Covered: Shel Silverstein - Volume 1: 1963-1972

Here's the next songwriter in my Covered series: Shel Silverstein. To say Silverstein was a colorful character is putting it mildly. Among his many talents was songwriting. I've found enough good covers of his songs for two volumes. Here's the first one.

Silverstein was born in Chicago in 1930, and raised there. He went to college, then spent a few years in the U.S. army. After that, he started to get known for his cartoons published in magazines. He especially had many of his cartoons published in Playboy Magazine, from the 1950s into the 1970s. He developed another creative career as the author of children's books. He eventually sold 20 million books. His most acclaimed books include "The Giving Tree," "Where the Sidewalk Ends," and "A Light in the Attic." He also had success writing for plays, movies, and TV shows.

So he was a creative Renaissance Man. But out focus here is on his songwriting. He was a music performer too, and released many albums, with the first one coming out in 1959. But he had a gruff voice with limited range. Also, it seems he very rarely performed in public, probably because he had so many other creative projects going on to want to go on long tours. So he was much more successful having others cover his songs.

His songwriting career started fairly slowly. He only had a few successes for most of the 1960s. But that changed drastically in 1969, when Johnny Cash had a huge hit with "A Boy Called Sue." That was such an unusual song, with lots of comedy, that many other musical acts went looking for other songs he'd written. It turns out his biggest fans were the band Dr. Hook. Their debut album "Doctor Hook," released in 1972, consisted entirely of songs written by Silverstein. And their second album, "Sloppy Seconds," released later in 1972, also consisted entirely of his songs! Those albums gave Dr. Hook their first two big hits, "Sylvia's Mother" and "The Cover of the Rolling Stone."

That takes us to the end of 1972. I'll write more about him in the second and last volume.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Hey Nelly Nelly (Judy Collins)
02 In the Hills of Shiloh (Modern Folk Quartet)
03 25 Minutes to Go (Johnny Cash)
04 The Mermaid (Glen Yarbrough)
05 Boa Constrictor (Johnny Cash)
06 The Unicorn (Irish Rovers)
07 A Boy Named Sue (Johnny Cash)
08 Once More With Feeling (Jerry Lee Lewis)
09 One's on the Way (Loretta Lynn)
10 I Call That True Love (Dr. Hook)
11 The Taker (Kris Kristofferson)
12 Freakin' at the Freakers' Ball (Dr. Hook)
13 On Susan's Floor (Gordon Lightfoot)
14 Sylvia's Mother (Dr. Hook)
16 The Cover of Rolling Stone (Dr. Hook)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Vdghqyqe

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/YfWSztH9v8E8ui0/file

The cover image is from 1972.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This album is 52 minutes long. 

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

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

alternate:

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

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

Dr. Hook - Old Grey Whistle Test, BBC Television Theatre, Shepherd's Bush, London, Britain, 11-25-1975

I was all set to post a "PBS Soundstage" episode starring the American band Dr. Hook. But then I noticed I have a BBC concert by that band that I meant to post months ago, but forgot about. So I'm posting that here first. The Soundstage episode will be posted soon as well.

 First off, note that this band was called "Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show" from its start in the late 1960s until 1975. But by the time this concert took place, they had shortened their name to just "Dr. Hook," so that's the name I'm using here.

Dr. Hook had a lot of success, mostly in the 1970s. Between 1972 and 1982, they had nine Top Forty songs in the U.S. But they don't seem to be that well remembered today. Perhaps that's because they covered a lot of musical ground, from jokey songs (mostly written by Shel Silverstein) to weepy ballads. Or perhaps it's because they were known for a wild and amusing stage show, which is hard to capture for posterity unless you were actually there to remember it. But in any case, they were an interesting band that always knew how to capture people's attention.

At the time of this concert, the band was best known for three songs: "The Cover of 'Rolling Stone,'" "Silvia's Mother," and "Only Sixteen." All three were Top Ten hits in the U.S. But strangely, neither of the first two were included here. In banter between songs, they hinted that the BBC didn't like "The Cover of 'Rolling Stone'" because it mentioned a specific product, which was against BBC policy at the time. (In 1970, the Kinks even had to rerecord "Lola" just to change the words "Coca Cola" to "cherry Cola" so it could get played by the BBC.) But the failure to include "Silvia's Mother" is even stranger, since it was their one and only British hit at the time, and a big one too, reaching Number Two in Britain in 1972.

Normally, the BBC TV show The Old Grey Whistle Test had several different musical acts perform on each episode. But sometimes they had one episode featuring just one act, and this was one such case. This remains officially unreleased.

Note that Dr. Hook did another BBC concert in 1980. I've found most of the songs for it on YouTube, but without any of the banter between songs, and very little applause. Also, I don't know the song order. So I'm not willing to post that one just yet. I hope a better version will emerge. (If you have one, please share!) If and when I do post that, this one will get renamed to "BBC Sessions, Volume 1." 

This album is 39 minutes long. 

01 talk (Dr. Hook)
02 The Millionaire (Dr. Hook)
03 talk (Dr. Hook)
04 The Yodel Song (Dr. Hook)
05 talk (Dr. Hook)
06 Get My Rocks Off (Dr. Hook)
07 talk (Dr. Hook)
08 Only Sixteen (Dr. Hook)
09 talk (Dr. Hook)
10 Rollin' in My Sweet Baby's Arms (Dr. Hook)
11 talk (Dr. Hook)
12 Everybody's Making It Big but Me (Dr. Hook)
13 Carry Me, Carrie (Dr. Hook)
14 Happy Trails (Dr. Hook)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eH97jR4b 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/mhbzRLq9KHuGi8a/file

The cover photo is a screenshot from this exact concert. I used Krea AI to improve the picture quality.