The Who - "Empty Glass"

Lots of Who fans have debated endlessly over whether the band should have continued after drummer Keith Moon died. But whether they should or shouldn't have, the fact is that just eight months after Moon died, The Who kicked off their first tour with new drummer Kenney Jones.

But before The Who issued a new album with its new drummer (1981's Face Dances), Pete Townshend released a solo album in April 1980 titled Empty Glass. Roger Daltrey is on record as criticizing Townshend for using his best songs for Empty Glass. In particular, Daltrey pointed to "Rough Boys" and the title track as being well-suited for the band. Some critics have even called Empty Glass the Who album that never was.

I've no idea how Townshend determined which songs he'd use for himself and which ones he'd turn over to the band. But I wanted to see what a 1980 Who album might have been. To do so, I looked at Empty Glass, the McVicar soundtrack (which featured songs sung by Daltrey) and John Entwistle's Too Late the Hero, as well as some one-offs and outtakes.

SIDE A

1. Let My Love Open the Door

2. Empty Glass

3. Dancing Master

4. Without Your Love

5. It’s In You

SIDE B

1. Rough Boys

2. My Time is Gonna Come

3. Dance It Away

4. Talk Dirty

5. Free Me

Right off the bat, we start with a cheat. Daltrey released a version of "Let My Love Open the Door" in 2016 that was used in a bank commercial. My feeling is that you really don't have a Who album unless most of the songs are sung by Daltrey. And since the version released in 1980 was on Townshend's Empty Glass solo album, I took a bit of liberty here. Daltrey's version of "Let My Love Open the Door" is available via download on Amazon and other music sites.

I included Townshend's "Rough Boys" and "Empty Glass," since Daltrey considered both to be good choices for the band. Ironically, since Daltrey never recorded them, both tracks have Townshend on lead vocals. Jones plays drums on "Rough Boys" so at least half the band is present. Interestingly, The Who had actually recorded "Empty Glass" (again with Townshend on vocals) as part of the Who Are You sessions, but it was left off the final album. The version on Townshend's album is superior, so I've used that one.

Although Townshend, Entwistle and Jones are listed as performing on the McVicar soundtrack, I couldn't find any official listing of which tracks they actually played on. After rummaging around music chat rooms and Who fan sites, the best I can determine is that all four members of the Who play on "My Time is Gonna Come" and "Free Me." So I've included both. I also used "Without Your Love," which reached #20 as a single. Granted, I don't know if Townshend would have been that keen on including songs on a Who album that a band member didn't write, but I make the concession here to provide more songs with Daltrey on lead vocals.

There are almost always at least two Entwistle-penned songs on a Who album, but the only source of his songs from this period are from his solo album Too Late the Hero. Even though it was released in 1981, some sessions were recorded as early as 1979. One from that session was "Dancing Master" so included it. I couldn't find details of what other songs may have been recorded at that time, so I also decided to use the "hit" from the album, "Talk Dirty."

Curiously, a song The Who performed during their 1980 tour didn't appear on either Face Dances or Empty Glass. Instead, a studio version of "Dance It Away" remained locked in the vaults until 1982 when it was issued as a b-side to Townshend's "Uniforms" single. It didn't make its CD debut until 2006 when it was included as a bonus track to Townshend's All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. And it apparently has both Entwistle and Jones playing on it so it actually may be a Face Dances outtake.

I swear that it is a complete coincidence that the two songs with the word "dance" in them ended up being the third track on each side when this album was assembled.

Finally, I felt that the album needed one more track. With Townshend on lead vocal on three songs already, I didn't want to add another tune from his solo album. And I really didn't want to include another song from McVicar since the rest of the tracks only feature Daltrey and wouldn't be written by a Who member. And so I chose "It's In You," an outtake from Face Dances. I've no idea when Townshend wrote the song so it may not fit timewise. But it works in general.

The result? This is a rockin' album, more so I think than either Empty Glass or Face Dances on their own.

Since we're moving "Empty Glass" from Townshend's solo album to this imagined Who album, I decided to take the album title as well. For a cover, I tried monkeying around with band photos from the time period, but the results were unsatisfactory. Searching around the web I came across this melted beer mug and thought it was kind of appropriate.

NOTE: Since posting this, I've learned that an expanded version of Face Dances will be released to coincide with the album's 40th anniversary and that it includes a version of "Dance It Away" with Daltrey on vocals. Once available, that should be the version used here.

The Byrds - "Rise and Fall"

The original five members of The Byrds reunited in 1973 and released a new album titled simply Byrds. There was a lot of publicity about the reunion, but the album was not especially well received by critics or the band members. As a result, plans for a tour were scrapped and the members basically went their separate ways again.

I wanted to see what a Byrds album might have been had the band given it another shot.

SIDE A
1. Rise and Fall
2. John, John
3. The Lee Shore
4. Heavenly Fire
5. Train Leaves Here This Morning

SIDE B
1. My New Woman
2. No Other
3. Jamaica Say You Will
4. Safe at Home
5. Critical Mass /
6. Homeward through the Haze

In compiling the songs for this album, I wanted to raid the members' 1973-74 albums as little as possible so that in theory those albums could have existed as well. That wasn't always easy as you'll see.

I opened the album with "Rise and Fall," which Chris Hillman recorded for the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band's self-titled debut album, and used that name for this album's title. That's followed by the traditional song "John, John," an outtake from Roger McGuinn's self-titled solo album that came out a few months after Byrds. The first of David Crosby's contributions is "The Lee Shore." This song was originally an outtake from Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's Deja Vu, but was also considered for that group's uncompleted 1974 album Human Highway, and Crosby and Nash performed it live around this time as well.

The next track on this album is "Heavenly Fire," which like the previous Southern-Hillman-Furay band song was co-written by Hillman and Len Fagen. Side one ends with an outtake from Gene Clark's No Other solo album. "Train Leaves Here This Morning" was co-written with Bernie Leadon who recorded it for the Eagles' debut album.

The second side opens with "My New Woman" from Roger McGuinn's solo album. It's the only track here that features all five Byrds members, and I suppose it was an outtake from the Byrds sessions. The use of a saxophone on this song seems out of place, but I don't know of any other version of the track. This is followed by "No Other," the title song from Clark's solo album. The Jackson Browne-penned "Jamaica Say You Will" is another outtake from Roger McGuinn. Hillman's "Safe at Home" (another Souther-Hillman-Furay track) comes next and adds a burst of rock needed here to pick up the tempo.

The album concludes with two tracks from the Crosby & Nash album Wind on the Water. Here I've featured "Critical Mass" as an intro to "Homeward through the Haze" rather than Graham Nash's "Wind on the Water."

Proving once again that the arrangement of tracks can be critical, my first attempt of this came out terrible. But after some rearranging I think this collection is a stronger one than that of the Byrds album. Some members said that they had held back some of their better tunes for their own solo albums rather than using them for the Byrds reunion. And in a way, this rectifies that.

For a cover, I took a photo I found online by Eric Wagner for an Earth Island Journal article titled "The Rise and Fall of the East Sand Empire," cropped it and added titles.

David Bowie - "1984"

I made an attempt many moons ago to put this together, but wasn't happy with the way it was going and set it aside. After seeing PJ's Albums I Wish Existed blog with his version of David Bowie's 1984, I decided to take another crack at it.

SIDE A
1. 1984
2. Candidate (Part 1)
3. Sweet Thing
4. Candidate (Part 2)
5. Sweet Thing (Reprise)

SIDE B
1. Dodo
2. We are the Dead
3. Big Brother
4. Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family
5. 1984 / Dodo (Reprise)

In 1973, Bowie wanted to adapt George Orwell's novel "1984" into a play and record music for it. But Orwell's widow refused to give Bowie the rights to the novel. So Bowie took some of the music he'd already written, added unrelated songs and released Diamond Dogs instead.

I've no idea what Bowie's original plan was or if he even completed writing and recording the music for his play. But taking what's been released, I've put together a possible version of 1984.

From Diamond Dogs, we use seven of the 11 tracks, including "1984," "Candidate," "Sweet Thing," "Sweet Thing (Reprise)," "We are the Dead," "Big Brother" and "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family." With a lot of previously unavailable Bowie music continually being released, we also have some additional tracks to use, including an alternate version of "Candidate," as well as "Dodo" and "1984/Dodo (Reprise)."

With the collection of songs at our disposal, I arranged the tracks in a way I thought flowed and took into consideration the time constraints of what would have been two sides of a vinyl album. I renamed the alternate version of "Candidate" as "Candidate (Part 1)" and the originally released version as "Candidate (Part 2)." So after the title song, we have the alternating Candidate/Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing to complete the first side.

Side B opens with "Dodo" with "1984/Dodo (Reprise)" closing out the album. I honestly don't know if I prefer this to Diamond Dogs, but I think it works thematically as a concept. However, I can't help but believe that to have enough music for an entire stage production this would have to be twice as long.

For a cover, I spotted this book cover for a pulp paperback version of the novel, cropped it and added Bowie's name.

Eric Clapton - "Edge of Darkness"

Happy New Year!

In 1985, Eric Clapton released one album, Behind the Sun, and one EP, Edge of Darkness, which was a soundtrack for a British TV series of the same name.

The recording sessions for Behind the Sun included six tracks that weren't on the album. Since the Edge of Darkness EP also included six tracks, it seemed to me that a complete album could have been released if all of the dozen tracks had been collected together.

SIDE A

1. Edge of Darkness

2. Loving Your Lovin'

3. Shoot Out

4. Heaven Is One Step Away

5. Obituary

6. Too Bad

SIDE B

1. Escape from Northmoor

2. Jailbait

3. Oxford Circus

4. You Don't Know Like I Know

5. Northmoor

6. One Jump Ahead of the Storm

There are a few ways you can go when combining the songs. You can have all the tracks from one project on one side of the album, and the rest on the other side. Or you can intermingle them in some way. The tracks from the soundtrack are all instrumentals, and I liked the idea of intermingling them with the songs with vocals. I think it both breaks up the two groups and manages to tie the whole album together.

I opened the album with the title track "Edge of Darkness." It's a very cool, atmospheric track and I think it acts as a nice beginning that also puts the spotlight on Clapton's guitar playing.

The next track is "Loving Your Lovin'," which was featured on the Wayne's World soundtrack. From there, we alternate as stated between instrumentals and the leftover Behind the Sun songs. I think the instrumentals make for interesting, dark interludes. "Heaven is a Step Away" was originally released on the Back to the Future soundtrack and later on Clapton's Crossroads box set. "Too Bad" was also eventually released on Crossroads.

"Jailbait" was a B-side of the "She's Waiting" single. "You Don't Know Like I Know," a Sam & Dave cover, is a duet with Phil Collins and was released as a non-album single in Australia. "One Jump Ahead of the Storm" was a cover of Kiki Dee's hit. Unfortunately, Clapton's version has never been officially released and is therefore very difficult to find. Alternatively, if you discover that this track is impossible to find, you could use "Wanna Make Love to You," a B-side of the "Behind the Mask" single from the following year, and also available on Crossroads.

The rest of the songs, of course, can be found on the Edge of Darkness EP.

For a cover, "edge of darkness" made me think of a lightning storm, and that image of course goes well with the track "One Jump Ahead of the Storm." I found this dramatic lightning photo online and added words.

Los Lobos - "...And a Time to Dance"

Los Lobos had been performing around L.A. for nearly 10 years before the band released the EP ...And a Time to Dance in 1983. 

I remember it well, as I was the entertainment editor of my college's newspaper at the time. I received lots of new releases from record companies, and the EP was one of several I took home one day to listen to. Even though I lived in San Diego (only two to three hours from L.A., depending on traffic), I'd never heard of them. When I played the record, I was immediately hooked. And a few months later I saw them perform live at a music festival -- the first of many, many live performances of theirs I've seen.

Needless to say, I'm a big fan of the group. But the fact that this is an EP has always led me to play it less and less over the years as the group issued full albums.

It was a rather lengthy EP with seven songs, and I wanted to add some songs from the period that could have made it a full album.

SIDE A

1. Let's Say Goodnight

2. Walking Song

3. Diablo con Vestido Azul

4. We're Gonna Rock

5. Under the Boardwalk

6. Anselma

SIDE B 

1. Come On, Let's Go

2. How Much Can I Do?

3. Volver, Volver

4. Why Do You Do?

5. Farmer John

6. Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio

In expanding the EP into an album, I wanted to augment the original rather than do a major reorganization of it. Paul's Albums That Should Exist blog did a good version of it some time ago, but he included live recordings from the time period. I decided I'd rather keep it a studio-recorded release. Thankfully, there are five such recordings from the two years prior to this EP that weren't originally included.

In 1981, the group issued two singles with cover tunes: "Under the Boardwalk" b/w "Volver, Volver" and "Farmer John" b/w "Anselma." Both A-sides had been hits in 1964, the former by The Drifters and the latter by The Premiers. I've no idea why the band picked those two particular songs. While "Farmer John" seems like an obvious tune for the band to cover, "Under the Boardwalk" seems less so. "Volver, Volver" is a mainstay for the band's live performances to this day (and this studio version includes a bunch of yelping to mimic a live performance). "Anselma" was already included on ...And a Time to Dance. 

In addition to these three tracks, Los Lobos recorded a Spanish version of "Devil in a Blue Dress" (titled "Diablo con Vestido Azul") for the soundtrack of the 1983 film "Eating Raoul"; and the original song "We're Gonna Rock" for the 1982 compilation album L.A. Rockabilly.

To Side A of  ...And a Time to Dance, I added "Diablo con Vestido Azul," "We're Gonna Rock" and "Under the Boardwalk," and to Side B, I added "Volver, Volver" and "Farmer John." This is about as even as it comes, with six songs on each side and each side is approximately 15 1/2 minutes long.

I didn't see any reason to change the cover or the title, so they're kept the same. 

Johnny Cash & Bob Dylan - "Cash & Dylan"

Both fans of each other's work, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan recorded together in Nashville over two days in February 1969. The plan seems to have been to regroup at a later date for additional recording that would result in a duet album. But the later session never came about, and all but one track of what had been recorded was left to bootlegs and rumor. The only other known time the two performed together was on Cash's TV show later that year.

Finally, last year, the latest in Dylan's "Bootleg Series" was issued as Travelin' Thru, 1967-1969, and it includes the Cash/Dylan sessions of 50 years earlier. In truth, the recordings seem more like rehearsals than actual songs for release. But we have what we have, and I tried to assemble the tracks in what could have been released as a duet album.

SIDE A

1. One Too Many Mornings 

2. I Still Miss Someone

3. Mountain Dew

4. Careless Love

5. Matchbox

6. That’s All Right, Mama

7. Mystery Train/This Train Is Bound for Glory

8. Big River

SIDE B

1. Girl from the North Country

2. I Walk the Line

3. Guess Things Happen That Way

4. Five Feet High and Rising

5. You Are My Sunshine

6. Ring of Fire

7. Wanted Man

8. Just a Closer Walk with Thee

9. Jimmie Rodgers Medley No. 2

The songs are mostly ones previously recorded by either Cash or Dylan, with a few old chestnuts thrown in. Many are first takes, and you can't help but think that if the two men had come together again, they might have produced a good album of old country and folk songs. It was never to be, but this remains an interesting curio if nothing more.

For the cover, I chose a frame from a film of the two playing together at the time and added names and a record label logo.

The Band - "Once Upon a Time"

The usual storyline when a band breaks up involves a lot of acrimony and bitterness. That wasn't the case with The Band. Yes, there were some grumblings toward the end of the original lineup, but in general, the members remained on good terms. They even threw a farewell concert bash in 1976 with a bunch of celebrity friends.

Eventually, some of the band members would reunite, but I wanted to consider what an album might have been like had The Band not bid adieu.

SIDE A
1. Washer Woman
2. What a Town
3. New Mexicoe
4. Blues So Bad
5. Sing, Sing, Sing (Let's Make a Better World) 

SIDE B
1. Java Blues
2. Sip the Wine
3. Milk Cow Boogie
4. Shake It
5. Once Upon a Time

Rick Danko was the first Band member to issue a solo album (self-titled), and each of his former band members performed on one song each. So I've included all four. Garth Hudson played accordion on "New Mexicoe," Robbie Robertson played lead guitar on "Java Blues," Richard Manuel played piano on "Shake It," and Levon Helm sang harmony on "Once Upon a Time."

Levon Helm's 1977 solo debut, Levon Helm and the RCO All-Stars included the track "Sing, Sing, Sing (Let's Make a Better World)," which featured Robertson on guitar and Hudson on accordion. 

Robertson didn't record a solo album until 1987, Hudson didn't release a solo album until 2001, and Manuel never released a solo album while he was alive, so we don't have anything from them other than the contributions they made to the above-listed tracks. 

So, to complete the album, we need to use more Danko and Helm songs. Since both of their albums had 10 tracks, I decided to keep this Band album that way.

From Helm's album, I included "Washer Woman" because it was the opening track, "Blues So Bad" because it's the only song on the album that Helm co-wrote, and a cover of "Milk Cow Boogie," which Helm arranged and was issued as a single.

From Danko's album I also included "Sip the Wine," the only other tune he wrote alone; and "What a Town," which is the opening track.

This is a pretty good album, and I think it offers a little more variety than the two solo albums provide on their own. The only problem with it is the lack of writing credits from Robertson, who had written a bulk of The Band's songs. But since Robertson was the lone holdout when the group reformed in 1983, maybe think of this as a prelude to The Band 2.0.

I named the album Once Upon a Time, the only track that has both Helm's and Danko's vocals. For a cover, I cropped a photo I found on the web of the Bodie, Calif., ghost town.