Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

In 1975, Waylon Jennings asked in his song: “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?”. His point was to criticise the rhinestone commercialism of country music, but it’s a question that may be applied to this Hank Williams Songbook. Well, Waylon, the answer is that, musically, most of these songs very much are not the way Hank done them. But, I venture, Hank would probably have approved of most of these versions of his songs anyway.

On September 17, we mark the 100^th anniversary of Hank Williams’ birth. Born Hiram King Williams in Mount Olive, Alabama, Hank was a pivotal figure in the development of country music, and therefore also of rock & roll (even if rock & roll covers of Hank’s songs are pretty scarce). “The Hillbilly Shakespeare”, as he came to be dubbed for his lyrical faculties, was a big star in the late 1940s and early 1950s during which he created an astonishing number of great songs.

But the stardom came with personal challenges and health issues, including dependence on alcohol and pain killers, the latter due to chronic back pain caused by spina bifida occulta, a birth defect of the spinal column. When he died at the age of 29, he looked 20 years older.

Williams was scheduled to perform in Charleston, West Virginia, on New Year’s Eve 1952, having cancelled a number of shows before that due to his poor health. While he was being driven there in his blue Cadillac by his friend Charles Carr, Hank’s condition suddenly deteriorated. He never made it there, and the two went on to Canton Ohio, for a gig on January 1, 1953. Somewhere on the way to Canton, Hank died in the back seat of his Cadillac. Carr found him dead when he stopped at a filling station in Oak Hill, West Virginia. As Hank once sang, “I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive”.

The official cause of death was listed as heart failure. The coroner’s report also mentioned the presence of alcohol and morphine in Williams’ system. Hank left behind his recently divorced wife. country singer Audrey Sheppard whom Hank had married in 1944, and their three-year-old son, future country star Hank Williams Jr.

Hank left a rich legacy of songs, including 55 Top 10 hits in the Billboard Country & Western Charts. Some of them have become standards which have been covered dozens or even more than 100 times. Some went on to become even bigger hits as pop songs, such as 1951’s Cold, Cold Heart for Tony Bennett in 1953. It later became a signature tune for Dinah Washington, whose version features here. Bennett is represented her with another hit Hank cover, There’ll Be No Teardrops Tonight.

Other Hank standards include Hey Good Lookin’, Your Cheatin’ Heart, I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, Kaw-Liga, Move It On Over (later ripped off for Rock Around The Clock), You Win Again, and Jambalaya.

Three of these feature twice in this mix: Al Green’s and Barbara Lynn’s versions of I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry, Fats Domino’s and James Brown’s interpretations of Your Cheatin’ Heart, and Johnny Cash’s 1958 version of You Win Again is echoed in 1978 by The Rolling Stones (who themselves were the subject of a Songbook in June). You Win Again also featured in The Beatles’ film Let It Be, sung by John Lennon.

Hank Williams and wife Audrey Sheppard with Hank’s band The Drifting Cowboys.

The two Hanks, Senior and Junior, open the mix in a pairing that anticipates Nat and Natalie Cole’s Unforgettable duet by 25 years (Nat, by the way, covered Hank at least twice). In 1965 the technology wasn’t quite so advanced as it would be in 1990, so the recording of Move It On Over basically is an overdub of Hank Jr mixed with the original recording from 1947.

The line-up of artists in this collection shows just how adaptable Hank’s songs were: from various types of country to the jazz crooning of Tony Bennett to the rock & roll of Little Richard to the soul of Isaac Hayes to the new wave of Elvis Costello to the folk-rock of Patty Griffin to the indie of Camper Van Beethoven to the jazz of Madeleine Peyroux. Even the Red Hot Chilli Peppers recorded Hank on their 1984 debut, though I won’t feature their version of Why Don’t You Love Me, because it isn’t very good (here we have Elvis Costello’s version).

I can imagine that some people might be put off from investigating Hank Williams’ music because they don’t like his voice, or the songs’ arrangements, or because they are just suspicious of country music, or don’t know where to start. I hope this mix will serve as a decent introduction to the songs of one of the greatest songwriters in popular music.

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, includes home-movedonovered covers, and the above text in an illustrated PDF.

1. Hank Williams Sr. & Hank Williams Jr. – Move It On Over (1965)
2. Johnny Cash – You Win Again (1958)
3. Hawkshaw Hawkins – Kaw Liga (1953)
4. Roberta Lee with The Blue Diamond Melody Boys – We’re Really In Love (1952)
5. Joni James – I’m Sorry For You My Friend (1959)
6. Tony Bennett – There’ll Be No Teardrops Tonight (1953)
7. Dinah Washington – Cold, Cold Heart (1962)
8. Ray Charles – Hey, Good Lookin’ (1962)
9. Fats Domino – Your Cheatin’ Heart (1964)
10. Little Richard – Settin’ The Woods On Fire (1971)
11. Professor Longhair – Jambalaya (1974)
12. Townes Van Zandt – Honky Tonkin’ (1972)
13. Waylon Jennings – Let’s Turn Back The Years (1975)
14. Elvis Presley – Men With Broken Hearts (live) (1970)
15. Al Green – I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (1973)
16. Isaac Hayes – I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still In Love In Love With You) (1973)
17. Madeleine Peyroux – Take These Chains From My Heart (2012)
18. Cat Power – Ramblin’ (Wo)man (2008)
19. Patty Griffin – House Of Gold (2010)
20. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – My Heart Would Know (2021)
21. Billy Bragg & Joe Henry – Lonesome Whistle (2016)
22. Bap Kennedy – Angel Of Death (1999)
23. Emmylou Harris & Mark Knopfler – Alone & Forsaken (2001)
24. Patty Loveless – I Can’t Get You Off Of My Mind (1988)
25. Elvis Costello & The Attractions – Why Don’t You Love Me Like You Used To Do (1981)
26. John Prine – Dear John (I Sent Your Saddle Home) (1999)
27. Tompall And The Glaser Brothers – A Mansion On The Hill (1981)
BONUS TRACKS
28. Nitty Gritty Dirt Band – I Saw The Light (1972)
29. Asleep At The Wheel – I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive (1973)
30. James Brown – Your Cheatin’ Heart (1969)
31. Barbara Lynn – I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (1969)
32. George Jones – I’m A Long Gone Daddy (1987)
33. Huey Lewis & The News – Honky Tonk Blues (1983)
34. Camper Van Beethoven – Six More Miles To The Graveyard (1993)
35. The The – I Can’t Escape From You (1995)
36. The Rolling Stones – You Win Again (1978)

GET IT! or HERE!

Previous Songbooks:
ABBA
Ashford & Simpson
Barry Gibb Vol. 1
Barry Gibb Vol. 2
Bill Withers
Bob Dylan Volumes 1-5
Brian Wilson
Bruce Springsteen
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 1
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 2
Burt Bacharach’s Lesser-Known Songbook
Carole Bayer Sager
Carole King Vol. 1
Carole King Vol. 2
Chuck Berry
Cole Porter Vol. 1
Cole Porter Vol. 2
Elton John & Bernie Taupin
George Harrison
Gordon Lightfoot
Holland-Dozier-Holland
John Prine
Jimmy Webb Vol. 1
Jimmy Webb Vol. 2
Jimmy Webb Vol. 3
Lamont Dozier
Laura Nyro
Leonard Cohen
Neil Diamond
Paul McCartney Vol. 1
Paul McCartney Vol. 2
Prince
Rod Temperton
Rolling Stones Vol. 1
Sly Stone
Steely Dan

More Songbooks
More Covers Mixes
More CD-R Mixes

Tomorrow, on July 26, Mick Jagger will turn 80, which is a good time to run the first of two Rolling Stones Songbooks.

The first of these Songbooks covers the years up to 1968, which roughly coincides with the Brian Jones years. Jones was hugely responsible for the sound of the Stones, but he didn’t write much material — the great hits were all written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. The latter’s 80^th birthday later this year will be an occasion for Volume 2 of the Rolling Stones Songbook. A third volume might follow that.

The Stones started out as a covers band until manager Andrew Loog Oldham encouraged Jagger and Richards to write their own songs — to maximise profits — with further encouragement from Paul McCartney. Clearly, the pair had a great talent for the songwriting gig.

Some of the early material was derivative; The Last Time, the Stones’ first self-written A-side, is effectively a cover version of a Staples Singers gospel song from 1954, This May Be The Last Time. Richards acknowledged the pair’s songlifting but also justified it by saying that the tune was a traditional gospel tune, and thus preceded the Staples Singers’ version. Maybe so, but Pops Staples ought to have received a credit — without it, The Last Time stands as an example of white musicians ripping off black music without letting their original creators share in the credits. I don’t include The Last Time in this Songbook.

I would also have excluded the nasty Under My Thumb, which in the voice of a man is misogynistic and cruel. Happily, Tina Turner turned the tables and has her man under her thumb. It is still a nasty song, but in Tina’s voice it becomes one of defiant liberation, knowing how Ike treated her as modelled by Jagger’s lyrics. And, my word, Stray Cat Blues is one hell of a dodgy jailbait number — Mick, Keef, it might not be a hanging matter, but it is a crime.

But the problems with some of the lyrics (which will re-occur in Volume 2) should not detract from the genius of Jagger/Richards (or Richard, as Keith styled himself until 1978). The fact that the London Symphonic Orchestra managed to create an album of Stones songs and made it sound better than the novelty idea it was, testifies to that genius.

The weirdest cover here is that of Paint It Black, sung by Czech singer Karel Gott in German. Karel (pictured right) was a crooner who’d obsequiously grin at the aunts in the TV audience, velvet bow-tie and side-parted hair in perfect place. So on Paint It Black, our man rocks out in ways that suggest the accidental consumption of substances which Mick and Keef were themselves familiar with. It’s glorious.

In compiling this set, I have found that it isn’t easy to cover a Stones song well, but if it comes off, it’s great. I suppose that to my (our?) ears, these songs are so tied to the Stones sound, and especially to Mick’s vocals, that it requires something quite special or different to suspend the association with the original. Most of the songs here accomplish that, but why is that circumstance so evident with the Stones and not with The Beatles? Answers on a postcard.

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, includes home-satisfied covers, and the above text in an illustrated PDF.

1. London Symphonic Orchestra – She’s A Rainbow (1994)
2. Otis Redding – Satisfaction (1965)
3. Tina Turner – Under My Thumb (1975)
4. The Flamin’ Groovies– 19th Nervous Breakdown (1979)
5. Arthur Brown – Out Of Time (1974)
6. Alexis Korner – Get Off My Cloud (1975)
7. Johnny Winter – Stray Cat Blues (1974)
8. Jon English – Play With Fire (1976)
9. Melanie – Ruby Tuesday (1970)
10. The Love Affair – She Smiled Sweetly (1967)
11. Nancy Sinatra – As Tears Go By (1966)
12. Bobby Darin – Back Street Girl (1967)
13. The Rotary Connection – Lady Jane (1967)
14. Mary Coughlan – Mother’s Little Helper (1990)
15. Lindsey Buckingham – I Am Waiting (2006)
16. Miranda Lee Richards – Dandelion (2001)
17. The March Violets – Miss Amanda Jones (1987)
18. Smith – Let’s Spend The Night Together (1969)
19. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott – Connection (1968)
20. Chris Farlowe – I’m Free (1966)
21. Karel Gott – Rot und schwarz (Paint It, Black, 1969)
22. Joe Pass – What A Shame (1967)

On June 7, Prince would have reached the retirement age of 65. Which is as good a reason as any to issue the first of two Prince Songbooks. It is remarkable that the three most iconic (a rare occasion when this word finds correct application) pop stars of the 1980s were born within a few months of one another in 1958: Prince in June, Michael Jackson and Madonna in August (29^th and 16^th respectively).

The mix kicks off with Sheila E.’s wonderful Love Bizarre, which features Prince on vocals and various instruments. It was co-written with Sheila E. Likewise, Martika’s 1991 hit Love…Thy Will Be Done was produced by Prince, and co-written with the singer. Prince wrote Sheena Easton’s Sugar Walls under the pseudonym Alexander Nevermind, and did backing vocals on it, played several instruments, and co-produced.

When you contemplate the obvious candidates for doing Prince songs, the name Kenny Rogers will not come to mind immediately. Yet there he was in 1986, recording a Prince song titled You’re My Love that hitherto had been unreleased (of which there were, and apparently still are, many). It is not true, as the popular story goes, that Prince wrote the song for Rogers specifically.

Prince had demoed You’re My Love — a title you’d expect rather from Ken’s other soul friend, Lionel Richie — in 1982. When Prince fan Rogers called the man to ask for a song, the Purple One dug into his vaults and gave him this power ballad, demo and all. It was an astute choice; the song suited Rogers well. Hear Prince’s version. The songwriting credit was Joey Coco, one of the many pseudonyms Prince used.

The cover of Raspberry Beret is credited here to Warren Zevon. I must confess, it is a bit of a honey trap. To be sure, Zevon sings the song, and it has appeared on at least two best-of-type compilations. But it was first released in 1990 by the supergroup Hindu Love Gods, which included members of REM and Zevon.

In 1984, Chaka Khan had a mega-hit with I Feel For You, a song that appeared on Prince’s eponymous sophomore album in 1979. But two years before Khan turned a decent song into a minor masterpiece, The Pointer Sisters tried their hands at it. Their version features here, and it’s a fine cover.

Chaka Khan would later work with Prince. She features here with a track from her 1988 album, CK. Eternity is a Prince composition, but originally for Sheena Easton. Prince contributed another track to CK, Sticky Wicked, which he also produced, on which Chaka raps (hear it here — or check out Prince’s unreleased recording).

I imagine the track many will skip to first will be Patti Smith’s version of When Doves Cry. It takes courage or foolhardiness (or both) to cover a song like that, possibly Prince’s greatest. Smith was so confident that she pulled it off that she released it as a single. Her confidence was not misplaced, even if nobody could possibly eclipse Prince’s astonishing original.

On her debut album in 2001, Alicia Keyes covered How Come You Don’t Call Me, which in Prince’s hands was the b-side of his big hit 1999. It was, however, a regular in his live shows, from 1982, when it was first released, until his last concert on 14 April 2016 in Atlanta, a few days before his death.

The first Prince songbook closes with Prince’s demo of a song that would become a massive hit for Sinead O’Connor six years later. Prince recorded Nothing Compares 2 U in July 1984 — he had just released Purple Rain — and gave it to his project, The Family (featured on The Originals: 1990s & 2000s). The song made no impact until O’Connor had a hit with her superior version. Incidentally, the subject of the song was Prince’s personal assistant, Sandy Scipioni, who had left his employ after her father’s death.

As ever, the mix is timed to fit in a standard CD-R and includes home-purpled covers and the text above in a PDF. PW in comments.

1. Sheila E – Love Bizarre (1985)
2. The Pointer Sisters – I Feel For You (1982)
3. Corinne Bailey Rae – I Wanna Be Your Lover (2011)
4. Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs – I Would Die 4 U (2015)
5. Warren Zevon – Raspberry Beret (1990)
6. Foo Fighters – Darling Nikki (2003)
7. Lucky Peterson – Purple Rain (1997)
8. Alicia Keyes – How Come You Don’t Call Me (2001)
9. Valerie Carter – Crazy You (2000)
10. Kenny Rogers – You’re My Love (1986)
11. Martika – Love…Thy Will Be Done (1991)
12. Matt Nathanson – Starfish And Coffee (2004)
13. Eels – I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (2006)
14. Marshall Crenshaw – Take Me With U (2004)
15. Patti Smith – When Doves Cry (2002)
16. TLC – If I Was Your Girlfriend (1994)
17. Sheena Easton – Sugar Walls (1984)
18. Chaka Khan – Eternity (1988)
19. Bob Belden feat. Phil Perry & Everette Harp – Diamonds And Pearls (1994)
20. Prince – Nothing Compares 2 U (1984)

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Previous Songbooks:
ABBA
Ashford & Simpson
Barry Gibb Vol. 1
Barry Gibb Vol. 2
Bill Withers
Bob Dylan Volumes 1-5
Brian Wilson
Bruce Springsteen
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 1
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 2
Burt Bacharach’s Lesser-Known Songbook
Carole Bayer Sager
Carole King Vol. 1
Carole King Vol. 2
Chuck Berry
Cole Porter Vol. 1
Cole Porter Vol. 2
Elton John & Bernie Taupin
George Harrison
Gordon Lightfoot
Holland-Dozier-Holland
John Prine
Jimmy Webb Vol. 1
Jimmy Webb Vol. 2
Jimmy Webb Vol. 3
Lamont Dozier
Laura Nyro
Leonard Cohen
Neil Diamond
Paul McCartney Vol. 1
Paul McCartney Vol. 2
Rod Temperton
Sly Stone
Steely Dan

More Songbooks
More Covers Mixes
More CD-R Mixes

The death of Tina Turner yesterday brought to a close one of the great stories in pop music. It’s a well-known story, and it requires no rehashing here (in any case, if you didn’t know it and missed the movie, you’ll read it in the obituaries). Still, it is a triumph of the human spirit that Tina left her abusive husband at the risk of everything she had and knew, and came back, eventually, a bigger star than she was with him.

I don’t have much love for Tina’s output after the Private Dancer album, her big comeback in 1984, but I love her success, which was a permanent fuck-you to her erstwhile abuser, who lived out huis days as a public fool. I hope Tina’s story inspired many abused women to leave their abusive partners (and before anyone objects, “Men are abused, too”, yeah, sure. But that is a different story).

It is remarkable that Tina Turner was seen as a bit of a rock granny when she made her comeback at the age of 44. It seemed so unlikely, and it was unprecedented that a woman of that age might have a second stab at superstardom (and here we might remember the role the members of Heaven 17 played in returning Tina to the big stage). If you were a woman, you were considered past-it once you had crossed the threshold of 30. That comeback helped change things for women in popular music. Beyoncé is only three years younger than Tina was in 1984; nobody would even think of calling her a granny, or even an aunty. At 43, Pink is topping the album charts around the world; try calling her “old”…

Poster of Tina Turner in Germany’s Bravo magazine in February 1974.

As performers, Ike and Tina were dynamite, especially when they were backed by The Ikettes. Ike’s arrangements were of such genius that the covers he produced often turned out to be new songs (check out what he and Tina did to the hoary old standard You Are My Sunshine as an example), or improved on the original, even when the initial version seemed pretty much perfect (Proud Mary is a good example).

Tina’s vocals might have lacked in elegant beauty, but Tina inserted so much character in their delivery — and when required also explosive energy. She sang with authority, even when she lacked that in her private life. Few vocalists have ever been both soul and rock singers simultaneously, and nobody in the way Tina Turner was. She was unique.

This mix of covers by Tina Turner demonstrates that duality in music sensibility; and a couple of tracks here — Kris Kristofferson’s Lovin’ Him Was Easier and Brenda Lee’s If This Is Our Last Time — are from her foray into country in 1974 , though they were released only in 1979.

By then she had already released her cover of Dan Hill’s Sometimes When We Touch, the original of which features on the Any Major Power Ballads Vol. 2 mix, which I posted only a day before Tina Turner’s death.

Some of Turner’s biggest post-comeback hits were covers, though they don’t feature here. The comeback started with her fine version of Al Greens Let’s Stay Together and took pace with What’s Love Got To Do With It, a much superior cover of a song by Bucks Fizz. Her signature tune probably is (Simply) The Best, a terrible song first recorded by Bonnie Tyler, which was included in The Originals: 1980s Vol. 2. None of them feature here, but I close the mix with her slowed-down interpretation of Help, from Private Dancer, which was in contention for the Beatles 1962-66 Recovered mix I posted in March.

As always, this mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, includes home-doopdoopdooped covers and the above text in an illustrated PDF. PW in comments.

1. Ike & Tina Turner – Proud Mary (1971)
2. Ike & Tina Turner and The Ikettes – Gimme Some Lovin’/Sweet Soul Music (1969)
3. Ike & Tina Turner and The Ikettes – Respect (1969)
4. Ike & Tina Turner – Honky Tonk Woman (1973)
5. Tina Turner – The Bitch Is Back (1978)
6. Tina Turner – Whole Lotta Love (1975)
7. Ike & Tina Turner – Higher Ground (1974)
8. Tina Turner – Back Stabbers (1979)
9. Ike & Tina Turner – You Are My Sunshine (1973)
10. Ike & Tina Turner and The Ikettes – Son Of A Preacher Man (1969)
11. Ike & Tina Turner – With A Little Help From My Friends (1973)
12. Tina Turner – Let’s Spend The Night Together (1975)
14. Ike & Tina Turner – I Wish It Would Rain (1969)
15. Ike & Tina Turner – I’ve Been Loving You Too Long (1969)
16. Ike & Tina Turner – Save The Last Dance For Me (1966)
17. Tina Turner – If This Is Our Last Time (1974)
18. Ike & Tina Turner – Drift Away (1973)
19. Tina Turner – Lovin’ Him Was Easier (1974)
20. Tina Turner – Sometimes When We Touch (1978)
21. Tina Turner – Help (1984)

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More Covers Mixes

For many people who missed the Beatles years, the red and blue compilation gatefold-covered double-albums, 1962-66 and 1967-70, served as an introduction to the band’s music. In the 1970s, every family seemed to have a set, especially those who had no the Beatles LP.

In my family’s case, it was my older sister who had both sets. I had known Beatles songs like Obladi-Oblada and She Loves You, but it was Side 2 of the red album hooked me, and I’ve remained hooked on The Beatles ever since.

April 2 will mark the 50^th anniversary of the release of the two sets, one of the last acts as Beatles manager by the reviled Allen Klein. It was a reaction to a bootleg compilation titled Alpha Omega, which was even advertised on TV. Still, the albums were a great idea.

They are sort of greatest hits collections, but not quite. The hits are there, but so are album tracks, such as (on the Red Album) All My Loving, Eight Days A Week, You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away, In My Life or Girl. Any of them could have been a #1 hit. Oddly, no George Harrison features on the Red Album, but the Blue Album features his quite redundant Old Brown Shoe.

The present mix features one cover that was produced by John Lennon himself, You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away by folkies The Silkie, a recording that also featured Paul McCartney and Harrison. That quartet was billed as the English Peter, Paul and Mary, and they kicked off their brief recording career with an album of Dylan covers. So it made sense that they’d cover Lennon’s (superb) attempt at emulating Dylan — and fill the rest of their second and final LP with more Dylan covers.

In 1983 Tina Turner released a slowed-down version of Help. A year before that, South African band PJ Powers & Hotline did the same, and it’s their version which features here. I think the song’s lyrics are served well by being slowed down. Tina will feature on the Blue Album.

The greatest difficulty in projects like these is to find versions of Yesterday that aren’t cheesy and of Yellow Submarine that are worth giving a listen. On the Any Major Beatles Covers 1962-66 mix I made in 2010 (it’s up again, as are 1967-68 and 1968-70), Smokey Robinson & The Miracles did Yesterday duty, and on Help! Recovered, it was The Dillards. Here we have Gladys Knight & The Pips, with Gladys totally owning the song.

Yellow Submarine is a tougher proposition. On Revolver Recovered, The Pickin’ On Picks did a bluegrass version, on Yellow Submarine Recovered, The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band got funky with it (and it was reprised by Sesame Street). I might have recycled Maurice Chevalier’s remarkable version from The Beatles in French Vol. 2, but in the interest of trying to include only tracks not previously used,  I hunted down a fantastic version by Finnish group Leningrad Cowboys performing the song live with the Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble. Four great versions of a pretty awful song. But I’m glad I’ll never have to recover it again

There are many other great covers here. Chaka Khan works over We Can Work It Out — the most soul of all Beatles songs? — and Otis Redding’s live version of Day Tripper eclipses the original (you can almost feel his sweat hitting you). But you’d expect Chaka and Otis to deliver brilliant covers, for Beatles songs tend to be adaptable to soul. The two Covered With Soul mixes of Beatles tracks showed that (Covered With Soul Vol. 14 and Vol. 15).

I’m not sure how much Beatles songs lend themselves to country music. But in Herb Pederson’s hands, Paperback Writer does become a fine country tune. And in his version, you can actually understand the cruelly funny words.

Junior Campbell had a big hit with a Beatles song as a member of Marmalade, Obladi-Oblada. On his 1974 solo album Second Time Around, he covered another Beatles track I don’t particularly love, Drive My Car. His keyboard solo on it is quite excellent. We previously encountered Junior Campbell on Not Feeling Guilty Vol. 9, and will meet him again on Vol. 2 of Any Major Hits from 1973.

As a bonus track, you will find Mrs Miller’s version of A Hard Day’s Night. If you know it, you’ll know what to expect. If you don’t, you’re in for a treat unlike any you have known.

On a note of housekeeping: Zippyshare will close down as of April 1. There are 369 Any Major mixes still sitting there, most of which I won’t re-up. So grab what you can while you can. I have already reupped all Beatles Recovered, and other Beatles cover mixes as well as the Beatles Reunited series on a new server.

As for this mix, they are two CD-R mixes with home-fabbed covers, and the above in PDF format. PW in comments. The Blue Album Recovered will follow after next week’s In Memoriam.

Disc 1
1. The Persuasions – Love Me Do (2002)
2. Keely Smith – Please Please Me (1965)
3. Del Shannon – From Me To You (1963)
4. Count Basie & His Orchestra – She Loves You (1966)
5. Sparks – I Want To Hold Your Hand (1976)
6. Nick Heyward – All My Loving (1996)
7. Blackstreet – (Money Can’t) Buy Me Love (1996)
8. Bar-Kays – A Hard Day’s Night (1969)
9. Reggie Milner – And I Love Her (1969)
10. The Runaways – Eight Days A Week (1978)
11. Sweethearts Of The Rodeo – I Feel Fine (1988)
12. The 5th Dimension – Ticket To Ride (1967)
13. Gladys Knight & The Pips – Yesterday (1968)

Disc 2
1. P.J. Powers & Hotline – Help (1982)
2. The Silkie – You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away (1965)
3. Chaka Khan – We Can Work It Out (1981)
4. Otis Redding – Day Tripper (Live) (1967)
5. Junior Campbell – Drive My Car (1974)
6. P.M. Dawn – Norwegian Wood (1993)
7. Carpenters – Nowhere Man (1967)
8. Ben Harper & The Innocent Criminals – Michelle (2005)
9. Richie Havens – In My Life (1987)
10. Joe Jackson Trio – Girl (Live) (2010)
11. Herb Pedersen – Paperback Writer (1976)
12. Aretha Franklin – Eleanor Rigby (1969)
13. Leningrad Cowboys & The Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble – Yellow Submarine (1994)

GET IT! or HERE!

BEATLES RECOVERED:
Beatles Recovered: Please, Please Me
Beatles Recovered: With The Beatles
Beatles Recovered: A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles Recovered: Beatles For Sale
Beatles Recovered: Help!
Beatles Recovered: Rubber Soul
Beatles Recovered: Revolver
Beatles Recovered: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club  Band
Beatles Revovered: Magical Mystery Tour
Beatles Recovered: White Album
Beatles Recovered: Yellow Submarine
Beatles Recovered: Abbey Road
Beatles Recovered: Let It Be

MORE BEATLES STUFF!

Last week, on 15 March, it was Sly Stone’s 80th birthday. It passed me by until I saw a friend mentioning it on Facebook, expressing his surprise that the man born Sylvester Stewart was still alive. And it indeed seems to be a miracle, given Sly’s unwholesome lifestyle as a younger man.

Sly’s use of cocaine — stored in a violin case — was so prolific that it destroyed his nasal cavities. Apparently, his party trick was to insert a shoelace up one nostril and pull it out through the other. When Sly appeared at the Grammys in 2006, he looked ready for knocking on heaven’s door. But 17 years later, at 80, he’s still with us. Stand!

His body of work merits Any Major Songbook, kicking off with a collaboration of the man himself with Buddy Guy and John Mayer, from an album of collaborations with well-known names.

Some tracks here are by acts whose decision to cover Sly & The Family Stone is not surprising. But one name you might not have immediately thought of as featuring on this mix when you saw the title is that of James Last. The German bandleader was the perpetrator of much disposal easy listening fare, but it’s not well-known that the baton-swinger Last could be dangerously funky, as he is on Sing A Simple Song. Nor would you have expected venerable Big Band leader Woody Herman to cover a track called Sex Machine, his first name notwithstanding.

The bonus tracks include an early, pre-Family Stone track which Sly co-wrote and produced for Bobby Freeman in 1964. C’mon And Swim was a #5 pop hit in the US, and thus Sylvester’s first chart outing. He had been involved in music since he was a child, singing gospel music with his siblings Loretta, Freddie and Rose. The latter two would become members of Sly & The Family Stone, and are also survivors of their band’s militant hedonism pf the 1970s. Their solitary single as juvenile gospel singers, released in 1952, featured on Saved! Vol. 1.

Sly & The Family Stone are important as a musical act, having integrated various genres to create their funky music, using a drum machine when that was still nascent technology, and so on. And they were one of the first major multiracial act to score hits — much to the chagrin of the Black Panthers, who demanded the two white members be replaced. That wasn’t Sly’s way. His way was to advise abstention from the use of racial epithets.

This collection exceeds CD-R length, though tracks 1-19 are timed to fit on one, and so covers made be mice elf are included, as is the above text in a PDF. PW in comments.

1. Sly & The Family Stone with Buddy Guy & John Mayer – You Can Make It If You Try (2005)
2. Bettye LaVette – Thankful N’ Thoughtful (2012)
3. Manhattan Transfer with Chaka Kahn – Hot Fun In The Summertime (1995)
4. Dr John – Thank You (Falletin’ Me Be Mice Elf Again) (1994)
5. Billy Paul – Everyday People (1970)
6. The Ghana Soul Explosion – Family Affair (1973)
7. The Nineteenth Whole – You Caught Me Smilin’ Again (1972)
8. Al Jarreau – Somebody’s Watching You (1976)
9. Gladys Knight & The Pips – Everybody Is A Star (1971)
10. The Jackson 5 – Stand (1969)
11. Ike & Tina Turner – I Want To Take You Higher (1970)
12. The Three Degrees – You’re The One (1970)
13. Love Childs Afro Cuban Blues Band – Life And Death In G&A (1975)
14. James Last – Sing A Simple Song (1972)
15. Bar-Kays – Dance To The Music (1971)
16. Gene Harris – Don’t Call Me Nigger, Whitey (1974)
17. Dillard-Hartford-Dillard – The Same Thing (1980)
18. The Colourfield – Running Away (1987)
19. Maceo Parker – In Time (1990)
Bonus Tracks:
20. Bobby Freeman – C’mon And Swim (1964)
21. Eric Burdon & The Animals – I’m An Animal (1975)
22. George Howard – Just Like A Baby (1998)
23. Diana Ross – Le Lo Li (1976)
24. Simply Red – Let Me Have It All (1987)
25. Mercury Rev – If You Want Me To Stay (1992)
26. Woody Herman – Sex Machine (1969)

GET IT! or HERE!

Previous Songbooks:
ABBA
Ashford & Simpson
Barry Gibb Vol. 1
Barry Gibb Vol. 2
Bill Withers
Bob Dylan Volumes 1-5
Brian Wilson
Bruce Springsteen
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 1
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 2
Burt Bacharach’s Lesser-Known Songbook
Carole Bayer Sager
Carole King Vol. 1
Carole King Vol. 2
Chuck Berry
Cole Porter Vol. 1
Cole Porter Vol. 2
Elton John & Bernie Taupin
George Harrison
Holland-Dozier-Holland
John Prine
Jimmy Webb Vol. 1
Jimmy Webb Vol. 2
Jimmy Webb Vol. 3
Lamont Dozier
Laura Nyro
Leonard Cohen
Neil Diamond
Paul McCartney Vol. 1
Paul McCartney Vol. 2
Rod Temperton
Steely Dan

More Songbooks
More Covers Mixes
More CD-R Mixes

On 25 February we mark the 80^th anniversary of the birth of George Harrison. That deserves a Songbook mix.

I won’t be the first person ever to marvel at the circumstance that George Harrison was only the third-best songwriter in The Beatles. That’s the man who wrote the best songs on The Beatles’ perhaps best album, Something and Here Comes The Sun (a time when the other two struggled to finish their songs).

George was perhaps the most innovative of the three innovators, even though some of these innovations I could do without [you within you].

He was the first Beatle to release a solo album, and the first have a solo UK #1 hit, in January 1971 with My Sweet Lord (I’ve discussed before what I think of the plagiarism charges brought by the publishing company who owned the rights to He’s So Fine), and the first to release a bona fide classic album, the three-LP set All Things Must Pass. And George sort of invented charity concert festivals. I wonder whether Geldof thought to invite him to appear at Live Aid…

And George was the first Beatle to die of natural sources (if we discount Stu Sutcliffe, of course), though he almost became the second Beatle to be murdered, when in 1999 he was stabbed 40 times by an intruder. By then George was already battling throat cancer, which had been diagnosed in 1997. Fucking cigarettes! He died on 29 November 2001, at the age of only 58.

Harrison’s solo career after All Things Must Pass isn’t always appreciated. McCartney produced more hits (and Ringo as many UK Top 10 hits as George); Lennon created more material for discussion. George produced a couple of stinkers (Going Troppo!), and after All Things Must Pass no real classics, so it is indeed easy to overlook his solo career. But that would be to ignore some excellent music, as the Beatles Reunited series might have shown. Only seven of the tracks here were originally Beatles releases.

Something that struck me as I compiled this Songbook was that Harrison’s solo stuff is more accessible to interpretation in cover versions than that by Paul McCartney, whose post-Beatles Songbook I ran last year. Remarkably, George’s material adapts well to soul music — not surprisingly, given that the first version of My Sweet Lord was recorded by Billy Preston. It sounds more like the Edwin Hawkins Singers rip-off Harrison had intended to be than a Chiffons number. Fittingly, the cover here falls within the soul-gospel genre.

A few Harrison compositions here were not recorded by him. He co-wrote Cream’s Badge with Clapton (the title is Clapton’s misreading of Harrison’s handwritten word “Bridge”), and played rhythm guitar on the recording. It seems fitting that George’s close friend Clapton should appear twice on this mix, with Badge and his quite lovely recording of Love Comes To Everyone, a song that appeared originally on George’s self-titled 1979 album (the one with the wonderful Blow Away, for which no good cover seems to exist). The men shared their music and their loves…

Harrison also co-wrote Ringo Starr’s big hit Photograph, writing the gorgeous melody and helping Ringo with the lyrics. It was his first writing credit with Starr, though Harrison had also contributed, uncredited, to the Ringo hits It Don’t Come Easy and Back Off Boogaloo. The recording of the hit version of Photograph (an earlier Harrison-produced take was discarded) featured George on 12-string acoustic guitar, plus Nicky Hopkins on piano, Klaus Voormann on bass and Jim Keltner on drums — all of whom were playing at the time on the recording of Harrison’s Living In The Material World LP — with a saxophone solo by Bobby Keys. Jim Keltner and Bobby Keys have both been subject of Any Major Collections.

Sour Milk Sea was written specifically as a debut single for Apple Records signing Jackie Lomax. George wrote it in 1968 during his Maharishi phase, and the lyrics promote transcendental meditation. The song was in the running for the White Album, and The Beatles recorded a demo of it. In the end it was given to Lomax, with three Beatles playing on it (Lennon took the day off, presumably) and Eric Clapton and Nicky Hopkins chipping in on the Harrison production. Alas, the single flopped.

The mix ends with another Maharishi-inspired track and White Album contender. Circles was demoed by The Beatles at Harrison’s Esher home in 1968. Harrison eventually re-recorded it for 1982’s Gone Troppo album.

As ever: CD-R length, home-meditated covers, and the above text in PDF format included. Password in comments.

1. George Harrison – Dark Horse (Live) (1991)
2. Olivia Newton-John – What Is Life (1972)
3. Ringo Starr – Photograph (1973)
4. The Lambrettas – I Want To Tell You (1981)
5. Nick Heyward – If I Needed Someone (1996)
6. Ocean Colour Scene – Wah Wah (2005)
7. Eric Clapton – Love Comes To Everyone (2005)
8. Kenny Lattimore – While My Guitar Gently Weeps (1998)
9. Billy Preston – All Things Must Pass (1970)
10. The Three Degrees – Isn’t It A Pity (1972)
11. Richie Havens – Here Comes The Sun (1971)
12. Bobby Womack – Something (1970)
13. Ralfi Pagan – I’d Have You Anytime (1973)
14. John Gary Williams – My Sweet Lord (1972)
15. Cream – Badge (1969)
16. Loose Ends – Tax Man (1966)
17. Jackie Lomax – Sour Milk Sea (1969)
18. David Bowie – Try Some, Buy Some (2003)
19. Low – Long Long Long (1998)
20. Leon Russell – Beware Of Darkness (1971)
21. The Beatles – Circles (1968)
22. Tony Bennett – Give Me Love, Give Me Peace (1973)

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Previous Songbooks:
ABBA
Ashford & Simpson
Barry Gibb Vol. 1
Barry Gibb Vol. 2
Bill Withers
Bob Dylan Volumes 1-5
Brian Wilson
Bruce Springsteen
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 1
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 2
Burt Bacharach’s Lesser-Known Songbook
Carole Bayer Sager
Carole King Vol. 1
Carole King Vol. 2
Chuck Berry
Cole Porter Vol. 1
Cole Porter Vol. 2
Elton John & Bernie Taupin
Holland-Dozier-Holland
John Prine
Jimmy Webb Vol. 1
Jimmy Webb Vol. 2
Jimmy Webb Vol. 3
Lamont Dozier
Laura Nyro
Leonard Cohen
Neil Diamond
Paul McCartney Vol. 1
Paul McCartney Vol. 2
Rod Temperton
Steely Dan

More Songbooks
More Covers Mixes
More CD-R Mixes

October 18 marked the 75^th birthday of the great singer-songwriter Laura Nyro. Half a year earlier, April 8 marked the 25^th anniversary of Nyro’s death, at the age 49.

By the time  the ovarian cancer claimed Nyro in 1997, her music was making a comeback of sorts, with a tribute album of her songs being recorded by the likes of Rosanne Cash, Suzanne Vega, Jill Sobule, Holly Cole, Phoebe Snow and others. It was released a month after Nyro’s death, but I hope she got to hear it before she left us. Since then, Nyro has become something of a cult figure, a songwriter who isn’t very well known but whose name is traded in reverential tones.

Nyro — pronounced Nero — deserves these reverential tones alone for the influence her exercised on others when her star was at the highest, from her groundbreaking debut in 1966 until early ’70s. Elton John, himself a subject of an Any Major Songbook earlier this year, cited her as a pivotal influence, and the mark of Nyro permeates Elton’s first few albums especially. Nyro, he has said, inspired him to abandon the rigid verse-chorus-verse structure, and to experiment with tempo changes. I wonder whether Elton’s lyricist, Bernie Taupin, was also inspired by Nyro; it would not surprise me.

Others who have named Laura Nyro as an influence include songwriting giants like Joni Mitchell and Carole King, who followed in her pioneering slipstream as a woman singer-songwriter. King, a veteran hit songwriter already when Nyro emerged on the scene in 1966 as a 19-year-old, was encouraged by Nyro to take her seat behind the piano and make it as a solo star. (Carole King has inspired two Songbooks — Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, plus a Tapestry Recovered mix — whole a Joni Mitchell Songbook will drop at some point, but in the interim, there’s the Blue Recovered mix.)

Laura’s ex-boyfriend Jackson Browne rode into LA on her coat tails. The Steely Dan guys and Alice Cooper dug her, as did Todd Rundgren, who modelled his songwriting style on Nyro’s. You can hear Nyro in Elvis Costello, Rickie Lee Jones and Cyndi Lauper, and even in artists as diverse as Kate Bush, Patti Smith and Bette Midler. Stevie Wonder based his If You Really Love Me on Nyro’s music.

In her short heyday, Nyro, the daughter of a jazz trumpeter, wrote a number of songs that became hits for others: And When I Die for first Peter, Paul and Mary and then Blood, Sweat and Tears (a group she was invited to join by founder Al Kooper); Eli’s Coming for Three Dog Night; Stoney End for Barbra Streisand; and for The Fifth Dimension Wedding Bell Blues, the deliciously grooving Stone Cold Picnic, Blowing Away, and Sweet Blindness.

Nyro was a gifted songwriter who fused genres so widely as to make it almost impossible to reduce her to any one classification (much like her chief apostles, The Fifth Dimension). It is quite astonishing to think that the lyrics and melody of When I Die were written by a teenager, at a time when the precedents for philosophical lyrical depth were still quite scarce in pop music. Stoney End was also written and released before Laura reached the age of 20, as was the musically complex Wedding Bell Blues, written when she was 18. As a teenage prodigy songwriter, Nyro stands alongside Jimmy Webb (Webb has been the subject of three Songbooks: Vol. 1, Vol. 2 and Vol. 3) and the Bee Gees guys (Barry Gibb yielded two Songbooks: Vol. 1 and Vol. 2)

But the expressive, three-octave singer also loved to interpret the music of others. With LaBelle, she recorded a whole album of covers, and with the King/Goffin composition Up On The Roof she had her biggest chart hit — though its peak at #92 suggests that Nyro’s music was not the stuff of 7” singles stardom, or any kind of commercial success. Only one of her LPs entered the Billboard Album Top 40, New York Tendaberry (1969)

Apart from Laura’s distinctive voice, which not everybody loved, her own inability to market herself had something to do with that. Nyro was afflicted with debilitating stage-fright — no doubt exacerbated by being booed off stage at the 1967 Monterrey Festival — which impeded her ability to promote her records. Moreover, her personality was too intense and too idiosyncratic for the banality of the pop industry, even though her music demonstrably had popular appeal.

In 1971, at the age of 24, Nyro quit the industry, resurfacing only periodically. In 1993, she released her final album, Walk The Dog And Light The Light. It was well-received by the critics and widely ignored by the public.

Nyro was finally inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010, and two years later into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. There were some people who thought her induction was elitist and controversial. Fuck those people. Ask Joni, ask Carole, ask Elton….

Annual expenses for hosting this corner of the web are coming up, so if you might throw a tip in my coffee jar above, I would be grateful.

As always, CD-R length, home-surried covers, the text above in illustrated PDF. PW in Comments.

1. Laura Nyro – Sweet Blindness (1968)
2. Three Dog Night – Eli’s Coming (1969)
3. Sammy Davis Jr. – And When I Die (1970)
4. The 5th Dimension – Black Patch (1972)
5. The Supremes – Time And Love (1971)
6. Bobbie Gentry – Wedding Bell Blues (1970)
7. Linda Ronstadt & The Stone Poneys – Stoney End (1968)
8. Barbra Streisand – I Never Meant To Hurt You (1971)
9. Carmen McRae – Goodbye Joe (1970)
10. Karen Wyman – California Shoeshine Boys (1970)
11. Peggy Lipton – Hands Off The Man (Flim Flam Man) (1968)
12. Mama Cass – He’s A Runner (1969)
13. Claire Martin – Buy And Sell (1995)
14. Tuck & Patti – Captain For Dark Mornings (1998)
15. Swing Out Sister – Stoned Soul Picnic (1997)
16. Judy Kuhn – Luckie (2007)
17. Ronnie Dyson – Emmie (1970)
18. Melba Moore – Captain St Lucifer (1970)
19. Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity – Save The Country (1975)
20. Green Lyte Sunday – Woman’s Blues (1970)
21. Laura Nyro – When I Was A Freeport And You Were The Main Drag (1970)

GET IT!

Previous Songbooks:
ABBA
Ashford & Simpson
Barry Gibb Vol. 1
Barry Gibb Vol. 2
Bill Withers
Bob Dylan Volumes 1-5
Brian Wilson
Bruce Springsteen
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 1
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 2
Burt Bacharach’s Lesser-Known Songbook
Carole Bayer Sager
Carole King Vol. 1
Carole King Vol. 2
Chuck Berry
Cole Porter Vol. 1
Cole Porter Vol. 2
Elton John & Bernie Taupin
Holland-Dozier-Holland
John Prine
Jimmy Webb Vol. 1
Jimmy Webb Vol. 2
Jimmy Webb Vol. 3
Lamont Dozier
Leonard Cohen
Neil Diamond
Paul McCartney Vol. 1
Rod Temperton
Sly Stone
Steely Dan

More Songbooks
More Cover Mixes
More CD-R Mixes

On October 11 it is 60 years ago that The Beatles’ first single, Love Me Do, entered the UK charts, the week after its release. It debuted in the Top 50 at #49, the fourth-highest new entry that week, after Swiss Maid by Del Shannon, Bobby’s Girl by Susan Maughan, and He Got What He Wanted by Little Richard. Shannon and Maughan went on to hit the Top 3; The Beatles stalled at #11 (and Little Richard flopped at #38).

The #1 hit that week was Telstar by the Tornados, followed in the Top 5 by Little Eva’s The Loco-motion, Tommy Roe’s Sheila, Carole King’s It Might As Well Rain Until September (a good week for King, with two Top 5 hits), and, down from #2, She’s Not You by Elvis (a song I don’t even know).

It’s strange to think that there was a brief time when The Beatles were selling records but Beatlemania didn’t yet exist. Nobody in October 1962 could have predicted what madness would ensue the following year. Nobody would have had a clue that just over three years later, this group would record something as pioneering as Tomorrow Never Knows, or that this group would become the biggest band in the world for six years.

For all the record-buyers of October 1962 knew, Love Me Do might have been the only thing ever worth buying by these lads from Liverpool — in as far as many people thought even this was worth owning, as the chart position of #11 suggests. Soon they’d know better.

After Please Please Me reached #2 in early 1963, The Beatles notched up 21 more UK Top 5 hits until they split in 1970. Only one of them was not in the Top 2 — Something in 1969 — and 17 topped the charts (including 11 consecutive #1s). In the US, The Beatles broke similar records.

Paul McCartney went solo only after The Beatles group broke up. By then Harrison and Lennon had already released solo stuff. Paul issued is debut solo album, McCartney, exactly a week after he announced the Beatles’ break-up on 10 April 1970. Five tracks from that album feature by way of covers on this second Paul McCartney Songbook. This mix follows the Paul McCartney Songbook Vol. 1, which covered his compositions for The Beatles.

So here we have McCartney’s solo career — actually solo or with the Wings — in covers. It’s surprising that for some well-known hits there are no decent covers, at least none I can think of. These include Hi Hi Hi, which is a pity, and Mull Of Kintyre, which is just as well.

I’m pleased that another recent Songbook subject features here, in Brian Wilson. As mentioned before, Wilson was born only two days after Paul McCartney, which I find extraordinary. Alas, the Brian Wilson Songbook featured no cover by McCartney. And ex-Wings man Denny Laine turns up to do one of the more underrated McCartney numbers.

Many of the songs here featured on my Beatles Reunited series, which put together solo tracks by the respective Beatles alumni to create notional Beatles albums: Everest (1971), Smile Away (1972), Live (1972), Photographs (1974), Reunited 77 (1977), and Let It See (1980).

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, includes home-rolled covers, and the above text in an illustrated PDF. PW in comments.

1. Maynard Ferguson – Jet (1974)
2. Billy Paul – Let ‘Em In (1976)
3. Sunday’s Child – Maybe I’m Amazed (1970)
4. Richie Havens – Band On The Run (1974)
5. The 5th Dimension – Every Night (1971)
6. Guns N’ Roses – Live And Let Die (1991)
7. Def Leppard – Helen Wheels (2014)
8. Big Sugar – Let Me Roll It (1998)
9. Denny Laine – Listen To What The Man Said (1996)
10. Michael Carpenter – Junior’s Farm (2011)
11. Brian Wilson – Wanderlust (2014)
12. Corinne Bailey Rae – Bluebird (2014)
13. John Pizzarelli feat. Michael McDonald – Coming Up (2015)
14. Ardijah – Silly Love Songs (1999)
15. Nancy Wilson – My Love (1974)
16. Peggy Lee – Let’s Love (1974)
17. John Denver – Junk (1971)
18. Grateful Dead – That Would Be Something (1991)
19. Death Cab For Cutie – Dear Boy (2009)
20. Robert Smith – C Moon (2014)
21. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Monkberry Moon Delight (1979)
Bonus Tracks:
22. Freddie Hubbard – Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey (1971)
23. Cass Elliot – My Love (1973)

GET IT!

More Songbooks:
ABBA
Ashford & Simpson
Barry Gibb Vol. 1
Barry Gibb Vol. 2
Bill Withers
Bob Dylan Volumes 1-5
Brian Wilson
Bruce Springsteen
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 1
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 2
Burt Bacharach’s Lesser-Known Songbook
Carole Bayer Sager
Carole King Vol. 1
Carole King Vol. 2
Chuck Berry
Cole Porter Vol. 1
Cole Porter Vol. 2
Elton John & Bernie Taupin
Holland-Dozier-Holland
John Prine
Jimmy Webb Vol. 1
Jimmy Webb Vol. 2
Jimmy Webb Vol. 3
Lamont Dozier
Laura Nyro
Leonard Cohen
Neil Diamond
Paul McCartney Vol. 1
Rod Temperton
Sly Stone
Steely Dan

More Mixes
More Songbooks
More Covers Mixes

The death on August 8 of Lamont Dozier calls for a retrospective of songs he wrote with Brian and Eddie Holland. Dozier is the first of that trio to leave us.

With the brothers Holland, Lamont Dozier formed a veritable hit-machine for Motown — more than that, they were pivotal in creating the Motown sound of the 1960s.

For Martha And The Vandellas, they wrote and produced hits such as Heat Wave (their first hit in 1963), Nowhere To Run, Come And Get These Memories, and Jimmy Mack.

For the Four Tops, they created Reach Out I’ll Be There, Baby I Need Your Loving, It’s the Same Old Song, Standing In The Shadows of Love, I’ll Turn To Stone, Bernadette, 7 Rooms Of Gloom, and You Keep Running Away.

For Marvin Gaye they wrote How Sweet It Is and Can I Get A Witness; for The Miracles it was Mickey’s Monkey, for Jr. Walker & The All Stars (I’m A) Roadrunner, for The Isley Brothers This Old Heart Of Mine, for The Elgins Heaven Must Have Sent You, and for R. Dean Taylor they wrote There’s A Ghost In My House.

And they made The Supremes. Look at this list: Baby Love, Where Did Our Love Go, You Keep Me Hanging On, Stop In The Name Of Love, Reflections, I Hear A Symphony, Come See About Me, The Happening, Forever Came Today, Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone, and more.

Lamont Dozier, left, with the Holland brothers.

After falling out with Berry Gordy, Holland-Dozier-Holland left Motown in 1968 and founded their own label, Invictus. There their charges included the Freda Payne, Chairmen Of The Board, 100 Proof Aged In Soul, Flaming Embers, Glass House, and Honey Cone, producing and co-writing hits — for contractual reasons as Edith Wayne — such as Band Of Gold, Give Me Just A Little More Time, Everything’s Tuesday, You’ve Got Me Dangling On A String,  Sunday Morning People, Too Many Cooks (Spoil The Soup), or Westbound No. 9.

On that label Dozier also released his biggest solo hit, Why Can’t We Be Lovers, a US #9. In 1973 he split from the Holland brothers, with lawsuits following. Dozier said his legal issues with the Hollands, and with Berry Gordy before that, were not personal, just business.

Of the three, Dozier went on to have the greater success, but divided they never reached such heights as they did together in that decade from 1963-72.

With an eye to my CD-R length rule, this collection covers only the Motown phase. If you ask nicely, I might put together a post-Motown mix of Dozier compositions, with and without the Hollands.

The covers here are quite fascinating, none more so than Dozier’s 2004 interpretation of Baby Love. Here the man who co-wrote the song for three teenage girls wrestled with his composition 40 years later, as a man in his early 60s. He reworked the song to great effect.

Motown let different acts on their roster record the same songs, to see which version would provide the hits. That way, we have The Supremes try their hand at the Four Tops’ I Can’t Help Myself, and The Isley Brothers doing The Supremes’ I Hear A Symphony. The Four Tops’ version of Reflections came later, on 1970’s remarkable Still Waters Run Deep album.

Barry White, meanwhile, took The Four Tops’ Standing In The Shadows Of Love, and gave it a thorough reworking. On the bonus track, Margie Joseph does something similar to Stop! In The Name Of Love.

The most unusual interpretation — other than maybe the great cover of Come See About Me by the Afghan Whigs — might be that by Matt Monro, who took The Happening into the realms of jazz vocals. Which raises the question: Why did Frank Sinatra never sing Holland-Dozier-Holland songs?

Companion mixes to this collection may be Covered With Soul: Motown Edition Vol. 1 and Covered With Soul: Motown Edition Vol. 2. I might also commend to you The Originals: Motown Edition, but that features only one Holland-Dozier-Holland track, which shows how they almost always got it right the first time.

As mentioned, CD-R length, plus home-produced covers. The above text is included in an illustrated PDF. PW in comments.

1. The Jam – (Love is Like A) Heat Wave (1979)
2. Soft Cell – Where Did Our Love Go (1981)
3. The Afghan Whigs – Come See About Me (1992)
4. Fleetwood Mac – (I’m A) Road Runner (1973)
5. Wild Cherry – Nowhere To Run (1976)
6. Z. Z. Hill – Can I Get A Witness (1972)
7. O.C. Smith – Baby I Need Your Loving (1974)
8. Wilson Pickett – You Keep Me Hangin’ On (1969)
9. Tami Lynn – Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone (1972)
10. Barry White – Standing In the Shadows Of Love (1973)
11. Lamont Dozier – Baby Love (2004)
12. Michael McDonald – Reach Out, I’ll Be There (2004)
13. Nicolette Larson – Back In My Arms, Again (1979)
14. James Taylor – How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) (1975)
15. Matt Monro – The Happening (1967)
16. José Feliciano – My World Is Empty Without You (1968)
17. Laura Nyro & Labelle – Jimmy Mack (1971)
18. The Isley Brothers – I Hear A Symphony (1966)
19. Barbara Randolph – I Turn To Stone (1968)
20. Four Tops – Reflections (1970)
21. The Supremes – I Can’t Help Myself (1966)
Bonus Track:
Margie Joseph – Stop! In The Name Of Love (1971)

GET IT!

More Songbooks:
ABBA
Ashford & Simpson
Barry Gibb Vol. 1
Barry Gibb Vol. 2
Bill Withers
Bob Dylan Volumes 1-5
Brian Wilson
Bruce Springsteen
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 1
Burt Bacharach & Hal David Vol. 2
Burt Bacharach’s Lesser-Known Songbook
Carole Bayer Sager
Carole King Vol. 1
Carole King Vol. 2
Chuck Berry
Cole Porter Vol. 1
Cole Porter Vol. 2
Elton John & Bernie Taupin
John Prine
Jimmy Webb Vol. 1
Jimmy Webb Vol. 2
Jimmy Webb Vol. 3
Lamont Dozier
Laura Nyro
Leonard Cohen
Neil Diamond
Paul McCartney Vol. 1
Rod Temperton
Sly Stone
Steely Dan

More Mixes
More Songbooks
More Covers Mixes