Klaatu - The Sampler Album (1976-2005) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's another Mike Solof guest post. This one came about because I was conversing with Mike, and the band Klaatu somehow came up. I mentioned that I'd heard of them, but I'd never gotten around to listening to their music. So Mike volunteered to enlighten me by making a sampler album containing what he considers the cream of their crop.

The band has a very unusual history. Probably their biggest claim to fame is that when their debut album came out in 1976, there was a widespread rumor that their album actually was a secret Beatles reunion album. Of course that wasn't true. But I can understand why some people believed the rumor, because the band had a Beatlesque sound. And I consider that a very good thing. If you like that style of music - and who doesn't? - you should give this a listen.

There's a lot more to this band and their history. But I'm not going to tell it here. For one thing, Mike has written extensive liner notes, which are included in the download zip, as is his wont. And you can also read Wikipedia for more:

Klaatu (band) - Wikipedia

I asked Mike why Woman is only a bonus track. Here's his response. "In case you are all wondering (and I know you all are) why I considered 'Woman' a bonus cut and not part of the main set, here's the answer (taken from Wikipedia): 'The trio very briefly reunited in 1988 at George Martin's AIR Studios in London with John Jones to record a single, "Woman," though no one was particularly happy with the results as the song was written by someone outside of the band (Paul Vincent Gunia) for the German television series Tatort. Initially, Long had wanted to merely use the Klaatu name, but could not get the rest of the band's approval without their involvement. The single was released only in West Germany and did not chart, making it an extremely rare item in the Klaatu catalogue; Draper confirmed that the song was considered for a few rarities compilations, but all three band members had agreed to not include the track.'"

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft (Klaatu)
02 Anus of Uranus (Klaatu)
03 Sub-Rosa Subway (Klaatu)
04 Doctor Marvello (Klaatu)
05 We're Off You Know (Klaatu)
06 Sir Bodsworth Rugglesby III (Klaatu)
07 Around the Universe in Eighty Days (Klaatu)
08 Little Neutrino (Klaatu)
09 A Routine Day (Klaatu)
10 The Love of a Woman (Klaatu)
11 I Can't Help It (Klaatu)
12 True Life Hero (Klaatu)
13 Knee Deep in Love (Klaatu)
14 I Don't Wanna Go Home (Klaatu)
15 California Jam (Klaatu)
16 All Good Things (Klaatu)

Woman (Klaatu)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vcsQKLJM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/473QSPC1alBVbpl/file

Klaatu was a notoriously elusive band. For the band's first few years, there were no publicly available photos of them at all. They finally relented a bit in the early 1980s, when they briefly went on tour. So I think this promo photo dates from that time. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. Also, the background was just blank white. So I took some artwork of the pyramids from one of their album covers and put that in the background to make things look a little more interesting.

Frank Zappa - 1971-1988 Strictly Commercial Live (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Guest poster Mike Solof has been busily slaving away in the salt mines, coming up with more albums to post at this blog. In particular, he's got a big Beatles project coming that hopefully will knock your socks off. Unfortunately, I've fallen behind getting some things ready to post, but hopefully I'll catch up soon. For this album, he came up with the idea of collecting live versions of all the songs on the Frank Zappa best of collection "Strictly Commercial."

I'll leave most of the explaining to Mike, in his PDF notes included in the download zip. But Zappa was well known for his lead guitar playing, and he's able to stretch some songs out here. For instance, the official album is about an hour and 17 minutes long, whereas this is almost two hours long. A lot of the difference there is with "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow." The official album has the three minute long single version, but this is a 20-minute-long live version of the entire suite. 

As is Mike's style, he's included a gapless single file of the album in the download zip, for those who prefer to hear it that way.

By the way, all the songs here feature Frank Zappa, except for one. His only Top Forty hit in the U.S. was "Valley Girl," in 1982. But that featured his daughter Moon Unit Zappa on lead vocals instead of him, and she was only 14 years old at the time. So it turns out he never performed the song before dying in 1993. But, much later, in 2010, his children Dweezil and Moon Unit performed the song in concert just once. So that's the version included here. But note the sound quality is a bit rough on that compared to everything else. It's one of only two unreleased versions (along with "Sexual Harassment in the Workplace)." All the others were chosen from the many dozens of official live albums.

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long. 

01 Peaches en Regalia (Frank Zappa)
02 Don't Eat the Yellow Snow (Frank Zappa)
03 Dancin' Fool (Frank Zappa)
04 San Ber'dino (Frank Zappa)
05 Let's Make the Water Turn Black (Frank Zappa)
06 Dirty Love (Frank Zappa)
07 My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama (Frank Zappa)
08 Cosmik Debris (Frank Zappa)
09 Trouble Every Day (Frank Zappa)
10 Disco Boy (Frank Zappa)
11 Bobby Brown Goes Down (Frank Zappa)
12 I'm the Slime (Frank Zappa)
13 Joe's Garage (Frank Zappa)
14 Fine Girl (Frank Zappa)
15 Planet of the Baritone Women (Frank Zappa)
16 Sexual Harassment in the Workplace [Instrumental] (Frank Zappa)
17 Tell Me You Love Me (Frank Zappa)
18 Montana (Frank Zappa)
19 Be in My Video (Frank Zappa)
20 Valley Girl (Dweezil Zappa & Moon Unit Zappa)
21 Who Are the Brain Police (Frank Zappa)
22 Muffin Man [Extra Guitar Mix] (Frank Zappa) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/424ohU9v 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/WWM2Cx8sAJ0funq/file

The cover art is by Greg Joens. The original version was in black and white. I colorized it (because I hate black and white covers) with the use of the Kolorize program.

Various Artists - Covered: Joan Baez, Volume 1: 1967-2016 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another Fabio from Rio guest post. A couple of months ago (as I write this in May 2026), he really got into Joan Baez's music for the first time. In particular, he was struck by her songwriting talent, despite the fact that she's best known for covering songs written by others. So he put together five albums containing all of her original songs, which I recently posted. But he also made two "Covered" albums, showing off her songwriting in a different way. Some people don't like her singing. I have a friend like that, who finds it too high and shrill. So here you can enjoy her songs entirely through cover versions.

Probably the most unexpected cover here is the version of "Diamonds and Rust" by heavy metal band Judas Priest. Even more surprising, it went on to be quite popular, making their "best of" albums and inspiring more hard rocking cover versions. Here's what Baez had to say about it:

"I love that! I was so stunned when I first heard it. I thought it was wonderful. It's very rare for people to cover my songs. I think there are a couple of reasons. One is they're personal – they don't have a universal quality to them. And I think maybe it's because I've already sung them, and who wants to compete with that? But it's always flattering when somebody does." 

There's a lot more to be said about this album. But, as usual with Fabio guest posts, I'll leave that to the liner notes he wrote, which are included in the download zip. 

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 North (Tom Scott with the California Dreamers)
02 Saigon Bride (Gabor Szabo & the California Dreamers)
03 Sweet Sir Galahad (Gary & Randy Scruggs)
04 Song for David (Judy Collins)
05 Last Lonely and Wretched (Wild Rice)
06 Outside the Nashville City Limits (Mabel Joy)
07 Diamonds and Rust (Judas Priest)
08 For Sasha (Louise Tobestill)
09 All the Weary Mothers of the Earth (Annie Patterson)
10 Play Me Backwards (Sin Frontera)
11 Winds of the Old Days (Lori Blois)
12 Here's to You (Lisa Simmons)
13 Only Heaven Knows (Joanne Cooper)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/D4agojYd

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/NJ5kf1Y6ukB05fs/file

The cover image is from 1974.

Various Artists - Covered: Geoff Stephens: 1964-2002

I recently posted a couple of "Covered" albums dealing with British professional songwriters from the 1960s and 1970s (as I write this in May 2026). As I said elsewhere, there was a circle of a dozen or more who often collaborated with each other, and wrote lots of pop hits. Here's another one from that group, Geoff Stephens.

Many of the other songwriters in this group that I've been discussing came up with the British Invasion, the musical trend that started around 1963. But Stephens was slightly older - he was 29 years old in 1963- and his music career began before that. He served in the military for a couple of years and held a series of odd jobs before getting serious about songwriting. His first song was covered by a musical act in 1961. 

His first hit was "Tell Me When" in 1964, co-written by Les Reed, another songwriter in that group. I've already posted the hit version by the Applejacks in the "Covered" album for Barry Mason and Les Reed. So I went with a different version here. Later that same year, he had an even bigger hit with a song he wrote all by himself, "The Crying Game." The version by Dave Berry went all the way to the Top Five in Britain, although it wasn't a hit. (Boy George eventually had a hit in the U.S. with it in 1992.) It had an unusual melody, showing surprising musical sophistication for a pop hit 1964.

He had an even bigger hit in 1966 with "Winchester Cathedral," performed by the New Vaudeville Band. It actually was recorded by session musicians. The lead vocalist was John Carter, another songwriter I've profiled with a "Covered" album." Stephens had a fondness for vaudeville/ music hall music from the 1920s and earlier, and wrote the song in that vein. It was such a massive success - hitting Number One in the U.S. and some other countries, and selling three million copies worldwide - that it started a mini-vaudeville trend for the next couple of years. Few British artists could resist performing at least one or two songs in that style, for some reason.

Sometimes, Stephens was the sole songwriter, as was the case with "Winchester Cathedral." But more often, he wrote with other members of that unnamed British professional songwriter group. For instance, "There's a Kind of Hush" was written with Les Reed, "Sorry Suzanne" was written with Tony Macaulay, "My Sentimental Friend" was written with John Carter, "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" was written with Peter Callander, and so on. As you can see, Stephens didn't favor just one songwriting partner. In fact, he had many more, including Roger Greenaway, Barry Mason, Don Black, and Mitch Murray. All of those other people have their own "Covered" albums, or their albums are coming.

Stephens had many more hits through most of the 1970s, until about 1978. In fact, one of his biggest hits was one of his last, since "Silver Lady" by David Soul went to Number One in Britain in 1977. (That one was co-written with Tony Macaulay, by the way.) But musical styles changed drastically in the late 1970s, with the rise of disco, punk, and new wave. So his hits stopped at that time, as was the case with most of the other songwriters in that group he'd been working with since the mid-1960s. 

Starting in the early 1980s, he mostly switched to writing songs for musicals. In doing so, he still collaborated with people from that same group, writing different musicals with Don Black, Les Reed, and Peter Callander. He died in 2020 at the age of 86.

Here's his Wikipedia page:

Geoff Stephens - Wikipedia 

Because Stephens often wrote with other songwriters who have their own "Covered" albums, sometimes I've resorted to using non-hit versions, so the same versions don't appear on two different albums. So, for instance, I have "Sorry Suzanne" here by the Glass Bottle, instead of the hit version by the Hollies. "Smile a Little Smile for Me" is an outliner, because I chose a late cover for the same reason. The hit version was in 1970. Without that one, this album would end in 1980. 

This album is one hour long. 

01 Tell Me When (Jaybirds)
02 The Crying Game (Dave Berry)
03 Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James (Manfred Mann)
04 Winchester Cathedral (New Vaudeville Band)
05 My World Fell Down (Ivy League)
06 There's a Kind of Hush (Herman's Hermits)
07 Boy (Lulu)
08 Sunshine Girl (Herman's Hermits)
09 Lights of Cincinnati (Scott Walker)
10 My Sentimental Friend (Herman's Hermits)
11 Sorry Suzanne (Glass Bottle)
12 Knock, Knock, Who's There (Mary Hopkin)
13 Daughter of Darkness (Tom Jones)
14 Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast (Wayne Newton)
15 You Won't Find Another Fool like Me (New Seekers)
16 Doctor's Orders (Carol Douglas)
17 Silver Lady (David Soul)
18 It's Like We Never Said Goodbye (Crystal Gayle)
19 Like Sister and Brother (Frank Hooker & Positive People)
20 Smile a Little Smile for Me (Chris von Sneidern)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GVD6cdXe

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/6MIhB6jKMNGt8K9/file

I don't know anything about the cover image except that it's "circa 1970." The original was in black and white. I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

The Carpenters - Imaginary Piano Recital, Volume 2: 1976-1983 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another Fabio from Rio guest post. It's the second and last of two volumes featuring the Carpenters. As I was saying with Volume 1, Fabio and I love Karen Carpenter's voice, and the songs, but we usually don't love the overproduction of most of the Carpenters records. So, for these two volumes, Fabio is presenting the songs stripped down to just vocals and a piano. 

These are all the released studio versions, but edited to remove the other instruments. For the songs with "[Edit]," Fabio did at least some of the editing himself. For the others, he found versions on the Internet where people had already made edits.

There's more to say, but Fabio says that in the liner notes he wrote included in the download zip. Other than that, there's not much more for me to say, except thanks to Fabio for putting these albums together. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 I Have You [Edit] (Carpenters)
02 There's a Kind of Hush [All Over the World] [Edit] (Carpenters)
03 We've Only Just Begun [Edit] (Carpenters)
04 You [Edit] (Carpenters)
05 All You Get from Love Is a Love Song [Edit] (Carpenters)
06 Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft [Edit] (Carpenters)
07 I Just Fall in Love Again (Carpenters)
08 Honolulu City Lights [Edit] (Carpenters)
09 I Need to Be in Love (Karen Carpenter)
10 Merry Christmas, Darling (Carpenters)
11 Where Do I Go from Here [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 If We Try [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)
13 Make Believe It's Your First Time [Edit] (Carpenters)
14 When It's Gone [Edit] (Carpenters)
15 Two Lives [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Xn8YmPqA 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/amevxgiU6IsLSFf/file

As with Volume 1, Fabio and I wanted a photo of Karen singing and Richard playing piano, and nothing else. That's what we got with this one. This one is from September 1971, probably September 23rd. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

Various Artists - Covered: Randy Newman, Volume 2: 1973-1999

Here's the second out of three "Covered" albums for singer-songwriter Randy Newman.

As I mentioned in "Volume 1," in the early 1970s, Newman was considered a cult albums, very critically acclaimed, but with not much commercial success for his own career. Even the many covers of his songs were rarely hits, though there were exceptions, especially "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)," which was a Number One hit in the U.S. for Three Dog Night in 1970.

But things changed drastically for him in 1977, with the song "Short People." To pretty much everyone's surprise, his version was an massive novelty hit. It made it all the way to Number Two in the U.S., kept out of the top spot only by the all-time classic "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. It was wildly misunderstood, to say the least. A great many of his songs are sarcastic. For instance, his great song "Political Science" sarcastically advocates for blowing up the world with nuclear weapons. Many people who heard "Short People" didn't realize it was a sarcastic attack on prejudice by pointing out how silly it would be to hate short people for no reason, including ignoring the lyrics of the bridge, which explicitly run counter to the rest of the song. 

But in any case, the song made him a household name, even though his overall sales still didn't increase much. His only two really big hits on the singles charts remain "Short People" and "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)." Since Newman's version of "Short People" is so well known, it's the only song in this series I've included that's performed by him.

I also want to give a special mention to "Sail Away." I think it's an incredible song. But it also shows how unique his songwriting is, and how easy it can be for people to misunderstand his songs if they don't pay attention. It's basically an advertisement for a slave trader prior to the Civil War, attempting to coax Black Africans to come to the U.S. for a better life, when in fact the trader is tricking them into slavery. Yet somehow this sarcastic premise becomes a powerful song about the evils of slavery. It's been widely covered, including by the likes of Bobby Darin, Etta James, Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Gladys Knight, Joe Cocker, and Kirsty MacColl. It was hard for me to pick just one cover, but I thought the version by Etta James is extra powerful.

From the start of Newman's songwriting career, he'd had a sideline writing instrumental music for T.V. shows, which then led to movie soundtrack work. That began way back in 1962, as I mentioned in the previous volume. His first movie soundtrack was in 1971. He did a few more movies here and there over the next couple decades. But his career took a turn in 1995, when he did the soundtrack for the hit movie "Toy Story." One song he did for that, "You've Got a Friend in Me," wasn't a hit per se, barely reaching the singles chart. But it became widely known, and widely beloved by children, and it's gone on to sell over three million copies! Surely that makes it one of the best selling non-hits ever. 

For that song, I've included a duet version between Newman and Lyle Lovett, since it's an interesting one that's also much less well known than the version just featuring Newman.

This album is 50 minutes long. 

01 Have You Seen My Baby [Hold On] (Ringo Starr)
02 Sail Away (Etta James)
03 Last Night I Had a Dream (Fanny)
04 Let's Burn Down the Cornfield (Etta James)
05 Naked Man (Grass Roots)
06 Lucinda (Joe Cocker)
07 Short People (Randy Newman)
08 Baltimore (Nina Simone)
09 Mr. President (Marshall Tucker Band)
10 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Joe Cocker)
11 Louisiana 1927 (Aaron Neville)
12 Political Science (Everything but the Girl)
13 You've Got a Friend in Me (Randy Newman & Lyle Lovett)
14 Feels like Home (Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt & Dolly Parton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ca2NdTcU

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/FVOVaSGXA9nLNpi/file

The cover image is from 1978.

Joan Baez - Baez Sings Baez, Volume 4: 1977-1983 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's a guest post by Fabio from Rio. It's another volume in the "Baez Sings Baez" series. This is a collection of all the songs written by Joan Baez. Fabio wanted to make that point that although she has been primarily as someone who sings cover songs, she's written a lot of good songs herself.

The first six songs are from studio albums in 1977 and 1979. But after that, it seems she had trouble getting record companies interested in releasing more of her studio albums. New wave, punk, and disco came along and made her style of folk music seem out of fashion. She wouldn't release another studio album until 1987.

But that leads us to some of the more interesting songs here, because around 1980, she recorded material for an album that never got released, and she was backed by the Grateful Dead for all the songs! So there are five songs here with the Dead (tracks 8 through 12), all of them still unreleased.

There's a lot more to say about this Dead connection and other matters. But I'll leave that to Fabio, who wrote more extensive notes that are included in the download zip. 

This album is an hour long. 

01 Luba the Baroness (Joan Baez)
02 The Altar Boy and the Thief (Joan Baez)
03 Honest Lullaby (Joan Baez)
04 Michael (Joan Baez)
05 For Sasha (Joan Baez)
06 Free at Last (Joan Baez)
07 Cambodia (Joan Baez)
08 Don't Blame My Mother (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
09 Happy Birthday Leonid Brejnev (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
10 Lady Di and I (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
11 Marriot U.S.A. (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
12 Lucifer's Eyes (Joan Baez & the Grateful Dead)
13 Children of the Eighties (Joan Baez)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GjgtvAKU

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/TACY7VBfYSTtFMj/file

The cover photo is from 1982. Fabio found the picture, so I don't know the details. 

Joan Baez - Baez Sings Baez, Volume 3: 1976-1977 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another guest post by Fabio from Rio. This is Volume 3 out of a five-volume series that collects all the songs Baez wrote or co-wrote. Fabio wanted to make the case that even though she is best known for covering songs by others, she has been a talented songwriter herself as well.

This album represents the peak of her songwriting activity. The first part consists entirely of her 1976 album "Gulf Winds," the only album that she wrote all the songs for.

By the way, I appreciate how Baez was expanding her musical horizons by this point in her career. Check out "Time Rag," for instance. It sounds nothing like what you'd expect from her. It's almost proto-rap, but in a good way. 

Fabio has a lot more to say about the music here. He's put his comments in a file of liner notes included in the download zip. So please read that. And thanks again to Fabio for putting these albums together.

This album is 59 minutes long. 

01 Sweeter for Me (Joan Baez)
02 Seabirds (Joan Baez)
03 Caruso (Joan Baez)
04 Still Waters at Night (Joan Baez)
05 Kingdom of Childhood (Joan Baez)
06 O Brother (Joan Baez)
07 Time Is Passing Us By (Joan Baez)
08 Stephanie's Room (Joan Baez)
09 Gulf Winds (Joan Baez)
10 Miracles (Joan Baez)
11 Time Rag (Joan Baez)
12 A Heartfelt Line or Two (Joan Baez) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1UkBEJC8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/I2ofR4Ha5Bm2EP4/file

The cover image is from 1982. I don't know additional details. 

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.

Country Joe McDonald - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1974-1977

Here is another album of Country Joe McDonald performing for the BBC. This album consists of a series of BBC studio sessions.

This album consists of three different sessions. The first two songs are from an appearance on the “Old Gray Whistle Test” BBC TV show in 1974. Tracks four through seven are from the same show, but an episode in 1976. The remaining songs are from an appearance on John Peel’s BBC radio show in 1977. I couldn’t find any BBC performances after that year. However, I did find a 1975 concert. So that will be the subject of the fourth and final volume, unless some other material emerges.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Holy Roller (Country Joe McDonald)
02 talk (Country Joe McDonald)
03 Living in the Country (Country Joe McDonald)
04 Save the Whales (Country Joe McDonald)
05 talk (Country Joe McDonald)
06 Our Wedding Day (Country Joe McDonald)
07 Breakfast for Two (Country Joe McDonald)
08 The Man from Athabaska (Country Joe McDonald)
09 Get It Together (Country Joe McDonald)
10 La Di Da (Country Joe McDonald)
11 Tricky Dicky (Country Joe McDonald)
12 Save the Whales (Country Joe McDonald)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1gKCFuu6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/fMMtxoNDznV1Swm/file

The cover photo is from the Bread and Roses Festival at the Greek Theatre, in Berkeley, California, on October 9, 1977.

Dionne Warwick - Dionne, Burt and Hal: The Definitive Songbook, Volume 6: 1972-1985 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Things changed drastically for this volume of all the songs written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach and sung by Dionne Warwick. Since the start of Warwick’s hit-making years in 1963, she was signed to Scepter Records. She was their biggest star by far. But in 1971, her contract ended and she signed a new deal with Warner Brothers Records. (Scepter Records went bankrupt a couple of years later.)

For her first album on her new label, released in 1972, all seemed well, because all the songs were written by Bacharach and David. But in 1973, the two songwriters wrote the songs for the movie “Lost Horizon,” without Warwick’s involvement. This turned out to be a disaster. The movie was a flop and so was the soundtrack. But worst of all, Bacharach and David had a falling out during the making of the soundtrack. They wouldn’t write songs together for many years, and both of them had much less success without the other one. To make matters worse, Warwick’s new record company expected her to have most of her songs written by Bacharach and David. When that couldn’t happen anymore, that resulted in more lawsuits, including Warwick suing the songwriting duo.

Decades later, Bacharach wrote about this dispute in his autobiography: "It was all my fault, and I can't imagine how many great songs I could have written with Hal in the years we were apart. So I now know that on every level, it was a very bad mistake." But at other times, he suggested that both he and David were somewhat creatively exhausted, so they probably wouldn't have been able to keep their streak of hit songs going much longer anyway. That can be seen by the fact that the two of them had wrote very few hits for most of the rest of the 1970s. 

The first seven songs are from 1972. The eighth song, "One Less Bell to Answer," is from 1977, but was written in the 1960s. The Fifth Dimension had a hit with it in 1970. Warwick didn’t have much success without Bacharach and David for most of the 1970s, but she resumed having hits in 1979. 

In 1985, she resumed performing some songs written by Bacharach, but not David, since Bacharach and David wouldn’t reconcile until later. Instead, Bacharach was cowriting songs with Carole Bayer Sager at the time. The rest of the songs here are written by those two, from 1985. One of those songs,”That’s What Friends Are For,” was a massive hit, helped by Warwick being joined by some other big stars. Not only did it reach Number One in the U.S., it was the biggest selling song in 1986. 

Warwick had this to say about working with Bacharach again in 1985: "We realized we were more than just friends. We were family. Time has a way of giving people the opportunity to grow and understand... Working with Burt is not a bit different from how it used to be. He expects me to deliver and I can. He knows what I'm going to do before I do it, and the same with me. That's how intertwined we've been."

This album is 55 minutes long.

078 Be Aware (Dionne Warwick)
079 [They Long to Be] Close to You (Dionne Warwick)
080 Hasbrook Heights (Dionne Warwick)
081 I Just Have to Breathe (Dionne Warwick)
082 If You Never Say Goodbye (Dionne Warwick)
083 The Balance of Nature (Dionne Warwick)
084 One Less Bell to Answer (Dionne Warwick)
085 Early Morning Strangers (Dionne Warwick)
086 That's What Friends Are For (Dionne Warwick, Elton John, Gladys Knight & Stevie Wonder)
087 Extravagant Gestures (Dionne Warwick)
088 Finder of Lost Loves (Dionne Warwick)
089 How Long (Dionne Warwick)
090 Stay Devoted (Dionne Warwick)
091 Stronger than Before (Dionne Warwick)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ku4tY3Qr

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/msqzMLVw1J3DQje/file

The cover photo shows her at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, on February 9, 1972.

The Carpenters - Full Acappella, Volume 2: 1977-1983 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's the second volume of the Carpenters' "Full Apcappella." Like the first volume, this was mostly put together by musical friend Fabio from Rio, with just a little assistance by me. Again, we get to hear Karen Carpenter's marvelous lead vocals, and sometimes backing vocals, with no instrumental music getting in the way.

This volume deals with the latter half of the Carpenters' musical career. It wasn't as commercially successful as the first half, probably due to Karen Carpenter's self-inflicted declining physical health. Tragically, she died in 1983 at just the age of 32, so this volume ends in that year.

Like Volume 1, Fabio wrote extensive notes talking about the tracks and where they're from. He also explains why some of the songs have edits. That's included in the download zip. 

By the way, note that back in 2018, I posted an album that contained versions of Carpenters that only had vocals, bass, and drums. I called it "Near Acappella," because it was stripped way down, but not fully acappella. Well, Fabio found two more songs for that while he was looking for songs for these two volumes. So I've just updated that album with those two added songs. I also changed the cover image to one I like better. Here's the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-carpenters-near-acappella-1969-1975.html 

This album is 51 minutes long. Thanks again to Fabio for putting these albums together!

01 All You Get from Love Is a Love Song [Edit] (Carpenters)
02 Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft [Edit] (Carpenters)
03 Knowing When to Leave (Carpenters)
04 Make It Easy on Yourself (Carpenters)
05 Suntory Pop Jingle No. 1 (Carpenters)
06 Suntory Pop Jingle No. 2 (Carpenters)
07 Silent Night (Carpenters)
08 Ave Maria (Carpenters)
09 Where Do I Go from Here [Edit] (Carpenters)
10 Someday (Carpenters)
11 Lovelines [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 The Uninvited Guest (Carpenters)
13 If We Try [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)
14 Make Believe It's Your First Time (Carpenters)
15 When It's Gone [Edit] (Carpenters)
16 Two Lives [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)
17 I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day (Carpenters)
18 Little Altar Boy (Carpenters)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZBC5J2CX

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/aV3vEIDjOPMuc7c/file

I don't know where or when the cover photo is from. I just thought it was a nice picture of Karen Carpenter. 

Various Artists - Covered: Shel Silverstein, Volume 2: 1974-2010

Here's the second and final volume celebrating the songwriting of Shel Silverstein for the "Covered" series.

As with all these Covered albums, the songs are in loose chronological order, usually by year. Silverstein was active writing lots of new songs in the 1970s, and a lot of cover versions resulted. Some of his songs were hits, especially on the country charts. But, typically, his songs were more memorable and interesting than the usual hit material. Not many songwriters could write children's songs, funny songs, and even erotic songs. (Hopefully not all in the same song though!)

Silverstein gradually slowed his songwriting, as people do. He only released one album of new songs after 1985. So a lot of the later songs here were actually originally written earlier, sometimes much earlier. He died of a heart attack in 1999, at the age of 68.

It just occurred to me that I don't think I included a link to his Wikipedia page in the Volume 1 write-up, so here it is:

Shel Silverstein - Wikipedia 

To be honest, I know the well known songs written by Silverstein, but not all the lesser known ones. But he's the type of songwriter who wrote quirky gems. So if any of you know of some excellent songs he wrote that I left out, and especially covers of them, please let me know and I'll consider adding them in. 

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Marie Laveau (Bobby Bare)
02 Queen of the Silver Dollar (Emmylou Harris)
03 Alimony (Bobby Bare)
04 I Got Stoned and I Missed It (Dr. Hook)
05 The Danger of a Stranger (Stella Parton)
06 More like the Movies (Dr. Hook)
07 The Ballad of Lucy Jordan (Marianne Faithfull)
08 Put Another Log on the Fire (Bill & Boyd)
09 Numbers (Bobby Bare)
10 I'm Checkin' Out (Meryl Streep)
11 Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out (Tori Amos)
12 The Twistable, Turnable Man Returns (Andrew Bird)
13 The Winner (Kris Kristofferson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4UcQP73h

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/s6suZxWkJ28dO4P/file

I don't know when or where the cover photo was taken. Clearly though, he's older than in the Volume 1 photo, judging from the grey in his beard. The original photo was a black and white one, showing him in a crouching pose in front of some trees. I stripped out the background. Then I used the Kolorize program to colorize the picture.

Various Artists - Covered: Hoyt Axton: 1963-1977

Here's another edition of the "Covered" series, where I pay tribute to talented songwriters by collecting cover versions of their songs. This time, the focus is on Hoyt Axton.

Axton was born in a small town in Oklahoma in 1938. He came from a musical family. His mother, Mae Boren Axton, was a songwriter who co-wrote the Elvis Presley classic hit "Heartbreak Hotel" and many country songs, and one of his cousins was folk singer Arlo Guthrie. After going to college and serving a few years in the U.S. Navy, he began playing his songs in clubs. He released his first album in 1962, and released a couple dozen from that time until the end of the 1990s.

However, while Axton had some minor hits in the 1970s, especially on the U.S. country chart, he had much greater success by having others cover his songs. He also had a successful parallel career as an actor, especially playing colorful characters in supporting roles in dozens of TV shows and movies. 

His first success as a songwriter was "Greenback Dollar," which became kind of a folk music classic after it was covered by the Kingston Trio in 1963. He didn't have much more success with others covering his songs for the rest of the 1960s, although "The Pusher" became one of Steppenwolf's best known songs in 1968. However, everything changed for him in 1970, because Three Dog Night covered "Joy to the World." Not only was it a Number One hit in the U.S., it was the best selling song of the year! After that, he had quite a few more successes with other people covering his songs for the rest of the 1970s. For instance, Three Dog Night had a Top Five hit with "Never Been to Spain," and Ringo Starr had a Top Five hit with "No No Song."

I've tried to avoid including songs sung by Axton, since this is supposed to be a collection of other musical acts covering his songs. However, I've included two duets he was involved in. "When the Morning Comes," a duet with Linda Ronstadt, is particularly notable for being his biggest hit as a singer. It reached Number 10 in the U.S. country chart in 1974.

He kept putting out new music until the end of his life. He died in 1999 at the age of 61 due to a heart attack.

Axton's songs weren't often big hits, though occasionally they were. However, they usually were distinctive and interesting.   

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Greenback Dollar (Kingston Trio)
02 The Pusher (Steppenwolf)
03 Willie Jean (Sunshine Company)
04 Joy to the World (Three Dog Night)
05 Snowblind Friend (Steppenwolf)
06 Ease Your Pain (Jackie DeShannon)
07 Never Been to Spain (Three Dog Night)
08 Sweet Fantasy (Glen Campbell)
09 When the Morning Comes (Hoyt Axton & Linda Ronstadt)
10 No No Song (Ringo Starr)
11 Sweet Misery (Martha Reeves)
12 Southbound (Three Dog Night)
13 Boney Fingers (Hoyt Axton & Rene Armand)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WEqtB9kp

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/wW4s67hOVwQMJWh/file

I don't know where or when the cover photo is from. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

Kansas - Best Of / Sampler (1974-1980) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's an album that came into being as a result of the Kansas concert that was posted here a few days ago. After guest poster Mike Solof suggested making an album of a concert from Kansas's 1979 Monolith tour, I agreed, but I mentioned that I was really familiar with the band's music. I only knew their big hits, especially "Dust in the Wind" and "Carry On Wayward Son." He really likes the band and thought that was a shame, so he offered to make a "best of" type album for newbies like me. I agreed again, and suggested that he post that on my blog too.

He went ahead and did that, so here we are. Of course, there are official "best of" albums for the band already. But Mike felt none of those had the ideal selection of songs that he wanted. He focused on just their 1970s heyday, because in the early 1980s they lost key members and became a kind of Christian rock band for a while, before returning to their roots (and getting some key members back) later in the decade. 

If you want to know more, Mike has made a PDF with his explanation, as he usually does. If you think some essential songs were left off, or there are songs that shouldn't have been included, leave a comment. Perhaps Mike will make an updated version.

Unusually for this blog, everything here is released and from the studio albums. But hopefully this is a sampler that will inspire some people to dive deeper into the Kansas catalog. 

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

Before I get to the usual song list, here's the song list with names of the albums each song is from, and the year that album was released: 

01 Song for America - Song for America (1975)
02 Journey from Mariabronn - Kansas (1974)
03 Down the Road - Kansas (1974)
04 Carry On Wayward Son - Leftoverture (1976)
05 The Wall - Leftoverture (1976)
06 Miracles Out of Nowhere - Leftoverture (1976)
07 Point of Know Return - Point of Know Return (1977)
08 Dust in the Wind - Point of Know Return (1977)
09 How My Soul Cries Out for You - Monolith (1979)
10 A Glimpse of Home - Monolith (1979)
11 People of the South Wind - Monolith (1979)
12 Loner - Audio-Visions (1980)

And here's the usual song list: 

01 Song for America (Kansas)
02 Journey from Mariabronn (Kansas)
03 Down the Road (Kansas)
04 Carry On Wayward Son (Kansas)
05 The Wall (Kansas)
06 Miracles Out of Nowhere (Kansas)
07 Point of Know Return (Kansas)
08 Dust in the Wind (Kansas)
09 How My Soul Cries Out for You (Kansas)
10 A Glimpse of Home (Kansas)
11 People of the South Wind (Kansas)
12 Loner (Kansas)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/y1GhCvdC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/h9B4sSiXYzdWPLl/file

Mike found the photo of the band. I don't know the details of where or when it's from. 

Lou Rawls - Latin Casino, Cherry Hill, NJ, 5-24-1977

Here's an obscure yet great sounding concert bootleg starring soul singer Lou Rawls. I hope it won't stay obscure after I post this.

Rawls had a lot of hit singles between 1965 and 1971, especially on the U.S. R&B singles chart. But after that, his career stalled for a few years. Then, in 1976, he changed record companies and changed his management. That led to his comeback hit in late 1976, "You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine," which sold over a million copies. He also didn't have any big hits after 1977. (He died in 2006 at the age of 72.) So 1977 is a good time for a concert recording from him.

The music here is unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent. It must be a soundboard or FM radio broadcast. 

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Groovy People (Lou Rawls)
02 This Song Will Last Forever (Lou Rawls)
03 Tobacco Road (Lou Rawls)
04 Natural Man (Lou Rawls)
05 talk (Lou Rawls)
06 Pure Imagination (Lou Rawls)
07 Charge Card Blues Medley (Lou Rawls)
08 It Was a Very Good Year (Lou Rawls)
09 talk (Lou Rawls)
10 Old Folks (Lou Rawls)
11 You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine (Lou Rawls)
12 talk (Lou Rawls)
13 Let's Fall in Love All Over Again (Lou Rawls)
14 All the Way (Lou Rawls)
15 See You When I Get There (Lou Rawls)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vCtfiufM 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/SYwUa7VQ62p6Uan/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on an ABC TV show called "Thursday Night Special" in 1977.

Genesis - More Seconds Out - Hallenstadion, Zurich, Switzerland, 7-2-1977 - Studiofied (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's another guest post by Mike Solof. It's a 1977 Genesis concert, with lots of bonus tracks from the same time period. This is part of Mike's relatively new "studiofied" series. The idea is to take a high quality concert bootleg and completely remove all the banter and crowd noise, so it sounds like a studio recording. This way, one can better appreciate the nuance in the performance.

There's lots more detail in the PDF Mike has included with the download zip, like he usually does. I'll just quickly note that tracks 1 through 15 come from the Zurich concert mentioned in the title. The rest are bonus tracks, given the same treatment, from 1976 or 1977. Further details about them can be found in the PDF.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is two hours and 38 minutes long.

01 Squonk (Genesis)
02 One for the Vine (Genesis)
03 Robbery, Assault and Battery (Genesis)
04 Inside and Out (Genesis)
05 Firth of Fifth (Genesis)
06 The Carpet Crawlers (Genesis)
07 In that Quiet Earth (Genesis)
08 Afterglow (Genesis)
09 I Know What I Like (Genesis)
10 Eleventh Earl of Mar (Genesis)
11 Supper's Ready (Genesis)
12 Dance on a Volcano (Genesis)
13 Los Endos (Genesis)
14 The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Genesis)
15 The Musical Box (Genesis)
16 Your Own Special Way (Genesis)
17 All in a Mouse's Night (Genesis)
18 The Cinema Show (Genesis)
19 White Mountain (Genesis)
20 Entangled (Genesis)
21 The Knife (Genesis)
22 It - Watcher of the Skies (Genesis)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uP9yJeKZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Nk5EZeo2G1Ahmco/file

The cover was selected by Mike. I don't know where he got it from. I added the subtitle text. 

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.

Little Feat & Friends - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 6-10-1977

Here's a very interesting episode of the "Midnight Special" TV show. The main host of the episode was the band Little Feat. But Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, and Jesse Winchester were on the show too, and all four of these musical acts performed together in various combinations. 

If you've been paying attention at all to this blog in the last week or so (as I write this in late October 2025), you'll notice I've been posting a lot of albums based on Midnight Special episodes lately. So far, only the shows from 1973 to 1975 have been posted in high quality on YouTube, with a chronological rollout slowly continuing. But occasional shows from later years were already bootlegged. There aren't many cases of that, and most of them are incomplete and/or have lesser sound quality. But I found this one in full with excellent quality, so I've decided to post it already. No doubt it's survived as a bootleg when most other episodes didn't because of the special collaborations.

The musical acts mentioned above were not the only ones on the show. In addition, Neil Young appeared for one song, and Weather Report performed three songs. I didn't include the Young song, because it wasn't really from the episode, but it was a video of him performing "Like a Hurricane" at some unknown concert. Had he actually been there, I would have included it, and I'll bet he would have interacted with some of the others too. (Most likely Emmylou Harris, since she sang backing vocals on some of his songs right around this time.) As for Weather Report, I didn't include them because they didn't fit in musically with the others, and there was no collaboration between them and the others. This is another case where I feel less is more, by having musical cohesion to the album.

I took the music from a bootleg. But I patched in more applause at the ends of some songs to help smooth the transitions between songs. And there were edits to two songs. I edited Wolfman Jack's introduction to get rid of the mentions of Neil Young and Weather Report. "Rock and Roll Doctor" by Little Feat was more difficult. This was another case of the show ending in the middle of song. So I found a soundboard bootleg of a Little Feat from Kansas City in 1977, and used that version of "Rock and Roll Doctor" to finish off the last three minute or so.

This album is 48 minutes long. 

01 talk [Edit] (Wolfman Jack)
02 Queen of the Silver Dollar (Emmylou Harris with Little Feat)
03 Dixie Chicken (Little Feat with Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt & Jesse Winchester)
04 talk (Little Feat)
05 Runaway (Bonnie Raitt)
06 talk (Emmylou Harris)
07 Rhumba Man (Jesse Winchester)
08 Old Folks Boogie (Little Feat)
09 talk (Little Feat & Jesse Winchester)
10 I Can't Stand Up Alone (Jesse Winchester with Emmylou Harris & Bonnie Raitt)
11 talk (Jesse Winchester)
12 Home (Bonnie Raitt)
13 talk (Little Feat)
14 Nothing but a Breeze (Jesse Winchester with Emmylou Harris)
15 Rocket in My Pocket (Little Feat)
16 My Songbird (Emmylou Harris)
17 Sugar Mama (Bonnie Raitt)
18 talk (Little Feat)
19 Rock and Roll Doctor [Edit] (Little Feat)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fDdTEYhP

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/B1Dw5Vdo0jkhFj3/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It's actually a combination of two different screenshots. At one point in the YouTube video, the camera panned from Lowell George to Emmylou Harris, then to Bonnie Raitt. The three of them were never in the frame at the same time. But I was able to take the two screenshots and stitch them together to get all three of them together.

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.