Singers & Songwriters (2000)

Product Summary Label: Madacy Entertainment UPC: 00628261018024 Release Date: 12/9/2003 Buy.com Sku: 63859401 Item#: MQEKW7 Format:  CD Song Listing Disc 1 Song Title Sample 1. You're No Good - Linda Ronstadt ~ Various Artists 2. Baker Street - Gerry Rafferty ~ Various Artists 3. Sad Eyes - Robert John ~ Various Artists 4. Garden Party - Rick Nelson/The Stone Canyon Band ~ Various Artists 5. Time In A Bottle - Jim Croce ~ Various Artists 6. Early Mornin' Rain - Gordon Lightfoot ~ Various Artists 7. Sentimental Lady - Bob Welch ~ Various Artists 8. How Long - Ace ~ Various Artists 9. Mr. Bojangles - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band ~ Various Artists 10. American Pie - Don McLean ~ Various Artists 11. Abraham, Martin & John - Dion ~ Various Artists 12. Without You - Harry Nilsson ~ Various Artists Disc 2 Song Title Sample 1. Maggie May - Rod Stewart ~ Various Artists 2. Higher And Higher (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) - Rita Coolidge ~ Various Artists 3. Poetry Man - Phoebe Snow ~ Various Artists 4. Gold - John Stewart ~ Various Artists 5. Fooled Around And Fell In Love - Elvin Bishop ~ Various Artists 6. Morning Has Broken - Cat Stevens ~ Various Artists 7. Nights In White Satin - The Moody Blues ~ Various Artists 8. After Midnight - J.J. Cale ~ Various Artists 9. I'm In You - Peter Frampton ~ Various Artists 10. Shannon - Henry Gross ~ Various Artists 11. One Way Ticket Home - Phil Ochs ~ Various Artists 12. Alone Again (Naturally) - Gilbert O'Sullivan ~ Various Artists   Album Notes and Credits Notes & Personnel Info Includes liner notes by Jim Fischl. Liner Note Author: Jim Fishel. Unknown Contributor Roles: Don McLean; Francesca Dean; Jim Croce; Phoebe Snow. The 1974-1975 volume in Time-Life Music's Singers & Songwriters mail order series of double-disc compilations of soft rock popular music reflects the major event of the period, the emergence of John Denver as the country's top pop singles artist, by including two of his major hits, "Annie's Song" and "Sunshine on My Shoulder." (He had another four Top Five singles in the two years, three of which -- "Back Home Again," "I'm Sorry," and "Calypso" -- might have been included also.) Denver's rise was the latest manifestation of the popularity of literate ballads anchored by acoustic guitar playing that had been going on for several years by this point. Though usually romantic, these songs often had a bittersweet undercurrent that reflected the uncertain sexual mores of the time. Phoebe Snow's "Poetry Man" was an ode to an affair with a married man, Melissa Manchester's "Midnight Blue" pleaded for one more night of love in a relationship that clearly was going south, and the Amazing Rhythm Aces' "Third Rate Romance" was a frank description of a barroom pickup leading to a one-night stand. "You Are So Beautiful," Joe Cocker's interpretation of Billy Preston and Bruce Fisher's composition, was full of pain, and Carly Simon's characteristically sober celebration of new love was shot through with memories of earlier heartbreak, though she declared, "I 'Haven't Got Time for the Pain.'" Even Denver's "Annie's Song," which, as annotator Billy Altman notes, was written by Denver during a separation from his wife, had a desperate, pleading tone in its excessive expression of love ("I want to die in your arms"). Clearly, love was not easy in the mid-'70s. Within the context of this album's parameters -- it consists almost entirely of Top Ten hits, most of them written or co-written by the artists, all of them in a musical style not yet widely known as "adult contemporary" -- one can cite a few major omissions. Gordon Lightfoot's "Sundown," Joni Mitchell's "Help Me," the Eagles' "Best of My Love" and "Lyin' Eyes," and Barry Manilow's "Mandy" are all missed, as are other hits by America and Carole King. But given the challenges of licensing popular material, the compilers have done a good job in gathering tracks from all of the major labels, and the album certainly presents a representative sampling of the kind of soft rock music that was coming out of the nation's AM radios in the mid-'70s. ~ William Ruhlmann In spite of its title, this two-disc anthology has no real binding theme, unless you feel that selections like Linda Rondstadt's "You're No Good," Gordon Lightfoot's "Early Morning Rain," Dion's "Abraham, Martin and John," Rod Stewart's "Maggie May," Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around and Fell in Love," and the Moody Blues' "Nights in White Satin" collectively create one. True, all of these songs are sung by someone, and all of them were also written by someone, sometimes even the person doing the singing is the one who wrote the song, but not always, and that's about as close as this set comes to representing its title. ~ Steve Leggett Producer: Joe Sasfy   Technical Info Release Date : 12/09/2003 Original Release Date : 2000 Catalog ID : 50180 Label : Madacy Distribution Number of Discs : 2 Studio/Live : Studio Mono/Stereo : Stereo SPAR Code : n/a UPC : 00628261018024    Related Videos In Search of Solid Ground... Draw The Line: David Gray