Guns N' Roses - Gn'R - 1986

With the release of Guns N' Roses debut album Appetite for Destruction We saw the decline of Hair Metal and the brief rise of Sleaze Rock and a brief two year period when hard rock was stripped of the glam and returned to its roots. In 1989 that all collapsed with the emergence of Grunge and the Seattle invasion.

Before the release of Appetite, Gn'R released a four song EP made up of two original songs and two covers with crowd noise dubbed in to make it sound like a live recording. Released on a vanity label backed by Geffen Records to maintain interest in the band while they recorded their debut album.

But could they have released a full independent first album?

Side One
01 Shadow Of Your Love
02 Nice Boys
03 Don't Cry
04 New Work Tune
05 Move To The City

Side Two
01 Reckless Life
02 Mama Kin
03 Back Off Bitch
04 Ain't Goin' Down No More
05 The Plague

Reality Notes

Another installment of my alternate debut album series. Gn'R's record label Geffen spent two years polishing the band and songs for Appetite. During this time they recorded a lot of demos. Four of these songs were released on Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide, the EP mentioned above. With the recent release of the Super Deluxe Edition of Appetite we have three discs of outtakes from those two years of development. I had most of these on a cassette bootleg back in the late 80s. While most of those outtakes are alternate versions of album tracks there is a small handful of unused songs alongside those songs used for the EP but without the crowd noise of the faux live EP.

So, are there enough songs to flesh out the EP to album length? Almost. And how does this affect Lies? I'll address that in a moment. I ended up with a ten song LP of mixed quality songs. Fortunately most of those songs are pretty darn good. Unfortunately, two of those, New Work Tune and Ain't Goin' Down No More are instrumentals. Another song, The Plague, is only 47 seconds long and all together the LP clocks in at 33 minutes and 16 seconds. Not exactly a full album which is probably why they released an EP instead of a LP.

Because this is an independent release we have some leeway in quality control. If I took out the instrumentals the album becomes barley 26 minutes long so I had to keep them in. I buried one on each side of the album and removed the gaps between the songs before and after to make them feel a part of them so they don't stand out. I also took a few of the spoken intros from a few songs and attached them to other songs. Overall the flow is pretty good.

The four songs from the EP but without the crowd noise comes from a bootleg. I preferred the sound of the tracks from there, the versions on the deluxe discs sounded a bit too polished. The last song to address is Back Off Bitch. While it sounds like a fun song to play in the clubs, its quality is questionable, obviously an off the cuff throw away type song. But hey, this is an indy release so it works here in a way.

There are two more songs I could have used in place of the instrumentals but they are crappy obvious covers of Heartbreak Hotel and Jumping Jack Flash. As much as I would have liked to remove the instrumentals, I also wanted to avoid an album that is almost half covers. If they were better song choices I might have included them but how many versions of Heartbreak Hotel do we need? I could have also used versions of Knocking on Heaven's Door and Whole Lotta Rosie but I would have had to resort to live versions which I didn't want to do and again, too many covers.

For the cover I utilized the logo found on the EP against a black background. Now what can we do about Lies?

There are a few acoustic tracks we can use to expand side two of Lies to a 30 minute mini LP. there are two versions of November Rain, a 9 minute piano version and a 5 minute acoustic version. I went with the acoustic version. Move to the City comes from 1988 and was most likely in the running to be included on Lies. An acoustic run though of Jumping Jack Flash rounds it all out.

Lies
01 One In A Million
02 November Rain
03 You're Crazy
04 Patience
05 Used To Love Her
06 Jumpin' Jack Flash
07 Move To The City

The last change in future albums is I see no need to include two versions of Don't Cry on Use Your Illusions. We can drop the "Original Lyrics" version. November Rain can stay, this version is different enough for both to exist.

Sources
Appetite For Destruction (Super Deluxe Edition)
Lies
Suicide Demos '86 (Bootleg)

Grateful Dead - Barton Hall May 8, 1977

Ah, Barton Hall '77. A general consensus puts this show at the top of the must hear list of Grateful Dead shows. Not so much for the performance, which is great but no more stellar than your average typical Dead show, but more for the atmosphere and the recordings themselves. There is a warm fuzzy feeling that surrounds this show. Much of that is most likely due to the fine soundboard recordings of Betty Cantor-Jackson.

This show has been officially released on May 5, 2017 as both as a stand alone package and as part of a four show, eleven disc box set. If I could make one complaint about live Dead it is the long gaps between songs and this show is no exception. If you are there in the audience and in the heat of performance this is fine but on playback the gaps just take me out of the show until the band kicks in again.

I'm all for archival preservation but when this show was released it takes up three discs due to those long pauses between songs. What I've done here is to remove those pauses to make a smoother listening experience. For those songs that do not run into each other I have made new transitions to reduce the gaps to no more than a few seconds. Each set should fit on a single 80 minute CD though set one is awfully close. Let me know if it works for you and make sure to burn the disc with no gaps. I did not use the official release for this edit. Instead I used a matrix recording from the Internet Archive.

Set One
01 Minglewood Blues
02 Loser
03 El Paso
04 They Love Each Other
05 Jack Straw
06 Deal
07 Lazy Lightning >
08 Supplication
09 Brown Eyed Women
10 Mama Tried
11 Row Jimmy
12 Dancin' In The Streets

Set Two
01 Take A Step Back
02 Scarlet Begonias >
03 Fire On The Mountain
04 Estimated Prophet
05 Saint Stephen >
06 Not Fade Away >
07 Saint Stephen >
08 Morning Dew
09 Saturday Night(Encore)

For the cover I utilized elements from a tour poster.

Peter Frampton - Comes Alive! (The Studio Versions)

Here's one just for fun. Back when I was putting together "Best Of" comps of bands that I did not want their full discography on my iPods I threw this one together for Peter Frampton. Even though I have most of his catalog those songs that demand repeat listenings are mostly all contained on his live album Frampton Comes Alive!. There are not too many live albums that I can call "go to" listens and this one, while great, was played so much that it has almost worn out its welcome. So I gathered all of the studio versions of each song from Comes Alive! and duplicated the track sequence. As a bonus, I included I'm In You, Peter's hit from his follow up album of the same name.

A new way to listen to a classic album and it will fit on a single CD.

01 Baby (Somethin's Happening)
02 Doobie Wah
03 Show Me the Way
04 It's a Plain Shame
05 All I Want to Be (Is by Your Side)
06 Wind of Change
07 Nassau/Baby, I Love Your Way
08 I Wanna Go to the Sun
09 Penny for Your Thoughts
10 (I'll Give You) Money
11 Shine On
12 Jumpin Jack Flash
13 Lines on My Face
14 Do You Feel Like We Do
15 I'm In You

Reality Notes

As you can see not a lot of imagination went into this. I almost considered not posting a download for this one as all songs are available for purchase. The cover is another of the many iPod small screen friendly covers I was making at the time.

Melancholia Vol. 8 - The K-Tel Generation

Back in the day I had a mixtape series called Melancholia. The basic running premise was that each song had a certain feel to them that took me somewhere else. The first volume was a collection of headphone friendly tracks from my cleanest vinyl. The series continued after the media format changed from records and tapes to CDs and playlists and has now run for 16 volumes.

The first four volumes were compiled from Vinyl. Volume five was made by dubbing from tape to tape. Volume six took me into the CD era and for a while it was a rotating tracklist on a 60 minute tape that I would recompile every few weeks where earlier volumes were all on 90 minute tapes. CDs were easier to work with and blank tape was starting to become harder to find so this worked better at the time. I later finalized volume six once CD burners were more affordable and all older volumes have been reconfigured to fit on CDs.

Later volumes often followed a theme. This CD here is based on volume 08. All of the songs are early to mid 70s AM Top 40 and all of them are songs I either first heard or only knew from various artist albums. Most, if not all, were on K-Tel records. K-Tel was the "That's What I Call Music" of its day. These albums were budget collections of the hits of the day. Somehow they managed to squeeze ten songs on one side of an LP.

Each one of these songs brings a smile to my face and an indescribable sense of nostalgia. While I might have heard them on the radio when I was younger, I discovered them listening to records. Sometimes at a friends house, sometimes they were found on a various artist album I bought for a completely different song. Each one seems to be part of a memory from somewhere.

I'm not going to do track by track notes for this one. None of these songs are rare or obscure in any way. Collected together they do create a unique and satisfying listen. I'll post more Melancholia volumes in the future.

01 Jonathan Edwards - Sunshine
02 Albert Hammond - The Free Electric Band
03 Sammy Johns - Chevy Van
04 Audience - Indian Summer
05 Bill Withers - Lean On Me
06 Dobie Gray - Drift Away
07 Five Man Electrical Band - Signs
08 Lobo - Me and You and a Dog Named Boo
09 Thunderclap Newman - Something in the Air
10 Jim Stafford - Spiders and Snakes
11 Mungo Jerry - In the Summertime
12 Starland Vocal Band - Afternoon Delight
13 Looking Glass - Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)
14 Mel & Tim - Backfield in Motion
15 Vanity Fair - Hitching a Ride
16 Johnny Nash - I Can See Clearly Now
17 The Jaggerz - The Rapper
18 Freeda Payne - Band of Gold
19 R Dean Taylor - Indiana Wants Me
20 Rick Springfield - Speak to the Sky
21 Tommy James - Draggin' The Line
22 Steeler's Wheel - Stuck in the Middle with You
23 Sweet - Little Willie

The cover does its best to emulate those old K-Tel albums

The Small Faces - Afterglow - 1968

In 1968, The Small Faces released their post-summer of love concept album Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake. Critically acclaimed, six weeks at number one in the UK, often described with words such as masterpiece and classic. So why does the album rub me the wrong way? The musicianship is superb. The songwriting is excellent. And Steve Marriot's voice is amazing. So what's my problem?

The album has two big things going against it for me. The first is that it starts with an instrumental. I can deal with instrumentals if they are buried within the LP or a short intro before the singing starts if it's not too long but two and a half minutes is too much for me to wait for the vocals to start. The second thing is side two. I'm not a big fan of concept albums or rock operas but a children's story with narration? Count me out. And then there is what Wikipedia describes as psychedelic cockney knees-up songs, not a fan.

I was ready to throw the album out when I started to wonder if it could be fixed. It just so happens that the band was working on a follow up before they split up. Along with a couple of B sides and the songs slated for the next album we have plenty of songs to make a great album.

Side One
01 Rollin' Over
02 Long Agos And Worlds Apart
03 Autumn stone
04 Wham bam thank you Mam
05 Red balloon
06 Lazy Sunday

Side Two
01 Call it something nice
02 Rene
03 Song Of A Baker
04 Donkey Rides, A Penny, A Glass
05 The universal
06 Afterglow

Reality Notes

I never got into The Small Faces. I was aware of them. I knew Itchycoo Park but not much else. I love Humble Pie. I love The Faces. I just never explored the band that spawned them. So when I started seeing other constructors putting together their versions of 1862, the abandoned follow up to Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake I got curious and downloaded Ogden's to give it a spin. I honestly thought I had a corrupted file and downloaded it again. I was a bit disappointed.

To fix the album I set two basic rules, no instrumentals and no story time. I dropped the title track on side one and discarded all but Rollin' Over from side two and utilized the B sides and leftovers which can be found on the compilation Autumn Stone to fill the album out. The album went through a few different iterations before I was happy with the results.

I did do one "clever" little edit. Autumn Stone has an alternate version of Afterglow which I preferred so I took the intro from the album version and tacked that on to Rollin' Over to open the album and closed the album with the alternate version. I kept Lazy Sunday as the closer of side one.

All-in-all I have been enjoying this construction very much, even the psychedelic cockney knees-up songs. I didn't actually throw out side two. After taking out Rollin' Over, I split The Journey into two parts and created an EP. It's a good story and seems to work much better in the smaller, stand alone format.

Happiness Stan

Side One
01 Happiness Stan
02 The Hungry Intruder
03 The Journey Pt 1

Side Two
01 The Journey Pt 2
02 Mad John
03 Happy Days Toy Town

I'm imagining that the EP was released first as a stopgap while they finished recording the rest of the album. I do feel that this gives the band a much better ending than splitting up in the middle of recording a new album. And there's still some leftover tracks for you kids to gather together if you feel the need.

For the cover of Afterglow I went with the full front portrait with no text. Similar to Abbey Road or Badfinger's Straight Up. For the EP I imagined they licensed an illustration from John Lennon's In His Own Write.

John & Yoko's Double Milk & Honey Fantasy Box - 1980

I've been seeing a few other attempts at constructing a John Lennon solo album out of John and Yoko's Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey albums. I've tried this myself on several occasions but was never really happy with the results. Inspired by the others I decided to take another try and see what happens. What I came up with is a box set of three albums, one for John, one for Yoko and a disc of my favorite demos from the project.

Early on I came to the conclusion that the best approach was a hybrid of official versions and alternate mixes and remixed versions. For some of John's songs I had up to ten different versions ranging from demos to the finished product. While the demo disc comes from a variety of sources the two albums are derived from five sources. The two official albums, Double Fantasy Stripped Down, John Lennon's Anthology box and a bootleg called Double Fantasy [Working Version] which contained early mixes of John's Milk and Honey Tracks.

The version of each song was chosen simply because that was the one I liked best and felt would best blend with the other tracks. My biggest issues with John's Milk and Honey tracks have always been the mixes. They put way too much reverb and other effects on John's vocals. John's voice has always sounded best mostly dry with a touch of chorus or flange if not actually double tracked so it was nice to have some early alternate mixes to fall back on. That said I did default to the official versions more often than alternate versions.

John Lennon - Watching The Wheels

Side One
01 (Just Like) Starting Over *
02 Cleanup Time ***
03 I'm Stepping Out +
04 Nobody Told Me **
05 Dear Yoko ***
06 I Don't Wanna Face It **
07 Watching The Wheels *

Side Two
01 Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) */***
02 I'm Losing You ***
03 Borrowed Time **
04 Woman *
05 (Forgive Me) My Little Flower Princess +++
06 Grow Old With Me +

Reality Notes

I was really surprised at how much more I could connect this John with pre-househusband John. For some reason my mind has always compartmentalized Double Fantasy John as a unique and separate entity from even Walls and Bridges John.

For Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) I edited the intro and outro of the official version onto the Stripped Down version. I preferred the Stripped Down version but I missed the intro and outro from the Double Fantasy version which give it a bit more polish. I also edited out most of the count ins and studio chatter.

The cover features a self reflecting John watching a sunset.

Yoko Ono - Walking On Thin Ice

Side One
01 Walking On Thin Ice +++
02 Don't Be Scared **
03 Sleepless Night **
04 O' Sanity **
05 Beautiful Boys *
06 Your Hands **
07 Kiss Kiss Kiss *

Side Two
01 Yes, I'm Your Angel *
02 Give Me Something *
03 I'm Moving On +++
04 You're The One **
05 Every Man Has A Woman Who Loves Him *
06 Hard Times Are Over *

Reality Notes

Everyone always seems to ignore or throw away Yoko's side of this project. While I can't call myself a fan, I have never been in the anti-Yoko camp. I proudly admit to listening to and enjoying Yoko's Plastic Ono album on more than one occasion.

Walking on Thin Ice is an early mix and is half the length of the released single version. I toyed with swapping them out but I stuck with this version. While I passed on the Cheap Trick version of John's I'm Losing You, I did use the Cheap Trick version of Yoko's I'm Moving On.

For the cover I reconstructed (to my liking) the cover for Yoko's best of compilation of the same name.

Double Milk and Honey Fantasy Demos

01 Borrowed Time [DT] ###
02 Beautiful Boy [DT] ###
03 Dear Yoko [DT] ###
04 Watching the Wheels +
05 I Don't Wanna Face It [DT] ###
06 I'm Losing You [DT 2] ###
07 Let Me Count The Ways (Yoko) **
08 (Just like) starting over #
09 I'm Stepping Out [TT] ###
10 Nobody Told Me [DT] ###
11 Woman [DT 2] ###
12 My Little Flower Princess [take 3] ###
13 Grow Old With Me **

Home Demos '75-'80

14 The News Of The Day ##
15 Serve yourself ##
16 Gone From This Place ##
17 Whatever Happened To [take 2] ###
18 One Of The Boys [take 2 edit] ###
19 Life Begins At 40 ###
20 The Happy Rishikesh Song ###
21 Real Love ##
22 Dear John [edit] ###
23 I Don't Know Why (Yoko) ++

Reality Notes

I've gathered the demos into two groups. Tracks 1-13 are all related to Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey. Tracks 7 and 13 were released on the Milk and Honey album as they appear here.

Tracks 14-22 were all recorded during John's househusband days from '75 - '80. Track 23 was recorded by Yoko the day after John was taken from us.

If this were a vinyl box both groups will fit on separate albums with the first LP splitting between tracks seven and eight and the second group having five songs per side. Both groups will fit on one CD.

Editing for the most part was limited to trimming the beginnings and endings taking out count ins, intros and chatter. One Of The Boys and Dear John received multiple internal edits to trim redundant verses and stumble points to create smoother tracks.

For the cover I added text to a print of one of John's drawings.

Sources
  * Double Fantasy
 ** Milk and Honey
*** Double Fantasy Stripped Down
  + John Lennon Anthology
 ++ Season Of Glass (Yoko)
+++ Double Fantasy [Working Version] (bootleg)
  # Double Fantasy [Alternate Version] (bootleg)
 ## Complete Lost Lennon Tapes (bootleg)
### Complete Home Recordings 75-80 (bootleg)

The Originals - Various Artists

So many songs we know and love are not the original versions. They are either covers or remakes (there is a difference though off the top of my head I can't remember). For this compilation I have gathered 20 of the more interesting original versions of songs that became better known as covers. Some of these songs have histories that go beyond the recording era. Others were written and recorded about the same time as the definitive versions. Still others were written and recorded years before the hit version we know and love.

If you find this as interesting as I do head on over to Any Major Dude's site where he has done a great series that explores the origins of many songs which we take for granted that the defacto versions are the original version when in fact they were one version in a long line of previous version. His song swarm series looks at one song and gathers as many versions of that song as possible.

There are a couple of songs here that I did not have the original but did have the first charting version so I provided a link to the YouTube video of the original.)

Track by Track

01 Richard Berry & The Pharoahs - Louie Louie (1955)
Definitive version: The Kingsmen (1963) One of the most covered songs ever (I have almost 50 and that is a small fraction of what's out there). The Kingsman version is notable not only for being the most recognizable but also for how it was recorded. Recorded for $50 in a small studio in one take along with the B side - also only one take. The vocalist had to scream into a microphone hung above the band which rendered his vocal nearly unintelligible leading many to assume the lyrics were dirty. This prompted an FBI investigation into the matter. Weirdly, most missed the actual expletive yelled by the drummer about a minute into the song after dropping a drumstick.

02 Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog (1953)
Difinitive version: Elvis Presley (1956) The first of several Elvis related songs included here. Written by Leiber and Stoller, Thorton's version spent 14 weeks on the R&B charts with seven weeks at number one and was listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll" but for some reason everyone only remembers Elvis' version

03 Bessie Banks - Go Now (1964)
Definitive version: The Moody Blues (1964) While I was more familiar with the version on Wings Over America I later found out about Denny Laine's tenure with the Moody Blues who had a hit with this song before he left that band. The Moody's version was released in the UK ten months after Bessie's version and two months later in the US where it peaked in the charts at #10.

04 Arthur Alexander - Anna (Go to Him) (1962)
Definitive version: The Beatles (1963) supposedly a favorite of John Lennon's the song was a regular in The Beatles live sets and appears on their first album.

05 Mark James - Suspicious Minds (1968)
Definitive version: Elvis Presley (1969) Written by Mark James, his version failed to chart. The song was given to Elvis which became his last #1 single.

06 Johnny Burnette - The Train Kept A Rollin (1956)
Definitive version(s): The Yardbirds (1965), Aerosmith (1974) First recorded by Tiny Bradshaw in 1951 the original, with lyrics borrowed from an earlier song, done in the jump blues style but it was Burnette's version that inspired The Yardbirds who inspired everyone else after.

07 Betty Everett - You're No Good (1963)
Definitive version: Linda Ronstadt (1975) Dee Dee Warwick, the sister of Dionne Warwick, niece of Cissy Houston and the first cousin of Whitney Houston, cut the song a few months before Betty Everett in 1963 but it was Everett's cover that was the first to chart. The Swinging Blue Jeans version hit the charts the following year. Linda Ronstadt started performing the song in 1972 and recorded her version in 1975 which hit the #1 spot.

08 Leadbelly - Gallows Pole (The Gallis Pole) (1939)
Definitive version: Led Zeppelin (1970) This song has a long history going back before the advent of recording technology. Originating in Holland it exists in many forms as a traditional folk song. This Leadbelly version is the first known recorded version. It has been recorded many times since then by a variety of artist including Bob Dylan and Judy Collins. The content of the song differs according to what version the artist was familiar with. Led Zeppelin was inspired by the version by American Fred Gerlach, included on his 1962 album Twelve-String Guitar for Folkways Records. Zep credited the song as Traditional: Arranged by Page and Plant.

09 Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats - Rocket 88
Definitive version: Ike Turner & His Kings of  Rhythm I kind of cheated on this one. Rocket 88 is considered to be one of, if not the first, Rock and Roll songs and features what is believed to be the first recorded instance of "fuzz" or distorted guitar and it's a song about a car. It was originally released by Chess Records under the name of Ike's sax player as Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats.

10 Mort Shuman - Viva Las Vegas (1963)
Definitive version: Elvis Presley (1964) Another slight cheat. Elvis recorded the first and definitive version of this song but this is the songwriter's demo that Elvis' producers used to make their arrangements from. Elvis' version was recorded shortly after this demo but was not released until the following year in conjunction of the movie release.

11 Irma Thomas - Time Is On My Side (1964)
Definitive version: The Rolling Stones (1964) Written by Jerry Ragovoy (using the pseudonym "Norman Meade") it was first recorded by jazz trombonist Kai Winding and his Orchestra in 1963 but that version only had the lines "Time is on my side" and "You'll come runnin' back". Irma's version was the first to include the full lyrics written by Songwriter Jimmy Norman for her just before Irma recorded her version which served as the template for the Stones version..

12 Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup - That's All Right (1947)
Definitive version: Elvis Presley (1954) Presley's first single for Sun Records reaching #4 on the local Memphis charts but failed to chart nationally. Eventhough Crudup was credited as the composer he reportedly never received any royalty payments.

13 Earl Jean - I'm Into Something Good (1964)
Definitive version: Herman's Hermits (1964) Written by the songwriting team of Goffin & King, Earl Jean's version peaked at # 38, Herman's Hermits version hit #1 in the UK and #13 in the US.

14 Lou Johnson - (There's) Always Something There To Remind Me (1964)
Definitive version: Naked Eyes (1983) Written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David this was one of the few Bacharach songs where Burt had no role in the production of the definitive version.

15 Lavern Baker - Jim Dandy (1956)
Definitive version: Black Oak Arkansas w/ Ruby Starr (1973) Whether or not you can consider Black Oak Arkansas' version definitive is debatable but it was the first version I heard. The cover seemed natural for B.O.A. as their lead singer had been using the stage name Jim Dandy for some time.

16 Dennis Linde - Burning Love (1972)
Definitive version: Elvis Presley (1972) The first recorded version is actually by Arthur Alexander who is featured here with Anna (Go to Him) but this is the original songwriter's demo that both Alexander's and Presley's were modeled after. Linde also played the guitar opening and riffs on the Presley version.

17 Jake Holmes - Dazed and confused
Definitive version: Led Zeppelin (1969) This one kind of hurts. Jimmy Page has a reputation for not giving credit to the original writer's of many of their songs. While one could argue in most cases that Zep's versions are more reworkings and sound little like the originals That does not hold up for Dazed and Confused. On the 1967 Yardbirds tour, they shared the bill with Jake Holmes. After hearing Holmes perform the song, drummer Jim Mcarty encouraged the band to add the song to the Yardbird's set. The song quickly became a jamming vehicle with Page experimenting with the violin bow. With the crash of the Yardbirds and the rising of Led Zep from the ashes Page and crew continued to play the song live. When Page recorded the song (albeit with altered lyrics) for the first Zep album Jake's name was nowhere to be found. Holmes sued but not until 2010. The suit was dismissed after Page and Holmes reached a settlement afterwhich remastered versions of the song are credited as "By Page – Inspired by Jake Holmes".

18 The "5" Royales - Dedicated to the One I Love (1957)
Definitive version: The Mamas and The Papas (1967) The Royals' original release failed to chart but reached #81 on re-release in 1961. The Shirells cover hit #83 in 1957 and #3 in 1961. The Mamas & The Papas recorded the song for their The Mamas & The Papas Deliver and released as a single which reached #2.

19 Helen Kane - I Wanna be Loved by You (1929)
Definitive version: Marilyn Monroe (1959) Written by Herbert Stothart and Harry Ruby, with lyrics by Bert Kalmar for the 1928 musical Good Boy, it became Helen Kane's signature song. Helen had based her vocal style on "Baby" Esther Jones. Kane had seen Esther perform at The Cotton Club in Harlem some years earlier. Kane was also one of the inspirations for the cartoon character Betty Boop who also performed the song. And of course, my favorite version is by Ginger Grant of Gilligan's Island fame.

20 Harry Champion - I'm Henery The Eighth (1910)
Definitive version: Herman's Hermits (1965) Written by Fred Murray and R. P. Weston it became a signature song of Brittish music hall performer Harry Champion. It was revived in 1961 by Joe Brown before being recorded by Herman's Hermits and becoming their second UK #1.

The cover illustration drawn by one of my favorite comic book artists Donald Simpson comes from the cover of the anthology comic Wasteland