Bruce Springsteen - Bruce Springsteen - 1972

In 1973 Bruce Springsteen released his debut album Greetings From Asbury Park. Anybody more than just a casual fan who has explored the world of Springsteen bootlegs are aware that his career did not start in 1973. Bruce is one of those rare artists that has always made a living as a professional musician. His early bands; The Castiles, Steel Mill and The Bruce Springsteen Band played regularly with each band expanding the range of how far they would travel to perform.

It was between the break up of The Bruce Springsteen Band and the formation of The E Street Band that Bruce hired new management to help take his career to the next level. In 1972 his management arranged for a series of recording dates. Most of these sessions were for the purpose of recording what are called publishing demos. One session was an audition for John Hammond of Columbia Records who wanted to sign him right on the spot.

These sessions produced more than 70 songs according to some sources with half of those songs circulating on bootlegs and a small handful officially released on box sets and other compilations. The majority of these tracks are solo recordings of just Bruce and a guitar or piano. John Hammond wanted Bruce to continue in this style but Bruce had other ideas and soon The E Street Band was born.

But what if Bruce had released a solo record before Greetings From Asbury Park? What would it have sounded like? Well wonder no more as I present the latest installment in my Debut Albums That Never Happened series, Bruce Springsteen circa 1972.

Side One
01 Two Hearts In True Waltz Time
02 Jesse
03 Arabian Night
04 Jazz Musician
05 Family Song

Side Two
06 Hollywood Kids
07 Randolph Street (Master Of Electricity)
08 Lady and the Doctor
09 If I Was The Priest
10 Prodigal Son

Reality Notes

It took me a while to warm up to Bruce. I owned and enjoyed the Nebraska album but not much else. It took the Live '75-'85 box to open me up to his other stuff. Since then I dove deep into his catalog only to come up for air occasionally. I first heard these recordings on a pair of bootlegs, Before The Fame and The Early Years. Each was a two disc set with a large overlap of titles but each containing a few unique songs. Between them they held 36 songs from this period.

To create this alternate debut album I listened to each song and slowly removed songs until I had a good solid single LP. I first removed any song that was later recorded for the first two albums. I then took out any song that featured a full band. This still left me with enough songs for a halfway decent double album but how many labels would be willing to take the risk of releasing a debut double album? Not Me so I continued removing songs until I was satisfied I had only the cream of the crop.

With the exception of the first song which has a bass guitar behind the guitar all other songs are just Bruce and one instrument. Two songs, Jazz Musician and If I Was The Priest, feature the piano. The rest are guitar songs but a few use a 12 string, some use a steel six string and at least one sounds like a classical nylon stringed guitar so we have a variety of sounds and styles.

The fidelity of these songs were pretty good to begin with so very little was needed as far as mastering was concerned. I did brighten things up slightly but my main task was in sequencing and making sure that there was enough variety to keep the album from being boring and same sounding which is what keeps me from listening to the original discs straight through.

There are enough tracks leftover for a decent follow up if I allow songs with more instruments but it would take a suspension of belief to allow an artist to release three albums in such a short time span. This album would have to be released in July '72 at the earliest to allow all songs to be used. Asbury Park was released in January '73 and the follow up was released in September '73. Both of those albums would have to be pushed back to make room for a follow up to this album. As prolific as Bruce can be record labels usually like to give the audience some time to digest one album before releasing another.

I'm really happy with how the cover turned out. I managed to simulate a cutout that exposes a picture of Bruce on the inner sleeve of the album. You can imagine pulling out the sleeve and reading the liner notes and lyrics. I cannot say for certain that the picture is of the right vintage but Bruce's image did not change much from '72 to '75 and this picture has that brooding singer/songwriter/Dylan vibe that I imagine he was going for at the time.

Sources
Before The Fame
The Early Years

Marc Bolan & T.Rex - Jack Daniels - 1977

Recently we looked at what could have been Marc Bolan's LP Debut. Today we will look at what could have been his last album.

In 1977 Marc Bolan began recording his follow up to Dandy In The Underworld. With a working title of Jack Daniels Marc wrote and recorded many songs while also appearing on his own music chat show, a show (appropriately titled Marc) that showcased many up and coming groups from the growing Punk scene including The Damed and Generation X. Unfortunately he was unable to finish the album before his death in a car accident on Sept. 12.

What we have here is the best attempt I can make at assembling what could have been Marc's final album. Marc did not leave behind any documentation by way of notes or tracklists of what he hoped the album would would be and there is clearly room for more songs that were most likely as yet unrecorded or unwritten. In spite of this I only had to make one or two compromises and we end up with a 13 song LP that clocks in at just under 35 minutes. While a bit short it still feels full.

Side One
01 21st Century Stance
02 Shy Boy
03 Billy Super Duper
04 Foxy Boy
05 Write Me A Song
06 Endless Sleep

Side Two
01 Mellow Love
02 Hot George
03 20th Century Baby
04 Love Drunk
05 Brain Police
06 Sing Me A Song
07 Messing With The Mystic

Reality Notes

In 1982 Marc On Wax, a record label created by John and Shan Bramley who at the time not only ran the Marc Bolan Fan Club but also controlled and owned all of Marc's tapes from 1972 onward, released an album titled Billy Super Duper. The intentions behind that LP was to gather as much of Marc's finished or nearly finished songs from 1977 and polish them off taking advantage of the current technology of the day.

The album was met with mixed reactions from fans. One one hand we got new Marc songs, on the other hand the Bramleys recorded additional overdubs to complete many songs, in some cases (allegedly) recording over tracks that Marc had laid down thus erasing history in the process. While in my opinion they did a good job of recreating Marc's style of embellishments, the purist in me would have rather have had the tracks as Marc left them.

The Bramleys also included songs not intended for Marc's final album. To fill out this album I was forced to use a couple of those. The song Billy Super Duper comes from a concept album that Marc was working on then abandoned in 1975. Write Me A Song comes from 1976. All other songs here are from 1977. 21st Century Stance and Messing With The Mystic are demos so I used them to bookend the album, the rest are studio recordings.

Marc's tapes changed hands and the Edsel label began releasing compilations of outtakes and demos culminating in the eight disc Unchained series. It is from these discs and one or two more bootlegs that I was able to find the untouched versions of most of these songs. The raw unfinished version of Billy Super Duper remains unavailable to this day.

So how does this album compare to the rest of Marc's work? Well, as it stands, it wouldn't be his worst album but I do hopefully assume that as the album developed Marc would have written more songs and some of these would have been dropped. I believe Marc suffered from an ego driven laziness. When he was on top he assumed that he could do anything and the fans would eat it up. That said Marc always seemed to strive for the best he could do at anytime.

Marc's last album that he released during his lifetime, Dandy In The Underworld, Was a fantastic return to form. I would put that album next to any of his classic early 70s LPs. While this album might seem like a step backwards compared to Dandy we must remember that this is an unfinished work.

For the cover I modified a simplified Jack Daniel's Whisky label.

Sources
Billy Super Duper
Unchained Vol. 7
Unchained Vol. 8
Messing With The Mystic (bootleg?)
Looney As August On A Drunken Baboon (bootleg)

The Who - Qudrophenia (single disc) - 1973

In the latest installment of my half off double album series we are going to take apart a Who classic. While everyone else is concerning themselves with reconstructing Rock Is Dead - Long Live Rock, a concept album envisioned by Pete Townshend as a musical history of The Who told through song, I want to address the album that it became. Namely the double album rock opera Quadrophenia. A concept album that concerns itself with the conflicts in mid 60s London between two rival cliques, Mods and Rockers.

While I admire Mr. Townshend's ability to not only dream up these things but also, bring them to life, sometimes I think the man thinks too much. I want songs, not operas. So, in the spirit of the Lifehouse to Who's Next transition I was wondering if the same idea could be applied to Quadrophenia. Could there be a great single disc album hidden within?

Side One
01 The Real Me
02 Cut My Hair
03 5:15
04 Sea And Sand
05 Drowned

Side Two
01 The Punk And The Godfather
02 I'm One
03 The Dirty Jobs
04 Is It In My Head?
05 Love Reign O'Er Me

Reality Notes

To be completely honest here, before I started this project I had never listened To the album straight through. I knew the classic songs more from best of collections and I expected a lot more filler material than there was. I have yet to see the movie and I have never listened to the soundtrack version.

This probably better qualifies me to take this project on. I am not attached to any underlying narrative that may be hidden within each song. I needed to be plot agnostic and choose songs that could stand on their own and dispose of songs that were obviously there to further the storyline.

I started with the four songs I was familair with (The Real Me, 5:15, Drowned and Love Reign O'Er Me) then fleshed out the tracklist from there. I dropped any instrumental over/underture interludes. I was drawn to Sea And Sand, I'm One and Is It In My Head? and included those bringing my track count up to seven. From what was left I eliminated Doctor Jimmy for being too long and a few more for being too entrenched in the plot line. This left me with Cut My Hair, The Punk And The Godfather and The Dirty Jobs to fill out the album.

I shuffled those around for flow and timing Keeping The Real Me and Love Reign O'er Me in their respective opening and closing spots. I trimmed or removed as much of the audio clip transitions between songs as I could. The musical structure of Cut My Hair and the intro to 5:15 are the same so I used the TV announcer/teapot at the end of Cut My Hair to transition into 5:15. Worked out beautifully.

I resisted the urge to include Join Together and Relay or any other unused song from the abandoned Rock is Dead project. Like my single disc The Wall project I wanted to make a concise Quadrophenia, not an alternate Rock is Dead. Are the results worth it? I've played the album through many times now without feeling the urge to skip any song. While still not as great as Who's Next or even Who By Numbers it can now rest comfortably along side those albums and it no longer feels like a chore to get through.

I kept the original cover. Its a great cover. I didn't change the name of the album, Why change the cover?

Mudcrutch - Long Way From Home - 1975

In 1974 Tom Petty and his band Mudcrutch (Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Randall Marsh and Danny Roberts) headed west in search of a record contract. On a scouting mission to L.A. they managed to gain interest from several labels. They headed back to their Gainsville Florida home base with a verbal agreement to sign with London Records. Before they could return and seal the deal they received a call from Denny Cordell of Shelter Records. Cordell managed to convince the band to stop off at one of his studios in Tulsa Oklahoma to do some test recording and hopefully convince them to sign to his label.

Things went well in Tulsa and Mudcrutch became Shelter Records recording artists. Denny Cordell bankrolled the groups last leg of their journey into Los Angeles and set them up with places to stay and recording began. Cordell felt that they needed some time to acclimate themselves to the studio and sent them back to Tulsa with an engineer and all the time they needed to learn this new aspect of their craft.

Mudcrutch eventually recorded enough material for an album and some stand alone singles. After losing their rhythm guitarist they replaced him with a bassist and Tom moved to guitar but when the new guy insisted they record one of his songs Tom had enough and Mudcrutch was no more. This album and a few scattered singles are all we have left.

Side One
01 Depot Street
02 Up In Mississippi
03 Long Way From Home
04 Cause is Understood
05 Makin' Some Noise
06 I Can't Fight It

Side Two
01 On The Street
02 Once Upon a Time Somewhere
03 Don't It Get Weird
05 Since You Said You Loved Me
06 Wild Eyes
06 Country Girls Run Dry

Bonus Tracks
Don't Do Me Like That
Cry To Me

Reality Notes

Another project in my debut albums that never happened series. This is an album I have been wanting to put together for a long time. Unfortunately most of this material still has not seen any official release. Tom Petty is one of the most consistant songwriters out there. From the earliest songs and recordings to his last Tom proved himself a craftsman and A class musician time and time again. As the cliche goes, the average songwriter would kill to write even one song as good as one of Tom's mediocre songs.

When Mudcrutch broke up Mike Campbell stayed with Tom to work on Tom's solo album. Benmont Tench fell in with some other Gainsvile exiles to record some demos. When Tom and Mike paid a visit to one of Ben's sessions Tom liked what he heard and convinced them to be his band. Why not, Tom had a contract and was growing dissatisfied with the way his solo album was coming along. Tom liked being in a band and the Heartbreakers were born.

The sources for these tracks vary from official releases on the Playback box set to dodgy sounding bootlegs so making these songs sound like a cohesive whole presented a challenge. The official releases suffer from the "loudness wars" and have very little dynamic range and the bootleg material lacks fidelity. I had to make some compromises to make it work. Let's call this an interim version until we can do an upgrade.

Once Upon a Time Somewhere was the worst offender. As if the fidelity weren't bad enough the track shifts from stereo to mono in a few spots. I didn't want to lose the song so to mask this I tried folding the whole project down to mono. The results were OK but not great. So I folded only Once Upon a Time down to mono. The transition from stereo to mono back to stereo was not as awkward as I thought it would be so I kept it that way. I did my best to volume match and EQ where needed but my mastering skills still need work and the material fought me the whole way.

There are several songs here that would later turn up as Heartbreakers songs. Long Way From Home was according to some sources rerecorded in 1977 but not released. The two bonus tracks (Hey! I have bonus tracks!) include Don't Do Me Like which was later recorded for the Damn The Torpedoes album and Cry To Me, a cover song that appeared on the No Nukes charity album. Hometown Blues which appears on the first Heartbeakers album also comes from this time and is actually a Mudcrutch song. I could have included that but I didn't wan't to mess up that album.

The cover; while there are a lot of great photos of the band when it was a four piece with Tom Leadon I have only seen one picture of the band as it was before they broke up in L.A. (and that picture is not that great) and none of the band as they were when they arrived in Los Angeles. So I went with a crowd shot of the audience that showed up at Mudcrutch Farm for one of the three Mudcrutch festivals.

Sources
Playback
Mudcructh and Solo Petty Outtakes (Bootleg)
The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 (Rare & Unreleased 1971-1977 (Bootleg)

Donovan - Sand and Foam - 1967

The following does not fall into any of the normal coulda/woulda/shoulda categories we deal in around here. This a mixtape I made in the mid 80s but has its inspiration from an earlier time. Think of it as more of a memory soundtrack. The story goes like this.

Back in the late 70s when I was just a teenager exploring music and finding out what I liked and didn't a friend of mine had Donovan's Mellow Yellow album. He played it a lot except he would never play the record past the title song which opened the album. He was stuck on that one song. I loved the song too and bought the album myself and continued his practice of only listening to the song Mellow Yellow.

One day I was cleaning my room. As always I had music playing while I cleaned. I put on the Mellow Yellow album and listened to the first track then started the song over and continued with my tasks. I got caught up in what I was doing and let the album play for the first time and I was blown away by what I heard. I stopped cleaning and sat enraptured in front of my speakers. What I heard was not your ordinary psychedelic music but an amalgam of musical styles and textures that was unlike anything I had ever heard before. I couldn't stop listening.

I checked out the Sunshine Superman album and found more of the same although there were a few more "hits" on that album. So fast forward back to the mid 80s I made a mixtape using a 100 minute tape. On one side was a mix of Richie Havens favorites and on the other was this. For every one time I listened to the Richie side I played the Donovan side at least three. This became an album to me and an important one that I would revisit often. When someone mentions Donovan this is what I hear in my head.

01 Writer In The Sun
02 Sand and Foam
03 Three King Fishers
04 The Observation
05 Bleak City Woman
06 Ferris Wheel
07 House of Jansch
08 Bert's Blues
09 Young Girl Blues
10 Museum
11 Guinevere
12 Hamstead Incident
13 Sunny South Kensington
14 Celeste

Reality Notes

This is basically a mashup of two albums (Mellow Yellow and Sunshine Superman) with all of the better known and longer songs removed. What we end up with is a collection of songs that blends many different styles and genres not only from song to song but from within each song. You hear dixie brass alongside sitars alongside mod drumming and electric guitars all underlain with superb Bert Jansch style fingerstyle acoustic guitar. Yet, throughout this diversity is a cohesive whole unified by the songs themselves. World music long before the term was even hinted at.

This collection demonstrates two things. One, not all psychedelia is created equal and two, sometimes mixtapes can have more influence on the psyche than the albums the songs came from. There may be more projects like this in the future.

1967-68 was a strange and wonderful time for music. With the release of The Beatles' Sgt Pepper album the LP suddenly became more than just a distribution vehicle, it became an artistic medium. More and more artists were, with varying success, delving into the studio craft and releasing ambitious projects that would take months to record where the norm was weeks. What I think sets Donovan apart from most is his straight forward simplistic approach to his arrangements in opposition to the densely layered and complex arrangements found on albums from other acts of the time. Donovan's work here transcends the psychedelia tag that gets placed on it.

There is only a small handful of albums that have and still really transport me to somewhere else and this is one of them. Among the others are Michael Hedges Live On The Double Planet (his final album Torched is very close behind), Ravi Shankar's Genius and Unicorn by Tyrannosaurus Rex. I like sparse instrumentation. I prefer string quartets over full orchestras. I prefer "live in the studio" recordings over densely layered productions. There are exceptions of course but mostly I like things simple.

For the cover I wanted to emulate the art nouveau themes of the Mellow Yellow and Sunshine Superman covers. I like how, from further away, the curve of the text around the picture forms an eye.