Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 5: 1967

The Motown magic continues with another volume of the Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland songwriting team, better known as Holland-Dozier-Holland. Once again, they came up so many excellent songs that this volume in the Covered series only deals with a single year, 1967.

1967 was a year of great change in rock music, with psychedelia being all the range, and songs getting more sophisticated and diverse. But Holland-Dozier-Holland had a wildly successful formula, and they didn't change it much at all. Their thing was a poppy version of soul music, and I read an interview with them in which they said they didn't have much interest in rock music. But despite all the changing musical trends, the hits kept on coming.

Again, I managed to order the songs by the dates of the singles releases, more or less. I had to guesstimate with some songs that were only album tracks, or weren't Motown releases.

Speaking on Motown, as expected, the vast majority of songs here were put out on the Motown label. But there are a couple of exceptions. "Too Many Fish in the Sea" was a hit for the Marvelettes in 1964. It was a rare case in which the song was written by Norman Whitfield and Eddie Holland. I already have the Marvelettes version in my Covered series for Whitfield. So instead I used a version here by Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, a non-Motown band. I also decided to include "Your Keep Me Hangin' On" by Vanilla Fudge, even though I included the original hit version by the Supremes in the previous volume in this series. That's because both versions were massive hits, and yet are drastically different from each other. I like both versions quite a lot, as they bring out different aspects of the song.

This volume, unfortunately, is basically the end of Holland-Dozier-Holland at Motown Records. But it was far from the end for them, as they set up their own record companies and kept coming up with hit after hit. All that shall be explained in the next volume in this series.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Love Is Here and Now You're Gone (Supremes)
02 Jimmy Mack (Martha & the Vandellas)
03 Bernadette (Four Tops)
04 The Happening (Supremes)
05 There's a Ghost in My House (R. Dean Taylor)
06 All I Need (Temptations)
07 Too Many Fish in the Sea - Three Little Fishes (Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels)
08 7 Rooms of Gloom (Four Tops)
09 Everybody Needs Love (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
10 Your Keep Me Hangin' On (Vanilla Fudge)
11 I'll Turn to Stone (Four Tops)
12 Reflections (Supremes)
13 Going Down for the Third Time (Supremes)
14 [Loneliness Made Me Realize] It's You that I Need (Temptations)
15 In and Out of Love (Supremes)
16 You Keep Running Away (Four Tops)
17 I Got a Feeling (Barbara Randolph)
18 Whisper You Love Me Boy (Chris Clark)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17410466/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1967Vlum5_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bQ5c9wd5

The cover image is one where I had to create something out of very little. I was lacking having enough photos of Holland-Dozier-Holland together, so in this case I had to make one. I found three photos of them individually, probably all from the early 1970s. That's not too close to 1967, I know, but it was the best I could do. Then I colorized them using the Palette program, since all three were in black and white. Then I put them all together in Photoshop. Finally, I ran the merged image through Krea AI, which helped give more of a consistent look to the whole thing. It's still not ideal, but at least it's something.

Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 4: 1966

This is the fourth volume highlighting the unstoppable hit making machine that was the songwriting team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland (usually known as just Holland-Dozier-Holland). This volume deals with just the year 1966. If you're not listening to these albums, you're really missing out.

If anything, Holland-Dozier-Holland was even more successful in 1966 than any previous year. Consider that the previous three volumes in this series were from 40 to 44 minutes long, whereas this one is an hour long. They still were the top songwriting entity for Motown Records, writing and producing hits for pretty much all of Motown's top acts this year. After "only" having two songs in Rolling Stone Magazine's top 500 songs of all time, they had three in 1966: "Reach Out, I'll Be There" by the Four Tops, "You Keep Me Hangin' On" by the Supremes, and "Standing in the Shadows of Love" by the Four Tops. 

Once again, I tried my best to list the songs by the exact order of the single releases. However, I had to guesstimate some, especially the few songs that were mere album tracks instead of singles. Those are songs I generally consider ones that should have been hits, but were overlooked or not properly promoted. Examples of those would include "Any Girl in Love (Knows What I'm Going Through)" by the Supremes and "Suspicion" by the Originals.

Generally speaking, these are all the original versions of each song. Note though that "Greetings (This Is Uncle Sam)" was originally a minor hit for the band the Valadiers in 1961. Brian Holland wrote the song with some others. But it was a bigger hit in 1966 by the Monitors, when it had more relevance due to the increasingly bloody Vietnam War.

"Everybody Needs Love" by Mary Wells is another oddity. Wells left Motown in 1964, and didn't have much success with other record companies. This song was recorded by Wells in 1964 while she was still with Motown, but wasn't officially released until it came out on a Motown various artists collection in 1966.

This album is an hour long.

01 Put Yourself in My Place (Chris Clark)
02 Greetings [This Is Uncle Sam] (Monitors)
03 Shake Me, Wake Me [When It's Over] (Four Tops)
04 This Old Heart of Mine [Is Weak for You] (Isley Brothers)
05 Helpless (Kim Weston)
06 [I'm a] Road Runner (Jr. Walker & the All Stars)
07 Love Is like an Itching in My Heart (Supremes)
08 I Guess I'll Always Love You (Isley Brothers)
09 You Can't Hurry Love (Supremes)
10 Any Girl in Love [Knows What I'm Going Through] (Supremes)
11 Little Darling [I Need You] (Marvin Gaye)
12 Reach Out, I'll Be There (Four Tops)
13 Function at the Junction (Shorty Long)
14 Everybody Needs Love (Mary Wells)
15 Heaven Must Have Sent You (Elgins)
16 Love's Gone Bad (Chris Clark)
17 I'm Ready for Love (Martha & the Vandellas)
18 You Keep Me Hangin' On (Supremes)
19 Suspicion (Originals)
20 [Come Round Here] I'm the One You Need (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
21 Standing in the Shadows of Love (Four Tops)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17402924/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1966Vlum4_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Yi2mc7hd

The cover image is from around 1970 apparently. That's probably right, given that the two Holland brothers grew goatees which weren't there on any pictures of them from the 1960s. The original of the image was in black and white, but I converted it using the Palette and Photoshop programs. Then I improved the image detail with the Krea AI program.

Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 3: 1965

The non-stop hits keep on coming with Volume Three of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland (usually known as Holland-Dozier-Holland) for my Covered series on songwriters. All the songs in this volume were released in 1965.

In 1965, Holland-Dozier-Holland were in a hit making groove. Look at how many of the songs here were big hits that still get played on the radio. 

Their accomplishment is even more impressive considering that they not only wrote all these songs, they produced nearly all of them too. In case you're curious, I found a 2022 with all three of them were they explained their successful formula. Here are some excerpts.

Brian Holland: "Lamont and I would start writing the songs on piano. Eddie would also be there early on, and we would discuss what the melody and structure should be. Lamont and I would then start recording the tracks, which would be the actual tracks for the master (not just demo tracks)."

Lamont Dozier: "In the recording studio, Brian and I would split the room. Brian would work with the drummer (usually Benny Benjamin). I would get with the keyboard players (usually Earl Van Dyke or Joe Hunter) and show them how to play the track and chords. I would also give the bass lines to James Jamerson, then he would inject his own bass ideas to make it stronger. We wanted to guide the musicians, so we could create our own sound. We would never let the band just go in and play the chord sheets. We were very focused on what we had in mind for these productions."

Brian Holland: "We would record the full track, which would include the melody with a scratch vocal, without lyrics yet. Although sometimes, we would have the title, and some of the chorus lyrics. Then we would give the track to Eddie, who would go off and write the lyrics."

Eddie Holland: "When I got the track, I would spend many days writing. I would lock myself away. I had a townhouse in Detroit; I would close all the curtains and shades, and there was no telephone. I didn’t go out much; most of my life was devoted to writing lyrics."

So basically, together with the Motown backing band later nicknamed the Funk Brothers, they did it all. The only thing the star performer would have to do is come in and sing the lead vocals, helped by the guide vocals already done by Holland-Dozier-Holland. Some groups, like the Temptations, would often do their own backing vocals, but in most cases that was done already as part of the Holland-Dozier-Holland production too, by a little known female trio called the Andantes. Incredibly, they sang backing vocals on about 20,000 songs, which was about 90 percent of all the songs recorded for the Motown label! 

Virtually all the songs here are the original hit versions by Motown artists. As with the previous volumes, I did my best to order the songs by their release dates, though I had to guess for a few of them.

There is one non-Motown version here though, and that's "1 2 3" by Len Berry. This was a big hit originally written by Berry and two others. But it turns out the song had a great similarity to the song "Ask Any Girl," a B-side for the Supremes. So after two years of lawsuits, Holland-Dozier-Holland were added to the songwriting credits and got a share of all the royalties.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 Stop, In the Name of Love (Supremes)
02 Beauty Is Only Skin Deep (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
03 Nowhere to Run (Martha & the Vandellas)
04 Back in My Arms Again (Supremes)
05 I Can't Help Myself [Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch] (Four Tops)
06 Lonely, Lonely Girl Am I (Velvelettes)
07 It's the Same Old Song (Four Tops)
08 Mother Dear (Supremes)
09 Nothing but Heartaches (Supremes)
10 1 2 3 (Len Barry)
11 Take Me in Your Arms [Rock Me a Little While] (Kim Weston)
12 Love [Makes Me Do Foolish Things] (Martha & the Vandellas)
13 I Hear a Symphony (Supremes)
14 Something about You (Four Tops)
15 My World Is Empty without You (Supremes)
16 Everything Is Good about You (Supremes)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17402922/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1965Vlum3_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cCmxZH6k

The cover photo is almost certainly from the same photo session as the photo I used for the 1964 album in this series. The three of them look to be wearing the exact same clothes, and were around a piano in both. But when I colorized this one with the help of the Palette program, I picked different colors for their clothes, so it wouldn't look so similar. I also moved them a bit in Photoshop so they'd be closer together. Finally, I ran the image through the Krea AI program to improve the detail level.

Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 2: 1964

Earlier today, I posted Volume One of my Covered songwriting series for the Motown team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland, commonly referred to as Holland-Dozier-Holland. I explained quite a bit about them in my write-up for that volume, so I suggest you read that to learn more. They were such successful hit makers that this and the next three volumes in the series will cover just one year. This one showcases their hits from 1964.

As you can see from all the classic songs in the song list, Holland-Dozier-Holland were really hitting their stride in 1964. Three of the songs here made it to Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 songs of all time: "Where Did Our Love Go," "Baby I Need Your Loving," and "Baby Love." I'm surprised "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)" didn't make that list too.

As with most of the other albums in this series, I went the extra mile, and tried to order the songs chronologically not just by year of release, as I usually do with Covered albums, but also putting them in the exact order they were released. I couldn't manage that for all the songs, because a few were album tracks where I couldn't accurately figure out release dates.

Pretty much all the versions here are the original hit versions, by Motown artists. However, "Girl (Why You Wanna Make Me Blue)" is by the Action, a non-Motown band from Britain. 

Also, note that two of the songs here, "Just Ain't Enough Love" and "Candy to Me," were performed by Eddie Holland, a member of Holland-Dozier-Holland. As I mentioned in Volume One, he had some early singles, including a hit in 1961. But this was the last gasp of his 1964 recording career, since he suffered from stage fright and found being a songwriter and producer worked much better for him. 

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Live Wire (Martha & the Vandellas)
02 Run, Run, Run (Supremes)
03 You're a Wonderful One (Marvin Gaye)
04 In My Lonely Room (Martha & the Vandellas)
05 Just Ain't Enough Love (Eddie Holland)
06 The Girl's Alright with Me (Temptations)
07 Where Did Our Love Go (Supremes)
08 Baby I Need Your Loving (Four Tops)
09 Candy to Me (Eddie Holland)
10 Girl [Why You Wanna Make Me Blue] (Action)
11 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Marvin Gaye)
12 Baby Love (Supremes)
13 Come See about Me (Supremes)
14 How Sweet It Is [To Be Loved by You] (Marvin Gaye)
15 He Was Really Sayin' Somethin' (Velvelettes)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17402266/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1964Vlum2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iuhYh4g8

Of all the cover photos I made for this series, this is probably the one I manipulated the least. Unlike most of the others, the original had them in these exact poses. But it was in black and white, so I colorized it with the help of the Palette and Photoshop programs. I also ran it through the Krea AI program to help with the detail. I don't know when the photo was taken, but I'm guessing it was in the mid-1960s, based on the short haircuts and clothing styles and such.

Covered: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland, Volume 1: 1961-1963

This has been a long time coming. I consider the songwriting team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland - typically just referred to as Holland-Dozier-Holland, one of the greatest songwriting entities of all time, right up there with the likes of Lennon-McCartney and Bob Dylan. They wrote so many worthy songs that I've made seven albums for my Covered songwriter series. I believe that's the most so far, just beating out the songwriting duo of Gerry Goffin & Carole King with six albums.

If you think about the dozens and dozens of Motown classic hits from the 1960s, Holland-Dozier-Holland wrote most of them. Unfortunately, they left the Motown company in 1968 due to a disagreement about their role and how much they should be paid. But they formed their own record companies and continued to write many hits well into the 1970s. Their collaboration slowly fell apart that decade, but they still had some individual successes well after the 1970s, even into the 2000s.

It's hard to even fathom just how successful the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team was. They wrote about 400 songs together. About 130 of those were hits on the U.S. pop charts. And that doesn't even include more hits that weren't written by all three of them. About 40 of their hits reached Number One on either the pop or soul charts. Just for the Supremes, they wrote ten Number One pop hits! Also, nine of their songs have made it to Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 songs of all time. I'm sure that's more than anyone else I've included in my Covered series so far.

Eddie and Brian Holland are brothers, with Eddie being two years older. As I write this in 2024, both of them are still alive and are in their 1980s. Lamont Dozier died in 2022 at the age of 81. All three of them were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Brian Holland was the first to start a musical career, putting out a solo single in 1958. He didn't have much success at first, but that single was produced by Barry Gordy, the future owner of Motown Records, and he gradually got more involved with that company, which was founded in 1959. 

Brian brought his brother Eddie into the Motown company. At first, Eddie tried to have success as a performer. He did have a hit in 1961 with the song "Jamie," which reached Number 30 on the U.S. singles chart. He put out a steady stream of singles from 1958 until 1964, with a couple more minor hits. One of them, "Leaving Here," is included here. But he suffered from stage fright and ended his career as a performer in 1964. He and his brother decided they preferred songwriting and producing.

The first really big success any of these three songwriters had was with the song "Please Mr. Postman." There were no less than five songwriters credited for the song, but one of them was Brian Holland. The song was a huge success for the Motown act the Marvelettes, reaching Number One on the U.S. singles chart in 1961. 

Shortly after that, Lamont Dozier started to enter the picture. He had been a member of various bands as far back as 1957. He even released three singles in 1961 under the name "LaMont Anthony." But in 1962, he joined the Motown company and soon started working with the Holland brothers, both writing and producing songs.

I found a 2022 interview with Holland-Dozier-Holland that took place shortly before Dozier died that year. In it, they described how their songwriting partnership worked. Brian Holland explained, "I mainly wrote the melodies and tracks with Lamont, and Eddie wrote the majority of the lyrics. Occasionally, Lamont and I would also come up with lyric ideas." 

Eddie Holland further explained, "Early on, Brian and Lamont were already writing together, and they were very prolific at writing melodies and producing tracks. It was the lyric writing which slowed them down. So I suggested that I join the team as a lyricist, so that their production output would be much higher. With the three of us, we were able to finish many songs and produce more projects."

Here's the Wikipedia entry for the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team. You can also find entries for each of them individually, but those don't say much:

Holland–Dozier–Holland - Wikipedia

Some of the first songs on this album were written by only one or two members of this threesome, often with others. The first song here written by all three was "Come and Get These Memories," a hit for Martha and the Vandellas in 1963. Shortly thereafter, the three of them composed "(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave," which was a massive hit by Martha and the Vandellas later in 1963, and has been a hit multiple times since then.

From that point on, it was like they could do no wrong. They soon became the top songwriting entity for Motown, and were usually assigned to write songs for the biggest stars signed to that label. Lamont Dozier later recalled, "It was just an awesome time (back at Motown). We had a huge amount of success. During this period, whatever we touched seemed to go straight into the Top 10. It was as if we stumbled onto the best door on 'The Price Is Right,' where the prizes just keep on coming and coming!"

Normally with albums in this series, I sort the songs chronologically, but loosely, based on the year of release. But because the Holland-Dozier-Holland team had so many hits one after another, I've strived to order them even more accurately, so you can see the exact order of their hits. I've only made occasional exceptions to that. For instance, I bumped up "Come and Get These Memories" a bit so there wouldn't be four Marvelettes songs in a row.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 Please Mr. Postman (Marvelettes)
02 Playboy (Marvelettes)
03 Someday, Someway (Marvelettes)
06 Come and Get These Memories (Martha & the Vandellas)
04 Strange I Know (Marvelettes)
07 [Love Is Like A] Heat Wave (Martha & the Vandellas)
05 Locking Up My Heart (Marvelettes)
08 Mickey's Monkey (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
09 You Lost the Sweetest Boy (Mary Wells)
10 Can I Get a Witness (Marvin Gaye)
11 I Gotta Dance to Keep from Crying (Smokey Robinson & the Miracles)
12 Quicksand (Martha & the Vandellas)
13 When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes (Supremes)
14 A Love like Yours [Don't Come Knocking Everyday] (Martha & the Vandellas)
15 Leaving Here (Eddie Holland)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17402265/COVRDHOLLNDDZRHLLND1961-1963Vlum1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cDyiGUhr

One reason I didn't post Holland-Dozier-Holland albums in my Covered series prior to this is I didn't think I could make worthy album covers. But recently with my discovery of the Krea AI program, I can finally make the covers I wanted. The problem is there simply aren't that many photos of these three songwriters, either solo or together, until they started appearing at awards ceremonies when they had reached old age. For this cover, I couldn't find any good photos of them from 1961 to 1963. Instead, I used a photo of Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier together in 1965, plus another photo of Eddie Holland from that time period. Both photos were in black and white, so I used the Palette program to convert them to color. Then, using Photoshop, I rearranged their bodies so their heads were closer and at the same height level. Finally, I used the Krea AI program to increase the image detail and quality.

From right to left, that's Eddie Holland, Brian Holland, and Lamont Dozier.

Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John - Tokyo Dome, Tokyo, Japan, 11-2-1988

In the late 1980s, lead guitar legends Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler performed many concerts together. They actually first played in concert together in 1985 while Mark Knopfler was still leading his band Dire Straits. But then Dire Straits was disbanded for a few years, and Knopfler didn't had a band until the Notting Hillbillies in 1990 and then a Dire Straits reunion in 1991. In 1987 and 1988 especially, the two of them did entire tours together. They were basically Eric Clapton concerts, but with Knopfler adding lead guitar to every song and singing one or two songs as lead vocalist.

Things got even more interesting when their joint tour stopped by Japan in 1988. Elton John joined them there, and the three of them headlined four concerts together. One of them, in Tokyo, was broadcast on TV and radio in Japan only. This got bootlegged, naturally, and it makes for an excellent recording, with soundboard quality sound. That's what this is here.

The first portion of the concert only featured Clapton and Knopfler. Clapton sang most of the songs, but one of his female backing vocalists sang lead on "Can't Find My Way Home" and Knopfler sang lead on his huge Dire Straits hit "Money for Nothing." Then Elton John joined them for the rest of the concert. Most of the songs from that point on were John's hits, but Clapton sang three more, and Knopfler did one more Dire Straits song, "Solid Rock." John naturally played keyboards even on the songs he didn't sing.

So all in all this is a really nice and very rare collaboration between three rock superstars. It wasn't the last time the three of them did this, however. They also played together during the Knebworth Festival in 1990. I have posted that already, which you can find here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2024/05/knebworth-festival-knebworth-house_50.html

This album is two hours and 13 minutes long.

01 Crossroads (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
02 White Room (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
03 I Shot the Sheriff (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
04 Lay Down Sally (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
05 Wonderful Tonight (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
06 Tearing Us Apart (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
07 After Midnight (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
08 Can't Find My Way Home (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
09 Money for Nothing [Edit] (Eric Clapton & Mark Knopfler)
10 Candle in the Wind (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
11 I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
12 I Don't Wanna Go On with You like That (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
13 I'm Still Standing (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
14 Daniel (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
15 talk (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
16 Cocaine (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
17 Layla (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
18 Solid Rock (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
19 Saturday Night's Alright [For Fighting] (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
20 Sunshine of Your Love (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
21 Percussion Solo (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)
22 Sunshine of Your Love (Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler & Elton John)

https://www.imagenetz.de/e2iJV

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/873KARqh

The cover image was very hard for me to make. It is of this exact concert, right after the end of the final song of the encore. However, I couldn't find any photos of them together, so I had to resort to taking a screenshot from a video of this concert I found on YouTube. But the video was so low-res and blurry that I had to rewatch that section of the video to even figure out Knopfler was holding something (a towel) in his hands. 

The reason this cover looks like it does is due to the free Krea AI program. I ran the screenshot through that program, giving prompts identifying who was in the image. It was a little bit better, but not much. Then I ran that version through the program. Again, some improvement, but still rough. I did it four times in all! Finally, it ended up like this. To show you how drastically things changed, here's the screenshot I started from. Frankly, I'm kind of amazed at what the AI technology is capable of. Yeah, there's a lot of change there, it's not entirely true to reality, but I think the final version looks a hell of a lot better than the screenshot does.

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.

Covered: Giorgio Moroder, Volume 2: 1983-1991

Here's the second and last Covered series album for Italian producer and songwriter Giorgio Moroder.

Moroder's commercial heyday was probably the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. So this generally deals with the second half of that. All the songs here are from 1983 to 1986 except for the last one, which is from 1991.

As I mentioned in Volume One, Moroder found great success composing the music for popular movies, and that continued well into the 1980s. For instance, he won Academy Awards and Golden Globes for the song "Flashdance... What a Feeling" in 1983, and "Take My Breath Away" in 1986. Both songs also hit Number One in the U.S. singles charts, as well as Number One in many other countries around the world. 

Perhaps it isn't too surprising that his music was so popular in the 1980s, because he'd been one of the main pioneers of using synthesizers for dance music in the 1970s, and in the 1980s synth-based danceable music was everywhere. But tastes gradually changed, especially with the rise of grunge starting in 1991. Perhaps in response to that, he effectively retired in 1993. 

For two decades, he didn't release any music. But he started a minor comeback in 2013, working with Daft Punk (who were heavily influenced by him) and putting out a solo album in 2015. He is still alive as I write this in 2024, but presumably his hit-making days are behind him, since he's 84 years old.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Flashdance... What a Feeling (Irene Cara)
02 Scarface [Push It to the Limit] (Paul Engemann)
03 Rush Rush (Debbie Harry)
04 Why Me (Irene Cara)
05 Together in Electric Dreams (Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder)
06 Here She Comes (Bonnie Tyler)
07 The NeverEnding Story (Limahl & Beth Anderson)
08 Love Kills (Freddie Mercury)
09 I Feel Love (Bronski Beat)
10 Danger Zone (Kenny Loggins)
11 Take My Breath Away (Berlin)
12 Love's Unkind (Sophie Lawrence)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17327897/COVRDGIGRIOMRDR1983-1991Vlume2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/sSkZMqR1

The cover photo shows Moroder in 1987. I don't know the details. I used Krea AI to improve it a bit.

Covered: Giorgio Moroder, Volume 1: 1972-1982

I've been posting a lot of Motown songwriters recently as part of my Covered series. I have more of those to go, but to vary things up a bit I thought I'd post something quite different first, to hint at just how far I plan on taking this series. I have two albums of songs written or co-written by Giorgio Moroder.

I could try to describe him and his music, but I think the introduction to his Wikipedia entry does a better job. It states that Moroder "is an Italian composer and music producer. Dubbed the 'Father of Disco,' Moroder is credited with pioneering Euro disco and electronic dance music. His work with synthesizers had a significant influence on several music genres such as hi-NRG, Italo disco, synth-pop, new wave, house, and techno music."

Moroder grew up speaking both German and Italian. He had his first written hit with a song in Germany in the German language in 1967, when he was about 25 years old. He had an even bigger hit under his own name in 1968 with the song "Looky Looky," which sold over a million copies in Europe. I'm not including it here because I don't think it's a very good song, being kind of a Beach Boys rip-off. However, he was on his way with a successful music career. In the early 1970s, he got very interested in synthesizers, which were new at the time, including the Moog. Synthesizers became key to his sound from that point on, both as a very successful producer and very successful songwriter. Typically, he came up with music, arrangments, and melodies, and co-writers would supply the words.

His song "Son of My Father" was a Number One hit in Britain in 1972, although it didn't chart in the U.S. at all. But his really big breakthroughs were "Love to Love You Baby" in 1975 and "I Feel Love" in 1977, both sung by Donna Summer. They were extremely influential for dance music of all kinds. In fact, Rolling Stone Magazine has put both songs on versions of their too 500 greatest songs of all time list. (I don't have "I Feel Love" here because I've used a different version of the song in Volume Two.)

Time Out Magazine wrote a good review of "I Feel Love" in 2015 that shows how influential it was. "Sometimes a song comes along that’s so innovative that it changes the shape of the musical landscape for decades, whilst also getting you to shake yo bootay. This timeless, Giorgio Moroder–produced disco anthem from 1977 did exactly that, becoming the first purely electronic jam to make it big and pretty much inventing dance music in the process."

During the time period of this volume, Moroder had his best success producing and co-writing songs for Donna Summer. There are even more Summer songs I could have included here, but I didn't want to turn this into kind of a Donna Summer best of. But he also had success with others. For instance, "Call Me" by Blondie, which he both co-wrote and produced, was a Number One hit in both the U.S. and Britain in 1980.

In addition to producing and writing songs for others, Moroder put out many albums under his own name, usually mostly instrumental in nature. The 1978 song "Chase," included here, was one of his biggest instrumental hits. His synth-based instrumental music was great for setting moods in movies, so he was involved in many movie soundtracks. "Chase," for instance, was part of his score for the movie "Midnight Express." He won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe for best score for that one.

Speaking of scores, he co-wrote the song "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" with David Bowie for the 1982 movie "Cat People." I've included the 1982 movie soundtrack version. It's significantly different than the version Bowie released on his 1983 hit album "Let's Dance," being slower and longer. I included this version because I figure it's less well known than the other one. Plus, it has more of a Moroder influence, since he did all the music for it and Bowie only sang the vocals on top when the music was done. 

Interestingly, even though Moroder is known as the "father of disco," and looks like a stereotypical disco party guy in his 1970s photos, apparently he totally avoided the disco lifestyle, including cocaine. He claims he never even went to a party where people were dancing to his music until the 2010s! It seems he preferred to spend most of his waking hours producing and recording in music studios instead.

Here's the Wikipedia entry about him:

Giorgio Moroder - Wikipedia

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Son of My Father (Chicory Tip)
02 What's Your Name (Chicory Tip)
03 Love to Love You Baby (Donna Summer)
04 I Love You (Donna Summer)
05 Theme from Midnight Express (Chris Bennett & Giorgio Moroder)
06 Givin' Up, Givin' In (Three Degrees)
07 Chase (Giorgio Moroder)
08 Heaven Knows (Donna Summer)
09 The Number One Song in Heaven (Sparks)
10 On the Radio (Donna Summer)
11 Call Me (Blondie)
12 The Wanderer (Donna Summer)
13 Cat People [Putting Out Fire] [Soundtrack Version] (David Bowie)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17327898/COVRDGIGRIOMRDR1972-1982Vlume1_atse.zip.html

alternate:

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

 The cover photo is from 1981. I don't know more details than that.

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)

NOTE: The download link had to be removed due to a copyright issue. Sorry.

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.