The Beatles and Various Artists (including Brenda Holloway and King Curtis) - Shea Stadium, New York City, 8-15-1965

Normally, I'm not that interested in recordings of Beatles concerts, because they generally played short sets with the same songs over and over again, and the sound quality is bad, with more screaming girls than music. But this is an exception, for three reasons. 

One: this was an incredibly important and historic concert. That's because it was the very first stadium-sized concert anywhere. The 55,000 person-sized crowd would remain the largest audience for any Beatles concert, and the largest concert in the U.S. by anyone until a concert by Led Zeppelin in 1973. After it proved to be a big success, stadium concerts have become a standard thing ever since. It also was highly symbolic, showing how the Beatles were a cultural phenomenon and the most popular music act in the world, by far. Even the cynical John Lennon later said, "I saw the top of the mountain on that glorious night."

Two: this is the only Beatles concert recording I've seen that includes the opening acts with worthy sound quality. So you get the full concert experience, complete with lots of local radio DJs and other emcees hyping things up. It's true the opening acts weren't the greatest, compared to other opening acts for other Beatles concerts. I'm mainly interested in King Curtis and Brenda Holloway. But still, all of them are interesting as a historical curiosity. Keep in mind that there are an extremely small number of concert recordings from rock concerts as far back as 1965, outside of the Beatles and a few other big stars. So we're very lucky to have the opening acts. 

Three: the sound quality is surprisingly good for all of it, including the Beatles set. That's surprising because most concert recordings of the Beatles are practically unlistenable, in my opinion, due to all the screaming. And we know this concert took the screaming to new levels. The Beatles were forced to use the stadium's P.A. system, which was woefully inadequate for the situation. That meant the Beatles could barely hear each other. For instance, John Lennon later said of the concert, "It was a happening. You couldn't hear any music at all." But somehow, this recording brought the crowd noise down to a normal, reasonable level. I've done a lot of audio editing of crowd noise for this blog in general, but I barely made any changes for the Beatles set. (To have no or very little crowd noise would sound weird as well.) Plus, the actual singing and playing by the Beatles sounds very good, considering the difficult circumstances. 

There's a lot more I could say about this concert. But I don't want to write a mini-tome. So instead, I'll suggest some links if you want to know more. There's no Wikipedia page just for this concert. So here's a page from the Beatles Bible website instead:

https://www.beatlesbible.com/1965/08/15/live-shea-stadium-new-york/

Here's a 17 minute long fan-made YouTube video that explains the story of the concert:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sca-bR1b-qE&t=247s

And here's a Rolling Stone magazine article just about the concert: 

Why The Beatles’ Shea Stadium Show Is The Ultimate Pop Celebration 

Here's a Washington Post article from 2025, also just about the concert, written to mark the 60th anniversary of it. It has a lot of great photos and anecdotes, including extensive quotes for Brenda Holloway about her impressions of all of it:

The Beatles’ historic Shea Stadium concert, remembered 60 years later - The Washington Post 

Finally, and most importantly, here's the transcript of an interview of author Laurie Jacobson, who wrote an ENTIRE BOOK just about this one concert, called "Top of the Mountain." I highly recommend reading this one. It's not too long, and it's filled with interesting stories, for instance how Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were also at the concert, and what happened to them:

https://lovethatsongpodcast.com/the-beatles-play-shea-stadium-1965/

By the way, did you know a lot of then-current and future famous people were in the crowd of 55,000 people for that concert? Future Beatles wives Linda Eastman and Barbara Bach were there. So were Marvin Gaye, Bobby Vinton, John Sebastian, Ronnie Spector, and Mary Wilson of the Supremes. (Gaye actually got a brief mention by an emcee right before Brenda Holloway's set.) So were Joe Walsh, Steve Van Zant, Whoopi Goldberg, and Meryl Streep, all of them teenagers or younger at the time. (Streep held up an "I love Paul" sign.) And Bob Dylan did not attend the concert, but he hung out with the Beatles at their hotel after the concert ended. (He'd met them for the first time a year earlier.) 

Another aside. Some accounts claim that the Rascals, then known as the Young Rascals, performed at the concert. They did not. However, they did attend, and got prime seats in the third base dugout. At the time, they had signed a record contract, but were still unknown. Promoter Sid Bernstein wanted to hype them as the next big thing, and had the scoreboard sign flash the message "The Rascals are coming!" But Beatles manager Brian Epstein saw that and told Bernstein to stop it immediately, so it was stopped.

Now, let me address edits to this recording. I kept most of it, but I removed a song at the start called "Discotech Dancers Medley." It basically was a Muzak-like instrumental that played while a dance troupe called the Discotech Dancers showed off their moves. It was something I guess you needed to see more than hear. Also, there was very little cheering to be heard at the ends of songs for all the opening acts. So I generally upped the volume of the applause for all of those.

There also were extensive problems with most of the songs in the short set by Cannibal and the Headhunters. I did my best to fix those (which is why you see "[Edit]" in some song titles, but there was only so much I could do. The first half of "The Way You Do the Things You Do" is incomplete, and there's nothing I could do about that. There were the most problems with "Land of 1000 Dances," the band's sole hit, and the banter track right after that. I ran those though MVSEP multiple times to get rid of the strange crackling noises. Each pass got a rid of more, but I reached diminishing returns so I had to stop. It sounds a lot better than before, but there's still a lot of bothersome noise there.

The Beatles recorded this entire concert because they planned to make an hour-long BBC T.V. special out of it. And such a special was made, and shown in Britain in March 1966. However, there were a lot of flaws in the recording of the Beatles performance. For instance, Lennon's voice dropped out for one of the verses in "Help." I patched that using a different live version from 1965. Due to these problems, the Beatles went to a recording studio in January 1966 and completely rerecorded three of the songs: "Ticket to Ride," "I Feel Fine," and "Help." They used a different live version of "Twist and Shout." They also rerecorded other bits. For instance, Paul McCartney redid his bass parts for most of the songs. For Ringo Starr's vocals on "Act Naturally," they just patched in vocals from the studio version. This is the original recording of their concert performance, before the Beatles did their rerecordings (with the exception of the edit I made to "Help"). Perhaps I'll post that quite different BBC version of the concert at another time, since I like posting BBC stuff.

You can find a Wikipedia article about the BBC special of this concert, here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles_at_Shea_Stadium 

One last comment. If anyone knows of any other recordings like this were the opening acts to the Beatles were recorded as well, please let me know. Like I said above, I'm just as interested in those parts as the Beatles' part, since there are so few live recordings of non-Beatles musical acts from this time period.

The music here is still officially unreleased, except for "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby," which made it onto the "Anthology" albums.  

This album is an hour and 25 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (King Curtis)
02 talk by emcee (King Curtis)
03 What'd I Say (King Curtis)
04 talk (King Curtis)
05 The Prance (King Curtis)
06 Soul Twist [Instrumental] (King Curtis)
07 talk by emcee (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
08 Out of Sight (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
09 talk (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
10 Now Lady Now [Edit] (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
11 The Way You Do the Things You Do [Incomplete] (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
12 talk (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
13 Land of 1000 Dances [Edit] (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
14 talk by emcee [Edit] (Cannibal & the Headhunters)
15 talk by emcee (Brenda Holloway)
16 Shake - [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Brenda Holloway)
17 I Can't Help Myself [Sugar Pie Honey Bunch] (Brenda Holloway)
18 talk (Brenda Holloway)
19 You Can Cry On My Shoulder (Brenda Holloway)
20 When I'm Gone (Brenda Holloway)
21 talk by emcee with outro (Brenda Holloway)
22 talk by emcee (Sounds Incorporated)
23 America - Fingertips (Sounds Incorporated)
24 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
25 The William Tell Overture [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
26 Instrumental (Sounds Incorporated)
27 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
28 In the Hall of the Mountain King [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
29 talk by emcee (Beatles)
30 talk (Beatles)
31 Twist and Shout (Beatles)
32 She's a Woman (Beatles)
33 talk (Beatles)
34 I Feel Fine (Beatles)
35 talk (Beatles)
36 Dizzy Miss Lizzy (Beatles)
37 talk (Beatles)
38 Ticket to Ride (Beatles)
39 talk (Beatles)
40 Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby (Beatles)
41 talk (Beatles)
42 Can't Buy Me Love (Beatles)
43 talk (Beatles)
44 Baby's in Black (Beatles)
45 talk (Beatles)
46 Act Naturally (Beatles)
47 talk (Beatles)
48 A Hard Day's Night (Beatles)
49 talk (Beatles)
50 Help [Edit] (Beatles)
51 talk (Beatles)
52 I'm Down (Beatles)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JXJAdAMN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NDfxXPlJ6q0RgxD/file

I had a lot of choices for a cover photo, since this concert was such a high profile event, with lots of photographers there. I chose this one, even though it only shows George Harrison and John Lennon, because they look so damn happy. I especially don't think I've ever seen any other photo of Lennon looking this overjoyed. When he later talked about the Shea Stadium concert being "the top of the mountain," this shows what he meant. 

And by the way, this photo was taken right at the end of the concert, when they were performing "I'm Down." Harrison and Lennon were especially amused and happy because Lennon had just played a short keyboard solo with his elbows.

Various Artists - Covered: Dennis Lambert & Brian Potter: 1965-1985

A week or two ago (as I write this in mid-May 2026), a commenter named Rich had the excellent suggestion that I should make a "Covered" album for the songwriting team of Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter. So thank you, Rich. They fit the format of the "Covered" series perfectly, because they had no careers as performers, but they wrote a lot of hits for others.

Lambert and Potter are a rare case of a successful trans-Atlantic songwriting partnership. Lambert was born in 1947 and raised in New York City. Potter was born in 1939 and raised in the Essex countryside of England. Lambert joined a record company in 1965, working in A&R, production, and songwriting. I'm not sure what Potter did at first (with him being almost ten years older than Lambert), but in 1965 he already had a big songwriting success, helping to write "What'cha Gonna Do about It," the first British hit for the Small Faces. Meanwhile, Lambert had a decent success in 1965 as well, co-writing "Do the Freddie," a hit for Freddie and the Dreamers.

Lambert and Potter met when Lambert was in London in 1969. The two of them decided to write songs together. They both moved to Los Angeles and began working with a record company there. One of their first songs they wrote together was "One Tin Solder." It made the Top Forty in the U.S. for the band the Original Caste. Then it would get higher on the charts in 1971 for the band Coven. Their first really big success together though was "Don't Pull Your Love," which was a Top Five U.S. hit in 1971 for Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds.

From that point on, they had many more hits all through the 1970s. I've only included the ones I like best here. There were others that were Top Forty hits. Their songwriting continued until about 1980. I don't know much about Potter's career, but it seemed he stopped writing songs around that time, because I don't find any more songwriting credits for him after 1980. 

However, Lambert kept going well into the 1980s, writing with others. He didn't have that many hits, but he had a couple of really big ones. He co-wrote "Nightshift" with a member of the Commodores, and the Commodores had a Top Five hit with it in both the U.S. and Britain in 1985. 

He also helped write "We Built This City." That song was originally written by Martin Page and Bernie Taupin (the latter being the main co-writer for Elton John). But their version was lacking something. So Lambert and a producer named Peter Wolf drastically changed it. (That's a different Peter Wolf than the one in the J. Geils Band, by the way.) The result was a smash, going all the way to Number One in the U.S. for Starship in 1985. Personally, I don't think it's a bad song, but it's hated by a lot of people, making several worst songs of all time lists by critics.

Since then, Lambert and Potter presumably both eventually retired. But both of them are still alive as I write this in 2026. 

Here's the Wikipedia page for Lambert:

Dennis Lambert - Wikipedia

And here's the one for Potter:

Brian Potter (musician) - Wikipedia  

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 What'cha Gonna Do about It (Small Faces)
02 Do the Freddie (Freddie & the Dreamers)
03 Delighted to See You (Honeybus)
04 One Tin Soldier (Original Caste)
05 Don't Pull Your Love (Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds)
06 Keeper of the Castle (Four Tops)
07 The Runway (Grass Roots)
08 Ain’t No Woman [Like the One I’ve Got] (Four Tops)
09 Love Music (Sergio Mendes)
10 Are You Man Enough (Four Tops)
11 Country Boy [You Got Your Feet in L.A.] (Glen Campbell)
12 One Chain [Don’t Make No Prison] (Four Tops)
13 It Only Takes a Minute (Tavares)
14 Open Invitation (Santana)
15 Don't Look Any Further (Dennis Edwards & Siedah Garrett)
16 We Built This City (Starship)
17 Nightshift (Commodores)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rrnJPb9s

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/oLZomJN7xtUUHiG/file

The cover image was the cover photo for an issue of Songwriter Magazine in 1977. That's Dennis Lambert on the left and Brian Potter (with the blue shirt) on the right.

Various Artists - Covered: Roquel 'Billy' Davis: 1957-2008

I was going through my "Covered" album collection to fix some broken links, and I saw that I haven't posted this one yet, even though I thought I did. So here it is now, better late than never. This highlights the songwriting of Roquel "Billy" Davis.

Chances are, you haven't heard of Davis. But he was involved in writing a lot of good soul hits. He was born in 1932 in Detroit. He got to know Berry Gordy in the 1950s, a few years before Gordy founded Motown Records. He got involved in writing some big hits with Gordy, and sometimes others, especially Gordy's sister Gwen, who was Davis's girlfriend at the time. Since I already posted a "Covered" album for Berry Gordy, I used the big hit versions for many of those. For instance, "Reet Petite" was a big hit for Jackie Wilson in 1957, "Lonely Teardrops" was an even bigger hit for Wilson in 1958, and "I'll Be Satisfied," was another Wilson hit in 1959, but I've used alternate versions for all of those.

Note that I'm not including "You Got What It Takes," although it was a big hit that has been credited to Davis, Gordy, and others. That's because I think there's an airtight case that it was actually written entirely by Bobby Parker, since the first version of it came out by Parker with him listed as the sole songwriter. Gordy simply stole it later, and falsely changed the songwriting credits.

Anyway, around 1960, Gordy got heavily involved with his new record company, Motown Records. Davis didn't become a part of that, so his songwriting partnership with Gordy faded away. Their last song together that I've included is "All I Could Do Was Cry," which was a hit for Etta James in 1960. Since I used that version elsewhere, I've chosen a 2008 version by Beyonce.

Davis continued to write hits without Gordy for most of the 1960s. He usually worked with Chess Records, even taking charge of many A&R and production duties for that record company. "Seven Day Fool" was a rare case of Davis getting the sole credit for a song. More typically, he wrote with others, but he didn't have any consistent co-writers. In fact, most of the songs after "Seven Day Fool" were written with a different co-writer.

Davis had a sudden career change in 1968. He used his success as a songwriter and producer to get a job at one of the top advertising agencies in New York City. His primary client was Coca-Cola, and he was responsible for many successful ad campaigns for that company. But unfortunately, this meant that his songwriting pretty much stopped, except for writing ad jingles.

But his work with Coca-Cola would lead to his biggest songwriting success of all. I've told this story in the write-up for the "Covered" album for Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway, but I'll retell it here from Davis's point of view. Cook and Greenaway had already written a song called "True Love and Apple Pie." But it was released by an obscure artist and went nowhere. Then Cook happened to get stuck waiting in an airport in Ireland for many hours. Also stuck in the same airport was Davis, now working for Coca-Cola, and another Coca-Cola executive, Bill Backer. Backer came up with the line "I'd like to buy the world a Coke" while they waited for their plane. Later, back in New York City, Cook, Greenaway and Davis reworked "True Love and Apple Pie" into "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing," which became one of the biggest hits of the decade, as well as a massively successful ad campaign for Coca-Cola.

"Country Sunshine" is also a song Davis first wrote for a Coca-Cola ad. But it was so catchy that it was fleshed out and became a country hit for Dottie West in 1973. That seems to be the last new song Davis was involved in that made the charts, although some of his earlier songs were hits in new versions, sometimes several times over.

Davis died in 2004 at the age of 72. By the way, he's also responsible for "it's the real thing," "things go better with Coke," "have a Coke and a smile," all for Coca-Cola, "If you've got the time, we've got the beer," for Miller Beer, and many, many other advertisements.

Here's his Wikipedia page:

Billy Davis (songwriter) - Wikipedia 

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Jim Dandy Got Married (LaVern Baker)
02 To Be Loved (Malcolm Vaughan)
03 That's Why [I Love You So] (Jackie Wilson)
04 Seven Day Fool (Etta James)
05 Pushover (Etta James)
06 Reet Petite (Dinah Lee)
07 Two Sides to Every Story (Etta James)
08 Use What You Got (Sugar Pie DeSanto)
09 I Had a Talk with My Man (Mitty Collier)
10 We're Gonna Make It (Little Milton)
11 Recovery (Fontella Bass)
12 Who's Cheating Who (Little Milton)
13 I Can't Rest (Fontella Bass)
14 I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (Hillside Singers)
15 Country Sunshine (Dottie West)
16 Lonely Teardrops (John Fogerty)
17 I'll Be Satisfied (Shakin' Stevens)
18 All I Could Do Was Cry (Beyonce)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rGtRVEWA 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/h0hrXz1oG7qsojq/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of an interview he gave many years after his songwriting career had ended. I don't know the exact year, however.

Various Artists - Covered: Denny Randell & Sandy Linzer: 1964-1998

Here's another songwriting duo highlighted for my "Covered" series: Denny Randell and Sandy Linzer. I wouldn't be surprised at all if you have never heard of them. I hadn't either, until recently. But while they didn't write any massive hits, they have enough hits for a solid album.

Randell and Linzer were both born in 1941. They were introduced to each other in 1963, and immediately began co-writing songs. The first song here, "Dawn (Go Away)," was written by Linzer with Bob Gaudio, a member of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and an impressive songwriter in his own right. I've already posted a "Covered" album for the Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio songwriting team. 

Randell and Linzer wrote a lot of songs for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, sometimes with Gaudio. I've included three such songs here (and a Franki Valli solo one). But "Working My Way Back to You" was also a hit for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons in 1966. I included the 1979 version by the Spinners instead because that was a much bigger hit. In fact, it was the biggest hit this songwriting team ever had, reaching Number One in Britain and Number Two in the U.S. 

In a similar way, "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" was a small hit for Question Mark and the Mysterians in 1967, but not enough to make the U.S. Top Forty. I included the 1998 version by Smash Mouth instead, since that was a bigger hit, making the Top Forty chart.

Probably another success was the song "I Believe in You and Me." (Linzer wrote it with someone else.) Whitney Houston had a Top Five hit in the U.S. with it in 1996. But, frankly, I find Houston's typically histrionic over-singing hard to take. It turns out the song was first released by the Four Tops in 1982. So I've included that version instead. It wasn't a hit, but the singing is much better.

I've been posting a lot of "Covered" albums featuring songwriters who got started in the early or mid-1960s. Nearly all of them stopped having hits by the end of the 1970s, due to changing musical trends (except for later covers of their earlier songs). But Randell and Linzer were a rarity in that they kept writing more hits through the end of the 1980s. The last original hit here is "Talk It Over" by Grayson Hugh in 1989.

However, their songwriting partnership petered out at the end of the 1970s. The vast majority of the songs up to and including "Native New Yorker" in 1977 were written by both of them. But the songs that come after that were written by one of them or the other, usually with other songwriting partners (except for tracks 12 and 17, which I mentioned above are not the original hit versions). 

Both Randell and Linzer also worked in other aspects of the music business, for instance producing albums, and promoting and developing the musical careers of some acts. Both of them are still alive, and about 85 years old, as I write this in 2026.

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 Dawn [Go Away] (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
02 A Lover's Concerto (Toys)
03 Let's Hang On (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
04 Attack (Toys)
05 Opus 17 [Don't You Worry 'bout Me] (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
06 I'll Be Back Up on My Feet (Monkees)
07 Penny Arcade (Cyrkle)
08 Breakin' Down the Walls of Heartache (Johnny Johnson & the Bandwagon)
09 You Can Do Magic (Limmie & Family Cookin’)
10 Swearin' to God (Frankie Valli)
11 Native New Yorker (Odyssey)
12 Working My Way Back to You - Forgive Me Girl (Spinners)
13 Use It Up and Wear It Out (Odyssey)
14 I Believe in You and Me (Four Tops)
15 Fresh (Kool & the Gang)
16 Talk It Over (Grayson Hugh)
17 Can't Get Enough of You Baby (Smash Mouth)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qTodsFSL

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/KB4ibMU7sghsd7T/file

I guess it's pretty obvious that the cover is two photos put together in Photoshop, but I couldn't find any images of the two of them in the same frame. That's Sandy Linzer on the left, with the suit and tie, in 1977. I don't know the date of the Denny Randell photo on the right, but it's probably from the 1960s. 

Various Artists - Covered: Barry Mason & Les Reed: 1964-2002

Here's another album for my "Covered" series, highlighting the talents of singer-songwriters. This time, I'm tackling the songwriting team of Barry Mason and Les Reed.

I have to admit that I'm not terribly impressed by the songwriting of Barry Mason and Les Reed. But I'm posting this for two reasons. One, they wrote an undeniable number of big hit songs in the 1960s and 70s, so they shouldn't be forgotten. But also, they were part of a small group of professional songwriters working in Britain at the time, often writing songs with others, so they need to be included as part of that scene. At times, one or the other co-wrote songs with Geoff Stephens, Roger Greenaway, Roger Cook, Tony Macaulay, John Carter, Ken Lewis, Don Black, Mitch Murray, and Peter Callander. It's probable that you've heard of few to none of those songwriters. That was the case for me until I started making the "Covered" albums. But I'll bet you know a lot of their hit songs. I plan to post "Covered" albums for all of those other songwriters I just mentioned as well.

Both Mason and Reed were born in small towns in England in 1935. (Mason was born in Wigan and Reed was born in Woking.) Mason got started in profressional songwriting do to working as a producer. He later explained, "I met this boy called Tommy Bruce and I spent my last few pounds making a demo of him singing an old Fats Waller song, 'Ain't Misbehavin'' - and he had a hit. Suddenly, I was his manager, not knowing anything about the business. But the important thing was, I was in the business." 

However, Les Reed had the first big hit. "Tell Me When," written with Geoff Stephens, was a hit for the Applejacks in early 1964. Reed would go on to write many more songs with Stephens, though not as man as with Mason. Both of them worked with other songwriters from the start, and kept doing so. For instance, Mason co-wrote "She Just Satisfies" with Jimmy Page, future lead guitarist for Led Zeppelin. It was a failed solo single for Page in 1965.

I don't know how Mason and Reed met, but by 1964 they were writing songs together. Their first hit song together was "Here It Comes Again." The Fortunes took it to Number Four in Britain in 1965. After that, they began writing together more consistently, while still also working with other songwriters. In 1965, Reed had his first massive hit with "It's Not Unusual," which hit Number One in Britain and turned Tom Jones into a big star. It was co-written with Gordon Mills, a songwriter who also was Jones's manager. A year later, he had another banger with "There's a Kind of Hush," co-written with Geoff Stephens. Herman's Hermits had the big hit in 1966, but I chose to include a 1971 version by the Carpenters instead, since I put the Herman's Hermits version on a different "Covered" album. 

Their first really huge smash hit together was "The Last Waltz." Although Engelbert Humperdinck only had a Top Forty hit with it in the U.S., it Britain it went all the way to Number One in 1967. It stayed on top for five weeks, making it one of the best selling songs of the year.

I'm not a fan of "The Last Waltz." It's a sappy love song, oversung by Humperdinck, and overproduced, with lots of strings. I find it mystifying it dominated the charts for a portion of 1967, when that was one of the best years of hit music ever, in my opinion. I've included it because it's such a big hit, and so pivotal in their careers. But Mason and Reed began writing a lot of hit songs in that same style. I've elected to not include many of them, even when they were big hits, if I wasn't that impressed with them as songs.

Most of the songs here were co-written by Mason and Reed. I'll only mention the other exceptions. "Daughter of Darkness" was another one written by Mason and Stephens. "A Man without Love" was written by Mason with three other songwriters.n"Love Me Tonight" was written by Mason with two others. "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" was written by Mason and Tony Macaulay. I put the 1970 hit version by Edison Lighthouse and a "Covered" album for Macaulay, so I chose a interesting, non-hit version here. "There Goes My First Love" was written by Mason with Roger Greenaway.

Mason and Reed had most of their success in the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s, both together and with other songwriters. Their songwriting partnership faded away around the same time the hits slowed down. Reed moved into writing more for movie soundtracks and musical plays. Mason continued writing the occasional hit with other songwriters. He even co-wrote a Top 40 song as late as 2002, which is the last song here, "Tell Me Why." Reed died in 2019 at the age of 83. Mason died in 2021 at the age of 85.

Here's the Wikipedia link for Mason:

Barry Mason - Wikipedia

And here's the one for Reed:

Les Reed (songwriter) - Wikipedia  

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Don't Turn Around (Merseybeats)
02 Tell Me When (Applejacks)
03 Here It Comes Again (Fortunes)
04 It's Not Unusual (Tom Jones)
05 Leave a Little Love (Lulu)
06 The Last Waltz (Engelbert Humperdinck)
07 Delilah (Tom Jones)
08 Kiss Me Goodbye (Petula Clark)
09 Les Bicyclettes de Belsize (Johnny Worth)
10 Love Me Tonight (Tom Jones)
11 A Man without Love (Engelbert Humperdinck)
12 Daughter of Darkness (Tom Jones)
13 There Goes My First Love (Drifters)
14 Good Love Can Never Die (Alvin Stardust)
15 There's a Kind of Hush (Carpenters)
16 Love Grows [Where My Rosemary Goes] (Freedy Johnston)
17 Tell Me Why (Declan Galbraith)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KQVorvvk

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/HuNK2DIvzlpnTsB/file

The cover image shows Barry Mason on the left and Les Reed on the right. I took two different pictures and put them together, using Photoshop. The Mason one is from 1966 and the Reed one is from 1967. Both were originally in black and white, but I colorized them with the use of the Kolorize program.

Various Artists - Covered: Van McCoy, Best Of: 1962-1985

Here's another artist for my "Covered" series. To remind you, this highlights the talents of songwriters by collecting cover versions of their songs. This time, the focus is on Van McCoy.

These days, McCoy is probably seen by many as a one-hit wonder, because he had one huge hit under his own name: "The Hustle." This instrumental was a huge hit in 1975. It went to Number One on the main U.S. singles chart, as well as on the soul chart. It reached at least the Top Ten in most other countries as well, including hitting Number Three in Britain. 

That was his only Top 40 hit in the U.S., so technically that makes him a "one-hit wonder" in that country. But he did have other hits in other countries. For instance, he had three more Top 40 hits in Britain. But more important, he had a very long and successful career as a songwriter and producer. The focus here will be just on the songwriting part though.

 

McCoy was born in Washington, D.C., in 1940. He started playing piano and singing in a church choir at a young age. He began writing songs at the age of 12. Eventually, he would have 700 of his songs recorded and released by himself or other musical artists. He started to study psychology at Howard University, but dropped out in 1960 to pursue a music career. 

 

He formed his own record company from the very start. He had a little success with his own recordings. His first single, "Mr. D.J.," was a minor hit in 1960. But he soon found more success writing and producing songs for others. He mostly concentrated on that, though he continued to release singles under his own name. His first really big hit as a songwriter was "Baby, I'm Yours." Singer Barbara Lewis took it to the Top Ten in 1965. He continued to write many more hits in the 1960s and 1970s. I've included the ones I liked the best here. Note these aren't necessarily all the biggest hits on the charts.

 

In the 1970s, he began focusing more on his own career. In the 1960s, he only released one album under his own name. But in the 1970s, he released ten. His solo career really took over after his 1975 hit "The Hustle." But he continued writing and producing songs for others as well. Unfortunately, his career was cut short, because he died of a heart attack on June 29, 1979, at the age of 39.

 

Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more. It's surprisingly detailed compared to other similar entries:

 

Van McCoy - Wikipedia 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long. 

01 Stop the Music (Shirelles)
02 Getting Mighty Crowded (Betty Everett)
03 Giving Up (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
04 Baby, I'm Yours (Barbara Lewis)
05 It’s Starting to Get to Me Now (Irma Thomas)
06 Where Does That Leave Me Now (Nancy Wilson)
07 Before and After (Chad & Jeremy)
08 Let It All Out (O'Jays)
09 Stop and Get a Hold on Myself (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
10 When You're Young and in Love (Marvelettes)
11 You're Gonna Make Me Love You (Sandi Sheldon)
12 The Way to a Woman’s Heart (Billy T. Soul)
13 I Get the Sweetest Feeling (Jackie Wilson)
14 So Soon (Aretha Franklin)
15 Lost and Found (Kenny Carlton)
16 Nothing Worse than Being Alone (Ad Libs)
17 Right on the Tip of My Tongue (Brenda & the Tabulations)
18 Let Me Down Easy (Derrick Harriott)
19 The Hustle (Van McCoy)
20 This Is It (Melba Moore)
21 Heavy Love (David Ruffin)
22 Baby Don't Change Your Mind (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
23 Sweet Bitter Love (Aretha Franklin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HhVWn2Gr

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/kTvbsbNvI6VKdyA/file

The cover photo dates to 1975. I assume it's from an awards ceremony, but I don't know the details. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Dionne Warwick - Dionne, Burt and Hal: The Definitive Songbook, Bonus Volume: Foriegn Language Versions, 1964-1967 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's the finale for guest poster Mike Solof's collection of all the songs Dionne Warwick sang that were written by Hal David and/or Burt Bacharach. This is a bonus volume. That's because, while Mike was putting his collection together, he noticed that Warwick sang a number of Bacharach-David songs in foreign languages. There weren't a lot, but it's enough for a short album. 

Everything here is from 1964 to 1967. She sang three songs in French, then two songs in German, and finally four songs in Italian. All were released as singles in those countries. So this is an interesting curiosity, especially if you speak any of those languages.

This album is 28 minutes long. 

01 Un Toit ne Suffit Pas [A House Is Not a Home] [French Version] (Dionne Warwick)
02 Reach Out for Me [French Version] (Dionne Warwick)
03 How Many Days of Sadness [French Version] (Dionne Warwick)
04 You'll Never Get to Heaven [If You Break My Heart] [German Version] (Dionne Warwick)
05 Walk On By [German Version] (Dionne Warwick)
06 A House Is Not a Home [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)
07 The Windows of the World [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)
08 Walk Little Dolly [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)
09 Walk On By [Italian Version] (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bD6LzqHD

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Mcve2ptBTCaZJi9/file

The cover photo was taken near the Nice Jazz Festival in Nice, France, on July 11, 1987. Since this is a foreign language version album, we wanted a photo of her in one of the foreign countries here, though unfortunately you totally can't tell that from the photo.

Dionne Warwick - Dionne, Burt and Hal: The Definitive Songbook, Volume 2: 1965 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here is the second volume collecting all the songs Dionne Warwick written by Hal David and/or Burt Bacharach. Like all the other albums in this series, this was mainly put together by guest poster Mike Solof.

Since I’m writing this on vacation, I’ll keep the comments short. Enjoy.

This album is 44 minutes long. 

019 Are You There [With Another Girl] (Dionne Warwick)
020 Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Dionne Warwick)
021 Don't Say I Didn't Tell You So (Dionne Warwick)
022 Forever My Love (Dionne Warwick)
023 If I Ever Make You Cry (Dionne Warwick)
024 Here I Am (Dionne Warwick)
025 Is There Another Way to Love Him (Dionne Warwick)
026 Wives and Lovers (Dionne Warwick)
027 Looking with My Eyes (Dionne Warwick)
028 In Between the Heartaches (Dionne Warwick)
029 Only the Strong, Only the Brave (Dionne Warwick)
030 Window Wishing (Dionne Warwick)
031 How Many Days of Sadness (Dionne Warwick)
032 That's Not the Answer (Dionne Warwick)
033 How Can I Hurt You (Dionne Warwick)
034 Long Day, Short Night (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dC4gq6mc

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/eODweEN1JWe1Yrp/file 

The cover photo was taken in Hyde Park, in London, in 1965. 

The Rising Sons - Ash Grove, Los Angeles, CA, 5-30-1965

The Rising Sons were a band in the mid-1960s that looked like they were headed for big things. But they broke up and never even released an album. However, the two main band members, Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder, both went on to have long successful solo careers. In 2021, I posted a short concert bootleg of this band recorded in 1966. Now, here's another one from 1965.

Given this band was only in existence from 1965 to 1966, and never achieved any commercial success, it's a miracle we have any live music from them at all. But it turns out there are multiple bootlegs with stellar sound quality, due to the fact that the often performed at the Ash Grove, a small club in Los Angeles, and the people running that venue often made soundboard recordings of the concerts there.

However, there was one big problem: these in-house recordings were often done in a sloppy manner, probably someone just turning the recording device on and walking away. As a result, the balances were usually off. For instance, with the Rising Sons concert I previously posted, the prominent harmonica playing by Taj Mahal was buried in the mix. That was the same problem here, with the harmonica sounded like it was recorded several rooms away from everything else. That's why, even though I had these recordings, I only posted the 1966 one.

Happily, now it's 2026, and audio editing technology has improved by leaps and bounds since 2021. The bad mix of that 1966 concert bugged me. So I went back and fixed the buried harmonica problem. Here's a link where you can get the fixed version:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-rising-sons-ash-grove-los-angeles.html

Then I did the same thing here: I used the MVSEP program to separate out just the harmonica from everything else. Then I boosted that volume relative to everything else. While I was at it, I made some other fixes. For instance, Taj Mahal did most of the singing, but sometimes he would sing little asides with his mouth away from the microphone. In many cases, I was able to fix those so you could clearly hear those bits. Now, in my opinion, the sound quality here is really impressive, especially for 1965, when bootleg recording was rare and usually poorly done.

This recording is actually a combination of four different concerts. Most of it, tracks 1 through 20, is from May 30, 1965. But I had a few extra bits from partially recorded sets on other nights, so I added those in at the end. Tracks 21 through 24 are from May 29th. Tracks 25 to 30 are from May 31st. And the last two tracks, 31 to 32, are from June 29th.

All the studio recordings by this band were finally released an album in 1992, with the title "Rising Sons Featuring Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder." But quite a few of the songs here were not recorded for that album, including an original by band member Jesse Lee Kincad, called "I'll Always Be There." (There actually were two versions of that song in these recordings, but I only included one. It was the only case of there being a duplicate.) 

These concerts used to be available at Wolfgang's Vault. But that site stopped working a few months ago. And they never spread very far. For instance, none of this music can be found at SoulseekQT as a type this, and SoulseekQT has an amazing amount of stuff. So hopefully this post will put this music into wider public circulation. 

If you aren't familiar with this band, you should check this out. Their sound doesn't seem that unique today, but that's because so many other bands went on to make music in a similar vein in later years. According to AllMusic, Rising Sons' "languid, bluesy, folksy sort of sound anticipated future recordings by outfits like Moby Grape, Buffalo Springfield, the Grateful Dead, and even the southern rock Allman Brothers, and the country-rock Byrds."

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long. 

01 Crawling King Snake (Rising Sons)
02 talk (Rising Sons)
03 It's All Over Now (Rising Sons)
04 talk (Rising Sons)
05 Statesboro Blues (Rising Sons)
06 talk (Rising Sons)
07 Walking the Dog (Rising Sons)
08 talk (Rising Sons)
09 Hambone - Band Introductions (Rising Sons)
10 Meet Me in the Bottom (Rising Sons)
11 talk (Rising Sons)
12 Baby, What Do You Want Me to Do (Rising Sons)
13 talk (Rising Sons)
14 I'm a King Bee (Rising Sons)
15 talk (Rising Sons)
16 I'll Always Be There (Rising Sons)
17 Fanny Mae (Rising Sons)
18 Corrina, Corrina (Rising Sons)
19 talk (Rising Sons)
20 Dust My Blues (Rising Sons)
21 talk (Rising Sons)
22 Too High to Fall (Rising Sons)
23 talk (Rising Sons)
24 Hush Hush (Rising Sons)
25 Who Do You Think You Is (Rising Sons)
26 talk (Rising Sons)
27 Blues in Three-Four Time [Instrumental] (Rising Sons)
28 talk (Rising Sons)
29 So Fine (Rising Sons)
30 Little Red Rooster (Rising Sons)
31 talk (Rising Sons)
32 Grown So Ugly (Rising Sons)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Fv7xM9z6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/LRYE8EbaSG5vtjx/file

The cover photo is from a photo shoot either in 1965 or 1966. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. Taj Mahal is the Black man wearing a hat, and Ry Cooder has a hand on his shoulder.

Various Artists - The Big TNT Show, Moulin Rouge, Los Angeles, CA, 11-30-1965

A few days ago (writing this in February 2026), I posted the audio to the "TAMI Show" concert. As I mentioned in my write-up, that's one of the all time great 1960s concerts, which was made into a movie in 1964. The people who made that movie basically repeated the formula in 1965 with this one, "The Big T.N.T. Show." Although this concert isn't as famous as the TAMI Show, I'd argue the star power and performances here are even better.

Just like the TAMI Show, what sets this apart from other musical shows on TV and the like is that there was no lip-syncing. Everything was done live in front of an audience. Actually, each act performed their set three times, and then the film footage from the best versions were used for the movie. 

By the way, technically "T.N.T." was an acronym for "Tune n' Talent," but clearly they just wanted to call it "T.N.T." for the "explosive" connotation, and then made up an acronym for it.

The idea was to use the most popular music acts popular with kids at the time. Musical trends had changed a lot in the year since the TAMI Show. One big change was that folk-rock was suddenly all the rage. So this concert had some folk music acts that had been lacking in the TAMI Show. In addition to folk rock like the Lovin' Spoonful and the Byrds, Joan Baez and Donovan performed in solo acoustic mode. One curiosity is that Baez sang "You Lost that Lovin' Feeling," which didn't seem like her type of song at all. But the music in the show was directed by legendary producer Phil Spector, and that's a song he actually co-wrote, so my guess is he got her to sing it.

Additional, some classic soul acts were included, like Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, Ike and Tina Turner. Country was represented by Roger Miller, and pop by Petula Clark. It was a very diverse line-up, with no repeats from the TAMI Show. 

It seems like this movie was commercially successful, as was the TAMI Show. So it's a shame no similar film was made in 1966 or after. However, I read one mention that the movie wasn't as successful as the TAMI Show. This was blamed on the fact that it was edited and released so quickly that there wasn't time for proper production. Remarkably, the movie was in the theaters by the end of 1965, less than a month after the concert!

Also, perhaps, with musical trends changing so fast, it grew too difficult to bring these many big stars together for one concert. These sorts of variety concerts with lots of acts performing short sets were rapidly fading away at the time, replaced by having just a couple of acts performing much longer sets.

Just as I did with the TAMI Show, I converted the video to audio format, then chopped it into mp3s. The sound quality was a little bit better with this one, so I didn't have to make any adjustments. 

Here's the Wikipedia article:

The Big T.N.T. Show - Wikipedia 

Here's an interesting article that discusses both this movie and the TAMI Show:

https://cavehollywood.com/the-t-a-m-i-show-and-the-big-t-n-t-show-out-on-blu-ray-dvd/

This album is an hour and 30 minutes long. 

01 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction [Instrumental Version] (David McCallum)
02 What'd I Say (Ray Charles)
03 Downtown (Petula Clark)
04 Do You Believe in Magic (Lovin' Spoonful)
05 You Didn't Have to Be So Nice (Lovin' Spoonful)
06 Hey Bo Diddley (Bo Diddley)
07 Bo Diddley (Bo Diddley)
08 500 Miles (Joan Baez)
09 There but for Fortune (Joan Baez)
10 Georgia on My Mind (Ray Charles)
11 Let the Good Times Roll (Ray Charles)
12 talk (Donovan)
13 You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling (Joan Baez)
14 Be My Baby (Ronettes)
15 Shout (Ronettes)
16 Dang Me (Roger Miller)
17 talk (Roger Miller)
18 Engine Engine No. 9 (Roger Miller)
19 King of the Road (Roger Miller)
20 talk (Roger Miller)
21 England Swings (Roger Miller)
22 talk (David McCallum)
23 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Byrds)
24 The Bells of Rhymney (Byrds)
25 Mr. Tambourine Man (Byrds)
26 You're the One (Petula Clark)
27 My Love (Petula Clark)
28 talk (David McCallum)
29 Universal Soldier (Donovan)
30 Summer Day Reflection Song (Donovan)
31 Bert's Blues (Donovan)
32 Sweet Joy (Donovan)
33 Shake (Ike & Tina Turner)
34 A Fool in Love (Ike & Tina Turner)
35 It's Gonna Work Out Fine (Ike & Tina Turner)
36 Please, Please, Please (Ike & Tina Turner)
37 Goodbye, So Long (Ike & Tina Turner)
38 Tell the Truth (Ike & Tina Turner)
39 1-2-3 [Instrumental Version] (David McCallum)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dTkPhgcn

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Kjs0z43hqpeffYb/file

The main picture in the cover art shows Tina Turner in this exact concert. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. The text and design at the top and sides are taken from a concert poster. I did some repositioning and cleaning up for those areas.

Dusty Springfield - Live in Concert: 1964-1966

Dusty Springfield was one of the most popular singers in Britain in the 1960s and early 1970s. For instance, in 1966, she won both the Melody Maker and N.M.E. polls for best female singer. But despite that popularity, there are shockingly few live recordings from her, even though she toured a fair amount. One official live album, "Live at the Royal Albert Hall," has been released. But, in my opinion, that was from the worst time in her career for a live album, 1979, at the height of the disco era and at a down era for her career. True, there are lots of recordings of TV and radio broadcasts, and I've compiled those as best I could. But in terms of actual concert recordings, there's almost nothing, especially from her 1960s and early 1970s peak era.

I decided to try to change there. When it comes to unreleased concert recordings, there also is very, very little. But I did find a few things from 1964 to 1966. Putting them together, it's just enough for a relatively short live album.

The first section of this concert comes from a concert in Melbourne, Australia, in 1964. She was part of a package tour of Australia with Johnny O'Keefe, Gene Pitney, Gerry and the Pacemakers, and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. An hour long concert was filmed for Australian TV. Decades later, this has been released on DVD only, under the title "The Liverpool Sound." I was able to find most of that, but not quite all. I'm missing the first song, "I Only Want to Be with You." So, for that, I used a live performance of that song she did for the Ed Sullivan Show. This Australian concert makes up the first 13 minutes of this album, tracks one through eight. The last song, "When the Saints Go Marching In," was the finale, where each of the lead singers got to sing a verse.

The other two sections here come from annual N.M.E. concerts. "N.M.E." stands for "New Musical Express," one of the main music-centric publications in Britain in that era. They had a yearly poll winners concert that brought together the biggest names in music at the time. I've already posted the full 1965 concert, which you can get here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/01/various-artists-nme-poll-winners.html

I have all of what's available of the 1964 and 1966 concerts, and I'd like to post those soon. Springfield wasn't featured in the 1964 one. But I've included her 1965 and 1966 performances here. Tracks nine through 13 are from the 1965 concert, and tracks 14 to 18 are from the 1966 concert. All of these N.M.E. concerts remain unreleased. Springfield's short 1965 set is repeated on the N.M.E. concert I linked to above, but I think there's value in putting all her concert recordings from the era together here.

Luckily, there are no repeats of songs from these three sources. That's probably because they were about a year apart each, so she had different hits to promote each year. When it comes to sound quality, this isn't amazing, but it's about as good as you could expect for the era. Like the Australian concert, the N.M.E. concerts were broadcast on T.V., so that's why we have recordings that survive.

This album is 32 minutes long. 

001 I Only Want to Be with You (Dusty Springfield)
002 talk (Dusty Springfield)
003 Stay Awhile (Dusty Springfield)
004 The Love of a Boy (Dusty Springfield)
005 talk (Dusty Springfield)
006 Shake It Up (Dusty Springfield)
007 talk (Johnny O'Keefe, Gene Pitney, Brian Poole & Dusty Springfield)
008 When the Saints Go Marching In (Johnny O'Keefe, Gene Pitney, Brian Poole & Dusty Springfield)
009 talk (Dusty Springfield)
010 Dancing in the Street (Dusty Springfield)
011 talk (Dusty Springfield)
012 Mockingbird (Dusty Springfield)
013 I Can't Hear You [No More] (Dusty Springfield)
014 talk (Dusty Springfield)
015 In the Middle of Nowhere (Dusty Springfield)
016 You Don't Have to Say You Love Me (Dusty Springfield)
017 talk (Dusty Springfield)
018 Shake (Dusty Springfield)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PkcQGKmR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/xmJw8otVzVvSA3I/file

The cover photo is from 1965, but I don't know the details beyond that.

Various Artists - Covered: Shel Silverstein, Volume 1: 1963-1972

Here's the next songwriter in my "Covered" series: Shel Silverstein. To say Silverstein was a colorful character is putting it mildly. Among his many talents was songwriting. I've found enough good covers of his songs for two volumes. Here's the first one.

Silverstein was born in Chicago in 1930, and raised there. He went to college, then spent a few years in the U.S. army. After that, he started to get known for his cartoons published in magazines. He especially had many of his cartoons published in Playboy Magazine, from the 1950s into the 1970s. He developed another creative career as the author of children's books. He eventually sold 20 million books. His most acclaimed books include "The Giving Tree," "Where the Sidewalk Ends," and "A Light in the Attic." He also had success writing for plays, movies, and TV shows.

So he was a creative Renaissance Man. But out focus here is on his songwriting. He was a music performer too, and released many albums, with the first one coming out in 1959. But he had a gruff voice with limited range. Also, it seems he very rarely performed in public, probably because he had so many other creative projects going on to want to go on long tours. So he was much more successful having others cover his songs.

His songwriting career started fairly slowly. He only had a few successes for most of the 1960s. But that changed drastically in 1969, when Johnny Cash had a huge hit with "A Boy Called Sue." That was such an unusual song, with lots of comedy, that many other musical acts went looking for other songs he'd written. It turns out his biggest fans were the band Dr. Hook. Their debut album "Doctor Hook," released in 1972, consisted entirely of songs written by Silverstein. And their second album, "Sloppy Seconds," released later in 1972, also consisted entirely of his songs! Those albums gave Dr. Hook their first two big hits, "Sylvia's Mother" and "The Cover of the Rolling Stone."

That takes us to the end of 1972. I'll write more about him in the second and last volume.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Hey Nelly Nelly (Judy Collins)
02 In the Hills of Shiloh (Modern Folk Quartet)
03 25 Minutes to Go (Johnny Cash)
04 The Mermaid (Glen Yarbrough)
05 Boa Constrictor (Johnny Cash)
06 The Unicorn (Irish Rovers)
07 A Boy Named Sue (Johnny Cash)
08 Once More With Feeling (Jerry Lee Lewis)
09 One's on the Way (Loretta Lynn)
10 I Call That True Love (Dr. Hook)
11 The Taker (Kris Kristofferson)
12 Freakin' at the Freakers' Ball (Dr. Hook)
13 On Susan's Floor (Gordon Lightfoot)
14 Sylvia's Mother (Dr. Hook)
16 The Cover of Rolling Stone (Dr. Hook)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fuippqRG

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xFnEMjkKL9LnUcW/file

The cover image is from 1972.

The Small Faces - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1965-1966

Back in early 2021, I posted two BBC albums for the Small Faces. (Technically, they were just "Small Faces," but I can't help use the "the.") I have deleted those today, because I'm doing a complete overhaul, and turning two albums into three. Here's the first one.

This overhaul wouldn't have happened had it not been for Prof. Stoned and his music blog. I highly recommend you check it out, here:

Prof Stoned: Rare & Deleted 

He shares my interest in BBC recordings from the 1960s and early 1970s. An official BBC album has been released for this band, simply titled "The BBC Sessions." But Prof. Stoned has dug deep and found more and more that that album missed. Eventually, I noticed there was enough for this overhaul. So all the songs I'm adding for the first time are thanks to that blog.

As it so happens, the vast majority of the tracks on this first volume are from the official BBC album. The only exceptions are tracks 4 ("You Really Got a Hold on Me") and 14 ("My Mind's Eye"). Everything here is from BBC studio sessions, though the two unreleased tracks were performed before small audiences. (I've removed the crowd noise on those, using MVSEP.) As usual, you can look at the mp3 tags for each song for more details about where and when the songs were recorded.

If you look at the song list, you'll see several songs with "[Edit]" in their titles. That's due to the usual problem from that era of BBC DJs talking over the music. I always like removing that talking, using the UVR5 or MVSEP programs. But Prof. Stoned feels otherwise, so if you want hear the DJs, check out his Small Faces collection.

Since all but two songs are officially released, the sound quality is excellent. The sound quality is a bit rougher for those, but still acceptable. Also, one song here, "Jump Back," is also on the stray tracks album "Grow Your Own," because the only recording the band did of it is from one of their BBC sessions. 

This album is 37 minutes long.

01 Whatcha Gonna Do about It (Small Faces)
02 Jump Back (Small Faces)
03 Baby Don't You Do It [Don't Do It] (Small Faces)
04 You Really Got a Hold on Me [Edit] (Small Faces)
05 Shake [Edit] (Small Faces)
06 Sha-La-La-La-Lee (Small Faces)
07 You Need Love [You Need Loving] [Edit] (Small Faces)
08 Hey Girl (Small Faces)
09 E Too D [Edit] (Small Faces)
10 One Night Stand [Edit] (Small Faces)
11 You Better Believe It [Edit] (Small Faces)
12 Understanding (Small Faces)
13 All or Nothing (Small Faces)
14 My Mind's Eye (Small Faces)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/aWZsVwNH

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/2ogab1BGpkuo6n4/file

The cover art photo comes from an appearance on the "Two of a Kind" TV show in 1967.

Various Artists - Covered: Antonio Carlos Jobim, Volume 1: 1962-1998 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

The next songwriter in my Covered series is a really big one: Antonio Carlos Jobim. He's written more standards than practically anyone, especially for jazz. And he's a rarity in the series in that he wasn't from one of the usual native English speaking countries like the U.S., Britain, or Canada, but from Brazil. And while he mostly wrote in Portuguese, I've selected only English language versions, to give this a wider appeal.

Actually, I should say "we selected." For Jobim, I relied heavily on the work on a new volunteer, who goes by the name "Fabio from Rio." As you can guess from the name, Fabio is a Brazilian, from Rio de Janeiro, so he was the ideal person to help with a Jobim collection. Furthermore, Fabio enjoyed helping to make three volumes of Jobim covers, and has been helping me with other collections, for instance Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Lennon-McCartney, Neil Young, and more. So look for some of those in the near future.

Rather than say more, I've asked Fabio to give the introduction to Jobim for this first volume. Take it away, Fabio:

Since I'm Brazilian, Paul kindly invited me to help him curate this tribute collection of Antonio Carlos ("Tom") Jobim covers. Jobim was, quite literally, my neighbor - my family lived near his home in the Jardim Botanico district of Rio during my teenage years. I even bumped into him once at a local restaurant where he used to go for a drink or two. (There's a photo of the two of us somewhere, probably lost in a box in my mother's basement.) I was also lucky enough to attend a couple of his concerts at the legendary Canecao in the late 1980s and early 1990s. So, working on this project and revisiting his vast body of work has been a real treat.

Jobim's career began in the mid-1940s and lasted until his passing in 1994. He gained international fame in 1962 after a historic concert at Carnegie Hall. From then on, many English-speaking artists - as well as Brazilian musicians with international careers, like Astrud Gilberto and Sergio Mendes - began recording his music. While he's best known for his contributions to bossa nova, Jobim's work spans other genres too, including jazz, soul, and classical music. He even composed a full symphony!

According to his biographers, Jobim wrote between 350 and 400 songs - and at least half of them are considered standards, especially for jazz musicians. For that reason, my initial selection for this project included 97 songs, totaling nearly eight hours of music. Paul wisely suggested we trim it down, and we ultimately arrived at a more manageable set: three albums featuring 37 songs. As per Paul's request, we focused on songs with available English lyrics. Sadly, that meant leaving out some incredible tunes that only exist in Portuguese - but they can be discovered elsewhere. Due to this limitation, the collection is not fully comprehensive, but it serves as a strong introduction and a welcoming entry point for anyone curious to explore Jobim's remarkable legacy. I hope you enjoy the journey!

If you enjoy this collection, there's more! I've posted my Youtube channel a different compilation of Jobim covers, called "The Tom Jobim Songbook." It consists of 74 tracks at five volumes, but arranged by year of composition instead of year of recording. Here are the links:

Volume 1 (1954-1959 songs) -
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZdAlno7O9qY0EjtcIu1yWzVedm2CDUVH&si=wXEDLOVHVxzCuxA9

Volume 2 (1960-1965 songs) -
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZdAlno7O9qbR05RYgOLSjre8ZjATfuSE&si=6rGE19iG467gQy27

Volume 3 (1966-1971 songs) -
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZdAlno7O9qb_K6GUUlXwGFHD5Lq0Qx9e&si=lAjrtD7Zk4wNb4kJ

Volume 4 (1972-1994 songs) -
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZdAlno7O9qYLnNNv1AsqV6tmJsZl7Iim&si=hjqsRtZ1gpkodLYf

Volume 5 (instrumentals) -
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZdAlno7O9qYIFTYOFcS09DDPBSwJFBbO&si=o97Ryn158raeVUC3

Additionally, here's a zip file with all five volumes, plus a bonus:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QLY5Fh3w

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/izPoztcsjW9CsxZ/file

Due to personal preference, I selected different interpreters than Paul for some of the songs, and also included an 'instrumentals only' volume (although no Portuguese versions). For these reasons, there is little overlap with the Albums That Should Exist version, which I feel is a good thing since these playlists may function as a complementary treat to the official "Covered: Jobim" collection, for those willing to delve further into the Brazilian maestro's music. 

---

Thank you, Fabio from Rio. This is Paul again.  I'll write more about Jobim in the other two volumes. But, for now, here's the Wikipedia link about him:

Antônio Carlos Jobim - Wikipedia 

I will add that although Jobim wrote many classics, his signature song has to be "The Girl from Ipanema." I've included two versions of that for this series, both of which happen to fall into this volume. There's the female perspective version by Astrud Gilberto that was a huge worldwide hit in 1963. But also, near the end of this album, I've chosen a male perspective version by Frank Sinatra in 1981. Sinatra famously did an album with Jobim in 1967 called "Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim." But I accidentally stumbled across a version he did for a TV show in 1981 that I liked better, due to the guitar work of Tony Mottola, so I picked that one. I believe it's unreleased.  

This album is 48 minutes long. 

01 Slightly Out of Tune [Desafinado] (Julie London)
02 The Girl from Ipanema [Garota de Ipanema] (Astrud Gilberto & Stan Getz)
03 Jazz 'n' Samba [So Danco Samba] (Milt Jackson)
04 Dindi (Astrud Gilberto)
05 Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars [Corcovado] (Marvin Gaye)
06 Dreamer [Vivo Sonhando] (Astrud Gilberto)
07 Pardon My English [Samba Torto] (Sylvia Telles)
08 Water to Drink [Agua de Beber] (Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66)
09 Stone Flower (Santana)
10 Triste (Sarah Vaughan)
11 Don't Ever Go Away [Por Causa de Voce] (Ella Fitzgerald)
12 The Girl from Ipanema [Garota de Ipanema] (Frank Sinatra with Tony Mottola)
13 A Felicidade [Happiness] (Susannah McCorkle)
14 Waters of March [Aguas de Marco] (Marisa Monte & David Byrne)
15 How Insensitive [Insensatez] (Sting & Antonio Carlos Jobim)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yPdJNa5X

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/gbVNLCnCMS2lpgB/file

For the album cover, I used a photo that appeared on the cover of a Jobim album called "World's Greatest Composer." I don't know the exact year, but I picked it because he's obviously quite young in the image.

Jimi Hendrix & Various Artists - Jimi Hendrix as Session Musician, Volume 1: 1964-1966

Here's something a little different from me. It's a collection of songs where Jimi Hendrix was a supporting player rather than the main artist. I've never done a collection of "session musician" appearances like this before, because normally I don't think that's interesting enough to make an album. But Hendrix is one of the greatest musicians who ever lived, in my opinion, so even these sorts of performances are worthy of hearing, in my opinion.

Note that this is not complete by any means. I deliberately left off some songs I found with Hendrix playing guitar on them. That's because I only wanted to include songs where he made a notable impact, typically with a guitar solo. I found enough music for three volumes. For this first volume, I found all but three of the songs on the "West Coast Seattle Boy" Hendrix box set. The other three are tracks 9, 14, and 15. That box set does a good job collection his earlier session work. But the later two volumes mostly come from other sources.  

I could write pages about Hendrix's pre-fame history, and the tracks here. But if I do that, I probably would never get around to posting these volumes. So instead, I'll keep it short. Luckily, there's a good Rolling Stone article about his songs as a session musician before he became a star. I highly recommend you give this a read:

Jimi Hendrix: 10 Great Pre-Fame Tracks

I'll quote the intro to that article here:

"Before he was experienced, Jimi Hendrix was a hard-working sideman, playing studio session dates and backing bands across the so-called Chitlin' Circuit and beyond during the first half of the Sixties. After his discharge from the 101st Airborne Division following his brief spell as a paratrooper, the chance to dive headlong into rhythm and blues behind pros like Little Richard, King Curtis, and the Isley Brothers served as a valuable apprenticeship - though a decidedly unglamorous one. ... Despite the challenges, a letter Hendrix sent to his father during this period reveals his steely resolve to realize his destiny. 'I still have my guitar and amp and as long as I have that, no fool can keep me from living,' he writes. 'Although I don't eat every day, everything’s going all right for me. It could be worse than this, but I’m going to keep hustling and scuffling until I get things to happening, like they’re supposed to for me.' This baptism by fire forged the singular style that would make his name cultural shorthand for musical virtuosity." 

Hendrix actually began performing on the Chitlin' Circuit in late 1962, mostly in the South. At various points, he backed up lots of famous soul music stars, including Wilson Pickett, Slim Harpo, Sam Cooke, Ike & Tina Turner, and Jackie Wilson. However, this album begins in 1964, because that's the first time he managed to be included on released records.

In June 1966, Hendrix finally felt confident to form his own band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. Performing in small clubs, he quickly made an impression. From there, he got an opportunity to move to Britain and do some recording. He left the U.S. in September 1966. Success quickly followed, with his first hit single, "Hey Joe," released near the end of the year. So that's where this volume ends, at the end of 1966.

Most everything here are failed, obscure singles. However, "Mercy, Mercy" was a significant hit. (It's interesting to note that Hendrix sometimes played that song in 1967, after he became famous.) I deliberately avoided live recordings as much as possible. If you're interested in that, I've posted an album gathering songs Hendrix sang when he was a part of Curtis Knight and the Squires in late 1965. Here's a link to that one:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2020/03/jimi-hendrix-with-curtis-knight-squires.html 

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Testify (Isley Brothers)
02 Mercy, Mercy (Don Covay)
03 Can't Stay Away (Don Covay)
04 Have You Ever Been Disappointed (Isley Brothers)
05 I Don't Know What You Got But It's Got Me (Little Richard)
06 My Diary (Rosa Lee Brooks)
07 Utee (Rose Lee Brooks)
08 The Little Old Groove Maker (Jimmy Norman)
09 I'm a Fool for You, Baby (Curtis Knight with Jimi Hendrix)
10 Dancing All Around the World (Little Richard)
11 Help Me [Get the Feeling], Part 1 (Ray Sharpe)
12 I'm So Glad (Frank Howard & the Commanders)
13 [My Girl] She's a Fox (Icemen [Lonnie Youngblood & Jimi Hendrix])
14 Soul Food [That's A What I Like] (Lonnie Youngblood with Jimi Hendrix)
15 Wipe the Sweat [Instrumental Version] (Lonnie Youngblood & Jimi Hendrix)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/msRGNEov

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/Cp32kOQTpNlMFtL/file

The cover photo shows Curtis Knight and the Squires from 1966 or thereabouts. Can you tell on your own which one is Hendrix? He's the one on the left, with the toothy smile. This picture was in black and white, but I colorized with the help of the Kolorize program. 

Various Artists - Covered: Joe South: 1962-2005

Lately, I've had so much music I'm discovering, especially from "Midnight Special," "Ultrasonic," Live at the Record Plant," and "PBS Soundstage," that my Covered series highlighting worthy songwriters has fallen by the wayside. Again. But I'm going to make more of a concerted effort to post more of these, since a have a big number ready to go. Here's an album celebrating the songs of Joe South.

Joe South's songs were very popular for a few years in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was born in 1940 in Atlanta, Georgia, and his music has an obvious southern influence. He began a career as both a performer and a songwriter in the late 1950s, when he was in his late teens. For many years, he only had minor success with both of those pursuits. The first song here is from 1962, and the second is from 1965. But then he hit his stride in 1968, when more people started covering his songs, and sometimes having big hits with them. For instance, Deep Purple had a big hit with "Hush" in 1968 (which was pretty atypical for them compared to their usual hard rock sound).

Then, in 1969, he had a big hit of his own, "Games People Play." It just missed the Top Ten in the U.S. singles chart, and since then is probably considered his signature song. Then he had another in 1970, with "Walk a Mile in My Shoes," which also just missed the Top Ten. I've chosen to include the Joe South version of "Games People Play." But the main point of this series is to focus on cover versions, so that's the only song I've included that's performed by him. 

In 1970, he also had his biggest success as a songwriter with "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden." It was first released by Billy Joe Royal in 1967, and there were a couple more covers after that. But when Lynn Anderson released her version in 1970, it went all the way to Number One in the country chart, and Number Three in the main U.S. singles chart, and became one of the best selling songs of the year. 

After all this success in just a couple of years, his future looked very promising. But then tragedy struck. Tommy South, his brother, committed suicide. Tommy had been in Joe's backing band, and they two of them were very close. Joe irrationally blamed himself for the suicide. He sank into a deep depression that lasted for years, and started taking heavy drugs to cope. His time as a promising songwriter basically ended at that point, as he lost his inspiration for many years. He later said, "I really kicked myself around for years... one of the main hang-ups was I just refused to forgive myself. You know, you can go through drug treatment centers, and it's not a permanent healing until it's a spiritual healing." He finally turned his life around in the late 1980s, but musical trends had largely passed him by, and he never released any new albums after 1975. All the songs here were written before that 1971 tragedy, though some of them were covered many years later. 

He died of a heart attack in 2012, at the age of 72. Here's his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more: 

Joe South - Wikipedia 

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 You're the Reason (Arthur Alexander)
02 I've Got to Be Somebody (Billy Joe Royal)
03 Hush (Deep Purple)
04 Games People Play (Joe South)
05 Down in the Boondocks (Billy Joe Royal)
06 These Are Not My People (Johnny Rivers)
07 Don't It Make You Want to Go Home (Brook Benton)
08 Walk a Mile in My Shoes (Elvis Presley)
09 [I Never Promised You A] Rose Garden (Lynn Anderson)
10 Redneck (Swamp Dogg)
11 Yo-Yo (Osmonds)
12 Don't Throw Your Love to the Wind (Jody Miller)
13 Birds of a Feather (Johnny Nash)
14 I Knew You When (Linda Ronstadt)
15 Children (Stephanie Finch)
16 The Greatest Love (Kelly Hogan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qF8PfC5P

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/krCt2GD4MUqIPPq/file

I took the cover photo from the cover of an album called "The Joe South Story." I don't know the details. But it was one of very few I could find that was in color and showed him when he was young. 

Various Artists - Covered: Teddy Randazzo & Bobby Weinstein: 1960-2024

Here's another album in my "Covered" series. This time, the focus is on the songwriting team of Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein. Chances are you haven't heard of them. But I'd also bet that you're very familiar with some of their songs, such as "Goin' Out of My Head," "It's Gonna Take a Miracle," "Pretty Blue Eyes," and "Hurt So Bad."

Randazzo was born in New York City in 1935, and Weinstein was born there four years later. (I've noticed an unusual number of talented songwriters from this era were born in New York City, with many of them being Jewish. In this case, Randazzo was ethnically Italian and Weinstein was Jewish.) Both of them got involved with rock and roll bands. Randazzo had more success, being a member of the Three Chuckles. They had a Top Twenty hit in 1954, and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show several times. In 1957, they began writing songs together. Their first big success was "Pretty Blue Eyes," which was a Top Ten hit for Steve Lawrence in 1960.

Randazzo had the good looks of a potential star, and kept a solo career going for several more years, but didn't have any big hits. However, he and Weinstein found more and more success as songwriters. Their biggest success of all was probably "Goin' Out of My Head." Little Anthony and the Imperials first had a Top Ten hit with it in 1964. But it's endured strongly, with over 400 cover versions, some of them hits as well. It's now in the top 50 of the most recorded and best selling songs of all time. Randazzo and Weinstein wrote many more songs for Little Anthony and the Imperials, even arranging and producing entire albums for them. Another big hit for that band was "Hurt So Bad," which was written by Randazzo, Weinstein, and Bobby Hart of the Boyce and Hart songwriting team. (I've already posted a "Covered" album for them, which includes a Linda Ronstadt version of that song.)

Most of the hits by Randazzo and Weinstein were in the 1960s. "It's Gonna Take a Miracle" was first a hit for the Royalettes in 1965. However, I've included a 1982 version by Deniece Williams because that was a bigger hit, reaching the Top Ten. It seems the songwriting partnership faded in the 1970s. Randazzo continued writing some hits in that decade, particularly for the soul groups the Manhattans and the Stylistics. However, I've only included one, "A Million to One" by the Manhattans in 1971.

Randazzo moved to Hawaii and had some limited success as a producer and songwriter there. He died in 2003 at the age of 68. Weinstein became a music executive, eventually becoming the president of the National Academy of Popular Music. He died in 2022 at the age of 82.  

Here's the Wikipedia entry for Randazzo:

Teddy Randazzo - Wikipedia 

And here's the entry for Weinstein:

Bobby Weinstein - Wikipedia 

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Pretty Blue Eyes (Steve Lawrence)
02 Let the Sunshine In (Dee Dee Sharp)
03 Goin' Out of My Head (Little Anthony & the Imperials)
04 I'm on the Outside [Looking In] (Little Anthony & the Imperials)
05 Can't Stop Running Away (Ian & the Zodiacs)
06 Hurt So Bad (Little Anthony & the Imperials)
07 Trick or Treat (Teddy Randazzo & All 6)
08 Don't Tie Me Down (Little Anthony & the Imperials)
09 Buttercup Days (Kane Triplets)
10 Sweet Cream Ladies, Forward March (Box Tops)
11 I'm Hypnotized (Little Anthony & the Imperials)
12 Yesterday Has Gone (Cupid's Inspiration)
13 Rain in My Heart (Frank Sinatra)
14 A Million to One (Manhattans)
15 It's Gonna Take a Miracle (Deniece Williams)
16 Where's the Love (Vivian Buczek)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QvDtpPAd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/WIWApBKiDxZyoXB/file

Photos of Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein are extremely rare. Luckily, I found one of them hugging each other. It's from when they were older. That's Randazzo on the left and Weinstein on the right.

Various Artists - Covered: Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein & Richard Gottehrer: 1962-1982

Here's a rather unusual entry in my "Covered" series highlighting talented songwriters who were widely covered by others. This one focuses on the songwriting and production team of Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein, and Richard Gottehrer. You probably don't know their names, but I'll bet you know a bunch of their songs.

Bob Feldman and Jerry Goldstein were friends and neighbors growing up in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1950s. They began writing songs together, and released a single as "Bob and Jerry." In 1962, they met Richard Gottehrer, and he joined their songwriting team. Then the hits started coming. Their first really big smash was "My Boyfriend's Back" by the Angels, which made it all the way to Number One in the U.S. in 1963. The song was started by Feldman, after he overheard a girl talking to a boy she was rebuffing.

The three of them had their greatest success in the mid-1960s. As they were all young and musically talented, they decided to form their own rock band, which they called the Strangeloves. Although, weirdly, they claimed that they were three brothers from a sheep farm from Australia. Perhaps they thought being seen as Jewish kids from Brooklyn wasn't cool. In 1965, they had a Top Ten hit in the U.S. under the Strangeloves name with "I Want Candy," a song the three of them wrote with Bert Berns. (I've posted two Covered albums featuring him.) However, instead of including that version here, I've included the 1982 version by Bow Wow Wow, which was a Top Ten hit in Britain. They had two other Top 40 U.S. hits in 1965 as the Strangeloves: "Cara-Lin" and "Night Time." I've included the Strangeloves version of "Night Time," but I chose a version the Sorrows did of "Cara-Lin."

In addition to songwriting, the three of them also found success as producers. One of their biggest successes came early, with "Hang On Sloopy." They didn't have a hand in writing it (though Bert Berns did). But they were getting a big reaction performing it live in concerts. They wanted to release it as their next single, but their song "I Want Candy" was still rising in the charts. So they took the version they'd already recorded in the studio and had a then-unknown singer from another band, Rick Derringer, sing lead on it. That version, credited to the McCoys, hit Number One in the U.S.

This songwriting team was really good at the garage rock song that was all the rage in 1965 and 1966. When popular trends moved to psychedelic music in 1967, their success went way down. The Strangeloves faded away in 1968. The three of them gradually drifted apart. Each of them found success as producers. In 1966, Gottehrer co-founded Sire Records. It was a very successful independent record company for many years. In 1978, it essentially got swallowed up by Warner Brothers Records, though it still exists as a branch of that mega-company. Gottehrer went on to produce albums by the Go-Go's', Dr. Feelgood, Richard Hell, the Bongos, Marshall Crenshaw, Joan Armatrading, Link Wray, and many more.

As a songwriter, Goldstein was the only one of the three who continued to have big success into the 1970s. He became the producer for the band War from their very first album in 1970. He co-wrote most of their biggest hits while continuing to produce them, including "All Day Music," "Low Rider," and "Why Can't We Be Friends." In fact, he was so closely tied to the band War that in a 1990s lawsuit he won the right to the band name, forcing virtually all of the original members to record as the Lowrider Band instead. 

Feldman died in 2023 at the age of 83. Goldstein and Gottehrer are still alive as I write this in 2025.

Here are their Wikipedia pages, if you want to know more:

Bob Feldman - Wikipedia 

Jerry Goldstein (producer) - Wikipedia 

Richard Gottehrer - Wikipedia

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 What Time Is It (Jive Five)
02 My Boyfriend's Back (Angels)
03 I'm on Fire (Jerry Lee Lewis)
04 The Drifter (Ray Pollard)
05 Cara-Lin (Sorrows)
06 Sorrow (Merseys [Merseybeats])
07 Night Time (Strangeloves)
08 Say Those Magic Words (Birds)
09 Beat the Clock (McCoys)
10 Come On Down to My Boat (Every Mother's Son)
11 It's Nice to Be with You (Monkees)
12 All Day Music (War)
13 Low Rider (War)
14 Why Can't We Be Friends (War)
15 Summer (War)
16 I Want Candy (Bow Wow Wow)
17 You Got the Power (War)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/V55f5uau

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NqTTavC8wYmm2eJ/file

Feldman, Goldstein, and Gottehrer were the members of the band the Strangeloves in the mid-1960s. The cover photo is taken from a promotional photo of the band. They put out a lot of photos wearing these zebra-striped vests. From left to right: Richard Gottehrer, Bob Feldman, and Jerry Goldstein.