Mary Hopkin - All the Diamonds - Non-Album Tracks (1972-1973)

Here's another stray tracks album from British singer Mary Hopkin.

Hopkin had a lot of commercial success from 1968 to 1971. Then she pretty much dropped off the radar. She married music producer Tony Visconti in 1971, and soon stopped releasing any new music or performing concerts. Instead, she focused on starting a family. Only the first four songs here were officially released at the time, as the A- and B-sides to singles in 1972. Both singles stiffed in Britain and the US, although "Summertime Summertime" was a number five hit in the Netherlands. (Weirdly, it was released under the band name "Hobby Horse," but I've labeled it with Hopkin's name to keep things simple.)

If that's the case, how on Earth do I have enough material for this album? It turns out that even though she didn't release most of it at the time, she continued to do a fair amount of recording. These songs have come out on a series of archival releases that Hopkin has put out herself, decades later. The notes on these albums don't say much, but I used clues like copyright dates and lists of the musicians on the songs to figure out what years they were recorded. I may be slightly off on some of them, but I think I'm in the right ballpark.

In 1972 and 1973, Jim Croce went from being an unknown to becoming a big star, only to die in a plane crash in 1973. Hopkin must have been a big fan, because she did no less than four covers of his songs here: "A Long Time Ago," "One Less Set of Footsteps," "and "I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song." She also did songs by songwriters Bruce Cockburn ("All the Diamonds") and Emitt Rhodes ("Only Lovers Decide" and "Trust Once More").

In my opinion, Hopkin was recording a lot of good music. I suspect the main reason more of this wasn't released was that she was hit with a huge amount of fame at a young age, having possibly the biggest hit of the year in 1968 when she was only 18 years old, and she decided she didn't really want to be famous. So she mostly made music just for her own enjoyment in private.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Summertime Summertime (Mary Hopkin)
02 Sweet and Low (Mary Hopkin)
03 Mary Had a Baby (Mary Hopkin)
04 Cherry Free Carol (Mary Hopkin)
05 For All My Days (Mary Hopkin)
06 A Long Time Ago (Mary Hopkin)
07 What a Friend You Are (Mary Hopkin)
08 Life Begins Again (Mary Hopkin)
09 One Less Set of Footsteps (Mary Hopkin)
10 Only Lovers Decide (Mary Hopkin)
11 All the Diamonds (Mary Hopkin)
12 Next Time, This Time (Mary Hopkin)
13 Trust Once More (Mary Hopkin)
14 I'll Have to Say I Love You in a Song (Mary Hopkin)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15121788/MaryHop_1972-1973_AlltheDimonds_atse.zip.html

I looked for good photos of Hopkin from 1972 or 1973, but there weren't any. She still did some concerts in 1972, in fact there's a good official live album of her from that year ("Live at the Royal Festival Hall 1972," which I highly recommend if you're a fan), but I guess I was unlucky. So I used a photo that from slightly earlier, though I don't know the exact year.