Pat Benatar - Greatest Hits Live (1980-2015) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's another nice guest post by Mike Solof. It's a collection of the best songs by Pat Benatar - as judged by Mike, who is a big fan. But there's a twist, because he chose all live versions. Well, except for three songs at the end he couldn't bear leaving out, which apparently were never performed live.

This album came to be because I had posted a concert by Joan Jett, and I was planning on posting one by Pat Benatar as well. Those two have always been linked in my mind, since they were pioneering female rock and rollers that became famous at the start of the 1980s. Anyway, since Mike is a bigger Benatar fan than I am, I asked him what would be the best concert recording from her. Instead, he came up with this idea, to make something that contains all of her best known songs, most of them performed within a year or two of being recorded.

The songs are in rough chronological order of when they were first released. But the actual performance dates jump all over, from 1980 to 2015. A little over half of the songs here are from bootlegs, but very excellent sounding ones. The following songs, however, are from official live albums: tracks 8, 9, 10, 12, 17, 20, and 24 through 28. You can find more details in the mp3 tags.

Finally, as always with Mike's posts, check out his PDF for comments from him, as well as some more nice photos of Benatar. He's also included a gapless single file version of the album, for those who like that.

This album is two hours and seven minutes long. 

01 Heartbreaker (Pat Benatar)
02 I Need a Lover (Pat Benatar)
03 We Live for Love (Pat Benatar)
04 Treat Me Right (Pat Benatar)
05 You Better Run (Pat Benatar)
06 Hit Me with Your Best Shot (Pat Benatar)
07 Hell Is for Children (Pat Benatar)
08 Promises in the Dark (Pat Benatar)
09 Fire and Ice (Pat Benatar)
10 Helter Skelter (Pat Benatar)
11 Shadows of the Night (Pat Benatar)
12 Lookin' for a Stranger (Pat Benatar)
13 Anxiety (Pat Benatar)
14 Fight It Out (Pat Benatar)
15 The Victim (Pat Benatar)
16 It's a Little Too Late (Pat Benatar)
17 I Want Out (Pat Benatar)
18 Oh Oh Song (Pat Benatar)
19 Love Is a Battlefield (Pat Benatar)
20 Sex as a Weapon (Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo)
21 Invincible (Pat Benatar)
22 We Belong (Pat Benatar)
23 Cool Zero (Pat Benatar)
24 All Fired Up (Pat Benatar & Neil Giraldo)
25 True Love (Pat Benatar)
26 Lipstick Lies [Studio] (Pat Benatar)
27 Silent Partner [Studio] (Pat Benatar)
28 Tell It To Her [Studio] (Pat Benatar)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cBKEwVKq

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2EXi12DYTbXNaf6/file

The cover image was selected by Mike. I don't know when or where it's from, exactly. 

Suzanne Vega - Cover Versions, Volume 1: 1986-1997

Generally speaking, Suzanne Vega has filled her albums with originals, and almost no cover versions. But that doesn't mean she's never performed covers, it's just that she's usually done them in concert or for non-album projects. She has an appealing, unique voice, and great taste in covers, so I've collected all the cover songs I could find (with worthy sound quality, that is). I was able to find enough for two albums. Here's the first one.

The first song here, "In a Lonely Place," needs an explanation. It was written by the Smithereens, and appears on the 1986 Smithereens album "Especially for You." The vocals were mainly sung by the band's lead singer Pat DiNizio, but Vega added prominent backing vocals. Musical associate Lil Panda is a big Suzanne Vega fan, and wanted to hear a version with just Vega singing. Using the latest audio editing technology, he somehow managed to nearly completely remove DiNizio's vocals. The other version is perfectly fine, but it's interesting to hear it done this way too. So that's why this song has "[LilPanda Vega Mix]" in the title.

The other songs here generally come from tribute albums, or appearances on albums by other musical acts. (And they're presented in chronological order by year, as I usually do for albums like this one - see the mp3 tags for year and source details.) But there are a couple of exceptions, which are unreleased live versions. For "Chinese Bones," Vega had the honor of being a guest vocalist at a Grateful Dead concert. She chose to sing this Robyn Hitchcock song. And "Beyond Belief," maybe my favorite Elvis Costello song, comes from one of her own concerts.

This album is 43 minutes long. 

01 In a Lonely Place [LilPanda Vega Mix] (Smithereens & Suzanne Vega)
02 Stay Awake (Suzanne Vega)
03 Chinese Bones (Grateful Dead with Suzanne Vega)
04 Beyond Belief (Suzanne Vega)
05 China Doll (Suzanne Vega)
06 Cassidy (Suzanne Vega)
07 The Long Voyage (Hector Zazou with Suzanne Vega & John Cale)
08 Story of Isaac (Suzanne Vega)
09 Angel (Joe Jackson with Dawn Upshaw & Suzanne Vega)
10 Buy and Sell (Suzanne Vega) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1r77vBDH

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/CL2MWskBQNXJRTG/file

The cover image is from 1990. That's all I know about it. 

Covered: Kenny Gamble & Leon Huff, Volume 4: 1977-1992

Here is the fourth, and last, of "Covered" albums from the great songwriting duo of Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, better known as "Gamble and Huff." 

Since about 1967 to 1977, these two had a seriously impressive run of hit singles, not only as songwriters (all the songs on the previous three volumes, and many more I didn't include), but also as producers and record company owners. But in the late 1970s, the hits started to trail off. Mind you, they still did have some big hits. For instance "Use to Be My Girl" and "Close the Door" both were Number One hits on the U.S. R&B chart in 1978. Many songwriters would have been overjoyed to have as much success as they during this time period. But compared to how they'd done earlier, it was a dramatic drop off.

The Wikipedia entry about the duo has this to say: " By the late 1970s, the popularity of the Philadelphia soul sound began to decline. Disco had suffered a backlash, R&B was going back toward the ballad, and rock had returned to the American charts." I don't know if that fully explains it, though. Gamble and Huff helped establish the disco sound, and disco ruled the charts all the way until 1980. Further, they were great with R&B ballads, so that trend shouldn't have been a problem either. 

I wonder if, instead, after so many dozens of hit songs, they simply started to run out of ideas and/or inspiration. I've noticed that for many professional songwriters I've profiled with "Covered" albums, having ten years of hit-making success is a pretty long time, and not many have managed to stay on top longer than that. Also, I found an article with a quote from music author John Jackson, who said, "There was a point where Kenny [Gamble] had some personal problems and was out of the studio for about a year." I don't know what that involved exactly, but it just goes to show that it's really hard to go full blast in the music business year after year after year.

Then, after about 1980, the hit singles they wrote became even rarer. Yet it's important to keep in mind that's in a relative sense, compared to most of the 1970s when it seemed like they were writing an endless stream of hits. As examples of late successes of new songs, "If Only You Knew" hit Number One on the U.S. R&B chart in 1983, and "Lovin' You" did the same in 1987. 

Still, their Wikipedia entry says this: "In 1982, Philadelphia International's biggest star, former Blue Notes singer Teddy Pendergrass, became paralyzed from the waist down in a car accident, and the future of the label came to be in doubt. That year, Philadelphia broke its ties with CBS and made a new deal with EMI. Although the hits had by now dried up, Gamble and Huff continued to write and produce for the label's artists."

What's nice to see is that I've noticed the golden era of many songwriting teams ended when the songwriting partnerships broke up, Gamble and Huff never had a falling out. I found an article from 2014 that says their business partnership never faltered, and they remain close friends with each other over fifty years after first meeting. They were still writing songs that made the charts into the early 1990s. After that, they had many more hits, sometimes massive hits, but those were new versions of songs originally written in the 1960s and 70s. In putting together these volumes, I almost always was able to use the original hit versions.

Also, here's an article from 2021 that shows they were still working together then. It contains many good quotes from the two of them, as well as musical collaborators like Patti LaBelle, John Oates (of Hall and Oates), and Thom Bell. I recommend you read it if you're interested in their career, especially since their Wikipedia isn't that great (as I write this in July 2026).

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2021/04/10/the-sound-of-philadelphia-history/

I wish I would have come across that article before writing the write-ups to the three previous volumes. Amongst other things, it revealed the exact nature of how they wrote songs together. Here's a quote from Huff: "I knew I could play piano. And I could write a song. And I could produce a record. But Gamble - Gamble could just spit out words spontaneously. He was a poet. I would throw in a word every now and then. But really, I was focused solely on the music, and Gamble was the lyric writer, the storyteller."

As I write this in 2026, both Gamble and Huff are still alive. Both of them are over 80 years old. 

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 I Don't Love You Anymore (Teddy Pendergrass)
02 Goin' Places (Jackson 5 [Jacksons])
03 Now that We've Found Love (Third World)
04 Use ta Be My Girl (O'Jays)
05 Close the Door (Teddy Pendergrass)
06 You Gonna Make Me Love Somebody Else (Jones Girls)
07 Together (Tierra)
08 You're My Latest, My Greatest Inspiration (Teddy Pendergrass)
09 If Only You Knew (Patti LaBelle)
10 Living All Alone (Phyllis Hyman)
11 Lovin' You (O'Jays)
12 Don't Let It Go to Your Head (Brand New Heavies)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bCpFTjqH 

alternate:

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

I moved the two people closer using Photoshop. That's Huff on the left and Gamble on the right.

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: Brian Wilson, Volume 2: 1980-2001 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

For Volume 2 of this “Covered” collection, covering the years 1980 to 2001, we begin to move firmly into Brian Wilson’s "influential songwriter" era. During the early and mid-1990s, his work started to gain broader recognition as something far greater than simply a catalog of breezy pop songs. One important factor was the release of the excellent "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of The Beach Boys" box set in 1993, which included several rare recordings from the legendary (and then still unreleased) "Smile" album, along with material from other overlooked chapters of the Beach Boys’ story. The set helped spark renewed interest in both Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys' musical legacy.

By the late 1990s, a wide range of tribute albums began appearing, recorded by younger generations of musicians eager to acknowledge Brian’s influence. Indie artists such as Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, and Adventures in Stereo demonstrated a genuine affection for his music, helping introduce it to new audiences. This volume also offers a first glimpse of the Wondermints, who would later become Brian Wilson’s backing band and play a crucial role in bringing a modern version of "Smile" to life in the early 2000s.

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 The Farmer's Daughter (Fleetwood Mac)
02 Go Away Boy (Honeys)
03 Dead Man's Curve (Eddie Meduza)
04 She Knows Me Too Well (Wondermints)
05 California Girls (David Lee Roth)
06 Fun, Fun, Fun (Joan Jett)
07 Be True to Your School (Cynics)
08 I Know There's an Answer (Sonic Youth)
09 Meet Me in My Dreams Tonight (Vacant Lot)
10 Surfin' (Dave Goelz & the Surf Rats)
11 Girl Don't Tell Me (Fuzzy)
12 Everything I Need (Wilsons with Brian Wilson)
13 In My Room (Marilyn Scott)
14 Little Honda (Yo La Tengo)
15 Wonderful (Adventures in Stereo)
16 Honkin' Down the Highway (Radio Sweethearts)
17 Rainbow Eyes (Kle)
18 Stevie - My Diane (Saint Etienne)
19 Surfer Girl (Paul Simon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qvGze9yR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Upv0FegAFyf6FTM/file

The cover image is from 1978. 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.

Dave Mason - Mississippi Riverbank Club, Minneapolis, MN, 7-25-1986

Recently, a commenter named nytvf pointed out a Dave Mason concert on YouTube, and suggested I post that on my blog. I checked out the link, and I was impressed by the concert. It's an acoustic concert with great sound quality, but somehow it seems to only exist as that one YouTube. Well, until now, that is. Here it is converted by me into mp3s. Thanks to nytvf for the suggestion. (I'm always open to suggestions.)

Mason had commercial and critical success, highlighted by two big hits, "Only You Know and I Know" in 1970, and "We Just Disagree" in 1977. But his commercial fortunes went way down in the 1980s. He didn't even release a new studio album between 1980 and 1987. This concert happened near the end of that time. Pretty much all the songs he performed were songs he wrote in the 1960s or 1970s, or covers of classic songs. But while he didn't seem to be very creative with new songs during this time period, his performing skills were still a good as ever.

Mason played guitar, and was backed up by only one other person, Jim Krueger, also on guitar (and backing vocals). That's worth noting because Kreuger also wrote a couple of the songs performed here, "The Word" and "We Just Disagree." Kreuger was a member of Mason's band since the mid-1970s.

The one thing that surprises me here is that it seems Mason didn't play "Only You Know and I Know," which I would guess is the second best known song he's written, behind "Feelin' Alright." (Perhaps there was more to this concert that what's on the recording, I don't know.) 

Anyway, this previously obscure recording is one of the best live recordings of his music, in my opinion. The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. I would guess it either has to be a soundboard or an FM radio broadcast.  

This album is an hour and 17 minutes long.

01 Feelin' Alright (Dave Mason)
02 World in Changes (Dave Mason)
03 talk (Dave Mason)
04 Every Woman (Dave Mason)
05 talk (Dave Mason)
06 Sad and Deep as You (Dave Mason)
07 That's Alright Mama [Instrumental Version] (Dave Mason)
08 talk (Dave Mason)
09 The Words (Dave Mason)
10 Not Fade Away (Dave Mason)
11 talk (Dave Mason)
12 Let It Go, Let It Flow (Dave Mason)
13 talk (Dave Mason)
14 Shouldn't Have Took More than You Gave - Dear Prudence (Dave Mason)
15 talk (Dave Mason)
16 Bird on the Wind (Dave Mason)
17 talk (Dave Mason)
18 We Just Disagree (Dave Mason)
19 talk (Dave Mason)
20 Maybe (Dave Mason)
21 talk (Dave Mason)
22 Dust My Blues (Dave Mason)
23 talk (Dave Mason)
24 All Shook Up (Dave Mason)
25 Bring It on Home to Me (Dave Mason)
26 Dear Mr. Fantasy (Dave Mason)
27 talk (Dave Mason)
28 All Along the Watchtower (Dave Mason)
29 talk (Dave Mason)
30 Take It to the Limit (Dave Mason)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/vCDHvuqf

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/1SiXN82PhZRd9jK/file 

The cover photo is from 1981. You can see a second guitarist behind Mason's guitar. I assume that's Jim Krueger. But you can only see part of his head and some of his guitar.

Various Artists - Covered: Billy Steinberg & Tom Kelly: 1980-2019

I don't keep a close eye on music news, but yesterday I happened to hear that songwriter Billy Steinberg died. Specifically, he died on February 16, 2026, at the age of 75. That probably doesn't mean anything to most people, because I don't think he's very well known as far as songwriters go. But it meant something to me, because I had already made a "Covered" album of the songs he and songwriting partner Tom Kelly made. (It's one of several dozen "Covered" albums I've made but haven't gotten around to posting yet.) Due to his death, I decided to post this sooner rather than later.

Steinberg and Kelly wrote a lot of hits from the 1980s to the 2000s that you probably know without ever knowing who wrote them. Even though they were male, somehow they had the most success with females covering their songs. They had five Number One hits in the U.S., all sung by women: "Like a Virgin" by Madonna (1984), "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper (1986), "Eternal Flame" (co-written with Susanna Hoffs and recorded by the Bangles in 1989), "So Emotional" by Whitney Houston (1987), and "Alone" by Heart (1987).

Billy Steinberg was born in Fresno, California, though his family moved to Palm Springs when he was a teenager. After graduating from college, he formed a band called Billy Thermal. However, they didn't have any success, and one album they recorded around 1980 wasn't released until decades later, after he made a name for himself as a songwriter. He had his first songwriting success with "How Do I Make You," which was a hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1980.  

Tom Kelly was born in a small town in Illinois in 1952. He went to a college in that state, but dropped out to pursue a music career. He was a backing musician for Dan Fogelberg in 1976 and 1977. He also did a lot of session work, for instance singing backing vocals on Toto albums. He had his first songwriting success with "Fire and Ice," a minor hit for Pat Benatar in 1981.

Both Steinberg and Kelly independently had songs on Benatar's 1981 album, "Precious Time." They met at a party that year, and soon began writing together. Previously, both of them had written lyrics and music. But they soon fell into a pattern where Steinberg generally wrote the lyrics while Kelly wrote the music. Their really big break as a songwriting team was "Like a Virgin" by Madonna. After that, they were in high demand. What's on this album is just the cream of the crop of the many dozens of songs they wrote for well-known musical acts.

Their partnership continued very fruitfully until the mid-1990s. At that point, Kelly tired of songwriting and dropped out of the music business. He'd already had enough success to live on the royalties he'd made. However, Steinberg kept going with new songwriting partners. From the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s, he mostly wrote with Rick Newels, who already was a successful professional songwriter. From the mid-2000s to about the mid-2010s, he mostly wrote with Josh Alexander.

Steinberg had a lot of songwriting success after he stopped working with Kelly. But I listened to his big hits and, to be honest, didn't like them very much after about 2000. They suffer the same problems as most popular pop music since about 2000: formulaic and forgettable. So I generally didn't include most of those. To be honest, even a lot of their earlier stuff was formulaic and forgettable, but sometimes, in fact many times, they had some real winners.

But in case you're curious, Steinberg's biggest later hits include "I Turn to You" by Melanie C (2000), "Love Doesn't Have to Hurt" by Atomic Kitten (2003), "Too Little Too Late" by JoJo (2006), "Don't Hold Your Breath" by Nicole Scherzinger (2011), and "Give Your Heart a Break" by Demi Lovato (2012). After that, the hits petered out, although some older songs keep getting rerecorded and making the charts again, especially "Alone" and "I Drove All Night." For instance, Alyssa Reid went all the way to Number Two in the British charts with "Alone" in 2012, although it was titled "Alone Again" and had the now practically obligatory rap section.

I'm not a fan of Whitney Houston's version of "So Emotional." But since it was a massive Number One hit, I wanted to include it in some form. I found a radically different cover version by Jon McLaughlin from 2019 that I like much better, so I used that instead. Had it not been for that song, this album would end in 2000.

Here are their Wikipedia pages: 

Billy Steinberg - Wikipedia

Tom Kelly (musician) - Wikipedia  

That album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 How Do I Make You (Linda Ronstadt)
02 Fire and Ice (Pat Benatar)
03 Like a Virgin (Madonna)
04 Sex as a Weapon (Pat Benatar)
05 True Colors (Cyndi Lauper)
06 Eternal Flame (Bangles)
07 Alone (Heart)
08 In Your Room (Bangles)
09 I Touch Myself (Divinyls)
10 My Side of the Bed (Susanna Hoffs)
11 I Drove All Night (Roy Orbison)
12 Night in My Veins (Pretenders)
13 Lucky Love [Acoustic Version] (Ace of Base)
14 I'll Stand by You (Pretenders)
15 Falling into You (Celine Dion)
16 California (Belinda Carlisle)
17 One and One (Edyta Gorniak)
18 Everytime It Rains (Ace of Base)
19 The Consequences of Falling (k.d. lang)
20 So Emotional (Jon McLaughlin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/d2ZX8iYV

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/mbkA9S64SvICLiu/file

I don't know the details of the cover photo. But that's Tom Kelly on the left and Billy Steinberg on the right. There are patches of white in Steinberg's hair, which went completely white in later photos of him. 

Kevin Gilbert - Covers (1986-1996) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's the third and last album that make up guest poster Mike Solof's collections of his favorite songs from the music career of Kevin Gilbert. The first two albums focused on original songs, but this one consists entirely of cover versions.

As I mentioned in my write-up for the first album in this series, Gilbert often mixed a catchy pop sensibility in his songs with the musical complexity of prog rock. As a result, he especially liked prog rock type bands that also had some pop appeal. Probably his favorite band of all was Genesis. In fact, he was such a Genesis fan that he once performed the entirety of the Genesis double album "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" in concert! This album contains three Genesis covers, as well as some other prog rock songs that are almost never covered by anyone, such as "Siberian Khatru" by Yes and "Karn Evil 9" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. And yet we can see Gilbert's pop side as well, with covers of songs like "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band and "If I Fell" by the Beatles. Definitely interesting stuff here.

As usual, Mike has included a PDF in the download zip that has more information and photos and such. But note that it's the same PDF as in the other two Kevin Gilbert albums he put together. 

This album is 60 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original musical acts for each of the songs here: 

01 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes - Crosby, Stills and Nash
02 Firth of Fifth - Genesis
03 The Joker - Steve Miller Band
04 Rendezvous 602 - U.K.
05 Back in NYC - Genesis
06 Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
07 Rocket Man - Elton John (with Pink Floyd intro)
08 Siberian Khatru - Yes
09 If I Fell - Beatles
10 Karn Evil 9 - Emerson, Lake & Palmer
11 The Musical Box - Genesis 

And here's the usual song list: 

01 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes (Toy Matinee)
02 Firth of Fifth (Kevin Gilbert & Mickey Sorey)
03 The Joker (Kevin Gilbert)
04 UK Suite [Rendezvous 6-02 - Danger Money - Caesar's Palace Blues] (Kevin Gilbert & Mickey Sorey)
05 Back in N.Y.C. (Kevin Gilbert)
06 Kashmir (Kevin Gilbert)
07 Rocket Man (Toy Matinee)
08 Siberian Khatru (Kevin Gilbert)
09 If I Fell (Toy Matinee)
10 Karn Evil 9 (Kevin Gilbert)
11 The Musical Box (Giraffe)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mvhs6yEL

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/o1G0R8xtPXiJqQL/file

I believe I found the cover image in an Instagram post. It had some distracting things on it, like some text added on top. But I wiped that out using Photoshop. I don't know exactly when or where it's from. 

Kevin Gilbert - Originals (1984-1996) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's a really interesting album put together by guest poster Mike Solof. Have you ever heard of Kevin Gilbert? If you have, congrats, because he's not as well known as he sound be. Mike is a huge fan of Gilbert's music, so much so that he put together three albums to showcase Gilbert's musical talent. The first album, this one, consists of the original songs Mike considers the best. Then he's made another one of the best rarities, and a third one of the best cover versions. If you want to get started, this is the obvious first album to listen to. Then, if you're interested, check out the other two. (Then, hopefully, more than that.)

For a quick overview, I'll quote the intro paragraph to his Wikipedia entry, which states me "was an American singer, songwriter, musician, composer, and producer. He was best known for his solo progressive rock projects, Toy Matinee, and his contributions to 'Tuesday Night Music Club' (1993), the debut studio album of Sheryl Crow. Kevin Gilbert died from autoerotic asphyxiation. He was found dead at his Los Angeles-area home on May 18, 1996, at the age of 29."

Here's the link to the rest of the Wikipedia page:

Kevin Gilbert (musician) - Wikipedia

I have to admit I wasn't familiar with Gilbert's music before Mike made these albums, although I'd previously heard good things about his career here and there. After hearing the albums Mike made, I have to agree that Gilbert was a very talented musician who deserves to be much better known than he is. He often combined a catchy pop sensibility with the complexity of prog rock. That is a very difficult combination to pull off. It's a real shame he died so young, and the strange manner of his death probably didn't help his musical legacy.

Note that this albums combines songs from Gilbert's solo albums, as well as songs he did with bands he was in: Giraffe, Toy Matinee, and Kaviar. All the lead vocals are by Gilbert. 

Anyway, Mike has written extensive notes about Gilbert, his life, and why he likes his music so much. You can find that in the PDF included with the download zip, as usual for Mike's guest posts. 

This album is an hour and 23 minutes long. 

01 When Strangers Part (Kevin Gilbert)
02 This Warm Night (Giraffe)
03 Air Dance (Giraffe)
04 Tired Old Man Suite (Kevin Gilbert)
05 Last Plane Out (Toy Matinee)
06 Things She Said (Toy Matinee)
07 The Ballad of Jenny Ledge (Toy Matinee)
08 Goodness Gracious (Kevin Gilbert)
09 Shadow Self [Alternate Version] (Kevin Gilbert)
10 Miss Broadway (Kevin Gilbert)
11 Single (Kaviar)
12 The Sultan of Brunei (Kaviar)
13 The Best Laid Plans (Kevin Gilbert)
14 Certifiable No. 1 Smash (Kevin Gilbert)
15 All Fall Down [Alternate Horn Mix] (Kevin Gilbert)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/GvEgk98D

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BNCnBxCFRjJRq5o/file

I don't know the details of the cover image. It was found by Mike.

Various Artists - Covered: Tom Waits, Volume 1: 1973-1994 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

It's high time I post more for the "Covered" series, highlighting great singer-songwriters. This time, we're looking at the songs of Tom Waits. Enough material has been found for four volumes. Here's the first one. As with all albums in this series, the focus is on cover versions, instead of versions done by the songwriter.

First off, I've gotta say I wouldn't be posting this now had it not been for the help of musical friend Fabio from Rio. It was he who suggested making Covered albums for Waits. I would have wanted to tackle him eventually, but that probably would have been well into the future. I have an issue with Waits: I can't stand his voice. As a result, even though it's easy for me to see he's a very talented songwriter, I haven't been that familiar with his songs. But Fabio is a big fan. He sent me literally hundreds of Waits cover versions, with recommendations on the best ones. I went through that and narrowed it down quite a lot. Hopefully this will make a strong collection that can turn the curious on to Waits' music.

Fabio from Rio helped with all aspects of putting this together. He even wrote the write-ups for the four volumes for Waits. So first I'm posting the relevant Wikipedia page:

Tom Waits - Wikipedia 

And now, take it away, Fabio (and a big thanks to him for all his work on this!):

For the general public, Tom Waits is "that guy with the raspy wino voice and the weird songs. Wasn't he one of the convicted fellows in that offbeat Jim Jarmusch movie?" A few music aficionados may also know him as the writer of songs like Springsteen's "Jersey Girl" or Rod Stewart's "Downtown Train", but that is usually where the story ends.

What many are not aware of is that Waits is widely recognized by his peers and by musical experts as an exceptional and influential songwriter. He is praised for his unique voice, vivid storytelling, poetic lyrics, and innovative musical style that blends genres like blues, jazz, vaudeville, and experimental rock. Waits is also known for creating three-dimensional characters and detailed narratives, often exploring life on the fringes. His lyrics are celebrated for their specificity, humor, melancholy, and ability to evoke strong moods, often drawing comparisons to Beat poets and Mark Twain.

Waits is a "songwriters' songwriter," with songs covered by literally hundreds of artists, many of them great composers themselves. He has been subject to many tributes. While searching for tracks for that project, I collected about three dozen different albums fully dedicated to his songs, and around 400 assorted covers, adding up to almost 1,200 tracks and 80-plus hours of music!

I initially selected about 220 different tunes (an almost fully comprehensive "Tom Waits songbook" that would comprise about 15 hours) which Paul wisely helped reduce to around 60 tracks across four volumes. We could have another four or eight volumes with additional top-notch Tom Waits songs - there is enough quality material for that - but I feel this reduced version is just the right size for a first dive into Tom Waits vast catalog. I hope you enjoy it!

Some listeners may find Waits' music difficult to approach due to his peculiar tone (which, contrary to popular belief, was not destroyed by booze and cigarettes, but was conscientiously cultivated as a vocal persona, as he mentioned in some interviews). The fact that some of his more experimental work sounds like monkeys loose in a crystal store doesn't help either. For those, a "Covered" collection focusing on his more melodic output is a great starting point, where one may discover the essence of Waits' music (often through soothing, frequently female, voices).

This first volume includes performances from a long range of years (1973 to 1994), but most of the songs here were composed during Waits' early and middle phases (the seventies and early eighties). His first albums feature piano-led ballads, romantic melancholy, and a relatively smooth, crooning voice. The character is that of a late-night drifter, nostalgic and tender. As his career progressed, Waits' voice grew tougher (both literally and figuratively) and his narratives darker and more cinematic. His late seventies and early eighties albums introduced sardonic humor, social misfits, and a sharper sense of irony, while still rooted in jazz, blues, and cabaret traditions.

Waits started as a folk singer/songwriter in the early seventies, with heavy jazz influences, when his voice was still not so rough. You can hear this in the first selection of this collection, "Rosie," from his 1973 first album. It's the only song in these four volumes that is the composer's own interpretation. He also first caught the ear of the public with an early cover of "Ol' 55" by The Eagles (which we skipped in favor of Sarah McLachlan's 1993 version, which both Paul and myself prefer). Other famous interpreters at the first volume are Johnny Cash and Marianne Faithfull (with songs Tom composed specifically for them), and also 10,000 Maniacs, Elvis Costello, Crystal Gayle and Canned Heat, which showcases the full range of styles and performers reached by Waits' compositions.

---

Thanks again, Fabio. I'll just add that there were only a few cases where Waits wrote hit songs, so we weren't tied down much by that factor. ("Downtown Train" is probably his biggest hit, thanks to the 1989 Rod Stewart version, included here.) And often, his songs didn't get a lot of covers until many years after they were written. So if you don't see some of his songs you really like from this era, wait before you judge. There's a good chance those songs could show up on one of the later volumes.

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Rosie (Tom Waits)
02 Foreign Affair (Manhattan Transfer)
03 Jersey Girl (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Is There Any Way Out of This Dream (Crystal Gayle)
05 I Hope that I Don't Fall in Love with You (10,000 Maniacs)
06 Strange Weather (Marianne Faithfull)
07 Downtown Train (Rod Stewart)
08 Gun Street Girl (Canned Heat)
09 San Diego Serenade (Nanci Griffith)
10 Tom Traubert's Blues [Waltzing Matilda] (Rod Stewart)
11 More than Rain (Elvis Costello & Brodsky Quartet)
12 Ol' 55 (Sarah McLachlan)
13 Down There by the Train (Johnny Cash)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Sn7DrCs1

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/t3zNaMkqIymk1K6/file

The cover photo was taken in Chicago, Illinois, on May 30, 1986.

Chris Rea - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 5-2-1986

Here's another BBC album by Chris Rea. This time, it's a concert from 1986.

By 1986, Rea's career was gathering commercial momentum. (In Britain, that is. He never had much success in the U.S.) He still didn't have any big hits yet, but he had more small hits, such as "I Don't Know What It Is but I Love It," "Josephine," and "I Can Hear Your Heartbeat." His biggest recent hit at the time of this concert was "Stainsby Girls," which reached Number 26 in the British singles chart. 

There's not much else to say here. The music here is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 58 minutes. 

01 Two Roads (Chris Rea)
02 Hello Friend (Chris Rea)
03 Candles (Chris Rea)
04 talk (Chris Rea)
05 Midnight Blue (Chris Rea)
06 One Golden Rule (Chris Rea)
07 Josephine (Chris Rea)
08 Stainsby Girls (Chris Rea)
09 I Can Hear Your Heartbeat (Chris Rea)
10 I Don't Know What It Is but I Love It (Chris Rea)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/63teYBVF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/79irpZnoiReZMiQ/file

The cover photo is from the Montreux Jazz Festival, in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1986. 

R.E.M. - Oak Mountain Amphitheatre, Pelham, AL, 9-5-1986

Here's another great concert by R.E.M. Like the other one I posted a few days ago, this one only became publicly available in December 2025. The sound quality is excellent.

This concert first became available through Rob, who runs the dB's Repercussion music blog, at:

dbs-repercussion.blogspot.com 

It's an excellent blog, I recommend you check it out. I've included Rob's original notes to the recording. That explains how it was recorded and got into his hands. The bottom line is this is a soundboard. 

The only snag is that six songs are missing. Those include the first four songs: "These Days," "Begin the Begin," "1,000,000," and "The One I Love." Also missing are "Just a Touch" and "Femme Fatale" from the middle of the concert. (Specifically, they came after "Little America.")

This was the very first concert of the band's 1986 tour, which supported their recently released album "Lifes Rich Pageant," which had been released two months earlier. As a result, many of the songs were performed in public for the first time: "These Days," "Begin the Begin," "The One I Love," "Cuyahoga," "The Flowers of Guatemala," "I Believe," "Superman," "Strange," and "Lightnin' Hopkins." (Too bad that the first three of those aren't included here.) It's interesting that two of those songs, "The One I Love" and "Lightnin' Hopkins," wouldn't be released until the band's next album, "Document," in 1987.

Rob has this to say about this recording: "It is the finest-sounding 1986 live recording [from the band] now in circulation, and the first concert-length soundboard recording to emerge so far." 

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long.

01 Cuyahoga (R.E.M.)
02 talk (R.E.M.)
03 Fall on Me (R.E.M.)
04 Shaking Through (R.E.M.)
05 The Flowers of Guatemala (R.E.M.)
06 Driver 8 (R.E.M.)
07 talk (R.E.M.)
08 I Believe (R.E.M.)
09 talk (R.E.M.)
10 Swan Swan H (R.E.M.)
11 talk (R.E.M.)
12 Can't Get There from Here (R.E.M.)
13 7 Chinese Bros (R.E.M.)
14 talk (R.E.M.)
15 Superman (R.E.M.)
16 talk (R.E.M.)
17 Pretty Persuasion (R.E.M.)
18 Little America (R.E.M.)
19 Feeling Gravitys Pull (R.E.M.)
20 Strange (R.E.M.)
21 So. Central Rain [I'm Sorry] (R.E.M.)
22 Auctioneer [Another Engine] (R.E.M.)
23 Lightnin' Hopkins (R.E.M.)
24 Old Man Kensey (R.E.M.)
25 Life and How to Live It (R.E.M.)
26 talk (R.E.M.)
27 Time Was (R.E.M.)
28 Second Guessing (R.E.M.)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/h3FSNBaC

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/XI9TOlV8nbNdMRZ/file

The cover of the band's lead singer Michael Stipe is from a concert at the Northern Illinois University Arena in DeKalb, Illinois, on October 26, 1986.

Various Artists - Colombian Volcano Disaster Appeal Concert, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 2-9-1986

Here's a really interesting benefit concert. There aren't a lot of musical acts, but the ones that took part gave interesting performances, often with some unusual song choices. The big stars were David Gilmour (formerly of Pink Floyd), Pete Townshend (formerly of the Who), Annie Lennox (of Eurythmics) and Chrissie Hynde (of the Pretenders).

In November of 1985, the Nevada del Ruiz volcano erupted, causing a natural disaster in Colombia. It melted glaciers and caused catastrophic flooding that killed over 25,000 people. A native Colombian musician, Chucho Merchan, with the help of Pete Townshend, organized this benefit concert to raise funds for the surviving victims and to help raise awareness of their plight. Highlights of the concert were broadcast in many countries around the world, and a DVD of parts of it was eventually released. 

I had been aware of this concert for a long time, but I could only find the sets from the main stars. I put songs from the David Gilmour and Chrissie Hynde sets on albums I've posted elsewhere on this blog. However, I recently found virtually the entire concert, with excellent sound quality. So that inspired me to post this, and sooner rather than later.

The first three acts were popular in Britain around the of this concert, though their popularity didn't last. Working Week was a British jazz-dance band that had a hit with the song "Venceremos (We Will Win)" in 1984, plus some other minor hits in 1985 and 1986. 

Jaki Graham, a British soul and dance singer, had three Top Ten hits in Britain in 1985 and 1986, with "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love," "Round and Round," and "Set Me Free." But curiously, it seems she was only given time to perform one song, and she chose a song that wasn't one of her hits. 

The Communards were a British synth-pop duo. They had two really big hits and some smaller hits in Britain, though they had no success in the U.S. In 1986, their version of "Don't Leave Me This Way" reached Number One in the British singles chart, and was the biggest hit of the year in that country. However, that single wouldn't be released until about six months after this concert, which explains why they didn't play it here. They also had another big hit with "Never Can Say Goodbye" in 1987. At the time of this concert, they'd only had one minor hit, "You Are My World," but they didn't play it here.

Here are their Wikipedia entries: 

Working Week (band) - Wikipedia 

Jaki Graham - Wikipedia 

The Communards - Wikipedia 

I don't feel the need to explain the other musical acts in this concert, since they're well known and I've posted albums by each of them at this blog already. However, the timing of how this concert fit into their careers is worth mentioning. David Gilmour started a full-time solo career in 1984 after Pink Floyd broke up in 1983. But he hadn't done much as a solo artist after putting out a solo album in 1984, so his appearance here was notable. He would lead a new version of Pink Floyd starting in 1987.

Similarly, Pete Townshend started a full-time solo career after the Who broke up in 1982. At the time of this concert, he'd only released one solo album, in 1985. But in this concert, he only performed three Who songs, plus "Save It for Later," a cover of an English Beat song. 

Annie Lennox was a member of Eurythmics at this time. However, at the time, she was taking a short break due to some trouble with her voice. That's probably why she only sang one song on her own (while also singing a duet at the end). It was very unusual for her to appear as a solo artist. Her solo career wouldn't really begin until her first solo album in 1992.

Similarly, Chrissie Hynde was a member of the Pretenders at this time. By 1986, the Pretenders had basically become Hynde plus whomever she wanted to work with. But I guess she was billed under her own name because she performed with some different musicians than her usual band at the time. Plus, it seems that freed her to play some more interesting songs. She only did two Pretenders songs, the first two in her set. Then she did covers by the Beatles ("In My Life"), the Righteous Brothers, ("Little Latin Lupe Lu"), Bob Dylan ("Property of Jesus"), and KC and the Sunshine Band ("Give It Up"). That probably was her most eclectic set list ever, and the fact the last song was a duet with Annie Lennox was even more interesting.   

By the way, I saw that both actors Peter Richardson and Harry Enfield spoke during the concert. So I figure one of them has to be the emcee talking between songs. It sounds like the same person talking each time, but I'm not familiar with their voices, so I don't know which one it would be. If anyone can tell, please let me know so I can fix the song title info.   

This album is exactly two hours long. 

01 talk (emcee)
02 Inner City Blues [Make Me Wanna Holler] (Working Week)
03 Sweet Nothing (Working Week)
04 South Africa (Working Week)
05 Shot in the Dark (Working Week)
06 talk (emcee)
07 Heaven Knows (Jaki Graham)
08 talk (emcee)
09 Sentimental Journey (Communards)
10 Forbidden Love (Communards)
11 Don't Slip Away (Communards)
12 talk (emcee)
13 talk (Mike Oldfield & Maggie Reilly)
14 Moonlight Shadow (Mike Oldfield & Maggie Reilly)
15 talk (emcee)
16 You Know I'm Right (David Gilmour)
17 Run like Hell (David Gilmour)
18 Out of the Blue (David Gilmour)
19 Comfortably Numb (David Gilmour)
20 talk (emcee)
21 I'm One (Pete Townshend)
22 talk (Pete Townshend)
23 Save It for Later (Pete Townshend)
24 Pinball Wizard (Pete Townshend)
25 Magic Bus (Pete Townshend)
26 talk (emcee)
27 Blame It on the Sun (Annie Lennox)
28 talk (emcee)
29 Time, the Avenger (Chrissie Hynde)
30 Back on the Chain Gang (Chrissie Hynde)
31 talk (Chrissie Hynde)
32 In My Life (Chrissie Hynde)
33 Little Latin Lupe Lu (Chrissie Hynde)
34 Property of Jesus (Chrissie Hynde)
35 Give It Up (Chrissie Hynde & Annie Lennox)
36 talk (emcee)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/t9XbbPYK 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/DEK86KzNjctEOg0/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from a video. It shows Chrissie Hynde and Annie Lennox together, on the last song in the concert. The video was very low-res and blurry, so the image has issues. But I was happy to at least come up with this, since I couldn't find any images of the two of them together. 

The Beach Boys and Friends - 25 Years Together, Waikiki Shell, Honolulu, HI, 12-12-1986

Here's a really interesting Beach Boys concert, featuring lots of special guest stars. It was a TV special filmed in Waikiki Beach in Hawaii to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the formation of the band, back in 1961. The Beach Boys stayed on stage the entire time. Often they performed their own songs, but sometimes they were the backing band for: Ray Charles, Gloria Loring, Glen Campbell, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, the Everly Brothers, Jeffrey Osborne, Belinda Carlisle, and Three Dog Night. That's a pretty impressive list.

I happened to stumble across a video of this concert on YouTube. I converted that to an audio file and cut it into mp3s. While doing so, I deliberately cut out some things. For instance, there were some long talking segments by actor Patrick Duffy in which he talked extensively about the history of the Beach Boys. It wasn't terrible, but it didn't have relistening value, so I axed it. I also cut out a few other little things, like some really bad jokes or cheesy comments made by the Beach Boys between songs. 

I gotta say, I put a lot of effort into making this a better listen. One big problem was there was a constant noise coming from the crowd all the time, through every song. Probably, microphones were stuck in the crowd to capture that audience noise in order to supposedly increase the excitement level. Or some of it could have been added in later. That has happened even to officially released live albums occasionally. Regardless, I used the MVSEP to get rid of most of the crowd noise, except for the bits you'd expect at the starts and ends of the songs. The sonic difference was dramatic, like suddenly being able to hear after taking ear muffs off. 

The last two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles due to extra editing on them. For "The Spirit of Rock and Roll," an announcer came on near the end of the song and talked over it. Luckily, that didn't last too long, and I was able to patch it by bringing in a section from elsewhere in the song. "Good Vibrations" was much more difficult. For some stupid reason, the song was repeatedly interrupted by brief comments made by random people, saying things like "Happy anniversary to the Beach Boys!" These comments clearly were filmed on the beach at a different time and spliced into the footage. This happened about ten times, through random points in the song. Worse, the volume of the song itself was briefly turned way down, ruining the rhythm. I found a different live version of the song from the 1980s and patched in bits of that, or patched in sections from elsewhere in the same version. It was a real pain in the ass to fix, but all those dumb comments are gone now.

I think this is a really interesting concert, a lot better than what I'd expected from the Beach Boys at this point in their career. The main negative is that the band tried to cram in too many songs for the limited time they had for their TV special. So many of the songs are short versions, sometimes in medleys. There's even a couple that are a minute or less. But there are a lot of plus sides. One nice thing is that Brian Wilson usually didn't tour with the band, but he was here and involved. In fact, he looked as healthy and fit as he ever did, after some rough years in the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

And while the Beach Boys mostly played their expected classics, there was a couple of really nice surprises. One was a version of "Heaven" near the end of the concert. This was released on a Carl Wilson solo album and never officially done by the Beach Boys. The other one that is even more interesting is the closing song, "The Spirit of Rock and Roll." At the time, Brian Wilson was working on his first solo album. But there were many false starts before the album, simply called "Brian Wilson," was released in 1988. At one point, there was nearly enough material for an album to be released, only for it to be scrapped and most of the songs discarded. Some of this later became a popular bootleg called "Sweet Insanity." "The Spirit of Rock and Roll" was one of those discarded songs. So it's interesting that it was not only chosen for inclusion in this special, but it was the finale. This appears to be the ONLY time the song was ever performed by the Beach Boys, as opposed to Brian Wilson solo.

But maybe the most interesting thing of all were the special guests, the vast majority of whom have stood the test of time. Gloria Loring is better known as an actress than a singer, but she had a good voice and had a big hit in 1986 with "Friends and Lovers," which she sang here. Other than that though, the guests mostly sang Beach Boys songs, while being backed by the actual Beach Boys on backing vocals and instruments. For instance, not only did the back up Ray Charles singing and playing keyboards on "Sail On, Sailor," but Charles was the one playing the prominent keyboard part in the "Good Vibrations" finale. I particularly liked hearing Belinda Carlisle singing a Beach Boys song as well as a soul classic.

Everything here is unreleased, I believe. The sound quality is very good, though not great. 

This album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 talk (Beach Boys)
02 Help Me, Rhonda (Beach Boys)
03 Fun, Fun, Fun (Beach Boys)
04 California Girls (Beach Boys)
05 California Dreamin' (Beach Boys)
06 talk (Beach Boys)
07 Sail On, Sailor (Beach Boys & Ray Charles)
08 Sloop John B (Beach Boys)
09 Do It Again (Beach Boys)
10 talk (Beach Boys)
11 Friends and Lovers (Beach Boys & Gloria Loring)
12 I Can Hear Music (Beach Boys & Gloria Loring)
13 talk (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
14 In Cars (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
15 talk (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
16 Little Deuce Coupe (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
17 The Little Old Lady from Pasadena (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
18 I Get Around (Beach Boys & Glen Campbell)
19 Barbara Ann (Beach Boys)
20 talk (Beach Boys & the Fabulous Thunderbirds)
21 Rock and Roll Music (Beach Boys & the Fabulous Thunderbirds)
22 Be True to Your School (Beach Boys)
23 Don't Worry Baby - Getcha Back (Beach Boys & the Everly Brothers)
24 Wake Up Little Susie (Beach Boys & the Everly Brothers)
25 Surfer Girl (Beach Boys)
26 Come Go with Me (Beach Boys)
27 talk (Beach Boys)
28 Disney Girls [1957] (Beach Boys)
29 God Only Knows (Beach Boys & Jeffrey Osborne)
30 talk (Beach Boys with Paul Shaffer)
31 Surfer Girl [Reprise] (Beach Boys with Paul Shaffer)
32 Surf City (Beach Boys with Paul Shaffer)
33 Surfin' U.S.A. (Beach Boys with Paul Shaffer)
34 Wouldn't It Be Nice (Beach Boys & Belinda Carlisle)
35 Band of Gold (Beach Boys & Belinda Carlisle)
36 talk (Beach Boys & Three Dog Night)
37 Darlin' (Beach Boys & Three Dog Night)
38 talk (Beach Boys)
39 Heaven (Beach Boys)
40 Good Vibrations [Edit] (Beach Boys & Everyone)
41 talk (Beach Boys)
42 The Spirit of Rock and Roll [Edit] (Beach Boys & Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/eYAr29uv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/lny0w2Q0FB2gE8x/file

I had a hard time finding a good cover photo by taking a screenshot from a video. If I used a long distance shot showing many people, it was too low-res and blurry. I chose this one from the "Good Vibrations" finale. From right to left, that's Gloria Loring, unknown, Al Jardine, and Belinda Carlile. I used Krea AI to boost the image quality.

Various Artists - Covered: Henry Mancini: 1959-1998

I have so much material for "Covered" series albums that I'm going to try to make another concerted effort to post a lot more of them. So here's another, focusing on the songwriting of Henry Mancini.

Mancini is a bit of a left field choice for the Covered series, since he mostly composed instrumental music for movies, and is far removed from rock and roll. But he was responsible for so many classic songs that I feel I can't leave him out. The intro to his Wikipedia article sums him up well, stating that Mancini "was an American composer, conductor, arranger, pianist and flutist. Often cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film, he won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards, plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995."

Mancini was born in 1924 and grew up in rural Pennsylvania. After graduating from high school, he studied at the prestigious Julliard School of Music in New York City for two years. But then he was drafted in the U.S. Army and fought in World War II from 1943 to 1945. After the war, he became a pianist and arranger for the Glenn Miller Orchestra (which continued despite the fact Miller died in World War II). In 1952, he got a job writing music for movies for Universal Pictures, a major movie studio in Hollywood. 

However, he didn't really become famous until after he left that company in 1958 to become an independent composer and arranger. One of his first jobs was writing the theme for a new TV show called "Peter Gunn." His song, the "Peter Gunn Theme," was a big hit for Duane Eddy, and has since become an often covered classic. It won an Emmy award and two Grammys, and put Mancini in high demand writing for more TV and movie projects.

Mancini typically only wrote music, usually instrumentals. But sometimes he would work with another songwriter who would write the lyrics. His next major hit, "Moon River," was such a case, with the lyrics written by famed songwriter Johnny Mercer. The version sung by actress Audrey Hepburn in the movie of the same name in 1961 went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song, as well as Grammys for Song of the Year and Record of the Year.

After that, Mancini kept steadily releasing music for decades, including scores for dozens of movies. He recorded over 90 albums on his own, from big band to jazz to light classical. He became, and remains, one of the biggest names in the "easy listening" genre. 

For this album, I tried to boil the selections down to just his very best known songs, so that even people who aren't typically into can easy listening style can enjoy this. For instance, I find it hard to believe there's anyone out there who doesn't enjoy hearing the highly creative "Pink Panther Theme." Like that song, the vast majority of songs here are instrumentals. "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet" wasn't actually written by him, but his arrangement changed the song so drastically that I've included it here anyway.

Most of Mancini's best known songs date from the 1960s. After that decade, he switched more to arranging songs written by other people, though he did sometimes write his own material. Some of the songs near the end of this album are covers of songs from much earlier in his career. I generally tried to avoid Mancini's own versions, as I usually do with these Covered albums. But I have two songs by him here since I couldn't find good versions of those ones otherwise.

He was still composing and arranging, though less prolifically, when he died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 70 years old. His music made such a cultural impact that in 2004 he was the subject of a U.S. postage stamp. 

This album is 42 minutes long.

01 Peter Gunn Theme (Ray Anthony & His Orchestra)
02 Moon River (Audrey Hepburn)
03 Baby Elephant Walk (Lawrence Welk & His Orchestra)
04 Theme from Hatari (Henry Mancini & His Orchestra)
05 A Shot in the Dark (Shirley Scott)
06 The Shadows of Paris (Elsie Bianchi)
07 Pink Panther Theme (Those Fantabulous Strings)
08 Slow Hot Wind (Sergio Mendes & Brasil 66)
09 Two for the Road (Peggy Lee)
10 Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet [A Time for Us] (Johnny Mathis)
11 Send a Little Love My Way (Anne Murray)
12 Newhart (Henry Mancini)
13 Days of Wine and Roses (Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Pass)
14 Dreamsville (Dave Grusin with Diana Krall)
15 Charade (Monica Mancini)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/NNf2DX2w

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/SpfGKosgrSb8HlG/file

The cover photo dates from 1985. I don't know any other details.

Various Artists - Covered: Will Jennings, Volume 1: 1975-1987

Here's more music for my "Covered" series highlighting excellent songwriters. I'm trying to get to the older stuff before moving to newer stuff, so this one was not the one I planned to post next. But I recently stumbled across the fact that Will Jennings died in September 2024, and it's now June 2025, so this is a belated post to mark his passing. I found enough music for two volumes; this is the first one.

Will Jennings was born and raised in Texas. After getting bachelor's and master's degrees, starting in the late 1960s, he worked for a few years as a professor of English. Then in 1971, he got the songwriting bug. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee and tried to become a professional songwriter. It took a few years before he had much success, but by the end of the 1970s, he was in high demand. His songwriting strength was his lyric writing, though he could write music as well. No doubt, his experience as an English professor helped with that.

Jennings almost always co-wrote songs. He developed good relationships with some musicians, leading to many years of collaborations. A key example is Steve Winwood. While Winwood found success with the band Traffic in the late 1960s and 1970s, he co-wrote the vast majority of his songs then with band member Jim Capaldi, with Winwood generally writing the music and Capaldi the lyrics. So when Winwood started his solo career in the late 1970s, he needed a new songwriting partner. He didn't write that many songs with Jennings, but a big percentage of them turned out to be hits. There are more of them in Volume 2. He also collaborated a lot with B.B. King and Rodney Crowell, amongst others. 

Here's his Wikipedia entry:

Will Jennings - Wikipedia 

I'm pretty sure all of the songs here are the original versions, with the vast majority of them being hits. In this time period, he co-wrote five songs which were Number One hits in the U.S.: "Looks like We Made It," "Up Where We Belong," "Higher Love," "Back in the High Life Again," and "Didn't We Almost Have It All."

This album is an hour and one minute long. 

01 Somewhere in the Night (Helen Reddy)
02 Feelins' (Conway Twitty & Loretta Lynn)
03 Looks like We Made It (Barry Manilow)
04 Street Life (Crusaders with Randy Crawford)
05 I'll Never Love This Way Again (Dionne Warwick)
06 Better Not Look Down (B.B. King)
07 While You See a Chance (Steve Winwood)
08 One Day I'll Fly Away (Randy Crawford)
09 Valerie (Steve Winwood)
10 Never Make a Move Too Soon (Crusaders & B.B. King)
11 Up Where We Belong (Joe Cocker & Jennifer Warnes)
12 Higher Love (Steve Winwood)
13 Finer Things (Steve Winwood)
14 Didn't We Almost Have It All (Whitney Houston)
15 Back in the High Life Again (Steve Winwood) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/We9LSUon

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/QSut7WVUw9DxUjM/file

I don't know when the cover photo is from exactly, but he looks younger than the one I chose for the second volume. In the full photo, he's holding an Academy Award in his hands. He won two Academy Awards in his career, one for "Up Where We Belong" in 1982 and the other for "My Heart Will Go On" in 1997, so this is very likely to be from 1982.

Elvis Costello - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: This Is Tomorrow, Royalty Theatre, London, Britain, 11-23-1986

I'm continuing to try to emphasize posting albums resulting from the BBC poll done a few months ago. So here's another one from one of the top vote getters, Elvis Costello. This is a full BBC concert from 1986.

In September 1986, Costello released the album "Blood and Chocolate," which was his ninth backed by the Attractions, and the last one backed by them for quite a long time. So naturally there are a lot of songs from that album. I believe there were nine.

Only three songs were cover versions: "I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down," "Leave My Kitten Alone," and "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding."  

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is pretty good, though not great. 

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long.

01 Accidents Will Happen (Elvis Costello)
02 The Beat (Elvis Costello)
03 Tokyo Storm Warning (Elvis Costello)
04 Watching the Detectives (Elvis Costello)
05 talk (Elvis Costello)
06 Battered Old Bird (Elvis Costello)
07 Honey, Are You Straight or Are You Blind (Elvis Costello)
08 Temptation (Elvis Costello)
09 New Lace Sleeves (Elvis Costello)
10 talk (Elvis Costello)
11 Blue Chair (Elvis Costello)
12 Jack of All Parades (Elvis Costello)
13 Uncomplicated (Elvis Costello)
14 Lipstick Vogue (Elvis Costello)
15 Beyond Belief (Elvis Costello)
16 Clubland (Elvis Costello)
17 I Want You (Elvis Costello)
18 I Hope You're Happy Now (Elvis Costello)
19 Home Is Anywhere You Hang Your Head (Elvis Costello)
20 Lovable (Elvis Costello)
21 Leave My Kitten Alone (Elvis Costello)
22 Oliver's Army (Elvis Costello)
23 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello)
24 I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down (Elvis Costello)
25 Pump It Up (Elvis Costello)
26 Poor Napoleon (Elvis Costello)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PPRBjSjJ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/OfkSvKjjN8YlG9F/file 

The cover photo was taken in London on August 1, 1986.

Richard Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: In Concert, Hammersmith Palais, London, Britain, 11-20-1986

Here's another volume of Richard Thompson performing for the BBC. This time, it's a concert from 1986.

"Volume 3" in this series is a concert from 1985. This concert is pretty similar, except it's shorter. Most likely, it was edited down to fit an hour-long radio slot. That includes getting rid of pretty much any banter between songs. Between the 1985 show and this one, however, Thompson released another studio album, "Daring Adventures." So there are three songs performed from that album here: "Valerie," "Jennie," and "A Bone through Her Nose." Too bad "Al Bowlly's in Heaven" from that album also wasn't included, since I think it's one of his greatest songs. (But a version of that song was included in "Volume 1.")

Six of the songs here made it onto the official box set "Live at the BBC." Those are tracks 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, and 10. The rest are unreleased, from the BBC broadcast. The lead vocals were rather low on some songs, especially the unreleased ones, so I adjusted that using the UVR5 audio editing program.

During this tour, like the 1985, the folk duo of Clive Gregson and Christine Collister were a part of Thompson's band, helping with backing vocals and Gregson guitar. So that's why one song, "Like a Man," has the lead vocals by Gregson. 

This album is 56 minutes long.

UPDATE: On November 8, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same. But I found an earlier volume in this series that I'd missed, so the volume number changed. That meant the title, cover art, and mp3 tags changed too. 

01 The Angels Took My Racehorse Away (Richard Thompson)
02 Valerie (Richard Thompson)
03 Jennie (Richard Thompson)
04 A Bone through Her Nose (Richard Thompson)
05 When the Spell Is Broken (Richard Thompson)
06 Like a Man (Richard Thompson with Clive Gregson)
07 You Don't Say (Richard Thompson)
08 Fire in the Engine Room (Richard Thompson)
09 Wall of Death (Richard Thompson)
10 Nearly in Love (Richard Thompson)
11 Tear-Stained Letter (Richard Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ELKALRpF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/rcpMUTVQXYBMfo8/file

The cover photo was taken in Los Angeles, California, on March 18, 1985.

Various Artists - Covered: Bob Crewe & Bob Gaudio, Volume 2: 1974-2024

Here's the second of two "Covered" volumes highlighting the songwriting of Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio.

In Volume 1, the vast majority of the songs were written by Crewe and Gaudio together. In this volume, all or nearly all of the new songs (meaning new at the time) were written by either Crewe with others or Gaudio with others. However, as far as I can tell, it doesn't seem that they had a falling out, or even stopped writing songs together. For instance, as late as 1983 they co-wrote a couple of minor hit songs for the duo of Roberta Flack and Peabo Bryson. It's just that it seemed both of them had better success with other songwriters when it came to big hits in this era.

As I mentioned in my write-up for Volume 1, by the start of 1974, it seemed as if the songwriting success of both Crewe and Gaudio had petered out. Also around 1971, Gaudio phased himself out of being a member of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, apparently due to stage fright and introversion. However, he retained a key financial stake, and continued to write songs for the group. So their musical futures were looking bleak. But both of them had a series of stunning songwriting successes, especially in 1974 and 1975.

For instance, I consider the first song here, "Lady Marmalade" by Labelle, one of the greatest dance songs of all time. It was a Number One hit in the U.S. in 1974, and then a cover of it was an even bigger Number One hit by Christina Aguiliera, Pink, and others in 2001. It was co-written by Bob Crewe and Kenny Nolan, another professional songwriter Crewe started working with around this time. Crewe also wrote "My Eyes Adored You" and "Get Dancin'" with Nolan, as well as "Swearin' to God" with another songwriter.

Crewe's "My Eyes Adored You" totally turned out the fortunes of Franki Valli and the Four Seasons, as it was a Number One hit in the U.S. in early 1975. (As with Volume 1, I've tried to avoid having lots of songs by that act, so I chose a duet version by Isaac Hayes and Dionne Warwick instead.) But then Gaudio also rose to the occasion in 1975, writing "Who Loves You" and "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" with Judy Parker, who would later become his wife. "December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)" in particular was a massive hit, not only reaching Number One in both the U.S. and Britain, but was the fourth best selling song of the year. (Again not wanting to include too many Franki Valli and the Four Seasons performances, I chose an interesting mostly acappella version from 2024.)

Unfortunately, the revived successes of Crewe and Gaudio didn't last that long. Gaudio co-wrote "Silver Star," which was a big hit in 1976. But after that, the new hits for both of them became smaller and fewer, and petered out altogether in the early 1980s. However, they still had more big successes with earlier songs that eventually became hits with cover versions. For instance, "Bye Bye Baby," a minor Franki Valli and the Four Seasons hit in the 1960s, was a Number One hit in Britain for the Bay City Rollers in 1975. 

Some songs kept coming around again and again. For instance, "Let's Hang On," a Four Seasons hit in 1965, was a big hit by the Darts in Britain in 1980, then again by Barry Manilow in 1981. And "Can't Take My Eyes Off You," a hit first for Franki Valli in 1967, has been hits by other musical acts so many times that it's hard to keep track, including making Number Four in Britain in 1982 by the Boys Town Gang.

Crewe, who was 13 years older than Gaudio, died in 2014 at the age of 84. Gaudio is still alive at the age of 82 years old as I write this in 2025.

As I said in Volume 1, I think these two are very underrated songwriters. I could have included many more hits, enough for another volume or two, but I wanted to give this a stronger appeal by including only their biggest hits. It seems some of their songs are going to be hits forever, periodically revived with new cover versions. For instance, "Beggin'," a minor hit when first released by Franki Valli and the Four Seasons in 1967, is another one that keeps getting covered to big success, with Madcon having a Number Five hit in Britain with it in 2008, and then Maneskin having a Number Six hit with it there in 2020.

This album is 54 minutes long.

01 Lady Marmalade (Labelle)
02 Get Dancin' (Disco Tex & the Sex-O-Lettes)
03 Swearin' to God (Frankie Valli)
04 Sherry (Adrian Baker)
05 Bye Bye Baby [Baby Goodbye] (Bay City Rollers)
06 My Eyes Adored You (Isaac Hayes & Dionne Warwick)
07 Silver Star (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
08 Rag Doll (Steeleye Span)
09 Buzz Buzz a Diddle It (Matchbox)
10 The Night (Lene Lovich)
11 Let's Hang On (Barry Manilow)
12 Walk like a Man (Mary Jane Girls)
13 Barbarella (Wondermints)
14 Who Loves You (Murray Head)
15 December, 1963 [Oh, What a Night] (Jared Halle)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/K6j445NE

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BqIH4ClnLwCwNW6/file

As with Volume 1, I couldn't find good photos of the two of them together. So I found individual photos and put them on the cover. The Bob Crewe one (with red hair) is from 1976. I don't know the date of the Bob Gaudio one, but I'd guess it's from the 1970s. Both were in black and white, but I colorized them using the Kolorize program. Then I improved the quality with the Krea AI program.