Covered: Johnny Bristol: 1966-1974

It's back to the Covered series about great songwriters, and it's back also to shining a light on another little known songwriter for the Motown sound. This time, it's Johnny Bristol.

Bristol's music career began as part of a soul duo called Johnny and Jackey in the late 1950s, kind of an early version of Sam and Dave. They didn't have much success. But one of their singles, from 1961, was the song "Someday We'll Be Together," co-written by Bristol. It was later redone by the Supremes in 1969 and was a Number One hit in the U.S. by them.

The record company Bristol was working for was taken over by Motown Records, so he found himself working for the Motown hit machine. His soul duo had died out by that time. Instead, the leaders of Motown decided he was more valuable as a songwriter instead of a performer. Virtually all of the songs on this album are from his time at Motown. He especially developed a good relationship with Jr. Walker and the All Stars, writing many songs for them.

But his connection with Motown ended around the same time it did with so many others, in the early 1970s, when it almost seemed as if the company was willfully trying to lose most of their talent, as it (foolishly) shifted from Detroit to Los Angeles and from music to movies and TV shows. He left the company in 1973, in part due to frustration that he was never given a chance to be a performer as well as a songwriter.

Unlike many who left, he found a lot of success working for another record company. He very quickly turned into a star, thanks to his performance of one of his songs, "Hang In There Baby." It reached the Top Ten in the U.S., and Number Three in Britain. He had a series of smaller hits through the rest of the 1970s. However, I've only included his one big solo hit here, because this has a focus on his songwriting, not his performances. Besides, in my opinion, most of his solo singles were generic and not that memorable.

He also continued to write hits for others. His biggest success outside of Motown was "Love Me for a Reason," which hit Number One in Britain for the Osmonds in 1974. But he was more successful as a producer, producing albums by Tom Jones, Boz Scaggs, Jerry Butler, and many others.

Unfortunately, also following a pattern with other Motown songwriters, his successes petered out by the end of the 1970s, due to changing musical trends. He died in 2004 at the age of 65.

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

Johnny Bristol - Wikipedia

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 I Can't Believe You Love Me (Tammi Terrell)
02 These Things Will Keep Me Loving You (Velvelettes)
03 Pucker Up Buttercup (Jr. Walker & the All-Stars)
04 If I Could Build My Whole World Around You (Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell)
05 What Does It Take [To Win Your Love] (Jr. Walker & the All-Stars)
06 My Whole World Ended [The Moment You Left Me] (David Ruffin)
07 Someday We'll Be Together (Supremes)
08 Twenty-Five Miles (Edwin Starr)
09 Gotta Hold on to This Feeling (Jr. Walker & the All-Stars)
10 What Is a Man (Four Tops)
11 Take Me Girl, I’m Ready (Jr. Walker & the All-Stars)
12 I Don't Want to Do Wrong (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
13 Way Back Home (Jr. Walker & the All-Stars)
14 Daddy Could Swear, I Declare (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
15 Hang On in There Baby (Johnny Bristol)
16 Love Me for a Reason (Osmonds)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17379501/COVRDJOHNNYBRSTL1966-1974BstOf_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ih89BWNi

I found a few decent photos of Bristol from the 1970s, thanks to him having a big hit single then. The photo on the cover is from 1975. I improved it using the Krea AI program.

The Stills-Young Band (Stephen Stills & Neil Young) - Boston Garden, Boston, MA, 6-26-1976

This year, 2024, Neil Young released his third big box set of his music career, "Archives, Volume 3." One thing I was looking forward to from this was a concert album from his 1976 tour with Stephen Stills. But there was nothing from it whatsoever. And even though his box sets have gathered up virtually all his previously unreleased original songs, there was one nice original song of his played on that tour, "Evening Coconut," that remains unreleased.

The reason I was looking for such a live album is because there are no known FM radio or soundboard recordings from the 1976 Stills and Young tour. But once I found out that tour had been skipped for the box set, I went looking for the best sounding bootleg from the tour, figuring we're probably never going to get anything better now. I found this concert from Boston.

But if you're a stickler for excellent sound quality, never fear. Although this is an audience boot, I edited the songs, and now it sounds just as good as a typical soundboard from that era. Really. First off, it sounded pretty darn good for an audience boot, heads above all the other concert bootlegs from the tour that get traded. But then I edited all the songs with the MVSEP program to remove a low constant level of crowd noise from all but the parts where you'd find crowd noise on a soundboard, especially at the ends of songs. Then I boosted the lead vocals generally for all the songs, and adjusted the mix. I'm proud of the result.

I even took extra steps for a couple of songs. For the songs "Black Queen" and "4+20," Stills either forgot some lyrics or had his mouth too far from the microphone for them to be heard. It was only about ten seconds for each song, but I found it kind of annoying. So I went to the next best bootleg from this tour, then pasted in just those few seconds of missing singing for each song. That's why those two have ["Edit"] in their titles.

Now, I feel the need to say a little bit about this tour in general. There's a long and tangled story behind the creation of the album they made for this tour to support, called "Long May You Run." It involved Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY) getting back together, briefly, and then breaking apart again, leaving bad feelings all around. There's a good summary of the whole thing here, including information about this tour:

Long May You Run - Wikipedia

Here's my summary about the tour part. Stills and Young were together in Buffalo Springfield, and then again in CSNY. They often butted heads, but they greatly enjoyed their musical collaboration through all their problems. To this day, in 2024, they apparently remain very close friends. In 1976 though, Young was flying high creatively, writing tons of excellent new songs. By contrast, Stills was struggling somewhat. Once the tour started, Young got rave reviews while Stills was criticized. Stills didn't take this well. He started drinking heavily and acting like an asshole. 

After 19 concerts, Young quit the tour unexpectedly. He simply sent Stills a telegram that read, in full: "Dear Stephen, funny how some things that start spontaneously end that way. Eat a peach. Neil." That seems like a dick move to me, but it fits with Young's behavior over the years, in which he follows his muse, despite often leaving other people working with him frustrated. Stills was forced to finish the tour on his own.

Given all that, one might expect Young to sound great here and Stills terrible. I don't think that's the case at all. I think they both sound very good. It turns out this was only the third concert of the tour, so probably they both were still enthusiastic and the bad reviews and problems hadn't happened yet.

If you're a fan of the music of Young, or Stills, or both, you really should give this a listen. And by the way, in a sense Stills got the last laugh over the next year, because he pulled himself together, reunited with Crosby and Nash, and put out a very good Crosby, Stills and Nash album in 1977 that outsold what Young was doing at the time. And Stills and Young patched up their friendship. For instance, note that I've posted a concert they did as a duo in 2015. You can find that one here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2023/04/stephen-stills-neil-young-light-up.html

This album is an hour and 51 minutes long.

01 Love the One You're With (Stills-Young Band)
02 talk (Stills-Young Band)
03 The Loner (Stills-Young Band)
04 talk (Stills-Young Band)
05 Long May You Run (Stills-Young Band)
06 For What It's Worth (Stills-Young Band)
07 talk (Stills-Young Band)
08 Helpless (Stills-Young Band)
09 Black Queen [Edit] (Stills-Young Band)
10 talk (Stills-Young Band)
11 Southern Man (Stills-Young Band)
12 talk (Stills-Young Band)
13 On the Way Home (Stills-Young Band)
14 Change Partners (Stills-Young Band)
15 talk (Stills-Young Band)
16 Too Far Gone (Stills-Young Band)
17 talk (Stills-Young Band)
18 4 + 20 [Edit] (Stills-Young Band)
19 talk (Stills-Young Band)
20 Stringman (Stills-Young Band)
21 Word Game (Stills-Young Band)
22 Band Intros (Stills-Young Band)
23 talk (Stills-Young Band)
24 Buyin' Time (Stills-Young Band)
25 Evening Coconut (Stills-Young Band)
26 Make Love to You (Stills-Young Band)
27 Cowgirl in the Sand (Stills-Young Band)
28 The Treasure (Stills-Young Band)
29 talk (Stills-Young Band)
30 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes (Stills-Young Band)
31 talk (Stills-Young Band)

https://www.imagenetz.de/gAS9m

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MTeo7AjB

The cover photo shows Stills and Young in concert on this tour, but I don't know the exact date and location.

Covered: Smokey Robinson, Volume 3: 1972-2013

This is the third and final Covered album celebrating Smokey Robinson, the songwriter, as opposed to Smokey Robinson, the singer. As with the previous two volumes, the focus is on songs he wrote or co-wrote. I've selected versions performed by others, even when the original hit version was performed by him.

The timing on this volume works out nicely, because 1972 was the farewell tour for his band Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and after that it was all his solo career. Note though that the Miracles continued on without Robinson, and even had some more hits, especially "Love Machine."

In retrospect, maybe I should have made this a Covered album of Smokey Robinson and Marv Tarplin, who was the guitarist for the Miracles, because they wrote many songs together. Tarplin left the Miracles the same time Robinson did, and continued to sometimes write songs with him. For instance, the big hit "Cruisin'" was cowritten by them. Band member Pete Moore also wrote many hits with Robinson. He even co-wrote "Love Machine" mentioned above, without him.

Robinson's solo career wasn't as successful as his career with the Miracles, in my opinion. There were a lot of mellow, soulful ballads that didn't distinguish themselves from each other much. In fact, the name of one of his solo hits, "Quiet Storm," became the name of a radio format for that type of music. But he did write some classics, including two huge hits all over the world, "Cruisin'" and "Being with You."

That said, a majority of the songs here are later covers of songs that were first hits by the Miracles in the 1960s. So many of them have timeless appeal and have been hits multiple times for different music acts.

I broke my rule of trying not to include any performances by Smokey Robinson himself by including one, "Baby That's Bachatcha." It's not because that was his best performance or something like that. Rather, it was a solo hit worthy of inclusion here, and I didn't find any decent cover versions.

As I previously mentioned in an earlier volume, Robinson is still alive as I write this in 2024. But he's 84 years old, so he's basically retired from music. May his music be enjoyed and remembered long after he's gone.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Floy Joy (Supremes)
02 Happy [Love Theme from 'Lady Sings the Blues'] (Michael Jackson)
03 The Tracks of My Tears (Linda Ronstadt)
04 The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game (Patti Smith)
05 Baby That's Backatcha (Smokey Robinson)
06 Don't Look Back (Peter Tosh with Mick Jagger)
07 Ooh Baby Baby (Linda Ronstadt)
08 The Tears of a Clown (English Beat)
09 More Love (Kim Carnes)
10 Going to a Go-Go (Rolling Stones)
11 Being with You (John Holt)
12 From Head to Toe (Elvis Costello)
13 Who's Loving You (Terence Trent D'Arby)
14 Cruisin' (Huey Lewis & the News & Gwyneth Paltrow)
15 I'll Be Doggone (Solomon Burke)
16 Quiet Storm (Eliza Lacerda)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17350557/COVRDSMOKYRBNSN1972-2013Vlum3_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RvZMuRGT

The cover photo is from 1980. That's all I know.

Covered: Smokey Robinson, Volume 2: 1966-1972

Here's the second out of three volumes of the Covered series that highlights Smokey Robinson as a songwriter, instead of the usual attention paid to him as a singer and leader of the band the Miracles.

This volume deals with the time period Robinson was slowly transitioning from being part of the highly successful group the Miracles to pursuing other interests, including starting out on a solo career. 

Robinson was critical to the success of Motown Records in the 1960s. He wasn't just leader of a hit-making act for the company, or a songwriter for other acts. He also was such a key leader of the company that he became vice president in the mid-1960s, making him second in importance only behind Berry Gordy. Robinson was tired of constantly touring with the Miracles and wanted to focus more on helping to run Motown. He also had married Claudette Rogers Robinson back in 1959 (who was the only female member of the Miracles, since the band's inception), and wanted to focus on raising a family with her, when she had a child with him in 1968, after many years of trying and miscarriages.

However, these plans were delayed by the song "The Tears of a Clown," in which he wrote most of the lyrics while Stevie Wonder came up with the music. It had been a little known album track released by the Miracles in 1967. But in 1970, with no new Miracles music on the horizon due to Robinson stepping back from the group, the British division of Motown looked for a song from that 1967 album to release as a "new" single, and decided on that one. It quickly went to Number One in Britain in 1970, causing it to be released as a single in the U.S. and reaching Number One there too. He had already planned on leaving the Miracles, but due to the song being one of the biggest hits of the year around the world, he was persuaded to stay on a little longer. He finally left the band for good in 1972, after a farewell tour.

As with Volume One, this album focuses on Robinson as songwriter, so there are no tracks performed by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles here. Sometimes, I had to pick non-hit versions, just to avoid including Miracles versions. As for "The Tears of a Clown" mentioned above, I chose a later version which appears on Volume Three. A bunch of other songs that were originally hits during this time period also don't appear until later versions included on Volume Three.

Just roughly guessing, I think about half of these songs were first hits by him and the Miracles, while the other half largely were hits he wrote for other Motown acts. Only a few performances here are by non-Motown acts - "Since I Lost My Baby" by the Action, "You've Got to Earn It" by the Staple Singers, "I Don't Blame You at All" by Rosetta Hightower, and "First I Look at the Purse" by the J. Geils Band. But I believe all of those are cover versions of songs first done by Motown acts.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Mighty Good Lovin' (Chris Clark)
02 Take This Heart of Mine (Marvin Gaye)
03 My Heart (Tammi Terrell)
04 Since I Lost My Baby (Action)
05 The Day You Take One [You Have to Take the Other] (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
06 The Composer (Diana Ross & the Supremes)
07 Way Over There (Edwin Starr)
08 I'll Try Something New (Diana Ross & the Supremes & the Temptations)
09 Get Ready (Rare Earth)
10 Fan the Flame (Edwin Starr)
11 I Second That Emotion (Diana Ross & the Supremes & the Temptations)
12 The Love I Saw in You Was Just a Mirage (Uniques)
13 If You Can Want (Barbara McNair)
14 Still Water [Love] (Four Tops)
15 You've Got to Earn It (Staple Singers)
16 I Don't Blame You at All (Rosetta Hightower)
17 Automatically Sunshine (Supremes)
18 First I Look at the Purse (J. Geils Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17350538/COVRDSMOKYRBNSN1966-1972Vlum2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zYHwYRVM

I don't know when the cover photo was taken, but I would guess the mid to late 1960s.

If You're a US Citizen, Please Vote!

I'm writing this shortly after midnight, at the start of election day in the U.S., November 5, 2024. I'm a very politically liberal person. I generally try to keep politics out of this music blog. But I'll make an exception to say if you're eligible, please vote! 

This is going to be one of the most consequential elections in U.S. history. I believe that either Trump wins and we move towards a soft dictatorship, like the kind in countries like Hungary and Turkey, or Harris wins and we remain a real democracy. And so much more is at stake. In my life, I've seen a lot of Republican and Democratic presidents come and go, but I've never been so scared about the outcome as I am now. This would be Trump vengeful and unchained, very different from how he was president the first time around.

But no matter what your political persuasion is, it's a civic duty to vote, so please do it. It does matter. The logic is, if you don't vote, then people like you probably won't vote either. And if that happens, you and people like you have no chance of getting the government that you want.

Thanks! Now it's back to the music.

Covered: Smokey Robinson, Volume 1: 1961-1966

I want to get back to posting more albums from the best songwriters of the Motown Record company in the 1960s and 1970s. The time has come to post an album from a musical giant, Smokey Robinson. This is the first of three about him.

The odds are very good you're familiar with Robinson, because he sang many hits, both with his band the Miracles in the 1960s and as a solo artist after that. But this series isn't about Robinson as a performer, it's about Robinson as a songwriter. I have included no performances of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles here, and only one of Robinson solo on a later volume. That means there are lots of songs that were first hits by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles done by other musical acts. Plus, many songs are the ones wrote that were first hits for other acts, almost always other Motown acts.

Robinson, who is alive at the age of 84 as I write this in 2024, was basically one of the founders of the Motown Record company, and one of its most important employees for many years. 

Here is the Wikipedia entry about him:

Smokey Robinson - Wikipedia

He started his band the Miracle in 1955, but they struggled at first. Then he met Berry Gordy, the future head of Motown Records, in 1957, after a failed audition for another record company. Gordy was impressed by Robinson's vocal talent. But he was even more impressed that Robinson had brought a notebook with over a hundred original songs in it. Gordy had already written a few hits, and became a mentor, teaching Robinson the art of songwriting.

Robinson's music career with the Miracles started to take off. They had their first hit in 1958 (with a song Robinson didn't write). But they really hit it big in 1960 with the song "Shop Around," which was co-written by Robinson, along with Gordy. It hit Number One on one of the U.S. singles charts at the time, and was the first million seller for Motown. Rolling Stone Magazine would later put it on their list of the top 500 songs of all time.

From that time forward, Robinson went from success to success. At first, he was THE main hit songwriter. He wrote lots of hits for other musical acts on the Motown label, especially Mary Wells and the Temptations. But in a few years the Holland-Dozier-Holland team because the most successful songwriters for the company. Robinson still wrote lots of hits every year, but focused more on hits for his own group, the Miracles. By the way, "My Girl," "Ooh Baby Baby," and "Tracks of My Tears" also all made it to the Rolling Stone Magazine top 500 songs list. That's pretty incredible, to write four such songs in a five-year time span! 

As I mentioned above, I had to go out of my way to find versions of many Smokey Robinson and the Miracles hits, or this could have looked a lot like a greatest hits album from them, and that's less interesting, in my opinion. So, for instance, I went with a non-hit version of "Shop Around" by Mary Wells from 1961 rather than the big hit version mentioned above from 1960. But note that Robinson wrote many songs with others (though he didn't really have a long-lasting songwriting partner), so some of the Miracles versions show up on Covered albums for other songwriters. For instance, the Miracles version of "Shop Around" appears on the Covered album for Berry Gordy.

I'm too lazy to make a list of exactly which of these songs were hits for the Miracles and which were first hits for others. But there's a paragraph in his Wikipedia entry that lists most of the big hits for others from this time period. So I'm posting it here:

Between 1962 and 1966, Robinson was also one of the major songwriters and producers for Motown, penning many hit singles such as "Two Lovers", "The One Who Really Loves You", "You Beat Me to the Punch" and "My Guy" for Mary Wells; "The Way You Do The Things You Do", "My Girl", "Since I Lost My Baby", "It's Growing", and "Get Ready" for the Temptations; "Still Water (Love)" for the Four Tops; "When I'm Gone" and "Operator" for Brenda Holloway; "Don't Mess With Bill", "The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game" and "My Baby Must Be a Magician" for the Marvelettes; and "I'll Be Doggone" and "Ain't That Peculiar" for Marvin Gaye.

Note that some of the songs mentioned there aren't included here because I chose versions with release dates after 1966. So they'll be on the later two volumes.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Shop Around (Mary Wells)
02 The One Who Really Loves You (Mary Wells)
03 Two Lovers (Mary Wells)
04 I Want a Love I Can See (Temptations)
05 You Beat Me to the Punch (Mary Wells)
06 Better Un-Said (LaBrenda Ben)
07 You've Really Got a Hold on Me (Beatles)
08 The Way You Do the Things You Do (Temptations)
09 Lucky Lucky Me (Marvin Gaye)
10 My Guy (Mary Wells)
11 My Girl (Temptations)
12 My Smile Is Just a Frown [Turned Upside Down] (Caroline Crawford)
13 When I'm Gone (Brenda Holloway)
14 My Baby (Temptations)
15 Ain't that Peculiar (Marvin Gaye)
16 Don't Mess with Bill (Marvelettes)
17 Operator (Brenda Holloway)
18 It's Growing (Temptations)
19 One More Heartache (Marvin Gaye)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17350552/COVRDSMOKYRBNSN1961-1966Vlum1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KDd8E5FS

The cover photo was taken on the set of the "Ready Steady Go" TV show in 1964. It was in color already, so I didn't have to do much to it.

The Rolling Stones - BBC Sessions, Volume 8: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-29-2013

Here's the eighth and I assume last album of the Rolling Stones performing for the BBC. This time, it's a full concert from the massive yearly Glastonbury Festival in Britain. Despite it being 2013 and the festival has been happening steadily since about 1980, apparently this was the first time the Stones were invited to play there!

I mentioned in the previous album in this series, a BBC concert from 2006, that the Stones were getting long in the tooth. That even more so the case here. Lead singer Mick Jagger was 70 years old, which is frigging old for their style of energetic rock and roll. But in their defense, if you just listen to the recording, there's no way to tell. In my opinion, they still sound good and vibrant.

This is completely unreleased, and the sound is as good as you'd expect from the BBC. There were some problems though. The second half appears to be from a slightly different source. You can't tell based on the sound quality, but a difference was that, for that half, a BBC DJ talked between songs whenever possible. For instance, there was a couple of minutes of talking during the lengthy applause before the encore. But there was other talking as well. For instance, that annoying DJ talked over the last few seconds of "Midnight Rambler" and over the first few seconds of "You Can't Always Get What You Want." 

So I deleted the DJ talking whenever possible, like during the encore applause and after the final song. I also used the UVR5 audio editing program to remove his voice when he talked over songs. Those are the ones with "[Edit]" in their titles. Hopefully, the recording is now just the Stones.

One nice thing about this concert is that it has Mick Taylor guesting on two songs, "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." Taylor was the band's main lead guitarist starting in 1969, but he quit the band in 1974 and was replaced by Ronnie Wood. In recent years (writing this in 2024), he's been a guest star at quite a few Stones concerts.

In 2013, the band hadn't put out a new studio album in ages. So this is nearly all their best, classic songs. The only new song performed here was "Doom and Gloom," which came out on a 2012 greatest hits album.

This album is two hours and six minutes long.

01 talk (Rolling Stones)
02 Jumpin' Jack Flash (Rolling Stones)
03 talk (Rolling Stones)
04 It's Only Rock 'n' Roll [But I Like It] (Rolling Stones)
05 talk (Rolling Stones)
06 Paint It Black (Rolling Stones)
07 Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)
08 talk (Rolling Stones)
09 Glastonbury Girl [Factory Girl] (Rolling Stones)
10 talk (Rolling Stones)
11 Wild Horses (Rolling Stones)
12 talk (Rolling Stones)
13 Doom and Gloom (Rolling Stones)
14 talk (Rolling Stones)
15 Can't You Hear Me Knocking (Rolling Stones with Mick Taylor)
16 talk (Rolling Stones)
17 Honky Tonk Women (Rolling Stones)
18 talk (Rolling Stones)
19 You Got the Silver (Rolling Stones)
20 talk (Rolling Stones)
21 Happy (Rolling Stones)
22 Miss You Intro (Rolling Stones)
23 Miss You (Rolling Stones)
24 Midnight Rambler [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
25 talk (Rolling Stones)
26 2000 Light Years from Home (Rolling Stones)
27 Sympathy for the Devil [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
28 Start Me Up (Rolling Stones)
29 talk (Rolling Stones)
30 Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones)
31 Brown Sugar (Rolling Stones)
32 You Can't Always Get What You Want [Edit] (Rolling Stones)
33 talk (Rolling Stones)
34 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Rolling Stones with Mick Taylor)

https://www.imagenetz.de/dNp4V

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uXS2iUsU

The cover is from this exact concert. It shows Ronnie Wood on the left, Mick Jagger in the center, and Keith Richards on the right.