Re-Play The Love Album – Various Artists

Background

The compilation album was, for a number of years, a market cornered by K-Tel. Their albums were familiar sights during advert breaks in the late 70s and early 80s. Although the adverts helped, the main reason why K-Tel were the gold standard for compilations was simple, they were extremely good at putting them together. The Love Album is a great example of the genre. It was a record that belonged to my parents but it ended up in my collection after the house was sold, along with a few other favourites. It’s 42 years since the compilation was released and not far off 40 years since I last listened to it, so it’s overdue another spin.

The Love Album – The tracks

Side 1 starts with Rod Stewart and his classic track, You’re in my Heart. Vocally, he is on good form, but what really makes the track stand out are the one liners, occasionally biting always funny, like ‘Her ad-lib lines were so well rehearsed’! It’s a superb put down and reflects a supremely well written song. Following that is Three Times a Lady which is simply one of the best love songs ever written. A lesser played Hot Chocolate tune, I’ll put you together again, is a real pleasure to hear again. It’s one of those tracks that really demonstrated the quality of Errol Brown’s voice to the full and it still sounds gorgeous.

We then have two very unfamiliar songs of the type that these K-Tel compilations specialised in. The first, Lost Again by Clifford T Ward is the type of song that is OK to listen to, but one you have completely forgotten by the time the final note is played. The second is the great Mike Batt who penned the track Losing your way in the rain. This stands out because it features Batt’s marvellous ear for a tune and because it had Colin Blunstone on lead vocals. It has a charm to it that makes it a song worth listening to and returning to.

Three stone cold classics follow, starting with the largely forgotten classic Stay with me till Dawn by Judie Tzuke. She has such a superb voice that her relative obscurity will always be a mystery. The sultry but brittle vocals are fantastic, but when you combine them with a tune that burrows it way into your head and the beautiful lyrics like ‘I’ll show you a sunrise if you stay with me until dawn’ to finish the chorus, it was bound to be a huge hit. Number 16? What were you thinking UK record buying public? This is followed by two big hits from Korgis and Sad Café with Everybody’s got to learn sometime and Everyday hurts respectively. These songs really stand the test of time and are familiar from the classic music stations that proliferate these days, and yet the first of the trio is, in my opinion at least, head and shoulders above those two other extremely good tracks.

The final two tracks on Side 1 are an interesting pair. A pre-Road to Hell Chris Rea trying to channel Roy Orbison on Since I don’t see you anymore is certainly interesting. The closing number is the lounge lizard extraordinaire Bryan Ferry with the stunning Roxy Music track Over You. As with the Hot Chocolate track, you don’t hear it as often these days, but it is my favourite Roxy Music single, and Ferry himself never sounded better.

Side 2, like Side 1 starts with a legend, in this case Diana Ross, and her greatest ballad, Touch me in the morning. It is one of those songs that never gets old, although it was released fifty years ago, and you just know it will sound as fantastic in another fifty years. The Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams track You’re all I need to get by is very much after the Lord Mayor’s show, not that it’s an awful track by any means, because it isn’t a song that really suits Mathis in particular. It’s a situation compounded by the following track, When I need you, by the brilliant Leo Sayer. It’s probably the best encapsulation of a long-distance relationship that you could ever hear and when I was working abroad, the line ‘A telephone can’t take the place of your smile’ resonated with me like no other. With the whole of Cliff Richard’s releases to choose from, it seems very odd that K-Tel chose When two worlds drift away was their pick. The song isn’t bad, but it doesn’t really showcase Cliff to the best effect. It sounds like an attempt to write Miss You Nights that didn’t quite hit the spot.

The up and down nature of Side 2 continues with Don’t throw it all away by Gary Benson, a name that is as unfamiliar as Clifford T Ward on Side 1. The song, however, is very familiar and it brought back memories with the chorus. Now, we have the best track on the entire album, Caravan Song by Barbara Dickson written by Mike Batt. One of the finest songs ever recorded, and I stand by that description, record company machinations stopped it from being the massive hit it deserved. Even on an album like this it overshadows every other track with its brilliance. If you have never heard it, head to Spotify or YouTube to fill that hole in your musical knowledge before you continue with this article!

Now you’re back, we’ll carry on with the final four tracks! The first is what sounds like the curiously restrained original version of Please Don’t Go by KC and the Sunshine Band. I suppose I have just got used to the more upbeat KWS cover, but it’s an interesting track because it reminds you that sometimes your musical memories can deceive you.. Frankie Miller, another unfamiliar name, contributes the Rod Stewart style Why don’t you spend the night which doesn’t hold up too badly at all. It’s a good singalong and it sounds like a track that should have been a bigger hit. The gorgeous voice of Crystal Gayle is featured in the penultimate track on this album and what a track it is. When I Dream sounds like a showtune in places and it showcases her vocals superbly. The final track is I have a dream by ABBA. No more needs to be said!

Reflection

This is a wonderful album whose occasional misses are not ones you’d necessarily skip, but whose standout tracks are all time classics. The only slightly jarring thing about the album is the fade out of tracks which habitually cuts them short. If you know the originals as well as I do, it can be slightly irritating, but if you don’t you may not notice it as much. It has been an album I have really enjoyed getting to know again and, in Stay with me till Dawn and Caravan song it has two tracks that you simply have to search out.