Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

In the 13th installment of Covered With Soul we have interpretations of hits by The Mamas And Papas, Bob Dylan, Bobbie Gentry, Joe South, John Denver, Glen Campbell, Dionne Warwick, Neil Sedaka, Hall & Oates, The Doobie Brothers, The Beatles (twice), Etta James, Tommy Edwards, Bobby Vinton, The Everly Brothers, Simon & Garfunkel, Bobby Darin (or Tim Hardin) and Steam, as well as a song from the Hammerstein & Rogers musical Carousel.

For two tracks, those by Ike & Tina Turner and Cissy Houston, I have no year of recording; they appeared on greatest hits type of albums. Both must date to the late 1960s or ealy 1970s, but I have no specific year.

As always, the mix is timed to fit on a standard CD-R, for which homebaked covers are included.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Bobby Womack – California Dreamin’ (1969)
2. Maxine Weldon – Like A Rolling Stone (1970)
3. Ike & Tina Turner – Ode To Billie Joe
4. Cissy Houston – Down In The Boondocks
5. Kimberley Briggs – Leaving On A Jet Plane (1972)
6. Willie Hutch – Wichita Lineman (1973)
7. The Undisputed Truth – Walk On By (1970)
8. Lea Roberts – Laughter In The Rain (1975)
9. Impact – Sara Smile (1977)
10. Quincy Jones (with Luther Vandross & Gwen Guthrie) – Takin’ It To The Streets (1978)
11. Chaka Khan – We Can Work It Out (1981)
12. Marlena Shaw – At Last (1982)
13. Tyrone Davis – It’s All In The Game (1973)
14. The Natural Four – Blue Velvet (1970)
15. Friends Of Distinction – And I Love Him (1969)
16. Linda Jones – Let It Be Me (1972)
17. Zulema – If I Loved You (1972)
18. Marsha Hunt – Keep The Customer Satisfied (1971)
19. Voices Of East Harlem – Simple Song Of Freedom (1970)
20. Wayne McGhie & the Sounds of Joy – Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye (1970)

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More Covered With Soul

Here is the seventh CD-R mix in the Any Major Funk series. It might have been called Any Major Disco, but that would have been (equally) misleading, with expectations of Saturday Night Fever, Munich Machine or, eek, Ethel Merman doing disco. So these mixes are not quite funkadelically funky, but the funk and the brand of disco spearheaded by Chic are the influences that dominate these mixes.

And because these mixes, all of which are timed to fit on standard CD-Rs, previously came without covers, I have homebaked a selection, a collage of which you will see at the end of the post.

I”m posting this mix on the 33^rd anniversary of the Comiskey Park disco records burning action, on 12 July 1979 ““ as chance would have it, also a Thursday. I wrote about it previously in “The Disco Inferno”.

TRACKLISTING:
1. Delegation – Where Is The Love (We Used To Know) (1977)
2. Dee Dee Sharp Gamble ““ Let”s Get This Party Started (1980)
3. Rainbow Brown – Till You Surrender (1981)
4. Yvonne Gage – Garden Of Eve (1981)
5. Skyy – High (1979)
6. Shalamar – Make That Move (1980)
7. Thelma Houston – If You Feel It (1981)
8. Sister Sledge – One More Time (1979)
9. Billy Ocean – Whatever Turns You On (1981)
10. Fat Larry’s Band – Here Comes The Sun (1979)
11. L.T.D. – One On One (1979)
12. Central Line – That’s No Way To Treat My Love (1981)
13. Phyllis Hyman – You Know How To Love Me (1979)
14. Sylvia St. James – Can’t Make You Mine (1980)
15. Jet Brown – Living Together (1979)

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Read more…

After behaving with abominable enthusiasm in May, the Grim Reaper took it comparatively easy in June.

The headline death was that of Herb Reed, leader of The Platters, at the age of 83. Reed was the last of the original Platters to leave us, and he was the only of the legions of rotating members to have featured on all official records by The Platters (that is, the incarnations of The Platters that traced their roots to Buck Ram). Reed toured until recently, until poor health laid him low. He died in the knowledge that a federal court had confirmed him as the legitimate heir to the name The Platters.

Susanna Clark, who died on June 27 at 73, had a finger in many cool alt.country moments. She was a songwriter for the likes of Emmylou Harris, Carlene Carter, Jessi Colter, Jerry Jeff Walker, Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, and Miranda Lambert; she was the subject of several songs by her husband Guy Clark; and, an artist, she painted the covers of LPs such as Willie Nelson”s Stardust, Emmylou Harris” Quarter Moon In A Ten Cent Town (pictured below), Guy Clark”s Old No. 1, and Nanci Griffith”s The Dust Bowl Symphony, and as a friend she inspired the likes of Steve Earle and Townes van Zandt.

As a Beatles fan I feel obliged to note, if not list, the death at 82 on June 18 of the actor Victor Spinetti, who played the TV director in A Hard Day”s Night and the mad scientist in Help!.

And talking of movies, Richard Adler, the composer of one of the songs featured in GoodFellas, Tony Bennett”s Tags To Riches, died in the same month as the man on whom the great film was based, Henry Hill, whose end came not from a whack but from natural causes at the age of 69 on June 12. With his writing partner Jerry Ross, Adler wrote the music for several big Broadway shows, in the 1950s, including The Pajama Game and Damn Yankees (both featured songs later revived in the musical Fosse). Read more…