The second volume of my trawl through the Psych years and both of these discs have songs taken from ‘The Rubble Collection’ compilations. This was originally a series of 20 LPs released by the Bam-Curoso label, intent on digging up rare gems from the psychedelic period. The series started in 1984 and continued until 2002 before being collected in two rather fine box sets in 2003 (which is where I first heard them). As a side note, the band Argosy could be argued to be something of a supergroup in the making as both songs were written and sung by Roger Hodgson, who would later go on to form Supertramp. Also included on the disc was Elton John, Caleb Quaye (who was responsible for the rather good song ‘Woman of Distinction on Disc 1) and Nigel Olsson. Quaye and Olsson would later become members of the Elton John band.
Disc 1
Faster Than Light – The Mirror
Woman Of Distinction – Caleb
Hold On – Ipsissimus
Cast A Spell – The Open Mind
Tracy Took A Trip – The Executives
Here We Go ‘Round The Lemon Tree – Jason Crest
Lollipop Minds – Wimple Witch
William Chalker’s Time Machine – The Lemon Tree
Barricades – The Koobas
Celestial Empire – Dragonfly
On The Beach – Finders Keepers
Daughter Of The Moon – Sharon Tandy & Fleur De Lys
Matrimonial Fears – The Cymbaline
Anymore Than I Do – The Attack
Anniversary Of Love – Ice
Love & Beauty – The Moody Blues
My World Fell Down – The Ivy League
Tales Of Flossie Fillet – Turquoise
Why May I Now Know? – Waterloo
You Know That I’ll Be There – Peter & The Blizzards
For many year, I didn’t have a lot of Otis Redding records in my collection. A couple of singles and a best of, but this changed in 2015 when Rhino decided to put out the great man’s albums in a box set called Soul Manifesto 1964-1970. This contained all of the albums he released during his life time, and the most of the posthumous albums with the exception of 1992’s Remember Me. What was most surprising about this posthumous releases was the high quality fo the music that was on them. When an artists has died, these releases can be seen as a cash grab for the record label and full of substandard material that the artist had felt was not worth releasing at the time. Not so in Redding’s case. He seemed to have a knack of writing a good tune, but also picking out awesome ones to cover. Hence this three disc set. I set out to make a single or double disc compilation at most, but there was so much good material, it was hard to keep it to three. The story of Redding’s life and untimely death have been told many times so I came going to let his music do the talking, especially as I am still putting the finishing touches to my next post and that one is taking a lot longer to research and put together than all of the other posts I have put together before this put together. Well, that is the way it seems anyway. Enjoy.
Disc 1
Shake
Love Man
Any Ole Way
Pain In My Heart
Tramp*
Chained & Bound (Single Version)
Direct Me (Mono)
Hard To Handle (Mono)
Security
That’s What My Heart Needs
These Arms Of Mine (Single Version)
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)
Come To Me
Down In The Valley
You’ve Made A Man Out Of Me
Tell The Truth
634-5789
That’s A Good Idea
Your One & Only Man
Nobody Knows You (When You’re Down & Out)
Bring It On Home To Me*
It’s Growing
I’m A Changed Man (Mono)
Don’t Mess With Cupid
Tennessee Waltz
When Something is Wrong With My Baby*
For Your Precious Love
Change Gonna Come
Disc 2
Stay In School
The Boston Monkey
Trick Or Treat
Look At The Girl
Home in Your Heart
A Woman, A Lover, A Friend
I Love You More Than Words Can Say
I’m Coming Home To See About You
The Hucklebuck
Got To Get Myself Together
I Got The Will
Lovely Dovey*
Johnny’s Heartbreak
Remember Me
I’m Coming Home
Open The Door
Groovin’ Time
I Can’t Turn You Loose
Let Me Come On Home
You’re Still My Baby
Free Me
Are You Lonely For Me Baby?*
Give Away None Of My Love
The Happy Song (Dum-Dum-De-De-De-Dum-Dum)
Champagne & Wine
Everybody Makes Mistakes
You Don’t Miss Your Water
Amen
Disc 3
Demonstration
She Put The Hurt On Me
Tell It Like It Is*
Rock me Baby
Don’t Leave Me This Way
I Need Your Lovin’
It Takes Two*Living By The Pund (Take 1)
The Dog
I’m Sick Y’All
Something Is Worrying Me
I Want To Thank You
Keep Your Arms Around Me
You Got Good Lovin’
Mary’s Little Lamb
The Match Game
You Left The Water Running
Sweet Lorene
A Lover’s Question
Nobody’s Fault by Mine
A Little Time
Love Have Mercy
Think About It
The Glory of Love
That’s How Strong My Love Is
My Lover’s Prayer
I’ve Been Loving Too Long
Try A Little Tenderness
* Otis Redding & Carla Thomas
Only Disc 1 could be reproduced on Spotify to some of the songs not being available on that platform.
A bit of an odd one here, or just different; I’ll let you decide. I knew that ‘Hey Joe’ was not an original song by Jimi Hendrix but it could be argued that it is the most well know of all of the versions that have been recorded. I must admit that I I wasn’t really aware of any others until I started listening to American Garage bands of the mid 60’s. The excellent ‘Nuggets’ box set from 1998 introduced me to the version by The Leaves, which was considerably faster than the version released by Hendrix. Later on when I started to buy up the expanded editions of The Byrds back catalogue at the turn of the century, they had included a version of the song on their ‘5th Dimension’ album, but this was of a similar speed to The Leaves version. It would seem that any band worth their salt in the Southern California music scene was playing it.
The authorship of the song has been contested down the years. Some recordings list it as traditional, some by Dino Valenti (which was a pseudonym of Quicksilver Messenger Services’ Chet Powers) or Billy Roberts.
Roberts copyrighted the song in 1962 and is said to have been performing it for a few years before this. Roberts may well have taken inspiration from other songs for his own, being as he was part of the folk tradition and in that authorship can be a lot more fluid. Just look at some of the works of Bob Dylan. Roberts could well have taken inspiration for his song from the following. ‘Little Sadie’, a traditional folk ballad which does go by a number of other names (such as Bad Lee Brown and Late One Night). It tells the story of a man who is arrested after a shooting a woman, the identity of whom changes depending on the version. The earliest version of this song I could find was released in 1930 by Clarence Ashley. ‘Hey Joe’ by Carl Smith which not only shares the title but the idea of questioning between the characters in the song. Lastly, there is ’Baby Please Don’t Go to Town’ which was written by Roberts’ girlfriend, by Niela Horn. This last one shares a similar chord progression and melody.
While the authorship of the song was contested even back in the 60’s, the song itself became a garage rock classic. It it even made its way to the UK when it was recorded by Kenny Barnard, even though he changed the lyrics so he could claim a writers credit for himself.
It was upon hearing this version by Bernard that inspired me to think about a compilation of the versions recorded before Hendrix did. The Hendrix version is so famous that the slow version became the norm after it was released and the garage rock version played at a much higher tempo has therefore been all but forgotten. I wondered if there were enough versions of it to compile a LP’s worth of material and to my surprise, there was. I have included the demo recording that Roberts made in the early 60s as the opening track followed by The Rogues. This is not strictly ‘Hey Joe’, but seems to be more of an answer record, something we don’t see very often these days. It uses a very similar chord sequence and structure but it is a bit odd to have an answer record to a song that has yet to have a release.
The version by The Leaves is considered to be the first cover of ‘Hey Joe’ but even this is in dispute as very lo-fi recording by a band called The Swamp Rats seems to have come out first. Strangely, The Leaves version is the only recording of the song to break the top 40 in the US Billboard single chart. The version by the Jimi Hendrix Experience did not even make the charts.
The remainder of the songs are not in any particular order. They only had to have been recorded before Hendrix released his version. The band, The `Warlocks included here are not the same ones that would change their name to the Grateful Dead.
Side A
Hey Joe – Billy Roberts
Wanted: Dead Or Alive – The Rogues
Hey Joe – Swamp Rats
Hey Joe – The Leaves
Hey Joe (Where You Gonna Go) – The Standells
Hey Joe – Love
Hey Joe – Tim Rose
Hey Joe – The Music Machine
Side B
Hey Joe (Where You Gonna Go) – The Byrds
Hey Joe – Safaris
Hey Joe – Gonn
Hey Woman – Kenny Bernard
Hey Jo – The Warlocks
Hey Joe (Where You Gonna Go) – The Cryan’ Shames
Hey Joe – The Shadows of Knight
Bonus 7” EP
As this is my compilation, I thought I would include a bonus 7” EP of the songs that could be said to have inspired the original song. I have included an extra song with ‘Penitentiary Blues’ by Buddy Baker. This shares similar lyrics to ‘Little Sadie’ and could be the earliest version of this songs to be recorded.
Side A
Baby, Don’t Go To Town – Neila Miller
Hey, Joe – Carl Smith
Side B
Penitentiary Blues – Buddy Baker
Little Sadie – Clarence Ashley
To find out more on this, I would recommend ‘Hey Joe: The Unauthorised Biography of a Rock Classic’ by Marc Shapiro.
The front cover based upon the US picture sleeve of the Jimi Hendrix’s Experiences Hey Joe Single. I included the K-Tel logo because I felt that this was the sort of compilation they may well have released if they had had the inclination. I do remember they liked a themed compilation even though I am sure they would not have released one solely based around one song.
t has been a while since I did a Beatles post, and even longer since I mentioned about the possibility of putting together a compilation of the songs that The Beatles covered on their albums. I actually covered this sort of thing in a podcast back in 2017 when looking at the original versions of the songs*. This play list creates a virtual album of all of the cover version the band released on their studio album, with the exception of Maggie Mae**.
I took the view that this album would have been one of the numerous compilations that EMI put together in the late 70s after the bands contract ran out. I was surprised when looking into putting this together that EMI didn’t do this themselves back in the day. I pretty much followed the chronology of when these songs came out back in the day, except swapping some around so the length each sides is similar to the other corresponding side. That is down to the fact that this release if it had happened would have been put onto cassette tape. I also made the tracks on mine be the mono versions as these were the mix the band were happiest with. Annoyingly, I could only use stereo versions on Spotify which is the format EMI would have no doubt used if they had put this out themselves.
The cover is taken from an Italian release called The Beatles in Italy.
