D-Sides, Orphans, and Oddities

Bobby Darrin - Sail Away (1973) Randy Newman: "Bobby Darin could sing, but he did "Sail Away", and, well... I don't think he understood it. He did it like was a happy song about coming to America."

Neil Diamond -  The Pot Smoker's Song (1968) BAD pot! "I used to shoot acid in my spine..."  "Gimme some pot"... Nobody claimed Neil Diamond was counter-culture. But this was pretty out of step even then. 

Chicago Line - Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop (1966) 

Rush - Tears (1976)

Stampeders - Got My Mojo Working (1979) Folks of a certain age will remember the early 70's song, "Sweet City Woman", a huge hit for these Canadian fellows. You know what I need? A style guide. 

The Reasons - Shimmy Shimmy Ko Ko Bop (1968?) From Thailand. I like this funky version. 

Cat Stevens - Was Dog A Doughnut? (1977) Yes, that Cat Stevens. 

David Cassidy - Cruise To Harlem (1976) Co-written by Brian Wilson, David Cassidy, and Gary Beckley of America. What could go wrong? 

David Cassidy - Darlin' (1975) Produced by Bruce Johnston. Here's the front cover and the back. David Cassidy had a persecution complex the size of Utah. As he tried expanding his footprint within his 70's productions, his audience just grew up. 

Victor Buono - I Am (1974) 

Jermaine Jackson - Bass Odyssey (1976) Michael's brother was a bass player. What's a bass odyssey? 

Bay City Rollers - The Bump (1975) 

The Doors - Ships With Sails (1971) I never liked The Doors with Jim Morrison. Without him they were basically just another jam band. 

JC Penney - Bay-Hat Bee Doll (1966) I love that Shazam got this right. I like to think I helped. 

Elephant's Memory - Piece Now (1970) And then it missed this. 

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band - Do The Oz (1971) 

Led Zeppelin - Royal Orleans (1976)

Stoney and Meatloaf - Game of Love (1971) 

Ted Nugent - I Love You So I Told A Lie (1976) With Meatloaf on vocals. 

Ted Nugent - Together (1976) With Meatloaf on vocals. 

Amboy Dukes - Marriage 1. Man. 2. Woman. 3. Music (1970)

If I don't put these on as many media as possible, they will die. Here's our Bandcamp page. 

Man Against Mauve - Diamonds (1989) 

Man Against Mauve -I Dance (1989)

Man Against Mauve - Money From The Tomb (1988)

Man Against Mauve - In This City (1988)

Tony Randall, Bernadette Peters, Anthony Newley, Dianne Carr. Mel Tillis, Paul Williams - The Beatles Forever (1977) An unholy amalgam of Hollywood tuxedoed tackiness taking The Beatles catalog and smooshing it into an unrecognizable pulp. You should really listen, at least once. But not much more. Paul Williams sings "Ticket To Ride" and "Hey Jude" like he's making fun of it. Just cash the checks already. 

Kay Weaver - Ripoff USA (Song-poem)  

The Archies - Betty (1969) 

Bobby Lee Trammell - New Dance In France (1964) With attendant fake audience noises. In this record he is referred to as the American Beatle. 

Cheap Trick - Clock Strikes Ten (Steve Albini mix) (1997) Steve Albini invited Cheap Trick to his Electrical Audio studios in Chicago, and asked them to re-record the entire 'In Color' album. 

Fleur De Lys - Gong With a Luminous Nose (1968) Gordon Haskell of King Crimson (the 'Lizard' era) was in this band at this time. 

Neil Diamond was, more or less, an inoffensive songwriter with a mediocre voice and a penchant for appealing to old ladies. When he tried to be current or relevant, often it ended in embarrassment. "The Jazz Singer" and "Johnathan Livingston Seagull" come to mind.  

Neil Diamond - Dancing In The Street (1979) Not since the Grateful Dead has so much soul been sucked out of this song. Like it was a contest. 

Neil Diamond - Everybody's Talkin' (1973)

Neil Diamond - Monday, Monday (1966)

Neil Diamond - Knackeflerg (1968)

Neil Diamond - Red, Red Wine (1967) 

Doris - Did You Give The World Some Love Today, Baby? (1970)

Gentle Giant - Weekend Cowboy (1970)

Mel Tormé - Spinning Wheel (1969) 

Ray Conniff Singers - Aquarius (1969)

The Walker Brothers - The Electrician (1978)

Stevie Wonder - Evil (1972)

Beach Boys - Slip On Thru (1970)

Sensational Alex Harvey Band - Hot City Symphony (1974)

Beatles Christmas Records 1963-1965

The Free Design - Shut Your Mouth (It’s Christmas) (1968)

Sonny Cash - Merry Christmas Polka

The Free Design - Christmas Is The Day (1968)

Akim & Teddy - Santa Claus is a Black Man (1973)

Unknown - Rocking Disco Santa Claus

Bob Seger and the Last Heard - Sock It To Me, Santa (1966)

Clarence Carter - Back-Door Santa (1968)

Doreen Allen, Johnny Collins And The Caravans - Spacey! Santa's Space Ship (1965?) Johnny Collins and the Caravans were a local band from Berwick, PA...they were a polka band and then later played popular music in the Luzerne and Columbia county' of Pennsylvania. Johnny Collins had a music store in Bloomsburg, PA and was an accomplished accordion player and musician.

Second Hand - Death May Be Your Santa Claus (1971)

Mickey Rooney - Be Prepared To Pay (If You Sit On My Lap Today) (1970)

Beatles Christmas Records 1966-1967

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C W McCall - Old Home Filler Up and Keep On Trucking’ Cafe (1975)

C W McCall - Convoy (Movie Version) (1977)

Rod Hart - CB Savage (1977)

Red Sovine - Teddy Bear (1976)

Cletus Maggard - The White Knight (1975)

Shirley and Squirrely - Hey Shirley (1976) From Rate Your Music: The roots of the "80s Chipmunks Revival" actually started back in the mid-1970s.In the midst of the CB craze, a couple of studio hacks came up with the idea of doing a CB-based Chipmunks song. Originally entitled "Double Nickel Alvin", the song was a rather bizarre piece in which the truck-driving rodent woos a female CB-enthusiast. He lays on the charm pretty thick, dropping tons of CB jargon and pledging to take her "dancing everywhere" if she fixes up her hair and manicures her fingernails.The only problem? They couldn't figure out how to locate Alvin to ask him to record the thing. (Ends up he was doing dinner theater in Boise ID at the time.) This is something of a shame, because singing ridiculous lyrics absolutely straight, heavy on the charm, making the moves on a female - this was pretty much where Alvin excelled. One presumes the producers didn't know how to contact Simon or Theodore either, although there's no chance either of them would've left their fusion band RowDent to do this trifle.So the producers cast their net out, and eventually ended up with a squirrel named Sebastian. He wasn't a singer by trade - he was actually studying computer programming when he got the call - but he welcomed the chance to make some extra coin. Ironically, Sebastian's father Scooter had also recorded precisely one song - that's him on "The Witch Doctor Meets the Purple People Eater", the B-side of "Chantilly Lace".The new singer led the producers to rewrite the song a bit, and it was now "Hey Shirley (This Is Squirrely)". Sebastian says he doesn't remember the name of the girl who took the role of Shirley. "She was a gopher, and she was kinda cute. But she giggled all the time. It was hard to get a good take, and it was kinda hard to understand what she was saying a lot of the time." Her near-indecipherability may have been what led the producers to add the Porky-Pig knockoff asking for directions to Eucalyptus Street. ("No, it wasn't a pig - it was one of the producers. Human. He was actually pretty good at doing voices.")Sebastian eventually graduated from MIT and went on to a long career at IBM.

Mannheim Steamroller - Chocolate Fudge (1974) The label American Gramaphone was started by Chip Davis. 

Bill Cosby's Tetragrammaton Label

The Fat Albert Orchestra - Fat Albert (Hey Hey) (1968)

Elyse Weinberg - Meet Me at the Station (1969) An NPR feature from 2020. 

But after too many bad brushes with the music industry, which included a label bankruptcy, a broken deal and a Cher-starring flop of a movie that featured a cover of her song "Band of Thieves" (erroneously re-titled, with songwriting credits going, for some reason, to Sonny), Weinberg left L.A. and the scene altogether, eventually settling in rural Oregon, quietly making music through the '90s and, after developing an interest in numerology, changing her name to Cori Bishop.

Pat Boone - July You’re a Woman (1969) Produced by Jerry Yester and Zal Yanovsky, two former members of The Lovin' Spoonful. 

Rhetta Hughes - Light My Fire (1969)

The Johnstons - Both Sides Now (1969)

Deep Purple - Mandrake Root (1968)

Paul Williams' songs spanned the entire breadth and depth of 70's music.

Ken, Marko, and I have been playing together for about 15 years. So they know pretty much all my songs. Whenever schedules allow we get together and plumb the ol' discography.

Talking 10CC, Leon Redbone, and life 'n' love with Marko Marisic and Ken Ray Wilemon. Did you know Deodato was Justin Bieber's grandfather? Well, in law. We play some Gilbert Neal originals, and I have to say that we are actually trying.

Kim Fowley produced some crazy stuff. Would he have been offering a different story than Joan Jett? Probably. I like to think he is what happens when someone like Jeffery Epstein gets into the music biz. Also Rick Nelson, Greg Khin, and more.

Every song on The Beatles "One" album, covered by other artists.

The trajectory of the Clash is unique, yet also common. They absorbed all their influences like a sponge. Like The Beatles.

Some rarely heard Tom Petty, Eric Carmen, and some other obscurities!