Expires 12/20/25
Toronto – What About Love? (1982) Most people don’t know that the big 1985 Heart hit was a cover (almost identical) originally recorded (but not released) by Toronto, a band whose proximity to my hometown of Buffalo meant that we heard everything they released. They were pretty big in Canada. Michael McCarty at ATV Music Publishing was reviewing his song catalogue when he came across “What About Love”. He offered the song to Heart, who turned it into a worldwide hit. Such is how royalties are made.
Archangel – Atomic Letter (1976)
Bobbie Gentry with Skitch Henderson – Guard Session: Your National Guard Show, Side 1 (1969). The casual sexism reminds one of a…simpler time.
Brian Protheroe – Pinball (1975)
Bruce Channel – Hey! Baby ’78 (1978) Many times. That’s how many times this middling, unintentionally dissonant #1 song has been rerecorded…by Channel!. At least 1966, 1968, and here. The legend was that the harmonica soloist, Delbert McClinton, taught John Lennon to play the harmonica. Still, Lennon had been playing it live for a few years and merely drew inspiration from the great Delbert.
Appleton Syntonic Menagerie – Chef d’Oeuvre (1969)
Creations IV – Dance in the Sand (1965)
Donny Most – One of These Days (1976) You’d think Anson Williams would have been the first Happy Days cast member to release crap, but it was Donny Most by a year. Truthfully, it’s not BAD.
Daryl Hall and John Oates – Everytime You Go Away (1980)
George Owens – Wood Would (1966)
Argent – God Gave Rock and Roll to You (1973)
Bunny Chanél – I Love The Night Life (Disco Round) (1979)
The Herd – I Don’t Want Our Loving To Die (1968) The Herd were an English pop rock band founded in 1965 in London, England. In 1966, a 16-year-old Peter Frampton joined as lead singer and guitarist. The band had three UK top twenty hits in the late 1960s, including “Paradise Lost,” “From the Underworld,” and “I Don’t Want Our Loving to Die”, before Frampton left in 1968 to form Humble Pie with Steve Marriott. The band broke up shortly after, reforming briefly and unsuccessfully in 1971.
John Appleton – Hommage to Orpheus (1969)
Ronnie Wood – I Got Lost When I Found You (1975)
Lou Christie – Indian Lady (1969). One of his most covered compositions is “Ooh Child” by The Five Stairsteps, who started life as The Five Stairsteps and Cubie and then Stairsteps. They recorded in the mid-Seventies on George Harrison’s Dark Horse label.
Isaac Hayes – Zeke the Freak (1978)
James Brown – Sayin’ And Doin’ It (1974)
Helena Vondráčková – Král diskoték (Private Eyes) (1982)
Lettermen – The Way You Look Tonight (Disco Version) (1976)
Lou Reed – Metal Machine Music (Excerpt) (1975)
Martine Clémenceau – Solitaire (1981)
Bobb Trimble – One Mile From Heaven (Long Version) (1978)
Pacific Drift – Water Woman (1970)
Peter Castle – Get The Girls (1975)
Jack Kittel – Psycho (1974) “Psycho” is a dark, haunting, flawlessly performed country ballad that just could not be suppressed, and along with the memory of the artist who recorded it, has once again made a comeback. The story of ‘Psycho’ and singer Jack Kittel begins in 1973 in Muskegon, Michigan. It was there that Jack recorded the song written in the late ’50s by Leon Payne, a blind San Antonio street singer whose more conventional works have been performed by the likes of Elvis and Johnny Cash.
At first, radio stations wouldn’t play the newly pressed record, judging the lyrics too controversial. Then a Grand Rapids disc jockey gave it some air time on an “underground” show – and ‘Psycho’ became an instant hit. GRC, an Atlanta-based label, was drawing attention from other artists and national publications such as Zoo World, which described it as “a brilliantly grisly depiction of alienation taken to its ultimate extreme.”
From Texas Music: Leon Payne was born in Alba, Texas, on June 15, 1917. Blind in one eye at birth, he later lost sight in his other eye during early childhood. Educated at the famous Texas School for the Blind, Payne met and married his wife, Myrtie Velma Courmier (who was also blind). Payne would become known as “The Blind Balladeer.” He played with Bob Wills in the 1930s and also had a popular radio show out of Palestine, Texas.
In 1949, Payne recorded and released his most famous song, “I Love You Because.” The song spent 32 weeks on the charts and was Payne’s only Top 10 hit. “I Love You Because” was the first song ever recorded by Elvis Presley, and later in the 1960s, it became a Top 10 hit for Al Martino and Jim Reeves. Payne also wrote a well-known hit for Hank Williams, “Lost Highway.”
Payne wrote “Psycho” in 1968 after a discussion about serial murderers with his longtime steel guitar player, Jackie White. (White would become a victim in the song, buried under a sycamore tree.) Eddie Noack, a well-liked and respected honky-tonk singer-songwriter (born De Armand Noack in Houston on April 29, 1930) had fallen on hard times by the late ’60s. Noack had a degree in journalism and English but loved singing. He became a country music performer after winning a talent contest in the late ’40s. One associate described Noack as 100 percent honky-tonk. He had a fine singing voice and a vocal style similar to Junior Brown. After a minor hit, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” in 1949, Noack struggled for another hit and recorded for a dozen independent labels in the next decade.
He became associated with Pappy Daily, the infamous manager of Lefty Frizzell and George Jones, and in 1956, Noack wrote “These Hands,” a gospel song that became a Top 10 hit for Hank Snow and would become Noack’s best-known song. Noack decided to concentrate on songwriting in the early ’60s, often writing for George Jones and recording occasionally on small labels. By 1968, he was a heavy drinker, and dipsomania affected his career. Noack was relegated to cutting vanity records on the tiny K-Ark label for amateur poetry writers who wanted their poems put to music.
Richard Wright – Holiday (1978) Someday, I’m going to publish a list of the most disappointing albums I’ve ever purchased. Richard Wright’s solo album from 1978 would be in the top 10. Drab, uninspired, and maybe Roger Waters based his decision to fire him on this release alone. I would have.
Ganymed – Robot Love (1978)
Ron – Hai Capito O No? (1983)
Ros Serey Sothea – Superstar (1972?)