Covered: Denny Randell & Sandy Linzer: 1964-1998

Here's another songwriting duo highlighted for my "Covered" series: Denny Randell and Sandy Linzer. I wouldn't be surprised at all if you have never heard of them. I hadn't either, until recently. But while they didn't write any massive hits, they have enough hits for a solid album.

Randell and Linzer were both born in 1941. They were introduced to each other in 1963, and immediately began co-writing songs. The first song here, "Dawn (Go Away)," was written by Linzer with Bob Gaudio, a member of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and an impressive songwriter in his own right. I've already posted a "Covered" album for the Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio songwriting team. 

Randell and Linzer wrote a lot of songs for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, sometimes with Gaudio. I've included three such songs here (and a Franki Valli solo one). But "Working My Way Back to You" was also a hit for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons in 1966. I included the 1979 version by the Spinners instead because that was a much bigger hit. In fact, it was the biggest hit this songwriting team ever had, reaching Number One in Britain and Number Two in the U.S. 

In a similar way, "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" was a small hit for Question Mark and the Mysterians in 1967, but not enough to make the U.S. Top Forty. I included the 1998 version by Smash Mouth instead, since that was a bigger hit, making the Top Forty chart.

Probably another success was the song "I Believe in You and Me." (Linzer wrote it with someone else.) Whitney Houston had a Top Five hit in the U.S. with it in 1996. But, frankly, I find Houston's typically histrionic over-singing hard to take. It turns out the song was first released by the Four Tops in 1982. So I've included that version instead. It wasn't a hit, but the singing is much better.

I've been posting a lot of "Covered" albums featuring songwriters who got started in the early or mid-1960s. Nearly all of them stopped having hits by the end of the 1970s, due to changing musical trends (except for later covers of their earlier songs). But Randell and Linzer were a rarity in that they kept writing more hits through the end of the 1980s. The last original hit here is "Talk It Over" by Grayson Hugh in 1989.

However, their songwriting partnership petered out at the end of the 1970s. The vast majority of the songs up to and including "Native New Yorker" in 1977 were written by both of them. But the songs that come after that were written by one of them or the other, usually with other songwriting partners (except for tracks 12 and 17, which I mentioned above are not the original hit versions). 

Both Randell and Linzer also worked in other aspects of the music business, for instance producing albums, and promoting and developing the musical careers of some acts. Both of them are still alive, and about 85 years old, as I write this in 2026.

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 Dawn [Go Away] (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
02 A Lover's Concerto (Toys)
03 Let's Hang On (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
04 Attack (Toys)
05 Opus 17 [Don't You Worry 'bout Me] (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
06 I'll Be Back Up on My Feet (Monkees)
07 Penny Arcade (Cyrkle)
08 Breakin' Down the Walls of Heartache (Johnny Johnson & the Bandwagon)
09 You Can Do Magic (Limmie & Family Cookin’)
10 Swearin' to God (Frankie Valli)
11 Native New Yorker (Odyssey)
12 Working My Way Back to You - Forgive Me Girl (Spinners)
13 Use It Up and Wear It Out (Odyssey)
14 I Believe in You and Me (Four Tops)
15 Fresh (Kool & the Gang)
16 Talk It Over (Grayson Hugh)
17 Can't Get Enough of You Baby (Smash Mouth)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xSguvDEM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/revo89NczNfZKK9/file

I guess it's pretty obvious that the cover is two photos put together in Photoshop, but I couldn't find any images of the two of them in the same frame. That's Sandy Linzer on the left, with the suit and tie, in 1977. I don't know the date of the Denny Randell photo on the right, but it's probably from the 1960s. 

Covered: Barry Mason & Les Reed: 1964-2002

Here's another album for my "Covered" series, highlighting the talents of singer-songwriters. This time, I'm tackling the songwriting team of Barry Mason and Les Reed.

I have to admit that I'm not terribly impressed by the songwriting of Barry Mason and Les Reed. But I'm posting this for two reasons. One, they wrote an undeniable number of big hit songs in the 1960s and 70s, so they shouldn't be forgotten. But also, they were part of a small group of professional songwriters working in Britain at the time, often writing songs with others, so they need to be included as part of that scene. At times, one or the other co-wrote songs with Geoff Stephens, Roger Greenaway, Roger Cook, Tony Macaulay, John Carter, Ken Lewis, Don Black, Mitch Murray, and Peter Callander. It's probable that you've heard of few to none of those songwriters. That was the case for me until I started making the "Covered" albums. But I'll bet you know a lot of their hit songs. I plan to post "Covered" albums for all of those other songwriters I just mentioned as well.

Both Mason and Reed were born in small towns in England in 1935. (Mason was born in Wigan and Reed was born in Woking.) Mason got started in profressional songwriting do to working as a producer. He later explained, "I met this boy called Tommy Bruce and I spent my last few pounds making a demo of him singing an old Fats Waller song, 'Ain't Misbehavin'' - and he had a hit. Suddenly, I was his manager, not knowing anything about the business. But the important thing was, I was in the business." 

However, Les Reed had the first big hit. "Tell Me When," written with Geoff Stephens, was a hit for the Applejacks in early 1964. Reed would go on to write many more songs with Stephens, though not as man as with Mason. Both of them worked with other songwriters from the start, and kept doing so. For instance, Mason co-wrote "She Just Satisfies" with Jimmy Page, future lead guitarist for Led Zeppelin. It was a failed solo single for Page in 1965.

I don't know how Mason and Reed met, but by 1964 they were writing songs together. Their first hit song together was "Here It Comes Again." The Fortunes took it to Number Four in Britain in 1965. After that, they began writing together more consistently, while still also working with other songwriters. In 1965, Reed had his first massive hit with "It's Not Unusual," which hit Number One in Britain and turned Tom Jones into a big star. It was co-written with Gordon Mills, a songwriter who also was Jones's manager. A year later, he had another banger with "There's a Kind of Hush," co-written with Geoff Stephens. Herman's Hermits had the big hit in 1966, but I chose to include a 1971 version by the Carpenters instead, since I put the Herman's Hermits version on a different "Covered" album. 

Their first really huge smash hit together was "The Last Waltz." Although Engelbert Humperdinck only had a Top Forty hit with it in the U.S., it Britain it went all the way to Number One in 1967. It stayed on top for five weeks, making it one of the best selling songs of the year.

I'm not a fan of "The Last Waltz." It's a sappy love song, oversung by Humperdinck, and overproduced, with lots of strings. I find it mystifying it dominated the charts for a portion of 1967, when that was one of the best years of hit music ever, in my opinion. I've included it because it's such a big hit, and so pivotal in their careers. But Mason and Reed began writing a lot of hit songs in that same style. I've elected to not include many of them, even when they were big hits, if I wasn't that impressed with them as songs.

Most of the songs here were co-written by Mason and Reed. I'll only mention the other exceptions. "Daughter of Darkness" was another one written by Mason and Stephens. "A Man without Love" was written by Mason with three other songwriters.n"Love Me Tonight" was written by Mason with two others. "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" was written by Mason and Tony Macaulay. I put the 1970 hit version by Edison Lighthouse and a "Covered" album for Macaulay, so I chose a interesting, non-hit version here. "There Goes My First Love" was written by Mason with Roger Greenaway.

Mason and Reed had most of their success in the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s, both together and with other songwriters. Their songwriting partnership faded away around the same time the hits slowed down. Reed moved into writing more for movie soundtracks and musical plays. Mason continued writing the occasional hit with other songwriters. He even co-wrote a Top 40 song as late as 2002, which is the last song here, "Tell Me Why." Reed died in 2019 at the age of 83. Mason died in 2021 at the age of 85.

Here's the Wikipedia link for Mason:

Barry Mason - Wikipedia

And here's the one for Reed:

Les Reed (songwriter) - Wikipedia  

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Don't Turn Around (Merseybeats)
02 Tell Me When (Applejacks)
03 Here It Comes Again (Fortunes)
04 It's Not Unusual (Tom Jones)
05 Leave a Little Love (Lulu)
06 The Last Waltz (Engelbert Humperdinck)
07 Delilah (Tom Jones)
08 Kiss Me Goodbye (Petula Clark)
09 Les Bicyclettes de Belsize (Johnny Worth)
10 Love Me Tonight (Tom Jones)
11 A Man without Love (Engelbert Humperdinck)
12 Daughter of Darkness (Tom Jones)
13 There Goes My First Love (Drifters)
14 Good Love Can Never Die (Alvin Stardust)
15 There's a Kind of Hush (Carpenters)
16 Love Grows [Where My Rosemary Goes] (Freedy Johnston)
17 Tell Me Why (Declan Galbraith)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/hVs6Rga9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0Qd4g12HWY8WrK4/file

The cover image shows Barry Mason on the left and Les Reed on the right. I took two different pictures and put them together, using Photoshop. The Mason one is from 1966 and the Reed one is from 1967. Both were originally in black and white, but I colorized them with the use of the Kolorize program.

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 9: 1975-1976

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

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

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

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

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

This album is 45 minutes long. 

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NFM1F2MZ

alternate:

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

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

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: 1975

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

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

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

 

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

This album is 47 minutes long.

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/c2drG2Ns

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/yR9mrZgc9pp0Iys/file

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

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: 1975

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

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

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

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

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

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

This album is 48 minutes long.

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/j2PqwJkQ

alternate:

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

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

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: 1973-1975

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

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

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

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

This album is 49 minutes long. 

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/z563zgfb

alternate:

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

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

Covered: Van McCoy, Best Of: 1962-1985

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

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Van McCoy - Wikipedia 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long. 

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pgC1na27

alternate:

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

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

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: 1971-1972

I recently discovered a big amount of Lulu performances for the BBC, so much so that I'm expanding the four albums I'd previously posted into nine albums. This is almost entirely due to finding many more performances from the BBC TV shows she hosted. So here's a fifth volume.

Previously, I'd had one volume stretching from 1971 to 1975 (the old "Volume 4," now deleted). Nearly all of what had been on that volume is on this volume: tracks 1 through 8, and 10 through 14. So the only new tracks are 9 and 15. That means that virtually all the songs on the volumes after this will be new.

Although Lulu had a BBC TV show of her own during this time period, called "It's Lulu," I could find very few songs from this time period from that show. Actually, I only found two: "The More I See You," and the bonus track, "Scarborough Fair." (That's a bonus track due to poor sound quality.) So there's a possibility that many more songs from these years will eventually emerge, if some more recordings of those TV shows were saved somewhere. 

Instead, most of the songs on this album come from performances for the "Top of the Pops" BBC radio show (not to be confused with the BBC TV show of the same name). That makes up tracks 1 through 7 and 12 through 14. Note that you'll see "[Edit]" in the titles of a lot of those songs. That's due to the usual problem of BBC radio recordings from this era of DJs talking over the music. I did my usual editing, using the UVR5 program to remove the talking while keeping the music.

That leaves just tracks 8 through 11, and 15. All of those come from other BBC TV shows that had Lulu on as a guest. If you want specific details, please check the mp3 tags, as usual. These songs generally had audience applause. But I got rid of most of that using the UVR5 program. 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is generally excellent, though it varies some. 

This album is 46 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Bridge Over Troubled Water [Edit] (Lulu)
02 You've Gotta Believe in Love [Edit] (Lulu)
03 Save the Country (Lulu)
04 Get Ready [Edit] (Lulu)
05 I Got Love [Edit] (Lulu)
06 Resurrection Shuffle [Edit] (Lulu)
07 Everybody's Got to Clap (Lulu)
08 It Don't Come Easy (Lulu)
09 The More I See You (Lulu with Dudley Moore)
10 Just a Little Lovin' (Lulu)
11 Nights in White Satin (Lulu)
12 Amazing Grace (Lulu)
13 It Takes a Real Man [To Bring Out the Woman in Me] (Lulu)
14 Even If I Could Change [Edit] (Lulu)
15 My Father's House (Lulu with the Young Generation)

Scarborough Fair (Dusty Springfield & Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/SFJw5zRP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/chnsyalqmBk42N6/file

I don't know anything about the cover photo except it's "circa 1972."

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.

Lulu - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: 1969-1971

If you think I've posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 4" for Lulu, you're not wrong. I recently discovered a ton of Lulu's BBC material that I'd missed before. In fact, I found so much that previously I'd posted four volumes, but now I'll be posting a total of nine! The vast majority of the new stuff is from the 1970s, especially 1975, but there is some music from the late 1960s. There are so many changes that I got rid of the old "Volume 4" and I'm replacing it with this one. I'd guess about half of the songs on this revamped volume are new.

Note also that I radically overhauled "Volume 3." I added a bunch of songs to that, and moved some other songs from that one to this one. So if you're interested in this at all, I strongly suggest you download the revised version of that album. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/10/lulu-bbc-sessions-volume-3-1968-1972.html

The first song is the only one not actually from the BBC. It's a duet with Johnny Cash, from Cash's own TV show. Most of the next bunch of songs are from the BBC radio show "Top of the Pops." Specifically, tracks 2 through 11 (with the exception of "Boom Bang a Bang," which was from a BBC TV special), plus track 19. These come from a musical associate named Marley, who sent me a bunch of performances from the BBC radio show "Top of the Pops." So a big thanks to him.

I mentioned in the previous volume that Lulu had her own BBC TV show from 1968 to 1975. I haven't been able to find many songs from her TV show from this time period, but I did find a handful from 1970. Those make up tracks 12 through 17. Track 18 ("Saved") is from another BBC TV show.

All of the performances here are officially unreleased. One snag with the new "Top of the Pops" tracks is that most of them had BBC DJs talking over the music. But I was able to remove the talking and keep the underlying music thanks to the X-Minus audio editing program. Those are the ones with " [Edit]" in their titles. I also got rid of the crowd noise as best I could for the songs that had that, mostly the TV show-sourced ones.

This album is 48 minutes long. 

01 Games People Play (Lulu & Johnny Cash)
02 Oh Me, Oh My [I'm a Fool for You Baby] [Edit] (Lulu)
03 Sweep Around Your Own Back Door [Edit] (Lulu)
04 The Letter [Edit] (Lulu)
05 Boom Bang a Bang (Lulu)
06 Feelin' Alright [Edit] (Lulu)
07 Marley Purt Drive [Edit] (Lulu)
08 Mr. Bojangles [Edit] (Lulu)
09 Dirty Old Man [Edit] (Lulu)
10 Hum a Song [From Your Heart] [Edit] (Lulu)
11 Show Me [Edit] (Lulu)
12 Girl Talk (Lulu & Cass Elliot)
13 Sugar, Sugar (Lulu, Dudley Moore & Cass Elliot)
14 Keep the Customer Satisfied (Lulu)
15 Sweet Little Sixteen - Long Tall Sally - Blue Suede Shoes (Lulu)
16 Free the People (Dusty Springfield & Lulu)
17 Joy to the World (Dusty Springfield & Lulu)
18 Saved (Lulu)
19 Help [Edit] (Lulu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iCGFCJJK 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/uYCahxSGauK9xJd/file

The cover art photo comes from a BBC TV show in 1971, but I don't know the details.

Michael McDonald & Friends - A Tribute to Motown, PBS Soundstage, Nashville, TN, 6-2005

Here is another episode of the great "PBS Soundstage" T.V. show. This one stars, Michael McDonald, but it has a bunch of special guests as well: Billy Preston, Toni Braxton, Take 6, and Indie.Arie. All the songs they performed are covers of Motown classics from the 1960s and 70s.

McDonald has been on the Soundstage show quite a lot. He was a key member of the Doobie Brothers when they hosted the show in 1979. He also hosted it in 2003 with some other guests. And he was a guest on an episode hosted by Kenny Loggins. And I believe he will be on at least one more episode that I have yet to post.

In this case, I would bet the show had him back because of the Motown theme to the episode, meaning that the songs were different from the ones he played on other episodes. At the time he was going through quite a Motown phase. In 2003, he released an all covers album just called "Motown," And in 2004, he released a sequel called "Motown 2." The special guests were not on those albums, with the exception of Toni Braxton. The duet she sang here with McDonald, "Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)," also appeared as a duet on his "Motown 2" album. 

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

An hour and six minutes long. 

01 I Second That Emotion (Michael McDonald)
02 talk (Michael McDonald)
03 I Was Made to Love Her (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
04 talk (Michael McDonald)
05 What's Going On (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
06 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Michael McDonald)
07 talk (Michael McDonald)
08 All in Love Is Fair (Michael McDonald)
09 talk (Michael McDonald)
10 Stop, Look, Listen [To Your Heart] (Michael McDonald & Toni Braxton)
11 talk (Michael McDonald)
12 Baby I'm for Real (Michael McDonald)
13 talk (Michael McDonald)
14 Tracks of My Tears (Michael McDonald & Take 6)
15 talk (Michael McDonald)
16 Since I Lost My Baby (Michael McDonald & Take 6)
17 talk (Michael McDonald)
18 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Michael McDonald)
19 talk (Michael McDonald)
20 You're All I Need to Get By (Michael McDonald & India.Arie)
21 Ain't No Mountain High Enough - Ain't Nothing like the Real Thing (Michael McDonald & India.Arie)
22 talk (Michael McDonald)
23 Nowhere to Run (Michael McDonald & Billy Preston)
24 talk (Michael McDonald) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vR3Pfbkj 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/4RldNOOrxv6NA5X/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. It shows Toni Braxton standing in the foreground and Michael McDonald sitting at the keyboards further back. 

Covered: Neil Young, Volume 10: 2023-2026

Finally, here's the tenth and last volume for the Neil Young "Covered" series. A big thanks again to Fabio from Rio for doing most of the work to put these together.

Before I go to Fabio's notes about the songs, I want to mention something. My rule here was to include only one cover version of each song (and no versions performed by Young himself). We kept to that, except for two songs, "Heart of Gold" and "Cortez the Killer," where we had two versions. Now that I'm posting this last volume, you can look over all the volumes and see just what songs we included or didn't include. Let us know if you think there are any great Young songs that we didn't include a cover for.

Also, Fabio says he's going to make a kind of "extras" album or albums, consisting of cover versions that he liked that didn't make it here. That's a good opportunity to have second covers of some songs, instead of just one. So if you have ideas of covers that you don't see here, please post them in the comments. I'm sure Fabio will look those over and take that feedback into consideration for his "extras."

One more thing. Fabio wanted this to end on a strong song Young wrote in recent years, specifically "Green Is Blue." But we didn't have a good cover version for that one. So Fabio reached out to the Neil Young "Rust" community. A person named Jeff Winter stepped up and recorded a version of that song just for this collection. So thanks to Jeff as well.

Now, here's Fabio's comments about this time period. 

More than sixty years after Neil Young first emerged in the folk clubs of Toronto, Canada, and later with Buffalo Springfield in the mid-1960s, his songs continue to travel across generations, genres, and continents. The covers gathered throughout these ten volumes show how Young's catalog has become a kind of shared musical language: interpreted by classic rock veterans, indie artists, folk revivalists, Americana performers, and even bedroom musicians recording from home studios.

In recent years this process has only accelerated. Streaming platforms, Bandcamp releases, and fan communities have made it easier than ever for musicians to reinterpret songs from every era of Young's career - from the fragile acoustic ballads of the early seventies to the politically charged songs of his later decades. At the same time, Young himself has continued to release new music and expand his archival releases, ensuring that both longtime fans and new listeners keep rediscovering the depth of his songwriting.

This final volume works almost like an epilogue to the project: a reminder that Neil Young's songs remain very much alive, constantly finding new voices and new meanings. Even when he will no longer be with us - after all, we are all mortals - as long as musicians keep picking up guitars or sitting down at a piano, these songs will continue their journey.

As a final note, I'd like to add that putting together this collection has been both a challenge and a pleasure. Revisiting more than six decades of songwriting made it clear once again how remarkably durable Neil Young's music is: the same songs can survive countless reinterpretations while still retaining their emotional core.

My thanks go to Paul for the idea, the patience, and the many suggestions along the way - and also to the worldwide community of fans, collectors and musicians (the "Rusties") who keep discovering, performing and sharing these songs. Without that ongoing enthusiasm, projects like this would hardly be possible.

Most of all, this collection is simply a tribute to one of the most distinctive songwriters of the last sixty years. As long as people continue to listen to, perform and sing these songs, Young's music won't burn out nor will it rust. And his legacy will never fade away. 

--- 

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 six minutes long.

01 Ten Men Working (Enrico Di Bella)
02 Berlin (Jens Thomas)
03 There’s a World (Sufjan Stevens)
04 Hitchhiker (Minus 5)
05 Out of My Mind (Minus 5)
06 Crime in the City [Sixty to Zero Part 1] (Paul Besselle)
07 No More (Gil Michael)
08 One of These Days (Kassi Valazza)
09 Borrowed Tune (Chris Eckman)
10 Lookin' for a Love (Jeffrey Martin)
11 Philadelphia (Brandi Carlile)
12 White Line (Kurt Vile)
13 Cowgirl in the Sand (Anders Osborne)
14 Here We Are in the Years (Sharon Van Etten)
15 Sail Away (Tyler Ramsey & Carl Broemel)
16 Green Is Blue (Jeff Winter)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FNWt2ezZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5h1gcKPqlUwhS7q/file

The cover photo is from 2019. 

Dionne Warwick - Dionne, Burt and Hal: The Definitive Songbook, Bonus Volume: Foriegn Language Versions, 1964-1967 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's the finale for guest poster Mike Solof's collection of all the songs Dionne Warwick sang that were written by Hal David and/or Burt Bacharach. This is a bonus volume. That's because, while Mike was putting his collection together, he noticed that Warwick sang a number of Bacharach-David songs in foreign languages. There weren't a lot, but it's enough for a short album. 

Everything here is from 1964 to 1967. She sang three songs in French, then two songs in German, and finally four songs in Italian. All were released as singles in those countries. So this is an interesting curiosity, especially if you speak any of those languages.

This album is 28 minutes long. 

01 Un Toit ne Suffit Pas [A House Is Not a Home] [French Version] (Dionne Warwick)
02 Reach Out for Me [French Version] (Dionne Warwick)
03 How Many Days of Sadness [French Version] (Dionne Warwick)
04 You'll Never Get to Heaven [If You Break My Heart] [German Version] (Dionne Warwick)
05 Walk On By [German Version] (Dionne Warwick)
06 A House Is Not a Home [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)
07 The Windows of the World [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)
08 Walk Little Dolly [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)
09 Walk On By [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bD6LzqHD

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Mcve2ptBTCaZJi9/file

The cover photo was taken near the Nice Jazz Festival in Nice, France, on July 11, 1987. Since this is a foreign language version album, we wanted a photo of her in one of the foreign countries here, though unfortunately you totally can't tell that from the photo.

Covered: Neil Young, Volume 9: 2020-2022

Here's the ninth volume of the "Covered" series for Neil Young. We're getting near the end, with only one more volume after this. Once again, thanks to Fabio from Rio for doing most of the work putting this together. Here's Fabio's summary of this time period:

The early 2020s brought an unexpected new chapter in the long afterlife of Neil Young's songs. During the Covid pandemic years, musicians around the world turned to home recordings, livestream performances, and online collaborations. In that environment, Young's catalog proved once again remarkably adaptable: intimate acoustic songs worked perfectly in stripped-down home recordings, while his electric epics continued to inspire roots-rock and Americana bands. At the same time, Young himself remained a visible cultural figure, both through the expanding Neil Young Archives project and through public debates about streaming platforms and artists' rights. The covers in this volume reflect that moment: a mixture of independent artists, online collaborations, and established performers revisiting songs from every phase of 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 three minutes long.

01 Razor Love (Brandon Wolfe Scott with Stacey)
02 Unknown Legend (Mandolin Orange)
03 Eldorado (Sioux 13)
04 No Wonder (Blue Raincoat)
05 Lookout Joe (Marc Ford)
06 Be the Rain (Gil Michaels)
07 I'm the Ocean (Dark Wrangler)
08 It's a Dream (Cody Simpson & Ben Harper)
09 Surfer Joe and Moe the Sleaze (Rust for Glory)
10 Comes a Time (Jeff & Laura)
11 When God Made Me (Ronnie Drew & Eleanor Shanley)
12 Love in Mind (Cowboy Junkies)
13 Mother Earth (Zach)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zDQePUMC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/IkOROTCq0hkhVhu/file

The cover photo is from 2015. 

Dionne Warwick - Dionne, Burt and Hal: The Definitive Songbook, Volume 7: 1987-2012 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

I'm back from my two week vacation from Peru. It got off to a rough start due to the plane flight there, which I posted about. But everything else since then went great, with no more problems. :) I even had good weather the whole time, despite it being the rainy season there.

Here's the last album in a series that contains all the songs written by Hal David and/or Burt Bacharach and sung by Dionne Warwick. Though note that there's a bonus album of sorts still to come that will be explained later.

As I mentioned in Volume 6, the Bacharach-David songwriting partnership broke up around 1973, and they didn't collaborate for a long time after that. The second half of Volume 6 consisted entirely of songs written by Bacharach and another successful songwriter, Carole Bayer Sager. (In fact, Bacharach and Sager were married for a few years around this time). 

The Bacharach and Sager collaboration continued for a little while. The first songs are from a 1987, and are all co-written by those two. One song, "Love Power," was a hit. After that, there are a bunch of songs from 1989 to 2011, one song per year with many years skipped. "Sunny Weather Lover" from 1993 is a key song here, because it's the first song Bacharach and David wrote together since about 1972. However, that was a rare collaboration. Their songwriting partnership didn't reignite after that. (They also co-wrote two songs for the 2000 movie "Isn't She Great," but Warwick didn't sing them.) Furthermore, both of them were simply getting older and didn't write songs nearly as often as they used to. 

So the rest of the songs were written by Bacharach with others or David with others. For instance, "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" was a Number One hit in the U.S. for Christopher Cross in 1981, and was written by Bacharach with Sager and two others. Track 101 is an unreleased live version by Warwick recorded in 2005.

The last four songs are from a 2012 album called "Now." It was billed as a celebration of Bacharach and David songs. However, it mostly consisted of rerecordings of old hits. The four new songs, presented here, were written by either Bacharach with others or David with others. For instance, "99 Miles from L.A." was written by David with Albert Hammond, and was a hit for Hammond in 1975. 

Hal David died in 2012, so that ended the chance for any more songs written by both of them. Bacharach died in 2023.

While I was on vacation, a commenter noted that a song, "(Theme From) The Valley of the Dolls" was included on Volume 4 of this series, despite neither Bacharach nor David being involved in writing it. Now that I'm back home, I was able to repost that album with that song removed. That also means that the numbering of all the songs after that has been fixed as well. So you might want to redownload Volumes 4, 5, and 6 if you're a stickler about such things. Also, since I had complaints about the cover art for Volume 1, I've posted an alternate version of the cover at the bottom of my write-up for that album that uses the original black and white photo, in case anyone wants that.

Thanks again to Mike Solof for putting this together.   

This album is one hour long. 

092 Take Good Care of You and Me (Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne)
093 Love Power (Dionne Warwick & Jeffrey Osborne)
094 In a World Such as This (Dionne Warwick)
095 Heartbreak of Love (Dionne Warwick & June Pointer)
096 On My Own (Dionne Warwick)
097 Sunny Weather Lover (Dionne Warwick)
098 Captives of the Heart (Dionne Warwick)
099 If I Want To (Dionne Warwick)
100 On My Way (Dionne Warwick)
101 Arthur's Theme [Best That You Can Do] (Dionne Warwick)
102 Keep Me in Mind (Dionne Warwick)
103 99 Miles from L.A. (Dionne Warwick)
104 Is There Anybody Out There (Dionne Warwick)
105 It Was Almost like a Song (Dionne Warwick)
106 Love Is Still the Answer (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ieF2gBUW

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/DKTsSUgj9dgKC43/file

The cover photo shows her in concert in an unknown location, in February 1989.

Covered: Neil Young, Volume 8: 2016-2020

As I write this, I’m sitting in an airplane, about to fly back to the U.S. I’m glad to see my plan to keep posting albums while on vacation has worked out. 

Here’s the next album in the Neil Young “Covered” series. There are two albums to go after this one. Once more, thanks to Fabio from Rio from doing most of the heavy lifting for these albums. Here is the intro to his notes:

By the late 2010s, Neil Young's songwriting had fully entered the digital age of reinterpretation. Covers were no longer limited to traditional tribute albums or major-label releases. Many now emerged through independent recordings, Bandcamp releases, streaming platforms, and fan communities online. At the same time, a younger generation of indie-folk, Americana, and roots musicians continued to rediscover Young's catalog, often gravitating toward the emotional honesty and melodic simplicity that have always defined his best work. Meanwhile, Young himself remained active both musically and politically, releasing albums that addressed environmental and social issues while also opening vast portions of his archival material through the Neil Young Archives project. The performances collected here reflect that ecosystem: established artists, roots musicians, and independent performers revisiting both classics and deep cuts from across his remarkable 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 three minutes long. 

01 Country Girl (Sanford Markley & Paul Cronin)
02 Hangin' on a Limb (Lars Hall & Saga Eserstam)
03 Don't Be Denied (Norah Jones)
04 Long May You Run (Sarah Jane Scouten & the Paperboys)
05 My My, Hey Hey [Out of the Blue] (Keller Williams)
06 Alabama (Tedeschi Trucks Band)
07 Nothing Is Perfect (Change Partners)
08 Time Fades Away (Harrison Clock)
09 Heart of Gold (Charles Bradley)
10 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong (Kelley Suttenfield)
11 Vampire Blues (Rayland Baxter)
12 Sample and Hold (Joi Noir)
13 Buffalo Springfield Again (Danielle Brilo)
14 Everybody's Alone (Cajsalisa Ejemyr)
15 Through My Sails (Jeff Rosenstock & Laura Stevenson)
16 Light a Candle (Scott the Hoople)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AFArzv51

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/GG7osrRgekL0szG/file

The cover photo is from 2008.

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 7: 2012-2016

Here we go with another Neil Young “Covered” album. Since I’m still on vacation, I’ll keep this short. Once again, thanks to Fabio from Rio for putting this together. And here’s his comments:

By the early 2010s, Neil Young's influence had spread even further across musical generations. Indie folk, alt-country, and singer-songwriter circles were openly embracing the emotional directness and melodic simplicity that had always defined Young's songwriting. At the same time, the digital era had changed how tribute recordings appeared: covers increasingly emerged from online projects, independent releases, and small tribute compilations rather than traditional label-driven albums. Young himself remained highly visible during this period, releasing politically engaged records and increasingly speaking out on environmental issues, while continuing to inspire younger artists discovering his catalog for the first time. The recordings in this volume reflect that diverse ecosystem: indie reinterpretations, roots-oriented performances, and the occasional stylistic surprise.

--- 

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 five minutes long.

01 Goin' Back (Beth Orton)
02 Southern Pacific (Jeff Monkman)
03 Thrasher (Andy Hill & Renee Safier)
04 Prime of Life (Gov't Mule)
05 On the Beach [CFCF Remix] (Joakim)
06 Stringman (Stevie Pling)
07 On the Way Home (Ocean Colour Scene)
08 Out on the Weekend (Lee Ann Womack)
09 Revolution Blues (Gov't Mule)
10 Sea of Madness (Ida Sand)
11 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Bluebeaters)
12 Motion Pictures (Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift)
13 Silver and Gold (Frank Fischer & Lavina Williams)
14 Bandit (Melanie Age)
15 Who's Gonna Stand Up (Anne Rynne)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UrGS6KRt

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/c4iwuykMMALNvdc/file

The cover photo is from 1993. Peter Buck of R.E.M. was leaning up against his shoulder, but I removed him using Photoshop. 

Dionne Warwick - Dionne, Burt and Hal: The Definitive Songbook, Volume 5: 1969-1970 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here’s another album of Dionne Warwick singing all the songs written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach. Once again, thanks to Mike Solof for putting these albums together.

Warwick, David, and Bacharach had a great thing going from about 1963 until 1970. They had hit after hit after hit. The end of this album marks the end of that golden era. The three of them would still collaborate together, but much more intermittently. There are two more volumes dealing with those later years.

This album is 53 minutes long.

061 I'll Never Fall in Love Again (Dionne Warwick)
062 Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head (Dionne Warwick)
063 Dream Sweet Dreamer (Dionne Warwick)
064 Knowing When to Leave (Dionne Warwick)
065 Let Me Go to Him (Dionne Warwick)
066 Loneliness Remembers What Happiness Forgets (Dionne Warwick)
067 Paper Mache (Dionne Warwick)
068 The Wine Is Young (Dionne Warwick)
069 Check Out Time (Dionne Warwick)
070 Make It Easy on Yourself (Dionne Warwick)
071 The Green Grass Starts to Grow (Dionne Warwick)
072 The Very First Person I Met [In California] (Dionne Warwick)
073 They Don't Give Medals to Yesterday's Heroes (Dionne Warwick)
074 Walk the Way You Talk (Dionne Warwick)
075 The Look of Love (Dionne Warwick)
076 Who Gets the Guy (Dionne Warwick)
077 Only Love Can Break a Heart (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nMDebKmr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/4j7hPKMNNw5COdY/file

The cover photo shows her on the Engelbert Humperdinck TV Show some time in 1969. 

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.