Robert Plant and Friends - "Long Time Coming"

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall at Decca Records after The Beatles hit it big on Parlophone. Decca famously turned down the opportunity to sign the band, and the rest is history. Was there yelling and screaming? A lot of finger-pointing? Did anyone lose their job over that?

I also wonder what the word was around CBS Records after Led Zeppelin’s 1969 debut splash. CBS had had Robert Plant under contract just two years earlier and had turned down his Band of Joy after receiving demos in 1967. Plus, The Yardbirds (with Jimmy Page) had been on Epic Records, a CBS subsidiary. It must have seemed like a missed opportunity by some of the company execs.

And while there have been a number of releases of Page's pre-Zeppelin recordings to capitalize on his later fame, less has been done with Plant’s early work.

I wondered what could have happened if CBS panicked a bit after Zeppelin's debut and re-packaged its Robert Plant singles along with the Band of Joy demos into an album around 1969/1970 in a bid to cash in on his success. The result I came up with is an album I’ve titled Long Time Coming by “Robert Plant and Friends.”

SIDE A
1. Long Time Coming

2. Everybody's Gonna Say (Listen)
3. Laughin', Cryin', Laughin'
4. You'd Better Run (Listen)
5. I've Got a Secret

SIDE B
1. Our Song
2. Adriatic Sea View (Band of Joy)
3. For What it's Worth (Band of Joy)
4. Hey Joe (Band of Joy)
5. Memory Lane (Band of Joy)

"You Better Run" and "Everybody's Gonna Say" were originally released as a single by Columbia in 1966 and they're credited to the band Listen. The A-side is a cover of the Young Rascals hit and, with over-the-top blasts of a horn section, it sounds like they were trying to make Plant into the next Tom Jones. It's available on Plant's compilation CD Sixty Six to Timbuktu. 

"Our Song" b/w "Laughin', Cryin', Laughin'" as well as "Long Time Coming" b/w "I've Got a Secret" were both Robert Plant solo singles released by CBS in 1967. "Our Song" is also available on Sixty Six to Timbuktu. 

As for the Band of Joy tracks, Plant also released both "For What It's Worth" and "Hey Joe" on Sixty Six to Timbuktu. "Adriatic Sea View" was released as a rare (possibly bootlegged) single. And "Memory Lane" is floating around on bootlegs.

For a cover, I found this promo photo of Plant (circa '67) and added titles.

Elvis Presley - "Elvis in Nashville"

In June 1970, Elvis entered RCA's Studio B in Nashville and recorded 34 masters over the course of five days. That's an average of nearly seven songs each day — recording artists of today could learn a thing or two from the past.

Realizing that they'd cut quite a few country songs, Elvis returned to the studio in September to record four more tunes. Two albums that resulted from these recording sessions were Love Letters from Elvis and Elvis Country (both released in 1971), which used a combined 25 songs.

So what happened to the other 13? They were scattered over singles, a quasi-soundtrack album to the documentary "Elvis: That's the Way It Is," and a compilation or two.

In essence, this album I present is a replacement for That's the Way It Is. Instead of being an actual soundtrack of the documentary, what was released was a mishmash of studio and live tracks.

SIDE A
1. Patch It Up
2. Twenty Days and Twenty Nights
3. How the Web Was Woven
4. Mary in the Morning
5. You Don't Have to Say You Love Me
6. Rags to Riches
7. The Sound of Your Cry

SIDE B
1. I've Lost You
2. Just Pretend
3. Stranger in the Crowd
4. The Next Step is Love
5. Sylvia
6. Bridge over Troubled Water

So I removed the four live songs, added five studio recordings and made Elvis in Nashville, an all-studio track album. In my opinion, this is what should have been released.

The album opens with "Patch It Up," probably the most rockin' of the tunes. It replaces a live version that was on That's the Way It Is. What follows is a mix of mostly contemporary songs.

Add this to Love Letters from Elvis and Elvis Country and you'll have the trifecta of 1971 albums that gives a more complete picture. I titled it Elvis in Nashville as a kind of follow-up to the 1969 album Elvis in Memphis. All of these tracks can be found on various compilation albums.

For a cover, I took a DVD cover of the "Elvis: That's the Way It Is" documentary and altered it.

Brenda Holloway - "Hurtin' and Cryin'" and "Spellbound"

Motown Records scheduled the second album of Brenda Holloway to be released in November 1965 on its Tamla label. Titled Hurtin' and Cryin', the album never materialized. This is the reported track listing:

SIDE A
1. When I'm Gone
2. Just Look What You've Done
3. You've Made Me So Very Happy
4. I Don't Want Nobody's Gonna Make Me Cry
5. Till Johnny Comes
6. Hurt a Little Every Day

SIDE B
1. Starting the Hurt All Over
2. You Can Cry on My Shoulder
3. A World Without You
4. I'll Be Alright
5. Everybody Knows
6. Make Him Come to You

There are a number of possible reasons the album was shelved. Her hits had been moderate, and the Motown forces were more focused on the acts that were making them money, specifically Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, The Temptations and The Miracles. Also, Holloway was from L.A., one of the few non-Detroit-based acts on the label at the time. Perhaps most significantly, Holloway tended to rebel against the Motown machine, not going to its grooming school and often at odds with the material Motown was providing her.

Crazy enough, not only was the second album shelved, but two of the songs, "Just Look What You've Done" backed with "Starting to Hurt All Over" didn't see the light of day until released as a single 16 months later. And the Holloway-penned "You've Made Me So Very Happy" (later a big hit by Blood, Sweat and Tears) wasn't released as an A-side of a single until nearly two years after it was recorded.

All the tracks were eventually released in 2005 on Brenda Holloway: The Motown Anthology.

I found this album cover shown above online and simply added the Tamla logo.

SIDE A

1. I’m Giving Up

2. You Got a Little of Everything

3. Keep Me

4. What Good am I Without You?

5. The Lonely Heart and Lonely Eyes of Lonely Me

6. I Still Get Butterflies

7. Baby I’ve Got It

SIDE B

1. Spellbound

2. Whenever You Need Me

3. I Feel Your Love Growin’ on Me

4. Without Love You Lose a Good Feelin’

5. Can’t You Hear Me Knockin’?

6. Can’t Hold the Feeling Back

As if Holloway's tenure at Motown wasn't strange enough, even though some songs from the aborted 1965 album were eventually released as singles in 1967, there appears to have been an attempt to record another Holloway album in 1966. The compilation Motown Unreleased 1966 includes 13 songs recorded by her to build this potential third album.

As far as I know, no track list, album title, or album cover exists for this. So, I created my own or used what I could find on the Internet. In creating the track list, I tried to mix it up as best as possible. Most songs are dance-pop or ballads. Since we had an odd number of tracks, I put most of the longer tracks on the side with the fewest songs.

"What Good am I Without You?" had originally been titled "Talk Still Going On" and had been assigned to Tammi Terrell.

There was already a compilation album for Holloway titled Spellbound, so I simply took that cover and made a few changes to make it look more like an album from '66.

Holloway eventually recorded one more album for Tamla, The Artistry of Brenda Holloway, in 1968 before leaving the label for good.

The Kinks - "God's Children versus Dreams and the Good Life, Part Two"

Like last week, here's another lost sequel. 

The Kinks' Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One, was released in late 1970 and brought the band some much-needed critical and financial success after a few years of drought. 

As the title suggests, there was supposed to be a Part Two, but it was never released. Which leads us to this week's entry:

SIDE A
1. God's Children
2. Animals in the Zoo
3. Nobody's Fool
4. Anytime
5. Willesden Green
6. The Way Love Used to Be

SIDE B
1. The Good Life
2. Moments
3. Lavender Lane
4. Dreams
5. Just Friends
6. Got to be Free (Again)

In an interview with Uncut magazine in 2014, Ray Davies is quoted as saying, "Lola Versus Powerman… was good versus evil, obviously, and in Volume Two, I sketched out how you become your worst nightmare, how the good man goes so far he becomes the evil person he always fought against. But we had to do another tour, we had the RCA deal, and we had other recording projects that we had to work towards, and it got lost, unfortunately."

So the planned theme was a good man becomes the evil he'd previously fought against. That gives us something to work with. One of the "other recording projects" Ray refers to was a soundtrack album for a movie called Percy, and that soundtrack became the actual follow-up album instead of Part Two. I had to wonder if any ideas that he'd originally had for Part Two just ended up being used for the soundtrack. It wouldn't be surprising that The Kinks recycled some ideas considering the soundtrack also includes an instrumental version of "Lola."

In the same Uncut interview, Ray Davies says of the Percy soundtrack, "There were a few songs already written, like 'The Way Love Used To Be,' but most of it was done to fit the themes of the film." I have a feeling most if not all of the instrumentals (minus the "Lola" instrumental) were written for the film. But at least some of the songs with lyrics may have originally been intended for Part Two. Or perhaps the general theme of "man becomes the evil he'd previously fought against" was simply still percolating in Ray's head as he wrote songs for the film.

From Percy, I took the songs "God's Children," "The Way Love Used to Be," "Moments," "Animals in the Zoo," "Just Friends," "Dreams" and "Willesden Green." 

From the 2014 deluxe edition of Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, I used the outtakes "Anytime," "The Good Life" and an alternate version of "Got to be Free" (which I retitled "Got to be Free (Again)"). It sounds significantly different than the originally released version, and I thought ending both albums with different versions of the same song more strongly tied the two together.

Unfortunately, these 10 tunes left us a bit short of an album. So I was forced to reach a bit. On the deluxe edition of the band's 1971 album Muswell Hillbillies, there are two outtakes that don't appear to fit that album's theme: "Lavender Lane" and "Nobody's Fool." They may be a little late to be appearing on Part Two, but who's to say (other than Ray Davies)?

For a title, I didn't think it made sense to call it Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part Two since that title specifically references songs from the last album. So in keeping with the way the previous album was named incorporating song titles, I did the same here and came up with God's Children versus Dreams and the Good Life, Part Two. It's a mouthful, but I think it works with the general theme.

Finally, for a cover, I tried to make it similar in style to Lola versus Powerman and the Moneygoround to show they're linked but make it a bit darker/more chaotic looking. So instead of geometric lines we have scribbling, and instead of looking out at you, Ray (or is that Dave?) is in profile. Instead of titles in blue, they're in red.

I have to say, from the song selection to the cover design, I'm rather proud of how this effort turned out.

And here's a YouTube playlist of the album.