Terence Boylan (Steely Dan Related)

Terence Boylan - Alias Boona - 1968 - Verve Forecast

Terry never hit the big time despite being a good songwriter and musician. "Alias Boona" was his debut studio album, and he composed 11 of the 12 tracks. He attended Bard College in upstate New York, where he became friends with Donald Fagen and Walter Becker (Steely Dan). When he got a recording deal he asked Walt and Don to arrange and play on "Alias Boona". Walt and Don played on all tracks, and this album was their first official studio gig. This is a good album in the West Coast folk/rock tradition. It's a sparse album, musically. Besides Terence on guitar and vocals, and Walt and Don on bass and keyboards respectively, the album includes just three other musicians, all drummers. Nevertheless, the songs and musicianship is good and effective. [All tracks @ 256 Kbps: File size = 68.5 Mb]. Check out Terry's "Suzy" and "Terence Boylan" albums .

N.B: The vinyl issue of the album lists "Terry Boylan" on the vinyl LP, and "Boylan" on the LP front cover. The Steely Dan Database lists this album without "Subterranean Homesick Blues", but includes a track called "Pillow". "Pillow" is actually the same track as "Subterranean Homesick Blues". Does any Dan fan know the reason for this track title change?

SIDE ONE

Subterranean Homesick Blues
Don't Blame It On Your Wife
This Old Town
Bring The Whole Family
Who Do You Think I Am
Glasses

SIDE TWO

Deep In The Middle
Hey Hanna
No Second Time
County Fair
Bare Road of Sand
What A Way To Go

All songs composed by Terry Boylan except "Subterranean Homesick Blues" by Bob Dylan

MUSICIANS

Terence Boylan - Guitar, Producer, Vocals
Walter Becker - Electric Bass (Finger), Guitar
Donald Fagen - Piano, Acoustic Piano, Organ, Vocals
Herb Lovelle, Jimmy Johnson, Jr., Darius Davenport - Drums

BIO

Terence Boylan, a classic west coast crooner.....Terence Boylan began his professional career in music at the age of twelve, when his band, The PreTeens, performed on WBNY’s Buffalo Bob’s Radio Show. Of some interest is the fact that the tune The PreTeens performed, Playing Hard to Get, a Buddy Hollyesque ditty with an ironic twist, was penned by Boylan at the age of eleven, thus foretelling a career in songwriting that would span over thirty years and produce such hits as Shake It, Don’t Hang Up Those Dancing Shoes and Where Are You Hiding? Following a chance meeting with Bob Dylan in Greenwich Village in ’62, after which Dylan, Boylan and Ramblin’ Jack Elliot went to Izzy Young’s Folklore Center and traded songs for a long evening, Boylan returned to Buffalo, N.Y. with encouragement from his new hero, and began performing in many of Buffalo’s most popular coffee-houses, including The Limelight, The Lower Level, and the Bell, Book and Candle, in near-by Ontario. At that time, Boylan was still a sophomore in high school. He would describe the next two years as living in "excited confinement", knowing there was something out there that he desperately wanted to be part of. He managed to hitch-hike to both the Newport Folk Festivals of ’63 and ’64, where he performed at "The New Songwriter’s Concert", again made contact with Dylan, and also met blues legends John Lee Hooker and Mississippi John Hurt. At Bard College, in the Hudson Valley, Boona, as he was now becoming known, found himself right where he wanted to be – in a hot-bed of musical activity. He formed a band with his brother, John, The Ginger Men, playing in Greenwich Village’s Night Owl Café during summers and ‘field-periods’, and singing solo at hoots at NY’s famed Gaslight Café, the Village Gate, and Gerde’s Folk City. The NY Times’ Robert Shelton gave him a brief but laudatory mention following an appearance at the Village Gate, and the record companies started calling. Still working at The Night Owl, The Ginger Men were busy fusing their folk and blues influences with contemporary rock ‘n roll, appearing there with other seminal bands such as The Flying Machine, led by the young James Taylor, The Blues Project and The Lovin’ Spoonful, one of the first of the Night Owl groups to break into the top forty. After landing a solo contract with MGM/Verve Records, and before beginning a solo album, he recruited brother John for an experimental ‘rock meets theatre’ album. The duet, along with a dozen top studio musicians, recorded The Appletree Theatre in 1967, a ground-breaking effort among the so-called "concept" albums of the late sixties, fusing brief Saturday Night Live type comic sketches with slightly tongue-in-cheek parodies of contemporary musical genres. John Lennon, in an interview with Penny Nichols in London, called The Appletree Theatre one of his favorite new albums, Time Magazine lauded the Boylans' sense of humor, and Phillip Proctor acknowledged their influence on his own group, The Firesign Theatre. Returning to Bard College in ‘68, Boylan teamed up with fellow students Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, and recorded Alias Boona at New York’s Hit Factory, for MGM Records. In a tip of the hat to his old mentor, Boylan recorded an entirely re-arranged version of Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues, sounding more like Procol Harem than early Dylan. The influence of The Band and Van Morrison were also evident on the album, in such tunes as Deep in the Middle and Hey Hannah. Dylan brought the album to the attention of manager Albert Grossman, and discussions began toward recording an album in near-by Woodstock, N.Y., then home to both Dylan and Grossman. But Boylan was on his way to the West Coast, to re-join brother John and the simmering Troubadour scene in Los Angeles. John Boylan was fast gaining a reputation as one of LA’s hottest young record producers, and was at that time rehearsing Linda Ronstadt with a new band he had assembled to back her on a coming tour. They would later become the Eagles, one of the most successful groups in recording history, and Ronstadt was launching her long and distinguished career as one of the preeminent song stylists of the last three decades. Meanwhile, old Bard friends Fagen and Becker were in town, having formed Steely Dan, and recording their first ABC/Dunhill album Can’t Buy a Thrill. Boona’s association with these two disparate groups of musicians would have a remarkable effect on his next album, but it would have to wait while he apprenticed as a production assistant for John’s Great Eastern Gramophone Company, and tour-assisted on several outings with many of that company’s recording acts. After writing and rehearsing an entirely new set of tunes, Boylan landed a recording contract with David Geffen’s Asylum Records, a famous stable of singer-songwriters that included Joni Mitchell, Warren Zevon, the Eagles, John David Souther and Tom Waits. Recording at LA’s Record Plant and Westlake Audio with members and musicians from both Steely Dan and the Eagles, Boylan merged different sensibilities into a stunning, lyrical, jazz-tinged rock album, with strong hooks and soaring harmonies, that went to number one on the Billboard National Breakout list the week it was released, and was the most added album at radio for five weeks straight. The level of writing and musicianship on Terence Boylan (Asylum 7E-1091) prompted a number of critics to hail it as "astonishingly brilliant", and the reviews were laudatory both in the US and abroad, winding up on a number of top ten lists at year’s end. Iain Matthews, a British singer, picked up on two of Boylan’s tunes for his album Stealin’ Home, and his version of Shake It quickly climbed to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. The following year, Boylan won two BMI Awards for Best Songwriting. Following a fifty city tour with the Cate Brothers, Bonnie Raitt and Little Feat, Boylan settled in to Bearsville Sound in Woodstock, N.Y., and began recording a follow-up album. He actually wound up recording two albums, one an edgy and raucus take-off on the current punk rock movement, and the other a melodic and more sophisticated exploration of the genre he had successfully mined on the first album - heavily textured, mid-tempo songs with fresh, angular lyrics and seductive harmonies. At the last minute, it was decided to combine the two albums into one, Suzy (Asylum 6E-201) a move which may have confused radio programmers, who were unsure of which format the record fit. The critics picked up on the broad range in the album, however, and the reviews were excellent, but with less than full saturation at radio, the sales were disappointing. For those interested in hearing these songs in all their digitally re-mastered glory, a new CD, under license from Warner Brothers, was released in July '99, which combines the best of both of these albums, plus a few new songs, and is available at the official website (Buy It). I recently caught up with Boylan in New England, (where I had interviewed him for my book on Steely Dan,) to find out what else was in the works. It seems that since those days, Boylan has been writing and recording songs for film soundtracks and other artists, and now owns his own record label, Spinnaker Records, and book publishing company, The River Press. I am happy to report that this Spring he is recording a CD of entirely new material, which he hopes to have out by the Fall. Otherwise he is busy publishing books, and is Executive Director of the Boylan Foundation for International Medical Research, a non-profit organization that supports bio-medical research and international scientist exchange fellowships. © Brian Sweet Author of Steely Dan: Reelin’ in the Years (Omnibus Press, 1994)

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Terence Boylan was born in the late 1940s and grew up in Buffalo, NY, where he started out in music before age 13 in the appropriately named band the PreTeens. They even made an appearance on local radio station WBNY, performing "Playing Hard to Get," a song that Boylan had written at age 11. While in his early teens, he'd made it to New York City and Greenwich Village, and managed to cross paths with Bob Dylan (before he was a recording star) and Ramblin' Jack Elliot; with their encouragement, he pursued a solo music career in upstate New York and managed to attend the Newport Folk Festivals of 1963 and 1964. Boylan later attended Bard College in New York, and formed a band called the Ginger Men with his brother John. They managed to cross paths with the Blues Project and the Lovin' Spoonful during occasional gigs in Greenwich Village during the mid-'60s. By 1967, he'd attracted the attention of several New York-based record labels and signed with Verve, where he and his brother John cut an experimental music-and-comedy LP amalgam entitled Appletree Theatre, which became a kind of cult favorite, principally among other musicians (including John Lennon). John Boylan subsequently headed to California, where he established himself first as a session guitarist and later as a producer, while Terence Boylan remained in New York. By 1968, he was back at Bard and became close friends with classmates Walter Becker and Donald Fagen (who had musical aspirations of their own, although in those days they sounded too much like the Beatles for their own professional good) and played with them. With Becker and Fagen in tow, he cut his debut solo LP, Alias Boona (a reference to his nickname) for Verve Forecast, the jazz-spawned label's progressive/experimental rock imprint. The record was, like his earlier album, principally attracted the attention of other musicians, including Bob Dylan (whose "Subterranean Homesick Blues" received a beautiful reinterpretation on the LP). Rather than pursue his career in New York, he headed to California, where his brother John Boylan was working with Linda Ronstadt. He worked for his brother's production company and established himself on the West Coast. Boylan was later signed to Asylum Records and recorded his self-titled second album in 1977. It was more of a West Coast production, especially in sound and texture. It was well-received by the critics but was never more than a cult success. He did enjoy some success as a songwriter when Ian Matthews turned Boylan's song "Shake It" into a Top Five hit. He did a national tour behind the album with Bonnie Raitt and Little Feat, and returned to New York to do a third solo album -- actually, a third and fourth that were finally combined into one LP. The result was Suzy, which was another critical success and commercial disappointment. In the years since, Boylan has principally involved himself with songwriting and soundtrack work, and his own record label and publishing company, Spinnaker Records. © Bruce Eder © 2011 Rovi Corporation. All Rights Reserved http://www.allmusic.com/artist/terence-boylan-p16040/biography

Janis Ian

Janis Ian - The Secret Life Of J. Eddy Fink - 1968 - Verve

Janis Fink is Ian's real name, and her concerns moved more toward the personal on her third album. "42nd St. Psycho Blues" was her unhappy commentary on what having a pop music career had been like, while "When I Was a Child" found her reminiscing regretfully about what had happened to her. Other songs waxed poetic, and producer Shadow Morton kept recreating the folk-rock sound of "Society's Child," but nothing here caught fire, and this album failed to chart, seeming to confirm that Ian would be a one-hit wonder, over the hill at 17. With a few years to think about it, of course, she'd have some trenchant things to say about that age. William Ruhlmann © 2011 Rovi Corporation. All Rights Reserved © http://www.allmusic.com/album/the-secret-life-of-j-eddy-fink-r41164

"The Secret Life of J. Eddy Fink" is an 11 track collection of "challenging" folk rock songs by the great Janis Ian. This album is now 43 years old. In 1968 Janis Ian was only 17, and this album was her third release. The album barely registered with the American record buying public. Some people called the album "pretentious", a word that really doesn't fit in with the character of Janis Ian. Her songs are intense, passionate, intelligent, and powerful, and often concentrate on serious social and personal themes. There are few songwriters who can write about these topics, while backing her often serious lyrics with beautiful, wistful melodies. Janis' songs were never overly commercial, and perhaps this aspect of her songwriting has halted the success she has always deserved, but never really achieved. Like so many great songwriters who have many great songs to their credit, Janis Ian is unfortunately best remembered for her two songs, "Society's Child", and "At Seventeen". Yet, this great New York songstress, has released many great albums, some of them classics, but not recognized as such. She has never fully received the recognition she deserves for her utterly brilliant songs, and marvellous guitar technique. The late, great Chet Atkins once called Janis "a genius", not just for her guitar talents, but also her songwriting ability. Janis Ian remains one of today's great singer/songwriters. From her teenage days she has remained faithful to her uncompromising songs, and has never sold out to commerciality. There are enough well structured and melodic songs on the album to make it HR by A.O.O.F.C [All tracks @ 320 Kbps: File size = 97.4 Mb]

TRACKS

1 Everybody Knows
2 Mistaken Identity
3 Friends Again
4 42nd Street Psycho Blues
5 She's Made of Porcelain
6 Sweet Misery
7 When I Was a Child
8 What Do You Think of the Dead?
9 Look to the Rain
10 Son of Love
11 Baby's Blue

All songs composed by Janis Ian

MUSICIANS

Janis Ian - Guitar, Piano, Organ, Vocals
Carol Hunter - Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar
Buddy Saltzman - Trap Drums
Richie Havens - Conga Drums
Joe Price - Bongo Drums
Phil Ramone - Mixer

BIO (WIKI)

Janis Ian (born Born Janis Eddy Fink in New York City on April 7, 1951) is a Grammy Award-winning American songwriter, singer, multi-instrumental musician, columnist, and science fiction fan-turned-author. She had a highly successful singing career in the 1960s and 1970s, and has continued recording into the 21st century. At age thirteen, she legally changed her name to Janis Ian, her new last name being her brother's middle name. At the age of fifteen, Ian wrote and sang her first hit single, "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)," about an interracial romance forbidden by a girl's mother and frowned upon by her peers and teachers; the girl ultimately decides to end the relationship, claiming the societal norms of the day have left her no other choice. Produced by melodrama specialist George "Shadow" Morton and released three times between 1965 and 1967, "Society's Child" finally became a national hit the third time it was released, after Leonard Bernstein featured it in a TV special titled Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution. The song's lyrical content was too taboo for some radio stations, and they withdrew or banned it from their playlists accordingly. In the summer of 1967, "Society's Child" reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Apparently "Society's Child" was too hot for Atlantic Records as well at the time. Ian relates on her website that although the song was originally intended for Atlantic and the label paid for her recording session, the label subsequently returned the master to her and quietly refused to release it. Years later, Ian says, Atlantic's president at the time, Jerry Wexler, publicly apologized to her for this. The single and Ian's 1967 eponymous debut album were finally released on Verve Forecast; her album was also a hit, reaching #12. In 2001, "Society's Child" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which honors recordings considered timeless and important to music history. Her most successful single was "At Seventeen," released in 1975, a bittersweet commentary on adolescent cruelty and teenage angst, as reflected upon from the maturity of adulthood. "At Seventeen" was a smash, receiving tremendous acclaim from critics and record buyers alike — it charted at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. It even won the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance - Female beating out the likes of Linda Ronstadt who was nominated for the classic Heart Like A Wheel album, Olivia Newton-John and Helen Reddy. Ian performed "At Seventeen" as a musical guest on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live on October 11, 1975. The song's album, Between The Lines, was also a smash and hit #1 on Billboard's Album chart. It was quickly certified Gold and later earned a 'Platinum' certification for sales of over one million copies sold in the US. Another measure of her success is anecdotal - on Valentine's Day 1977, Ian received 461 Valentine cards, having indicated in the lyrics to "At Seventeen" that she never received any as a teenager. "At Seventeen" can also be heard playing in the background in one scene in the 2004 movie Mean Girls. The movie, like the song, addresses the topic of teenage cruelty and alienation; the film features a character named "Janis Ian" who was not a lesbian but was called one nonetheless by some of her classmates in an attempt to demean her. The character was played by actress Lizzy Caplan. "At Seventeen" is also mentioned in Jeffrey Eugenides's 1993 novel The Virgin Suicides, where the song is used by four girls imprisoned in their own home and essentially cut off from normal adolescent experiences to communicate with the narrator and his friends. "Fly Too High" (1979) was her contribution to the soundtrack of the Jodie Foster film Foxes. It earned her a Grammy nomination and became a hit single in many countries, including South Africa, Belgium and the Netherlands. Another country where Ian has achieved a surprising level of popularity is Japan. She had two top 10 singles on the Japanese Oricon charts, "Love Is Blind" in 1976, and "You Are Love" in 1980; and her album Aftertones was a #1 best-seller there in October 1976. By contrast, in the U.S., Ian made the pop charts only once more after "At Seventeen" ("Under the Covers," #71 in 1981), though she had several more songs reach the Adult Contemporary singles chart through 1980 (all failing to make the Top 20, however). Ian spent much of the 1980s and early 1990s without a record deal; her label dropped her in 1981 following the disappointing sales of Miracle Row (1977), Night Rains (1979), and Restless Eyes (1981). "Basically, I didn't do anything from 1982 to 1992. Ian finally resurfaced in 1993 with the album Breaking Silence, its title song about incest. She came out as a lesbian with that release. Also in 1993 was her infamous Howard Stern Show appearance where she performed a "new" version of "At Seventeen" about Jerry Seinfeld. Ian has released five albums since (including one live album, 2003's Working Without A Net). Ian's most recent album, Folk Is The New Black, was released jointly by the Rude Girl and Cooking Vinyl labels in 2006. It is the first in over twenty years where she did all the songwriting herself. She still tours and has a devoted fan base. Other artists have recorded Ian's compositions, most notably Roberta Flack, who had a hit in 1973 with Ian's song "Jesse" (also recorded by Joan Baez; Ian's own version is featured on her 1974 album Stars). Ian also co-wrote "What About The Love?", featured on Amy Grant's 1988 album Lead Me On. She is an outspoken critic of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a record industry organization which she sees as acting against the interests of musicians and consumers. As such, she has willingly released several of her songs for free download from her website. She was not only one of the first artists to do this but also was one of the first, along with author Eric Flint, to show conclusive evidence that free downloads dramatically increased hard-copy sales, contrary to the claims of RIAA and NARAS. Ironically, Ian's signature tune At Seventeen sold over two million singles in the United States alone yet was never certified. "I've been surprised at how few people are willing to get annoyed with me over it," she laughs, "there was a little backlash here and there. I was scheduled to appear on a panel somewhere and somebody from a record company said if I was there they would boycott it. But that's been pretty much it. In general the entire reaction has been favorable. I hear from a lot of people in my industry who don't want to be quoted, but say 'yeah, we're aware of this and we'd like to see a change too'." In addition to being an award-winning singer/songwriter, Ian writes science fiction. A long-time reader of the genre, she got into science fiction fandom in 2001, attending the Millennium Philcon. Her works have been published in an assortment of anthologies, and she co-edited, with Mike Resnick, the anthology Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian, published in 2003. When her schedule permits, she occasionally attends science fiction conventions. Ian has been a regular columnist for, and still contributes to the LGBT news magazine, The Advocate. She has a selection of her columns available on her website. On July 24th 2008, Janis Ian released her Autobiography: Society's Child (published by Penguin Tarcher) to much critical acclaim. An accompanying double CD "The Autobiogrphy Collection" has also been released with all Ian's best loved songs. Ian currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with attorney Patricia Snyder, whom she married in Toronto, Canada on August 27, 2003.

MORE ABOUT JANIS IAN

A singer/songwriter both celebrated and decried for her pointed handling of taboo topics, Janis Ian enjoyed one of the more remarkable second acts in music history. After first finding success as a teen, her career slumped, only to enter a commercial resurgence almost a decade later. Janis Eddy Fink was born on May 7, 1951, in New York City. The child of a music teacher, she studied piano as a child and, drawing influence from Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday, and Odetta, wrote her first songs at the age of 12. She soon entered Manhattan's High School of Music and Art, where she began performing at school functions. After adopting the surname Ian (her brother's middle name), she quickly graduated to the New York folk circuit. When she was just 15, she recorded her self-titled debut; the LP contained "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)," a meditation on interracial romance written by Ian while waiting to meet with her school guidance counselor. While banned by a few radio stations, the single failed to attract much notice until conductor Leonard Bernstein invited its writer to perform the song on his television special Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution. The ensuing publicity and furor over its subject matter pushed "Society's Child" into the upper rungs of the pop charts, and made Ian an overnight sensation. Success did not agree with her, however, and she soon dropped out of high school. In rapid succession, Ian recorded three more LPs -- 1967's For All the Seasons of Your Mind, 1968's The Secret Life of J. Eddy Fink, and 1969's Who Really Cares -- but gave away the money she earned to friends and charities. After meeting photojournalist Peter Cunningham at a peace rally, the couple married, and at age 20, she announced her retirement from the music business. The marriage failed, however, and she returned in 1971 with the poorly received Present Company. After moving to California to hone her writing skills in seclusion, Ian resurfaced three years later with Stars, which featured the song "Jesse," later a Top 30 hit for Roberta Flack. With 1975's Between the Lines, Ian eclipsed all of her previous success; not only did the LP achieve platinum status, but the delicate single "At Seventeen" reached the Top Three and won a Grammy. While subsequent releases like 1977's Latin-influenced Miracle Row, 1979's Night Rains, and 1981's Restless Eyes earned acclaim, they sold poorly. Ian was dropped by her label and spent 12 years without a contract before emerging in 1993 with Breaking Silence (the title a reference to her recent admission of homosexuality), which pulled no punches in tackling material like domestic violence, frank eroticism, and the Holocaust. Similarly, 1995's Revenge explored prostitution and homelessness. Two years later Ian returned with Hunger; God & the FBI followed in the spring of 2000. A live set, Working Without a Net, appeared from Rude Girl Records in 2003, and a DVD, Live at Club Cafe, saw release in 2005. Folk Is the New Black appeared as a joint release from Rude Girl and Cooking Vinyl in 2006. © Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide

Tim Hardin

Tim Hardin - Tim Hardin 3 Live In Concert - 1968 - Verve Forecast

Rolling Stone (2/1/69, p.29) - "...There is, to be sure, a very heavy charisma about Hardin and this album, recorded live at New York's Town Hall...is evidence of both devotion and charisma..."

Originally titled Tim Hardin 3, this set was recorded live in 1968 with a backing band comprised primarily of jazz musicians. The support crew is a bit tentative; it's evident that they hadn't played much with Hardin, and in places the tempo comes close to breaking down. It's still a good, effective performance; Hardin is in good voice (a condition which apparently couldn't be readily counted on, even in his early days), and on the songs that had already been released on his first two albums, the arrangements vary from the recorded versions in interesting fashions. Live in Concert includes renditions of most of his best early compositions ("If I Were a Carpenter," "Red Balloon," "Reason to Believe," "Misty Roses," "Lady Came From Baltimore," "Black Sheep Boy") and half a dozen Hardin originals that didn't make it onto his first pair of albums. The best of these is the Lenny Bruce tribute, "Lenny's Tune," which Nico covered on her first solo album (where it was retitled "Eulogy to Lenny Bruce"). The 1995 CD reissue of this album adds three previously unreleased bonus tracks from the same concert. © Richie Unterberger, allmusic.com

A great live concert, recorded at the Town Hall in NYC on April 8, 1968. The late Tim Hardin never achieved the success he truly deserved, but he was a great singer-songwriter , with a very distinctive voice. Tim's music style was fundamentally Chess blues influenced by artists like Mose Allison, Ray Charles, and Lefty Frizell. Tim once said that "I've always thought of myself as a jazz singer. Jazz to me is just personal. Everyone who is a jazz player, according to my definition, plays like only he (Lefty Frizell) plays. No one else plays that way. I also feel that jazz is blues is jazz is blues is... Blues is not a restrictive term... If it ain't true it ain't jazz and if it's true it's the blues". He tragically died at 39 years of age, but even today he remains a very influential artist, and his songs are consistently being covered by other artists. Listen to Tim Hardin's brilliant "Tim Hardin 1", and "The Shock of Grace" albums, and give a listen to Paul Weller's outstanding "Studio 150" album, on which he does a marvellous cover of Tim Hardin's "Don't Make Promises".

TRACKS

A1 The Lady Came From Baltimore 2:00
A2 Reason To Believe 2:30
A3 You Upset The Grace Of Living When You Lie 4:05
A4 Misty Roses 4:35
A5 Black Sheep Boy 2:05
A6 Lenny's Tune 6:45

B1 Don't Make Promises 4:02
B2 Danville Dame 6:15
B3 If I Were A Carpenter 3:20
B4 Red Balloon 3:21
B5 Tribute To Hank Williams 3:55
B6 Smugglin' Man 3:30

All songs composed by Tim Hardin

MUSICIANS

Guitar, Vocals, (Piano on track A6) - Tim Hardin
Guitar - Daniel Hankin
Bass - Eddie Gomez
Piano, Clavinet - Warren Bernhardt
Drums - Donald MacDonald
Vibraphone - Mike Mainieri

BIO (WIKIPEDIA)

Timothy James Hardin (December 23, 1941 – December 29, 1980, was an American folk musician and composer. He is best remembered for writing the Top 40 hits "If I Were a Carpenter", covered by Bobby Darin and Robert Plant, and "Reason to Believe", covered by Rod Stewart, as well as his own recording career. Hardin dropped out of high school at age 18 to join the Marine Corps. He spent part of 1959 in Vietnam as a military advisor. He told the story that his sergeant was killed on patrol that year, but because the US didn't admit to any military dead until 1961, his sergeant was listed as having been killed that year. Hardin is said to have discovered heroin in Vietnam. After his discharge he moved to New York City in 1961, where he briefly attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He was dismissed because of truancy and began to focus on his musical career by performing around Greenwich Village, mostly in a blues style. After moving to Boston in 1963 he was discovered by the record producer Erik Jacobsen (later the producer for The Lovin' Spoonful), who arranged a meeting with Columbia Records. In 1964 he moved back to Greenwich Village to record for his contract with Columbia. The resulting recordings were considered a failure by Columbia, which chose not to release them and terminated Hardin's recording contract. After moving to Los Angeles, California in 1965, he met actress Susan Morss (known professionally as Susan Yardley), and moved back to New York with her. He signed to the Verve Forecast label, and produced his first authorized album, Tim Hardin 1 in 1966. This album saw a transformation from his early traditional blues style to the folk style that defined his recording career. This LP contained "Reason To Believe" and the ballad "Misty Roses" which did receive Top 40 radio play. Tim Hardin 2 was released in 1967 and contained one of his most famous songs, "If I Were a Carpenter". An album entitled This is Tim Hardin, featuring covers of "House of the Rising Sun", Fred Neil's "Blues on the Ceilin'" and Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man", among others, appeared in 1967, on the Atco label. The liner notes indicate the songs were recorded in 1963–1964, well prior to the release of Tim Hardin 1 by Verve Records. Tim Hardin 3 Live in Concert, released in 1968, was a collection of live recordings along with re-makes of previous songs; it was followed by Tim Hardin 4, another collection of blues-influenced tracks believed to date from the same period as This is Tim Hardin. In 1969, Hardin again signed with Columbia and had one of his few commercial successes, as a non-LP single of Bobby Darin's "Simple Song of Freedom" reached the US Top 50. Hardin did not tour in support of this single and a heroin addiction and stage fright made his live performances erratic. Also in 1969 he appeared at the Woodstock Festival where he sang his famous "If I Were a Carpenter" song. He recorded three albums for Columbia—Suite for Susan Moore and Damion: We Are One, One, All in One; Bird on a Wire; and Painted Head—none of which sold well. His output as a songwriter decreased and eventually ceased during this period, a circumstance blamed on his ongoing drug problems. In 1973, Hardin appeared on stage with Harry Chapin as part of Chapin's concert in Potsdam, New York. They jammed on a blues riff that survives in a bootleg recording. Some of the topics covered in the seven minute jam include drug use, travel and death. In Chapin's introduction, he makes reference to Hardin's participation as a session musician on his first two albums. During the following years Hardin moved between England and the U.S. His heroin addiction had taken control of his life by the time his last album, Nine, was released on GM Records in the UK in 1973 (the album did not see a US release until it appeared on Antilles Records in 1976). He sold his writers' rights in the late 1970s. Tim Hardin died of a heroin and morphine overdose in 1980, and is buried in the Twin Oaks Cemetery in Turner, Oregon.



MORE ABOUT TIM HARDIN

A gentle, soulful singer who owed as much to blues and jazz as folk, Tim Hardin produced an impressive body of work in the late '60s without ever approaching either mass success or the artistic heights of the best singer/songwriters. When future Lovin' Spoonful producer Erik Jacobsen arranged for Hardin's first recordings in the mid-'60s, Hardin was no more than an above-average white blues singer, in the mold of many fellow folkys working the East Coast circuit. By the time of his 1966 debut, however, he was writing confessional folk-rock songs of considerable grace and emotion. The first album's impact was slightly diluted by incompatible string overdubs (against Hardin's wishes), but by the time of his second and best LP, he'd achieved a satisfactory balance between acoustic guitar-based arrangements and subtle string accompaniment. It was the lot of Hardin's work to achieve greater recognition through covers from other singers, such as Rod Stewart (who did "Reason to Believe"), Nico (who covered "Eulogy to Lenny Bruce" on her first album), Scott Walker (who sang "Lady Came From Baltimore"), Fred Neil ("Green Rocky Road" has been credited to both him and Hardin), and especially Bobby Darin, who took "If I Were a Carpenter" into the Top Ten in 1966. Beleaguered by a heroin habit since early in his career, Hardin's drug problems became grave in the late '60s; his commercial prospects grew dimmer, and his albums more erratic, although he did manage to appear at Woodstock. His end was not a pretty one: due to accumulated drug and health problems, as well as a scarcity of new material, he didn't complete any albums after 1973, dying of a drug overdose in 1980. © Richie Unterberger, allmusic.com

The City (Feat. Carole King)

The City (Feat. Carole King) - Now That Everything's Been Said - 1968 - Ode

Gerry Goffin and Carole King, even in 1968 were already established songwriters, but it wasn't until Carole's 1971 classic "Tapestry" release that she came to be fully recognised as one of the great American singer/songwriters. In 1968, Carole King and her then husband Charles Larkey, formed the short lived The City, with Danny Kortchmar on guitar and vocals, and Jim Gordon on drums. "Now That Everything's Been Said" was originally issued as a limited edition album in 1968 by Ode records. It's an excellent album with some terrific songs. "Snow Queen" is a beautifully written track. "That Old Sweet Roll (Hi De Ho)", was covered, by the Byrds and Blood, Sweat And Tears, and is also a great song. Danny Kortchmar sings "A Man Without a Dream" and "Sweet Home" on this album, which really hasn't a dud track. "Now That Everything's Been Said" is now available on a remastered CD, and is well worth buying. The post here is a vinyl rip, and sound quality is only average.

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

SIDE 1

1.) Snow Queen (Gerry Goffin - Carole King) - 4:11
2.) I Was Not Born to Follow (Gerry Goffin - Carole King) - 3:45
3.) Now That Everything's Been Said (Carole King - Stern) - 2:20
4.) Paradise Alley (Carole King - Palmer) - 3:04
5.) A Man Without a Dream (Gerry Goffin - Carole King) - 3:50
6.) Victim of Circumstance (Carole King - Palmer) - 2:35

SIDE 2

1.) Why Are You Leaving (Carole King - Stern) - 3:37
2.) Lady (Gerry Goffin - Carole King) - 2:59
3.) My Sweet Home (Allison) - 3:12
4.) I Don't Believe It (Carole King) - 2:42
5.) Hi-De-Ho (That Old Sweet Roll) (Gerry Goffin - Carole King) - 3:22
6.) All My Time (Gerry Goffin - Carole King) - 3:17

MUSICIANS

Carole King - Synthesizer, Guitar, Piano, Keyboards, Vocals
Danny Kortchmar - Guitar, Vocals
Charles Larkey - Bass
Jim Gordon - Drums

REVIEW

The 1999 Ode/Epic/Legacy CD reissue of this album marks its first appearance in the American catalog since 1969, when a switch of distributors by Ode, from Columbia to A&M, ended up getting it deleted prematurely. The original LP became a collector's item with a triple-digit price and was even bootlegged with a bad black-and-white reproduction of the original jacket. It was briefly in print on CD in Japan during the early 1990s, but this reissue is an improvement — King lacked some confidence, and this remastering captures the subtle, deep, expressive aspect of King's singing, which was easy to lose, especially because King sometimes sounds a little outnumbered, trying to work within a "group" context. The City has more of an integrated ensemble sound, and less prominence to King, than her subsequent records, even though she used bigger backing groups on most of her solo sides. The new CD squeezes the best out of her voice (and piano, which sounds gloriously resonant) as it existed then. The soft but clear, gently tapped percussion in the opening seconds of "Snow Queen," and the close-up twang and crunch of Danny Kortchmar's guitar on "Wasn't Born to Follow," also enhance the listening. King wasn't yet filling her albums wall-to-wall with memorable songs, and there's some material here that might better have been held back at the time, but this release is the best way to hear this record. © Bruce Eder, allmusic.com

SHORT BIO (CAROLE KING)

While the landmark album Tapestry earned her superstar status, singer/songwriter Carole King had already firmly established herself as one of pop music's most gifted and successful composers, with work recorded by everyone from the Beatles to Aretha Franklin. Born Carole Klein on February 9, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, she began playing piano at the age of four, and formed her first band, the vocal quartet the Co-Sines, while in high school. A devotee of the composing team of Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller (the duo behind numerous hits for Elvis Presley, the Coasters, and Ben E. King), she became a fixture at influential DJ Alan Freed's local Rock 'n' Roll shows; while attending Queens College, she fell in with budding songwriters Paul Simon and Neil Sedaka as well as Gerry Goffin, with whom she forged a writing partnership. In 1959, Sedaka scored a hit with "Oh! Carol," written in her honor; King cut an answer record, "Oh! Neil," but it stiffed. She and Goffin, who eventually married, began writing under publishers Don Kirshner and Al Nevins in the famed pop songwriting house the Brill Building, where they worked alongside the likes of Doc Pomus, Mort Shuman, Jeff Barry, Ellie Greenwich, and countless others. In 1961, Goffin and King scored their first hit with the Shirelles' chart-topping "Will You Love Me Tomorrow"; their next effort, Bobby Vee's "Take Good Care of My Baby," also hit number one, as did "The Locomotion," recorded by their baby-sitter, Little Eva. Together, the couple wrote over 100 chart hits in a vast range of styles, including the Chiffons' "One Fine Day," the Monkees' "Pleasant Valley Sunday," the Drifters' "Up on the Roof," the Cookies' "Chains" (later covered by the Beatles), Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman," and the Crystals' controversial "He Hit Me King also continued her attempts to mount a solo career, but scored only one hit, 1962's "It Might as Well Rain Until September." In the mid-'60s she, Goffin, and columnist Al Aronowitz founded their own short-lived label, Tomorrow Records; Charles Larkey, the bassist for the Tomorrow group the Myddle Class, eventually became King's second husband after her marriage to Goffin dissolved. She and Larkey later moved to the West Coast, where in 1968 they founded the City, a trio rounded out by New York musician Danny Kortchmar. The City recorded one LP, Now That Everything's Been Said, but did not tour due to King's stage fright; as a result, the album was a commercial failure, although it did feature songs later popularized by the Byrds ("Wasn't Born to Follow"), Blood, Sweat & Tears ("Hi-De-Ho"), and James Taylor ("You've Got a Friend"). Taylor and King ultimately became close friends, and he encouraged her to pursue a solo career. 1970's Writer proved a false start, but in 1971, she released Tapestry, which stayed on the charts for over six years and was the best-selling album of the era. A quiet, reflective work which proved seminal in the development of the singer/songwriter genre, Tapestry also scored a pair of hit singles, "So Far Away" and the chart-topping "It's Too Late," whose flip side, "I Feel the Earth Move," garnered major airplay as well. 1971's Music also hit number one, and generated the hit "Sweet Seasons"; 1972's Rhymes & Reasons reached number two on the charts, and 1974's Wrap Around Joy, which featured the hit "Jazzman," hit the number one spot.In 1975, King and Goffin reunited to write Thoroughbred, which also featured contributions from James Taylor, David Crosby, and Graham Nash. After 1977's Simple Things, she mounted a tour with the backing group Navarro and married her frequent songwriting partner Rick Evers, who died a year later after a heroin overdose. 1980's Pearls, a collection of performances of songs written during her partnership with Goffin, was her last significant hit, and King soon moved to a tiny mountain village in Idaho, where she became active in the environmental movement. After 1983's Speeding Time, she took a six-year hiatus from recording before releasing City Streets, which featured guest Eric Clapton. In 2001, she returned with Love Makes the World, a self-released disc on her own Rockingale label. Four years passed before her next record, The Living Room Tour, a double disc set documenting her intimate 2004-05 tour that found her revisting songs from throughout her career with only her piano and acoustic guitars as accompaniment. © Jason Ankeny, allmusic.com

Al Stewart

Al Stewart - Bed-Sitter Images - 1967 - CBS

Al's later songs were to become eclectic and diverse in the extreme, dealing with political, historical, and sociological issues, as well as normal standard rock radio favourites. Listen to his song, “Trains", from his "Famous Last Words" album, a song of sheer brilliance, which on the surface seems to be about the history of rail travel, but is, in fact a long narrative about the trains that carried refugees to concentration camps during the Holocaust. His great song, “Post World War Two Blues,” tells about the attitudes of people after WW 2, and refers to Louis Mountbatten and Jimi Hendrix. Definitely not your average song theme. Absolutely amazing lyrics, and typical of Al Stewart's eclectic songwriting. His song, “Flying Sorcery,” is the story of Amy Johnson, the brave English aviatrix who died in 1941 during WW2. Not all his songs are about war, though. Listen to his classic "Year of the Cat", Night Train To Munich", "Song On The Radio", or "If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It". His songs can be humorous, melodic, rock orientated, and contain many more diverse themes and qualities too numerous to mention here. This first album from the great Scottish Folk rock, singer/songwriter, is not remembered much nowadays. However, it heralded great things to come from this magnificent musician. Listen to his classic "Year Of The Cat", and "Modern Times" albums, and check out his "Live Indian Summer" album @ALSTWT/LIS N.B: The 1970 CBS Vinyl release was entitled "The First Album (Bedsitter Images)", and contains the extra tracks, "Lover Man" (Mike Heron), and "Clifton in the Rain" (Al Stewart). It excludes the Al Stewart tracks, "Scandinavian Girl", "Pretty Golden Hair", and "Cleave to Me" on the 1967 album. There is also a 2007 Collectors Choice CD issue of this album available which contains all the tracks from the 1967, and 1970 issues, plus two extra tracks, "Go Your Way", and "My Contemporaries"

TRACKS / COMPOSERS

Bedsitter Images (Al Stewart)
Swiss Cottage Manoeuvres (Al Stewart)
The Carmichaels (Al Stewart)
Scandinavian Girl (Al Stewart)
Pretty Golden Hair (Al Stewart)
Denise at 16 (Al Stewart)
Samuel, Oh How You've Changed (Al Stewart)
Cleave to Me (Al Stewart)
A Long Way Down From Stephanie (Al Stewart)
Ivich (Al Stewart)
Beleeka Doodle Day (Al Stewart)

MUSICIANS

Al Stewart: vocal, guitar
Alexander Faris: orchestral arrangements

REVIEW

Bedsitter Images unveiled a promising but tentative folk-rock singer/songwriter. Al Stewart's songs already displayed his talent for observational storytelling, though at this point he was detailing ordinary lives of British people and autobiographical romance, rather than epic historical incidents. Most of the cuts used a full orchestra, and although the folk-baroque approach worked for some folk-rock artists of the era like Judy Collins, here it seemed ill-conceived. The orchestration was twee, which made the already precious songs seem yet twee-er; Stewart has subsequently expressed regret over the decision to use such production. His work would have sounded better with straightforward folk-rock arrangements, or even as solo acoustic tunes. Despite its faults, it's fairly engaging, highlighted by the lengthy "Beleeka Doodle Day." Not only does that track eliminate the orchestration, it's also the best song on the album, with a characteristically haunting melody and more forceful, melancholy lyrics than those heard on most of the rest of the tracks. © Richie Unterberger, allmusic.com

BIO (Wikipedia)

Al Stewart (born Alastair Ian Stewart, 5 September 1945 in Glasgow) is a British singer-songwriter and folk rock musician. He is best known for his 1976 single "Year of the Cat" and its 1978 follow-up "Time Passages" (both of which were produced by Alan Parsons), although albums such as Past, Present and Future [1973] and Modern Times [1975] are seen as more representative of Stewart's talent as a historical wordsmith and lyrical balladeer. His current sidemen are Dave Nachmanoff (U.S., Germany) and occasionally Laurence Juber (primarily U.K. tours). Stewart was an integral part of the folk revival in Britain in the sixties and seventies. He appears throughout the musical folklore of the age - he played at the first ever Glastonbury Festival in 1970, knew Yoko Ono pre-Lennon, bought his first guitar from future Police guitarist Andy Summers and compered at the legendary Les Cousins folk club in London in the 1960s. Stewart grew up in the town of Wimborne, Dorset, England after moving from Scotland with his mother. After that, as he sings in the song Post World War II Blues (off Past, Present and Future): "I came up to London when I was 19 with a corduroy jacket and a head full of dreams." After breaking through into the London folk scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he moved to the United States in 1977 and recorded/produced most of his best-known work in Los Angeles, California during the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. The 1990s were quieter for Stewart, as he released a series of live and concept albums, although the last decade has seen Stewart revive his interest in the historical ballads that brought him to fame in the 1960s and 70s, and he has produced three studio albums since 2000. His extensive back-catalogue has been released on CD and in a number of retrospective compilations, and Stewart continues to tour extensively throughout the United States and Europe. Recordings of live concerts are often made available through his fan clubs, chronicling his 43-year career. As of February 2009[update], he has resided in Los Angeles. Stewart's first record was the single "The Elf" (backed with a version of the Yardbirds' "Turn into Earth"), which was released in 1966 on Decca Records, and included guitar work from Jimmy Page (later of the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin), the first of many leading guitarists Stewart worked with, including Richard Thompson, Tim Renwick and Peter White. Stewart then signed to Columbia Records (CBS in the UK), for whom he released six albums. The first four of these attracted relatively little commercial interest, although they contain some of Stewart's most incisive and introspective songwriting, and he became popular on the university circuit. Stewart's debut album Bed-Sitter Images was released on LP in 1967; a revised version appeared in 1970 as The First Album (Bed-Sitter Images) with a few tracks changed, and the album was reissued on CD in 2007 by Collectors' Choice Music with all the songs from both versions. Love Chronicles (1969) was notable for the 18-minute title track, an anguished autobiographical tale of sexual encounters that was the first mainstream record release ever to include the word "fucking". It was voted "Folk Album of the Year" by the UK music magazine, Melody Maker, and also features Jimmy Page on guitar. His third album, Zero She Flies followed in 1970 and included a number of shorter songs which ranged from acoustic ballads and instrumentals to songs that featured electric lead guitar. These first three albums (including The Elf) were later released as the two CD set To Whom it May Concern: 1966–70. Orange (1972) was very much a transitional album, combining songs in Stewart's confessional style with more intimations of the historical themes that he would increasingly adopt (e.g. "The News from Spain", with its prog-rock overtones, including dramatic piano by Rick Wakeman). The fifth release, Past, Present and Future (1973), was Stewart's first album to receive a proper release in the United States, via Janus Records. It echoed a traditional historical storytelling style and contained the song "Nostradamus," a long (9:43) track in which Stewart tied into the re-discovery of the claimed seer's writings by referring to selected possible predictions about twentieth century people and events. While too long for mainstream radio airplay at that time, the song became a hit on many U.S. college/university radio stations, which were flexible about running times. Such airplay helped the album to reach #133 on the Billboard album chart in the US. Other songs on Past, Present and Future characterized by Stewart's 'history genre' mentioned American President Warren Harding, World War II, Ernst Röhm, Christine Keeler, Louis Mountbatten, and Stalin's purges. Stewart followed Past, Present and Future with Modern Times (1975), in which the songs were lighter on historical references and more of a return to the theme of short stories set to music. Significantly, though, it was the first of his albums to be produced by Alan Parsons, and Allmusic regard it as his best. While it failed to produce any hit singles, it received substantial airplay on album oriented stations and reached #30 in the US. Stewart's contract with CBS Records expired at this point and he signed to RCA Records for the world outside North America. His first two albums for RCA, Year of the Cat (released on Janus in the U.S., then reissued by Arista Records after Janus folded) and Time Passages (released in the U.S. on Arista), set the style for his later work, and have certainly been his biggest-selling recordings.[7] Both albums reached the top ten in the US, with "Year of the Cat" peaking at #5 and "Time Passages" at #10, and both title songs became top ten singles in the US ("Year of the Cat" #8, and "Time Passages" #7). Meanwhile "Year of the Cat" became Stewart's first chart single in England, where it peaked at #31. The overwhelming success of these songs, both of which still receive substantial radio airplay on classic-rock/pop format radio stations, has later overshadowed the depth and range of Stewart's body of songwriting. Stewart himself has frequently expressed disappointment with the quality of his recordings during this era, commercial success notwithstanding. Stewart then released 24 Carrots (#37 US 1980) and his first live album Live/Indian Summer (#110 US 1981), with both featuring backing by Peter White's band Shot in the Dark (who released their own unsuccessful album in 1981). While "24 Carrots" did produce a #24 single with "Midnight Rocks," the album sold less well than its two immediate predecessors. After those releases, Stewart was dropped by Arista and his popularity declined. Still, despite his lower profile and waning commercial success, he would continue to tour and record albums. There was a four year gap between his next two albums Russians and Americans (1984) (which was highly political) and the upbeat pop-orientated Last Days of the Century (1988), which appeared on smaller labels and had lower sales. Stewart followed up with his second live album, the acoustic Rhymes in Rooms (1992), which featured only himself and Peter White, and Famous Last Words (1993), which was dedicated to the memory of the late Peter Wood (famous for co-writing "Year of the Cat"), who died the year of its release. Stewart followed these up with concept albums, with Between the Wars (1995), covering major historical and cultural events from 1918 to 1939, such as the Versailles Treaty, Prohibition, the Spanish Civil War, and the Great Depression and Down in the Cellar (2000), covering the aspects of wine, one of Stewart's areas of enthusiasm and expertise. In 2005, he released A Beach Full of Shells, followed in 2008 by Sparks of Ancient Light. He continues to tour the United States and Europe, along with guitarists such as Laurence Juber and Dave Nachmanoff, whilst also finding time to pursue his hobby of collecting fine wines. Stewart's historical work includes songs such as "Fields of France", from the album Last Days of the Century, about World War I pilots, "In Red Square", from Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, about the Soviet Union , "The Palace of Versailles", from Time Passages, about the French Revolution, and "Sirens of Titan", from Modern Times, a musical precis of Kurt Vonnegut's novel of the same title.