The Beach Boys - "Add Some Music" and "Reverberation"

The Beach Boys never recovered after the SMiLE debacle. Album sales plunged and the band quickly became irreverent as the 1960s progressed. As such, the band's record label was less inclined to take a chance with their albums. The band left its longtime label Capitol for Reprise in late 1969.

In early 1970, the group assembled an album titled Add Some Music and submitted it to Reprise, which rejected it -- not an auspicious beginning on a new label.

Add Some Music
SIDE A
1. Susie Cincinnati
2. Good Time
3. Our Sweet Love
4. Tears in the Morning
5. When Girls Get Together
6. Slip on Through

SIDE B
1. Add Some Music to Your Day
2. Take a Load Off Your Feet
3. This Whole World
4. I Just Got My Pay
5. At My Window
6. Fallin' in Love

This album has a heavy Al Jardine influence -- he wrote or co-wrote five of the 12 songs -- which I think is unusual in the band's history.

Overall, I think it's pretty good. Had "Susie Cincinnati" gotten a lot of label promotion I could see it being a moderate hit on AM radio in 1970. But it was relegated to the B-side of "Add Some Music to Your Day" -- and I don't quite understand why the label thought that was going to be the band's big comeback single.

Anyway, other than the schmaltzy "Tears in the Morning," I think all the tracks are good or better.

The Beach Boys sued Capitol Records for back royalties in April 1970, but still owed one album to the label. In mid-1970, The Beach Boys assembled an album that had the working titles Reverberation and The Fading Rock Group Revival that would fulfill the band's contract.

Memories are apparently fuzzy as to whether Capitol rejected the album outright, or whether the band had second thoughts. Either way, the album was never released, although some songs eventually showed up on Sunflower, and Capitol released a live album instead. The band's contract with the record company expired in June.

The track list included not only the songs below but also "When Girls Get Together." But since we already use that track on the previous album, I've omitted it here (it would have been track five on Side A). To replace it, I moved "San Miguel" (originally set for track 2 on Side B) to replace it.

Reverberation
SIDE A
1. Cottonfields
2. Loop de Loop
3. All I Wanna Do
4. Got to Know the Woman
5. San Miguel

SIDE B
1. Break Away
2. Celebrate the News
3. Deirdre
4. The Lord's Prayer
5. Forever

While Add Some Music was dominated by Al Jardine, Reverberation is strongly influenced by Dennis Wilson, who wrote or co-wrote five songs.

But although there are a number of good songs, it's hard to think how this would have competed with other releases. The charts during the summer of 1970 were dominated by The Beatles' Let It Be, the Woodstock soundtrack, Crosby, Stills Nash & Young's Deja Vu, The Who's Live at Leeds, Chicago II, Blood Sweat and Tears 3, The Jackson 5's ABC and Creedence Clearwater Revival's Cosmo's Factory. In this market, would anyone be clamoring for an aging surf rock band's take on an old Leadbelly tune? Well, Europe loved it with the song topping the charts in several countries, but in the U.S. it peaked at No. 103.

This album cover I got off a Beach Boys fan site. The person who created it (unknown to me) took the cover from a compilation album called Good Vibrations and altered it.

Paul McCartney & Elvis Costello - "Double Mac"

In the fall of 1987, Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello got together and collaborated on writing 15 songs and recorded several demos. Early the next year they recorded new demos, but this time with additional musicians. There were also at least three demos that were recorded solo.

Paul and Elvis then apparently divvied up the songs and new versions were recorded and ended up spread out over five different albums. These include Paul's Flowers in the Dirt (1989) and Off the Ground (1993); and Elvis' Spike (1989), Mighty Like a Rose (1991) and All This Useless Beauty (1996). Two of the songs became sizable hits. Paul's "My Brave Face" went to No. 25 on Billboard, and Elvis' "Veronica" reached No. 19.

In 2001, Rhino Records reissued Spike with solo demos of two of the songs he wrote with Paul: "Veronica" and "Pads, Paws and Claws." In 2017, Paul released a deluxe edition of Flowers in the Dirt, which included 12 original demos from 1987 just featuring Paul and Elvis, as well as nine demos from 1988 featuring additional musicians. Plus, a demo Paul recorded solo for "Back on My Feet" was made available free on www.paulmccartney.com on May 4, 2017.

For this exercise, I have created the duet album -- a handful of simple roots rockers by a Beatle and a punk. I used the demos that either only feature the two men, or the solo demos. That comes to a grand total of 15 songs. I'm titling the album Double Mac -- a play on both their surnames beginning with Mc/Mac.

SIDE A

1. My Brave Face

2. You Want Her Too

3. Don't Be Careless Love

4. That Day Is Done

5. Mistress and Maid
6. Back on My Feet

7. The Lovers That Never Were

SIDE B

1. Veronica
2. Pads, Paws and Claws
3. So Like Candy

4. Playboy to a Man

5. Shallow Grave

6. Tommy's Coming Home

7. Twenty Fine Fingers

8. I Don’t Want to Confess 

In 1989, we were in an age when CDs were still fairly new and were vying with vinyl. So I went ahead and divided the songs into two sides of an LP. I used the order of the songs Paul originally released commercially on the first side, and then the ones Elvis issued on the second. However, three songs, "Tommy's Coming Home," "Twenty Fine Fingers" and "I Don't Want to Confess" apparently have never made it past demo form, and I placed them at the end.

I don't know if a relatively lo-fi album would have done well in 1988-89, during the golden age of MTV. But I would expect the novelty of the two men collaborating together to have gained a lot of interest.

For a cover, I created something that looks a bit rough and handmade to fit the songs. I like that the names and faces are transposed.

Here's a YouTube playlist of the album. Enjoy!

Derek and The Dominos -- "One More Chance"

After the dissolution of Cream, Eric Clapton formed a supergroup called Blind Faith. But he quickly became wary of the limelight and began backing up Delanie & Bonnie and Friends. Clapton, along with other members of the band Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon, eventually formed Derek and The Dominos. Dave Mason was also a member but quit the band before it recorded Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.

Today, Derek and The Dominos’ Layla album is considered a classic. But at the time of release, the album sold poorly and received mixed reviews. Disappointment apparently led to tension within the group. And the death of Duane Allman, who had played on the album and become a close friend of Clapton, resulted in less enthusiasm for continuing.

In a later interview, Clapton said sessions for the second album "broke down halfway through because of the paranoia and tension. And the band just ... dissolved."

While it's not possible to duplicate Layla, there is enough material to create a modest follow-up album.

A cover of T-Bone Walker’s “Mean Old World” was recorded during Layla, and “Roll It Over” was recorded live. Both were later released on The Layla Sessions.

Five songs from the aborted second album's sessions were released on Clapton’s Crossroads box set.

• One More Chance
• Mean Old Frisco
• Snake Lake Blues
• Evil
• Got to Get Better in A Little While

Another song, alternately titled “Gold Devil’s Roads” and “Devil Road” and featuring Gordon’s wife Renee Armand on vocals, has surfaced on bootlegs. 

Using these eight tracks, I organized them into what I felt sounded coherent and would equal roughly the same amount of time for both sides. 

SIDE A
1. Evil
2. Mean Old World
3. Roll It Over
4. One More Chance
5. Got to Get Better in a Little While

SIDE B
1. Mean Old Frisco
2. Snake Lake Blues
3. Gold Devil's Roads

"Evil" seemed to me to be the obvious opener. The Willie Dixon cover is the most fiery of the tracks. Since "Gold Devil's Roads" is the longest track, and has an outside lead singer, I thought it best for the closer. Overall, this is a pretty good album, I think, but it probably would have been considered a letdown after the debut.

For the cover, I took a photo of the band, "sepia-toned" it, and placed it on a wood background. I titled the album "One More Chance" after one of the tunes, as it seemed appropriate.

The Mynah Birds -- EP

SIDE A

1. It's My Time

2. Go On and Cry

SIDE B

1. I Got You (In My Soul)

2. I'll Wait Forever

There may or may not be a whole Mynah Birds album locked up in the Motown vaults. According to the Motown discography, there was an album scheduled for release in 1969. But by this time, only one member from the original group that signed with the record label in 1966 was still there.

The group that initially signed with Motown's subsidiary label VIP included Rick James, Neil Young, Bruce Palmer, Rick Mason and John Taylor. However, reportedly, after only recording four songs and right when the band's first single was to be released, word got out that James was a U.S. Army deserter and arrested. 

Motown pulled the single, and the other four members went their separate ways -- Young and Palmer traveled to L.A. and became members of Buffalo Springfield.

Eventually, after serving his jail time, James made it back to Motown and continued to record as the Mynah Birds with other musicians, but those tracks have yet to surface. 

However, the original four songs have been released on Motown compilation albums in recent years. What I've done here is simply make a self-titled EP of those tracks. UMe Records issued "It's My Time" and "Go On and Cry" as a 7-inch single in 2012 for Record Store Day (only 46 years after Motown pulled it). I took the record sleeve artwork for that and made some adjustments (removing excess verbiage and adding the VIP logo and song titles) to create the EP cover.

 "It's My Time" and "Go On and Cry" can be found on The Complete Motown Singles, Vol. 6: 1966; and "I Got You (In My Soul)" and "I'll Wait Forever" can be found on Motown Unreleased: 1966.

It would be great if someone would collect all the Mynah Birds tracks and issue them in one set.

The Monkees -- "Headquarters" and "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd."

The Monkees' two best albums are arguably the two they released in 1967: Headquarters and Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. So it's interesting, I think, that neither one was released with its original tracklist. Someone, somewhere for some reason rearranged the songs on both albums, cutting some tracks and leaving the public with two albums that would have been better left alone. Thankfully, in this day of digital music we can recreate the original album running orders.

SIDE A
1. For Pete's Sake
2. I'll Spend My Life with You
3. Forget That Girl
4. You Just May be the One
5. Shades of Gray
6. A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You
7. Band 6
8. Sunny Girlfriend

SIDE B
1. Mr. Webster
2. You Told Me
3. The Girl I Knew Somewhere
4. Zilch
5. Early Morning Blues and Greens
6. Randy Scouse Git
7. I Can't Get Her Off of My Mind
8. No Time

Headquarters was the first of the band's albums, in which the band was actually in control and played most of the instruments. Previously, session musicians were used extensively and the Monkees themselves would do the vocals. Eventually, the band members rebelled and got creative control. The result was an album that was more than just a collection of pop tunes, although there are those as well.

In its original tracklist, the album opens with Peter Tork's "For Pete's Sake" which would later become the closing song of the TV show. And the album closes with rollicking "No Time." If eight songs per side seems like the album would be a bit long, guess again. Only "Shades of Gray" goes over three minutes, and each side clocks in less than 19 minutes.

All tracks are available on the deluxe version of the album.

SIDE A
1. Special Announcement
2. She Hangs Out
3. Salesman
4. Cuddly Toy
5. Words
6. Don't Call on Me
7. Goin' Down

SIDE B
1. The Door into Summer
2. Hard to Believe
3. What am I Doin' Hangin' 'Round?
4. Daily Nightly
5. Peter Percival Patterson's Pet Pig Porky
6. Pleasant Valley Sunday
7. Star Collector

I have a special soft spot for this album as it was the first one I ever owned. I think my mom bought it for me around 1969 when I was four or five. I've no idea why she selected this one over any of their other albums, but I know I played it constantly and drove my grandmother crazy one summer.

Headquarters tends to get the most attention these days, but for my money, PAC&J is the better album. And in its original configuration, it's even better in my opinion. You've got the faux sound frequency test ("Special Announcement"); some of the first use of a Moog synthesizer on two songs ("Daily Nightly," "Star Collector"); psychedelic rock ("Words"); mixed with twangy country ("What am I Doin' Hangin' 'Round") and pop rock ("She Hangs Out"), a song about drugs ("Salesman"), a song about a gang bang ("Cuddly Toy), a spoken word tongue twister ("Peter Percival..."), etc. etc. It's a crazy album.

All tracks are available on the deluxe version of PAC&J.