Honeybus - Taking the Heart Out of Love - Non-Album Tracks (1969-1970)

I've been wanting to post this album for a long time. I posted the first Honeybus stray tracks album back in early 2021. This is the second. I had to hold back on posting this one because there were a few key songs I couldn't find anywhere. Happily, a couple of months ago (as I write this in July 2023), an official BBC compilation album was released, containing those missing songs. So now a key logjam has been broken. Not only can I post this album, but I have two more stray tracks albums after this, plus two BBC albums.

As I mentioned in my previous Honeybus, this British band really got screwed by their record company. Despite having a Top Ten hit in 1968 with "I Can't Let Maggie Go," they weren't allowed to record an album at the time. They were coming up with lots of good, original songs, but only were able to release a few on singles - only five singles from 1967 to 1969, and none in 1970. 

That means there are only two songs officially released by Honeybus at the time, the first two, which were the A- and B-sides of a single. Plus, the last song was recorded in 1970, but not released as a B-side until 1972. However, there are four more singles here, because different band members released "solo" singles in 1969. I put "solo" in quote marks because I read an interview with a band member who said all these solo projects were really Honeybus recordings. It seems the record company didn't think the Honeybus name would help sales, so they wanted releases under different names. 

So, in addition to all those A- and B-sides of various "solo" singles (tracks 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 13), we have four more songs that were recorded for the BBC. Those are tracks 9 through 12. As I mentioned above, these were recently officially released, and they generally sound very good. It's such a shame that the record company wouldn't let them release an album, or more singles, because these are very good songs. In fact, I'd say "Walking Aphrodisiac" in particular is one of my favorites from them.

As usual with BBC recordings from this time, there's the occasional problem of BBC DJs talking over the music. That happened with two songs here, "Too Long" and "You Live Good Life." Also as usual, I wiped that talking using the UVR5 audio editing program.

Note that at the same time I'm posting this, I've made some changes to the band's earlier stray tracks album, "I Can't Let Maggie Go." Most importantly, I added the song "Incredibly Bad," which in contraction to its title is actually a very good song. Here's the link, if you want to get the updated version of that:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/03/honeybus-i-cant-let-maggie-go-various.html

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 She Sold Blackpool Rock (Honeybus)
02 Would You Believe (Honeybus)
03 Mary, Mary (Kelly [Jim Kelly & Honeybus])
04 Reverend Richard Bailey (Kelly [Jim Kelly & Honeybus])
05 I'm a Gambler (Lace [Pete Dello & Honeybus])
06 Go Away (Lace [Pete Dello & Honeybus])
07 Taking the Heart Out of Love (Magic Valley [Pete Dello & Honeybus])
08 Uptight Basil (Magic Valley [Pete Dello & Honeybus])
09 My Suzanne (Honeybus)
10 Too Long [Edit] (Honeybus)
11 Walking Aphrodisiac (Honeybus)
12 You Live Good Life [Edit] (Honeybus)
13 Grannie, Grannie (Colin Hare & Honeybus)
14 The Right to Choose (Honeybus)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15451569/Honeybs_1969-1970_TakngtheHeartOutofLve_atse.zip.html

As with the earlier stray tracks album, I used some of the band's singles covers to help with making the cover here. In particular, I used the text and colors for the top section from the single "Girl of Independent Means." But I changed the text to "Taking the Heart Out of Love." But the lower half is a photo I found from a different source.