Sounds-Like Hits - Kenyan cover versions?

A week or two ago I chanced upon an unusual-looking album on Ebay - "Sounds-Like Hits volume 2". The listing had just ended, so I missed my chance to bag it for 99p, and the would-be seller decided he wouldn't re-list it. So, it's one which got away from me...

Further research proved a little fruitful but not much! There was, not surprisingly, a volume 1 as well, as listed on Discogs. Here are both albums, with song titles printed on the front:

Both albums appear to have come out in 1975. Whether they really are soundalikes is hard to know, but the vintage of the tracks suggests as much - the contents of volume 1 were practically all UK hits in 1974-75, giving it a topical twist, while those visible on the front of volume 2 follow suit (except "Loving Arms", which is unknown to us). This selecting of recent hit material is one of the trademarks of the budget covers LP.

The full track listing for volume 1, incidentally, is as follows:

• When Will I See You Again     
• Can't Get Enough Of Your Love Baby     
• You're My First My Last My Everything     
• Shame Shame Shame     
• Rock The Boat     
• Rock Your Baby     
• I Can't Leave You Alone     
• Let's Get It On     
• Kung Fu Fighting     
• Dance The Kung Fu     
• Doctor's Orders     
• Drift Away

And the album title? It's tempting to link it to the UK "Sounds Like Hits" series from Fontana/Rediffusion, but they'd stopped appearing by the end of 1970. Consequently there are no direct links, and cover version equivalents of tracks like "Shame Shame Shame" and "Rock The Boat" are obscure - not least because few regular LP series were still appearing come 1975.

We do know that AIT was the label here, which was operating out of Kenya. Again from Discogs: "A.I.T. Records, run by the Kenyan politician and music producer, P. Oluoch Kanindo, was an important player in the Kenyan music industry with a publishing wing, EIT Pub."

Not many budget cover versions are known from Africa (apart from those issued in South Africa). I have just one in my collection, an East African edition of "Top of the Pops volume 20". Wish I'd stumbled upon "Sounds-Like Hits volume 2" a little earlier, and it would be in my collection right now! Instead, I'll keep my eyes peeled for more info...

Sounds Like Hits - a glimpse of volume 8

Among the hardest of all UK covers albums to find are those from the Rediffusion "Sounds Like Hits" series. I have previously lamented the fact that, after many a long year's collecting, I still haven't so much as laid eyes on the sleeves to volumes 3 or 8 - let alone got my hands on copies. Gradually I've been ticking them off, but these two still evade me - so I was delighted a few days ago to be contacted by Australian collector, Ken Grady.

Ken describes himself as a casual 'jackdaw' who picks up LPs he finds on his travels. Luckily, one of his most recent scoops was an Australian copy of "Sounds Like Hits" volume 8! It was issued in Australia on the local Astor label, who among other things, were also issuing all the Marble Arch "Chartbusters" LPs to Australian listeners, at the same time.

From what we know about the Astor editions from the "Sounds Like Hits" series, the sleeve designs always match their UK equivalents, with just the relevant label logos changed (gold stickers on the front come in handy!). So, we can be pretty sure this is what the UK album looked like - if it exists, that is. (Which it surely does.)

Here are the images Ken sent through:

Our thanks to Ken for details of this, and several other Australian albums, which have greatly increased our knowledge of the Astor label discography.

For more info on Australian pressings of "Sounds Like Hits", see here.

Covering the Christmas charts... 1974

Forty years ago, December 1974, the cover version LP was going strong. Perhaps a little past its peak, when budget albums were scaling the charts themselves, but still a notable presence in High Street stores, especially Woollies. It's interesting now to take a glance back and see how the Christmas hits were rounded up - or not - on the albums in question. Before we do that, let's remind ourselves of the top 40 on Christmas day, 1974:

1 - Lonely This Christmas  (Mud)

2 - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet  (Bachman-Turner Overdrive)

3 - Juke Box Jive  (The Rubettes)

4 - You're The First, The Last, My Everything  (Barry White)

5 - Wombling Merry Christmas  (The Wombles)

6 - Streets Of London  (Ralph McTell)

7 - My Boy  (Elvis Presley)

8 - Get Dancing  (Disco Tex And The Sex-O-Lettes)

9 - Oh Yes! You're Beautiful  (Gary Glitter)

10 - Tell Him  (Hello)

           

11 - Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds  (Elton John)

12 - You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything  (The Faces And Rod Stewart)

13 - The Inbetweenies / Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me  (The Goodies)

14 - Ire Feelings (Skanga)  (Rupie Edwards)

15 - Down Down  (Status Quo)

16 - Tell Me Why  (Alvin Stardust)

17 - Sound Your Funky Horn  (KC And The Sunshine Band)

18 - Christmas Song  (Gilbert O'Sullivan)

19 - I Can Help  (Billy Swan)

20 - Sha-La-La (Make Me Happy)  (Al Green)

           

21 - Gonna Make You A Star  (David Essex)

22 - Under My Thumb  (Wayne Gibson)

23 - Hey Mister Christmas  (Showaddywaddy)

24 - The Bump  (Kenny)

25 - Never Can Say Goodbye  (Gloria Gaynor)

26 - Magic  (Pilot)

27 - Stardust  (David Essex)

28 - How Long  (Ace)

29 - Only You  (Ringo Starr)

30 - Zing Went The Strings Of My Heart  (The Trammps)

           

31 - Cheri Babe  (Hot Chocolate)

32 - Je T'aime... Moi Non Plus  (Jane Birkin And Serge Gainsbourg)

33 - Ms. Grace  (The Tymes)

34 - Too Good To Be Forgotten  (The Chi-Lites)

35 - Killer Queen  (Queen)

36 - Pepper Box  (The Peppers)

37 - Help Me Make It Through The Night  (John Holt)

38 - No Honestly  (Lynsey De Paul)

39 - (Hey There) Lonely Girl  (Eddie Holman)

40 - The Wild One  (Suzi Quatro)

What’s striking about the listing is the sheer number of Christmas songs represented. And these weren’t all novelty records either – quite a few were specially written hits for some of the major acts of the day. Number 1 were Mud with “Lonely This Christmas”, while both Gilbert O’Sullivan and Showaddywaddy were on chart with their respective seasonal offerings. “Christmas Song” and “Hey Mister Christmas”. Meantime, the then-popular Wombles were sitting pretty at number 5 (“Wombling Merry Christmas”), with TV stars The Goodies placed at number 13 (“Father Christmas Do No Touch Me”)

Of course the aim of the covers album was to scoop up all these hits - or, as many as could be predicted given that they had to be recorded some time in advance. When it came to Christmas singles though, the main LP series were often reluctant to get to grips with them for some reason, and so there are comparatively few available over the years. (Not a single one tackled the current number 1 hit, “Lonely This Christmas”!)

So what about the rest of the top 40? How did the covers albums fare? Let's start with the stalwart of stalwarts, "Top of the Pops". Like several of the album series, there were actually two offerings for your stocking that year – the standard album, as well as an end-of-year round-up LP:

Top of the Pops were currently running at volume 42, and their 12 song selections manage to capture the current chart numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11 and 16 – not a bad snapshot of the Christmas listing. The unseasonal “Streets of London” was missing, as well as that chart-topper from Mud, but we do have at least one Christmas number in the form of “Wombling Merry Christmas” – actually, an underrated example from the genre.

The “Best of 1974” collection contains 14 (count ’em!) number 1s from the year.

Naturally, one might look to compare mfp’s offering at this stage, to see how they stacked up against the Hallmark boys. But, with “Hot Hits” having folded a year earlier, mfp had little available in 1974. Their most recent album, “Chart Choice 74” was something of a retrospective, casting its eye over the year’s blockbusters, and just managing to tap into the Christmas charts with the inclusion of “(Hey There) Lonely Girl”, which was clinging on to number 39 on Christmas morning.

Now, something strange was afoot in late-1974. Three of the leading names in cover version LPs were quietly closing in on one another. Get this - the Christmas releases from Pye (“Chart Buster Hits” volume 13), Windmill (“Parade of Pops” volume 19) and Stereo Gold Award (“12 Tops” volume 25) each had exactly the same contents! What on earth??... Here they are:

So what makes the cut? The Christmas numbers 2, 3, 4 and 9 appear – all of which were also to be heard on the current “Top of the Pops” collection, but there are some curious choices as well; five of these tracks never even cracked the top 10, while one, a cover of Peters & Lee’s “Closer” failed to chart at all in the UK! No Christmas hits to lighten the mood either...

For number 1 hits, we have to look at the annual collections, scooping up the year’s highlights. Pye went out on a limb by issuing a 30 (yes, you heard me) track assemblage called “1974 Top 30” – so vast it wouldn’t fit onto a disc and so only came out on cassette and 8-track cartridge:

Meantime, Windmill missed the Christmas boat completely, their yearly retrospective not landing until January:

 

We should also mention one other review of 1974, Rediffusion’s lesser-known “The Best of ’74”, pretty similar to the “Top of the Pops” equivalent LP, but with a couple less tracks:

The last name on the scene in December 1974 was Contour, currently running volume 16 of their “16 Chart Hits” series. Alongside it came their best-of album, “20 Great Hits of ’74”...

The album “16 Chart Hits” pulled out nine tracks from the seasonal listing: 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 26, 36, 38 and 40, and was the only one to capture a version of Elvis’s “My Boy”.

So, all-in-all, a fair bit of overlap can be seen on these “rival” offerings, but nevertheless, buyers had a choice of five current chart collections, besides as many again surveying the hits of the previous 12 months. Not bad for a format supposedly past its prime. But where, oh where, are all the Christmas hits?...

Sounds like a new Rediffusion LP

Long-in-the-tooth readers will recall my near miss in locating a copy of Sounds Like Hits volume 9, last year. Well, I'm happy to say that I've finally bagged a copy and at a modest price too. These albums are among the hardest to find in the regular covers LP sector. A couple of them, I don't even know what the sleeves look like, they are that scarce.

So here's my latest one...

A glance at the track listing soon confirms this is essentially the same album as issued by Fontana. The tracks are even in the same order:

Interestingly, the Fontana edition is dated 1970, whereas the Rediffusion LP has 1969 on the labels. This suggests the Fontana editions were coming out later than Rediffusion - although it's still not entirely clear why two different labels were issuing the same discs. Note also that Fontana had only reached number 8 in their series by now, whereas Rediffusion were up to number 9. Curious.

Oh, and notice too a rare example of a non-hit album track being included: The Beatles' "Maxwell's Silver Hammer". You don't see that too often...

Sounds Like Hits - the agony and the ecstasy

The title of this blog post is a little melodramatic, but you'll see where I'm coming from...

I sometimes visit the old market at Spitalfields in East London. Usually there's nothing much to find from a budget LP perspective, but yesterday I came up trumps with the two albums below. They are numbers 10 and 11 of the extremely hard-to-find "Sounds Like Hits" on Rediffusion. I was amazed to find not one but two, in great condition - and in buying them, managed to double the number I have in my collection - an indication of how rare they are.

So, that's the "ecstasy" part. Now for the "agony" bit. The seller saw me clutching these, while rifling through the boxes in search of yet more, and asked me if I'd seen the other two as well. No, I hadn't - so he helped out with the search, adding that they all came in together and should be next to each other in his boxes. Alas, between us we failed to locate the others, although he hadn't recalled selling them (perhaps they'd been pinched). According to memory, he said they were numbers 8 and 9 of the same series - which is desparately frustrating as I would have loved to pick them up as well - especially number 8; I've never even seen what the cover looks like!

So, two managed to get away, but nevertheless, I have numbers 10 and 11 secure on my shelf. It's interesing that number 10 turns out to have a red label with white star. All the others I've seen in the "Sounds Like Hits" series are yellow, but the fact that the star is white and not black proves the use of red was intentional, and not just a case of the wrong paper being used. These are the labels from the two LPs:

Note that No. 11 is produced by Allan Crawford. He was of course the man behind "Top of the Pops", and was still producing those at the time. Unsurprisingly, there are several tracks (no fewer than eight) which appear both here and on "Top of the Pops" volume 10. Although these are different versions, they are very similar and most seem to feature the same vocalists as on TOTP.

If the buyer of "Sounds Like Hits" number 8 is reading this - any chance of a photo of the front cover? Pretty please!!!

Copycat ... er ... Covers - part 2

A little while ago I posted some examples of record sleeves which use the same artwork as the UK covers albums. Part 1 featured examples from the "World Top 12" series - see it here.

This is part 2, which shows sleeves from a range of UK LP series, and overseas counterparts. There are several more examples out there, and we would be grateful for further contributions. Part 3 will follow in due course...

First up, is the Contour label's "16 Chart Hits" volume 12. Below are albums from Finland (left) and Portugal (right). The Portuguese LP reverses the photo, and is part of a series called "Top Pops", from which this is a best-of compilation. Looks and sounds quite familiar to me... 

 

 

These next two examples are from the UK series, "12 Chart Busters" (or "12 Chart Buster Hits" as it was known for a while). Next to volume 10 is a Brazilian LP with the same photo, in the same rectangular frame. Underneath us UK volume 12, plus a Spanish album on the Olympo label (who issued some Top of the Pops LPs there) which has a photo from the same shoot.

 

The British Rediffusion albums are among the more difficult covers LPs for the collector. Nevertheless, the cover art crops up in unexpected places, as shown in these examples. "Hit Parade Special" volume 8 has an equivalent sleeve from Australia, used on an LP of Simon & Garfunkel covers. The photo is slightly different and has also been reversed, which can be seen from the slope of the sea behind the model.

And "Sounds Like Hits USA", an obscure British release from 1970 is mirrored in this Brazilian album, also containing chart cover versions. 

Lastly, here are two examples from the much later Chevron series, "Parade of Pops". In both cases the covers are from LPs, whereas one of these was only released on cassette in the UK. And in both cases, the photos are different, but clearly taken at the same photo session. Top is an album from New Zealand, and bottom, one from Turkey.

 

I'll post some more of these at some point. I think a "Top of the Pops" special might be next...

Old Rediffusion LP available for download

A slightly odd one this... An album from Rediffusion's "Sounds Like Hits" series has for some reason been made available as a digital download on Amazon. It's billed as being by the Top Hits Group. Fans of download covers albums will have heard of them - they are the (made up) act behind probably a couple of hundred "albums" compiled from every cover version LP series under the sun. The download albums are mostly called "Chart Toppers" and "Best of the Hit Charts", although there are many more as well. If you've not seen them, takle a look on Amazon.

And so to this one. Of course when making these avilable for the iPod generation, cover art is supplied to the purchaser, and this is where things take an ever stranger turn. This album does not have its original UK artwork, but something very close - which appears to be an overseas version of the same original LP. The photo is clearly from the same shoot, but not known in the UK discography. The download "album" is called "Hit-Parade Especial".

Download artwork. (What are the logos in the bottom corner?)

Original UK LP cover

 
Can anyone identify the country of origin for this artwork? Or tell us the record label?

By the way, those wanting to hear it for free (without actually owning the MP3 files) can do so here