Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

The 1960s had a generation of songwriters which in its breadth and quality is ummatched.

Jimmy Webb, Bob Dylan, Lennon & McCartney, Brian Wilson, Paul Simon, King & Goffin and the rest of the Brill Building scene, Holland/Dozier/Holland and Smokey Robinson and the rest of the Motown crew, Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Curtis Mayfield, Hayes & Porter, Ray Davies, the evil John Phillips, Bert Berns, Crewe & Gaudio, James Brown, Sly Stone, Neil Diamond, Lee Hazlewood, Shadow Morton, Jagger & Richards, Stephen Stills, Van Morrison, and God knows whom I have forgotten and whose name you’ve just shouted out, unable to understand their inexplicable omission.

I don’t think it is remotely possible to name a “greatest” from that lot, but Burt Bacharach was a towering figure in that collection of genius songsmiths. His collaborations with Hal David, which comprises almost all of Burt’s 1960s prime, are near the level of Cole Porter, who perhaps was the greatest songwriter of all time (of course, Porter did music & lyrics himself).

Many of these songwriters and tunesmiths have already left us, some may follow soon. Burt Bacharach followed Hal David to the great recording studio in the sky last week. So this mix — a long overdue Vol. 2 to the Bacharach/David Songbook I posted in 2017 —  is by way of tribute to this giant in popular music. A third Bacharach/David mix will follow later in the year; it will include some songs that didn’t make it on this collection, and a few versions of songs that did.

Long-time readers of this blog will recall that I have previously put up three Bacharach Songbooks:
The Bacharach/David Songbook Vol. 1
Bacharach: The Lesser Known Songbook
Covered With Soul: Bacharach/David Edition
Any Major Originals: Bacharach Edition

As ever, this mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R and includes home-trumpeted covers.

1. Gwen Guthrie – (They Long To Be) Close To You (1986)
2. Robin McKelle & The FlyTones – Walk On By (2013)
3. Jennifer Warnes – Don’t Make Me Over (1979)
4. Luther Vandross – A House Is Not A Home (1980)
5. James Brown – What The World Needs Now Is Love (1976)
6. Lyn Collins – Reach Out For Me (1972)
7. Jimmy Ruffin – Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head (1970)
8. The Dells – I Just Dont Know What To Do With Myself (1972)
9. Barbara Acklin – The Look Of Love (1969)
10. Dionne Warwick – I Say A Little Prayer (1967)
11. Dusty Springfield – TwentyFour Hours From Tulsa (1964)
12. Nancy Sinatra – Wishin’ And Hopin’ (1966)
13. Dee Dee Warwick – Alfie (1969)
14. Jackie Trent – Make It Easy On Yourself (1969)
15. Bobbie Gentry – I’ll Never Fall In Love Again (1969)
16. The Fifth Dimension – One Less Bell To Answer (1970)
17. Gabor Szabo & Lena Horne – A Message To Michael (1970)
18. Pretenders – The Windows Of The World (1988)
19. Neil Diamond – Do You Know The Way To San José (1993)
20. Rumer – You’ll Never Get To Heaven (If You Break My Heart) (2016)
21. Ronald Isley & Burt Bacharach – In Between The Heartaches (2003)
22. Bob Marley and The Wailers – What’s New Pussycat (1965)

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
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 Cover Mixes
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This year for me will be one of weddings. Not my own, of course. Any Major Dudette and I have been married for more than half our lives now. As Orleans say in their song, we’re still having fun and she’s still the one. But three young couples in our family and circle of friends will marry this year.

The Dudette and I will celebrate one of those milestone anniversaries this year, and as we are attending those three weddings, we hope that when those couples will in the future mark their milestone anniversaries, they shall feel about their marriage the way The Dudette and I feel about ours.

Sure enough, all those years have not been without problems, but even when it approached the verge of the abyss, we came back from it — and stronger! Are there things I’d change about The Dudette, or she about me? Of course, but none of that darkens our love and — this is, I think, the key to a good marriage — our friendship. The Dudette is my best friend, just as John Deacon of Queen wrote about his wife Veronica (in happy news, John and Veronica are still together, having just recently celebrated 48 years of marriage).

So this mix is intended to reflect long-time love, not the first flushes of romance with its attendant physical attraction — though the physical attraction may last the course — but the romance of having grown together, fused by love and time, having become one. These songs address these dynamics in different ways. Some specifically address having been together for a long time, others can apply also to younger love. All featured songs, I think, tell the story of love that has grown to be strong and lasting.

If you are among the fortunates to have that kind of relationship, you might play this mix for your loved one, maybe on Valentine’s Day. Or play just those songs that resonate with you, of course.

And if you are not among those privileged people — because life didn’t work out that way or because you are still seeking it — I hope you might simply enjoy the music. If you like your love music a little more disappointing, you might like Any Major Unrequited Love or Any Major Impossible Love.

This mix is a companion to the Any Major Love mix which I posted in 2015, also just before Valentine’s Day (like the other love mixes, it’s still up). One track from that mix is recycled here, but in a live version: Neil Young’s Harvest Moon. It’s a song I’d love to play for Any Major Dudette as I hold her close and look in her eyes. If only she liked it… The version here is from a live performance at the Ryman Theater in LA; the swishing percussion beat you hear is created by… a broom! And Glen Campbell song here covers the track that closed Any Major Love.

There are other tracks on Any Major Love that might have suited this Forever Love mix well. Let’s Stay Together, of course, or Ben Fold’s The Luckiest, which I nearly recycled as well, but include here in a live version as a bonus track.

And a different companion compilation: Any Major Babymaking Music Vol. 1 and Vol. 2

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

1. The Presidents – 5-10 15-20 (25-30 Years of Love) (1971)
2. Blood, Sweat & Tears – You’ve Made Me So Very Happy (1968)
3. Queen – You’re My Best Friend (1975)
4. Orleans – Still The One (1976)
5. Keith Whitley – When You Say Nothing At All (1988)
6. Neil Young – Harvest Moon (live) (2005)
7. Glen Campbell – Grow Old With Me (2008)
8. John Legend – All Of Me (2013)
9. Al Jarreau – We’re In This Love Together (1981)
10. Minnie Riperton – Simple Things (1975)
11. O.C. Smith – Friend Lover Woman Wife (1969)
12. Andre de Villiers – Memories (1999)
13. Brandi Carlile – The Story (2007)
14. Kacy Crowley – Kind Of Perfect (2004)
15. The Cure – Love Song (1989)
16. Modern English – I Melt With You (1990)
17. Cowboy Junkies – Anniversary Song (1993)
18. Jack Johnson – Do You Remember (2005)
19. Dan Seals – One Friend (1987)
20. Collin Raye – In This Life (1992)
21. Alan Jackson – I’d Love You All Over Again (1989)
22. Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt & Dolly Parton – When We’re Gone, Long Gone (1999)
Bonus Tracks:
Eastmountainsouth – So Are You To Me (2003)
Ben Folds – The Luckiest (live) (2002)

GET IT! or HERE!

Previously in Any Major Love:
Any Major Love
Any Major Love in Black & White
Any Major Unrequited Love
Any Major Impossible Love

More CD-R Mixes

Flashback 50 years ago to 1973! This is the first of two mixes of hits in that year. As in the mixes covering past years, it’s supposed to be a snapshot of the year’s charts, rather than a representative overview — because if it was that, these mixes could be pretty bad (US top song of 1973? Tie A Yellow Ribbon…). I’ve also not necessarily chosen the biggest or even the best hits of the year; if I had, Superstition would feature.

So, the goal is to evoke a little bit of 1973, with some classics and some perhaps half-forgotten hits. The first mix for 1973 focuses on the US charts; the follow-up will cover the UK. What surprised me in researching these two mixes is how few British acts had hits in the US in 1973. The British invasion had been repelled.

In the Top 100 hits of the year, there were British mega acts like Elton John, Wings, George Harrison, Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd — all global stars whose fame transcended their passports. Otherwise, Sweet featured with Little Willy, Stealer’s Wheel with Stuck In The Middle With You, and Gilbert O’Sullivan (who was Irish) with the awful Get Down and the rather sweet Clair. Plus Focus, who were Dutch.

By contrast, the UK charts were full of US acts, including a number of tracks on this mix. That mix will drop later in the year.

The debates about the “first-ever disco record” are futile, because how do you define disco, a genre of several strands? But I think that any list of proto-disco songs should include First Choice’s quite wonderful Armed And Extremely Dangerous.

I suppose a companion series to this one before us today is A Life In Vinyl, which goes back to 1977, when I started to invest seriously in records.  That series tracks my music-buying behaviour in the decade or so that followed.

If you dig the feel of 1973, take a look at the collection of posters from West-Germany’s Bravo magazine in 1973 (other years are available, too).

As ever, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, and includes home-lovetraineded covers. PW in Comments.

1. Deep Purple – Smoke On The Water
2. Alice Cooper – No More Mr Nice Guy
3. Edgar Winter Group – Free Ride
4. Doobie Brothers – Long Train Runnin’
5. Jim Croce – I Got A Name
6. Helen Reddy – Delta Dawn
7. Skylark – Wildflower
8. Dobie Gray – Drift Away
9. The Independents – Leaving Me
10. Barry White – I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little More Babe
11. O’Jays – Love Train
12. Three Dog Night – Shambala
13. Ozark Mountain Daredevils – If You Wanna Get To Heaven
14. King Harvest – Dancing In The Moonlight
15. Seals & Crofts – We May Never Pass This Way (Again)
16. Chicago – Just You ‘N’ Me
17. The Isley Brothers – That Lady
18. Ike & Tina Turner – Nutbush City Limits
19. Billy Preston – Will It Go Round In Circles
20. First Choice – Armed And Extremely Dangerous
21. Carole King – Corazon
22. Maria Muldaur – Midnight At The Oasis

GET IT! or HERE!

Any Major Hits from 1944
Any Major Hits from 1947
Any Major Hits from 1961
Any Major Hits from 1970
Any Major Hits from 1971
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 1
Any Major Hits from 1972 Vol. 2

More CD-R Mixes

Last week I ran the first set of “favourites” from Any Major mixes in 2022, with links to the respective posts (with a PDF containing them included). Here’s the second volume.

I noted last week how popular the Songbooks have been. In 2022, I songbooked Carole King, Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson on their respective 80^th birthdays, and Elton John, Carol Bayer Sager and the late Laura Nyro on their 75^th, and Lamont Dozier (alone and with the Holland brothers) on his passing. I’ll have to see what jubilees there are in 2023 (a couple are pencilled in already); obviously there needn’t be a special occasion to run a Songbook.

Of course I’ll continue other regulars: Covered With Soul (for which I have a surprise coming up), Any Major Soul, A Year in Hits, Albums of the Year, and so on. And no doubt here’ll be a few stand-alones, like 2022’s Any Major Laurel Canyon, Any Major Party and Any Major Sugar. And there will be more Beatles in foreign languages.

All this presumes, of course, that I will have the time to continue as I have in the past. Professional and private priorities must obviously take precedence, but how can I think of cutting back when I get such kind comments, such as this by a reader signing off as Le Trev:

I have no idea how I came across your site only a few days ago but it is my best Christmas present so far. (Albeit the only one but no matter!) If you are a one-man Operator, then your knowledge of “popular music” probably cannot be bettered by anybody in ” The business”!

Of course, you are invited to leave comments on posts — even if to say you enjoyed or didn’t like a mix. In fact, I would be very happy if you could tell me which mixes you particularly liked over the past year. This mix also include a PDF with the links below, for later reference. PW in comments.

1. Jo Jo Gunne – Run Run Run (1972)
Any Major Hits from 1972 – Vol. 2

2. Ike & Tina Turner – Get Back (1973)
Paul McCartney Songbook Vol. 1

3. Wilson Pickett – Sugar Sugar (1970)
Covered With Soul Vol. 24

4. The Monkees – Pleasant Valley Sunday (1967)
Any Major Carole King Songbook Vol. 2

5. Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich – The Legend Of Xanadu (1968)
Any Major Teen Dreams

6. Southern Freeze – Freeez (1981)
Any Major Disco Vol. 10 – Party Like It’s 1981

7. Charles & Eddie – Would I Lie To You (Acoustic Version) (1992)
Any Major Charlies

8. Dexys Midnight Runners – Liars A To E (1982)
Any Major Albums of the Year: 1982

9. The Pogues – Streets Of Sorrow/Birmingham Six (1988)
Life in Vinyl 1988

10. Carole King – Sweet Seasons (1970)
Any Major Laurel Canyon

11. Salome Bey – Hit The Nail Right On The Head (1970)
Any Major ABC of Canada

12. Chairmen Of The Board – Everything’s Tuesday (1970)
Any Major Lamont Dozier Songbook

13. Z.Z. Hill – Cheating In The Next Room (1982)
Any Major Soul 1982

14. The Bushmen – Pioggia (1966)
Any Major Beatles in Italian

15. Jody Reynolds – Endless Sleep (1958)
Any Major Teenage Tragedy

16. Merle Travis – So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed (1947)
Any Major Hits From 1947

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More Mix CD-Rs
More Any Major Favourites

I noticed with some surprise that I’ve been doing these reviews of mixes posted throughout the gone year since 2015. Happily, it seems that people aren’t getting tired of what I’m doing in this little corner of the Internet, so I hope that I’ll be able to offer new Any Major Favourites comps in 2024.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. What we have here is the first of two mixes featuring a song from each mix posted in 2022 (with the exception of the Party Like It’s 1981 set, which ran in December 2021, and the year’s only Christmas album). These songs are among my favourites on each compilation.

In the tracklisting, I give a link to the particular mix these tracks come from, for easy click-through in case you missed it the first time around. I also have these links in a PDF file that is included.

So, which Any Majors have I listened to most? Obviously I don’t keep count — that would be weird — but the one I have loved the most is the Any Major Laurel Canyon mix, which I had put together long before I posted it. Because it is my top mix of the year, it will feature again on Vol. 2.

Not Feeling Guilty Vol. 12 got a lot of play, as did the Songbooks of Carole King (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2) and Elton John (actually, all the Songbooks did), the Any Major Hits from 1972 (Vol. 1 and Vol.2), and Albums of 1972 and 1982.

The Songbooks seems to be a very popular feature, and I have a few more in store for 2023. Poignantly, I compiled this playlist last month, before the death on New Year’s Eve of Anita Pointer. It closes with a song by the Pointer Sisters, from the Carole Bayer Sager Songbook, on which Anita took the lead vocals.

Older Any Major Favourite posts contain links to mixes you might have missed. Many of their links are still live. This post is also included as a PDF, for later reference.

At this point I want to thank the good people who have bought me coffees over the past year, and thereby helped in covering the costs of running this thing. With that, I wish everybody a superb and superbly healthy 2023.1. Rhinestones – Party Music (1975)
Any Major Party

2. Sad Café – Every Day Hurts (1979)
Not Feeling Guilty Mix Vol. 12

3. Malo – Suavecito (1972)
Any Major Hits from 1972 – Vol. 1

4. The Style Council – Long Hot Summer (1983)
Best of Any Major Summer

5. Soft Cell – Where Did Our Love Go (1981)
Holland-Dozier-Holland Songbook

6. Richie Havens – Band On The Run (1974)
Paul McCartney Songbook Vol. 2

7. Martha Reeves – Dixie Highway (1974)
Any Major Carole King Songbook Vol. 1

8. Claudia Lennear – It Ain’t Easy (1973)
Ziggy Stardust Recovered (1972)

9. The Allman Brothers Band – Blue Sky (1972)
Any Major Albums of the Year: 1972

10. Jimi Hendrix – Angel (1971)
Saved! Vol. 6 – The Angels edition

11. Judee Sill – Crayon Angels (1971)
Any Major Laurel Canyon

12. Dave Alvin – Surfer Girl (2006)
Brian Wilson Songbook

13. Joseph Arthur – Honey And The Moon (2002)
Any Major Sugar

14. Neil Diamond – Rocket Man (1978)
Any Major Elton John & Bernie Taupin Songbook

15. Swing Out Sister – Stoned Soul Picnic (1997)
Any Major Laura Nyro Songbook

16. Candi Staton – Nights On Broadway (1977)
Barry Gibb Songbook Vol. 2

17. Pointer Sisters – The Love Too Good To Last (1980)
Any Major Carole Bayer Sager Songbook

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More Any Major Favourites

As every year since 2016, I see out the old year with a mix of old-school dance tracks which may move you to, as the kids say today, shake your tailfeather. Since 2018, these mixes are themed to cover the corresponding year 40 years previously. So this year, we’re partying like it’s 1982.

By 1982, disco was dead and yet still very much alive. Only, nobody called it “disco” anymore. Rap was starting to make inroads into the genre formerly known as disco, as was the sound that would become known as HiNRG, though not on any of the present tracks.

And while some of the dance music carried echoes of disco, some of it anticipated the future. On this collection, the most interesting example of that is Nasty Girl by Prince-protégées Vanity 6. A trio of female singers, the group anticipated Destiny’s Child by more than 15 years. 1982’s Nasty Girl — written and produced by Prince, though songwriting credit was given to Vanity — sounds like it could have been a Destiny’s Child song in the year 2000. And on her 2016 tour, Beyoncé mashed up the song with her song Blow.

Nasty Girl closes the CD-R length playlist, but there are seven bonus tracks to carry your New Year’s Eve party — be it with booty-shaking guests or just you and your loved one in the kitchen cooking a supper — for two hours. There are many previous Disco and Party Like It’s … mixes to revisit; I think all links are live.

And with that, I wish you a good slide into the New Year, and a 2023 marked by peace, exultations and absurdly good health.

1. Imagination – Music And Lights
2. Gwen Guthrie – It Should Have Been You
3. Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King – Love Come Down
4. Shalamar – A Night To Remember
5. Sharon Brown – I Specialise In Love
6. Fat Larry’s Band – Act Like You Know It
7. Linda Taylor – You And Me Just Started
8. Aretha Franklin – Jump To It
9. Stevie Wonder – Do I Do (Single Version)
10. Patrice Rushen – Number One
11. Skyy – Let Love Shine
12. Alicia Myers – I Want To Thank You
13. Sharon Redd – In The Name Of Love
14. Tony Sherman – Ellovee-Ee
15. Vanity 6 – Nasty Girl
BONUS TRACKS
16. Gap Band – You Dropped A Bomb On Me
17. Carrie Lucas – Show Me Where You’re Coming From
18. Shades Of Love – Keep In Touch (Body To Body)
19. Candela – Love You Madly
20. Melba Moore – Mind Up Tonight
21. Montana Sextet – Heavy Vibes
22. Third World – Try Jah Love

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We had our fix of Any Major Christmas last week, with the multi-lingual festive mix. Today, there’s a chance to get a nice Christmas present for your mom, dad, aunt, uncle, friend, patient etc over 80, who may enjoy a nostalgia trip with hits from 1947 — 75 years ago. Of course, younger people and you might enjoy it, too. I’m enjoying this compilation tremendously.

1947 was just a short seven years before rock & roll exploded on the scene. In some of the featured songs, the rumblings of the nascent genre can be heard, like distant thunder before the lightning. Those tracks must have sounded quite startling 75 years ago.

Other songs are, of course, of their time. But, hell, you can feel how the jumpin’ boogie of the opening songs must have electrified the USA’s youngsters, and horrified their elders. The biggest juke box star of 1947 was Louis Jordan, a black musician to whose music white kids danced, much as their nieces and nephews would dance to Little Richard and Chuck Berry a decade later.

So this mix isn’t necessarily representative of the hits of 1947, though all were US hits. In compiling this collection, I tried to imagine what music I might have listened to, had I been a youngster in 1947 — and filtered out the many boring crooning ballads by tenors who come in only halfway slow big band tootlings. I certainly would have enjoyed the humour in several of these songs; Tex Williams’ Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! especially still makes me laugh. And if the squares thought that libertine attitudes arrived only with rock & roll, let them hear Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends talk about S-E-X.

I don’t know if I would have been able to swerve between genres; I’d be quite interested to know if such boundaries existed, or whether it was natural to hear jump one minute and country the next. For our purposes, let’s assume that it was possible.

This mix is a good companion piece to the Any Major Hits from 1944 collection I posted three years ago. And if you dig your music in black & white, there’s more, including several Christmas mixes. There’s

Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 1
Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 2
Any Major Christmas in Black & White Vol. 3
Any Major 1940s Christmas
Any Major 1950s Christmas
Any Major Doo Wop X-Mas
Any Major Rhythm & Blues Christmas
Any Major ABCs: 1950s
New York in Black & White
Germany’s Hit Parade 1930-37
Germany’s Hit Parade 1938-45
Saved Vol. 1
Saved Vol. 4

And, of course, there are more recent Any Major Hits mixes: 1961, 1970, 1971, 1972 Vol. 1 and 1972 Vol. 2.

Beach-goers in California in December 1947.

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

And with that, I wish you a Merry Christmas!

1. Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five – Let The Good Times Roll
2. The Five Blazes – Chicago Boogie
3. Bull Moose Jackson and His Buffalo Bearcats – I Love You, Yes I Do
4. Ella Fitzgerald & Delta Rhythm Boys – (I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons
5. Margaret Whiting – Old Devil Moon
6. Annie Laurie with Paul Gayten and His Trio – Since I Fell For You
7. Frank Sinatra – I Believe
8. Dorothy Shay – Feudin’ And Fightin’
9. Tex Williams – Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)
10. Merle Travis – So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed
11. Hank Williams – Move It On Over
12. Peggy Lee – It’s A Good Day
13. The Mills Brothers – Across The Alley From The Alamo
14. Johnny Mercer and The Pied Pipers – Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
15. Hoagy Carmichael – Old Buttermilk Sky
16. Tony Pastor and His Orchestra – The Lady From 29 Palms
17. The Andrews Sisters – Near You
18. Art Lund – And Mimi
19. Dinah Shore – How Soon (Will I Be Seeing You)
20. Buddy Clark – Peg O’ My Heart
21. Savannah Churchill and The Sentimentalists – I Want To Be Loved (But Only By You)
22. King Cole Trio – Meet Me At No Special Place (And I’ll Be There At No Particular Time)
23. Julia Lee and Her Boy Friends – Snatch And Grab It
24. The Ink Spots – Ask Anyone Who Knows
25. Erskine Hawkins and His Orchestra – Hawk’s Boogie
26. Desi Arnaz and His Orchestra – Babalu’
27. Count Basie and His Orchestra – Open The Door, Richard!

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More A Year In Hits
More Music in Black & White

Lately I have marked my favourite albums of 1971 (in Vol. 1 and Vol. 2) and of 1972. That era, five decades ago, was a golden period for LPs. I won’t argue that 1982 — 40 years ago — was such a golden time, or even a silver or bronze period. But it was the year when I first started to earn money and could blow much of it on music.

The Nightfly’s Chesterfield Kings
And I wasted a lot of it on irredeemable rubbish (step forward, Supertramp’s Famous Last Words). But 1982 also produced some all-time favourite albums. I loved Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly before I had ever heard a full Steely Dan album (the title of this blog tips you off that I have listened to at least one since then). I remember that I had to comb through several record stores to find a copy, having been seduced by lead single IGY. How delighted I was to discover that the album had such a great cover, with Fagen acting as DJ Lester, a 1950s jazz disc spinner  (I wrote about the cover many years ago).

One thing the cover didn’t do was to convince me of the charms of Chesterfield Kings cigarettes. When I was still stupidly tarring my lungs and stinking up my breath, I tried Chesterfields; the packet was Fagen-cool but the cigarettes tasted horrible. As a recovering smoker (clean for 13 years tomorrow), I’d now say that all cigarettes are abominable, but I had my favourite smokes at various stages of my nicotine addiction. But never Chesterfields.

Album of the Year
Should I ever compile a list of the albums of any year and any genre which I love the most, ‘Too-Rye-Ay’ by Dexys Midnight Runners will rank very highly (as would their 1981 hit Geno, should I ever rank my most-loved singles). It is a richly rewarding album, one that ought to be heard in full as one goes on a musical journey that glides between genres even within the same song, such as in the albums 7-minute centrepiece, Until I Believe In My Soul, which has soul horns, Celtic fiddle and a jazz interlude. The arrangements are superb.

The lot is narrated by Kevin Rowland in his idiosyncratic vocal stylings, aided by some fantastic backing vocals (just listen to the featured track). In turn, Rowland exudes confidence, exasperation, frustration, even neurosis, and a barrel-full of a nervous energy that holds your attention. I think the nervous energy appealed to me most when I was 16, a time on the verge of adulthood when something was waiting to explode, like the furious fiddle in Come On Eileen (the huge hit which, incidentally, only the fourth single from the album! There is a fine piece about it posted recently on the fine Hooks and Harmonies blog).

The Dexys album also included swearing, which in 1982 was still exciting. In Until I Believe In My Soul, Rowland murmurs, “You must be fucking joking”; in the same tone, it has become a stockphrase of mine when I find myself confronted by an irritating circumstance.

And by way of general housekeeping, two things to note about Dexys: Firstly, no apostrophe. Secondly, not a one-hit wonder, even if the US record-buying public was a fool.

Another F-Bomb
I think it was a few weeks before I bought ‘Too-Rye-Ay’ that another new release I had hotly anticipated dropped the F-bomb. Billy Joel did so on Laura, his “White Album” tribute from The Nylon Curtain. I was a big Billy Joel fan at the time, but his new album didn’t excite me as much as I had hoped. It’s a cold album; still I played the LP often enough to get to know it very well. It includes some good tracks, and some that have not aged well. The Piano Man was now bearded, angry, frustrated and disillusioned. In my view, he didn’t need to try some new fashion; I had liked him just the way he was.

The Envoy
In the canon of Warren Zevon albums, The Envoy tends to get a bad rap. Indeed, it sports some duff tracks. But when the tracks do hit, they land their punches well. The featured Never Too Late For Love comes towards the end of Side 2, but it holds its own with any of the best Zevon songs.The One I Forgot
In my unbiased opinion, the recent Any Major Soul 1982 mix is very good, but I wonder how on earth I managed to omit Otis Clay from the mix. He featured on Any Major Soul 1982/83, and his 1982 album produced the lesser-known original The Only Way Is Up (featured on Any Major Originals – 1980s Vol. 2).  It’s not the greatest soul album of the year, I’m sure, but I’m always happy to play it in full. By 1982, Clay was something of a soul veteran — he featured on Any Major Southern Soul with a track from 1971 — and kept recording until shortly before his death at 73 in January 2016.

Luther!
Luther Vandross does feature on the Any Major Soul 1982 mix with the gorgeous Once You Know How. Luther has been rightly criticised for never producing a flawless album, except perhaps 1986’s Give Me The Reason. So it’s fair to say that Forever, For Always, For Love certainly has its flaws. But, hell, it’s Luther Vandross singing flawed material. If Luther sung it, then that usually elevated the material. I think his version of The Temptations’ glorious Since I Lost My Baby might even trump the original. I’ll not accept challenges to a duel to defend that point, but even if you regard the original as unassailable, you’d have a heart of tarmacadam not to applaud Luther’s version, which features here.

Yacht Rock
Yes, I absolutely hate that term and the knowing sneers that comes with it, but I love the genre (as 12 volumes and counting in the Not Feeling Guilty series has amply proved). One of my favourite albums in that genre is Bill LaBountry’s eponymous LP, which includes the glorious Living It Up (featured on Not Feeling Guilty Vol. 1). LaBounty has featured several times in the Not Feeling Guilty series; it is an injustice that he never became one of the biggest names in soft rock.

Yacht Pop
One album that just about squeaked into my Top 20 is Duran Duran’s Rio. For purposes of doing this list, I listened to the album again. Back in the 1980s it was a favourite; I don’t think it has aged too well, least of all Simon Le Bon’s voice, which I find grating. Still, some of the tracks hold up today. Hungry Like The Wolf and the title track — talk about Yacht Pop — are proper pop classics.

Of the synth pop albums in this lot, Rio is the weakest link. ABC’s Lexicon Of Love still shimmers in its pop perfection, and Yazoo — isn’t it time the US accord the group its full name after 40 years? — issued a thoroughly engaging album in Upstairs At Eric’s, on which several deep tracks might well have become hits, especially the soaring Didn’t I Bring Your Love Down. Instead, only two sings were released as singles, Don’t Go and Only You, which were UK #2 and #3 hits respectively.

Prince vs MJ
The end of 1982 saw the release of the biggest album of all time. I’ve made my views of Michael Jackson’s Thriller know before when I put it head-to-head against Prince’s commercial opus, Purple Rain. In the Jackson canon, I very much prefer Off The Wall, but one cannot deny that Thriller was a game-changer; with its genre-blurring and its incredible promotion, it became a huge cultural phenomenon, as the gentle reader of this blog needn’t really be told. I’d say that Prince’s 1982 double-album 1999 was a superior musical enterprise, but Prince was still building his legend. With Thriller, MJ was making his. And to think that the leading single from Thriller was the much-derided The Girl Is Mine.

Not An Illusion
But in 1982, neither MJ nor Prince made me want to get up and put on my dancing shoes — that was Imagination’s In The Heat Of The Night album. Just An Illusion, Music And Lights, Changes, the title track… half the album is dazzlingly great. The rest is good, too. All’s good, except the awful cover. A couple of years later, a cassette tape of remixes of Imagination songs got stuck in my car stereo, and somehow the volume button was broken, too. For a while I heard more Imagination than was good for my soul or sanity. Why didn’t my Motown mix get stuck instead?

Albums on my shortlist that failed to make the cut include those by Iron Maiden, Toto, Marvin Gaye, Hall & Oates, Men At Work, Dire Straits, Lionel Richie, Marlena Shaw, Shakatak, Culture Club and Germany’s BAP.

As ever, there doubtless will be puzzled headscratchings at my omissions. How could I not include Kate Bush’s The Dreaming? Because I’ve never owned or even heard it in full. Same with Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five’s The Message, much as I love the title track. And if I allowed a live album in Casino Lights, why not Simon & Garfunkel’s The Concert In Central Park? Because whatever I’ve heard from it, I’d rather play the studio versions, or the superb bootleg of a 1960s concert I found somewhere.

Companion mixes for this collection are A Life In Vinyl 1982, Any Major Soul 1982 and Any Major Soul 1982/83. 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.

So, here are my Top 20 albums of 1982. The length of the mix exceeds a standard CD-R, but I’ve made home-thrillered covers anyway. The above text is included in an illustrated PDF. Comments in PW.

1. Dexys Midnight Runners – Liars A To E (Too-Rye-Ay)
2. ABC – All Of My Heart (Lexicon Of Love)
3. Kid Creole & The Coconuts – I’m A Wonderful Thing, Baby (Tropical Gangsters)
4. Donald Fagen – New Frontier (The Nightfly)
5. Michael McDonald – I Gotta Try (If That’s What It Takes)
6. Bill LaBounty – Look Who’s Lonely Now (Bill LaBounty)
7. Al Jarreau & Randy Crawford – Sure Enough (Casino Lights)
8. Michael Jackson – Baby Be Mine (Thriller)
9. Luther Vandross – Since I Lost My Baby (Forever, For Always, For Love)
10. Joe Jackson – Steppin’ Out (Night And Day)
11. Warren Zevon – Never Too Late For Love (The Envoy)
12. Billy Joel – Laura (The Nylon Curtain)
13. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band – Shame On The Moon (The Distance)
14. Bruce Springsteen – Atlantic City (Nebraska)
15. Simple Minds – Someone Somewhere (In Summertime) (New Gold Dream)
16. Yazoo – Bad Connection (Upstairs At Eric’s)
17. Duran Duran – New Religion (Rio)
18. Prince – Delirious (1999)
19. Imagination – Just An Illusion (In The Heat Of The Night)
20. Otis Clay – Cheatin’ In The Next Room (The Only Way Is Up)

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More Albums of the Year
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)

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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
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
Steely Dan

More Songbooks
More Cover Mixes
More CD-R Mixes

For Halloween, no spooky songs nor murder ballads, but a fun mix about death! But the songs in this lot aren’t spooky, nor — caveat emptor — are they generally of great (or any) artistic merit (though some are pretty good). This is a collection spanning the age of teenage tragedy songs; tracks that gave the young people of the 1950s and early ’60s something a bit macabre to cry about. Some of the lyrics are good for a good laugh, even if some of those may be guffaws at the preposterous lyrics.  Above all, this collection represents a time capsule of a particular time in popular music which even some of the biggest names in pop got involved.

Some songs of the teenage tragedy genre are well-known. The Leader Of The Pack is also the leader of the genre, the apex of the genre which would soon be killed off by the British Invasion. Song like the exquisitely manipulative Teen Angel, the appalling Tell Laura I Love Her, Johnny Preston’s pretty racist Running Bear (not running here because of racism) and Pat Boone’s inexcusable Moody River topped the US charts. Others in this mix were cash-ins on the genre, and some were just taking the piss.

The collection kicks off with a satire on the genre, I Want My Baby Back by Jimmy Cross (who says he couldn’t hardly see nuthin’), with the immortal description of a car crash scene: “Over there was my baby, over there was my baby, and way over there was my baby”.

It also ends with what I hope is intended to be a joke, Two Hour Honeymoon by Paul Hampton, a B-side co-written and produced by a pre-fame Burt Bacharach. When I featured the song before as a bonus track on the Lesser-Known Bacharach mix (still up!), I exclaimed: “It must be heard to be believed.” Almost a decade later, I stand by that observation.

The first Teenage Tragedy Song was The Cheers’ Black Denim Trousers And Motorcycle Boots, written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and released in 1955, just before James Dean’s death. After that tragic September day which claimed Jimmy, the song became a hit. In France, Edith Piaf had a hit with her cover of it.

The genre would find representation in all genres of popular music, including country, rockabilly, doo wop and, especially, surf rock. But they all drew from the same pool of tropes: lovers in transport accidents, aquatic disasters, suicides because parents don’t approve of the assorted Johnnies and Jimmies…

I suppose especially the latter gave voice to rebellious teenagers. My own mother lived the lovers-torn-apart-by-disapproving-parents trope just as these songs reached the height of their popularity. If my grandparents hadn’t intervened, there’d be no Major Dude With Half A Heart as we know me (Mom’s 1961 loverboy turned out to be a bit of a crook; sometimes the parents were right).There is one bonus track. It’s not quite a teenage tragedy song, and it conveys the absolutely correct message that drink-driving is murderous. It’s also one of the worst records I have ever heard. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ferlin Husky’s The Drunken Driver from 1954!

I might be making light of death here, or rather of the songs that tell story of tragedies. Of course, many of us have known real people who have died in car crashes, or of suicide, or perhaps even in surfing accidents. To those of us who had such a real-life bereavement — I have had some myself —  I apologise if this mix is picking at old (or, God forbid, fresh) scars.

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

1. Jimmy Cross – I Want My Baby Back (1965)
   OMG! What Happened? Car crash after Beatles concert!
2. The Cheers – Black Denim Trousers And Motorcycle Boots (1955)
   OMG! What Happened? Asshole dies in motorcycle accident!
3. The Everly Brothers – Ebony Eyes (1961)
   OMG! What Happened? A plan crash!
4. Mark Dinning – Teen Angel (1961)
   OMG! What Happened? A stalled car, a train, and a class ring!
5. The Mystics – Star Crossed Lovers (1961)
   OMG! What Happened? Suicide pact!
6. Del Shannon – The Prom (1961)
   OMG! What Happened? Accident on the way to the prom!
7. The Breakers – Surfin’ Tragedy (1963)
   OMG! What Happened? Wiped out while surfin’!
8. Jan & Dean – Dead Man’s Curve (1964)
   OMG! What Happened? Reckless driving!
9. Susan Lynne – Don’t Drag No More (1964)
   OMG! What Happened? Nobody dies, but boyfriend wears women’s frocks!
10. The Shangri-Las – Leader Of The Pack (1963)
    OMG! What Happened? Look out! Look out! Look out! A motorcycle tragedy!
11. Twinkle – Terry (1964)
    OMG! What Happened? Another motorcycle tragedy!
12. The Beach Boys – A Young Man Is Gone (1963)
    OMG! What Happened? Police shooting? But he’ll live forever more!
13. Roy Orbison – Leah (1962)
    OMG! What Happened? A pearl-diving accident!
14. J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers – Last Kiss (1964)
    OMG! What Happened? Car crash and his baby went to heaven!
15. Dickey Lee – Patches (1962)
    OMG! What Happened? Heartbroken Patches found face-down in river!
16. The Browns – The Three Bells (1959)
    OMG! What Happened? Death on a wedding day!
17. Gene Summers – Chapel Bells Ringing (1962)
    OMG! What Happened? Angels weep on a wedding day!
18. Jody Reynolds – Endless Sleep (1958)
    OMG! What Happened? The sea took his baby away!
19. Ray Peterson – Tell Laura I Love Her (1959)
    OMG! What Happened? Bad driving and a last-breath declaration!
20. Johnny Cymbal – The Water Was Red (1961)
    OMG! What Happened? Shark attack! And you should see the shark now!
21. Pat Boone – Moody River (1961)
    OMG! What Happened? Muddy waters took his baby’s life!
22. Cathy Carroll – Jimmy Love (1961)
    OMG! What Happened? Lightning struck!
23. John Leyton – Johnny Remember Me (1961)
    OMG! What Happened? Johnny’s true love haunts him!
24. Bernadette Carroll – The Hero (1964)
    OMG! What Happened? Johnny and teammates die in bus crash!
25. Barry Mann – Johnny Surfboard (1963)
    OMG! What Happened? The waves claim surfin’ Johnny!
26. Kip Tyler – Eternity (A Surfer’s Lament) (1963)
    OMG! What Happened? The sea is calling Kip!
27. The Four Seasons – No Surfin’ Today (1964)
    OMG! What Happened? The angry sea took his love away!
28. Paul Hampton – Two Hour Honeymoon (1963)
    OMG! What Happened? Wedding night car crash!

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More Mix CD-Rs
Halloween Mixes
Murder Songs