Covered: Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, Volume 2: 1969-2005

NOTE: If you donwloaded Volume One before you saw this, you might have gotten an early version. I added a few songs to it, and changed the scope from ending in 1968 to ending in 1969. So if that's the case, you might want to redownload that one.

Here's the second and last Covered album for the songwriting (and husband and wife) team of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson.

As this volume began, Ashford and Simpson were writing songs exclusively for Motown Records artists. Both of them were very talented singers, and had all the ingredients to be stars. They'd even released some songs as a duet and individually as far back as 1964, but those hadn't come out on major labels and had no success. 

Motown put out two Simpson solo albums, one in 1971 and the other in 1972. But those received very little promotion and went unnoticed by the public. Motown also refused to allow the duo to release an album of hit songs they'd written for others. The truth was, Motown had lots of talented performers, but very few talented songwriters, so the company wanted to keep them writing songs instead of becoming a successful musical act.

For a while, this formula worked. As I mentioned in Volume 1, Ashford and Simpson especially became known for writing the hit songs by the duo of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. I haven't included all of them, and I especially strived to include versions of these songs by others, to prevent this from ending up kind of like a Gaye and Terrell hits album. But here are all the hits they wrote for that duo, in order of release:

Ain't No Mountain High Enough
Your Precious Love
Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing
You're All I Need to Get By
Keep On Lovin' Me Honey
You Ain't Livin' Till You're Lovin'
Good Lovin' Ain't Easy to Come By
The Onion Song
What You Gave Me
California Soul 

That's a lot! It's said that Simpson also did the guide vocals on all the songs for Terrell's parts, which were so similar to Terrell's versions that there has been some controversy that maybe some of the released vocals actually were Simpson's, due to Terrell's declining health. (She died in 1970 of a brain tumor.) So these just as easily could have been Gaye and Simpson (or Ashford and Simpson) hits if Motown had wanted it. 

Note I also included the Gaye and Terrell 1968 version of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" in Volume One and the Diana Ross 1970 version of that song here in Volume Two. I rarely do that in my Covered albums, but I've made an exception because both versions were very big hits but they also had drastically different arrangements.

Speaking of Diana Ross, after the end of the Gaye and Terrell duo because of Terrell's tragic early death, they mostly switched to supporting Ross with songs to start out her solo career apart from the Supremes. They wrote and produced nearly all the songs on the first three solo albums by Ross, including some more big hits.

But by 1973, Ashford and Simpson had had enough of Motown preventing them from becoming performers, and they left Motown. Note that this was around the time Motown basically imploded and lost most of its talented songwriters and performers, so the move isn't too surprising. They began releasing about one album a year as a duo starting in 1973. It took them a few years to build momentum, by they began having hit songs and album around 1977. They had two really big hits as a duo in particular: "Found a Cure" in 1977, and "Solid" in 1984. 

I wanted this to be an album of songs they wrote for others, not themselves, so I didn't include most of their own hits. Also, to be honest, I wasn't that taken with their own hits as much as the songs they wrote for others. A lot of their own stuff seems generic to me. But "Found a Cure" and "Solid" are both excellent songs, so I wanted to include them. I couldn't find any really good versions of "Found a Cure" by others, since not many musical acts have covered it, so I used the Ashford and Simpson version for that one. But I did find a good cover of "Solid" by Third World, so I went with that one. (It's the only song here recorded after 1982.)

Maybe it's more an issue of my personal taste, but I find I like Ashford and Simpson songs more from before they went solo in 1973. Somewhat remarkably, only five of the songs in these two volumes were written after the two of them left Motown. There's "Found a Cure" and "Solid" as mentioned above, plus "Stuff like That," a song they sang with Chaka Khan for a Quincy Jones album in 1978, "I'm Every Woman," a very big hit for Khan, also in 1978, and "The Boss," a hit for Diana Ross in 1979. A couple other songs appearing late on this volume, like "Ain't Nothing like the Real Thing" by Aretha Franklin and "Your Precious Love" by Al Jarreau and Randy Crawford, are hit versions of songs that were first hits for the Gaye and Terrell duo.

Ashford and Simpson had their biggest hit as a duo with "Solid" in 1984, but after that the hits soon petered out. However, they kept performing as a duo well into the 2000s. As I mentioned in Volume One, Ashford died in 2011, but Simpson is still alive as I write this in 2024.

This album is one hour long.

01 I'm a Winner (Martha & the Vandellas)
02 The Onion Song (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell)
03 Ain't No Mountain High Enough (Diana Ross)
04 Good Lovin' Ain't Easy to Come By (Supremes & the Four Tops)
05 Reach Out and Touch [Somebody's Hand] (Diana Ross)
06 I'm Your Man (Heptones)
07 Remember Me (Rosetta Hightower)
08 You're All I Need to Get By (Aretha Franklin)
09 Surrender (Diana Ross)
10 Silly Wasn't I (Valerie Simpson)
11 Tear It On Down (Martha & the Vandellas)
12 Ain't Nothing like the Real Thing (Aretha Franklin)
13 Stuff like That (Quincy Jones with Chaka Khan, Ashford & Simpson)
14 I'm Every Woman (Chaka Khan)
15 The Boss (Diana Ross)
16 Found a Cure (Ashford & Simpson)
17 Your Precious Love (Al Jarreau & Randy Crawford)
18 Solid (Third World)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17314563/COVRDASHFRDSMPSN1969-2005Vlum2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/u2U13RQL

I don't know any details about where or when the photo used for the cover was taken. But it's clear to me it was a bunch of years after the photo used for Volume One.

Covered: Nickolas Ashford & Valerie Simpson, Volume 1: 1965-1969

Here's more of my Covered series, and more of Motown. This time, it's the husband and wife team of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson. I found enough for two volumes, and this is the first.

Ashford and Simpson are best known for being a popular R&B act in the 1970s and 80s. Less well known is the fact they were a very successful songwriting team even before finding success as their own musical act.

Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson met in New York City in 1964 and became romantic partners. It took them ten years until they got married, but they stayed married until Ashford died in 2011 at the age of 69. Simpson is still alive as I write this in 2024.

In the first few years of their songwriting together, they usually were joined by Jo Armstead, a former member of the Ikettes. The three of them soon wrote many soul hits. Their first really big one was "Let's Go Get Stoned," which Ray Charles took to the top of the U.S. R&B chart in 1966. Their success drew the attention of Motown Records, and Ashford and Simpson joined Motown by the end of 1966. I don't know the exact reason why, but for some reason Armstead did not join too, so that ended her role in the songwriting team. (Armstead went on to have some success here and there both as a soul singer and songwriter. There's one minor hit sung by her here, "I Feel an Urge Coming On," from 1967.)

Once they were at Motown, they quickly found success as songwriters. In particular, they had a fruitful relationship writing songs for the duet of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. This album though mostly on their songs prior to joining Motown. Some of them were fairly obscure at the time, but I think are worthy and probably should have been hits with the right promotion. The Motown songs are tracks 11, 12, 16, and then 18 until the end.

There's just one Wikipedia entry from Ashford and Simpson together, here:

Ashford & Simpson - Wikipedia

This album is one hour long.

01 The Real Thing (Tina Britt)
02 You're Absolutely Right (Apollas)
03 One Step at a Time (Maxine Brown)
04 Too Hot to Hold (Betty Everett)
05 I Don't Need No Doctor (Ray Charles)
06 Surrender Your Love (Carrolls)
07 Look Away (Shirelles)
08 Are You Trying to Get Rid of Me Baby (Crystals)
09 I Just Can't Get Enough of You (Lesley Gore)
10 Let's Go Get Stoned (Ray Charles)
11 Ain't No Mountain High Enough (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell)
12 Starting the Hurt All Over Again (Brenda Holloway)
13 I Feel an Urge Coming On (Jo Armstead)
14 Running Out (Vernon Garrett)
15 Dance Children Dance (Mary Love)
16 Just Look What You've Done (Brenda Holloway)
17 Mr. Creator (Apollas)
18 Keep on Lovin' Me Honey (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell)
19 Destination- Anywhere (Marvelettes)
20 Some Things You Never Get Used To (Supremes)
21 You Ain't Livin' Till You're Lovin' (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell)
22 Didn't You Know [You'd Have to Cry Sometime] (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
23 I Can't Give Back the Love I Feel for You (Syreeta Wright)
24 California Soul (Marlena Shaw)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17314571/COVRDASHFRDSMPSN1965-1969Vlum1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/35NMaCdk

I couldn't find any photos of Ashford and Simpson in the 1960s. But I found a black and white one from 1972, so I used that. I colorized it with the help of the Palette program, and then upgraded it with the help of the Krea AI program.

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: In Concert, Hampden Park, Glasgow, Britain, 8-25-2006

I don't want to overwhelm people with all the Motown music I've been posting lately, so here's something different. Since I was recently posting some corrections to my series of Rolling Stones albums for the BBC, I might as well finish the series off. There are two remaining albums I want to post. One is a 2006 concert, and the other is a 2013 concert. Here's the 2006 one.

By 2006, the Stones were getting fairly long in the tooth. But they keep defying their ages and putting on lively concerts. They were promoting their 2005 album "A Bigger Bang." However, only three songs here are from it: "Oh No, Not You Again," "Rain Fall Down," and "Rough Justice." So this is basically their greatest hits. By this time, they were down to just three original members: Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Charlie Watts. But Ronnie Wood had been with the band since 1976, so he'd become a key part of the band.

The sound quality of this bootleg is very good, but not excellent. There were no problems, and it seems to be complete.

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

01 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
02 It's Only Rock 'N Roll [But I Like It] (Rolling Stones)
03 talk (Rolling Stones)
04 Oh No, Not You Again (Rolling Stones)
05 talk (Rolling Stones)
06 She's So Cold (Rolling Stones)
07 talk (Rolling Stones)
08 Sway (Rolling Stones)
09 talk (Rolling Stones)
10 Ruby Tuesday (Rolling Stones)
11 Rain Fall Down (Rolling Stones)
12 Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones)
13 talk (Rolling Stones)
14 Slipping Away (Rolling Stones)
15 talk (Rolling Stones)
16 Before They Make Me Run (Rolling Stones)
17 Miss You (Rolling Stones)
18 talk (Rolling Stones)
19 Rough Justice (Rolling Stones)
20 Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
21 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
22 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
23 You Can't Always Get What You Want (Rolling Stones)
24 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17310259/TROLLNGSTNS2006BBSssonsVolum7InCncrtHmpdnPrkGlsgowBrtin__8-25-2006_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jYqTYAbd

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From right to left, it shows Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, and Mick Jagger.

Covered: Pam Sawyer: 1965-1979

Here's a Covered album for yet another unjustly obscure Motown songwriter. This one, Pam Sawyer, has an especially interesting backstory.

If you look at the image of Sawyer on the cover of this album, you can start to see why she has an interesting story. In the 1960s, there were very few female songwriters of soul music. Sylvia Moy paved the way at Motown Records, and Valerie Simpson later came along, but that was about it. Furthermore, the fact that Sawyer was white, and blonde haired and blue eyed to boot, made her career even more unusual. But the real kicker was that she was British!

Sawyer was born on the outskirts of London, England. She had no special musical background, but she married an American arranger and producer named Bob Mersey. Because of him, she moved to New York City in the early 1960s. They soon divorced, but she decided to stay there and try making a career out of being a songwriter. She teamed up with another aspiring female songwriter, Lori Burton. Together, they wrote a few minor hits in 1965 and 1966, especially "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" by the Rascals. 

After starting to get a successful track record, they applied to join Motown Records as songwriters. They passed the audition in 1967. They were told to stay in New York City and send their recordings to Motown's headquarters in Detroit, but for about a year it seemed all their efforts were being ignored. Burton got frustrated and quit the music business. Sawyer, by contrast, decided she'd have more of an impact if she moved to Detroit and worked there. That's what she did, and it wasn't long before her songs started to get recorded by Motown's soul music stars.

Her first really big success at Motown was co-writing "Love Child," which was a Number One hit for the Supremes in 1968. However, I've already posted the Supremes version in Frank Wilson's Covered album, so I'm including a version by the Tymes from 1970 instead. She typically co-wrote songs. For instance, several here were also co-written with Wilson. She also wrote a few with a woman outside Motown, Gloria Jones, who had a somewhat successful career as a soul singer. (For instance, she recorded the original version of "Tainted Love" in 1965.)

She generally was treated as a second tier songwriter, meaning she didn't often get to work with Motown's top stars. However, she took part in many hits. For instance, "If I Were Your Woman" was Number One on the U.S. R&B singles chart for Gladys Knight & the Pips in 1970, and "Love Hangover" was Number One on the U.S. singles chart for Diana Ross in 1976. 

However, her efforts petered out around the end of the 1970s as musical tastes changed. She left Motown and moved to Florida. She is still alive and 86 years old as I write this in 2024.

The songs here are generally the original hit versions, aside from "Love Child." A couple of the songs are the same versions as on Frank Wilson's Covered album, like "Livin' in Shame" and "Gotta Hold on to This Feeling," since I couldn't find worthy versions by other musical acts. Actually, this version of "Livin' in Shame" is included on the Berry Gordy Covered album too.

Here's a Wikipedia link about her:

Pam Sawyer - Wikipedia

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore (Rascals)
02 Try to Understand (Lulu)
03 You're My Baby [And Don't You Forget It] (Vacels)
04 Slow Fizz (Sapphires)
05 Yesterday's Dreams (Four Tops)
06 My Whole World Ended [The Moment You Left Me] (David Ruffin)
07 I'm Livin' in Shame (Supremes)
08 Love Child (Tymes)
09 Gotta Hold on to This Feeling (Jr. Walker & the All-Stars)
10 If I Were Your Woman (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
11 T.L.C. [Tender Loving Care] (P.J.)
12 Take Me Girl, I'm Ready (Junior Walker & the All)
13 I Ain't Going Nowhere (Thelma Houston)
14 My Mistake (Diana Ross & Marvin Gaye)
15 Love Hangover (Diana Ross)
16 You Can't Turn Me Off [In the Middle of Turning Me On] (High Inergy)
17 I Thought It Took a Little Time [But Today I Fell in Love] (Diana Ross)
18 Pops, We Love You (Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson & Stevie Wonder) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/17301670/COVRDPAMSWYR1965-1979_atse.zip.html

covered:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oGYQZxxf

I could only find two photos of Sawyer whatsoever, and both of them were black and white with fairly crappy image quality. I picked the better one and colorized it using the Palette program. Then I ran it through the Krea AI program. To show you how that program helps make something from practically nothing (plus some work I do in Photoshop), here's the original.

It makes me happy that with this Covered series, we're finally getting a good look at what some of these obscure songwriters looked like when they were young.

Covered: William 'Mickey' Stevenson & Ivy Jo Hunter: 1962-1991

The Covered series albums highlighting great songwriters keep coming. (I have dozens more in the pipeline!) This time, it's obscure Motown songwriters again. But in this case it's a songwriting team, William 'Mickey' Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter.

Once again, I'd be surprised if you've heard of these people. Stevenson is probably a little bit better known, because he was one of the main leaders of the Motown Records company. He joined Motown in 1959, the year the company was founded, and quickly became the head A&R person. That meant he was in charge of finding and recruiting new talent. But it seems most everyone who worked at Motown had musical aspirations - that's why they worked there instead of somewhere else. For instance, several famous singers got started as secretaries there. Stevenson fancied himself a singer, but he failed his audition. So instead he turned his attention to writing and producing songs while still leading the A&R department.

Hunter joined Motown a few years later, in 1963. He was trained in orchestral music, mainly playing trumpet and keyboards. He started out as a session musician, but he soon developed a talent for songwriting. Early on, Stevenson and Hunter became a songwriting team. They almost always shared songwriting credits 50-50, even though most of the time one or the other actually wrote the song alone. It seems Hunter did most of the songwriting, but I don't know the breakdowns of who wrote what exactly. (However, I do know their best known classic hit, "Dancing in the Street," was a genuine collaboration between them, with Marvin Gaye contributing as well.)

Generally speaking, this songwriting duo was considered second tier, and usually only wrote and/or produced songs for less famous Motown acts. The really big acts got songs from the most successful songwriters, like Smokey Robinson and the Holland-Dozier-Holland team. In some cases though, they did songs before famous acts got really famous, for instance writing songs for Marvin Gaye and the Four Tops before they really hit it big.

Stevenson got pushed out of his key A&R job in 1966, apparently because Eddie Holland wanted the job, and company head Berry Gordy wanted to appease Holland, since he was part of the company's top songwriting team, Holland-Dozier-Holland. Stevenson stayed a couple more years, but got a job as the head of MGM's soul and R&B section in 1969. However, he had far less success as a songwriter after leaving Motown, or perhaps he didn't write as many songs. 

After Stevenson was gone, Hunter lost influence in the company, since he wasn't adept at playing company politics like Stevenson was. He was pushed out altogether around the time Motown moved their headquarters to Los Angeles in 1972. He stayed in the music industry for many years afterwards, mostly as a producer, but didn't have nearly the same success he had while working for Motown. (I'm repeatedly astounded by how Motown practically seemed to be trying to lose most of their talented people around that time. Gordy moved the company to L.A. because he wanted to get involved with making movies and TV shows. That had limited success at best, but it blew up the company's Detroit hit-making machine.)

Here's the Wikipedia entry about Stevenson:

William Stevenson (songwriter) - Wikipedia

and here's the entry for Hunter:

Ivy Jo Hunter - Wikipedia 

Furthermore, I randomly came across this article about Hunter, which is worth checking out:

The Ivy Jo Hunter Story by Rob Moss - Soul Source (soul-source.co.uk)

As I write this in 2024, Stevenson is still alive at the age of 87. But Hunter died in 2022 at the age of 82.

As usual, the songs are in rough chronological order by year. But while most of the choices are the original hit versions, a few are not. That's because some songs were written with other Motown songwriters I'm also highlighting in the Covered series, especially Sylvia Moy. In order to avoid having the same versions of the same songs on different albums, I've tried to use alternate versions whenever they existed and were worthy. So "He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'," "You've Been in Love Too Long," "Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever," "Playboy," and "It Takes Two" are later versions. 

Aside from those five, most of the rest are Motown recordings, but there are a couple exceptions. "Devil with the Blue Dress" was a Motown song at first, but the non-Motown band Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels had a big hit with it in 1966, so I used that version. And "Footsteps Following Me" was a very late effort. It was written by Stevenson and Hunter in 1991 for a British company that was trying to revive the Motown glory days. It was minor hit there.

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long.

01 Beechwood 4-5789 (Marvelettes)
02 Stubborn Kind of Fellow (Marvin Gaye)
03 Jamie (Eddie Holland)
04 Hitch Hike (Marvin Gaye)
05 Fire (Gino Parks)
06 Pride and Joy (Marvin Gaye)
07 Oh Lover (Marvin Gaye & Mary Wells)
08 Dancing in the Street (Martha & the Vandellas)
09 My Smile Is Just a Frown [Turned Upside Down] (Carolyn Crawford)
10 Lucky Lucky Me (Marvin Gaye)
11 Needle in a Haystack (Velvelettes)
12 Once Upon a Time (Marvin Gaye & Mary Wells)
13 Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead (Marvelettes)
14 Ask the Lonely (Four Tops)
15 I'll Always Love You (Spinners)
16 I'll Keep Holding On (Marvelettes)
17 Nothing's Too Good for My Baby (Stevie Wonder)
18 Devil with the Blue Dress - Good Golly, Miss Molly (Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels)
19 It Should Have Been Me (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
20 Behind a Painted Smile (Isley Brothers)
21 You (Marvin Gaye)
22 She Said Yes (Wilson Pickett)
23 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Band)
24 You've Been in Love Too Long (Bonnie Raitt)
25 Sweet Understanding Love (Four Tops)
26 Playboy (Charity Brown)
27 He Was Really Sayin' Somethin' (Bananarama with Fun Boy Three)
28 It Takes Two (Tina Turner & Rod Stewart)
29 Footsteps Following Me (Frances Nero)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17294328/COVRDSTEVNSNHUNTR1962-1991_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/r927G5gd

That's William 'Mickey' Stevenson on the left, wearing a tie, with Ivy Jo Hunter on the right.

I had a very difficult time finding decent photos of Stevenson and Hunter when they were young. Both pictures used in making the cover art were colorized by the Palette program. The Hunter one was especially rough, but I used the Krea AI program to enhance it.

Various Artists - TV’s Jazziest Theme Songs, 1957-1993 (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

It's time for another Mike Solof guest post. This one has a rather unusual theme. It turns out Mike is a big fan of TV show theme songs, especially jazzy instrumental ones from decades ago. So he put together a collection of about 30 of his favorites.

As usual, Mike has written his own notes, which is included as a PDF file. It comes with lots of photos as well. So I recommend you read that to learn more.

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 Midnight Caller Theme (Rick Braun)
02 Banacek (John Gregory & His Orchestra)
03 Lou Grant Theme (Patrick Williams)
04 Hill Street Blues - Blues in the Day - Hill Street Blues [Edit] (Mike Post)
05 L.A. Law (Mike Post)
06 The Streets of San Fransisco (John Gregory & His Orchestra)
07 Mission- Impossible (Lalo Schifrin)
08 Mannix (John Gregory & His Orchestra)
09 Theme from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (Hugo Montenegro & His Orchestra)
10 Hawaii Five-O (Ventures)
11 Mod Squad (Al Caiola)
12 Jonny Quest (Hoyt Curtin)
13 I Spy (Earle Hagan)
14 Police Squad Theme Song (Ira Newborn)
15 Get Smart Original Theme (Irving Szathmary)
16 The Pink Panther Theme (Henry Mancini)
17 Peter Gunn Theme (Blues Brothers)
18 The Magician (Patrick Williams)
19 Policewoman (John Gregory & His Orchestra)
20 Harry-O (John Gregory & His Orchestra)
21 McMillan and Wife (John Gregory & His Orchestra)
22 Mike Hammer (Earle Hagen)
23 Spenser- For Hire Theme (Larry Herbstritt & Steve Dorff)
24 Perry Mason (Fred Steiner)
25 Night Court (Jack Elliott)
26 Barney Miller (Jack Elliott)
27 Frasier (Bruce Miller)
28 The Bob Newhart Show [The Home to Emily] (L.&H. Music)
29 The Cosby Show Theme [Kiss Me] [Alternate Version] (Stu Gardner & Bill Cosby)
30 Angela [Theme to Taxi] [Edit] (Bob James)

https://www.imagenetz.de/jasrG

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/a57MpsDq

At first, I didn't know what to depict for the cover of this album. But I noticed that Mike had put in a couple dozen pictures of different images for these sorts of TV shows. So I picked out 16 of them and made a collage.

Covered: Sylvia Moy: 1965-1975

Here's another unjustly forgotten songwriter for my Covered series: Sylvia Moy.

Like my last post in this series, Frank Wilson, don't kick yourself if you've never heard of Moy. And like Wilson, she was one of the hidden talents behind the massive success of Motown Records in the 1960s.

Moy grew up in Detroit, the home of Motown, and studied jazz and classical music in high school. She was discovered by Marvin Gaye singing in a local nightclub, and signed to Motown as a performer. Again, she parallels Wilson in that it seemed she had the talent (and looks) to be a star in her own right. However, Motown had lots of talented singers but very few talented songwriters, so once her songwriting talents were revealed, she moved into songwriting and production, and no records with her singing were ever released. 

In so doing, she became the first significant female songwriter writing for Motown. Motown certainly wasn't free of sexism in the 1960s, but they were better than most companies at the time. By the end of the decade, females would hold many important positions in the company.

It seems Moy specialized more in writing lyrics than melodies, and she seemed to always write songs with others. She had a big role in Stevie Wonder's success in the 1960s in particular. Note that seven of the 19 songs here were hits for Wonder. She was particularly instrumental for saving Wonder's career in Motown in 1965. Wonder had a huge hit with "Fingertips, Part 2" in 1963, but only minor hits since then. Worse, he reached puberty and his voice changed drastically. Motown head Berry Gordy decided to drop him from the label as a result. Moy heard about this and asked if he would reconsider if she came up with a hit song for him. Gordy gave her a chance. Moy had heard Wonder playing around with a new riff on the piano, and asked him for some words. All he could come up with was the phrase that led to the title: "Uptight (Everything's Alright)." Together with another behind-the-scenes Motown songwriter, Henry Crosby, Moy finished the song. It turned out to be a huge hit. Although it "only" reached Number Three on the U.S. singles charts, it was one of the best selling singles of 1965.

Moy left Motown in 1973, around the time that Motown (stupidly) moved its operations to Los Angeles and let much of its best talent go. She tried singing, songwriting, and production at another record company, but didn't have much success compared to before. She later moved into writing music for films and TV shows. She died in 2017 at the age of 2017.

Here's her Wikipedia entry:

Sylvia Moy - Wikipedia

Here also is an interesting New York Times article I found about her. It features a cool photo of her with Stevie Wonder and the Funk Brothers back in 1967:

Sylvia Moy, Motown Songwriter Who Worked With Stevie Wonder, Dies at 78 - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

All the songs here are in rough chronological order by year, as is the usual case for this series. Most of the songs are the original hit versions. One exception is the last one, "This Old Heart of Mine." That was originally a hit for the Isley Brothers in 1966. But I didn't want to use that version, since Moy wrote the song with the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team, and I'm including them in the Covered series too. So I went with a Rod Stewart version instead, which was a hit in 1975. 

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Uptight [Everything's Alright] (Stevie Wonder)
02 One Track Mind (Marv Johnson)
03 My Baby Loves Me (Martha & the Vandellas)
04 Nothing's Too Good for My Baby (Stevie Wonder)
05 Think It Over Before You Break My Heart [Reconsider] (Brenda Holloway)
06 These Things Will Keep Me Loving You (Velvelettes)
07 I Was Made to Love Her (Stevie Wonder)
08 Honey Chile (Martha & the Vandellas)
09 I'm Wondering (Stevie Wonder)
10 It Takes Two (Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston)
11 Love Bug, Leave My Heart Alone (Martha & the Vandellas)
12 Ain't No Sun Since You've Been Gone (Temptations)
13 Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day (Stevie Wonder)
14 Forget Me Not (Martha & the Vandellas)
15 My Cherie Amour (Stevie Wonder)
16 I Had a Dream (Supremes & the Four Tops)
17 Never Had a Dream Come True (Stevie Wonder)
18 And This Is Love (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
19 This Old Heart of Mine [Is Weak for You] (Rod Stewart)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17282872/COVRDSYLVIAMY19651975_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bi3eMnYi

As with Frank Wilson, there are very few photos of Moy when she was young. But I managed to find a black and white one. I colorized it using the Palette program, then enhanced it using the Krea AI program.

Covered: Frank Wilson: 1964-1977

Next up for my Covered series highlighting great songwriters is Frank Wilson.

If you haven't heard of Frank Wilson, don't kick yourself. One of my main reasons for doing this series is that I believe many songwriters who weren't also famous performers have been mostly forgotten and need more recognition for their musical accomplishments. Wilson is a classic case of being forgotten. The main reason people know anything about him at all is due to one single featuring him performing that has a curious history. (I'll get to more about in a minute.) But he was one of probably about a dozen or so songwriters behind the vast majority of hits at Motown Records in the 1960s.

Like a lot of people, Wilson got a non-musical job at Motown Records at first, just to get his foot in the door. Soon, though, he was put on the payroll as both a songwriter and a producer. It turns out he had a good, soulful voice, and easily could have been a star in his own right. 

A single with him as the lead vocalist was due to be released in later 1965 (that he co-wrote) called "Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)." About 250 demos were physically created. But, as Wikipedia explains, "Owing to a combination of Wilson deciding that he would rather focus on producing and Motown's Berry Gordy's lukewarm reception of the vocals and wish to prevent his producers from having a successful recording career, the demos were destroyed." Luckily, at least two copies of the demos survived. In the 1970s, one of them was discovered by soul aficionados in England (what is known as the "Northern Soul" movement). That led to it being reissued (at first illegally and under false names), and becoming a minor hit. It has since been deemed something of a lost classic. For instance, Bruce Springsteen recorded a version on his 2022 album "Only the Strong Survive." The one copy of the demo available for sale was bought for about $30,000 in 2009!

Here's the Wikipedia article about the song and it's strange history:

Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) - Wikipedia

If all Wilson did was write and sing that song, he wouldn't be worthy of an album in this Covered series. But he wrote or co-wrote many Motown classics. Just look at the song list below. He only gets one album, because he wasn't very prolific, but almost every song was a hit and most are considered classics.

In addition to writing songs, he produced many more, for a wide variety of musical acts. However, things gradually fell apart for Motown Records in the 1970s, as musical trends changed and much of the talent drifted away. Wilson left Motown around 1976 and dabbled a little bit as a songwriter and producer outside of Motown. The last song here, from 1977, is the only post-Motown one included. However, that didn't last long, because he quit the music business altogether and became a preacher. He later wrote two best selling religious-themed self-help books. He died in 2012 at the age of 71.

Here's his Wikipedia entry:

Frank Wilson (musician) - Wikipedia

As usual, the songs are presented in chronological order by year of release. These generally are the original versions for each song. The one oddity (aside from the last song that I mentioned above) is "I'm So Thankful," because that was a hit by the Ikettes, a non-Motown group.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Castles in the Sand (Stevie Wonder)
02 Do I Love You [Indeed I Do] (Frank Wilson)
03 I'm So Thankful (Ikettes)
04 Sweeter as the Days Go By (Marvin Gaye)
05 Whole Lot of Shakin' in My Heart [Since I Met You] (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
06 You've Made Me So Very Happy (Brenda Holloway)
07 All I Need (Temptations)
08 Just Look What You've Done (Brenda Holloway)
09 Love Child (Supremes)
10 Chained (Marvin Gaye)
11 I'm Livin' in Shame (Supremes)
12 Stoned Love (Supremes)
13 Still Water [Love] (Four Tops)
14 Up the Ladder to the Roof (Supremes)
15 Girl, You Need a Change of Mind (Eddie Kendricks)
16 Keep on Truckin', Part 1 (Eddie Kendricks)
17 Boogie Down (Eddie Kendricks)
18 Look What You've Done to My Heart (Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17289742/COVRDFRNKWILSN19641973_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/y66VANXF

Because Wilson is such an obscure musical figure, there are very few photos of him, and none of them are color photos from when he was young. Luckily, I found a good one from about 1966, and colorized it using the Palette program. I also changed his eyes so he would be looking at the camera.

Covered: Berry Gordy: 1957-1982

As I move forward with my Covered series highlighting great songwriters, it's time I start to unravel the big ball of wax that is the Motown Records hit making machine. Although there were some key exceptions, the hits at the Motown record company were generally written by professional songwriters. It turns out a relatively small number of them wrote nearly all the hits, so they are ideal subjects for my Covered series.

When it comes to dealing with the Motown Records company, it's fitting to start with Berry Gordy, who is practically Motown Records personified. He started the company in 1959 and it was a massive success nearly from the start. Being Black, he turned Motown into the most successful Black-run private business in the U.S. for decades. Gordy became a household name, thanks to Motown's distinctive sound and his innovative business practices. 

That said, I don't think a lot of people appreciate that, on top of all of his business success, he was actually a very talented songwriter! He was a songwriter first, and he had a lot of success writing or co-writing hits for Jackie Wilson, Etta James, and others before Motown Records even existed. The reason he formed the company was because he was frustrated at how little money he was getting writing hit songs. He correctly realized that he was getting ripped off by very ruthless music companies.

A challenging question here though is just how much he actually participated in the writing of the songs presented here. Gordy wasn't above being ruthless himself sometimes. For instance, I haven't included any version of the song "You've Got What It Takes," even though it was a big hit multiple times by different artists, and Berry is typically considered one of the co-writers. That's because soul guitarist Bobby Parker wrote it and released it in 1958. Then, in 1959, Marv Johnson put out a version on Motown Records and simply ignored the songwriting credits of the earlier version, giving the songwriting credit to Gordy, his wife, and two others instead.

So if Gordy did that once, he could have done it other times. That said, it seems he generally played it straight while running Motown. I've read a bunch about Motown, and other people like Motown star Smokey Robinson have said that Gordy's songs were treated the same as those of any other songwriter at the time. Motown was run much like an assembly line, with strict rules about every aspect of the business. As part of that, over a dozen company leaders had weekly meetings to decide which songs would get released as singles. Majority vote ruled, and songs written or co-written by Gordy got rejected just like everyone else. 

Furthermore, there's plenty of evidence that Gordy was a talented songwriter, even putting aside his songwriting success prior to Motown. He usually co-wrote songs with others, but not always. For instance, the Contours song "Do You Love Me," reached Number Three on the U.S. single chart in 1962, and it was written solely by him. Some other songs here were also credited just to him. In fact, songwriting legend Smokey Robinson says that in the late 1950s, Gordy was actually his songwriting mentor, since Robinson was just starting out at the time and Gordy already had multiple hits he'd been involved with. Robinson seemed very impressed with Gordy's songwriting talent.

What seems to have happened is that, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Gordy wrote a lot of songs. But as the 1960s progressed, he was increasingly preoccupied by running the Motown company, and he realized he could delegate most of the songwriting to other very capable people. So his songwriting credits steadily declined as the decade went on.

Then something curious happened around 1969. Motown's top songwriters, the Holland-Dozier-Holland team, left the company in 1968 due to a dispute over not getting enough royalties. By that time, Holland-Dozier-Holland had gotten very famous due to writing so many hit songs. Gordy wanted to make sure this didn't happen again. So he created something called "The Corporation." This was a group of four songwriters who wrote most of the songs for Motown's hot new act, the Jackson 5. Their records were credited simply to "The Corporation" so the individuals wouldn't get too famous and thus later make big demands on him. The four main songwriters involved were Freddie Perren, Alphonso Mizell, Deke Richards, and... Gordy himself. 

But was he actually involved in co-writing the songs, or was this a new scheme to take some of the profits by a new songwriting team? I suspect it was a bit of both. The first big hit by the Corporation, which turned out to be one of the greatest songs of all time, was "I Want You Back" by the Jackson 5. Since it's such a famous, classic song, I was able to find out some about how it came to be. It turns out it was originally written by the other three in the team. (Perren, in particular, would go on to great songwriting success. I plan on having an album of his songs in this series.) However, when the song was first presented to Gordy, it was a very different song, including having the title "I Want to Be Free." Gordy made numerous improvements to it, so he definitely deserves songwriting credit for that one.

I suspect that was the case for the other big hits by the Jackson Five. Gordy promised the band that their first three songs at least would all be Number Ones, and that surprisingly turned out to be the case. He really, really wanted this band to succeed, and it seems he pulled out all the stops to make them a success, including getting directly involved in the songwriting. But the Corporation is credited with writing dozens of songs around the early 1970s, and I'm making the guess that Gordy was too busy running Motown to be involved with most of those. 

If anyone has a better idea about this, please let me know. Gordy's songwriting is rarely discussed, since his success running Motown totally dominates any discussion about his life. (Remarkably, as I write this in 2024, he is still alive at the age of 94.) 

Anyway, it seems after this final flurry of songwriting activity for the Jackson 5, Gordy essentially gave up songwriting altogether. The songs here are presented in rough chronological order (check the mp3 tags for details). The last two songs, "Good Thing Going" and "I'll Be Satisfied," were hits by Sugar Minott in 1981 and Shakin' Stevens in 1982 respectively. However, both songs were actually written and first released by others in the 1960s. The last new song Gordy was involved with that's included here is "Get It Together" by the Jackson 5 in 1973.

Here's Gordy's Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

Berry Gordy - Wikipedia

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 Reet Petite (Jackie Wilson)
02 To Be Loved (Jackie Wilson)
03 It's So Fine (LaVern Baker)
04 Lonely Teardrops (Jackie Wilson)
05 Come to Me (Marv Johnson)
06 That's Why [I Love You So] (Jackie Wilson)
07 I'll Be Satisfied (Jackie Wilson)
08 All I Could Do Was Cry (Etta James)
09 Shop Around (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
10 Seven Day Fool (Etta James)
11 Do You Love Me (Contours)
12 Shake Sherrie (Contours)
13 Money [That's What I Want] (Beatles)
14 Try It Baby (Marvin Gaye)
15 Do Right Baby, Do Right (Chris Clark)
16 I Want to Go Back There Again (Chris Clark)
17 I Want You Back (Jackson 5)
18 I'm Livin' in Shame (Supremes)
19 ABC (Jackson 5)
20 You've Made Me So Very Happy (Blood, Sweat & Tears)
21 I'll Be There (Jackson 5)
22 Mama's Pearl (Jackson 5)
23 The Love You Save (Jackson 5)
24 Get It Together (Jackson 5)
25 Good Thing Going [We've Got a Good Thing Going] (Sugar Minott)
26 I'll Be Satisfied (Shakin' Stevens)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17282873/COVRDBRRYGRDY19571982_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZN5vFGt8

The cover photo is a very early publicity photo of Berry Gordy. (It might be hard to tell from just this much, but he has a black jacket slung over one shoulder.) I'm guessing this is from around 1960. The photo was in black and white, but I colorized it using the Palette program.

The Who - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: Electric Proms, Roundhouse, London, Britain, 10-29-2006

About a week ago, I posted a BBC album by the Who that I'd previously missed. It turns out I actually missed two. So there's been a lot of renumbering. There's one after this that I had originally called "BBC Sessions, Volume 6," but now it's "Volume 8," due to two added albums that come before it. 

That newly named "Volume 8" took place in 2007. This one took place in 2006. That's pretty close in time. However, I think both are worth listening to if you're a Who fan, because the set lists are quite different. In 2006, the Who released their first new studio album since 1982, called "Endlesswire." In my opinion, it's the weakest of all the Who's studio albums. (I even like their 2019 album much better.) 

That said, if you like that album, you're in luck with this concert, because it is heavily featured. Eight of the songs performed are from that album. By contrast, the 2007 album (now "Volume 8") is a concert from the massive annual Glastonbury Festival. The band focused on their biggest hits and only played two songs from Endlesswire. The new songs go by pretty quickly here, however. Five of them are less than two minutes long.

This is unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent.

By the way, here's the link to what is now "Volume 8," if you want to get the renumbered version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-who-bbc-sessions-volume-6-in.html

This album is an hour and eight minutes long.

01 talk (Who)
02 I Can't Explain (Who)
03 The Seeker (Who)
04 Who Are You (Who)
05 talk (Who)
06 Fragments (Who)
07 Sound Round (Who)
08 Pick Up the Peace (Who)
09 Endless Wire (Who)
10 We've Got a Hit (Who)
11 They Made My Dream Come True (Who)
12 Mirror Door (Who)
13 Baba O'Riley (Who)
14 My Generation (Who)
15 talk (Who)
16 Mike Post Theme (Who)
17 Pinball Wizard (Who)
18 Amazing Journey (Who)
19 Sparks (Who)
20 See Me, Feel Me (Who)
21 Tea and Theatre (Who)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17271715/TWHOO2006BBSssonsVlum7ElctricPrmsRundhuseLndonBrtin__10-29-2006_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rMs4An1R

The cover photo comes from this exact concert.

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: In Concert, Earl's Court, London, Britain, 5-22-1976

I mentioned about a week ago that I recently discovered a few BBC albums that I had missed, which is resulting in some renumbering. This is another case of that. I had previously posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 5" for a 1990 Rolling Stones concert. But now that I've stumbled upon this concert, from 1976, I'm renaming that one "Volume 6." Here's the download link if you want to get the updated version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-rolling-stones-bbc-sessions-volume.html

I'm happy I came across this concert, though I'm a bit bummed it's from 1976. I consider that the low point for the band in the 1970s, as I don't like much of their 1976 album "Black and Blue." That said, pretty much any Rolling Stones concert is solid, and that's the case here. 

It's also nice that the keyboardist the band was using at the time was none other than Billy Preston, who was a big star in his own right. So he was rewarded with the spotlight for two songs in the middle of the concert. Both of his songs were huge hits (and actually bigger than recent Stones hits.) "Outa-Space" went to Number Two in the U.S. singles chart in 1972, and "Nothing from Nothing" was a Number One hit in 1974. Apparently, during "Outa-Space," Stones lead singer Mick Jagger was sent on wires way up above the crowd to make it look like he was flying, which is why Preston can be heard mentioning something to the crowd about Jagger flying.

Perhaps the reason I didn't find this bootleg concert sooner is because it had a very big flaw: it seems the BBC only broadcast part of it, and a few songs they didn't broadcast were filled in with an audio bootleg that sounded terrible. I specifically refer to the first song, plus the last three songs. I decided it was better to use versions from another concert instead. For the first song and two of the last three, I found a soundboard bootleg of a concert in Paris, France, two weeks later that sounds about as good. However, for the very last song, "Sympathy for the Devil," I couldn't find anything with similar sound quality in 1976. So I had to resort to a recording from 1975. You can find all the details in the mp3 tags.

This album is an hour and 45 minutes long.

01 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
02 If You Can't Rock Me - Get Off of My Cloud (Rolling Stones)
03 talk (Rolling Stones)
04 Hand of Fate (Rolling Stones)
05 talk (Rolling Stones)
06 Hey Negrita (Rolling Stones)
07 talk (Rolling Stones)
08 Ain't Too Proud to Beg (Rolling Stones)
09 talk (Rolling Stones)
10 Fool to Cry (Rolling Stones)
11 talk (Rolling Stones)
12 Hot Stuff (Rolling Stones)
13 Starfucker (Rolling Stones)
14 You Gotta Move (Rolling Stones)
15 You Can't Always Get What You Want (Rolling Stones)
16 talk (Rolling Stones)
17 Happy (Rolling Stones)
18 talk (Rolling Stones)
19 Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones)
20 talk (Rolling Stones)
21 Nothing from Nothing (Billy Preston & the Rolling Stones)
22 Outa-Space [Instrumental] (Billy Preston & the Rolling Stones)
23 talk (Rolling Stones)
24 Midnight Rambler (Rolling Stones)
25 talk (Rolling Stones)
26 It's Only Rock 'n Roll [But I Like It] (Rolling Stones)
27 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
28 talk (Rolling Stones)
29 Jumping Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
30 Street Fighting Man (Rolling Stones)
31 Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones)

https://www.imagenetz.de/a8tXN

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1tVajsJa

Luckily, the cover photo is from this exact concert. However, it only shows the band's two most famous members, Mick Jagger (left) and Keith Richards (right).

Covered: Jimmy Webb: Volume 2, 1972-2013

This is the second and last album in the Covered series for songwriter Jimmy Webb.

As I mentioned in Volume One, Webb was on fire in the late 1960s, writing a handful of the best songs all time, by anybody. Unfortunately, by the start of the time period on this album, his hot streak had cooled. Virtually every song on Volume One was a big hit, while there are only a few hits here. That said, the songwriting quality is still very high. A few of the songs here are considered classics. For instance, both "The Moon's a Harsh Mistress" and "Highwayman" have been covered dozens of times, and "All I Know" was a big hit for Art Garfunkel.

I'm not sure what happened exactly, but I suppose Webb's songwriting style changed. Instead of writing overtly poppy hits, he began writing more confessional singer-songwriter stuff. The same thing happened to others around the same time. For instance, Carole King's songwriting style changed drastically from the 1960s to the 1970s. I could have included many more worthy songs here, but I wanted to keep the emphasis on the stuff with obvious popular appeal, so I generally only included hits or songs that I thought should have been hits.

The lack of massive success for Webb's own albums is curious. Certainly he had the requisite talent, both with his singing voice as well as songwriting chops. It seems to me that he didn't do the obvious things to be popular. For instance, by 1970, the year of his first solo album ("Words and Music"), he had written at least a dozen really big hits for others. But on that album, he included exactly none of them. That was a huge missed opportunity, in my opinion. After that, his albums were typically critically acclaimed but little noticed by the public. It didn't help that he did almost no touring whatsoever until the 1990s, and even since then only very intermittently. He also had a really big drug problem until the 1990s.

In any case, some of these songs were written before when they appear chronologically on this album. For instance, "P.F. Sloan" first appeared on that 1970 album I mentioned above but the version here is from 2012. "Highwayman" first appeared on one of his albums in 1977, but wasn't a hit by the Highwaymen (a country supergroup consisting of Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson) until 1985. But other than that, these generally were the first versions of each song, or close to it.

If there are any great songs of his that I've failed to include, please let me know and I'll consider adding them.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Song Seller (Paul Revere & the Raiders)
02 Mixed Up Girl (Dusty Springfield)
03 Cheap Lovin' (Supremes)
04 All I Know (Art Garfunkel)
05 The Moon's a Harsh Mistress (Judy Collins)
06 Crying in My Sleep (Art Garfunkel)
07 Easy for You to Say (Linda Ronstadt)
08 Highwayman (Highwaymen)
09 I Keep It Hid (Linda Ronstadt)
10 If These Walls Could Speak (Shawn Colvin)
11 Gauguin (Judy Collins)
12 P.F. Sloan (Rumer)
13 Postcard from Paris (Glen Campbell) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/17271155/COVRDJIMMYWBB1972-2013Vlum2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/T8MqGQrP

I don't know the details on when and where the cover photo was taken. But clearly he's significantly older than in the photo for Volume One.

Covered: Jimmy Webb: Volume 1, 1966-1971

In the past few days, I've been really getting into my Covered series highlighting the best songs of the best songwriters. I already had a bunch of albums basically reading for posting, but I keep thinking or coming across songwriters that would be fitting for the series. Keep in mind that I'm generally focusing on those who were songwriters for others instead of those who became famous stars performing their own music, although there will be some of the latter when their songs were widely covered. (For instance, one can find a million covers of Bob Dylan songs, but very few of Pink Floyd songs.)

One person who is a must for this series is Jimmy Webb. He's an usual case of someone who became a household name for being a songwriter. He did have his own music career, releasing many studio albums, but it never achieved much success, at least not in comparison to the songs he wrote that were hits for others. In my opinion, some of the songs he wrote are not just classics, but all-time classics. For instance, if I had a Top 50 Greatest Songs list, I think both "Wichita Lineman" and "Galveston" would be on it.

Webb has great success right from the start. I read an account from songwriter P. F. Sloan (who will be featured in this series later), who was also a producer in the mid-1960s. He met Webb around 1965, when Webb was under 18 and trying to get anyone to record his songs. Webb played him "By the Time I Get to Phoenix," "Up, Up and Away," "Wichita Lineman," "MacArthur Park," and more. Sloan was floored. He told Webb that he'd played him about five future Number One songs, which pretty much proved to be true. That golden era when it seemed every song Webb was writing turned into a hit is the basis on this volume. (I'll be posting a second volume of the rest of his career.)

If you like intelligent yet very catchy pop songs, this album is a must have. Yeah, he gets dinged for some silly lyrics in "MacArthur Park" ("Someone left a cake out in the rain..."). But overall, he's a songwriter's songwriter. He's even written a popular book about the art of songwriting (which I have, and have been reading lately, by the way).

As I said in another post recently, I'm going to try to keep my Covered write-ups short so I'll post more music faster. So if you want to know more about Webb, here's his Wikipedia page:

Jimmy Webb - Wikipedia

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 By the Time I Get to Phoenix (Johnny Rivers)
02 Up, Up and Away (5th Dimension)
03 Love Years Coming (Strawberry Children)
04 Paper Cup (5th Dimension)
05 Wichita Lineman (Glen Campbell)
06 Do What You Gotta Do (Nina Simone)
07 MacArthur Park (Richard Harris)
08 The Magic Garden (Dusty Springfield)
09 Carpet Man (5th Dimension)
10 Worst that Could Happen (Brooklyn Bridge)
11 Galveston (Glen Campbell)
12 Where's the Playground, Susie (Glen Campbell)
13 Didn't We (Dionne Warwick)
14 Honey Come Back (Jr. Walker & the All Stars)
15 See You Then (Roberta Flack)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17271156/COVRDJIMMYWBB1966-1971Vlum1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GtYWDuwj

The cover photo of Webb is probably from 1968.

Journey and Friends - Super Jam II, The Automatt Studio, San Francisco, CA, 10-1-1978

I'm kind of surprised that I'm posting a Journey album, because I'm not much of a Journey fan. I sing along to their hits when I hear them on the radio, but that's about it. But I stumbled across this bootleg the other day, and I was pleasantly surprised. The interesting thing about it is that it mostly consists of covers of classic soul and rock songs. The first two songs are Journey originals, and the last two are as well, but in between are no less than eight cover songs in a row. I never thought I'd hear Journey do songs like "Hold On, I'm Coming," "Crossroads," and "Born Under a Bad Sign," much less more obscure ones like "Show Me" by Joe Tex.

Adding to the interest, there are some special guests singing on some songs. I suppose I should first explain what exactly this is. Apparently, in 1978, the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show got the idea of doing special shows featuring different musical acts performing with each other. The first one of these was called "Super Jam," and consisted of the surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd playing with some other Southern rock stars. (Some band members had died in a plane crash in 1977). 

This was the second one, Super Jam II. Journey was the main band for all the songs. However, they were joined on some songs by the Tower of Power horn section for songs that needed horns, like "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Road Runner." Two singers from the band Stoneground also took part, Annie Sampson and Jo Baker. Sampson sang lead vocals on "Road Runner" (originally by Junior Walker and the All-Stars), and Baker sang lead on "Love Hurts." They stuck around and sang on most of the other songs as well. For instance, on the song "People Get Ready" Journey's main vocalist Steve Perry sang lead on the first verse, Sampson took the second verse, and Baker did the third verse.

They were also joined by Tom Johnston of the Doobie Brothers. He was the lead vocalist and lead guitarist in the band's early years, writing and singing many of their biggest hits. But he left the group in 1977, about a year prior to this performance. He pursued a solo career for a few years, but didn't have much success, and rejoined the Doobie Brothers in the late 1980s. Johnston joined this concert from "Hold On, I'm Coming" onwards. At first, he just played lead guitar, along with Journey's lead guitarist Neal Schon, trading solos. But he sang lead vocals on "Show Me" and "Crossroads."

Surprisingly, Journey started out as kind of a prog rock band, as well as a splinter band from Santana. The original lead vocalist, Gregg Rolie, was the lead vocalist for Santana's first four albums. Journey's lead guitarist Neal Schon had played in Santana with Rolie. But while Rolie was the lead vocalist for Journey's first couple of albums, they didn't find much success. In 1978, Steve Perry joined, and he took over singing most of the songs. The band also switched to a more commercial sound, and soon gained massive popularity. 

This concert took place at a transitional time, with Perry being in the band less than a year. Two of the songs were actually mainly sung by Rolie: "Anytime" and "Born Under a Bad Sign." He stayed with the band until 1980. They he amicably quit, saying he wanted to start a family and explore a solo career. So while there are a couple of famous Journey originals here ("Lights" and "Wheel in the Sky"), overall, this is pretty different from how they would sound a few years later.

This performance took place in a recording studio, with no audience present. It was supposed to be broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour radio show, but apparently that never happened, due to legal problems getting permission for all the special guest participation. But it leaked out as a bootleg that sounds as good as a commercial release. The only song to be officially released from this is "Good Times" (a Sam Cooke cover), which appeared on a Journey box set.

There's some banter between songs, all spoken by Perry, but it sounds like this was overdubbed afterwards. On the version I found, there often was some music playing in the background at a low level while he was talking. I found this pointless and distracting, so I used the UVR5 audio editing program to get rid of most of it. However, on track 3, there's the voice of someone faintly singing while he's talking, and I couldn't manage to get rid of that.

By the way, if there was a "Super Jam III" or beyond, I haven't heard of it.

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Feeling That Way (Journey & Friends)
02 Anytime (Journey & Friends)
03 talk (Journey & Friends)
04 Road Runner (Journey & Friends)
05 talk (Journey & Friends)
06 Love Hurts (Journey & Friends)
07 talk (Journey & Friends)
08 Hold On, I'm Coming (Journey & Friends)
09 talk (Journey & Friends)
10 People Get Ready (Journey & Friends)
11 talk (Journey & Friends)
12 Show Me (Journey & Friends)
13 Crossroads (Journey & Friends)
14 Born Under a Bad Sign (Journey & Friends)
15 talk (Journey & Friends)
16 Good Times (Journey & Friends)
17 Lights (Journey & Friends)
18 talk (Journey & Friends)
19 Wheel in the Sky (Journey & Friends)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17258187/JORNY1978SuprJmIIThAutmttStdoSnFrncscoCA__10-1-1978_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Bq5hLjEN

I used a photo of the band from 1979, since they had a different drummer for almost all of 1978. This is from an appearance on "The Midnight Special" TV show.

Various Artists - Covered: Isaac Hayes & David Porter: 1965-1989

Here's another album from my "Covered" series, which highlights the careers of great songwriters. This time, it's the songwriting team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter.

In the 1960s, Hayes and Porter worked for the Stax Records label in Memphis, Tennessee. Both of them were local kids that got involved as session musicians, slowly graduating to producers and songwriters as well. Around 1965, they began writing songs together, mostly for the soul duo Sam and Dave, but also for some others on the Stax label. 

Unfortunately, their collaboration didn't last long. In 1968, Hayes put out a solo album called "Hot Buttered Soul." It was an unexpected hit, turning Hayes into a big soul music star. It, and following albums, mostly consisted of very extended versions of cover songs, so the songwriting team of Hayes and Porter wasn't needed much. As a result, the songwriting team broke up around 1969. But they wrote about 200 songs together during their roughly four years together, many of them all time classics, like "Hold On, I'm Coming" and "Soul Man."

Porter didn't have much success writing songs with others after Hayes. But Hayes became an even bigger star in the early 1970s, especially with "Theme from 'Shaft'," which was a Number One hit in the U.S. in 1971. Although I've included that song, I avoided other Hayes solo songs, since this is focused on the Hayes-Porter collaboration. The songs here are in chronological order by year, and after "Theme from 'Shaft'" at track 13, all the songs are covers of earlier Hayes-Porter compositions. 

The one exception is "Deja Vu" by Dionne Warwick. That was an instrumental Hayes was working on in the late 1970s. Warwick heard him playing it, and liked it. She asked Hayes if she could finish it off with another songwriter, and he agreed, so she did. That songwriter, Adrienne Anderson, kept the title "Deja Vu" that Hayes gave to the instrumental, and Warwick had a big hit with it.

Here are the Wikipedia entries if you want to know more about them:

Isaac Hayes - Wikipedia

David Porter (musician) - Wikipedia

I tried to select a variety of different performers so I didn't have too many of any one. However, Sam and Dave did so many definitive versions that I kept four of their performances.

This album is 57 minutes long.

01 You Don't Know like I Know (Sam & Dave)
02 Boot-Leg (Booker T. & the MG's)
03 Candy (Astors)
04 Hold On, I'm Coming (Sam & Dave)
05 60 Minutes of Your Love (Homer Banks)
06 B-A-B-Y (Carla Thomas)
07 Soul Man (Sam & Dave)
08 I Take What I Want (James & Bobby Purify)
09 Toe Hold (Sharon Tandy)
10 Said I Wasn't Gonna Tell Nobody (Cliff Bennett)
11 Your Good Thing [Is about to End] (Lou Rawls)
12 Soul Sister, Brown Sugar (Sam & Dave)
13 Theme from 'Shaft' (Isaac Hayes)
14 You Got Me Hummin' (Cold Blood)
15 I Thank You (ZZ Top)
16 Deja Vu (Dionne Warwick)
17 Wrap It Up (Fabulous Thunderbirds)
18 When Something Is Wrong with My Baby (Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17236601/COVRDIsacHyesDvidPrter_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HnTWxBFb

It's easy to find photos of Isaac Hayes, since he was a big star, but it's very hard to find photos of David Porter, since he was a low-profile songwriter. It's even harder to find photos of them together. I found a decent one for the cover, but it's from 2005, decades after their songwriting partnership ended.

The Who - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Charlton Athletic Football Ground, London, Britain, 5-18-1974

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I recently found a couple of BBC albums that are parts of album series that I thought were already finished. This is another one of those. I've already posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 5" for the Who, as well as "Volume 6." So what was "Volume 5" has been renamed "Volume 6," and what was "Volume 6" has been renamed "Volume 8." Wait, 8, you say? Not 7? That's because I also found another album that needs to be slotted in there. I'll post that one soon as well. Let's hope there won't be any more renumbering after this!

Here's the link to what is now Volume 6:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-who-bbc-sessions-volume-5.html

And here's the link to what is now Volume 8:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-who-bbc-sessions-volume-6-in.html

This apparently was a pretty big deal of a concert at the time. It was kind of a rock festival (called "Summer of '74"), actually, due to the size of the crowd and all of the musical acts involved. It was held at a huge sports stadium that held 75,000 people, and it was sold out. The Who were the headline act, going on last, and the support acts were: Lou Reed, Humble Pie, Bad Company, Maggie Bell, Lindisfarne and Montrose. Those were all well-known, popular acts at the time. I wish I had the recordings for those too, but apparently only the Who portion was broadcast on BBC radio at the time, so worthy sounding bootlegs of the other acts aren't in the public domain.

In 1973, the Who released their epic rock opera double album "Quadrophenia," then toured to support it. That tour went into early 1974, but then the band took a few months off. They didn't put out a new studio album in 1974. They would only do a few concerts for the rest of the year, and this was the biggest one by far. It was one of the largest audiences the Who had ever played for up until that point, with only the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and a couple other big rock festivals around that time being larger. For the band's "Quadrophenia" tour, they basically played that album plus a few other hits. But with this concert, they went back to a "normal" set list, with songs taken from all points of their music career. Only four songs came from the "Quadrophenia" album ("Drowned," "Bell Boy," "Dr. Jimmy," and "5:15").

Apparently Pete Townshend (the band's lead guitarist and main songwriter) was going through some issues in 1974. He played this concert totally drunk, as well as the rest of the concerts the band did in 1974. As a result, he's said he doesn't have fond memories of this big event, and has said he thinks the band didn't play their best. However, I don't any problems with his playing or the band's as a whole, and their set went over very well with the crowd. The Who were in their musical prime in the early 1970s, so imagine even an off night by their standards was still pretty damn good.

This album is an hour and 46 minutes long.

01 I Can't Explain (Who)
02 Summertime Blues (Who)
03 Young Man Blues (Who)
04 talk (Who)
05 Baba O'Riley (Who)
06 talk (Who)
07 Behind Blue Eyes (Who)
08 Substitute (Who)
09 I'm a Boy (Who)
10 talk (Who)
11 Tattoo (Who)
12 talk (Who)
13 Boris the Spider (Who)
14 talk (Who)
15 Drowned (Who)
16 talk (Who)
17 Bell Boy (Who)
18 talk (Who)
19 Dr. Jimmy (Who)
20 Won't Get Fooled Again (Who)
21 Pinball Wizard (Who)
22 See Me, Feel Me (Who)
23 5-15 (Who)
24 Magic Bus (Who)
25 My Generation (Who)
26 Naked Eye (Who)
27 Let's See Action [Nothing Is Everything] (Who)
28 My Generation Blues (Who)

https://www.imagenetz.de/eq7b5

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/21dD3Xs2

The cover photo is from this exact concert. The original was rather blurry and low-res, so I used the Krea AI program to fill in some detail. It still is somewhat blurry, but at least it's better.

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 - Covered: Kris Kristofferson, Volume 1: 1968-1973

In the past couple of weeks (as I write this in October 2024), I've started fixing some cover photos that had some issues with the recently released Krea AI program. Probably the covers that needed the most work were the ones for my "Covered" series, albums that highlight the best songwriters in popular music, especially those who didn't have lots of success with their own versions. I hadn't posted any Covered albums in a long time, but I actually have over a dozen different songwriters (or songwriting teams) ready to go. One thing that held me back though was the cover art, since some of these songwriters have barely been photographed at all. But now that I'm using the Krea AI program, I'm excited to see if good cover art can be made. So I'm going to make an effort to get a whole bunch of these Covered albums posted in the near future.

The logical place to start with this new effort is Kris Kristofferson. That's because he died about two weeks ago (September 28, 2024, specifically) as I write this, so this could make a good way to remember his musical legacy. He was 88 years old when he passed.

Kristofferson was one of the great songwriters for country music, but he wasn't blessed with a great voice. Thus, he was frequently covered by other musical acts, and he had only a few hits of his own. That works well for my Covered series. I only have a few of his albums in my music collection, mostly his most critically praised ones from the early 1970s. But in the wake of his death, there were a bunch of newspaper articles listing what people thought were his best songs (usually top ten lists). So I went through those, and made sure all of his most praised songs were included. 

I found enough material for two solid albums. This is the first one. As I usually try to do with this series, I emphasized cover versions. Only one song (on the second volume) features Kristofferson singing one of his own songs (though there's also a song performed by the Highwaymen, a country supergroup he was a part of).

In the past with these Covered albums, I've written a lot about the artists and the songs. From now on, I'm going to cut that short, so I'll find it easier to post a lot more of these albums. If you want to know a lot more, I suggest reading this Wikipedia page about him:

Kris Kristofferson - Wikipedia

But here's my short version of his career is like this. Kristofferson burst onto the country music scene around the year 1970, when loads of country music stars started covering his songs. Probably the best known cover was "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin, which hit Number One on the U.S. single chart in 1971. But there were others. For instance, in 1970, "For the Good Times" was a Number One country single for Ray Price, "Sunday Morning Coming Down" was Number One country single for Johnny Cash, and "Help Me Make It through the Night" was the same for Sammi Smith. At the time, country music was pretty formulaic, with relatively simple melodies and lyrics. Kristofferson wasn't a big groundbreaker for melodies, but his lyrics really shook up country music with their eloquence and emotional intelligence. One might say he brought a Bob Dylan level of songwriting to country music.

Kristofferson kept his own music career going, while still having his songs frequently covered by others. However, he only had one big hit on his own, "Why Me (Lord)," which reached Number One on the country singles chart in 1974. At the same time he kept a music career going, he also was very successful in the movies, starring in dozens of films, many of them with a country theme.

As usual with this Covered series, I'm sticking to my self-imposed rule of only including one version of any given song. So, for instance, I was torn between the Ray Price and Al Green versions of "For the Good Times." The Price version was a massive hit in 1970, but I liked the Green version better. I had to make many other decisions like that. For instance, dozens of famous musical acts have covered "Help Me Make It through the Night." I also tried not to have more than one song per performer. But I decided to only make that a loose rule. Note for instance two songs done by Johnny Cash here. All the songs are in order of the year these versions came out. Consult the mp3 tags for details on that.

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Jody and the Kid (Roy Drusky)
02 From the Bottle to the Bottom (Billy Walker)
03 Sugarman (Sam Baker)
04 Darby's Castle (Roger Miller)
05 Sunday Morning Coming Down (Johnny Cash)
06 Help Me Make It through the Night (Sammi Smith)
07 Once More With Feeling (Jerry Lee Lewis)
08 To Beat the Devil (Johnny Cash)
09 Me and Bobby McGee (Janis Joplin)
10 I've Got to Have You (Carly Simon)
11 The Taker (Waylon Jennings)
12 Casey's Last Ride (John Denver)
13 For the Good Times (Al Green)
14 Nobody Wins (Lynn Anderson)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17230517/COVRDKRISKRISTFFRSN1968-1973Volum1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/m2XxamgZ

I'm not entirely sure where the cover photo is from. But it looks like it was taken in the early 1970s. The original had some issues, so I used the Krea AI pic to fix it up a bit.

Tom Jones - BBC Sessions, Volume 4- In Concert, BBC TV Studios, London, Britain, 12-31-1971

For about two months, I've posted almost nothing but US Festival albums and VH-1 "Storytellers" albums. During that time, I found a few BBC albums that actually come before other BBC albums I found by that same artist. Like this one. I previously posted a "BBC Sessions, Volume 4" for Tom Jones, as well as a "BBC Sessions, Volume 5." But now that I'm posting this one, what had been Volume 4 becomes Volume 5, and what had been Volume 5 becomes Volume 6. I've already updated those two, so if you've downloaded them before, feel free to download them again if you want to stay consistent.

Here's the link to what is now Volume 5:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/11/tom-jones-bbc-sessions-volume-4-in.html

And here's the link to what is now Volume 6:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/02/tom-jones-bbc-sessions-volume-5-bbc.html

Okay, with that out of the way, let's get to what this is. In 1971, Tom Jones was extremely popular, helped by his TV show "This Is Tom Jones." Despite being from Britain (Wales, specifically), he spent the entire year touring overseas. But towards the end of the year, he returned to Britain in time to tape this hour-long special for BBC TV. It was a good time for a special, because he was having hits left and right since 1965 until 1971, but he'd have one big hit in 1972 and then very few for the rest of the decade. He brought out all the stops, performing with an orchestra, a choir, and an American soul group (the Blossoms) at different points in the concert.

If you're a Tom Jones fan, you'll probably dig this. If you're not, beware of slick show-biz cheesiness. Still, it helps that almost every song was a big hit, either by Jones or covers. Some of the covers, such as "River Deep, Mountain High," apparently were never officially released by him.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Introduction - Till (Tom Jones)
02 Proud Mary (Tom Jones)
03 Tired of Being Alone (Tom Jones)
04 talk (Tom Jones)
05 Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau (Tom Jones)
06 All I Ever Need Is You (Tom Jones)
07 Witch Queen of New Orleans (Tom Jones)
08 talk (Tom Jones)
09 I'll Be There (Tom Jones & the Blossoms)
10 River Deep, Mountain High (Tom Jones & the Blossoms)
11 Nothing Rhymed (Tom Jones)
12 talk (Tom Jones)
13 In Dreams (Tom Jones)
14 Delilah (Tom Jones)
15 talk (Tom Jones)
16 [It Looks Like] I'll Never Fall in Love Again (Tom Jones)
17 Daughter of Darkness (Tom Jones)
18 She's a Lady (Tom Jones)
19 It's Not Unusual (Tom Jones)
20 talk (Tom Jones)
21 Amazing Grace (Tom Jones)
22 Resurrection Shuffle (Tom Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17216650/TOMJNS1971BBSssonsVlum4InCncrtBBTVStdosLndonBrtin__12-31-1971.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rQDvXA4P

The cover image is a screenshot taken from this exact concert.