I Know A Place: Petula Clark, Scott Walker, Connie Francis Celebrate “The Songs of Tony Hatch”

Ace Records’ latest addition to its Songwriters Series, Colour My World: The Songs of Tony Hatch, should come with a warning label – CAUTION: THESE SONGS WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY.   A composer, lyricist, producer, arranger and A&R man (whew!), Hatch was a hitmaker par excellence, and one of no small skill for imparting joy through his music. Petula Clark’s bright 1964 single “Downtown” alone would likely have assured Hatch a place in the Book of Pop, Swingin’ Sixties chapter. But listening to a whopping 25 of his best pop confections back-to-back, it’s apparent how this versatile craftsman deserves a place at the top of the pantheon. It’s also clear just how central the beat is to his work. A Tony Hatch song pulsates with energy, vibrancy, urgency and above all else, abundant heart. That throbbing thump is often surrounded by punchy brass or majestic strings, and always in service of a catchy melody that’s determined to lodge itself in your brain and never leave. Drawing on the period between 1960 and 1974, when Hatch was at his most active, Colour My World is a stunning and effervescent compendium from a songwriter who hasn’t always gotten his full due.

Two women figure prominently in the Tony Hatch story and on Colour My World: Petula Clark and Jackie Trent. Hatch, a key producer and A&R man at the U.K.’s Pye label, recorded enough songs with Clark between 1963 and 1970 to fill a 3-CD box set. About half of those songs featured lyrics by Jackie Trent. A prolific composer-lyricist, Hatch forged a partnership in early 1965 with Pye artist Trent, who would become his wife. In short order, “Hatch/Trent” would become as familiar a credit as “Tony Hatch” and the couple would record a number of successful albums together. Colour My World gives Hatch’s work with both ladies ample time.

Petula Clark was already a star when she began working with Tony Hatch, but 1964’s “Downtown” – written, produced and arranged by Tony – returned her to the U.K. Top 20 (only her first single since 1961 to do so) and earned her not just her first American hit, but a bona fide Number One. It’s one of four Clark/Hatch collaborations here. In two minutes and seventeen seconds, the song has it all: one of the best piano introductions ever, a compelling, inviting vocal, a killer hook, and a universal lyric with which anybody could, and did, identify. “Downtown” hits its ebullient stride with a powerful instrumental break just under the two-minute mark, but its liberating call had already proved irresistible. Though Hatch had scored hits prior to “Downtown,” the time was right for his breakthrough. The Tony Hatch sound was youthful, vibrant and hip enough for the kids, but smart and “safe” enough for the adults.

We have plenty more on the music man after the jump including the complete track listing with discography and order links!

It’s Love That Really Counts: Él Continues Vintage Burt Bacharach Series

In 1962 alone, Burt Bacharach premiered more than 30 new compositions, recorded by a variety of artists from Marlene Dietrich to The Drifters.  It’s even fair to say that ’62 was the year the composer truly came into his own.  While previous years offered their share of hits for the songwriter – “I Wake Up Crying,” “Tower of Strength,” “Baby, It’s You,” “Magic Moments,” “The Story of My Life” – the Bacharach sound hadn’t completely crystallized.  With Jerry Butler’s July 1962 single of Bacharach and Hal David’s “Make It Easy on Yourself,” Bacharach became his own producer.  Vee-Jay’s Calvin Carter turned over the sessions to the songwriter when he realized “he felt the song better than anyone else did.”  The credit on the 45 still just read “Arranged by Burt Bacharach,” but a new chapter was being written.  That landmark song with melody, orchestration and production by Bacharach, gives the title to the third volume in a series of Bacharach collections from Cherry Red’s Él label.  Make It Easy on Yourself 1962 follows First Book of Songs 1954-1958 and Long Ago Last Summer 1959-1961 and compiles 27 of Bacharach’s songs (some in multiple versions) from one pivotal year with outgoing partner Bob Hilliard and incoming partner Hal David.

One of the essential “love triangle” songs in all of pop music, the stirring “Make It Easy on Yourself” was the fullest expression yet of the mature Bacharach style.  Ethereal backing vocals melded with majestic strings and wistful, sighing horns before Butler bleakly intoned, “Breaking up is so very hard to do…” in a way that Neil Sedaka couldn’t have imagined.  Bacharach and David found beauty and poetry in the blues: “And if the way I hold you can’t compare to his caress/No words of consolation will make me miss you less/My darling, if this is goodbye/Oh, I just know I’m gonna cry/So run to him before you start crying, too…”   Bacharach’s orchestration melded the above instruments with roiling drums, chiming percussion, and well-placed guitar licks, adding up to just over 2-1/2 minute of tension in which the music and lyrics were in perfect harmony.

The new compilation also makes room for the sublime original recording of “Any Day Now,” the most successful song penned by Bacharach with Bob Hilliard.  Soul great Chuck Jackson anticipates his lover’s departure (“My wild beautiful bird, you will have flown/Any day now, I’ll be all alone…”) with just enough anguish and pathos, finding the space in the offbeat arrangement which featured Bacharach playing an ashtray (!) as percussion.  (Jackson previously recorded Bacharach’s “I Wake Up Crying” in 1961; you can hear it on Long Ago Last Summer.)  A contemporary, more “pop” cover by Philadelphia’s Dee Dee Sharp is included for contrast’s sake.

Indeed, Bacharach and David were turning out stone-cold classics at quite a clip.  (After the success of “Blue on Blue” in 1963, Bacharach would make his partnership with David an exclusive one.)  Tremolo guitar and tinkling piano notes signify Tommy Hunt’s “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself,” another unbearably lonely, and unbelievably beautiful, song.  Hal David, as always, put into the words feelings that so many – perhaps everybody – had experienced at one time or another: “Goin’ to a movie only makes me sad/Parties make me feel as bad/When I’m not with you, I just don’t know what to do…”  Bacharach matched David’s words with another eloquent, sophisticated and dramatic melody that ran the gamut of emotions itself, veering from serene to pensive to pained.  It’s no wonder everybody from Elvis Costello to the White Stripes cottoned to the song.

Tommy Hunt is also the (unexpected) voice you’ll hear on “Don’t Make Me Over.”  This was the song that changed the lives of Dionne Warwick, Burt Bacharach and Hal David forever, beginning pop’s most successful “triangle marriage.”  But not long after Dionne charted with the defiant powerhouse of a ballad, Scepter reused its backing track for Hunt’s recording which sat on the shelf until 1986.  Much as “Any Day Now” was transformed from male to female, “Don’t Make Me Over” works just fine with a male singer, proving early on the adaptability of Bacharach’s hits.  Another great soul man, Jimmy Radcliffe, has his breakup moment with Bacharach and David’s deliciously offbeat, Latin-flavored “There Goes the Forgotten Man.”  One of the best of the quotient of (relatively) rare tracks here is “Don’t Envy Me,” which only received one other recording, by George Hamilton in 1963.  Both Powers’ vocal and the production by Hugo and Luigi are a touch histrionic, but the song has a killer melody rendered with almost reggae-style percussion, not to mention an amusing lyrical conceit from Hal David: the singer has lots of girls, but none of them love him…so he’s “filled with such misery,” imploring, “don’t envy me!”  Bobby Vee’s teen waltz “Anonymous Phone Call” is another enjoyable find, flecked with a light country sound.

There’s more after the jump, including the complete track listing with discographical annotation!

Come Aboard, He’s Expecting You: Vintage Jack Jones Albums Arrive From Zone Records

For eight seasons beginning in 1977, the voice of Jack Jones came into households singing the praises of The Love Boat via Paul Williams and Charles Fox’s famous theme song.  Yet long before The Love Boat, the smooth-voiced singer had established himself as a premier vocalist comfortable with both jazz and changing pop styles.  To date, Jones has recorded over fifty albums, yet many of his finest album achievements still remain unreleased on CD.  Zone Records is rectifying that with the reissue of four of Jones’ mid-sixties Kapp albums on two CDs, due in the U.K. on April 15.  Lady (1967) is joined by Jack Jones Sings (1966) on one CD, while the second pairs Our Song (1968) with For the “In” Crowd (1966).

Born to actors Allan Jones (the tenor best known for operetta classic “The Donkey Serenade”) and Irene Hervey, Jack Jones made his first big splash in 1959 when he was signed to Capitol Records and recorded debut album This Love of Mine.  (It was recently reissued, with added singles, by U.K. label Jasmine as This Could Be the Start of Something.)  The affiliation with Capitol was short-lived, however, and Jones soon decamped for the Kapp label.  He would remain there from 1961 to 1967, recording roughly twenty albums.  It was at Kapp that Jones scored his first hit with “Lollipops and Roses” in 1962 (No. 66 Pop/No. 12 AC); the next year, he did even better with Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s swinging “Wives and Lovers” (No. 14 Pop/No. 9 AC).  Jones was a regular on both charts for almost the entirety of his Kapp tenure, scoring No. 1 AC hits with “The Race is On,” “The Impossible Dream (The Quest),” and “Lady,” the title track of one of the albums being reissued by Zone.  (Four earlier Kapp albums have recently been reissued by Sepia Records: 1961 debut This Was My Love and its follow-up Shall We Dance, as well as I’ve Got a Lot of Livin’ to Do and Gift of Love, both from 1962.  Like the Jasmine release, Sepia’s reissues were possible due to European public domain laws.  Zone’s titles are fully authorized.)

We check out both new releases after the jump!

Release Round-Up: Week of April 16

Shuggie Otis, Inspiration Information/Wings of Love (Epic/Legacy)

Nearly 40 years after Inspiration Information, Shuggie Otis’ second and most recent LP, the R&B singer/songwriter/guitarist returns with a greatly expanded double-disc edition of that album featuring material recorded in the intervening years. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

David Bowie, Aladdin Sane: 40th Anniversary Remaster (EMI)

Ziggy goes back to America in this newly-remastered straight reissue of the 1973 classic. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Blind Melon, Blind Melon: 20th Anniversary Edition (Capitol/UMe)

The alt-rock album that gave us “No Rain” is remastered and expanded with several unreleased studio tracks. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

John Coltrane, Sun Ship: The Complete Session (Verve Select)

One of ‘Trane’s last quartet recordings, released posthumously, is expanded as a two-disc set that covers every last second of the session that birthed the album. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Frankie Valli, Hits (Rhino Flashback)

A budget reissue of Valli’s solo hits compilation from 1978. (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Dust, Hard Attack/Dust (Kama Sutra/Buddah/Legacy)

A newly-remastered single CD collecting both albums by the proto-heavy metal band (featuring a young Marc Bell, who ended the 1970s as Marky Ramone). (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

Jack Jones, Our Song/For the “In” Crowd and Lady/Jack Jones Sings (Zone)

Four Kapp Records albums between 1966 and 1968 on two CDs from the crooner who welcomed us aboard The Love Boat later in his career!