called "Fundamental Frolics."

Tracks four through seven are from a conventional BBC radio session, for the Kid Jensen show in 1981. The next four, tracks eight through 11, are from another Kid Jensen show, in 1983. Two them, "Danger Zone" and "Big Sister's Clothes - Stand Down Margaret," later appeared as bonus tracks for the "Punch the Clock" album. "Peace in Our Time" is from a 1983 BBC TV show. "Georgia on My Mind" is from a 1985 BBC TV show. That's quite an interesting version, because it was done as a duet with his father, Ross MacManus, who was a professional trumpet player and singer in jazz bands. (Costello's birth name is Declan MacManus.)

 

"Don't Get Above Your Raising" is a duet with Ricky Scaggs. It was part of a Scaggs concert broadcast by the BBC in 1986, which was later released as the live album "Ricky Scaggs: Live in London." That makes it the fourth and final officially released performance on this album. The last three songs are from an appearance on the "Old Grey Whistle Test" BBC TV show in 1986.

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 From a Whisper to a Scream [Edit] (Elvis Costello & Glenn Tilbrook)
02 Gloomy Sunday (Elvis Costello)
03 Psycho Song (Elvis Costello)
04 Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down (Elvis Costello)
05 Sweet Dreams (Elvis Costello)
06 Colour of the Blues (Elvis Costello)
07 Why Don't You Love Me (Elvis Costello)
08 Danger Zone (Elvis Costello)
09 Big Sister's Clothes - Stand Down Margaret (Elvis Costello)
10 Pills and Soap (Elvis Costello)
11 Shipbuilding (Elvis Costello)
12 Peace in Our Time (Elvis Costello)
13 Georgia on My Mind (Elvis Costello & Ross MacManus)
14 Don't Get Above Your Raising (Ricky Skaggs & Elvis Costello)
15 I Hope You're Happy Now (Elvis Costello)
16 Uncomplicated (Elvis Costello)
17 Leave My Kitten Alone (Elvis Costello)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/sUcXKCFr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/PvXCJSalBkFgBtZ/file

The cover photo shows Costello in concert in 1982. I don't know the details beyond that.

Richard Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Barrymore's Music Hall, Ottawa, Canada, 4-11-1985

In the BBC poll I did back in February 2025, Peter Gabriel got the most votes. The second most went to Richard Thompson. So I posted a couple things from Gabriel recently, and now here's something from Thompson. More albums from more musical acts will be coming soon. This is a full concert from 1985.

From about 1972 to 1982, Richard Thompson was in a duo with his then-wife, Linda Thompson. After their marriage and musical partnership broke up in 1982, he got serious with a solo career. In 1983, he released the album "Hand of Kindness," and then in 1985, he released the album "Across a Crowded Room." This concert features him on tour promoting that latter album. For the tour, he recruited another male and female musical duo to join his band, Clive Gregson and Christine Collister. Collister, in particular, added female vocals that kind of filled the role Linda Thompson used to fill. Both Gregson and Collister got their own lead vocal songs during this concert, with Collister singing "Warm Love Gone Cold" and Gregson singing "Summer Rain."

In my opinion, Thompson's songwriting was especially good during this time period, with his 1982 album with Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out the Lights," being my favorite. It also was his most poppy and accessible. That continued with these albums. So I think this concert is an excellent introduction to his solo career, with him playing the best songs from his two recent solo albums plus key songs from earlier in his career.

I believe this concert was almost the end of the tour, with just one more concert a day later. So, to document the tour, this concert was recorded for both audio and video. A version edited down to an hour was shown on British TV, called "Across a Crowded Room Live." That also was broadcast on BBC radio. Seven of the tracks from it appeared on the DVD portion of the album "Live at the BBC" in 2011. Then, in 2019, the full concert was released, called "Across a Crowded Room - Live at Barrymore's 1985." Normally, I don't like to post stuff that's officially released already, but I'm doing that here since it's a good way to start a series of Thompson's BBC albums, the vast majority of which is unreleased. 

This album is an hour and 45 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On November 8, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same. But I found an earlier volume in this series that I'd missed, so the volume number changed. That meant the title, cover art, and mp3 tags changed too.

01 Fire in the Engine Room (Richard Thompson)
02 She Twists the Knife (Richard Thompson)
03 Shoot Out the Lights (Richard Thompson)
04 You Don't Say (Richard Thompson)
05 Warm Love Gone Cold (Christine Collister with Richard Thompson)
06 Wall of Death (Richard Thompson)
07 How I Wanted To (Richard Thompson)
08 Little Blue Number (Richard Thompson)
09 When the Spell Is Broken (Richard Thompson)
10 Did She Jump or Was She Pushed (Richard Thompson)
11 The Wrong Heartbeat (Richard Thompson)
12 talk (Richard Thompson)
13 Summer Rain (Clive Gregson with Richard Thompson)
14 For Shame of Doing Wrong (Richard Thompson)
15 I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (Richard Thompson)
16 talk (Richard Thompson)
17 Nearly in Love (Richard Thompson)
18 Love in a Faithless Country (Richard Thompson)
19 I Ain't Going to Drag My Feet No More (Richard Thompson)
20 talk (Richard Thompson)
21 Tear Stained Letter (Richard Thompson)
22 talk (Richard Thompson)
23 Withered and Died (Richard Thompson)
24 Skull and Cross Bones (Richard Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vTs7h383

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/hR9r5sVS8uhd5QN/file

For the cover image, I took a screenshot from a YouTube video of this exact concert. The video was low-res, as is often the case with these things. But I ran the image through the Krea AI program twice until it looked a lot better.

Covered: Stevie Wonder, Volume 5: 1981-1989

Here's Volume 5 in my "Covered" series highlighting the songwriting of Stevie Wonder. As with the other volumes in this series, this consists of other musical acts covering his songs.

Wonder was still very commercially successful in the early 1980s, but there was a slow decline as the decade went on. However, that isn't so important for this album, because many of the covers here are of songs he wrote earlier in his career.

Some songs here were written by Wonder but never officially released by him. Those are tracks 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, and 12. That's a lot of songs. It's too bad he didn't put more of those songs on his own albums. 

My usual rule is to only include one version of each song in this series. However, I couldn't resist with "Superstition," since it's one of the greatest songs of all time and I really like two covers of it. I included a version by Jeff Beck on an earlier volume, and a version by Stevie Ray Vaughan here.

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Happy Birthday (Brotherhood of Man)
02 Betcha' Wouldn't Hurt Me (Quincy Jones)
03 Lately (Rudy Grant)
04 Buttercup (Carl Anderson)
05 Try Jah Love (Third World)
06 If You Really Love Me (Mary Wells)
07 You're Playing Us Too Close (Third World)
08 The Crown (Gary Byrd & G.B. Experience with Stevie Wonder)
09 Ribbon in the Sky (Nancy Wilson)
10 Superstition (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
11 Remembering the Sixties (George Duke)
12 Hold On to Your Love (Smokey Robinson)
13 Higher Ground (Red Hot Chili Peppers)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/SMBE8DsJ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/tBVPCnxrzfmeh4J/file

The cover photo is from 1985. That's all I know about it.

Aretha Franklin - PBS Soundstage, Park West, Chicago, IL, 5-13-1985

The flood of "PBS Soundstage" shows continues with a 1985 concert by Aretha Franklin.

In 1985, Franklin was at the peak of a commercial revival, after having some tough years in the late 1970s especially. Her 1985 album "Who's Zoomin' Who?" sold over a million in the U.S. and was the best selling album of her career. This concert took place about two months before the release of that album. So some hit songs from that album weren't played, like "Who's Zoomin' Who?" and "Sisters are Doin' It for Themselves." However, the biggest hit from it, "Freeway of Love," was released in advance from the album, and that was performed here. It would reach Number Three on the U.S. singles chart. "Sweet Bitter Love" also appeared on that album.

This concert is officially unreleased. The sound quality is very good.

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 talk (Aretha Franklin)
02 Love Is the Key (Aretha Franklin)
03 Love All the Hurt Away (Aretha Franklin)
04 Day Dreaming (Aretha Franklin)
05 I Say a Little Prayer (Aretha Franklin)
06 See Saw (Aretha Franklin)
07 Rock Steady (Aretha Franklin)
08 Something He Can Feel (Aretha Franklin)
09 Think (Aretha Franklin)
10 Ain't No Way (Aretha Franklin)
11 Respect (Aretha Franklin)
12 Sweet Bitter Love (Aretha Franklin)
13 It's My Turn (Aretha Franklin)
14 Freeway of Love (Aretha Franklin)
15 Didn't It Rain (Aretha Franklin)
16 Jump to It (Aretha Franklin)
17 Respect [Reprise] (Aretha Franklin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/P59kFyCT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5zn13pdx5RTwTla/file

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from this exact concert. The video I took it from was rather low-res, so I ran it through Krea AI twice to get it looking better. Also, using Photoshop, I erased some distracting things in the background.

UB40 - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: In Concert, Brighton Centre, Brighton, Britain, 11-4-1985

Here's another UB40 BBC album. This one is a concert from late 1985.

In my previous write-ups for UB40 albums, I've stated that I liked this band the most in their early years, before they moved in a more mainstream direction. This is the tail end of the period I like the most. It came a couple of months after the release of their studio album "Baggaridim." That contained two hits, both covers, "I Got You Babe" and "Don't Break My Heart." They performed both of those here, although "I Got You Babe" was a duet with Chrissie Hynde, so it was done here without the duet aspect.

This album is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.

Note that, while putting this together, I noticed that I'd posted two previous BBC albums by UB40, but I didn't include "Volume 1" and "Volume 2" in their titles. But I also simultaneously discovered two more BBC albums that I'd missed. So those earlier ones because "Volume 3" and "Volume 4," with two even earlier ones to come. I also upgraded their cover art. So if you want those updated versions, here are the links:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/11/ub40-bbc-sight-and-sound-regal-theatre.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/11/ub40-bbc-in-concert-london-britain-1-7.html

This album is an hour and 33 minutes long.

01 If It Happens Again (UB40)
02 Keep On Moving (UB40)
03 As Always You Were Wrong Again (UB40)
04 talk (UB40)
05 Don't Break My Heart (UB40)
06 Cherry Oh Baby (UB40)
07 talk (UB40)
08 Johnny Too Bad (UB40)
09 talk (UB40)
10 Sweet Sensation (UB40)
11 Love Is All Is Alright (UB40)
12 Red Red Wine (UB40)
13 talk (UB40)
14 One in Ten (UB40)
15 Please Don't Make Me Cry (UB40)
16 Dubmobile (UB40)
17 talk (UB40)
18 I Got You Babe (UB40)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/o7qcbgVX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/D9g3locZ147WeKz/file

The cover shows lead vocalist Ali Campbell at a concert in Massey Hall, London, on March 11, 1985. The original was in black and white. I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Pete Townshend - Who Demos, Volume 10: 1982-1995: It's Hard & Solo Albums

I recently posted the ninth volume in this series. Here's the tenth and final one, before I forget. Generally, the series is about the demos Pete Townshend made that later turned into songs for albums by the Who, as opposed to a separate series I've made of Townshend's non-album tracks, which are mostly demos. But for this final volume, it's dominated by songs that went to Townshend's 1980s solo albums.

The only album by the Who represented here is "It's Hard," from 1982. But for whatever reason, there aren't many demos from that one, just "Popular" (an early version of "It's Hard") and "Cry If You Want." Plus, there's a version of "Eminence Front," but it's stuck at the end because it's all the way from 1995. Apparently, Townshend made a new demo of the song before going on tour, and liked it enough to include it on his archival album "Scoop 3."

Track two through five are all demos of songs from Townshend's 1982 solo album "All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes." Those four songs are all unreleased, as is "Cry If You Want" mentioned above. I really like Townshend's 1985 album "White City," but there are only two demos of songs from that album, "Crashing by Design" and "I Am Secure." All the remaining songs relate to his 1989 album "Iron Man." Those are all officially released, mostly from his "Scoop 3" album, except for "I Eat Heavy Metal."

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 Popular [Early Version of It's Hard] (Pete Townshend)
02 Stop Hurting People (Pete Townshend)
03 Face Dances, Pt. 2 (Pete Townshend)
04 Uniforms [Corp d'Esprit] (Pete Townshend)
05 The Sea Refuses No River (Pete Townshend)
06 Cry If You Want (Pete Townshend)
07 Crashing by Design (Pete Townshend)
08 I Am Secure (Pete Townshend)
09 Man and Machines [Man Machines] (Pete Townshend)
10 Dig (Pete Townshend)
11 I Eat Heavy Metal (Pete Townshend)
12 I Am Afraid (Pete Townshend)
13 Outlive the Dinosaur (Pete Townshend)
14 Iron Man Recitative (Pete Townshend)
15 Eminence Front (Pete Townshend)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AWvjgje9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/R5nBhcu5RAHyazo/file

The cover photo is from a 1985 photo shoot.

The Style Council - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-22-1985

Here's yet another renumbering screw-up. I keep finding things mainly through people sharing music via SoulseekQT. Some are on my wanted list, but most I just stumble upon. Like this one. It turned out Paul Weller's 1980s band the Style Council played the annual Glastonbury Festival one time, in 1985. That also happened to be the first year the BBC broadcast some sets from the festival, including this one.

The Style Council never made much of a commercial impact in the U.S., but they were big in Britain. They actually hit their commercial peak the very same month of this concert, when their 1985 album "Our Favourite Shop" reached Number One in the British album chart. So naturally, this concert featured lots of songs from that album. In fact, ten of the songs here were from it.

The sound quality is excellent, as you'd expect from a BBC recording. I don't think any of this has been officially released.

I mentioned above that I had to renumber the Style Council concert that came after this. If you want the renumbered Volume 4, with updated cover art and such, here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/02/the-style-council-bbc-sessions-volume-3.html

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 Internationalists (Style Council)
02 Homebreakers (Style Council)
03 Come to Milton Keynes (Style Council)
04 talk (Style Council)
05 See the Day (Style Council)
06 The Lodgers [Or She Was Only a Shopkeeper's Daughter] (Style Council)
07 The Whole Point II (Style Council)
08 Our Favourite Shop (Style Council)
09 talk (Style Council)
10 Long Hot Summer (Style Council)
11 [When You] Call Me (Style Council)
12 Walls Come Tumbling Down (Style Council)
13 Money-Go-Round (Style Council)
14 Strength of Your Nature (Style Council)
15 It Just Came to Pieces in My Hands (Style Council)
16 The Stand Up Comic's Instructions (Style Council)
17 The Big Boss Groove (Style Council)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/D2qaFFAr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/tAc2HDURJlO2AZI/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. I happened to find a few. I decided to go with a rather unusual one for variety's sake, instead of just showing a close-up of lead singer Paul Weller or something like that. (Weller is the guy on stage with a raised fist.)

Covered: Giorgio Moroder, Volume 2: 1983-1991

Here's the second and last Covered series album for Italian producer and songwriter Giorgio Moroder.

Moroder's commercial heyday was probably the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. So this generally deals with the second half of that. All the songs here are from 1983 to 1986 except for the last one, which is from 1991.

As I mentioned in Volume One, Moroder found great success composing the music for popular movies, and that continued well into the 1980s. For instance, he won Academy Awards and Golden Globes for the song "Flashdance... What a Feeling" in 1983, and "Take My Breath Away" in 1986. Both songs also hit Number One in the U.S. singles charts, as well as Number One in many other countries around the world. 

Perhaps it isn't too surprising that his music was so popular in the 1980s, because he'd been one of the main pioneers of using synthesizers for dance music in the 1970s, and in the 1980s synth-based danceable music was everywhere. But tastes gradually changed, especially with the rise of grunge starting in 1991. Perhaps in response to that, he effectively retired in 1993. 

For two decades, he didn't release any music. But he started a minor comeback in 2013, working with Daft Punk (who were heavily influenced by him) and putting out a solo album in 2015. He is still alive as I write this in 2024, but presumably his hit-making days are behind him, since he's 84 years old.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Flashdance... What a Feeling (Irene Cara)
02 Scarface [Push It to the Limit] (Paul Engemann)
03 Rush Rush (Debbie Harry)
04 Why Me (Irene Cara)
05 Together in Electric Dreams (Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder)
06 Here She Comes (Bonnie Tyler)
07 The NeverEnding Story (Limahl & Beth Anderson)
08 Love Kills (Freddie Mercury)
09 I Feel Love (Bronski Beat)
10 Danger Zone (Kenny Loggins)
11 Take My Breath Away (Berlin)
12 Love's Unkind (Sophie Lawrence)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17327897/COVRDGIGRIOMRDR1983-1991Vlume2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/sSkZMqR1

The cover photo shows Moroder in 1987. I don't know the details. I used Krea AI to improve it a bit.

Covered: Jimmy Webb: Volume 2, 1972-2013

This is the second and last album in the Covered series for songwriter Jimmy Webb.

As I mentioned in Volume One, Webb was on fire in the late 1960s, writing a handful of the best songs all time, by anybody. Unfortunately, by the start of the time period on this album, his hot streak had cooled. Virtually every song on Volume One was a big hit, while there are only a few hits here. That said, the songwriting quality is still very high. A few of the songs here are considered classics. For instance, both "The Moon's a Harsh Mistress" and "Highwayman" have been covered dozens of times, and "All I Know" was a big hit for Art Garfunkel.

I'm not sure what happened exactly, but I suppose Webb's songwriting style changed. Instead of writing overtly poppy hits, he began writing more confessional singer-songwriter stuff. The same thing happened to others around the same time. For instance, Carole King's songwriting style changed drastically from the 1960s to the 1970s. I could have included many more worthy songs here, but I wanted to keep the emphasis on the stuff with obvious popular appeal, so I generally only included hits or songs that I thought should have been hits.

The lack of massive success for Webb's own albums is curious. Certainly he had the requisite talent, both with his singing voice as well as songwriting chops. It seems to me that he didn't do the obvious things to be popular. For instance, by 1970, the year of his first solo album ("Words and Music"), he had written at least a dozen really big hits for others. But on that album, he included exactly none of them. That was a huge missed opportunity, in my opinion. After that, his albums were typically critically acclaimed but little noticed by the public. It didn't help that he did almost no touring whatsoever until the 1990s, and even since then only very intermittently. He also had a really big drug problem until the 1990s.

In any case, some of these songs were written before when they appear chronologically on this album. For instance, "P.F. Sloan" first appeared on that 1970 album I mentioned above but the version here is from 2012. "Highwayman" first appeared on one of his albums in 1977, but wasn't a hit by the Highwaymen (a country supergroup consisting of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson) until 1985. But other than that, these generally were the first versions of each song, or close to it.

If there are any great songs of his that I've failed to include, please let me know and I'll consider adding them.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Song Seller (Paul Revere & the Raiders)
02 Mixed Up Girl (Dusty Springfield)
03 Cheap Lovin' (Supremes)
04 All I Know (Art Garfunkel)
05 The Moon's a Harsh Mistress (Judy Collins)
06 Crying in My Sleep (Art Garfunkel)
07 Easy for You to Say (Linda Ronstadt)
08 Highwayman (Highwaymen)
09 I Keep It Hid (Linda Ronstadt)
10 If These Walls Could Speak (Shawn Colvin)
11 Gauguin (Judy Collins)
12 P.F. Sloan (Rumer)
13 Postcard from Paris (Glen Campbell) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/17271155/COVRDJIMMYWBB1972-2013Vlum2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/T8MqGQrP

I don't know the details on when and where the cover photo was taken. But clearly he's significantly older than in the photo for Volume One.

The Knitters - The Ritz, New York City, 10-24-1985

Have you even heard of the Knitters? Maybe not. But it's more likely you've heard of the punk band X. The Knitters are a basically an X side project, featuring three out of four members of X, including their two singer-songwriters, Exene Cervenka and John Doe. But there are two other members, including Dave Alvin, a singer-songwriter from the Blasters. The reason for this side project is because the Knitters play a very different style of music. They were alt-country about five years before the alt-country movement even began.

The Knitters were formed around 1982, and they generally perform a handful of concerts each year. They only released two studio albums, "Poor Little Critters in the Road" in 1985 and "The Modern Sounds of the Knitters" in 2005. They've never put out an official live album.

So if you're a fan of this band, as I am, this album is really great. It's double the length of their debut album, so it contains lots of songs that they never put out on either album. They played a couple of X songs redone in a country rock style ("The New World" and "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts") as well as some Knitters originals. But mostly they did classic and obscure folk or country covers. So not every fan of X is going to love this. But if you're open-minded about country rock, you should really like it. They were way ahead of their time back in 1985.

This is a soundboard bootleg. It's the only Knitters bootleg that I know of, so it's a lucky thing that the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long.

01 talk (Knitters)
02 Silver Wings (Knitters)
03 talk (Knitters)
04 Cryin' but My Tears Are Far Away (Knitters)
05 talk (Knitters)
06 Poor Little Critter on the Road (Knitters)
07 talk (Knitters)
08 The New World (Knitters)
09 Someone like You (Knitters)
10 talk (Knitters)
11 Hand Me Down My Walking Cane (Knitters)
12 talk (Knitters)
13 Poor Old Heartsick Me (Knitters)
14 talk (Knitters)
15 Mama Tried (Knitters)
16 talk (Knitters)
17 I'm Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail (Knitters)
18 I Can't Hold Myself in Line (Knitters)
19 Pipeline [Instrumental] (Knitters)
20 Long White Cadillac (Knitters)
21 talk (Knitters)
22 Love Shack (Knitters)
23 talk (Knitters)
24 The Call of the Wreckin' Ball (Knitters)
25 I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts (Knitters)
26 talk (Knitters)
27 Jackson (Knitters)
28 Rock Island Line (Knitters)
29 talk (Knitters)
30 The Trail of Time (Knitters)
31 talk (Knitters)
32 Tennessee Border (Knitters)
33 talk (Knitters)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16625127/TKNITTRS1985TRitzNwYrkCty__10-24-1985_atse.zip.html

 I couldn't find any photos of the Knitters in concert back in 1985 (or any year around then, for that matter). So I used a photo from an X concert taken from a TV appearance in August 1985. The two singers shown here, Exene Cervenka and John Doe, are also the two main singers for the Knitters.

Squeeze - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 10-14-1985

For much of the 1980s, it seemed like the British band Squeeze performed a BBC concert every time they released another studio album, and here's another example of that. 

In 1982, Squeeze broke up, when they arguably were at their peak of commercial and critical success. But they only stayed apart for three years. They reunited for a benefit concert, decided they liked being together, and recorded a studio album that year, "Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti." This concert was from part of a tour to support that album.

The sound quality here was a bit below par for the BBC, even though it's an unreleased bootleg. I boosted the lead vocals on all the songs, and especially on the banter between songs (using the audio editing program UVR5), and I think it sounds very good now. 

There was a more significant problem with the song "Is That Love," where there was a sonic flaw in one part of the songs. But I was able to patch that with another bit from elsewhere in the song. That's why that one has "[Edit]" in the title.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 talk (Squeeze)
02 Another Nail In My Heart (Squeeze)
03 Is That Love [Edit] (Squeeze)
04 In Quintessence (Squeeze)
05 talk (Squeeze)
06 Hits of the Year (Squeeze)
07 Last Time Forever (Squeeze)
08 By Your Side (Squeeze)
09 talk (Squeeze)
10 King George Street (Squeeze)
11 Up the Junction (Squeeze)
12 No Place like Home (Squeeze)
13 Annie Get Your Gun (Squeeze)
14 Take Me, I'm Yours (Squeeze)
15 Pulling Mussels [From the Shell] (Squeeze)
16 Labelled with Love (Squeeze)
17 Black Coffee in Bed (Squeeze)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16622377/SQUZE1985BBSssonsVlum6InCncrtHmmrsmthOdonLndonBrtin__10-14-1985_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert at Hoffman Estates, Illinois, on September 6, 1985.