Elton John - Cover Versions, Volume 6: 2008-2017

Here's the sixth and last album in a series of albums of cover versions by Elton John. I had started posted this series back in 2023, but I stopped for a couple of years due to problems with the copyright police. But they seem to be going easy on me lately, so I'm finally finishing off the series.

Only four of the songs here are unreleased. "Back in the U.S.S.R." and "Birthday" are from a bootleg of a joint concert John did with Billy Joel in 2009. (He's done a lot of those over the years.) Unfortunately, the sound quality of those two songs are lower than the rest, despite my best efforts to make some audio editing improvements. "Streets of Philadelphia" is from a 2013 MusiCares tribute concert to Bruce Springsteen that I've posted in full on this blog. "Gravity," a duet with Sara Bareilles, is from a 2014 concert.

Pretty much all the other songs are from John's appearances on albums by other musical acts. Check the mp3 tags for more details. The one exception is "I Love You All the Time," which was released as an A-side in 2016.

This is probably going to be the last album in this series because, rather surprisingly, I can't find any good cover versions he did after 2017. Mind you, he's done lots of songs on his studio albums, but these albums only collect covers that aren't the versions from his studio albums. If anyone knows of covers I've missed from this time period, or after, let me know and I'll probably add them in to this album. 

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 Joseph, Better You than Me (Killers, Elton John & Neil Tennant)
02 Back in the U.S.S.R (Elton John & Billy Joel)
03 Birthday (Elton John & Billy Joel)
04 Snowed In at Wheeler Street (Kate Bush & Elton John)
05 Oh Well, Part 1 (2Cellos & Elton John)
06 Streets of Philadelphia (Elton John with Raphael Saadiq)
07 The Tracks of My Tears (Smokey Robinson & Elton John)
08 Gravity (Sara Bareilles & Elton John)
09 I Love You All the Time (Elton John)
10 Where Do the Guilty Go (Elton John & Frankie Miller)
11 Alone Again, Naturally (Pet Shop Boys & Elton John)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5co2GBbS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/MyoGx6JEfwTVUTa/file

The cover image is from a concert at the Manchester Evening News Arena, in Manchester, Britain, on December 20, 2008.

Covered: Neil Young, Volume 6: 2007-2011

Modern technology is amazing: I’m writing this while sitting in an eco lodge deep in the Amazon jungle in Peru (with a huge rhino beetle on the floor about five feet from me). Anyway, not much time to write, but here’s another Neil Young “Covered” album, since I have more of those to post than Dionne Warwick albums while I’m on vacation.

As usual, here's the write up by Fabio from Rio:

By the late 2000s, Neil Young's catalog had entered yet another phase of rediscovery. While earlier generations of alternative rock musicians had embraced his influence during the grunge years, a new wave of indie-folk and Americana performers began revisiting his songs with quieter, more introspective arrangements. At the same time, the Internet was transforming how music circulated among fans: live recordings, tribute performances, and previously obscure interpretations were now easier to find and share among the global community of "Rusties." Young himself remained prolific, releasing ambitious projects such as "Chrome Dreams II" and "Le Noise." The covers in this volume reflect that diverse landscape - a mixture of indie artists, roots musicians and veteran performers exploring both well-known classics and deep cuts from across Young's long career.

--- 

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.  

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

01 Walk On (Heidi Gluck)
02 Sleeps with Angels (Astrid Young)
03 Too Far Gone (The Brooke)
04 Soldier (Tara Angell)
05 World on a String (Nils Lofgren)
06 War of Man (Ann Wilson & Alison Krauss)
07 Mellow My Mind (Simply Red)
08 Don't Cry No Tears (Nils Lofgren)
09 Human Highway (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
10 Ambulance Blues (Lisa Miller)
11 Journey through the Past (James Mercer)
12 You and Me (Trappers Cabin)
13 Cortez the Killer (Veda Hille)
14 Let's Roll (Irish Zeyez)
15 Transformer Man (Veda Hille)
16 From Hank to Hendrix (Joe Chaplain)
17 The Losing End [When You're On] (Elvis Costello) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fPC5Dxpi

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/FLXFvzMRlreZG3c/file

The cover photo is from 2006. I used the Krea AI program to improve the detail.

Richard Thompson - 1000 Years of Popular Music - Third Version (2008-2009)

From about 2001 to 2009, Richard Thompson occasionally put on a special type of concert, called "1000 Years of Popular Music." The idea started for him around the year 2000, when Playboy Magazine asked him and a bunch of other famous musicians to list what they considered to be the best songs of the millennium. Thompson alone took them literally and gave them a list that genuinely covered 1000 years, whereas everyone else made lists just of the last century. That inspired him to perform this concerts where he played some of his favorite songs of the last 1000 years, with many going back centuries. 

In 2021, I compiled and posted two versions of these kinds of concerts. Those mostly were sourced from concerts between 2001 and 2004. At that time, I also made a third version, mostly consisting of concerts from 2008. But I never felt ready to post it until now. The reason was sound quality. Most of the songs from the first two versions came from soundboard bootlegs or a DVD video. But this one pretty much entirely comes from unreleased audience bootlegs. (As usual, you can find sourcing details in the mp3 tags.) I felt that didn't meet the sound quality standards I'd set for my music blog. I waited, hoping either better sources would be found, or audio editing technology would improve enough for me to make this sound worthy of posting.

Well, better sources never were found, but audio editing technology did improve. Now, in January 2026, I feel this one sounds nearly as good as the first two. I just recently discovered a relatively new filter the MVSEP program has called "denoise." It's great for getting rid of hiss. So I used that on all the songs. I also ran all the songs through MVSEP's reverb reduction. And I additionally ran all the talking tracks through Adobe's vocal enhancer, which does wonders adding clarity to talking.

I know a couple of commenters have been asking for this ever since I mentioned a third version back in 2021. Thanks for your patience! Sorry it took so long. 

Speaking about that Adobe vocal enhancer, since that works so well, I recently used that on many of the talking tracks in the first two versions. Many of those talking bits were from audience boots instead of soundboard boots, so they needed help too. They sound much better now. So I strongly recommend you redownload those albums, if you'd downloaded them before.

Here's the link to the first version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/05/richard-thompson-1000-years-of-popular.html

And the link to the second version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/06/richard-thompson-1000-years-of-popular.html

I was very careful to avoid duplicating any songs from version to version. Luckily, Thompson kept changing the songs on his different "1000 Years" tours. So this should be just as entertaining as the other two versions. Also, like those versions, I've included sourcing information in brackets in the song titles. That includes the songwriter or writers, when known, and the year the song was written, if known.

Actually, I believe the last time Thompson toured with this theme was 2008. I have one song here from 2009, "Substitute," that came from a different kind of concert. But it was done in acoustic mode, like all the songs here, and I thought it fit in nicely, so I included it. Let's hope he comes back to this tour concept someday, because it's a fun way to learn musical history. (Besides, I'd love to see what songs he would deem worthy from the 2010s and 2020s.)  

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long. 

01 Edi Beo Thu Hevene Quene [Praise to You, Queen of Heaven] [1200s] (Richard Thompson)
02 talk (Richard Thompson)
03 The Three Ravens [1400s or earlier] (Richard Thompson)
04 talk (Richard Thompson)
05 Ja Nus Hons Pris [King Richard, 1192] (Richard Thompson)
06 talk (Richard Thompson)
07 Cutty Wren [1300s] (Richard Thompson)
08 talk (Richard Thompson)
09 False Knight on the Road [1820s or earlier] (Richard Thompson)
10 talk (Richard Thompson)
11 Pipe, Shepherd's Pipe [unknown] (Richard Thompson)
12 talk (Richard Thompson)
13 A Man Who Would Woo a Fair Maid [Gilbert and Sullivan, 1888] (Richard Thompson)
14 talk (Richard Thompson)
15 Down by the Salley Gardens [William Butler Yeats, 1889, set to music in 1909] (Richard Thompson)
16 talk (Richard Thompson)
17 Rigs of the Time [1905 or earlier] (Richard Thompson)
18 talk (Richard Thompson)
19 Brother, Can You Spare a Dime [Bing Crosby, 1932] (Richard Thompson)
20 talk (Richard Thompson)
21 Strange Fruit [Abel Meeropol, 1937] (Richard Thompson)
22 talk (Richard Thompson)
23 Parchman Farm [Mose Allison, 1957] (Richard Thompson)
24 talk (Richard Thompson)
25 Little Boxes [Malvina Reynolds, 1962] (Richard Thompson)
26 Hold Me Tight - There's a Place - I Want to Hold Your Hand [Beatles, 1963] (Richard Thompson)
27 talk (Richard Thompson)
28 All Right [I'll Sign the Papers] [Ray Price, 1964] (Richard Thompson)
29 Substitute [Who, 1966] (Richard Thompson)
30 talk (Richard Thompson)
31 Workin' Man Blues [Merle Haggard, 1969] (Richard Thompson)
32 talk (Richard Thompson)
33 Get Up, Stand Up [Bob Marley & the Wailers, 1973] (Richard Thompson)
34 talk (Richard Thompson)
35 Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime [Korgis, 1980] (Richard Thompson)
36 talk (Richard Thompson)
37 Beds Are Burning [Midnight Oil, 1987] (Richard Thompson)
38 talk (Richard Thompson)
39 Maneater [Nelly Furtado, 2006] (Richard Thompson) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wPFoeBMn

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/ruKCZLQUli3nX0K/file 

The cover photo comes from a concert at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2008. I also used the same framing artwork that I used on the first two versions.

Covered: Tom Waits, Volume 3: 2004-2012 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's "Volume 3" out of four volumes made for the "Covered" series, showcasing the songs of Tom Waits.

Like the other volumes in this series, this was mostly put together by Fabio from Rio. He did all the heavy lifting in finding the source material, and I only helped to winnow down the songs to a reasonable number. Fabio also wrote the notes for each volume, so here's his notes for this one:

In the nineties and early 2000s, Waits fused experimental sounds with stark American roots music—blues, gospel, field hollers, and folk. Themes of death, sin, redemption, and rural myth dominate. This allows for covers that, while highlighting their folk or country origins (sometimes deeply buried at the original recordings, but more perceptible when reinterpreted by performers from diverse backgrounds), still keep their darker spirits through melancholic or nihilistic lyrics.

In this volume, the country side of Waits' music is quite perceptible via covers by Elvis Costello, Norah Jones, and Claudia Bettinaglio. One may also feel the sexiness and smoky-room cabaret ambiance at Diana Krall's "Temptation", Monique Maion's "Walking Spanish," and Clara Bellino's "Swordfishtrombone." 

Traces of rockabilly and R&B can be found with Mark Lemhouse's "No One Can Forgive Me" and English seventies folk with Plant and Krauss' "Trampled Rose", along with blues and rock tracks like Hart and Bonamassa's "Chocolate Jesus" and Goldheart Assembly's "Clap Hands." Overall, this makes for an eclectic selection, much like the average Tom Waits album. An acoustic, home-demo-like version of "In the Neighborhood" by Peter Gabriel, recorded in 2012 for a benefit album for war-torn regions, closes the volume on a poignant note.

--- 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 Innocent When You Dream (Elvis Costello)
02 Temptation (Diana Krall)
03 Long Way Home (Norah Jones)
04 Big in Japan (Shane Nicholson)
05 Swordfishtrombone (Clara Bellino)
06 Eyeball Kid (Michael Stanley)
07 Cold Cold Ground (Claudia Bettinaglio)
08 Trampled Rose (Robert Plant & Alison Krauss)
09 All the Time in the World (Southside Johnny)
10 No One Can Forgive Me (Mark Lemhouse)
11 Walking Spanish (Monique Maion)
12 Chocolate Jesus (Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa)
13 Clap Hands (Goldheart Assembly)
14 In the Neighborhood (Peter Gabriel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yUHGi7qy 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/i96wIB252GpXMcV/file

The cover photo shows Waits at a movie premiere in Leicester Square, in London, on October 6, 2009. (As usual with this series of course, I replaced the background with blank light blue).

Covered: Antonio Carlos Jobim, Volume 2: 1998-2011

Here's the second out of three albums celebrating the music of songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim. Like the others in this series, Fabio from Rio was more responsible for putting this together than I was. So a very big thanks to him. Due to the fact that he's a Brazilian with deep knowledge of Brazilian music, he knew Jobim covers way better than I did.

Jobim wrote most of his classic songs from the 1950s to the 1970s. He actually died in 1994, of heart and cancer problems at the age of 67. So all the covers here are from after his death, of songs that often were written decades earlier. That's a sign that his songs keep getting covered, long after their first appearances on records. 

Fabio and I selected these choices together. We rarely went for the big hit versions, because his songs rarely turned into big hits. But he's had dozens of songs with literally hundreds of cover versions. Typically, Fabio selected a bunch of versions of a given song, then I would listen to them and pick my favorite. If you want to hear more versions, go to the write-up for Volume 1, because Fabio has made six more albums of Jobim covers that you can find there.

Also note that I kept this to versions in English, despite the fact that Jobim wrote nearly all of the original versions of his songs in Portuguese. And I kept my selections to versions with vocals, since there are countless hundreds of instrumental versions of his songs as well. I figured English versions would have more popular appeal for people who aren't that familiar with his music. 

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 For All of My Life [Por Toda a Minha Vida] (Eliane Elias)
02 Modinha [Broken Heart] (Paquito D'Rivera & New York Voices)
03 Ela e Carioca [She's a Carioca] (Celso Fonseca)
04 Someone to Light Up My Life [Se Todos Fossem Iguais a Voce] (Ann Hampton Callaway)
05 No More Blues [Chega de Saudade] (Idea of North)
06 Porpoise [Boto] (Beijbom Kroner Big Band)
07 Song of the Jet [Samba do Aviao] (BR6)
08 Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars [Corcovado] (Diana Krall)
09 I Was Just One More for You [Esperanca Perdida] (Dawn Clement)
10 That Look You Wear [Este Seu Olhar] (Elly Hoyt)
11 Zingaro [Retrato em Branco e Preto] [Portrait in Black and White] (Nina Ripe)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NHjBNpsC

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/N32g9Tfg2rPVxZM/file 

I don't know the details about the cover photo. But based on his appearance and the other photos I saw of him putting this together, I'd guess the picture was taken in the 1980s. 

REO Speedwagon - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 7-2008

I like REO Speedwagon at about the greatest hits level. If I were to post a concert from them, I would have preferred it to be from their early 1980s peak in popularity. But they performed for "PBS Soundstage" in 2008, so that's what I'm posting here. I'm committed to posting most any episode of this show I can find.

Given that this is a fairly recent professionally recorded TV broadcast, I was surprised to discover there was a major flaw: the vocals were way too low in the mix. It was very noticeable. But I was able to fix that using the UVR5 audio editing program. After that change, this sounds very good.

REO Speedwagon sold about 40 million records, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s. They were led by two singer-songwriters, Kevin Cronin and Gary Richrath. Some founding band members left by the time of this concert, including Richrath. But Cronin still led it, and they played all their biggest hits here, including the ones written by Richrath. It seems the band retired in 2024.

Here's their Wikipedia page:

REO Speedwagon - Wikipedia 

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Find Your Own Way Home (REO Speedwagon)
02 Take It on the Run (REO Speedwagon)
03 Keep Pushin' (REO Speedwagon)
04 Can't Fight This Feeling (REO Speedwagon)
05 Dangerous Combination (REO Speedwagon)
06 Time for Me to Fly (REO Speedwagon)
07 Don't Let Him Go (REO Speedwagon)
08 talk (REO Speedwagon)
09 Keep On Loving You (REO Speedwagon)
10 Roll with the Changes (REO Speedwagon)
11 Riding the Storm Out (REO Speedwagon)
12 talk (REO Speedwagon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nbFbScBh

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/s5lUq7uefF0BxlU/file

The cover is a screenshot taken from a video of this exact concert. I used Krea AI to flesh out the details of a low-res image.

Covered: Hank Williams, Volume 2: 1995-2017

Here's the second part to the "Covered" series about country music legend Hank Williams.

As I said in my write-up for Volume 1, I wanted to make these albums accessible to more than just country music fans. So that's why I mostly chose covers from recent decades, and by the likes of Beck, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Norah Jones, and so on. 

The vast majority of these were hits when Williams did them before his death in 1953. While there were a lot of hit cover versions of his songs, these generally were not hits. As I just mentioned, I was striving to get away from country versions, and those were most of the hit versions.

As always with these "Covered" albums, the songs are in loose chronological order, based on the year of release. And, as always, check the mp3 tags for the details. 

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 I'm a Long Gone Daddy (The The)
02 I Can't Help It [If I'm Still in Love with You] (Cat Power)
03 [I Heard That] Lonesome Whistle (Beck)
04 I Can't Get You Off of My Mind (Bob Dylan)
05 Alone and Forsaken (Emmylou Harris & Mark Knopfler)
06 You're Gonna Change [Or I'm Gonna Leave] (Tom Petty)
07 Cold, Cold Heart (Norah Jones)
08 Lost Highway (Lee Rocker)
09 Ramblin' Woman (Cat Power)
10 Take These Chains from My Heart (Rosanne Cash)
11 A House of Gold (Patty Griffin)
12 How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart (Norah Jones)
13 Mansion on the Hill (Willie Nelson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pJcuyMJv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/RhHR0FUCJasCzLZ/file

I don't know the details of where or when the cover photo was from. However, it was in color, so I didn't need to change anything. 

Covered: Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham, Volume 2: 1968-2023

Here's the second and final album of the Covered series for the songwriting team of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham.

In the first volume, I noted that Penn and Oldham had a lot of success writing hit songs from about 1966 to 1968, while based in Memphis, Tennessee. The first song here is from 1968. But after that, there was a sharp drop with their musical successes. Penn later claimed that there was a lot of fruitful collaboration between white songwriters like Spooner and him and the black singers they were mainly writing for during that time period, but that changed as the years went on. He saw the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 as a key moment. After that, race became more of an issue, and the expectation grew that soul music songs sung by black singers would be written by black songwriters too.

Due to this changed environment, Penn and Oldham split up. Oldham moved to Los Angeles, where he found a lot of success playing keyboards as a session musician. That continued for decades, with him playing on albums by the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Aretha Franklin, Jackson Browne, the Everly Brothers, J.J. Cale, Linda Ronstadt, and many, many more. 

Meanwhile, Penn moved to Nashville, the home of country music, and tried to find success writing country songs. However, although his style had always been an interesting combination of soul and country music, he didn't do well writing just  for country singers. In 1973, he finally released his first solo album, "Nobody's Fool." While it was critically acclaimed, it sold very little. He did have some success as a songwriter and/or producer, but in a low-key way.

In 1994, Penn and Oldham reunited for Penn's second solo album, "Do Right Man." This mostly consisted of Penn's versions of his biggest hits from the 1960s. It was critically acclaimed. And while it also wasn't a big seller, it generated enough interest for Penn and Oldham to essentially start a new career as duo, going on tour to promote the occasional new album by Penn. Since then, Penn has released three more studio albums. The two of them have built up a following. As I write this in 2025, they are still going on tour, despite the fact that they're both in their early eighties.

Penn continues to write new songs, though it seems not often with Oldham anymore. He's had the occasional successful late career song. For instance, "Don't Give Up on Me" was the title track to Solomon Burke's acclaimed 2002 album by that same name. And "Memphis Women and Chicken" from Penn's 1994 album is usually performed in the concerts by Penn and Oldham.

Most of the songs here were written by Penn with others instead of Oldham. However, "Lonely Women Make Good Lovers" was written by Oldham without Penn. Unlike the hit-filled Volume 1, there really aren't any big hits here, though arguably some could be considered classics, and the songwriting is still at a consistently high level. Some of the songs were written much earlier than when the versions here were recorded. For instance, "Keep On Talking," recorded by Texas in 2023, was first released by someone else in 1965. In cases like that, these are the versions I like best.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 I Met Her in Church (Box Tops)
02 A Woman Left Lonely (Janis Joplin)
03 Rainbow Road (Percy Sledge)
04 Lonely Women Make Good Lovers (Bob Luman)
05 Zero Willpower (Irma Thomas)
06 Like a Road Leading Home (Jerry Garcia Band)
07 Where There's a Will [There's a Way] (Dan Penn)
08 Time I Took a Holiday (Nick Lowe)
09 Don't Give Up on Me (Solomon Burke)
10 Memphis Women and Chicken (Gary Nicholson)
11 I Hate You (Nicki Bluhm)
12 Keep On Talking (Texas)

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

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ImNWdOz5yf5WAU7/file

I don't know what year the cover photo is from. But I did find this photo of the two of them together, probably in the 1990s. I used Photoshop to move them closer together.

Various Artists - Songs in the Key of Brian - Remembering Brian Wilson (1975-2021) (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

One of the all-time great musical geniuses, Brian Wilson, died a few days ago, on June 11, 2025. He was 82 years old. I wanted to post something to mark his passing. Luckily, I've recently been collaborating with a new musical friend, who goes by the name Fabio from Rio. He's a big fan of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys, and came up with the idea of creating an album consisting entirely of songs about Brian Wilson. So that's what this is. I gave him free reign, and only helped him some with suggestions on song selection.

I would have never come up with the idea for this album, because I had no idea that there would be enough songs about Brian Wilson to make up an entire album. I knew of the song "Brian Wilson" by Barenaked Ladies, since that was a hit back in the 1990s, but that was about it. But Fabio must be a really big fan, because he found so many songs that we had to cut some out to keep the album from getting too long.

The album starts with a rare demo written and sung by Wilson himself. It also ends with two more written and sung by him, including a rare live version of "Love and Mercy." Fabio explained the reasoning for this in an email, which I liked. I'll just paste in his explanation here:

"The Wilson tunes are bookends, as they serve to introduce and close the 'main event' (all the tracks written to him or about him) while bringing a personal Brian touch to the collection. The first song, a 1975, demo works as a prelude (acknowledging Brian's fragility and strength both simultaneously contained in his voice), 'The Last Song' is the epilogue, and 'Love and Mercy' is a coda." 

Regarding the rest of the songs, what Fabio calls the "main event," tracks 2 through 13, are basically divided into two parts. Tracks 2 through 8 are direct tributes to Brian. That's obvious by their titles, but it's not just that: the lyrics and musical style ooze reference and admiration for the man. That's followed by tracks 9 through 13, which are indirect tributes to Brian, or direct tributes to things related to him (the Beach Boys, his health shop, girls, his genius, family), all mentioning him either in the title or lyrics.

So, a big thanks to Fabio from Rio for coming up with the idea for this album and then finding and selecting the songs. As you could guess from the name, he's Brazilian, and hopefully in the future he'll be able to assist in sharing more music from Brazil. I like a lot of music from Brazil, despite not speaking Portuguese at all. I haven't really shared any music from Brazil until now, because I don't have worthy rarities. But he does, so look forward to that in the future. He also has some other plans, including creating one or more albums as a further tribute to Wilson that will consist of songs in a Beach Boys style composed by other musical acts. 

Fabio has also taped a great number of concerts in Brazil. You can find some of them on his YouTube page, here: 

https://www.youtube.com/@musicadequalidade2020/videos

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 In the Back of My Mind [Demo] (Brian Wilson)
02 The Love Songs of B. Douglas Wilson (Splitsville)
03 Mr. Wilson (Hormones)
04 Dear Brian (Chris Rainbow)
05 Brian Wilson Said (Tears for Fears)
06 Brian Wilson (Barenaked Ladies)
07 Mr. Wilson (John Cale)
08 Brian Wilson (Queers)
09 Crazy = Genius (Panic at the Disco)
10 Radiant Radish (Pearl & the Oysters)
11 Brian Wilson Is My Dad (Breakup Shoes)
12 Minnesota Girls (Shackletons)
13 Since God Invented Girls (Elton John)
14 The Last Song (Brian Wilson)
15 Love and Mercy (Brian Wilson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Kn42WH9u

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/EMCkcQ343EW7g0m/file

The cover photo shows Wilson in 2007. I added the font colors and type to match those used on the cover of the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album.

Paul Weller - BBC Sessions, Volume 14: In Concert, Carling Academy, Brixton, Britain, 11-26-2008

Here we go again with yet another Paul Weller BBC album. This time, it's another concert.

In 2008, Weller released the double album "22 Dreams." The fact that it was a double album was a promising sign that he was on a creative tear, and sure enough, in my opinion, it's one of his better solo albums. So late 2008 was a good time to check in with another concert.

Up until now, in posting all of these volumes in this BBC series, I've often relied on material that came out on the official box set "At the BBC." But that came out in 2008, so everything from this on forward chronologically is not on that. That almost always means unreleased, and this concert is unreleased. Yet the sound quality is still excellent, thanks to the usual high BBC standards. 

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long.

01 Intro [Are We Ready] (Paul Weller)
02 Peacock Suit (Paul Weller)
03 talk (Paul Weller)
04 22 Dreams (Paul Weller)
05 All I Wanna Do [Is Be with You] (Paul Weller)
06 From the Floorboards Up (Paul Weller)
07 All on a Misty Morning (Paul Weller)
08 talk (Paul Weller)
09 Brand New Start (Paul Weller)
10 Have You Made Up Your Mind (Paul Weller)
11 Wild Blue Yonder (Paul Weller)
12 Black River (Paul Weller)
13 Invisible (Paul Weller)
14 talk (Paul Weller)
15 One Bright Star (Paul Weller)
16 talk (Paul Weller)
17 Where'er You Go (Paul Weller)
18 Wildwood (Paul Weller)
19 Why Walk When You Can Run (Paul Weller)
20 The Butterfly Collector (Paul Weller)
21 Seaspray (Paul Weller)
22 talk (Paul Weller)
23 Echoes Round the Sun (Paul Weller)
24 The Changing Man (Paul Weller)
25 The Eton Rifles (Paul Weller)
26 talk (Paul Weller)
27 Push It Along (Paul Weller)
28 Whirlpool's End (Paul Weller)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/tCR7FBnS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/q3Qav67HlZED5rU/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Munich, Germany, in October 2008.

Neil Diamond - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: BBC Radio Theatre, London, Britain, 5-14-2008

Here's a Neil Diamond BBC concert from 2008.

Diamond has a curious history of BBC concerts. He did one in 1971, when he was already established as a songwriter for others but was still just starting to make his mark as a solo artist. Then, apparently, he didn't do another one until this one in 2008. Perhaps for most of those years he felt he was so famous that he didn't need the promotion of a free concert broadcast over the radio.

One might have thought Diamond was past his prime in 2008, but he had a late career resurgence. In 2005, he put out the studio album "12 Songs." It was produced by Rick Rubin, and it got good reviews, just like other careers revived by Rubin, most especially Johnny Cash. Then, in 2008, he released "Home Before Dark," which also was produced by Rubin. While neither were huge sellers, if you look at the crowd-sourced ratings at rateyourmusic.com, those two albums have the best ratings of any Diamond album since the early 1970s.

However, most of the songs performed here are classic hits from earlier in his career. The only three new songs were "Pretty Amazing Grace," "Home Before Dark," and "Man of God." Strangely, it seems he didn't have any banter between songs except for one time, before "Home Before Dark." And for that time, he couldn't stop talking, going for over five minutes. Note though that this album is probably edited down by the BBC to fit an hour-long time slot, so we don't know what songs and/or banter might be missing. 

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Beautiful Noise (Neil Diamond)
02 Hello Again (Neil Diamond)
03 Love on the Rocks (Neil Diamond)
04 Thank God for the Night Time (Neil Diamond)
05 Pretty Amazing Grace (Neil Diamond)
06 Home Before Dark (Neil Diamond)
07 Forever in Blue Jeans (Neil Diamond)
08 talk (Neil Diamond)
09 Man of God (Neil Diamond)
10 Cracklin' Rosie (Neil Diamond)
11 Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond)
12 I'm a Believer (Neil Diamond)
13 I Am... I Said (Neil Diamond)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FZe3c5UB

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ghMHzKVt7HGUjVq/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Paul Weller - BBC Sessions, Volume 12: 2005-2008

Here's yet another in a long line of albums of Paul Weller performing for the BBC. This time, it consists of studio sessions.

As I've mentioned previously, Weller released a box set of his BBC recordings from the start of his solo career in 1990 until 2008, but it certainly didn't include everything he performed for the BBC. This album is a case in point. In fact, two songs here, "All on a Misty Morning" and "111," are unreleased and come from the exact same BBC studio session as the four tracks before it (tracks 8 to 11), which did make the box set. "Love," "I Don't Need No Doctor," "Black River," and "Invisible" are other unreleased songs from BBC sessions. Everything else here is from the box set. Check the mp3 tags for all the exact details.

A definite highlight here are two songs where Weller dueted with Amy Winehouse, "Don't Go to Strangers" and "I Heard It through the Grapevine." These went unreleased for a long time, and were another thing that didn't make it onto the Weller BBC box set, but they finally got released on a Winehouse BBC album.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Come On-Let's Go (Paul Weller)
02 Love (Paul Weller)
03 Roll Along Summer (Paul Weller)
04 I Wanna Make It Alright [Edit] (Paul Weller)
05 I Don't Need No Doctor (Paul Weller)
06 Don't Go to Strangers (Amy Winehouse & Paul Weller)
07 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Amy Winehouse & Paul Weller)
08 All I Wanna Do [Is Be with You] (Paul Weller)
09 Cold Moments (Paul Weller)
10 Push It Along (Paul Weller)
11 Pretty Flamingo (Paul Weller)
12 All on a Misty Morning (Paul Weller)
13 111 [Instrumental] (Paul Weller)
14 Black River (Paul Weller & Graham Coxon)
15 Invisible [Orchestral Version] (Paul Weller)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Dv87M7x3

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FzteuxGnu7sWxtg/file

The cover photo was taken at the Mojo Honours List Awards Ceremony, in London, on June 16, 2005. I used Photoshop to remove some writing on the wall behind him.

Covered: Sam Cooke: 1957-2009

It's time for more of my Covered series highlighting great songwriters. I generally want to look at songwriters who didn't have successful careers as performers, but sometimes I make exceptions, and this is one of those times. Sam Cooke is generally known as a great soul singer. For instance, in 2023, Rolling Stone Magazine listed him as number three in their list of the 200 best singers of all time. But I think his talent as a songwriter is far less known and appreciated.

To give the basics about him, I'll quote from his Wikipedia entry:

"Considered one of the most influential soul artists of all time, Cooke is commonly referred to as the 'King of Soul' for his distinctive vocals, pioneering contributions to the genre, and significance in popular music. During his eight-year career, Cooke released 29 singles that charted in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 chart, as well as 20 singles in the Top Ten of Billboard's Black Singles chart. In 1964, he was shot and killed by Bertha Franklin, a motel owner in Los Angeles with a prior criminal record."

I would add to that the fact that Cooke wrote most of his own hits. That was quite unusual back in the 1950s and early 1960s, before the likes of Bob Dylan and the Beatles changed the expectation that performers should write their own material. And particularly for soul music singers writing their own material continued to be rare for quite some time after that.

What hurts most of all is that it seemed Cooke still had a long career as a singer and songwriter ahead of him when he died in 1964 at the age of 33. In my opinion, he wrote his greatest song, "A Change Is Gonna Come," shortly before his death (it was released one month after he died), after being inspired by "Blowin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan. It would have been great to see how someone as talented as him would have been influenced by all the musical changes that happened after 1964, but sadly, we'll never know. 

And what makes it worse is that his death seems very suspicious and unnecessary. Law enforcement never seriously investigated it. The woman mentioned above who supposedly shot and killed him, Bertha Franklin, was later convicted of murdering someone else in similar circumstances. The whole thing is really bizarre. I'm guessing he was lured into having sex with a young woman in order to rob him, and that woman who was in cahoots with Franklin, the motel owner. But something went wrong and he got murdered.

Here's the Wikipedia article about him, if you want to know more, including more details about his mysterious death:

Sam Cooke - Wikipedia

Anyway, since the focus here is on Sam Cooke the songwriter, I haven't included any songs performed by him. By the way, note that three songs he wrote, "Wonderful World," "Cupid," and "A Change Is Gonna Come," made it to Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 songs of all time.

Two songs here need a little explanation. "Sweet Soul Music" wasn't exactly written by Cooke. It was written by Otis Redding and Arthur Conley in 1967, and was a big hit. However, it drew so heavily from a Cooke song called "Yeah Man" that he was included in the songwriting credits (after a lawsuit forced the issue). Also, I generally keep to a rule of only including one version of each song. But I consider "A Change Is Gonna Come" such an incredible song that I couldn't resist including two versions of it.

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long.

01 You Send Me (Teresa Brewer)
02 Rome [Wasn't Built in a Day] (Johnnie Taylor)
03 Shake (Otis Redding)
04 [Ain't That] Good News (Supremes)
05 A Change Is Gonna Come (Aretha Franklin)
06 Soothe Me (Sam & Dave)
07 Sweet Soul Music (Arthur Conley)
08 Cupid (Johnny Nash)
09 Win Your Love (Lou Rawls)
10 Laughin' and Clownin' (Ray Charles)
11 Chain Gang (Persuasions)
12 Twistin' the Night Away (Rod Stewart)
13 Love You Most of All (Persuasions)
14 Bring It on Home to Me (Van Morrison)
15 You Were Made for Me (Luther Ingram)
16 Another Saturday Night (Cat Stevens)
17 Only Sixteen (Dr. Hook)
18 [What A] Wonderful World (Art Garfunkel with Paul Simon & James Taylor)
19 Good Times (Dan Seals)
20 Somebody Have Mercy (Otis Rush)
21 Having a Party (Rod Stewart)
22 That's It, I Quit, I'm Moving On (Adele)
23 A Change Is Gonna Come (Bettye LaVette)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17435669/COVRDSAMCOKE1957-2009atse.zip.html

alternate:

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

(NOTE: This could be my last new Pixeldrain link, since I happened to upload this album before I got banned from new uploads to their service.)

I'm not sure when or where the cover photo is from, but it's a rare case of an actual color photo from his short life, before color became the standard.

Various Artists - Covered: Kris Kristofferson, Volume 2: 1974-2009

I just posted Volume One for the "Covered" series selections for country singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson. Here's Volume Two already. 

As I mentioned with Volume One, Kristofferson died two weeks ago as I write this in October 2024. He was 88 years old. 

He had a long and successful music career. He didn't have big commercial success - only two of his 18 studio albums even reached Gold sales (meaning 500,000 copies sold), and he never sold at the Platinum level (meaning a million). But he had a lot of critical acclaim, and he'll probably be best known for the thousands of cover versions of his songs.

His biggest impact undoubtedly was in the early 1970s, which was dealt with on Volume One. A few of the songs here also were first released in the early 1970s, but I preferred versions that came out later. But he continued to write and record quality songs until nearly the end of his life. (His last album of new material came out in 2016). For instance, Johnny Cash said "Here Comes That Rainbow Again" was his favorite song of all time. (The version of that song included here is by the Highwaymen, a country supergroup consisting of Kristofferson, Cash, Waylon Jennings, and Willie Nelson.)

Since I'm not deeply familiar with Kristofferson's entire musical output, if there are any covers of great songs that I missed, please let me know and I'll consider including them.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Why Me, Lord (George Jones)
02 The Junkie and the Juicehead [Minus Me] (Johnny Cash)
03 Prone to Lean (Donnie Fritts)
04 Stranger (Billy Swan)
05 Rock and Roll Time (Roger McGuinn)
06 Something They Can't Take Away from Me (Roy Orbison)
07 You Show Me Yours [And I'll Show You Mine] (Willie Nelson with Amy Irvine)
08 One Day at a Time (Christy Lane)
09 If You Don't Like Hank Williams (Hank Williams Jr.)
10 They Killed Him (Johnny Cash)
11 Lovin' Her Was Easier [Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again] (Tompall & the Glaser Brothers)
12 Here Comes That Rainbow Again (Highwaymen)
13 Jesus Was a Capricorn (Diana Darby)
14 The Pilgrim, Chapter 33 (Emmylou Harris)
15 Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends (Joan Osborne)
16 The Silver Tongued Devil and I (Dick Van Altena)
17 Closer to the Bone (Kris Kristofferson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17230520/COVRDKRISKRISTFFRSN1974-2009Volum2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UTXAJDeQ

The cover photo dates to 1977. There were some issues with the original, so I used the Krea AI program to improve it a bit.

Various Artists - Uncovered Ladies, Volumes 1 and 2 (1973-2021) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

You may be familiar with a series of Beatles albums guest poster Mike Solof has made of special mixes he's made to Beatles songs. Now, he's turned that same mixing talent to editing some of his favorite songs sung by women. At my advice, he's split these edits into two albums. The first one, called "The Knowns," consist of famous songs that he has mixed to strip down some of the music to expose other parts that often go underappreciated. The second album, "The Lesser Knowns," does the exact same thing, but for songs that probably many listeners are unfamiliar with. 

As is his usual style, Mike explains much more in his PDF file, which is included in the download files.

Volume 1 is 59 minutes long, and Volume 2 is one hour long.

VOLUME 1: THE KNOWNS

01 Ray of Light [Mike's Mix] (Madonna)
02 In Your Room [Mike's Mix] (Bangles)
03 We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together [Taylor's Version] [Mike's Mix] (Taylor Swift)
04 Girl like Me [Mike's Mix] (Shakira & Black Eyed Peas)
05 Lotta Love [Mike's Mix] (Nicolette Larson)
06 Black Velvet [Mike's Mix] (Alannah Myles)
07 Midnight Train to Georgia [Mike's Mix] (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
08 Royals [Mike's Mix] (Lorde)
09 Complicated [Mike's Mix] (Avril Lavigne)
10 Bring Me to Life [Second Version] [Mike's Mix] (Evanescence)
11 Precious Things [Mike's Mix] (Tori Amos)
12 Chuck E.'s in Love [Mike's Mix] (Rickie Lee Jones)
13 Tumbling Dice [Mike's Mix] (Linda Ronstadt)
14 It's Too Late [Mike's Mix] (Gloria Estefan)
15 Valerie [68 version] [Mike's Mix] (Amy Winehouse)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16704293/VA-UNCOVERDLDIESTheKnwns_atse.zip.html

VOLUME 2: THE LESSER KNOWNS

01 Funhouse [Mike's Mix] (P!NK)
02 Azelea Flowers [Mike's Mix] (Karine Polwart)
03 Cut the Cord [Mike's Mix] (Charlotte Martin)
04 Sunday Morning After [Mike's Mix] (Amanda Marshall)
05 Chickenman [Mike's Mix] (Indigo Girls)
06 Eye in the Sky [Mike's Mix] (Jonatha Broooke)
07 So You Say [Mike's Mix] (Manhattan Transfer)
08 Take to the Sky [Mike's Mix] (Janis Ian)
09 Happy Home [Mike's Mix] (Paula Cole)
10 99.9F [Mike's Mix] (Suzanne Vega)
11 Need You Now [Mike's Mix] (Lady Antebellum)
12 Tattooed Heart [Mike's Mix] (Ariana Grande)
13 Baby Hold On [Mike's Mix] (Dixie Chicks)
14 Extraordinary [Mike's Mix] (Liz Phair)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16704295/VA-UNCOVERDLDIESTheLssrKnwns_atse.zip.html

Mike picked the cover art for both of the covers here. Since the title of this album is "Uncovered Ladies," he wanted photos to match that theme. Since the first album consists of famous songs, he has one of them, Shakira, on the cover. Since the second album is of mostly unknown songs, the cover is an unknown sexy woman.

Ron Sexsmith - Reasons to Believe, Volume 4: 2006-2009

Here's another album of Ron Sexsmith's non-album tracks, with the vast majority of them covers. I hope you're enjoying this series, because there are a bunch more volumes to come.

All but one song here has been officially released. That one song is the last one, "Ring Them Bells," which comes from a concert bootleg.

Four songs are extras for his 2008 album "Exit Strategy of the Soul." Tracks 6 and 7 are bonus tracks available only on the Japanese release (and boy were they hard to get!), while tracks 8 and 9 are more conventional bonus tracks. The other songs are a typical mix of appearances on other artists' albums, various artists collections, and movie soundtracks.

I think the song "Fall at Your Feet" deserves special mention. This was done for a live album by a flamenco guitar virtuoso named Jesse Cook. With Sexsmith on vocals and Cook on guitar, I dare say they actually outdid the excellent Crowded House original. 

Note that I'd be stretching things to call this a covers album, because six of the songs were written by Sexsmith, more than on any of the previous volumes in this series.

Once again, thanks to Pete the Greek for his help putting these albums together.

This album is 48 minutes long. 

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Love Henry - traditional
02 Dumptruck - Ron Sexsmith
03 Philadelphia - Neil Young
04 Moonlight Becomes You - Bing Crosby
05 Fall at Your Feet - Crowded House
06 Here Comes My Baby - Cat Stevens
07 Rain on the Roof - Ron Sexsmith
08 Seems to Me - Ron Sexsmith
09 Too Good to Be True - Ron Sexsmith
10 Devoted to You - Everly Brothers
11 Something to Hold On To [At Christmas] - Ron Sexsmith
12 Simple Grace - Chris Warren
13 Whatever It Takes - Ron Sexsmith
14 Ring Them Bells - Bob Dylan

Here's the usual song list:

01 Love Henry (Ron Sexsmith with Don Kerr)
02 Dumptruck (Ron Sexsmith)
03 Philadelphia (Ron Sexsmith)
04 Moonlight Becomes You (Ron Sexsmith)
05 Fall at Your Feet (Jesse Cook & Ron Sexsmith)
06 Here Comes My Baby (Ron Sexsmith)
07 Rain on the Roof (Ron Sexsmith)
08 Seems to Me (Ron Sexsmith)
09 Too Good to Be True (Ron Sexsmith)
10 Devoted to You (Melanie Doane with Ron Sexsmith)
11 Something to Hold On To [At Christmas] (Ron Sexsmith)
12 Simple Grace (Chris Warren & Ron Sexsmith)
13 Whatever It Takes (Michael Buble with Ron Sexsmith)
14 Ring Them Bells (Ron Sexsmith) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/16375332/RONSXSMTH2006-2009ResnstoBliveVlum4_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from the Sundance Film Festival in 2007.

Aimee Mann - Acoustic Versions, Volume 3: 2008-2012

It's been quite a while since I last posted an Aimee Mann acoustic album. But here's another one. This is the third out of four.

These are all alternate versions. Not all of them are solo acoustic, but they're more stripped down and usually without any drumming. All but one of the performances are unreleased. The one that has been released is "Freeway," from a various artists compilation album called "Live at KGSI." 

As for the unreleased ones, most of them are taken from concert bootlegs. However, the first two songs and the last two are from in-person radio station appearances. (That also was the case with "Freeway.") There are very, very few Aimee Mann soundboard or FM bootlegs, so some of these are from audience boots. But I did my best to maintain quality control with the sound quality. I also used some audio editing tricks (with UVR5 and MVSEP programs) to get rid of the crowd noise and improve the mix on some songs.

Note that all of the songs are Mann originals, generally from her most recent albums at the time of the recordings. But two of the songs, "Voices Carry" and "Coming Up Close," are from her time leading the band 'Til Tuesday in the late 1980s.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 31 Today (Aimee Mann)
02 Phoenix (Aimee Mann)
03 Red Vines (Aimee Mann)
04 Freeway (Aimee Mann)
05 The Great Beyond (Aimee Mann)
06 I Can't Get My Head Around It (Aimee Mann)
07 The Fall of the World's Own Optimist (Aimee Mann)
08 Voices Carry (Aimee Mann)
09 Coming Up Close (Aimee Mann)
10 Driving Sideways (Aimee Mann)
11 One (Aimee Mann)
12 Slip and Roll (Aimee Mann)
13 Charmer (Aimee Mann)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16288591/AIMEEMN2008-2012AcstcVrsnsVlum3_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from the Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tennessee in 2008.

Fiona Apple - Cover Songs, Volume 2: 2006-2011

As I said in my write-up for Volume 1 in this series, I hadn't known much about Fiona Apple's music, but I helped Mike Solof post an alternate version of one of her albums, and I liked what I heard. I checked to see if she had any non-album tracks worth sharing, and I discovered a cornucopia of cover versions, enough for four volumes. Here's the second volume.

Also as I said with my Volume 1 write-up, I was impressed with the depth of her musical knowledge as shown by the cover songs she's performed. That's even more evident with Volume 2. The vast majority of the songs here are good and interesting, yet obscure.

Three songs are unreleased. The first two were done in concert with Elvis Costello, and come from a bootleg. "Angel Eyes" appeared in the 2008 movie "Largo" but was never released on a soundtrack. 

The rest come from a mix of official sources. For instance, "Why Try to Change Me Now" and "I Walk a Little Faster" come from a Cy Coleman" tribute album and "Everyday" comes from a Buddy Holly Tribute album. Margaret Cho is a famous comedian who also has had a music career, and "Hey Big Dog" comes from one of her albums. See the mp3 tags for more details like that.

There are two bonus tracks, "Walking After Midnight" and "When I Get Low, I Get High." Those come from audience bootlegs of concerts, and the sound quality just wasn't good enough to be included with the rest of the songs.

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 I Want You (Fiona Apple with Elvis Costello)
02 Shabby Doll (Fiona Apple & Elvis Costello)
03 Sally's Song (Fiona Apple)
04 Still I (Fiona Apple & Christophe Deluy)
05 Angel Eyes (Fiona Apple)
06 Why Try to Change Me Now (Fiona Apple)
07 I Walk a Little Faster (Fiona Apple)
08 Hey Big Dog (Margaret Cho & Fiona Apple)
09 So Sleepy (Fiona Apple with Jon Brion & the Punch Brothers)
10 Everyday (Fiona Apple)

Walking After Midnight (Fiona Apple)
When I Get Low, I Get High (Fiona Apple with Nickel Creek)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16287854/FONAAPPL2006-2011CovrSngsVlum2_atse.zip.html

The cover photo shows Apple with her hair being blown in the wind on the roof of a building in New York City in May 1997. It doesn't fit the time period well, but I liked the photo.

Andy Sturmer - Scooby Songs - Non-Album Tracks (1999-2023)

Here's a strange album, probably one of the strangest I've ever posted on this blog. It mostly consists of songs about the Scooby Doo TV show and movies!

The only reason I care about such songs is due to the person who wrote and sang them: Andy Sturmer. If you're not familiar with his name, he was one of two main co-writers for the power pop group Jellyfish, and he sang most of their songs. In my opinion, he is a pop songwriting genius, and has a great voice. But after Jellyfish broke up in the early 1990s, he decided he didn't want to be in a band and live the rock and roll lifestyle. In all the years since then, he's kept a very, very low profile.

But that's not to say he hasn't still done music. He recorded an album's worth of demos around 1999, but never released him. Luckily, they were leaked to the public and you can find them here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/11/andy-sturmer-holding-out-for-something.html

He also got deeply involved with Japanese pop music. He's had a long association with the Japanese duo Puffy AmiYumi, writing many hit songs for them and producing even more. I like a lot of their music, despite the fact that the vast majority of their songs are sung in Japanese, even most of the ones written by Sturmer. (I have to assume he learned to speak Japanese since he has such a deep connection the Japanese music. He even sang a song in Japanese back when he was in Jellyfish.) I may post a Puffy AmiYumi compilation, if there's enough interest and if I get around to it.

Sturmer's relationship with AmiYumi blossomed in the late 1990s and continued into the 2000s. But increasingly after 2000, he found more work applying his ability to write catchy pop songs for commercials, TV shows, and the like. The vast majority of these had him write the songs but other people would sing them. However, by and by, he developed a deeper relationship with the people making new Scooby Doo TV shows and TV movies, especially TV movies. 

Frankly, these sound pretty bad, with titles like "LEGO Scooby Doo! Haunted Hollywood" and "Scooby Doo and WWE: Curse of the Speed Demon." (Keep in mind WWE is the name of a professional wrestler association.) Even so, songs were needed, and Sturmer has such a magic touch that even songs about the Scooby Doo gang sound pretty good to me.

The vast majority of the songs here are from various Scooby Doo related projects. However, the first three songs are from different projects, including a song for a Winnie the Pooh project and one for a Batman one. Also, the fifth song, "Himawari," sounds very different from all the rest. It's sung entirely in Japanese. It comes from a 2007 tribute album to the Japanese band Unicorn, another band that he has connections to, including production work.

On the downside, these songs are often short, and about Scooby Doo related themes. They also sometimes have weird noises over them, because none of these have been officially released on record as far as I know (other than "Himawari"), so sounds from the TV show or movie often overlapped with the music. I tried to clean that up as best I could (that's why four of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles, because those had more editing done than the others), but I couldn't clean everything.

On the upside, if you like the power pop hooks of Jellyfish, you should like this. It's somewhat different, more commercial and less rocking, for instance. But the songs are nothing if not catchy. Plus, I only selected the ones actually sung (or co-sung) by Sturmer, and he has a great voice. Furthermore, I don't think anyone has ever put together a collection of these songs before, so this should be new to just about everyone.

This album is pretty short, at only 31 minutes. However, Sturmer is still at it. The last two songs are from 2023. So I hope more songs will emerge and I'll be able to add to this album. Better yet, I hope he puts out some original music that doesn't consist of Scooby Doo songs!

01 Fourth of July Parade (Andy Sturmer)
02 The Little Things You Do (Andy Sturmer)
03 Batman, the Brave and the Bold [Instrumental] (Andy Sturmer)
04 When the Circus Comes to Town (Andy Sturmer)
05 Himawari (Andy Sturmer)
06 On the Case (Andy Sturmer)
07 I Don't Know about You (Andy Sturmer)
08 Appetite (Andy Sturmer)
09 Wake Me Up to Say Goodnight [Edit] (Andy Sturmer)
10 Brand New World [Edit] (Andy Sturmer)
11 Hollywood (Andy Sturmer)
12 No Pain, No Gain (Andy Sturmer)
13 Scooby-Doo, Scooby Don't [Edit] (Andy Sturmer)
14 Scoobystition [Edit] (Andy Sturmer)
15 Go Big (Andy Sturmer)
16 Where Only Heroes Go (Andy Sturmer)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16227824/ANDYSTRMR2003-2023_ScobySngs_atse.zip.html

I put the album cover together. I found a photo of Sturmer, but I have no idea where or when it's from. It's probably from his Jellyfish days, because he hasn't been photographed much (or at all) since then. I scattered some Scooby Doo characters around him, in keeping with the music content.

Marshall Crenshaw - The Human Jukebox, Volume 7: 2002-2009

Here's the seventh volume of Marshall Crenshaw performing cover songs that weren't on his studio albums. There are two more to go.

Only five of the 15 songs have been officially released. Those five are "I'm Barely Hangin' on to Me " (from a Johnny Paycheck tribute album), "Love Me Do" (from a Beatles tribute album), "(It's Going to Be A) Lonely Christmas" (from a Christmas-themed various artists compilation), and "Don't Leave Me This Way" (from a Ricky Nelson tribute album).

All the remaining songs are from concert bootlegs. The sound quality is generally high, with most of these soundboard recordings. I used audio editing software to remove the crowd noise wherever possible.

By the way, the song "Walk Hard" isn't actually a cover. Crenshaw wrote that as the theme song to the funny 2007 movie "Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story." However, in the movie and on the movie soundtrack the song was performed by the lead actor, John C. Reilly. Crenshaw never released a version of his own. This version comes from a concert bootleg.

This album is 49 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Taxman - Beatles
02 I've Gotta Be Me - Sammy Davis Jr.
03 Love You To - Beatles
04 You're a Wonderful One - Marvin Gaye
05 I'm Barely Hangin' on to Me - Johnny Paycheck
06 I Believe to My Soul - Ray Charles
07 Ticket to Ride - Beatles
08 Love Me Do - Beatles
09 [It's Going to Be A] Lonely Christmas  - Orioles
10 19th Nervous Breakdown - Rolling Stones
11 Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa - Gene Pitney
12 Don't Leave Me This Way - Ricky Nelson
13 Walk Hard [Demo] - John C. Reilly
14 Don't Look Back - Fine Young Cannibals
15 Didn't Want to Have to Do It - Lovin' Spoonful

Here's the usual song list:

01 Taxman (Marshall Crenshaw)
02 I've Gotta Be Me (Marshall Crenshaw)
03 Love You To (Marshall Crenshaw)
04 You're a Wonderful One (Marshall Crenshaw)
05 I'm Barely Hangin' on to Me (Marshall Crenshaw)
06 I Believe to My Soul (Marshall Crenshaw)
07 Ticket to Ride (Marshall Crenshaw)
08 Love Me Do (Marshall Crenshaw)
09 [It's Going to Be A] Lonely Christmas (Marshall Crenshaw)
10 19th Nervous Breakdown (Marshall Crenshaw)
11 Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa (Marshall Crenshaw)
12 Don't Leave Me This Way (Marshall Crenshaw)
13 Walk Hard [Demo] (Marshall Crenshaw)
14 Don't Look Back (Marshall Crenshaw)
15 Didn't Want to Have to Do It (Marshall Crenshaw) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/16191906/MARSHLLCRNSHW2002-2009_ThHumnJkebxVlum7_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from an appearance at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in June 2009.