Jimi Hendrix - First Rays of the New Rising Sun (2 LP) (1970)

 

Side A:
1. Dolly Dagger
2. Night Bird Flying
3. Room Full of Mirrors
4. Earth Blues
5. Freedom

Side B:
6. Ezy Ryder
7. In From the Storm
8. Drifting
9. Straight Ahead
10. Bleeding Heart 

Side C:
11. Valleys of Neptune
12. Drifter’s Escape
13. Come Down Hard on Me
14. Stepping Stone
15. Angel

Side D:
16. Hear My Train a Comin'
17. Lover Man
18. Send My Love to Linda
19. Hey Baby (New Rising Sun)

There have been several attempts made at reconstructing Jimi Hendrix's unfinished fourth album that he was working on before he died. But the most common attempts at these reconstructions involve a mysterious tracklist that was supposedly written by someone else. It consists of three sides of a 2 LP album with two track names repeated. For my reconstruction, I won't use any instrumentals like Cherokee Mist or Beginnings, I won't use any unfinished tracks like Belly Button Window or Midnight Lightning, and I won't use any tracks not officially considered for the fourth album like My Friend or Pali Gap. I also didn't use Astro Man but I think it turned out good.

The Zombies - Next Steps (1970)

 

Side A:
1. Telescope (Mr. Galileo)
2. Unhappy Girl
3. Hung Upside Down
4. Without Her
5. Twelve Twenty Nine
6. It Never Fails to Please Me

Side B:
7. Don't Try to Explain
8. World of Glass
9. To Julia (For When She Smiles)
10. Never My Love
11. It's Not Easy
12. Like Honey

My last post about The Zombies was focusing on their legendary unreleased album R.I.P. which eventually got released in 2000. And even though it eventually got released, some unreleased album blogs like this one would try to make their own version of it. Some of which even had songs from the 2007 album Into the Afterlife which tried to bridge the Zombies material with material its members released solo. One blog I saw even released this idea as its own album separately, but no blog I've seen has tried tackling all three unreleased Zombies albums. This blog however used songs from Colin Blunstone's first solo album from 1971, but I'm capping the timeframe on this album with the first Argent album.

Timebox - S/T (1970)

 

Side A:
1. Leave Me to Cry
2. Don't Make Promises
3. You've Got the Chance
4. Real Good Thing
5. Beggin'
6. A Woman That's Waiting

Side B:
7. Come On Up
8. Love the Girl
9. Girl, Don't Make Me Wait
10. Walking Through the Streets of My Mind
11. Waiting For the End
12. Misty

As I mentioned before, these are simply the tracks from the Deram Anthology that don't also show up on their unreleased album Moose on the Loose. I wasn't able to find every song on YouTube but I think they're on Spotify. 

Herman's Hermits - Rock 'n' Roll Party (3 LP) (1970)

 

Side A:
1. Little Boy Sad
2. Story of My Life
3. Oo-ee Baby
4. Listen People
5. What is Wrong, What is Right 

6. I Can Take or Leave Your Loving

Side B: 
7. Marcel's
8. Biding My Time
9. Wait for Me, Here I Come
10. A Year Ago Today
11. The Colder It Gets
12. Big Ship

Side C:
13. Sleepy Joe
14. Just One Girl
15. London Look
16. Sunshine Girl
17. Nobody Needs to Know

Side D:
18. Something's Happening
19. My Sentimental Friend
20. My Lady
21. Here Comes the Star
22. It's Alright Now

Side E:
23. Daisy Chain (Edit)
24. Years May Come, Years May Go
25. Smile, Please
26. Bet Yer Life I Do
27. Searching for the Southern Sun

Side F:
28. Lady Barbara
29. Don't Just Stand There
30. Big Man
31. Wings of Love
32. Mum and Dad

As you can tell, I love examining these British Invasion bands like The Kinks and The Hollies, but with different albums being released in England and America, it can make their discographies confusing. In the case for Herman's Hermits, they were a band I never got into much cause some of their songs became novelties. But here's some info I found online in regards to an unreleased album by them. "The Both Sides Now MGM discography lists two Herman's Hermits albums that were supposed to have the catalog numbers SE-4590 and SE-4601, but were never released." Then someone else had this to say. "Herman's Hermits were supposed to have recorded an album similar to the Beach Boys' Party album and an album of cover songs. These albums were never released and the covers album was reported to have around 50 tracks (!!!)." But wasn't the Party album already a covers album? There was an expanded version of that one that revealed a lot of outtakes but that's its own blog post. Regardless, if this guy separated the two parts of the album's story then there must be another one out there.

Here's another bit of info that I found online. "MGM Records had scheduled a Herman's Hermits album titled Sleepy Joe but never issued it." I don't know where this guy got this info from, but he also has this to say. "Other than the title track, I wasn't sure what should be included on this album. I've seen no track list for it. But the band's Blaze album was re-released in 2001 with a dozen bonus tracks, including Sleepy Joe, and I thought aha! The only bonus cut I didn't include was the song The Most Beautiful Thing in My Life because it already appears on Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter." I don't have much evidence of this, but my theory is that if they were planning on releasing two more albums before breaking up, then one would be the "party" album of covers and the other would be the "new" album of original material. 

The last album they released in 1968 was a soundtrack from a movie named after a song they released three years before that. The movie wasn't great either so their album sales were on a decline. But I'm sure they would've liked to have released a final album. Like what if they combined both ideas and simply released a double album of all their unreleased outtakes? So I went through their bonus tracks on album rereleases as well as songs from their British versions of albums that didn't make it on the American versions of them and came up with 3 albums worth. So the Sleepy Joe album could be one of them but I didn't just wanna copy and paste this guy's track listing for it. As for the cover I used an AI image colorizer.

But what the guy failed to mention was that the bonus tracks for Blaze actually featured two songs from the soundtrack, plus both rereleases shared a bonus track, so basically I’m short by a song. I think I used all the tracks I could’ve so I went with an edited version of the instrumental track Daisy Chain from the soundtrack which combines both parts. I also included a couple previously unreleased songs from a box set but I stuck them on the first album despite not knowing when they were recorded. The final result is 3 half hour albums.

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown - Strangelands (1970)

 

Side A: 
1. The Sound of the City
2. Purple Airport of Love
3. All Over the Country
4. The Lord Doesn't Want You
5. Beyond the Sea
6. Endless Sleep

Side B:
7. Planet of the Universe
8. Excitation Wavelength
9. Litmus Transformation
10. Opus Pocus
11. Crystalized Petard

This is the second album by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown but it was recorded in 1969 and went unreleased until 1988. When it was reissued it included the album Replicas by Rustic Hinge which were a spin-off of the second version of the band which recorded an album in 1970 but also went unreleased until 1988. Between these two albums I tried to make a decent second album, however the Rustic Hinge one was all instrumental. This could be due to their connection to another band called High Tide. Regardless I took out four tracks from the original and included four from the Rustic Hinge album.

The Monkees - Changes (1970)

Side A:
1. Oh My My
2. Joanne
3. You're So Good to Me
4. It's Got to Be Love
5. Mama Nantucket
6. Do It in the Name of Love

Side B:
7. The Keys to the Car
8. Do You Feel It Too?
9. I Love You Better
10. The One Rose 
11. Midnight Train
12. Lady Jane

By this point, The Monkees’ label told them that they were contractually obligated to release one more album before they could break up. Michael Nesmith was still a member of the Monkees but wasn't required to attend the recording sessions, so as a result he quit the group. This makes Changes the only Monkees album recorded as a duo after recording two albums as a trio. 

Afterwards, Mike started a country rock band called the First National Band and recorded three albums with them, two of them that year. They included all original songs including some previously recorded with the Monkees, but their first album Magnetic South included some new tracks. I was thinking of replacing the two tracks I already used with both sides of a single they released around this time, but someone said you could improve Changes by including tracks from Magnetic South. Do we really need more of Mike’s country songs on these Monkees albums? 

Bonzo Dog Band - Lucky Planet (1970)

 

Side A:
1. Not the First Time
2. Labio-Dental Fricative
3. Witchi Tai To
4. Sail Away
5. Blind Date
6. 9-5 Pollution Blues
7. Suspicion

Side B:
8. Lead Us
9. Paper Round
10. Jam
11. Things I Could've Said
12. Cyborg Signal
13. Come Out Into the Open II

When I was younger, I asked myself the question "What if the Bonzo Dog Band never broke up?" This was inspired by discussions I saw online speculating about "What if The Beatles never broke up?" or "What if Syd Barrett never left Pink Floyd?" I never saw the Bonzos talked about as much but looking at it again, their careers were so sporadic that being able to make albums only seems possible for certain years. Also a lot of the songs would later be used for an imagined Rutles discography I found online since Neil Innes was in both, but I feel like it takes away from the other Bonzos' solo music like Vivian Stanshall and Roger Ruskin Spear. 

The year 1970 seems the most possible to make an album out of though. The Bonzos broke up in January 1970 and played their last show in March. Afterwards Neil formed the band The World with Dennis Cowan, Ian Wallace, and Roger McKew, and Vivian formed the band Big Grunt with Dennis Cowan and Roger Ruskin Spear, most of whom were former Bonzo members. The World released one album called Lucky Planet and Big Grunt recorded one John Peel session which was later released as an EP in 2016. 

By the end of the year both bands had broken up and in 1971 they were informed by their label that the Bonzos owed them one more album which was released in 1972 as Let's Make Up and Be Friendly. The album uses 6 tracks from the Lucky Planet album excluding a 10 minute jam track and various tracks released by Vivian Stanshall as singles at the time. Edit: I'm including one single by "Legs" Larry Smith released under the name Topo D. Bil.

Bob Dylan - Self Portrait (1970) (upgrade)

 

Side A:
1. Alberta #1
2. Days of '49
3. Early Mornin' Rain
4. In Search of Little Sadie
5. Little Sadie
6. Belle Isle

Side B:
7. Copper Kettle
8. Gotta Travel On

9. Annie's Gonna Sing Her Song
10. Railroad Bill

11. These Hands

12. Tattle O'Day

This is my first ever album upgrade post. In doing research on the last Bob Dylan double album post I did which was Blonde on Blonde, I cut out too much material and had to look through outtakes to look for more. I heard this album had some outtakes but I found 8 from The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait and 2 from the Dylan album from 1973 for a total of 10!

My main problem with my last reconstruction was that there weren't enough tracks using Dylan's regular voice to make a full album, but with these new outtakes we can! Three of them ended up using Dylan's country croon, the two tracks from Dylan and Pretty Saro from Another Self Portrait. But when deciding on which material to use, I took out the last 5 tracks and replaced them with 4 new ones. The end result finally sounds like a proper cover album.

Bob Dylan - Self Portrait (1970)

 

Side A:
1. Alberta #1
2. Days of '49
3. Early Mornin' Rain
4. In Search of Little Sadie
5. Little Sadie
6. Belle Isle

Side B:
7. Copper Kettle
8. Gotta Travel On
9. Blue Moon
10. The Boxer
11. Take Me As I Am (Or Let Me Go)
12. Take a Message to Mary
13. Alberta #2

Here's my single album reconstruction of Bob Dylan's double cover album Self Portrait. At the time it was called Dylan's worst album. Part of it was cause Dylan used an alternate voice on some of the songs that he had been using since his last album as part of his "country phase". I tried getting rid of the songs that use it on the first side but by the second side it was unavoidable. I also tried to keep just the covers and get rid of originals and live tracks.

I'll give Dylan respect for wanting to cover songs from the Great American Songbook, but one interesting thing is that he covered a Simon and Garfunkel song that came out earlier that year. One song I got rid of was the instrumental Wigwam which was the album's only single. For this version I nominate Copper Kettle. It's not my favorite but it might've done well.