Albums That Time Forgot (2).

Paul Williams/"Someday Man" (1970)

 



Paul Williams.  My relationship with the man is complicated.
On one hand he has penned immaculate pop hits for the Monkees and Three Dog Night among others, while on the other his dreaded early '70s Carpenters-phase leaves me completely cold.  Not to mention Barbra Streisand.  Sorry.



However, towering above all that is his seminal debut solo album "Someday Man" from 1970.  This Soft Rock/Sunshine Pop classic has few equals in the genre.
In the mid-'60s Paul Williams was, by his own account, "An out of work actor who started writing songs for his own amusement."

 

By 1968, though, he had started writing songs with one Roger Nichols, who had the previous year recorded the "Roger Nichols & The Small Circle of Friends" album for A&M Records (Another Sunshine Pop classic, according to many).  But also by then Williams had formed the group The Holy Mackerel with his brother Mentor Williams - himself later a composer of Dobie Gray's fantastic 1973 Soul/Country hit "Drift Away" - and others, and they recorded their sole self-titled LP for Reprise in '68. 
Mixed male/female singing groups like Mamas & the Papas, The Sunshine Company and Spanky & Our Gang were all the rage during this era and The Holy Mackerel proudly placed themselves in that line.

 

But as far as The Holy Mackerel LP goes, it's an almost too eclectic effort mixing C&W with Psychedelic Soft Rock and the then-burgeoning Bubblegum sound.  So it's an understandably uneven album which sounds at times either frustrating and/or fascinating, but definitely not without its charms.

Mostly it's written by Williams alone, although one of it's stronger cuts "Bitter Honey" is a Nichols/Williams composition.

 



 

In the wake of the album's commercial failure there were a couple of non-LP 45s issued.  Among them was the Nichols/Williams penned "I Just Haven't Got What it Takes", which later resurfaced as "To Put Up With You" by American Breed and several others before Williams himself at long last recorded the definitive version for the "Someday Man" album.

 



 

After the inevitable break-up of The Holy Mackerel Nichols and Williams really hit their stride - although they merely enjoyed an "artistic success" to begin with.  Dobie Gray recorded a great version of "Do You Really Have a Heart" - later also to appear on the "Someday Man" album - while The Monkees had the first crack at "Someday Man" itself (both were issued in 1969).

 



 

But it wasn't until spring 1970 when the absolute Nichols/Williams artistic pinnacle appeared in the form of that first Paul Williams solo album, "Someday Man". 

Today, though, both Williams and Nichols claim it was much  more of a collaborative effort than that.  Perhaps, then, the credits say it all: Lyrics by Paul Williams; music by Roger Nichols; produced by Roger Nichols.

Basically, the record consisted of properly recorded versions of what had been their best publishing demos of the previous two years.

Although initially this record, as they say, disappeared without a trace, it's just incredible how many of its songs have been covered by other artists.  For instance, "So Many People" - a personal favourite of both of its writers - has no less than seven different versions listed on YouTube - but the original betters them all!



   



The title track has "only" five notable covers listed on YouTube, and again it's Williams very own version which tops the list...

 



 

Similarly, the aforementioned "Do You Really Have a Heart" inspired at least seven covers, none of which is quite worthy apart from Dobie Gray's original recording and Paul Williams' very own "interpretation".

All of which just goes to show how far and wide aforementioned publishing demos travelled.

Backed by bits of "The Wrecking Crew" (Hal Blaine, Larry Knechtel), "Someday Man" sounds superbly timeless and classic today, and it just beggars belief it was so overlooked at the time.

In the past decade people have awoken up to its charms though, most notably with Mojo magazine rightly claiming it to be a "lost classic" a few years back.

In the aftermath of that long overdue recognition a lovingly compiled "Deluxe Expanded Edition" CD re-issue was released in the U.K. by Now Sounds/Cherry Red a couple of years ago.  Needless to say it's an essential purchase.

By pure curiosity (I'd always loved the Monkees' version of the title cut, while also viewing Paul Williams merely as "the guy who wrote some songs for the Carpenters"), I was just lucky enough to stumble upon a nearly unplayed original vinyl copy of "Someday Man" some years ago and was I ever in for a revelation!

Since then it's been a constant companion, both enjoyed and admired regularly...   



 

Nov. 9th, 2012:  And they just made a movie about this guy.  Hooray for Hollywood!  Or something.



 

Always Magic in the Air...

A few years ago I read Ken Emerson's amazing account of the Brill Buliding era, "Always Magic in the Air".  In fact, everyone even vaguely interested in the golden era (the early '60s) of American pop music should.  Furthermore, for every ill-informed idiot who claims there wasn't a whole lot going on Stateside until the almighty Beatles first crossed the Atlantic in '64, this should be a required reading.
Focusing on the masters of song, such as Leiber & Stoller, Goffin & King, Pomus & Shuman, Greenwich & Barry, Mann & Weil, Bacharach & David, and Sedaka & Greenfield, Emerson's tale was obviously an inspiration for the good folks at U.K.'s Ace Records, who launched their still-ongoing CD "Songwriter series" around the time the book was first published, in the mid-'00s.
Apart from the aforementioned songwriter teams, said series have also featured the early works of Neil Diamond and Phil Spector (separately, of course :-), plus career overviews of Boyce & Hart, Randy Newman, Sloan & Barri, Lee Hazlewood, Bert Berns, Chip Taylor, and Jackie DeShannon - to name but a few.
Of course every serious music enthusiast owns, for instance, Bobby Vee's big hit version of Goffin & King's "Take Good Care of My Baby".  But not everyone's aware of the fact that Dion recorded the original version of that little gem.  Well, Ace's compilers take both matters into account and include Dion's scarcely heard interpretation rather than Bobby's more familiar - and, frankly, better - one on their Vol. 2 collection of Goffin & King's compositions. 
There are numerous other similar examples of how these excellent Ace series both educate and entertain the listener. 
Digging for dusty obscurities ripe for (re)discovery is also something the Ace people obviously see as an often rewarding challenge.

 

Apart from the obvious highlights of the series (Goffin & King Vol. 1, Mann & Weil, Greenwich & Barry), personally I was also pleasantly surprised by the Sloan & Barri CD, as well as the Penn & Oldham, Jackie DeShannon, and Chip Taylor collections.  Previously something I thought were merely a few hit wonders, thanks to the Ace folks, I am now a proper fan.

Always magic in the air, indeed...

 



 

Links:

 

Ace Records

Always Magic in the Air: The Bomp and Brilliance of the Brill Building Era