Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello - Flowers in the Dirt (1987)

Paul McCartney released his sixth studio album, Press to Play, on 25 August 1986 through Parlophone Records. His first after the breakup of Wings not to be produced by George Martin, it was co-written and co-produced by Eric Stewart of 10cc fame, and became his second critical and commercial failure in a row, after Give My Regards to Broad Street. This failure hurt Paul pretty bad, and he felt he needed to bounce back both from the middling sales and from the criticism he received, and set about to try to stage a comeback. It was at this point that his manager suggested a new collaborator, Elvis Costello. The pair had met during the concerts for Cambodia in 1979, and shared an engineer and a studio while recording Tug of War and Imperial Bedroom in 1981. Paul had even played with Elvis' keyboardist Steve Nieve and drummer Pete Thomas in a TV show in early 1987, but had never performed with Elvis himself before. After Elvis agreed to join him, the first thing he did was change a few words of a finished song, "Back on My Feet", and travel to Paul's farm in Scotland to co-write fourteen brand new songs. Elvis had Liverpudlian roots and a verbose, literate style that complemented Paul's melodic sensibilities particularly well, making for an inspired choice of partner. The songwriting sessions go smoothly, as they write together with ease and complement each other much like Lennon and McCartney did, playing mirrored acoustic guitars and bouncing ideas off of each other. The results of these songwriting sessions were great, and so the two made plans to record them together, starting with demo sessions in February and March 1988. But the trouble came when it came to recording together.

Elvis, who had already been burned by trying out a contemporary 80s sound on the awful Goodbye Cruel World, wanted them to go for a stripped-down, bare-bones sound for the album. Paul, who was very hurt by the commercial failure of Press to Play, found himself chasing trends and playing catch up, and wanted a contemporary-sounding album, which he thought could be the key to a comeback. With that in mind, they recorded with Hamish Stuart of the AWB, guitarist Kevin Armstrong, and drummer Chris Whitten, who despite being great were a clear mismatch for the material. The ever-present drums with gated reverb, synthesizers, and all that goes along with it were there from the get-go. There is even a quite humorous moment when Paul mentions new wave pop band the Human League as a possible inspiration for one of the tracks and Elvis has to leave the room to calm himself down. By that point, it was clear that the differences between the two were too great for a full album together, so they decided to split amicably and each do what they think is best for the material. Elvis takes a couple of the pair's songs and releases Spike, and even has his only ever Top 20 hit with "Veronica", a McCartney co-write. Meanwhile, four producers and nearly two years later, Paul releases his own Flowers in the Dirt, a real mishmash of styles and genres which was considered a return to form and gave him a hit with Costello co-write "My Brave Face". From then, they kept using songs from these songwriting sessions all the way to the mid-90s, showing how fruitful these had been, but sadly never wrote together again. With that, fans of both artists were left with the sense that the two could have done much more together.

But what if Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello had managed to record a full album together? To answer that question, we will be gathering together every single song the two wrote as songwriting partners and turning it into a full-blown record, as Paul's very own version of the Travelling Wilburys, joining forces with another great songwriter to try and reverse his failing fortunes, as well as his attempt at finally finding the ideal writing partner almost twenty years after parting ways with John Lennon. It would have been recorded in early 1988 and released sometime later that year, instead of taking more than two years to complete with many producers, as was the case with Paul's Flowers in the Dirt. Given enough luck, they might even beat George Harrison and his Wilburys to the punch, making them the copycats! As for the rules, only McCartney/McManus originals are allowed to be considered, so even Elvis' "This Town", which even features Paul playing the bass, cannot be included in this album as it was written solely by him. And unless no duo version of the song exists, solo versions of the songs are not allowed to be included, as this would have been a full collaboration between the two and we need the both of them to be in every song. That also helps us with the problem that the production in the songs Paul took with him is remarkably different to the songs Elvis took, which would make for a jarring listening experience with two very different sounds. Fortunately, the McCartney/McManus demo sessions have been very well documented, so there don't seem to be many exceptions to this rule, giving us little to fix in this album. With all that out of the way, here's what our joint Costello/McCartney album looks like:

The Lovers That Never Were (Flowers in the Dirt)

Veronica (Spike)

Tommy's Coming Home (Flowers in the Dirt)

Twenty Fine Fingers (Flowers in the Dirt)

So Like Candy (Flowers in the Dirt)

You Want Her Too (Flowers in the Dirt)

Shallow Grave (Flowers in the Dirt)

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Mistress and Maid (Flowers in the Dirt)

I Don't Want to Confess (Flowers in the Dirt)

That Day is Done (Flowers in the Dirt)

Don't Be Careless Love (Flowers in the Dirt)

My Brave Face (Flowers in the Dirt)

Pads, Paws and Claws (Spike)

From a Playboy to a Man (Flowers in the Dirt)

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Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello - Flowers in the Dirt (1987)

McManus and McCartney playing together at the Royal Albert Hall, April 1999.

"The Lovers That Never Were", "Tommy's Coming Home", "Twenty Fine Fingers", "So Like Candy", "You Want Her Too", "That Day is Done", "Don't Be Careless Love", "My Brave Face" and "Playboy to a Man" are solo acoustic demos from October and November 1987, featuring both McCartney and Costello, taken from the Special Edition of Flowers in the Dirt. Those nine tracks, in the other they were presented in the box set, will make the bulk of the album, with any other material we choose to include getting added into this sequence. Coming from these same demo sessions are "I Don't Want to Confess", "Mistress and Maid", and "Shallow Grave", which didn't make the main box set but were released as a Record Store Day exclusive in 2017 in a three-song cassette. Now, the sound quality of this cassette is noticeably rougher than the first nine songs, having been recorded on the very same day they wrote the songs. But the fact that they are great performances of essential songs, and that they come from the exact same late 1987 period, makes their inclusion a no-brainer, sound quality be damned. That leaves "Veronica" and "Pads, Paws and Claws", which are solo Costello demos from late 1987, taken from the deluxe edition of his Spike album. Now, while these demos sadly don't feature McCartney in any form, the fact that they're just Elvis with an acoustic guitar means they fit quite well with the other duo demos. And of course, given that Paul would most likely take the lead on about 90% of the other songs, it makes sense to have two songs serving as Elvis' "solo spot", where he would sing lead and Paul would just harmonize with him, taking a backseat role on an album that's already quite heavy on him.

The rougher cassette recordings are added right to the middle of the sequence, with the morbid "Shallow Grave" serving as side one closer and the great "Mistress and Maid" as the opener to side two. The lesser "I Don't Want to Confess", one of only three songs that didn't make it to any Paul McCartney or Elvis Costello album within the next ten years, gets placed in the middle of side two, where it won't bother anybody. Meanwhile, Elvis' two solo spots are added to opposite ends of the album, with the second and second-to-last songs being "Veronica" and "Pads, Paws and Claws" respectively. Ideally, the album's backing band would consist of McCartney, Costello, Attractions drummer Pete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve, as well as Paul's guitarist Robbie McIntosh. A best-of-both-worlds scenario where we get the power of the Attractions and the technical ability of Paul's solo band, him obviously taking bass duties. And produced by Geoff Emerick, who had a lot of experience working with Elvis (he had produced the fantastic Imperial Bedroom album), and especially Paul, serving as engineer on nearly a dozen of his albums. A familiar figure to both, who could mediate whatever creative issues the two had and help them get the best album possible. This would most likely be a more stripped-down affair as Costello had intended, foregoing the more contemporary, slick sound McCartney had insisted on. I personally have nothing against the eighties sound, but there's a great mismatch between the folky, sometimes somber but sweet songs these two wrote and that type of production, which was much more suited to the poppier material Paul was writing outside his collaboration with Costello.

Since the name Flowers in the Dirt is taken from the lyrics to "That Day is Done", and is also a pretty nice title, we can retain it as the album's title for our reconstruction. The album is fourteen songs long, as that's exactly how many songs the two wrote from scratch ("Back on My Feet" only received  some small tweaks by Costello). It was also how many songs were featured in any early Beatles album, a detail which certainly would be picked up by Elvis. And since all the songs are on the short side, it works pretty well and makes for a regular 42-minute record, fitting into LPs, CDs and cassete tapes with ease. As for the cover, I took one of the few existing photos of the two during the sessions for FITD, threw some effects on it, and added both of their names and the album title. Of course, Paul will get top billing, but their names are the same size and both are featured prominently on this cover. It ended up looking more like the late 1990s than the late 1980s, but I figured it was good enough, and as rough as the material in the album itself. When it comes to the lead single we have it pretty easy, as both of them had hits with this material: Elvis with "Veronica", and Paul with "My Brave Face". I can see the both of them getting released as singles, with Paul's getting released first as a question of hierarchy more than anything. The strength of this collaboration is such that it easily obscures both Spike and the original Flowers in the Dirt, making for Paul's greatest late-career album and one of Elvis' greatest efforts, even in the form of half-baked demos! Then it's a shame those two couldn't put their differences aside and turn this album into a reality, with both putting their twenty fine fingers to very good use in this record.

Sources:

- Paul McCartney - Flowers in the Dirt [Archive Collection]

- Elvis Costello - Spike [Deluxe Edition]

- The Paul McCartney Project

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust: The Musical (1974)

David Bowie's breakthrough album, 1972's Ziggy Stardust, is a loose and non-linear concept album about an androgynous alien rock star, who lands on earth five years away from the end of the world, here forming a rock and roll band. It tells of his attempt to give humanity hope in that dystopic future, through music, sex, and drugs, with Ziggy being the main character behind promoting that ideology. What he sees there is a world in complete disarray, as well as a youth completely disillusioned and distant from the generations that came before them, who they consider out of touch with reality, with them being left "on their own" to deal with the consequences. Without any electricity or desire for rock music, he and his band are seen forced to sing about the news of the period, all of them about, of course, the imminent end of mankind. He's a representation of the ultimate cliche rock n' roll superstar, being destroyed by both his drug intake and his own fans' glorification of him at the end of the album, them disappointed his calls for hope and love didn't result in anything that could save them. The album was both a gigantic critical and commercial success, and also one of the firsts in a string of many great LPs to come from him during the seventies. Its follow-up, 1973's "Aladdin Sane", is a fantastic glam rock record that shares many of its predecessor's themes of stardom and heavy sound, its name being a pun on A Lad Insane. Bowie even nicknamed the album "Ziggy goes to America", due to it being written while on tour in the US, with its sleeve containing the name of the city each song was written in. 

He maintained the Stardust persona even after its release, adding the new album's tunes to the tour setlist and simply keeping on going, giving us all the feeling that Alladin Sane was nothing more than a sequel to the concept album. The new songs fit in perfectly with the whole concept, adding depth to its characters and universe, which Bowie certainly took note of and used to his advantage during concerts. But by July of 1973, it seems, he was already tired of the whole thing, and during the final show of the tour, in the Hammersmith Odeon, took all the audience by surprise by announcing his retirement from live performances from the stage, shortly before the last song of the concert. What they all didn't notice, however, was that Bowie was only doing so "in character", and was effectively putting Ziggy Stardust to rest, and moving on with his career. After that show (immortalized in D.A. Pennebaker's concert film), he disbanded his Spiders from Mars backing band, and started to conceptualize two new projects: an album adaptation of George Orwell's "1984", and a musical based on Ziggy Stardust, managing to write some six songs for the former and two for the latter. However, soon afterward his interest in the musical waned, most likely due to the fact that it had only been one year since he was performing as the character and it was too soon for him to tackle such a thing. And to put insult to injury, he was denied the rights to Orwell's work, and so David combined both projects into one, transforming them into the fantastic "Diamond Dogs" album, released in mid-1974, going on tour and even becoming a blue-eyed soul artist for a while after that. But what if Bowie had made that Ziggy Stardust musical?

This reconstruction is an update to my The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars post from November 2019. Our goal here, instead of merely compiling an extended version of Ziggy Stardust, is to create a two-hour musical separated into two one-hour acts, that can also function as a triple LP. That means we'll be looking for roughly thirty songs, and given the vast amounts of material Bowie recorded during this very prolific period, we won't have a lot of trouble finding it. Whenever they are avoidable, there will be no live recordings, as they feel quite out of place here, and only recordings from Bowie's glam rock period of around 1971 to 1974 will be considered. Additionally, we won't be respecting the original album's sequencing, as the added material will outnumber it almost two to one, meaning we'll have to find our own way of putting all of this music together in a way that makes sense. This musical's narrative will also be pretty loose, as none of the songs on the original are very narrative-driven, and without Bowie actually sitting down to write exposition-based songs for us, we're left with a production that's quite light on a story. So, we will be considering that an intended feature instead of a product of the circumstances. The focus of this reconstruction will be not on the story, but on the songs themselves and how they could fit together to create the best possible long-form rock opera centered around the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, through the lens of Bowie's mid-70s discography. With that out of the way, here's what our version of this long-lost project looks like:

First act

Hang on to Yourself (Ziggy Stardust)
Ziggy Stardust (Ziggy Stardust)
Watch That Man (Aladdin Sane)
Soul Love (Ziggy Stardust)
All the Young Dudes (Aladdin Sane)

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Five Years (Ziggy Stardust)
The Prettiest Star (Aladdin Sane)
John, I'm Only Dancing (Aladdin Sane)
Moonage Daydream (Ziggy Stardust)
Lady Stardust (Ziggy Stardust)

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Rebel Rebel (Diamond Dogs)
Sweet Head (Ziggy Stardust)
Velvet Goldmine (Ziggy Stardust)
Holy Holy (Ziggy Stardust)
My Death (Ziggy Stardust)

Second act

Cracked Actor (Aladdin Sane)
Time (Aladdin Sane)
Let's Spend the Night Together (Aladdin Sane)
Port of Amsterdam (Ziggy Stardust)
Drive-In Saturday (Aladdin Sane)

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Rock and Roll With Me (Diamond Dogs)
Aladdin Sane (Aladdin Sane)
Panic in Detroit (Aladdin Sane)
Star (Ziggy Stardust)
The Jean Genie (Aladdin Sane)

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Starman (Ziggy Stardust)
Lady Grinning Soul (Aladdin Sane)
Around and Around (Ziggy Stardust)
Suffragette City (Ziggy Stardust)
Rock and Roll Suicide (Ziggy Stardust)

Download link:

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust: The Musical (1974)

Bowie (as Ziggy Stardust) performing live in Newcastle, June 1973.

Now, we need to figure out what will make the album and what won't, starting with what made the cut. The entire Ziggy Stardust album is included, minus "It Ain't Easy", a Hunky Dory outtake that was shoehorned into the concept and honestly doesn't fit the concept very well. All the main outtakes from the Ziggy sessions can be added, those being "Velvet Goldmine", "Holy Holy", "Sweet Head", "Around and Around" and "Port of Amsterdam". All of those, except for "Sweet Head", were included in early running orders for the Ziggy album around December 1971, showing how close they were to actually fitting into the album proper. Live staple "My Death", which was an integral part of the performances and the character, despite never making it to the studio, is an almost obligatory inclusion, even though we'll be having to use a live version of it. The entire Aladdin Sane, the self-described Ziggy Goes to America, was performed live in character as Ziggy Stardust, except for "Lady Grinning Soul". We will include it anyway, alongside the other nine tracks, as it feels like it belongs on the album and provides some variety to the album, pointing the way to the soul sound of Young Americans. Aladdin Sane outtakes "All the Young Dudes" and "John, I'm Only Dancing" also make the cut, those being two songs with very strong connections to the Ziggy Stardust concept that inexplicably didn't make the album, but did get performed live regularly. And finally, the most obvious inclusions, the two songs known to have been written explicitly for the musical: "Rebel Rebel" and "Rock and Roll With Me".

Now, on to what didn't make the cut. The September 1971 songs "Looking for a Friend", "Shadow Man" and "Something Happens", which were recorded in-between Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust, but don't have any narrative or circumstantial link to either of those, will not be included. Neither will anything from Pin-Ups, which unlike the covers included here, didn't have anything to do with Ziggy and were just Bowie covering some of his favorite songs and influences from the mid-60s. Re-recordings of older songs are fine (we did include "The Prettiest Star" and "Holy Holy", after all), but not when it comes to songs previously released on an album, which means the re-recorded version of "The Supermen" from the late 1971 Trident sessions doesn't make the cut. There also won't be any space for the unfinished "Zion"/"A Lad in Vein" from the Aladdin Sane sessions, which would sound quite jarring between these songs in the state that it's in, but if finished, it would make for a sensible inclusion. A shame that it was abandoned. As for how we sequenced this behemoth, we used his 1973 setlists, which he played in character as Ziggy Stardust, as a basis for how to sequence this two-hour collection of songs, establishing a loose narrative around the Ziggy persona and his 1971/1973 material. As for the songs he didn't play live, we tended to replace songs that weren't part of the concept, but played live ("Wide Eyed Boy from Freecloud", "Space Oddity", "Changes", just to name a few), with their closest corresponding outtake, to keep the story as close to the shows as we possibly could. 

Even though we really weren't planning this reconstruction from an album standpoint, all sides are five songs long and between 17 and 21 minutes, which is within reason for the 70s. I do have to point out that, almost by accident, most sides work exquisitely well as their own small mini-acts, with strong openers and closers that make sense in the spot they were given, which is quite remarkable. Also, both acts are slightly under an hour long, ideal for a musical, and given that there would be an intermission and some dialog, give us a nice two-and-a-half hour attraction. As for both acts themselves, since Aladdin Sane was a continuation of Ziggy Stardust, the first act is mostly music from Ziggy and the second disc is mostly music from Aladdin, in an attempt to show the narrative progression between them, and the contrast between pre-fame and post-fame Bowie, with most of the cover versions being on the second act. The cover is an outtake from the photo sessions that spawned the original Ziggy Stardust album cover, which I then slightly edited and added a title to. You can pretend that's the cover to the original cast recording, if you wish to. This project certainly helps flesh out the rather loose Ziggy Stardust concept, giving it a depth and some world-building it certainly lacked when it came out in 1972. And hearing all of these songs together manages to show us how fantastic Bowie's glam period was, when for a brief period it seemed like he could do no wrong. It's just a shame that he couldn't put something like this together, to better represent when this cracked actor played his greatest part.

Sources:

- The David Bowie Bible

- 5 Years: The Ziggy Stardust Companion

The Hollies - Listen to Us (1968)

The Hollies released Butterfly, their seventh UK studio album, in November 1967 through Parlophone Records. One of the greatest records to come out of the '60s British psychedelic scene, it came during a period of transition for the Hollies, who seemed to be abandoning their poppier sound in favor of a more complex, self-penned style. This charge was mostly led by vocalist and guitarist Graham Nash, who greatly admired the Beatles and American groups such as the Byrds and the Buffalo Springfield, and wanted to emulate the changes in sound and image that those groups went through, which often clashed with the rest of the band, who were more traditional and didn't partake on the same recreational drugs as Nash. This rift was only intensified when their single "King Midas in Reverse", a song that Graham considered his magnum opus and one that was to signify the evolution that was taking place, failed to become a hit, barely making the top 20 in the UK. Wasting no time, Nash and Allan Clarke wrote the much more traditional "Jennifer Eccles" and recorded it in early 1968, restoring their chart success. But that ended up leaving Graham even more dissatisfied at the failure of this next step creatively for them and the fact that they'd taken a step backward as a response. Throughout the year, they record songs for a proposed eighth studio album, with intra-band issues just intensifying from then on.

Along with "Jennifer Eccles", they record other originals such as "Open Up Your Eyes" and "Wings", both meant for the new record. The Hollies even recorded the backing track for "Marrakesh Express", Nash's drug-influenced song that would later become a hit for CSN, but its themes and the rift between Graham and the rest of the band prevented them from completing it. This clash between the more conservative Clarke and Hicks and the hippie Nash was the main issue tearing the band apart, with the two looking more and more like squares as the 1960s rolled on, and Nash wanting no part in that. It was during the recording sessions for this album that the infamous meeting where Crosby, Stills, and Nash sang "You Don't Have to Cry" happened, but it would take until late 1968 for Graham to work up the courage to leave the Hollies, only doing so when CSN looked like a sure thing. In the meantime, he had the opportunity to record some more originals, such as his "Man With No Expression", as well as being stringed along for a horrible, horrible Las Vegas-esque version of "Blowin' in the Wind", which he absolutely hated and only solidified his desire to leave. By November, Nash had left to join David and Stephen, the band's eighth studio album had been shelved, and the Hollies' Greatest hits compilation had been issued in its place. But what if the Hollies had finished that final album with Graham Nash?

This post is an update to my Listen to Us reconstruction from April 2018. Here, it serves as the final part of a trilogy consisting of David Crosby (1968) and Songs for Judy (1968), which has the goal of answering a very simple question: what if Crosby, Stills & Nash never happened? This time, we will be tackling how Graham Nash's career would've been different, by finishing the album he was making when he left the Hollies in late 1968. He was the only member of CSN without enough songs to fill out a solo album, so this is what most likely would have happened. It would have been twelve songs long, as most Hollies albums were, and with a focus on original songs written by Clarke, Nash, and Hicks, since its predecessor Butterfly was all-original. With one major exception, we will only be considering material recorded by the band itself, and since there aren't enough of those to fill out an album, we were forced to make some very creative choices. We will further be limiting ourselves by not considering any re-recordings, such as the new version of "Very Last Day" they recorded for Colour Me Pop that year. We know a single part of the tracklist was set in stone, as per Bobby Elliot "Relax" was meant to segue into "Tomorrow When it Comes", but other than that, we'll be left to figure out an adequate tracklist on our own too. With that out of the way, here's what our revamped Listen to Us looks like:

Open Up Your Eyes (Clarke, Hicks, and Nash Years)

Do the Best You Can (Clarke, Hicks, and Nash Years)

Relax (Clarke, Hicks, and Nash Years)

Tomorrow When it Comes (Clarke, Hicks and Nash Years)

Lady of the Island (Crosby, Stills, and Nash)

Wings (Clarke, Hicks, and Nash Years)

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Survival of the Fittest (Confessions of the Mind)

Jennifer Eccles (Clarke, Hicks, and Nash Years)

Man With No Expression (Clarke, Hicks and Nash Years)

Like Every Time Before (Clarke, Hicks, and Nash Years)

Marrakesh Express (Over the Years)

Listen to Me (Clarke, Hicks, and Nash Years)

Download link:

The Hollies - Listen to Us (1968)

Nash, Clarke, Elliot, Hicks, and Calvert as photographed sometime in mid-1968.

The Hollies, like most 1960s English bands, had the habit of not including songs released as singles on their albums. However, given that we barely even have enough good-quality material to work with here, that wouldn't be practical. Besides, by the time they were recording this, some bands had already moved away from this practice anyway. So, both "Jennifer Eccles" and its b-side "Open Up Your Eyes" and "Listen to Me" and its b-side "Do The Best You Can" are added to this reconstruction, and immediately are some of the highlights of the album. "Wings" had been donated to the World Wildlife Fund album Nothing's Gonna Change Our World alongside The Beatles' "Across the Universe", thus making it out of the vault at Graham's behest. Meanwhile, "Survival of the Fittest" was recorded in August 1968 while Nash was still in the group, but was strangely enough released as the opening track on the band's Confessions of the Mind album from 1970, with Nash's vocal replaced by Terry Sylvester. Were they short on material perhaps? Either way, the fact that these songs were released in any form goes to show us that the band considered them the best of the sessions, and didn't think they deserved being thrown out. Because of that, I thought it would be interesting to use those songs to bookend the album's sides and serve as the main songs on the album, with the two singles opening and closing side two.

With those six out of the way, there are only four good quality, finished songs from the 1968 sessions that were truly forgotten and left in the vault: "Relax", "Man With No Expression", "Tomorrow When it Comes", and "Like Every Time Before". They make for obvious inclusions, and are immediately added to the album's sequence. That means we still have two song slots open, and need to figure out what will be included between sub-par material, unfinished songs, and Nash's rejected originals. "Marrakesh Express" is a mashup of the Hollies' backing track with Graham's 1968 demo of the song, courtesy of the Hollies Rare and Unreleased channel, giving us the closest we can possibly get to an authentic '68 version of this tune. "Lady of the Island" is another song Graham offered to The Hollies sometime in 1968 but that they somehow rejected, alongside "Sleep Song" and "Right Between the Eyes". Given that our only other options for material are an appalling re-recording of "A Taste of Honey" and a cabaret arrangement of "Blowing in the Wind", our best option becomes adding one of those three rejected songs. I ended up choosing "Lady of the Island", as it was the one Graham liked enough to record with Crosby and Stills, and it's a very good song that would work well with a Hollies-like arrangement.

A marvelous collection of slightly psychedelic-tinged 60s pop, Listen to Me is a worthy follow-up to Evolution and Butterfly, taking the forward-thinking sound of those two albums and expanding it thanks to songs such as "Relax" and "Marrakesh Express". Clocking in at 33 minutes with a very short side one, this is a very brief record, and due to its poppy nature, feels really short but sweet. This album would probably sell decently because of the Hollies' sheer size, but doesn't go on to set the world on fire. A shame, but that is also true of many albums that are now revered. The album title is merely a play on what some '60s artists used to do with their album titles, by slightly altering one of the song's titles. It's corny, for sure, but it's fun and something they'd be willing to try. Meanwhile, the cover is simply a recycled version of the Hollies' Greatest album cover. Not nearly psychedelic enough for 1968, but it'll have to do. All songs are originals, except for "Listen to Me", written by Tony Hazzard, which also happens to be the last thing Graham recorded with the band. It points out the direction they'd go in for the 70s, having hits with other people's songs. This reconstruction is particularly interesting because it shows the Hollies could have gone a different and much more interesting path in the 1970s had Graham stayed. But they couldn't put their differences aside, even though they did the best they could.

Sources:

- The "lost" 1968 album and Graham Nash's 1968 demos

- Graham Nash - Wild Tales: A Rock and Roll Life

Jimi Hendrix - Straight Ahead (1970)

Jimi Hendrix released the Band of Gypsys live album on March 25, 1970, through Capitol Records. Recorded during four New Year's performances at the Fillmore East, it existed to fulfill a contractual obligation due to a contract Hendrix signed to PPX Enterprises in 1966. He had agreed that Ed Chalpin, head of PPX, be his manager only to leave the country and form the Experience in London shortly thereafter. So, PPX sued, and to settle the dispute, it was agreed that Jimi would give them an album, as distributed through Capitol, and that would be the end of it. His latest studio album, Electric Ladyland, was released in October 1968, which means that his label Reprise Records had by then been waiting for two years for any new product by him. He had been on and off the studio for the same length of time, without ever coming close to making anything that he considered finished, mounting up massive studio bills at the Record Plant that he had to tour to pay off. To remedy that, Hendrix and his manager Mike Jeffries decided to build a studio of their own, christened Electric Lady Studios, so that he could record as much as he wanted and for as long as he wanted without paying exorbitant studio fees, and maybe finally finish recording his fourth studio album. Indeed, this period of mid-1970 saw Jimi recording many brand new songs, showing he was in a very creatively fruitful phase of his career, aided by a band consisting of Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell and BOG bassist Billy Cox, a versatile band that could give him the best of both groups. And by putting those together with the great material the now-defunct Band of Gypsys had recorded at the Record Plant, you were looking at 30+ songs available to him for a new record. All he had left to do now was to assemble an album out of all of those songs.

And that he tried, with varying degrees of success. To make the best use of the material he had, Hendrix was interested in making his fourth studio album into a double LP, with names like First Rays of the New Rising Sun, People, Hell & Angels, and Straight Ahead being considered. He even created a couple of very interesting preliminary running orders, which have since become the main pieces of this puzzle. The first was a double album sequence neatly divided into sides, but with the fourth side missing and some slight overlap between sides one and three. That list has been the source of some controversy as many people don't think the handwriting on it resembles Jimi's, but there still hasn't been enough evidence to discredit this three-sided tracklist. And the second was simply a huge list of (presumably) every song Hendrix considered worthy of the album, with twenty-five songs being listed without side breaks or even any apparent sequencing under the name "Songs for L.P. Strate Ahead". That one is clearly Jimi's, but there are a few problems with it too. As I mentioned, it doesn't seem as if it was a preliminary tracklist per se, and it even features songs we are not sure exist, or that don't circulate at all. To make matters worse, there's a very real possibility that Jimi couldn't use everything he recorded on his next album, as his manager Mike Jeffries had intended him to make a Rainbow Bridge soundtrack album even before his death. Jimi clearly wasn't interested, but had to play along, and might've seen himself obligated to stockpile material for that as well. Because of all of those factors, what Jimi's final album would look like remains a mystery, and a niche community of Hendrix fans obsessed with this material has cropped up, trying their best to solve that mystery. So what if we play along too?

This reconstruction is an update to my Straight Ahead album by Jimi Hendrix from December 2020. Here, I will try to create a more faithful rendition of the original "Strate Ahead" tracklist where I don't add songs to the middle of the sequence and don't stray so far from the original. This list of songs has long intrigued me, and the fact that it has largely been ignored by most attempts at reconstructing Jimi's final album is puzzling. So, instead of using the unfinished three-sided sequence as soniclovenoize has brilliantly done in the past, we will take this 25-song behemoth and make it the basis of our new album.  A relatively fresh take on a saturated topic, I hope that will provide us with an interesting alternative. Once that's done, whatever's left of our reconstruction will be turned into a contractual obligation Rainbow Bridge soundtrack album, to appease manager Michael Jeffries and make sure not a single track recorded between November 1969 and August 1970 is left on the cutting room floor. This is essentially the Kitchen Sink version of Jimi's fourth studio album, and should not at all be taken as what Jimi would do had he lived, as we sadly cannot predict that, but as an exercise in including every single possible song. However, songs such as "My Friend" and else anything recorded before November 1969 will be excluded, as that's when the fourth album sessions began in earnest and those deserve their own reconstruction.We will be using the most finished possible versions of the songs, no matter if they were Hendrix mixes or posthumous mixes. Jimi's mixes are great, to be sure, but many date further back and don't feature some of the last few overdubs and tweaks he performed, which we would certainly want to include. With that out of the way, here's what our brand new revamped Straight Ahead looks like:

Discs 1-3: Straight Ahead

Ezy Ryder (The Cry of Love)

Room Full of Mirrors (Rainbow Bridge)

Earth Blues (Rainbow Bridge)

Valleys of Neptune (Valleys of Neptune)

Straight Ahead (The Cry of Love)

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Cherokee Mist (Purple Box)

Freedom (The Cry of Love)

Stepping Stone (War Heroes)

Izabella (War Heroes)

Astro Man (The Cry of Love)

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Drifter's Escape (Loose Ends)

Angel (The Cry of Love)

Bleeding Heart (War Heroes)

Burning Desire (Loose Ends)

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Night Bird Flying (The Cry of Love)

Pali Gap (Rainbow Bridge)

Hear My Train a-Comin' (Rainbow Bridge)

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Lover Man (Purple Box)

Midnight Lightning (South Saturn Delta)

Heaven Has No Sorrow (Electric Lady Studios)

Send My Love to Linda (Both Sides of the Sky)

Drifting (The Cry of Love)

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Come Down Hard on Me (Loose Ends)

Dolly Dagger (Rainbow Bridge)

The New Rising Sun (West Coast Seattle Boy)

Disc 4: Rainbow Bridge

Power of Soul (Both Sides of the Sky)

Beginnings (War Heroes)

Message to Love (West Coast Seattle Boy)

Belly Button Window (The Cry of Love)

In from the Storm (The Cry of Love)

-

Lonely Avenue (West Coast Seattle Boy)

All God's Children (West Coast Seattle Boy)

Machine Gun (Live in Berkeley)

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Jimi Hendrix - Straight Ahead (1970)

Hendrix performing at the Isle of Wight Festival, September 1970.

Our main album is going to be simply a reproduction of the original "Songs for L.P. Strate Ahead" 25-song list in full, with substitutions made when songs aren't available or wherever else needed. To do so, we will need to expand this from a double album to a triple, as this material is much too long to fit into two pieces of vinyl. Thankfully, Jimi himself considered releasing a triple album at some point during the making of this fourth record, which means we're only following his wishes. When it comes to take selection, we will be once more using the fantastic Loose Ends version of "Burning Desire", a live-in-the-studio performance for the ages, while "Hear My Train a-Comin'" is the superb live version found on Rainbow Bridge due to the lack of an adequate studio take of the song. The often bootlegged demo of "Heaven Has No Sorrow" is the only thing on our album not sourced from an official release, suffering from a mediocre sound quality but fitting right in with the more unfinished material of side five. "The New Rising Sun" meanwhile features the "Bolero" intro, ballooning its length to 11 minutes and providing us with our second epic of the album after the monumental live "Train". Slightly more controversially, we will make the assumption that what is listed as "Electric Lady - Slow" is actually "Pali Gap", since it was originally recorded under the name "Slow Part" at Electric Lady studios, which sure, is conjecture, but is way too close to be a coincidence. Finally, side breaks were added whenever the sides hit 20+ minutes long or wherever I felt there was a strong side opener/closer to be seen, in order to make this flow better. And considering this is just a list off the top of Jimi's head, the sequence we ended up with in this reconstruction is actually pretty decent!

With that out of the way, we only have to worry about replacing the unavailable songs and working out what's going to feature on the bonus disc. "Local Commotion", which was part of the Black Gold demo tape but sadly has yet to surface, is replaced by "Come Down Hard on Me", a song that was recorded before this list was made, made it to the three-sided sequence, but was inexplicably absent here. On the other hand, "This Little Boy" we know virtually nothing about, since unlike "Local Commotion" we don't have knowledge of any recordings or lyrics existing anywhere in the vaults. We don't even know if it's a real song! Either way, we will be replacing it with "Drifting", one of the only other songs present on the three-sided sequence that was recorded as of August 14, 1970. "Belly Button Window", another highlight of the three-sided sequence, was recorded eight days after the list we are basing ourselves on was made, meaning it gets to be part of our bonus disc. Alongside it are studio versions of the Band of Gypsys' "Power of Soul" and "Message to Love", as well as the great live take on "Machine Gun" from the live June 1970 Berkeley performance, giving us one of the few good versions of the song with Mitch Mitchell on drums. Added to those are other strong tracks that failed to make our triple album, such as the instrumental ditty "Beginnings" and the fantastic "In From the Storm", making for one of the highlights of this pseudo-soundtrack. Finally, we pad out this contract-fulfilling compilation with the meandering instrumental of "All God's Children", one of the final backing tracks Hendrix ever recorded, and with the uninspired cover of Doc Pomus' "Lonely Avenue", to give Jimi's management 40 minutes' worth of semi-releasable material, to get them off his back and let him realize his vision in peace.

Of course, it needs to be said that this is insane and would've never been released in 1970. Reprise Records, who had been waiting for new product from Jimi since late 1968's Electric Ladyland, would never release something this sprawling and experimental. They would have interfered and demanded that the very least a whole disc be cut down, and maybe even postpone the Rainbow Bridge soundtrack indefinitely. However, this is an interesting thought exercise in combining everything Jimi recorded in the last year of his life and seeing what the whole of his efforts sound like together, and I'm more than pleased with the results. Almost three hours' worth of music and over eight sides of vinyl goes to show what an absurdly creative period this was for Hendrix, and that we needn't worry for him when it came to topping his first three albums. Hendrix was well on his way to creating a masterpiece that rivaled his recorded output with the Experience. Commenting on the material itself, the very unfinished studio material and assorted live tracks we've used to complement this album fit in remarkably well with the more finished, release-ready songs, which really surprised me at first as I was expecting a much rougher listen. But the varying degrees of completion help give the album variety, as many of the finished songs share the same full, funky mid-tempo sound that tends to sound similar on repeated listens. Our album has sprawling epics, small solo demos, and everything in between, helping create the maximalists' version of his fourth album, as well as the soundtrack to a misguided movie. This collection helps us put in perspective how many ideas Jimi had going on in his mind at the time of his death, and it's a shame that he couldn't live to see the world's reaction to his new earthier, straight-ahead sound.

Sources:

- Jimi Hendrix's Unfinished Fourth Studio Album

- Jimi Hendrix - EH Released Recordings October 1968 - August 1970

The Small Faces - 1862 (1969)

The Small Faces released their third UK studio album, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, in May 1968 through Immediate Records. It was divided between a first side of short, poppy songs, and a sidelong suite narrated by comedian Stanley Unwin, about a man named Stan and his fairytale-like journey to find the other side of the moon. Needless to say, this record was heavily informed by the psychedelic craze and the Summer of Love, and was critically successful, showing that the Small Faces could adapt their Rn'B sound to the swinging sixties vogue and create their first consistently great album. The album also spawned a hit, the cockney "Lazy Sunday", another in a line of smashes for the band which had already given us "Itchycoo Park" and "Tin Soldier". But all was not well: the impossibility of playing the new Happiness Stan suite live frustrated the band, especially lead singer and guitarist Steve Marriott. They'd created their magnum opus, but simply couldn't perform it live in 1968. They did play it all the way through once, for the BBC's Colour Me Pop program, but the fact that they couldn't use this ambitious piece of music to break out of their pop image toward a more "serious" one, as the Who would later do with Tommy, weighed heavily on their minds. Disillusioned but still soldiering on, in mid-1968 they started recording a new album on and off, this time with no concept attached. It was given the working title of 1862, part of Steve's then-current address, and they'd recorded a couple of songs.

By late 1968 however, the band was closer and closer to breaking up. Coming to the fore were creative differences between Marriott (who wanted the band to play in a heavier style) and the rest of the band, who wanted to keep things as they were. Issues were further aggravated by Marriott's desire to expand the band's lineup into a five-piece with guitarist Peter Frampton from the Herd, which the others were against, once more wanting to keep things as they were. Serving as the soundtrack to all this turmoil was the non-album single of "The Universal", a stopgap release to appease record buyers until their new album was finished, but which wasn't as successful as the singles that came before it. Still, they carried on, touring the UK and mainland Europe right around the time of New Year's Eve, and contributing to French singer Johnny Halliday's Riviere... Ouvre Ton Lit album, writing him three songs (translated into French, of course) and backing him in the studio with the aid of Frampton and producer Glyn Johns, who invited them to play in this project in the first place. It was during this stay in continental Europe that the Small Faces broke up, with the 1862 album left unfinished, and the Autumn Stone compilation released in its place. Marriott formed Humble Pie with Frampton, recycling some unreleased Small Faces material for their debut, while the others joined Rod Stewart and Ronnie Wood, becoming simply the Faces. But what if the Small Faces had managed to finish this final album?

This reconstruction is an upgrade to my 1862 album by the Small Faces from February 2018. Here, we will try to create a version that's more faithful to what could have been released in 1969, thanks to some new information and brand new additions (and exclusions!) to my running order. Thankfully, there's a vast amount of material to choose from, so we will be worrying not about what to include, but about what to leave out of the album. "The Universal" and "Donkey Rides, a Penny, a Glass" are great songs, but since the band had the habit of releasing non-album singles, I figured they wouldn't include this pairing on the album, especially when we have so many good songs to choose from. Also excluded is "Call it Something Nice", which hails from an early 1967 session, nearly two years removed from the main 1862 sessions. With so much good material to choose from, why bother resurrecting an outtake that old? The same goes for "Picanniny", "Don't Burst My Bubble", "Every Little Bit Hurts", and any other outtake from their previous albums that have been mentioned as being in the running. We will try to keep our choices as current to the album's sessions as possible. Recordings by Humble Pie or the Faces are fair game, so long as we can prove that the songs were meant for the 1862 album or they are reworkings of older Small Faces songs. Besides that, we will be trying to include as much from the late 1968 sessions as possible. With that out of the way, here's what the album looks like:

Wide-Eyed Girl on the Wall (The Autumn Stone)

Bang! (As Safe as Yesterday Is)

Red Balloon (The Autumn Stone)

What You Will (As Safe as Yesterday Is)

The War of the Worlds (The Autumn Stone)

Wham Bam Thank You, Ma'am (The Autumn Stone)

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Buttermilk Boy (As Safe as Yesterday Is)

Evolution (Who Came First)

Growing Closer (As Safe as Yesterday Is)

Wrist Job (As Safe as Yesterday Is)

Collibosher (The Autumn Stone)

The Autumn Stone (The Autumn Stone)

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The Small Faces - 1862 (1969)

McLagan, Marriott, Jones, and Lane play one of their final gigs, January 1969.

Now that we have figured out what won't make the album, we need to figure out what will. "Wrist Job", recorded as the instrumental "The Pig Trotters" by the Small Faces, was finally recorded with lyrics for Humble Pie's debut album, making for an easy replacement. Recorded at virtually the same time as "The Pig Trotters", "The War of the Worlds" unfortunately was never recorded with lyrics, being left as an unfinished instrumental. Though our album is already quite heavy on the instrumentals, I figure it needed to make the album, as it's running short on actual Small Faces recordings. French versions of "Bang!" and "What You Will", credited as being written by Marriott/Lane, were recorded by singer Johnny Halliday in January 1969. He had the backing of the Small Faces plus Peter Frampton on guitar, in their final recording sessions as a band. Finally, Steve Marriott's son Toby has mentioned in the past that he has a song list written by his father for the 1862 album, and that supposedly includes the songs "Buttermilk Boy", "Growing Closer" and "Evolution", by Humble Pie and Ronnie Lane, respectively. We don't know how trustworthy that is, but we will take him at his word and include both songs in our version of 1862. We add to that the obvious inclusions of "Wide Eyed Girl in the Wall", "Red Balloon", "Wham Bam Thank You, Ma'am", "Collibosher" and "The Autumn Stone", all from The Autumn Stone and all dating from the main late 1968 album sessions, and we have ourselves a record!

Now, all that's left for us to do is to turn that list of songs into an album. We selected twelve songs, the same amount as in most Small Faces records, so that already goes a long way in helping us. We start off with an instrumental, "Wide Eyed Girl on the Wall", mimicking their previous record, and end on the strongest song of the bunch, Marriott's beautiful "The Autumn Stone". As was common practice back then, we have the lead single as the last song on side one, "Wham Bam Thank You, Ma'am". Other than that, we'll be sequencing this by mostly trying to avoid having two Humble Pie songs in a row, as there are a lot of them. If they stick too closely together, you might end up thinking you're listening to As Safe as Yesterday Is! We'll also be trying to keep the three instrumental tracks as far apart from each other as we can, so that it doesn't seem as if there are that many of them. Then again, apparently all three of them were unfinished backing tracks and not intentionally instrumental, meaning that if 1862 was released, they'd be fully-fledged songs, solving this problem altogether. Highlights include their cover of Tim Hardin's "Red Balloon', which was often partnered by a great live cover of "If I Were a Carpenter" that unfortunately never made it to the studio, the 3-minute edit of "Evolution" released in a Meher Baba tribute, and Ian McLagan's "Growing Closer", released by Humble Pie as he had rehearsed for a couple of weeks with the band before changing his mind and returning to the Faces.

As an album, 1862 makes for a fitting Small Faces record, showing how far they'd come from their early days and how they could adapt to the looming 1970s. The songs here are as good as the ones on Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, and with its focus on individual songs, makes for a nice transitional album that never was. It features a heavier, boogie-based sound instead of its predecessors' more folkier, psychedelic sound. Because of that, the Humble Pie songs don't even sound that off-place, being a close representation of what a heavier Small Faces with Peter Frampton would probably sound like. Of course, it would take them a few months to record (with Frampton) all the new songs and additions needed to finish this album, meaning it would come out sometime in mid-1969, being delayed by a couple of months. With side one clocking in at 20 minutes and the longer side two at 23, "Wham Bam Thank You, Ma'am" backed with "The Autumn Stone" would be the record's lead single, as originally planned before the band's breakup. The cover I've used in this upgrade was borrowed from a different blog, for variety's sake, and honestly fits with this version of the album pretty well! Quite paradoxically, Lane, Jones, and McLagan protested the band's change of style to a heavier sound only to immediately start playing just that when they became the Faces, showing us that the differences that kept them apart weren't that great after all. It's simply a shame we never got to see their evolution.

Sources:

- The Small Faces - The Autumn Stone

- Humble Pie - As Safe as Yesterday Is

- Pete Townshend - Who Came First