It’s no secret that the Beach Boys and the Beatles saw themselves as friendly rivals and influences. Vocal parts of the Beatles’ “Paperback Writer” were influenced by the Beach Boys’ “I Get Around.” And the race was on: Rubber Soul begat Pet Sounds which begat Revolver. The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” single certainly upped the ante and expectations were high for the next album Smile.
But then the Beach Boys basically went off the rails with Brian Wilson’s drug use and resulting mental issues. Plus, I would argue that while interesting, the songs recorded for Smile just weren't strong enough. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band came out in May 1967, and when Smile was kind of salvaged with Smiley Smile issued four months later, there really wasn’t much of a competition anymore.
However, the Beach Boys' influence on the Beatles continued at least for a little while. It’s been suggested that the Beach Boys’ Wild Honey may have helped convince the Beatles to use a more of a back-to-basics approach for The Beatles, and certainly the opening track “Back in the U.S.S.R” is a Beach Boys homage.
I wondered if the competition was still in effect, whether the Beach Boys might have followed the Beatles with their own double album (and this is, of course, assuming Capitol Records execs would have agreed to this for a band whose market value was by now greatly diminished).
I wanted to take all the tracks the Beach Boys recorded in 1968 following the release of their Friends LP and expand the 1969 album 20/20 to two discs.
SIDE A
1. Intro
2. Do It Again
3. We're Together Again
4. Well, You Know I Knew
5. Peaches
6. Be with Me
SIDE B
1. All I Want to Do
2. Walkin'
3. Away
4. Cabinessence
5. Sail Plane Song
6. Been Way Too Long (Can't Wait Too Long)
SIDE C
1. I Can Hear Music
2. Old Folks Home / Old Man River
3. Is It True What They Said
About Dixie?
4.
5. Bluebirds over the Mountain
6. Mona Kana
SIDE D
1. Oh Yeah
2. Never Learn Not to Love
3. Walk on By
4. Time to Get Alone
5. I Went to Sleep
6. The Nearest Faraway Place
7. A Time to Live in Dreams
8. Rendezvous (Do It Again)
Twenty-four tracks are taken from two sessions: May – July 1968 and September – November 1968. The two concessions are “Cabinessence,” originally recorded in 1966 for Smile but which received new overdubs in 1968 before being included on 20/20, and “Away,” an outtake from the Friends sessions.
In arranging the tracks for the four sides of this theoretical album, I considered humor (which was very important to Brian Wilson) and pseudo themes. My version of this album opens with a snippet from “The Gong,” taken from the I Can Hear Music: The 20/20 Sessions. I only use the 27 seconds of the Dennis Wilson's (3:16-3:44) "new day" speech as a lead-in for “Do It Again.” I use the alternate version of this song from I Can Hear Music that's about 25 seconds longer than the single version. I thought it was kind of humorous to have "Do It Again" followed by "We're Together Again." The rest of the first side is dominated by Dennis Wilson songs. One of these, "Peaches," was a demo and I've used a fan-created mix that helps smooth out the rough edges.
After opening with the rockin' "All I Want to Do," the second side has a vague travel theme with “Walkin’” followed humorously by “Away,” and then “Cabinessence” (“Who ran the iron horse? Have you seen the grand coolie workin' on the railroad?”) and “Sail Plane Song.” I ended the side with “Been Way Too Long” (aka “Can't Wait Too Long”) and used a fan-created, six-minute “ultimate mix” version.
The third side opens with “I Can Hear Music” and then focuses on covers of older music, including “Old Man River / Old Folks Home” (1920s), “Is It True What They Said About Dixie?” -- with the Wilson brothers' mother on lead vocal -- (1930s), “Cotton Fields” (1940s) and “Bluebirds over the Mountain” (1950s), before ending with the instrumental “Mona Kana.”
The final side opens with the oddity “Oh Yeah,” and the last five tracks share a vague theme of “time” and “dreams.” To close the final side, I used an edit of only the last 42 seconds of “Rendevous,” an early version of “Do It Again,” to bookend the album.
Overall, I think this gives a much bigger picture of the Beach Boys at this time than the actual 20/20 album. But even if this version of the album had been released at the time, I can’t say if it would have been successful. Given that the actual 20/20 managed to make to only #68 on the Billboard charts indicates that the Beach Boys' career was for the times in the dumper. However, 20/20 surprisingly rose to #3 in Britain, so who knows?
For the album cover, I used a photo from the same photo shoot as the actual 20/20 cover, which I think
is far superior.
Here is a YouTube playlist of the album, but it doesn't include the first and last tracks that I used personal edits for.
Sources:
I debated on whether to delve into a third reimagined discography for Elvis Presley. But after digging into recording session details and other info, I decided to give it a shot. Plus, his 89th birthday is tomorrow.
The primary problem with Elvis’ discography in the 1970s is the perplexing number of compilation albums, many with no rhyme or reason in their song selection. These coupled with numerous live albums and actual new material created a glut of music being released that competed with itself and confused the public.
There’s an odd thing about album covers for Elvis during this time period. Apparently after more than a decade of sitting for professional publicity portraits for albums, movies and whatever else, Elvis refused to do any more. And therefore, the record company started using photos of Elvis performing on stage for nearly every album. I think this gives the false impression to the general public that Elvis released more live albums than he actually did. That’s not to say there weren’t more live albums than necessary in the 1970s -- there were five between 1969 and 1974. However, I assume RCA Records had a graphic arts shop and could have been a little more imaginative (Elvis Country is a good, rare example). So, I’ve attempted to find or create better covers for several of the albums.
FROM ELVIS IN MEMPHIS
SIDE A
1. Wearin' That Loved on Look
2. This Is the Story
3. I'll Hold You in My Heart ('Till I Can Hold You in My Arms)
4. Long Black Limousine
5. A Little Bit of Green
6. I'm Movin' On
SIDE B
1. From a Jack to A King
2. Gentle on My Mind
3. Inherit the Wind
4. Rubberneckin'
5. You'll Think of Me
6. Without Love (There Is Nothing)
At first, I wasn’t sure this album needed to be tinkered with. It’s one of the few of Elvis’ that is highly praised. But From Elvis in Memphis and the follow-up Back in Memphis are made up of tracks from two different recording sessions: Jan. 13-23 and Feb. 17-22. I thought it would be interesting to put only January tracks on the first album and February tracks on the second, and leaving all the A-sides of singles off the albums entirely.
There’s something absurd about calling an album From Elvis in Memphis and showing him performing on a Hollywood soundstage on the album cover. So for this particular cover, I found an image already created and just added the title.
BACK IN MEMPHIS
SIDE A
1. Power of My Love
2. Only the Strong Survive
3. Do You Know Who I Am?
4. If I'm a Fool (For Loving You)
5. And the Grass Won't Pay No Mind
6. Any Day Now
SIDE B
1. Stranger in My Own Hometown
2. After Loving You
3. The Fair's Moving On
4. True Love Travels on A Gravel Road
5. Who Am I?
6. It Keeps Right On A-Hurtin'
The album was originally released as part of a two-record set
along with a live album from Las Vegas. And the following year, both albums
were released individually. When this came out, calling this album of leftovers
Back in Memphis didn’t make much sense. But in this new configuration,
all the tracks are from the February 1969 sessions, so this is now actually a
return to the Memphis studio following the previous recording sessions in
January. I’ve made this album longer than the original with the addition of two
extra tracks. I used some existing artwork I found to create this cover.
ELVIS IN NASHVILLE
I previously worked on this album, and you can find a whole blog entry about it here. I'm adding an alternative album cover I liked, which I think is from the Follow That Dream series.
ELVIS COUNTRY
SIDE A
1. I Washed My Hands in Muddy Water
2. Snowbird
3. Tomorrow Never Comes
4. Little Cabin on The Hill
5. Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
6. Funny How Time Slips Away
SIDE B
1. There Goes My Everything
2. It's Your Baby, You Rock It
3. The Fool
4. Faded Love
5. I Really Don't Want to Know
6. Make the World Go Away
7. I Was Born About Ten Thousand Years Ago
The idea behind this album was to
take several country songs from the recording sessions and put them together
into a sort of concept album. This is one of the very few Elvis albums that
some actual thought was put into creating it, so I decided not to mess with it
too much. However, I don't think “Snowbird,” a very recent hit for Anne Murray, was the best way to start the album. So, I shuffled the songs a little. "I Washed My Hands in the Muddy Water" is a much more energetic and gripping opening track, especially the long, nearly five-minute version. Also, throughout the original album are snippets of the song “I was Born About
Ten Thousand Years Ago” and I think the album would have benefitted with the
song in its entirety also being included at the end, which I've done here. I used the FTD cover (which I prefer) for their alternate version of this album.
LOVE LETTERS FROM ELVIS
SIDE A
1. Cindy, Cindy
2. Love Letters
3. If I Were You
4. Got My Mojo Working / Keep
Your Hands Off of It
5. Only Believe
6. Heart of Rome
SIDE B
1. When I'm Over You
2. This Is Our Dance
3. I'll Never Know
4. It Ain't No Big Thing (But
It's Growing)
5. Life
6. Where Did They Go, Lord?
This album has pretty much all the
leftovers from the June 1970 recording sessions that don’t appear on Elvis
Country or my remade Elvis in Nashville. I thought “Love Letters,” a
remake of a song he recorded and released back in 1967, was a bad way to open the
album. “Cindy Cindy” is much more energetic, so I used that as the opening
track, and shuffled the rest. Finally, I added “Where Did They Go, Lord?” to
make the album longer and to end it with a song that’s a bit more powerful than
“Life.” I used some artwork I found online and did some altering in Photoshop to create the cover.
ELVIS SINGS THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF CHRISTMAS
There isn’t much you can do to change an album of holiday songs,
so I didn’t, not even the album cover.
ELVIS NOW
SIDE A
1. Help Me Make It Through the Night
2.
3. It's Only Love
4. I'm Leavin'
5. Padre
6. Until It's Time for You to Go
SIDE B
1. We Can Make the Morning
2. Early Mornin' Rain
3. It's Still Here
4. I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen
5. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
6. Fools Rush In (Where Angels Fear to Tread)
This album needed some TLC. Although there were enough tracks from
1971 sessions to make a full album, for some reason it was decided to throw in
leftovers from January 1969 and June 1970. The result was a mishmash and
definitely not “now.” I removed the three older tracks and added four. I also
removed “Miracle of the Rosary” and moved it to the next album. As
released, Elvis Now was a short album and my version is a little more than five minutes longer. But I think the important thing is that it's now more contemporary. I found this burnt orange artwork online and thought it would make the perfect cover once I did a little altering.
AMAZING GRACE
SIDE A
1. Amazing Grace
2. Lead Me, Guide Me
3. He Touched Me
4. I've Got Confidence
5. An Evening Prayer
6. Seeing Is Believing
SIDE B
1. Reach Out to Jesus
2. He Is My Everything
3. There Is No God but God
4. I, John
5. Bosom of Abraham
6. Miracle of the Rosary
In 1972, Elvis released a contemporary gospel album titled He
Touched Me. Despite the sentiment of the title song, an album titled He Touched
Me just sounds wrong. So I’ve retitled it Amazing Grace and used the album
cover from a compilation album titled You’ll Never Walk Alone. The only changes I made to the track listing were removing "A Thing Called Love" (a non-gospel song that had no reason to be here) and adding the song “Miracle of the Rosary” (which was recorded during the same sessions and I’m not sure why it
wasn’t included originally).
BURNING LOVE
SIDE A
1. Burning Love
2. For the Good Times
3. Where Do I Go from Here
4. Love Me, Love the Life I Lead
5. Fool
6. Separate Ways
SIDE B
1. Always on My Mind
2. It's a Matter of Time
3. A Thing Called Love
4. I will be True
5. (That's What You Get) For
Lovin' Me
6. My Way
Looking back, many critics have chastised RCA for not having a new album to feature Elvis’ last big hit, “Burning Love.” Instead, RCA strangely attached the new tracks “Burning Love,” “It’s a Matter of Time,” “Separate Ways” and “Always on My Mind” onto two horrible compilation albums of random tracks Elvis had recorded in the 1950s and 1960s. It’s beyond a headscratcher – it’s something close to a crime. RCA kind of tried to rectify the mistake in 1999 with a Burning Love album that included most of the tracks of the time period, but also included live tracks.
Perhaps the biggest problem was that Elvis only recorded seven tracks during the March 1972 sessions – not enough for an album, even a short
one. What I’ve done here is take all seven tracks recorded in March 1972 and
added "My Way," "Love Me, Love the Life I Lead," "I will be True," "(That's What You Get) For Lovin' Me" and "A Thing Called Love," all of which were recorded the previous year. For the album cover, I had fun throwing the kitchen sink at it -- different existing art, Photoshop maneuvering, fonts, etc.
RAISED ON ROCK
SIDE A
1. Raised on Rock
2. Are You Sincere
3. Find Out What's Happening
4. I Miss You
5. Girl of Mine
6. I've Got a Thing About You, Baby
SIDE B
1. For Ol' Times Sake
2. If You Don't Come Back
3. Just A Little Bit
4. Sweet Angeline
5. Three Corn Patches
6. Take Good Care of Her
The original version of this album had 10 tracks even though 12
had been recorded in the sessions of July 1973. Both “I've Got a Thing About You, Baby” and “Take Good Care of Her” were
left off for a single, and eventually included on the next album. I rectify the
issue by including all the tracks from the sessions. I've never understood the double title of this album, Raised on Rock / For Ol' Times Sake. Seems like people couldn't make up their minds. I stuck with just one title.
GOOD TIMES
SIDE A
1. Talk About the Good Times
2. Loving Arms
3. I Got a Feelin' in My Body
4. If That Isn't Love
5. She Wears My Ring
SIDE B
1. Your Love's Been a Long Time Coming
2. It's Midnight
3. My Boy
4. Spanish Eyes
5. Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues
HAVING FUN WITH ELVIS
SIDE A
1. Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (jam – May 1971)
2. It's Diff'rent Now (rehearsal – July 1973)
3. Froggy Went A-Courtin’ (rehearsal – July 1970)
4. Lady Madonna (informal recording – May 1971)
5. It's My Way (Of Loving You) / This Time / I Can't Stop Loving
You (jam – February 1969)
6. I Didn't Make It on Playing Guitar (jam – June 1970)
SIDE B
1. The Lord's Prayer (informal jam – May 1971)
2. A Hundred Years from Now (rehearsal – June 1970)
3. I Shall Be Released (informal rehearsal – May 1971)
4. Allá en el Rancho Grande (rehearsal – July 1970)
5. Stranger in My Own Hometown (rehearsal – July 1970)
In 1974, Elvis' manager Col. Tom Parker had one of his more bumbleheaded ideas: release an Elvis Presley album with no music. Having Fun with Elvis on Stage is just Elvis on stage telling various silly jokes, asking for glasses of water and chatting with the audience or band members. It’s considered by many to be one of the worst albums ever released. Parker apparently thought that a record without music meant that he and Elvis could keep all the profits, not realizing the contract with RCA (that he’d signed and negotiated) stipulated that the record company had the rights to anything Elvis recorded.
So, for this project, the obvious move might be to just ignore this album. But we now know from the many, many posthumous Elvis album releases
that several jam sessions and rehearsals resulted in songs that weren’t issued
while he was alive. And it occurred to me that you could create an album that
if not great would at least be a lot more interesting than banal stage banter. The photo I used is a bit out of focus, but I thought it was OK given that the songs here were not meant to be polished. I included the Boxcar Records logo.
PROMISED LAND
SIDE A
1. Promised Land
2. There's A Honky Tonk Angel (Who Will Take Me Back In)
3. Help Me
4. Mr. Songman
5. Love Song of The Year
SIDE B
1. If You Talk in Your Sleep
2. You Asked Me To
3.
4. Thinking About You
5. Tiger Man [jam]
For Promised Land, we have only eight tracks left over from the December 1973 sessions that also produced the songs for Good Times (Elvis didn't record anything in a studio the entire year of 1974). So, I had to find two songs to fill out the album. I added "The Twelfth of Never," which was actually recorded during a rehearsal in August 1974, and a jam from March 1975 of "Tiger Man," which kind of makes a fun ending. But to use "Tiger Man," this album would need to be released probably no earlier than May 1975, five months after the real album was released. The sound quality of "The Twelfth of Never" is not quite up to snuff, but is OK. After searching high and low for Elvis photos I thought would work with the album title, I finally gave up and went a different direction and used this sunset (or is it sunrise?) over a field that I found online.
ELVIS TODAY
Ten tracks were recorded in March 1975 and all were used for the Elvis Today album. So, nothing to change here song-wise and I left it as is, except for creating a new album cover. I have tried for the most part to avoid performance photos, but succumbed in this case as there aren't a lot of good non-performance photos from the end of Elvis' career to work with.
MOODY BLUE
SIDE A
1. Hurt
2. Never Again
3. Blue Eyes Crying in The Rain
4. She Thinks I Still Care
5. Danny Boy
6. The Last Farewell
SIDE B
1. For the Heart
2. Bitter They Are, Harder They Fall
3. Solitaire
4. Love Coming Down
5. I'll Never Fall in Love Again
6. Moody Blue
In February 1976, a recording session took place at Elvis’ Memphis home
Graceland. Elvis was becoming less and less interested in recording, so it was
hoped that the comforts of home might help. A dozen tracks were recorded, but
instead of using all 12 for a new album, two songs were held for a future single. For
this reimagined album, I used all the songs from the session, which required a
little change in the track listing. And since I’m including the song “Moody
Blue,” I decided to take the title for what was to be the
follow-up album. I wish I could find a better-quality version of this photo, but it kind of reminds me of the cover art for Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits although that wasn't my intention.
LAST SESSION
In late October 1976, Elvis recorded four songs (“It’s Easy for You,” “Way Down,” “Pledging My Love” and “He’ll Have to Go”), and that was it before he died. Four tracks are obviously not enough for an album and I’m going with the idea that they were used for two final singles that could be used on a future greatest hits compilation album of some sort.
Between Jan. 1, 1969, and the day Elvis died on Aug. 16, 1977, RCA released 14 studio albums, five live albums, seven compilation albums, 12 budget albums, two box sets and one all-talk album. That's 41 albums in less than nine years. Or to put it another way, that's more than four albums a year! Holy crap! There were also 35 singles released during that time. Oy....
So, finally, here’s my full reimagined discography for Elvis from 1969-77, free of endless compilations, repetitive live albums and gobs of singles. It still includes at least two (sometimes three) albums a year (other than 1976-77), which is more than enough.
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
At the time of his death in 1977, Marc Bolan was working on several new songs. But there’s no way of knowing whether any of them would have ended up on his next T. Rex album. He apparently left behind no notes, although there are references to the working title of Jack Daniels.
Over the years, there have been attempts, both official and unofficial (see Uncle Dan’s version), to create an album from leftover tracks. The primary version was a 1982 release titled Billy Super Duper that included seven songs recorded in 1977, one from 1976, two from 1975 and one from way back in 1972, and some of the tracks featured new overdubs to make them more fleshed-out tunes. Beyond that, there have been gobs of posthumously released albums with demos, alternate takes and pretty much every note Bolan ever recorded. The truth is, Bolin recorded so many demos between 1975-77, there’s no telling what he might have released had he lived longer.
SIDE A
1. 21st Century Stance
2. Billy Super Duper
3. Shy Boy
4. Mellow Love
5. Endless Sleep
6. Brain Police
7. Write Me a Song
SIDE B
1. 20th Century Baby
2. Hot George
3. Foxy Boy
4. Love Drunk
5. Depth Charge
6. Messing with the Mystic
7. Sing Me a Song
Looking over some of the last songs he recorded, I was struck by how several titles were similar and wondered if I couldn’t arrange a track list that created a concept album with the two sides of the album kind of mirroring each other. Bolan had attempted to create a concept album in 1975 titled Billy Super Duper, but apparently discarded the concept because his last two albums in 1976 and 1977 didn’t include any reference to it.
For this, I took 10 of the 12 songs featured on the 1982 Billy Super Duper release. It appears that at least seven of them were recorded in 1977 before the overdubs were done. I also included “Endless Sleep,” which Bolan performed on his 1977 TV series. I then added two tracks that are probably from 1976: “Write Me a Song” and the very similar “Sing Me a Song.” And finally, I included “Messing with the Mystic.” Although it’s a demo, the sound quality is pretty good, although not great. But I felt that title-wise it kind of matched up with "Brain Police."
So we end up with "21st Century Stance" paired with "20th Century Baby," "Billy Super Duper" matched with "Hot George," "Shy Boy" mirroring "Foxy Boy," and so on.
The result is a nice 14-track album, with Side A clocking in at just under 20 minutes and Side B at about 18½ minutes. It’s the kind of album where at first glance and listen, there is a concept, but on closer examination, there really isn’t.
Besides the 1982 Billy Super Duper, my source for these tracks was Marc Bolan & T. Rex Unchained: Unreleased Recordings 1972 -1977.
In deciding on an album title, I felt that
calling it Jack Daniels would have been just asking for a lawsuit and a title his record company likely would have rejected (plus I didn't think it had anything to do with the "concept" I'm attempting). So, I
went with Billy Super Duper. For cover art, I found this image online
and redid the wording.
I tried to put together a YouTube playlist for this album, as I've done for other blog entries this year, but unfortunately, some songs can't be found there. Oh well.
Free of the confines of being a touring band and refreshed after several weeks of vacation, The Beatles began work on the band's eighth album. Initially, the group thought about creating an album with songs reflective of their childhood in Liverpool. This resulted in the songs "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane." Other early tracks included "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "Only a Northern Song."
However, the need for a new single resulted in the first two tunes being used as a double A-side. And since The Beatles normally kept singles separate from albums, neither "Strawberry Fields Forever" nor "Penny Lane" made the album and the childhood theme was abandoned. Since then, some folks -- including producer George Martin -- have lamented that those two songs didn't make the album's tracklist. But even if they'd had a change of heart at the time, at least two, and maybe three, other songs would have to have been cut to make room. As it was, "Only a Northern Song" didn't show up for record buyers until the Yellow Submarine soundtrack the following year.
There was another alternative -- The Beatles could have made Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band into a double album. Here's my track list for what could have been:
SIDE A
1. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. With a Little Help from My Friends
3. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
4. Fixing a Hole
5. She's Leaving Home
6. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite
SIDE B
1. Good Morning Good Morning
2. When I'm Sixty-Four
3. Getting Better
4. Lovely Rita
5. Within You Without You
SIDE C
1. Only a Northern Song
2. Penny Lane
3. Strawberry Fields Forever
4. You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)
SIDE D
1. Carnival of Light
2. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
3. A Day in the Life
To double the size of Sgt. Pepper's, I included the two songs from the single, a few outtakes and one fake. Added tracks here include "Only a Northern Song," "Penny Lane," "Strawberry Fields Forever," "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" and "Carnival of Light."
I've always thought that "Good Morning Good Morning" would have made a better opening track for the second side rather than "Within You Without You," which I moved to the end of the second side.
"You Know My Name..." was unfinished during the Pepper sessions and attention was not returned to it until 1969 before it was released as a single B-side the following year. How much of the track was completed in 1967 is unknown, but presumably, it could have been polished off at the time. "Carnival of Light" was a 13-minute sound collage that The Beatles recorded for the Million Volt Light and Sound Rave. It was heard in public that one and only time and has never been commercially released. Fake versions exist on YouTube (and frankly might actually turn out to be better than the real one).
I like how although each album side is close in length, the actual number of tracks progressively decreases by one. It wasn't deliberate, but seems so Pepperish anyway.
For the cover, I used the album's original artwork, created by the Dutch design collective The Fool, and added titles.
