Various Artists - P. F. Sloan & Steve Barri, Volume 2: 1967-2006

Here's the second and last volume celebrating the music of the songwriting team of P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri. However, as I discussed in my write-up for "Volume 1," it seemed a pretty lopsided partnership, with Sloan being the songwriting genius and Barri doing more of the arranging and production. So, in my write-up here, I'm going to mostly concentrate on the story of Sloan's life.

At the end of my write-up for "Volume 1," Sloan was facing an increasingly bad situation. He had been pressured by record company executives who behaved more like Mafia crime bosses - and the evidence suggests there actually was a connection there. By the end of 1967, he broke up his songwriting partnership with Barri, and fled his hometown of Los Angeles, fearing for his life.

Sloan settled in New York City. In 1968, he signed a record contract with a different label, and released his third solo album, "Measure of Pleasure." This was an interesting album that was keeping up with rapidly changing music trends. However, he didn't tour or otherwise promote it, so it attracted little notice. The problem was his life was coming apart. Falling into depression over losing his songwriting royalties (and even future royalties for the next ten years!) to his old record company, he discovered heroin and began using it. Also, he was beset by a series of medical troubles, both mental and physical. 

By 1969, his songwriting, and his music career in general, essentially came to a stop. He released another album in 1972, but his heart wasn't in it, and that one also quickly disappeared. Then, he simply disappeared for a long, long time, spending much of that in psychiatric hospitals. In a 2006 interview, he said, "I was ill I guess for a good 20, maybe 25 years. ... Catatonia for a long time." 

Even by 1968, practically all the people who had known him well in Los Angeles lost all contact with him. Once such person he'd known was another up-and-coming songwriter, Jimmy Webb, wrote a song about his mysterious disappearance, called "P. F. Sloan." It starts with these lyrics: 

"I have been seeking P. F. Sloan, but no one knows where he has gone
No one ever heard the song that boy set winging"

I haven't included it here, since neither Sloan nor Barri helped write it. But there are nice versions by Webb, the Association, Rumer, and others. Weirdly, for many years, Webb claimed it wasn't actually about Sloan, despite his name literally being the title! However, he eventually admitted that it was about him. 

Stranger still, Sloan totally disappeared for so many years, yet wasn't reported dead, that a person decided to falsely claim they were him. Eugene Landy was a very controversial psychologist who was in charge of the mental health of musical genius Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. In the 1980s, Landy mysteriously began appearing as a co-writer of many new Wilson songs, despite apparently having no previously known songwriting or musical skills whatsoever. When people questioned him on this, Landy claimed that he actually was a talented songwriter because he used to be known as P. F. Sloan! In 1991, this caused the real Sloan to write a letter that debunked that outrageously false claim. (Shortly thereafter, in 1992, Landy lost his psychology license and was barred from further contact with Wilson.)

Anyway, in the late 1980s, Sloan went on a religious pilgrimage to India. This got him interested in Indian religion and philosophy, and started him on a path to getting his life back together. But still, it was a slow road to a full recovery. In 1993, he gave a well-received concert at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. The opening acts, Johnny Rivers, the Turtles, and Jan Berry of Jan and Dean, all benefited greatly from his songwriting. He released another album in 1994, but he was a relatively forgotten figure by this time, and it only came out in Japan. Then, he disappeared again, spending more time in psychiatric hospitals.

Finally, in 2006, he released an album that got at least some attention in the U.S. and Britain, "Sailover." It had some well known guest stars on it, like Lucinda Williams, Frank Black, Buddy Miller, and Felix Cavaliere. Here's an except from the AllMusic.com review: "P.F. Sloan is still writing worthwhile pop songs with smart, impressionistic, and somewhat off-kilter lyrics, and 'Sailover' confirms time has been quite kind to his muse since he last entered a recording studio." He finally did some touring to support it. Other stars like Susanna Hoffs and Rumer sang with him in concert. 

Then, in 2014, he released a well-received autobiography. He also released another new album, a concept album called "My Beethoven" about the life of the classical composer Beethoven. But he died of cancer in 2015, at the age of 70.

Meanwhile, what happened to Steve Barri? He went on to have a fairly successful career in music, but as a producer and then a record company executive. He produced many hits in the 1970s, including "Dizzy" by  Tommy Roe, "Don't Pull Your Love" by Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds, "Theme from S.W.A.T." by Rhythm Heritage, and "Undercover Angel" by Alan O'Day. He also produced several albums for the Grass Roots, the Four Tops, and Bobby 'Blue' Bland. But as a songwriter, there's very little after he stopped writing with Sloan back around 1966. I've included three songs here that Barri co-wrote with others in the 1970s: "I Wouldn't Treat a Dog (The Way You Treated Me)" and "Who's Foolin' Who" by Bland and "Love Pains" by  the Pet Shop Boys & Liza Minnelli. If you look at his songwriting at secondhandsong.com, that's really about it for him without Sloan. That reaffirms the evidence that Sloan was the key partner in their songwriting partnership.

After that, Barri worked his way up the ranks in various record companies, eventually becoming a senior vice president for Gold Circle Entertainment/Samson Records. He is still alive and 84 years old as I write this in 2026. 

Now, fiiiiinally, let me discuss the music here. The first ten songs here were written by Sloan, probably around 1966 to 1969, and all released in those years. He continued to write some hits after ending his partnership with Barri in that era, though none of them were really big hits. "Turn on the Light" is from his 1972 album, and "Violence" is from his 2006, and both of those were performed by him. I would have liked to include more of his own recordings, to show his songwriting was still strong in his later years, but the point of these "Covered" albums is to collect covers. However, I couldn't resist bending my self-imposed rules to include at least those two.

As I mentioned in my write-up to "Volume 1," "Where Were You When I Needed You" is the only song here that's "out of order," meaning this came a lot later than when it was first released. The Grass Roots had a hit with it in 1966, but I prefer the version by the Bangles, which was done by them in 1984. 

One last thing. If you want to know more about Sloan's life, here's a good interview he did in 2014:

https://www.rebeatmag.com/whats-exactly-the-matter-with-p-f-sloan/ 

And here's another one from that same time period: 

https://www.goldminemag.com/articles/perception-reality-singer-songwriter-p-f-sloan/

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Things I Should Have Said (Grass Roots)
02 On a Quiet Night (Association)
03 A Melody for You (Grass Roots)
04 Another Day, Another Heartache (5th Dimension)
05 Bella Linda (Grass Roots)
06 I Get Out of Breath (Turtles)
07 Look Out Girl (Tommy Roe)
08 Baby, You Do It Well (Grass Roots)
09 New Design (Kenny Rogers & the First Edition)
10 I Can't Help but Wonder, Elizabeth (Grass Roots)
11 Turn on the Light (P. F. Sloan)
12 Who's Foolin' Who (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
13 Glory Bound (Grass Roots)
14 I Wouldn't Treat a Dog [The Way You Treated Me] (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
15 Where Were You When I Needed You (Bangles)
16 Love Pains (Pet Shop Boys & Liza Minnelli)
17 Violence (P. F. Sloan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/tDiLRAc3

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/Abtx5RNkFo31Pri/file

The cover art was made from separate photos of Sloan and Barri. I don't know when either was taken, but I would guess (based on deleted backgrounds and such) the Sloan picture was taken in 1966 or 1967, while the Barri image was taken in the early 1970s. Both photos were originally in black and white. I colorized them, then put them together in Photoshop.

Blue Mink - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1968-1970

I'm trying to prioritize posting BBC recordings from the 1960s and early 1970s that remain unreleased. Here's another collection of that. I've found enough for two volumes of BBC recordings by the band Blue Mink. Here's the first one.

If you've never heard of this band, here's their Wikipedia entry intro: "Blue Mink were a British six-piece pop group that existed from 1969 to 1977. Over that period they had six top 20 hit singles on the U.K. Singles Chart, and released five studio based albums. According to AllMusic: 'they have been immortalized on a string of compilation albums, each recounting the string of effervescent hits that established them among Britain's best-loved pop groups of the early 1970s.'" 

They're much better known in Britain than the U.S., because they had a bunch of hits in Britain, as mentioned above, but no hits at all in the U.S. They had two lead singers, Roger Cook and Madeline Bell. Both of them have appeared elsewhere in this music blog. Cook was one half of a songwriting team with Roger Greenaway. I've profiled their songwriting in the "Covered" series, as you can see here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/02/covered-roger-cook-roger-greenaway.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/02/covered-roger-cook-roger-greenaway_14.html

Cook and Greenaway generally wrote most of the songs for Blue Mink. But while Cook was a good lead vocalist, Madeline Bell sang just as much or more than he did. She was a Black American who had lived in Britain since the early 1960s. She was able to bring authentic American soul music vocals into the band's sound. So the hit songwriting of Cook and Greenaway plus the vocals of Bell was a powerful combination that separated this band from most other similar pop bands in Britain at the time.

Most of the songs here come from excellent sounding BBC studio session recordings given to me by a musical associate. I don't think these have been widely publicly available until now. One problem though was that BBC DJs in this time period often talked over the starts and ends of songs. In fact, of all the BBC studio session songs here, EVERY SINGLE ONE had BBC DJ talking over it! But I was able to get rid of that talking in the usual way, with the use of the MVSEP audio editing program. That's why all but the first two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

The first two songs are not from the BBC. In fact, they are from Blue Mink even formed as a group. But Madeline Bell had a solo career going on before, during, and after her time in Blue Mink. These two songs are from an obscure U.S. T.V. show in 1968 called "Live at the Bitter End." It showed live performances at the Bitter End venue in New York City. These two songs only featured Bell singing live lead vocals over recorded instrumentation, but I thought they were worth including anyway. 

Also, later in the album, there was one BBC session of three songs featuring Bell from her solo career. So I included them here as well.

In case you're not familiar with Blue Mink's music, the two big hits they had in Britain during the time span on this volume were "Melting Pot" and "Good Morning Freedom." Both of those are included here.

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 I'm Gonna Make You Love Me [Live Lead Vocals Only] (Madeline Bell)
02 Picture Me Gone [Live Lead Vocals Only] (Madeline Bell)
03 Melting Pot [Edit] (Blue Mink)
04 Gimme Reggae [Edit] (Blue Mink)
05 The Onion Song [Edit] (Blue Mink)
06 Mary Jane [Edit] (Blue Mink)
07 Good Morning Freedom [Edit] (Blue Mink)
08 Morning Dew [Edit] (Blue Mink)
09 Proud Mary [Edit] (Blue Mink)
10 Country Chick [Edit] (Blue Mink)
11 How Much Do I Love You [Edit] (Madeline Bell)
12 You're Messing Up My Mind [Edit] (Madeline Bell)
13 We're So Much in Love [Edit] (Madeline Bell)
14 Jubilation [Edit] (Blue Mink)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RJEnuDXi 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/0GNgfn7HtOOWiHy/file

The cover image shows Blue Mink in 1970. I don't know who all the band members are. But in front is Roger Cook (with the beard) and Madeline Bell (with the Coca Cola T-shirt). 

Covered: Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff, Volume 1: 1964-1970

It's time for another songwriting team in the "Covered" series. Here, I'm looking at the soul music giants Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. I have enough of the songs they wrote for four albums. Here's the first one.

You may not know Gamble and Huff by name, but I'll bet you know their songs. In the 1960s, soul music was dominated by the Motown sound coming out of Detroit. But in the 1970s, soul music was dominated by the Philly sound, which came out of Philadelphia. In 1991, the group Boyz II Men had a big hit with the song "Motownphilly." The title says it all, showing nostalgia for the two main soul music trends of earlier decades.

Motown Records had lots of great songwriters, with the Holland-Dozier-Holland team being the most prominent. It was a similar situation with the Philly sound, except the Gamble and Huff team was even more prominent. That's especially if you take into account all of their roles. They co-owned the main record label for the Philly sound, Philadelphia International. When they weren't writing hit songs, they were signing new acts and/or producing hits. Between writing and producing they were involved in a truly stunning 175 gold or platinum records!

So hopefully that's enough of an intro to entice you, if you weren't familiar with their names. Now, here's more about how the music on this first volume came to be.

Kenny Gamble was born in Philadelphia in 1943, and Leon Huff was born in Camden, New Jersey, in 1942. Gamble was discovered by Jerry Ross when he was 17 years old, in 1963. At that time, Ross was an established record company owner, producer, and songwriter. Gamble and Ross wrote some songs together before the Gamble and Huff collaboration really took off. Their biggest success was "I'm Gonna Make You Love Me," which was a hit for multiple artists. (I've included the original version, by Dee Dee Warwick in 1966, but it was a much bigger hit later for the Supremes and Temptations.) Through working with Ross, Gamble learned much about the music business, including how to run a record label.

The collaboration between Gamble and Huff began in the 1950s. They were members of a harmony group called the Romeos. That group didn't have much success. But another member of the Romeos was Thom Bell, who also would later have a key role in the Philly sound. (He'll be the subject of a separate "Covered" album.) They even occasionally wrote songs together as far back as the 1950s, such as "Lost," which was a minor hit for Jerry Butler in 1959.

The Gamble and Huff collaboration intensified with the very first song here, "The 81" by Candy and the Kisses, in 1964. Although the song was written by Gamble and Ross, Huff played keyboards on the song, and he helped produce it with Gamble. Huff also got to co-write the B-side. Bit by bit, they began writing more songs together. The first really big Gamble and Huff written song was "Expressway to Your Heart," which made the Top Five in both the pop and soul charts in the U.S. in 1967. Their songwriting grew more frequent and successful in 1968, with three big hits they wrote together: "Hey Western Union Man," "Cowboys to Girls," and "I Can't Stop Dancing." From that point on, they became a hit-making force, usually writing at least a handful of hits each year, for many years to come.

That takes us to the end of this volume. I'll continue with their story in the next one. But in the meantime, here's their Wikipedia link if you want to know more. And yes, I said "link," not "links" - the two of them are so closely associated with each other that there's only a "Gamble and Huff" Wikipedia page, not pages for each of them:

Gamble and Huff - Wikipedia 

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 The 81 (Candy & the Kisses)
02 Who Do You Love (Sapphires)
03 I Really Love You (Dee Dee Sharp)
04 I'm Gonna Make You Love Me (Dee Dee Warwick)
05 Girl Don't Make Me Wait (Bunny Sigler)
06 Expressway to Your Heart (Soul Survivors)
07 Together (Intruders)
08 I Can't Stop Dancing (Archie Bell & the Drells)
09 At the Top of the Stairs (Formations)
10 'Cause You're Mine (Vibrations)
11 Hey Western Union Man (Jerry Butler)
12 Cowboys to Girls (Intruders)
13 Love in Them There Hills (Vibrations)
14 [There's Gonna Be] A Showdown (Archie Bell & the Drells)
15 Moody Woman (Jerry Butler)
16 It's Been a Long Time (Betty Everett)
17 Only the Strong Survive (Jerry Butler)
18 A Brand New Me (Dusty Springfield)
19 What's the Use of Breaking Up (Jerry Butler)
20 Here I Go Again (Archie Bell & the Drells)
21 Don't Let the Green Grass Fool You (Wilson Pickett)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/T4D57AYn 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/LZ96W3r5vnKxxBk/file

The cover image is from 1968. I moved the two people closer using Photoshop. Also, the original picture was in black and white. But I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program. That's Huff on the left (wearing a hat) and Gamble on the right.

The Grateful Dead, Santana, and More - Aztec Bowl, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, 5-11-1969

Here is a rather unusual concert. I am interested whenever possible to post full concerts from the 1960s or early 1970s, because there aren't a lot of those. When I say "full concerts," I mean the headliner act and all of the opening acts. This is a kind of unusual case because we have most everything BUT the headliner act. The headliners were Canned Heat. Unfortunately, I could only find one song from their set. If anyone else has more, please let me know and I'll add it in. But the opening acts are very interesting: Tarantula, Lee Michaels, Santana, and the Grateful Dead. Furthermore, it's especially interesting how Santana and the Grateful Dead jammed together on a few songs at the end of the Dead's set.

This recording is from a local radio broadcast. It was extremely unusual to have full concerts on the radio in 1969, and even more unusual to have concerts with all of the opening acts. So I consider this important in terms of the recorded legacy of concerts from that era. The Grateful Dead portion of this concert has gotten around quite a lot, Since Deadheads obsessively collect so much of their live music. The rest seems to have been much more obscure. I found it on the Internet, but not on any of the usual bootleg sharing sites.

As I mentioned above, Canned Heat was the headliner and final act. But since I only have the first song of their set, I moved that song to just before the Grateful Dead set. So for this recording, the Dead play the role of the headliner. 

The concert started with just one full song by Tarantula. I think it's a good guess that they played more songs, but this is all that managed to be recorded and survived. If you have never heard of them, don't feel bad. They are so obscure that they don't even have a Wikipedia page as I write this in 2026. However, they do have a page at the rateyourmusic site. That shows that they only released one album in 1969, which was self titled, before they broke up. Here is a link to their rateyourmusic webpage:

https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/tarantula

The next musical act was Lee Michaels. He is reasonably well known today, because he had a Top Ten hit in the U.S. in 1971 with the song "Do You Know What I Mean." But that was two years after from this concert. He was relatively unknown in 1969, though he was slowly building up a following. He released his third solo album that year, and it almost made the Top Forty albums chart. He had an unusual sound because he played Hammond organ and sang lead vocals, but he often was only backed by a drummer. One can hear that that was the case in this concert.

Here is his Wikipedia entry if you want to know more:

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

I don't have to say much about the next act, Santana, because I've posted several different concerts by them already. But note that while Santana became very famous later on, at the time of this concert, they were not well known. Their big break would come a few months later, at the famous Woodstock concert in August. At this point, they had been playing a lot in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1968, but their first album hadn't been released yet.

As I mentioned above, I could only find one song from the Canned Heat set, and I moved it to after the Santana set.

That just leaves the Grateful Dead set. At this point, they weren't very well known either. Like Santana, they had built up a Bay Area following due to playing a lot of concerts there. But this concert was in San Diego, so I'm guessing they weren't as well known there. But at least they had already released two studio albums. They would release a third album, "Aoxomoxoa," just one month after this concert, but none of the songs from that album were performed here.

There were a lot of issues with this recording. Even though it was a radio broadcast, it probably got passed through different tape recordings along the way, and some sound quality was lost, and some bits and pieces of music were lost. Three songs have "[Edit]" in their titles, because I had to make some significant edits on those. I believe there might have been a couple of other songs that I didn't include because there were only small parts that remained.

Another issue is that, for whatever reason, very, very little of the audience applause has made it onto this recording. Usually, I try to fix that by patching in bits of the applause that did survive to parts lacking applause. But in this case, there was so very little that I didn't have enough to work with. So I just left the applause as is. The music sounds pretty good, considering the era, and there even is some occasional banter. But don't expect applause between songs.

As I mentioned above, I am especially interested in posting concert recordings from this era that include the opening acts. If you know of other recordings like that with worthy sound quality, please let me know, and I will make an effort to try to post those as well.

This album is two hours and 38 minutes long.

01 talk (Tarantula)
02 You - Drum Solo (Tarantula)
03 talk by emcee (Tarantula)
04 My Friends - Drum Solo (Lee Michaels)
05 Heighty Hi (Lee Michaels)
06 Hello (Lee Michaels)
07 Call It Stormy Monday (Lee Michaels)
08 The War [Edit] (Lee Michaels)
09 Evil Ways [Edit] (Santana)
10 Fried Neck Bones and Some Home Fries (Santana)
11 Persuasion (Santana)
12 Savor [Instrumental] (Santana)
13 Soul Sacrifice [Instrumental] [Edit] (Santana)
14 talk (Canned Heat)
15 I'm Her Man (Canned Heat)
16 talk by emcee (Grateful Dead)
17 Morning Dew (Grateful Dead)
18 Cryptical Envelopment (Grateful Dead)
19 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
20 That's It for the Other One (Grateful Dead)
21 Cryptical Envelopment (Grateful Dead)
22 Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl (Grateful Dead)
23 Me and My Uncle (Grateful Dead)
24 Alligator (Grateful Dead)
25 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead & Santana)
26 Jam [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead & Santana)
27 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead & Santana)
28 Turn On Your Lovelight (Grateful Dead & Santana)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XPxe7STV

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/b8MFZPEBoFFw4hk/file

The cover image is the poster used to promote this exact concert. However, that poster, like most posters, is rectangular. I made big edits in Photoshop to move all the parts I wanted to keep to a square shape instead. 

The Carpenters - Singles Uncovered, Volume 1: 1969-1972 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Hi Everybody,

This is Mike Solof, a frequent guest poster at this blog, and temporary introduction writer. Paul just texted me and asked if I would write a brief intro to my latest project for him, since he is gallavanting around Spain on vacation right now. I told him I would be happy to give it a whirl. So here, just like Paul would, is my whirl (written as if in Paul's voice):

Over the years, I have featured a lot of variations on Carpenters songs for this blog. Today, we continue that tradition once again. In the past, I have featured full acapella, and near acappella versions, piano recitals, and BBC sessions (some done by another guest poster, Fabio from Rio). Obviously there is just something about Karen’s voice and her harmonies with her brother Richard that we just can’t seem to get enough of around here. So when Mike approached me to do yet another take on their music, it was a no brainer. His versions follow the same path he takes with his Uncovered Beatles series. In those, he created new versions of songs you know and love by ripping apart the the commercial versions using modern audio editing technology, and eliminating the excessive and unneeded additions which in this case was all the orchestral backings, as well as the overuse of choral singers in their later years. This leaves the basic tracks, which usually include Karen’s and Richard’s vocals, accompanied by bass, drums, piano,  and guitar. Mike occasionally left in other instruments as well to fill out the extra quiet spots. He calls this "Pure Carpenters," and I tend to agree.

So here is Volume One, which covers the years 1969-1972. two more volumes will follow.

I did convince him he would have to change his picture for the cover though. What you see, presented here, is a shot he found online of Karen and Richard mixing their first album. His original version, had a beautiful picture of just two random carpenters working on a house. That’s his sense of humor, so ask him for that version if you’d like a copy. He’s strange in that way, but he hopes you enjoy this new project as much as he enjoyed putting it together.

---

Thanks, Mike. This is the real Paul writing again. Everything up above is true except for the part about the  original cover art featuring to actual carpenters working on a house instead of the two members of the Carpenters. Mike really wanted to use that, but I fought him tooth and nail on it. However, you can see it below if you're curious. You can also see it in the PDF file that he included in the download zip.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Ticket to Ride (Carpenters)
02 Your Wonderful Parade (Carpenters)
03 Don't Be Afraid (Carpenters)
04 All of My Life (Carpenters)
05 [They Long to Be] Close to You (Carpenters)
06 I Kept on Loving You (Carpenters)
07 We've Only Just Begun (Carpenters)
08 Mr. Guder (Carpenters)
09 Maybe It's You [Piano Version] (Carpenters)
10 Merry Christmas Darling (Carpenters)
11 For All We Know (Carpenters)
12 Rainy Days and Mondays (Carpenters)
13 Saturday (Carpenters)
14 Superstar [Groupie] (Carpenters)
15 Let Me Be the One (Carpenters)
16 Drucilla Penny (Carpenters)
17 One Love (Carpenters)
18 Bless the Beasts and the Children (Carpenters)
19 Hurting Each Other (Carpenters)

Maybe It's You [Orchestra Version] (Carpenters) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/aiKnKZiF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/p7xLQDFG3Cz009H/file 

The cover image was chosen by Mike. I don't know the details. But they look pretty young. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

Also, just for fun, Mike asked me to make this alternate cover, which is a, uh, much more literal take on the word "Carpenters."

Various Artists - Musical Salad, Volume 2 (1939-2025) (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here is the second volume of "Musical Salad,"a collection of songs about vegetables. For real. 

As I mentioned with the release of "Musical Salad, Volume 1," this project began as one of Fabio from Rio's eccentric ideas, supported at first by my cautiously skeptical encouragement. But after we finished "Volume 1," I have to admit I was already looking forward to a second helping.

Nearly all of the songs in "Volume 1" were found by Fabio. But for this volume, I went digging and found a majority of these ones. As with the first volume, Fabio really went above and beyond the usual call of duty, making an artistic booklet with text, talking about each song and including an illustration for each song, made by AI. (He wrote all the text however.) I also provided ideas and suggestions for many of the illustrations generated with the help of Fabio's AI-assisted artwork process.

As I have mentioned elsewhere, I have concerns about the use of AI. For instance, I have been careful to never include any music made by AI in this blog. But the AI artwork made for this booklet was just too good not to include. In fact, it's kind of "scary good," since it can do what a human can do for practically no cost in just a tiny fraction of the time.

At any rate, as I mentioned in the write up for the first volume, the songs here had to actually be about vegetables in some way and not just have a fitting title. So for instance, we didn't use the song "Vegetable Man" by Pink Floyd, because all of the lyrics reference clothes and fashion, with just a mysterious line in the chorus, "Vegetable Man, where are you?" That may well refer to someone being a mental vegetable and have nothing to do with actual edible vegetables at all.

But now that we are posting the second volume, if you can think of any fitting songs that are worthy of inclusion for a possible third volume, please let us know. I thought that we had pretty much found all the good ones that fit, but already we've had a few suggestions in the comments for valuable one that look promising. I could easily see a third volume, including more of the fun artwork, if we can just find enough songs that keep up the standards of the first two volumes. 

Also, if you have suggestions for other theme, albums, similar to this one, please let us know. I doubt I would spearhead any project like that (since I have my hands full with so many other albums I want to post already), but there's no telling what kind of off the wall ideas that might appeal to Fabio. In fact, I already get the feeling that he is thinking about other food related albums, so if you have some suggestions for songs along those lines, please let us know about those too.

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 Our Garden (Lucy Kalantari)
02 Life in the Slaw Lane (Kip Addotta)
03 I Love Onions (Jackie Weaver)
04 Cheese and Onions (Rutles)
05 Homegrown Tomatoes (Guy Clark)
06 Solid Potato Salad (Ella Mae Morse)
07 Potato (Cheryl Wheeler)
08 The Potato Stomp (Killin' Jivers)
09 Beans and Cornbread (Louis Jordan)
10 Eat Every Bean and Pea on Your Plate (Daddy A Go-Go)
11 Cornbread and Butterbeans (Carolina Choc Drops)
12 The Spinach Song (Julia Lee)
13 Broccoli (Association)
14 Artichokes (Maps & Atlases)
15 Avocado Woo Woo (The Tin Men)
16 Fruit Salad (Tierra Whack)
17 Coleslaw (Louis Jordan)
18 Vegetables [1993 Live Version] (Beach Boys)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eN4EguPz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/khZ7cVB1EQwxUMr/file

The cover image was made by Fabio, using AI. As mentioned above, he also used AI to have illustrations of each of the songs. Here's one that I particularly liked, for the song Avocado Woo Woo." 

Covered: George Harrison, Volume 1: 1964-1971

It's time that I tackle a truly great songwriter for the "Covered" series: George Harrison. I hope and assume that anyone reading the blog already knows that he was a member of the Beatles. This series includes songs he wrote while in the Beatles with songs from his long solo career afterwards. I found enough for six volumes.

Harrison is such a famous musician that I'm not going to try to sum up his life or even just his music career. But I do want to write some about the early evolution of his songwriting.

When it came to writing songs, he was a late bloomer. In the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote about 100 songs separately or together before the Beatles released their first album in 1963. (A lot of them were discarded.) Harrison was watching and learning from one of the greatest songwriting teams of all time. But apparently it wasn't until 1963 when he wrote his first complete song, or at least one he considered good enough to show to the other Beatles. His "Don't Bother Me" would appear on the band's second album, "With The Beatles." He wrote it while sick in bed during the summer of 1963. He later said that it was as an exercise to see if he could write a song, and "at least it showed me that all I needed to do was keep on writing, and then maybe eventually I would write something good."

But despite this early success (which, in fact, was a good song), the next two Beatles albums went by without any original Harrison songs on them. (He occasionally sang cover versions on Beatles recordings instead.) He later said that he lacked confidence and found it hard to compete with what he called the many "wondrous hits" written by the Lennon-McCartney team. But then the 1965 Beatles album "Help!" contained two of his songs. From that point on, every Beatles album contained at least one of his songs, usually two, and once three. (There were four on 1968's "The White Album," but that can be seen as two albums with two of his songs each.) He also had the occasional song come out on a B-side or archival release. Ultimately, 22 of his songs were released while the Beatles were together, out of 188 original songs by the band in total. But a few more of his songs trickled out in archival releases, such as "You Know What to Do," "Not Guilty," and "All Things Must Pass." There are still more of his songs the Beatles tried in the studio but remain unreleased. Most of those eventually appeared on his solo albums.

Unfortunately, for many years, Lennon and McCartney underestimated Harrison's songwriting, and didn't do much to encourage him. The two of them were writing so many excellent songs that they weren't keen to find room for many of Harrison's songs as well. But by 1969, that changed. Harrison's two songs for the "Abbey Road" album that year, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun," aren't just great Beatles songs, they're some of the best and most acclaimed songs of all time. "Something" is one of the most frequently covered songs ever, and as I write this in 2026, "Here Comes the Sun" is the most listened Beatles song on Spotify. 

As a result, Lennon and McCartney could no longer downplay Harrison's songwriting talent. Lennon called "Something" the best song on "Abbey Road." And, in 1969, McCartney said, "I think that until now, until this year, our songs have been better than George's. Now this year his songs are at least as good as ours." Also, decades later, McCartney had this to say: "It was easy to underestimate George because me and John... had always written most of the stuff... and George was a late bloomer as far as writing was concerned. He wasn't that interested in the beginning but then he started to get interested and, boy, did he bloom, you know? He wrote some of the greatest songs ever."

On September 8, 1969, the Beatles had an important meeting about their future plans. Ringo Starr couldn't attend, so the other Beatles made a tape recording of the meeting. That means a recording of exactly what was said has survived. In the meeting, due to the undeniable success of Harrison's songs on "Abbey Road," Harrison was treated as a songwriting equal to Lennon and McCartney, perhaps for the first time within the band. 

Lennon had been drifting away from the Beatles for some time, distracted by his relationship with Yoko Ono and hobbled by a heroin addiction. But in the meeting, he suggested the Beatles record a new album and a new single before the end of 1969, which would have been an ambitious schedule. He also suggested that he, McCartney, and Harrison get four songs each on every Beatles album moving forward, with Starr getting one or two if he wanted. (At this point, Starr had only written two songs on Beatles albums credited solely to him.)

Here's an entire article about that meeting. It's fascinating reading if you're a Beatles fan, with a lot of discussion about Harrison's songwriting and his role in the band: 

https://www.guitarplayer.com/guitarists/john-lennon-plan-to-keep-the-beatles-together

Unfortunately though, later that month, Lennon took part in a rock festival in Toronto, Canada, as a solo artist. That experience went so well for him that it gave him the confidence to want to leave the Beatles and have a solo career instead. About a month after that, he told the other Beatles he was leaving the band, although they kept that a secret for another six months due to wanting to present a united front in a legal dispute they were having with their record company.

However, even after Lennon's announcement he was leaving, there was still a chance the Beatles would continue, releasing more solo albums mixed with Beatles albums where Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison would get four albums each. Here's the audio of a radio interview Harrison did in March 1970 where he talked about the Beatles getting back together later in 1970 to record another album after all four of them did solo albums:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-fNA3Ee5eM 

Unfortunately, growing problems prevented that from happening, most especially due to financial conflicts between the band members as they fought over management and ended up suing each other. But that meant that by 1970, Harrison had a big backlog of excellent songs he'd been writing. Many of them came out on his classic and very successful solo album "All Things Must Pass" later in 1970. (Technically, it was a triple album, but it's basically a double album of songs because the third album just contains some long jam sessions.) A lot of those were written much earlier, but had been ignored by the other Beatles. For instance, "Isn't It a Pity" was written back in 1966, and had been rejected by the others for both the "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper's" albums!

Anyway, let me steer this more to discussing the songs on this volume. Across the six volumes in this series, I have included ALL the songs Harrison wrote for the Beatles, but most of them don't show up until later volumes, just because what I considered the best cover versions didn't happen until years later. Instead, this volume has many songs that Harrison was writing with and/or for other musical acts at the time, since usually the best (and often the only) versions were the first ones. So, for instance, "Sour Milk Sea" was a song he wrote for Jackie Lomax, though Lomax's 1968 single of it didn't make the charts. He co-wrote "Badge" with Eric Clapton, and it was released by the band Clapton was in at the time, Cream. 

"Hurdy Gurdy Man" is an interesting case. Donovan wrote it when he was vacationing in India with the Beatles and others in 1968. It was a big hit, making the Top Five in both the U.S. and Britain that year. But it turns out Harrison helped him out, writing a verse of the song by himself. But when the song came out as a single, the Harrison verse was missing. It was cut by the producer, due to the pressure of keeping a single under three minutes. Donovan later regretted this, saying it was the best verse in the song. He has often performed the Harrison verse in concert ever since. Apparently, Harrison was also very disappointed the verse wasn't included. I've used a live solo acoustic version from 1973 that includes that verse. But I put it in 1968 chronologically, since that's when Donovan's version of the song first came out (and when the Harrison verse should have come out as well).

"Octopus's Garden" is another tricky case. Technically, and legally, that song was written solely by Ringo Starr, and was included on the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album. But, in fact, it's pretty obvious to me that while the original idea was Starr's, Harrison played a key role finishing the song. At the time, Starr had barely done any songwriting, and he needed help. Harrison did Starr a favor by not asking for a songwriting credit. In both the "Let It Be" and "The Beatles: Get Back" films, one can actually see footage of Harrison helping him write the song while also teaching songwriting techniques.

Basically, the exact same thing happened with "It Don't Come Easy." The song was released as a solo single by Starr in 1971, and it made the Top Five in both the U.S. and Britain. Here's an except from the Wikipedia entry about the song: "Although Starr received sole writing credit for 'It Don't Come Easy,' Beatles historian Bruce Spizer writes that he had 'substantial, but uncredited, assistance' from his bandmate George Harrison. In author Robert Rodriguez's description, the official songwriting credit was long thought to be 'bogus' and, notwithstanding Starr's involvement, a sign of Harrison's 'great generosity' in wanting to help the drummer establish himself independently of the Beatles." Starr started writing it in 1968 by himself, but he had trouble finishing songs. I would guess Harrison wrote half or more of it.

A couple of songs here you might not recognize, even if you're a big fan of Harrison's music, because he never released his own versions of them: "Ain't That Cute" by Doris Troy, "Sing One for the Lord" by Billy Preston, and "I'm Your Spiritual Breadman" by Ashton, Gardner and Dyke. In each case, he was involved in the production and/or recording of albums by those artists, and got involved enough to write or co-write some songs. "Try Some, Buy Some" by Ronnie Spector was another case of that, but he eventually did release his own version of that one.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Don't Bother Me (Gregory Phillips)
02 If I Needed Someone (Hollies)
03 Sour Milk Sea (Jackie Lomax)
04 Hurdy Gurdy Man (Donovan)
05 Badge (Cream)
06 Octopus's Garden (Ringo Starr)
07 My Sweet Lord (Billy Preston)
08 Something (Shirley Bassey)
09 Ain't That Cute (Doris Troy)
10 Sing One for the Lord (Billy Preston)
11 Here Comes the Sun (Richie Havens)
12 Taxman (Junior Parker)
13 It Don't Come Easy (Ringo Starr)
14 I'm Your Spiritual Breadman (Ashton, Gardner & Dyke)
15 Try Some, Buy Some (Ronnie Spector)
16 Let It Down (Stone the Crows)
17 The Inner Light (Jimmy McGriff & Junior Parker)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MtrvVGxu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/IIi6h8Vu3ZIF8Yh/file

The cover image is from 1965.

Covered: Neil Young: Alternates, Volume 1: 1966-2001 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Back in March 2026, I posted no less than ten volumes of the "Covered" series for Neil Young. Surely, you'd think, that's enough. Ten volumes is more than any of the other dozens of artists in the "Covered" series. But no, there's more! In making those ten albums, guest posted Fabio from Rio did most of the hard work, collecting hundreds of different cover versions, and presenting them to me in an organized fashion. But I did most of the selecting of which songs made the final cut. This, by contrast, represents Fabio's choices for the best of the rest. I had a little say, but just a song or two here and there where I suggested a different version or something like that. 

Fabio found enough for four volumes of "Covered" alternates. Here's the first one. Across these four volumes, about half the songs are different versions of songs that were included on the previously posted ten Neil Young "Covered" volumes. But the other half are songs that didn't feature on those volumes at all.

Fabio has written some liner notes, which are included in the download zip. But since these volumes are more like an addendum to those earlier ten volumes, he wrote just one essay for all four volumes, without song-by-song explanations.

For some musical acts in the "Covered" series, they had a lot of hits, and the choices of which covers to pick is pretty straight forward - the hit versions. But with Neil Young, it was much more subjective, since there have been tons of covers, but very few hits. So one person's trash is another person's treasure. You may well like some of these better. 

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Flying on the Ground Is Wrong (Guess Who)
02 Down to the Wire (Yellow Hand)
03 Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing (Carpenters)
04 Down by the River (Buddy Miles)
05 Til the Morning Comes (Francoise Hardy)
06 I Believe in You (Linda Ronstadt)
07 Hold Back the Tears (Jessi Colter)
08 Revolution Blues (Band of Blacky Ranchette)
09 Already One (Aaron Springfield)
10 Human Highway (Jim Witter & Cassandra Vasik)
11 Borrowed Tune (Marc Jordan)
12 Pushed It Over the End (Rich Hand)
13 Big Time (Black Crowes)
14 The Old Laughing Lady (Stereophonics)
15 Motion Pictures (Mercury Rev)
16 Mellow My Mind (Hederos & Hellberg)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kra1ih4k

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/yfTyPoRmZ7KvcBd/file

The cover image is from 1969 or 1970. It was taken from a black and white photo of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

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: 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.

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: Randy Newman, Volume 1: 1963-1973

Whenever I think about the "Covered" series of albums I've made, I get frustrated, because I've got dozens that I've never gotten around to posting. I guess I enjoy the making of the albums more than the steps needed to post them. It feels like unfinished homework. But I'm going to make more of an effort to fix that, starting with a triple-header of Randy Newman.

Here's some highlights from his Wikipedia entry:  

"[Newman] is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, composer, and arranger. Born in Los Angeles to an extended family of Hollywood film composers, he is known for his Americana-inspired songs, non-rhotic Southern-accented singing style, and typically mordant or satirical lyrics. Since the 1990s, he has worked mainly in film scoring, most popularly for Disney and Pixar. ... Newman has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards (out of 22 nominations), three Emmys, seven Grammy Awards, as well as nominations for a BAFTA Award and seven Golden Globe Awards. His award-winning film work includes 'Ragtime' (1981), 'The Natural' (1984), 'Toy Story' (1995), 'A Bug's Life' (1998), 'Pleasantville' (1998), 'Monsters, Inc.' (2001), 'Cars' (2006), 'The Princess and the Frog' (2009), 'Toy Story 3' (2010), and 'Marriage Story' (2019). He was honored with the Recording Academy's Governors Award in 2003, a Disney Legend award in 2007, and inductions into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013."

As mentioned above, he was born in Los Angeles. But he also spent many of his childhood summers in New Orleans. That would prove to be important, because his songwriting would be heavily influenced by New Orleans styles. And also as mentioned above, he was part of an extended family of Hollywood film composers. His mother and father had regular jobs (as secretary and internist, respectively), but three of his uncles were film composers, and so were three cousins. 

He began writing songs professionally by the age of 17. He put out a single under his own name in 1962, but it flopped. So he decided to try writing songs for others for a while. He began having successes almost immediately. The first song here, "Hold Your Head High" by Jackie DeShannon, is from 1963. 

Also very early on, he began writing instrumental music for TV shows, starting with an episode of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis" in 1962. That talent would continue to grow, leading to him to eventually doing full movie soundtracks starting in 1971. More on that in a later volume though.

Alan Price helped boost Newman's songwriting career in 1967. For one thing, he had a hit with Newman's "Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear." But also, he was so taken by Newman's songwriting that his 1967 album "A Price on His Head" had no less than seven songs by Newman. Harry Nilsson paid him an even bigger compliment by covering an entire album of his songs in 1970, "Nilsson Sings Newman."

Newman finally released his first album under his own name in 1968, "Randy Newman (Creates Something New Under the Sun)." It was a critical success, and it led to even more musical acts covering his songs, but it didn't sell well. It didn't even reach the top 200 U.S. albums chart. For the next ten years or so, he would continue to be a cult artist, meaning he was critically praised and beloved by a small group of fans, but didn't have much wider commercial success. 

Meanwhile, his songwriting continued to get better and better. It arguably peaked with his 1972 album "Sail Away," though he has maintained remarkably high consistency for his entire career. Rolling Stone Magazine has put that album on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. His 1974 album "Good Old Boys" would also make that list, though lower down it.

Newman's songwriting is extraordinary, but it's also idiosyncratic, with frequent heavy sarcasm. Some songs have general romantic themes that lend themselves to being covered a lot, for instance "I Think It's Going to Rain Today." There are over a 100 different cover versions of that one. But then consider a song like "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind)." It's a sarcastic song about how God seemingly could care less about the human race, and even laughs at the calamities it throws at humanity. I think it's a great song, with deep meaning, but it's not exactly typical Top Forty subject material! So there are a lot of songs I would have wanted to include but didn't, because either there's no cover versions at all, or at least no worthy covers. And I've followed my usual rule for the "Covered" series of generally not including versions by Newman himself (although he'll show up with one song in a later volume, and in a duet in the other volume).

Note that some of the best songs written by Newman during this time period only show up in one of the later two volumes. So if you don't see a favorite, wait to see what's on those first. 

This album is 52 minutes long. 

01 Hold Your Head High (Jackie DeShannon)
02 Baby, Don't Look Down (Billy Storm)
03 I've Been Wrong Before (Cilla Black)
04 Nobody Needs Your Love (Gene Pitney)
05 Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear (Alan Price Set)
06 Snow (Claudine Longet)
07 Illinois (Everly Brothers)
08 I Think It's Going to Rain Today (Dusty Springfield)
09 Just One Smile (Blood Sweat & Tears)
10 Bet No One Ever Hurt This Bad (Linda Ronstadt)
11 Love Story (Peggy Lee)
12 Dayton, Ohio, 1903 (Wayne Fontana)
13 Mama Told Me [Not to Come] (Three Dog Night)
14 Cowboy (Nilsson)
15 The Beehive State (Doobie Brothers)
16 Living without You (Manfred Mann's Earth Band)
17 God's Song [That's Why I Love Mankind] (Etta James)
18 Guilty (Bonnie Raitt)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/V6aqPKqW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/qo8CJZ7pNQ5aBBM/file

The cover photo is from 1968.

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 8: December 1969 to February 1970

Here's the seventh volume of the episodes I compiled of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. It's the third volume of the show's second season.

I'll only mention some things about a couple of the performances. The rest should be evident just by listening. 

This episode features a previously unknown chapter of Lesley Gore's music career. She'd had a string of hits from 1963 to 1967, but her music went out of style. She continued to release some singles, but they all flopped. In 1972, she put out an album for the first time since 1967, "Someplace Else Now," that recast her in a singer-songwriter mode, similar to Carole King and her seminal 1971 album "Tapestry." In her Playboy TV appearance, she sang two songs that were moving into that mode. Neither of them were officially released by her anywhere, as far as I could tell. One of them, "Didn't We," is a Jimmy Webb song that was covered by many musical artists in this time period. 

Another bit of lost history are the two songs by Joanne Vent and Muscatel. Vent was an attractive White woman with a soulful, bluesy voice, who seemed to have potential for a big music career, a la Janis Joplin. She put out a solo album in 1969, called, "The Black and White of It Is Blues." Unfortunately, as one review I read put it, "Great voice, but not such a great album." At the time of this show, she was getting ready to release a second album with a new backing band, called Muscatel. I found a web link of someone selling a test pressing of it on eBay. But somehow that album never came out. The two songs she sang here suggest what her second album could have sounded like. She also was part of a duet in Volume 5, and shows up again in Volumes 10 and 11.

It's great that Fleetwood Mac is included here. But unfortunately, their performance was badly edited down. Their one song, "Rattlesnake Shake," is only two and a half minutes long. It's clear the performance was longer, since the song both fades in and fades out. They also did a second song, "Coming Your Way," but it only showed up for half a minute at the very end of that particular episode, under an overdubbed advertisement for T.W.A. Airlines. So I didn't bother to include that.

I've mentioned that each episode ended with talking over the music. But, by chance, that only impacted one song in this volume,  "The Category Stomp by John Hartford. That's why that one has "[Edit]" in its title.

This album is an hour and eight minutes long. 

01 Something (Dolores Hall)
02 Just Because of You (Dolores Hall)
03 A Simple Thing as Love (John Hartford)
04 Natural to Be Gone (John Hartford)
05 The Category Stomp [Edit] (John Hartford)
06 Let's Get Together (Jack Jones)
07 If You Want Me To (Chambers Brothers)
08 Love, Love, Love (Chambers Brothers)
09 Georgia on My Mind (James Brown)
10 Yesterday (Vicki Anderson)
11 By the Time I Get to Phoenix (James Brown)
12 God Bless the Child (Jack Jones)
13 The More I See You (Jack Jones)
14 Rattlesnake Shake (Fleetwood Mac)
15 Hello Young Lovers (Lesley Gore)
16 Didn't We (Lesley Gore)
17 High Sheriff of Calhoun Parrish (Tony Joe White)
18 Groupy Girl (Tony Joe White)
19 Slow Train (Joanne Vent & Muscatel)
20 Long Walk to D.C. (Joanne Vent & Muscatel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JdGHbzj8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/HAcJNqwRYyI9p09/file

The cover image shows Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac. It's a screenshot I took from one of these episodes.

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 7: November to December 1969

Here's the seventh volume of the episodes I compiled of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. It's the second volume of the show's second season.

In this volume, one again we see the split between Hugh Hefner including acts from the easy listening pop style of music he preferred, such as Tony Bennett and Mitch Miller, and rock and soul music he allowed on the show "for the kids." (As I mentioned in a previous write-up in this series, he usually would explicitly say some acts were "for the kids" when introducing them, as if adults weren't going to like them.) 

This volume has an unusual number of collaborations, none of which have been officially released in any form: Tony Bennett with Mitch Miller, Tony Bennett and Joe Williams (twice),  Tony Bennett with Moe Kaufman, Lou Rawls and the Cannonball Adderly Quintet, and Ike & Tina Turner with Doug Kershaw. Plus, there was a version of "Flip, Flop and Fly" featuring everyone in that episode. I mentioned a few of the participants in the song title, including Steve Allen, the comedian, who sang one of the verses. But there were others too that I didn't mention, or the title would have been too long. Even Hugh Hefner, the head of Playboy, sang a verse!

This episode also continued the second season trend of having unwanted talking over the music sometimes, especially voice-over advertisements for T.W.A. Airlines on the last song of each episode. So that's why you'll see "[Edit]" on some songs. 

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long. 

01 It Don't Mean a Thing [If It Ain't Got That Swing] (Tony Bennett)
02 Blue Velvet (Tony Bennett with Mitch Miller)
03 Watch What Happens (Tony Bennett)
04 Swinging Shepherd Blues [Instrumental] (Moe Koffman)
05 I've Gotta Be Me (Tony Bennett & Joe Williams)
06 The Song Is You (Joe Williams)
07 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Tony Bennett & Joe Williams)
08 I Can't Cry Anymore (Joe Williams)
09 The Shadow of Your Smile (George Kirby)
10 I Left My Heart in San Francisco - I Wanna Be Around (Tony Bennett with Moe Kaufman)
11 Hamba Nami [Instrumental] [Edit] (Cannonball Adderly Quintet)
12 Dead End Street (Lou Rawls)
13 Make the World Go Away (Lou Rawls)
14 The Country Preacher [Edit] (Cannonball Adderly Quintet)
15 My Baby Loves Me (Lou Rawls & the Cannonball Adderly Quintet)
16 I Want to Take You Higher (Ike & Tina Turner)
17 Come Together (Ike & Tina Turner)
18 Proud Mary (Ike & Tina Turner)
19 Honky Tonk Women [Edit] (Ike & Tina Turner with Doug Kershaw)
20 You've Lost that Lovin' Feelin' (Blossoms)
21 Me and You (O. C. Smith)
22 The Learning Tree (O. C. Smith)
23 Flip, Flop and Fly (Blossoms, Steve Allen, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & Everyone)
24 Goodnight My Love (Nitty Gritty Dirt Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BaELQz7n

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/aOyyOnC6ukjmxkl/file

The cover photo shows Ike and Tina Turner, and some of their backing band. That's Tina in the middle of the front, and Ike right behind her. This is a screenshot I took from the video of one of the episodes here.

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 6: October to November 1969

Here's the sixth volume of the episodes I compiled of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. This also is the first album from the show's second (and final) season. Note the big time jump, between Volume 5 ending in January 1969 and this one starting in October 1969 - that's most of a year.

This show tended to have a lot of repeat guests. Consider the soul group Checkmates, Ltd. This already was their third episode. Many of the other guests on volume made or would make appearances on other volumes as well. I think it was especially common for a musical act to appear on an episode in the show's first season, and then another one in the second season.

There are more incidents of "[Edit]" - four - in this volume than in any previous ones. That's because there was more talking over the music in the second season. One particularly annoying aspect was that each episode of this season ended had a brief spoken advertisement for T.W.A. Airlines over the final song. In most cases, I was able to successfully wipe such talking while keeping the underlying music, thanks to the UVR5 audio editing program.

There's a surprising number of songs performed on this T.V. that were never officially released in any form. Consider the duet between Linda Ronstadt and Billy Eckstine. If you listen to the banter before the song started, it seems Ronstadt was very reluctant to sing it, and had to be coaxed into it. That could be prepared dialogue, but in the case, it seemed like a genuinely spontaneous performance to me. As far as I can tell, this was the one and only time Ronstadt performed that song in public.

The duet between Checkmates, Ltd. and Carla Thomas on "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" is similarly unique to this TV show. I also couldn't find any release of "Soul Man" by Bill Medley (who was one half of the Righteous Brothers). Similarly, "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" was never released by Sonny & Cher (or by solo Cher, for that matter). It also seems Carla Thomas never released any version of "Abraham, Martin and John." And it's a similar case with the other volumes.

If anyone knows the name of the instrumental performed by Canned Heat, please let me know so I can give it a proper name. 

This album is an hour and eight minutes long.

01 Walkin' Down the Line (Linda Ronstadt)
02 Living like a Fool (Linda Ronstadt)
03 Hitchcock Railway [Edit] (Joe Cocker)
04 Something (Joe Cocker)
05 God Bless the Child [Edit] (Linda Ronstadt & Billy Eckstine)
06 Soul Man (Bill Medley)
07 What's Wrong (Sweetwater)
08 For Once in My Life (Bill Medley)
09 Why Oh Why - Hey Jude (Sweetwater)
10 Sweet Caroline (Checkmates, Ltd.)
11 Where Do I Go (Carla Thomas)
12 The Japanese Transistor (Biff Rose)
13 Molly (Biff Rose)
14 Abraham, Martin and John (Carla Thomas)
15 Proud Mary (Checkmates, Ltd.)
16 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay [Edit] (Checkmates, Ltd. & Carla Thomas)
17 For Once in My Life [Edit] (Sonny & Cher)
18 Can't Take My Eyes Off You (Sonny & Cher)
19 Future Blues (Canned Heat)
20 My Time Ain't Long (Canned Heat)
21 Instrumental (Canned Heat)
22 Take Me for a Little While (Sonny & Cher)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/aKqnxAQ1

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/6VNID5vPpmlP32t/file

For this series, it was hard for me to pick the cover art, because I could take screenshots of any of the musical acts, and there are always a few good ones to choose from. I didn't choose Linda Ronstadt because she gets a cover later in this series. A key reason I decided on a picture of Cher is because the screenshot I took shows comedian Bill Cosby playing bass in the background. (One can see some of his faced, with sunglasses and cigar, and a little bit of his hands on an upright bass.) 

At the time, Cosby was a widely beloved star. But nowadays, he has been revealed to be a serial rapist. So his appearance on this show can be seen in a whole new light. And he didn't appear just on this episode, he appeared on a LOT of them. I'd guess about a dozen, probably more than any other famous guest. A lot of the time, as in the episode shown on the cover here, he wasn't doing a stand-up routine, but instead was just kind of lurking around. In hindsight, it's super creepy to imagine what Crosby might have been doing behind the scenes with all the beautiful women there. It's symbolic of how the whole carefully constructed image of Playboy has also been torn down, now that we know more. Anyway, I just thought I'd mention that.

Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 5: December 1968 to January 1969

Here's the fifth volume of the episodes I compiled of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. There are 11 in all. 

Just the first three songs were recorded in 1968. The rest date from 1969. As usual with the albums I post, check out the mp3 tags for more detail. I organized these by recording date. The broadcast dates usually took place a few months later.

Probably the most notable thing about the music here is the performance of the Grateful Dead. As I've mentioned previously, most of the music from this T.V. show has languished in obscurity (though I hope these posts are starting to change that). However, the Dead's performance has gotten around some, especially among Deadheads. As it should, because it's a rare treat to see them on T.V. all the way back in early 1969. Three of their songs are included here. "Mountains of the Moon" is special, because it was only performed 15 times by the band, and this was just the second time. The version of "St. Stephen" was very good too. The only disappointment is that the makers of the show faded the song out while the band was jamming on it. I also included what I could of a third song, "Turn On Your Lovelight." But this is less than half a minute. Basically, it was just a snippet that played as the credits rolled at the end of that episode.

An interesting fact is that the Dead's sound engineer, Owsley "Bear" Stanley, secretly put L.S.D. in the coffee that everyone on the set was drinking! So everyone from Hugh Hefner to the stagehands was tripping on acid during the taping of this episode. You can read more about this incident here:

https://www.openculture.com/2021/01/when-the-grateful-dead-performed-on-hugh-hefners-playboy-after-dark.html

That article also contains a link to the Dead's performance, if you want to see it and not just hear it. And there's another link to a later interview of drummer Bill Kreutzmann in which he talked about the spiking of the coffee. 

While that was probably the most interesting musical performance, there are many other good performances on this episode, with lots of rock and soul. Note, by the way, two songs with "[Edit]" in their titles. Sometimes, for this show, there were other people talking over parts of the music. In the second season this would get much worse, to the point that brief advertisements were even spoken over the end of the last song of each episode. So when you see "[Edit]" in this series, that's usually why.

I would also like to point out how odd it was that the Clara Ward Singers performed for this show. Consider that they exclusively sang gospel songs in churches. I wonder if they were appalled at all the "heathen" appearances and behavior all around them. But kudos to Hefner and Playboy for putting a wide variety of musical styles on this T.V. show. 

This album is 56 minutes long. 

01 River Deep, Mountain High (Bobby Doyle)
02 Blowin' in the Wind (Bobby Doyle)
03 Wear It on Our Face [Edit] (Checkmates, Ltd.)
04 Mountains of the Moon (Grateful Dead)
05 St. Stephen (Grateful Dead)
06 The Great Electric Experiment Is Over (Noel Harrison)
07 Hello Sun (Noel Harrison)
08 Turn On Your Lovelight [Edit] (Grateful Dead)
09 Turpentine Moan (Canned Heat)
10 On the Road Again (Canned Heat)
11 Mendocino (Sir Douglas Quintet)
12 She's about a Mover (Sir Douglas Quintet)
13 Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho (Clara Ward Singers)
14 Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Clara Ward Singers)
15 Chicken Wolf (Steppenwolf)
16 Don't Cry (Steppenwolf)
17 Get Out My Life Woman (Joe Williams & Joanne Vent)
18 Hurry On Down (Joe Williams)
19 That Face (Joe Williams)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1vPw9aH6

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/rd6je9jcQYVFtLU/file

The cover photo shows Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. This is a screenshot I took from the video of one of the episodes here.