Yes -- "Harmonium"

After the album Relayer and the 1974 tour, each member of the band Yes recorded solo albums: Singer Jon Anderson recorded Olias of Sunhillow, bassist Chris Squire issued Fish Out of Water, guitarist Steve Howe made Beginnings, drummer Alan White recorded Ramshackled, and keyboardist Patrick Moraz issued Story of I. I wanted to create one single album, something that might have been released by the band had they decided not to issue solo albums.

Five solo albums provide a lot of songs to choose from, but which ones are the most likely to have been on a Yes album? Actually, the band gives us the clues because in 1976 Yes went on tour and performed several of the solo songs. These include:

• Anderson: “Ocean Song”
• Howe: “Ram,” “Break Away from It All,” “Beginnings”
• Moraz: “Cachaça (Baião)”
• Squire: “Hold Out Your Hand,” “You By My Side”
• White: “Spring-Song of Innocence,” “One Way Rag”

The studio versions of these tracks total about 39 minutes, which was the standard length of an LP at this time.

The fact that only one of Anderson’s songs was performed I find a little strange, although he sang on “Spring-Song of Innocence” on White’s album. Howe also performed on it.

Howe’s selections for the tour are odd in my opinion. Moraz and White performed together with Howe on two songs from his solo album, but neither one was played on the tour. However, Moraz also played on “Beginnings,” and former Yes drummer Bill Bruford played on “Break Away from It All,” both of which were performed on the tour.

For many, Squire’s solo album sounded the most like a Yes album. This may be because both Moraz and Bruford performed on the entire album.

In determining a tracklist, I looked at how the songs were used on the individual solo albums and tried to spread them around as evenly as I could. The result:

SIDE A

1. Ocean Song – 3:12

2. Hold Out Your Hand – 4:13

3. Ram – 1:53

4. One-Way Rag – 4:07

5. Spring-Song of Innocence – 5:02

SIDE B

1. Beginnings – 7:03

2. You by My Side – 5:00

3. Cachaça (Baião) – 4:07

4. Break Away from It All – 4:19

I think it all works together. I’m still a little uneasy about not having another Anderson song, but I just couldn’t decide which other one to use, and squeezing another song into the tracklist put everything out of balance. I briefly considered making this a double album, but that idea gave me a headache. So in the end, Anderson is not as fully represented as I’d like.

Now, I needed a title and an album cover. I think I spent more time on these two items than actually compiling the tracklist.

None of the titles used for the solo albums seemed right for this. Considering several of Yes’ album titles are just one word (Fragile, Relayer, Tormato, Drama, etc.), I leaned in that direction. The song “The Gates of Delerium” on the band’s previous album Relayer was based on Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” and that got me thinking about how everyone in the band was contributing at least one song. Looking at synonyms for peace I finally chose “Harmony” for the title. It just seemed to encapsulate everything, including the obvious connection to music. But then I decided it didn't sound "high brow" enough for a Yes album title so I changed it to Harmonium.

As far as a cover, Yes was in a transition at this point. By 1976, the band had had six albums (including live and compilation albums) with covers designed by Roger Dean. But after the solo albums, the band’s next two album covers were created by the design group Hipgnosis. So I wasn’t sure what exactly to do at first. Finally, I decided to use the original artwork Dean created for Howe’s solo album, re-crop it, and then add the band logo and album title.

The Yardbirds -- "Having a Rave Up"

The Yardbirds' second album, Having a Rave Up with The Yardbirds, was issued in 1965. It was the band's first with new guitarist Jeff Beck replacing Eric Clapton. But for whatever reason, only half the album features Beck. The whole second side is made up of live cuts with Clapton that were recorded the previous year.

This compilation really doesn't make much sense, especially when one considers that the band recorded enough songs with Beck to fill the entire album. This re-imagined version fixes that.

SIDE A

1. You're a Better Man Than I
2. Evil Hearted You
3. I'm a Man
4. Still, I'm Sad
5. My Girl Sloopy
6. Heart Full of Soul

SIDE B

1. Shapes of Things
2. I Ain't Done Wrong
3. Steeled Blues
4. I'm Not Talking
5. New York City Blues
6. The Train Kept a Rollin'

Most of the first side is the same. However in adding the new songs, a little rearranging was necessary to keep the lengths of the sides fairly close. So "The Train Kept a Rollin'" was moved from the end of the second side, and "My Girl Sloopy" was inserted on the first side. Side B kicks off with the band's latest single at the time, "Shapes of Things," followed by four other new tunes before "The Train Kept a Rollin'."

In my opinion, this is a much better album than was released and likely would have been more highly regarded today than it has been in its true arrangement.

For the cover, I just made a few cosmetic changes to the original, including changing the songs listed. I also changed the album title to simply Having a Rave Up.

Buckingham Nicks - "Dreams Unwind"

Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks recorded one album as Buckingham Nicks in 1973. It didn't do very well (except, strangely, in Birmingham, Ala., where it received a lot of airplay). Eventually, in 1974, both were invited to join Fleetwood Mac and the rest is history.

But as recently as last year, Buckingham was lamenting in an interview about what might have been had he and Nicks continued as a duo. They had already been working on songs for a second album, and this is an attempt to create what that album might have been.

SIDE A

1. Monday Morning

2. Nomad

3. Blue Letter

4. Rhiannon

5. Cathouse Blues 

6. Garbo

7. Without You

SIDE B

1. I Don’t Want to Know

2. Landslide

3. Goldfish and the Ladybug

4. Sorcerer

5. Designs of Love

6. I’m So Afraid

In creating a second Buckingham Nicks album I decided to start by taking the Fleetwood Mac album of 1975 and removing the Christine McVie songs. I also removed the song "Crystal" since Buckingham Nicks had recorded that on their debut album. Next, I searched for songs written before Nicks and Buckingham joined Fleetwood Mac. As it turns out, there's a lot to use:

• "Cathouse Blues"
• "Designs of Love" (later retitled "That's Alright")
• "Garbo"
• "Goldfish and the Ladybug"
• "I Don't Want to Know"
• "Nomad" (later retitled "Candlelight")
• "Sorceror"
• "Without You"

Fleetwood Mac would later record "I Don't Want to Know" (on Rumours), "That's Alright" (on Mirage) and "Without You" (on Extended Play). Nicks would record the others (except "Goldfish and the Ladybug") on solo albums. And there are Buckingham Nicks demo versions of all these (except for "I Don't Want to Know" as far as I know) that can be found on a bootleg titled The Coffee Plant Demos, 1970-1973. So what to use and how to organize?

I determined first of all that if Buckingham isn't playing on any tracks then they're not Buckingham Nicks songs, so that eliminated the Nicks solo versions. I also thought Fleetwood Mac versions of "That's Alright" and "Without You" were recorded too many years later.

So in the end I decided to use only the tracks from Fleetwood Mac and The Coffee Plant Demos, with the sole exception of "I Don't Want to Know" from Rumours. However, when you combine The Coffee Plant Demos with the Fleetwood Mac tracks it doesn't really work as the Fleetwood Mac songs are obviously much more polished and better produced. Thankfully, there's an easy solution. Both Fleetwood Mac and Rumours have been re-released with bonus discs of early versions and demos of the songs that fit much better along with The Coffee Plant Demos. 

I don't like that Buckingham yells "verse" twice during the demo version of "I Don't Want to Know," but it obviously wasn't expected to be the final version. I also don't like that Nicks doesn't sing on this version, but since she wrote the song I'm letting that slide.

Fleetwood Mac is 42 minutes and 12 seconds long, and I wanted to make this album as close as possible. Including everything it clocks in at a little under 44 minutes. If you wanted to cut something, I'd choose "Goldfish and the Ladybug." If Nicks hasn't put this song on an album in all these years, then it's probably the least essential.

For the album title, I used lyrics from "Rhiannon." For the cover, I used a die-cut design I found online and an old date-appropriate photo.

Eagles - "The Long Run" (double album version)

The Eagles. Love 'em or hate 'em, that seems to generally be one's opinion depending on who you ask. I don't hate the Eagles, but I'm not a huge fan either. The worst I can say about them is that radio has way overplayed their songs to the point of exhaustion.

The Long Run, the band's last album before the group broke up, was supposed to be a double album. But internal squabbling, specifically between Glenn Frey and Don Felder, led to the album being cut short, and eventually the band breaking up.

One outtake, "Born to Boogie," was included in the band's box set Selected Works: 1972–1999. Clues to the rest of the missing songs can be found on "Long Run Leftovers," a compilation track assembled by Joe Walsh also on the box set. But trying to unscramble those snippets and figure out what they eventually became is difficult. After numerous listenings, I can detect two of Walsh's songs, "Rivers (of the Hidden Funk)" and "Told You So," and I think I hear Felder's "Heavy Metal (Takin' a Ride)."

In trying to reassemble the double album, I did a fair amount of guesswork. Here's the result:

SIDE A

1. The Long Run

2. I Can't Tell You Why

3. In the City

4. The Disco Strangler

5. King of Hollywood

SIDE B

1. Heartache Tonight

2. Told You So

3. Those Shoes

4. Takin' a Ride

5. Teenage Jail

SIDE C

1. Nobody's Business

2. That Girl

3. Rivers (of the Hidden Funk)

4. The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks

5. Still Alive

SIDE D

1. Playin' It Cool

2. All of You

3. The One You Love

4. Born to Boogie

5. The Sad Cafe

I left the first side as is, and then began stitching together the other three sides. In assembling the album, I tried to keep all four sides approximately the same length.

Of course, Walsh's "Rivers (of the Hidden Funk)" and "Told You So" are included. Both were co-written with Felder. I took them from Walsh's There Goes the Neighborhood and You Bought It -- You Name It albums, respectively.

From Don Henley's first solo album I Can't Stand Still, I took "Nobody's Business." He co-wrote it with J.D. Souther (who collaborated on a number of Eagles songs) as well as Bob Seger (who had only collaborated on an Eagles song once: "Heartache Tonight" from this album). That led me to believe that it may have been originally intended for The Long Run. Otherwise, Henley is already well represented on this album and I didn't see the need to add more of his solo songs.

Frey was surprisingly underrepresented on The Long Run, with only lead vocals on "Heartache Tonight" and co-lead vocals on "King of Hollywood" and "Teenage Jail." Maybe that led to some of the bickering. Frey's first solo album No Fun Aloud also includes one track that he co-wrote with Seger, "That Girl," so I included that here as well. I also included "The One You Love," which was released as the single from his solo album. It was co-written, as much of the album was, with Jack Tempchin, who had previously co-written Eagles songs with Frey.

Felder tended to come to the Eagles with guitar riffs, and then Henley and Frey would complete the songs. So what would have become of his riffs in their hands is impossible to say. Felder contributed two songs to the Heavy Metal soundtrack, and I included both of them here, "Takin' a Ride" and "All of You." The former I'm guessing would not have the words "heavy metal" had it been an Eagles song. I also included one song, "Still Alive," from his first solo album Airborne.

It's difficult to say what would have been Timothy B. Schmit's additional contribution as he didn't release his first solo album until 1984. But the title track on that album, "Playin' It Cool," was co-written with J.D. Souther, so I chose that for inclusion.

One thing that had to go was the cover -- that all-black motif is so boring (although it might have reflected everyone's mood). I found this photo of five eagles on the web, beefed up the color, and added the titles. It's certainly brighter. Five eagles sitting on a dead tree looking annoyed might also reflect the band's mood. :)

Song-wise, the final result is basically more of the same as the single album version. So love it or hate it.