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Covered: Tony Macaulay, Volume 1: 1966-1970

by Mistah Wilson -
I need to post more of these albums from my "Covered" series. I keep finding more and more songwriters that I'd never even heard of before starting on this project. Here's one such example: Tony Macaulay. In the 1960s and 70s, there was a whole stable of professional songwriters in Britain writing lots of hits, and Macaulay was one of the more successful ones, so much so that I found enough for two volumes. 

Macaulay was unabashedly aiming for hit singles with practically every song, so get ready for a poppy sound. But he had hit after hit because he had a knack for writing catchy melodies.

He started working by getting an office job at a record company. That very quickly turned into production and songwriting as his musical talents became evident. For the first few years, he mostly wrote songs with John Macleod, who was two decades older and much more musically experienced. Macleod showed him the ropes of professional-level production and songwriting, allowing him to quickly advance. Within a year of starting this job, at about the age of 20, Macaulay and Macleod not only had a Number One hit in Britain with the song "Baby Now that I've Found You" by the Foundations, it was replaced in the top spot with their song "Let the Heartaches Begin" by Long John Baldry! Having two Number Ones in a row was rare even for the likes of the Beatles, but it showed rare talent. Macaulay would have four more Number Ones in Britain, and about three dozen more Top 40 hits there, plus lots of success in the U.S.

I considered making crediting this to both Macaulay and Macleod, except Macleod left the songwriting team fairly early on. His last co-written hit was in 1970, while Macaulay kept going strong for the rest of the 1970s. Plus, Macleod never had any hits songs co-written with anyone else, while Macaulay had plenty more hits, even during the few years he was working with Macleod. For instance, on this album, "Build Me Up Buttercup" was co-written by him and Mike d'Abo, "Lights of Cincinnati," "Smile a Little Smile for Me," and "Sorry Suzanne" were co-written by him and Geoff Stephens, "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)" by him and Barry Mason, "Home Lovin' Man" and "(Blame It) On the Pony Express," by him and the team of Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway. Generally speaking, the other songs here were written by Macaulay and Macleod. 

(I've already posted Covered volumes for Cook and Greenaway. I plan on posting volumes for the likes of Geoff Stephens and Barry Mason as well.)

As I mentioned above, in the 1960s and 70s, there was a whole stable of professional songwriters in Britain writing hits. It seems Macaulay wrote songs with a great many of them. But he also could write songs on his own, since he usually worked on both the music and lyrics, as opposed to many songwriters who specialize in one or the other. For instance, "Baby Make It Soon" here is credited solely to him. In the 1970s, he'd write many more hits without any co-writers. 

Most of the songs here are the original hit versions. However, I found a few songs he wrote that weren't hits but sounded like hits to my ears, so I added those in: "I Won't Try to Change Your Mind," "Someday," "Heaven Knows I'm Missing Him Now," and "Take Away the Emptiness Too."

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 I Won't Try to Change Your Mind (Sandra Barry)
02 Baby Now that I've Found You (Foundations)
03 Someday (Paper Dolls)
04 Build Me Up Buttercup (Foundations)
05 Let the Heartaches Begin (Long John Baldry)
06 Something Here in My Heart [Keeps A-Tellin' Me No] (Paper Dolls)
07 Heaven Knows I'm Missing Him Now (Sandie Shaw)
08 Smile a Little Smile for Me (Flying Machine)
09 In the Bad, Bad Old Days [Before You Loved Me] (Foundations)
10 Baby Make It Soon (Marmalade)
11 Take Away the Emptiness Too (Tina Tott)
12 Sorry Suzanne (Hollies)
13 Lights of Cincinnati (Scott Walker)
14 That Same Old Feeling (Pickettywitch)
15 Home Lovin' Man (Andy Williams)
16 Love Grows [Where My Rosemary Goes] (Edison Lighthouse)
17 Blame It on the Pony Express (Johnny Johnson & the Bandwagon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/tGgE5o9s

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/z5hmN1fg5EzatAC/file

The cover photo is from 1972. The original was in black and white, but I converted it to color using the Kolorize program. I also used Krea AI to improve the detail.



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