Elton John Cover songs Top Hits 1970-1971

http://darnall42s70sstuff.blogspot.com.br/2011/05/hits-70-mfp-1970.html


From early 1970 here is the last of the the mfp ''hits'' albums ,later on in 1970 mfp would start thier hot hits series.On this album,Reg dwight (AKA Elton john) has a go at singing the brotherhood of man hit united we stand and white plains hit my baby loves lovin'


TRACKS

1. Wanderin' Star

1. United We Stand

1. Bridge Over Troubled Water

1. Love Grows

1. Leavin' On A Jet Plane

1. My Baby Loves Lovin'

1. Two Little Boys

1. Temma Harbour

1. Years May Come Years May Go

1. Let It Be

1. You're Such A Good Looking Woman

1. Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head

Super Hits (1971 - 1972)

Super Hits I (PXLB 300)    1971

Lay Lady Lay / It's Getting Better / Soul Deep / A Boy Named Sue / Je T'Aime... Moi Non Plus / I'm Gonna Make You Mine / I'll Never Fall In Love Again / Sugar Sugar / What Does It Take (To Win Your Love) / Don't Forget To Remember / Nobody's Child / He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother Released 1971, but contains tracks from late 1969. All of these titles can be heard on the Avenue LP, AVE 031. They are sequenced the same, but with the sides switched.

Super Hits II (PXLB 301)    1971

I Will Survive / My Marie / It's All In The Game / Honey Come Back / Goodbye Sam Hello Samantha / In The Summertime / Up Around The Bend / American Woman / Bet Yer Life I Do / Question / Cottonfields / Groovin' With Mr Bloe Released 1971, but contains tracks from mid-1970. Features Elton John. All bar two of these titles can be heard on the Avenue LP, AVE 044.

Super Hits III (PXLB 302)    1971

(It's Like A) Sad Old Kinda Movie / Lola / Neanderthal Man / Rainbow / Natural Sinner / Signed Sealed Delivered I'm Yours / The Wonder Of You / Big Yellow Taxi / Love Of The Common People / Lady D'Arbanville / I'll Say Forever My Love / Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head Released 1971, but contains tracks from mid-1970. Features Elton John. All bar one of these titles can be heard on the Avenue LP, AVE 055.

Hits 8 (PXLB 109)    1971

Wand'rin' Star / Come And Get It / Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) / Young Gifted And Black / Jingle Jangle [and others] Comments: Full track listing not known. Released 1971, but contains tracks from early 1970. Features Elton John.

Hits 9 (PXLB 110)    1971

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head / Let It Be / Friends / If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind / Gimme Dat Ding / Daughter Of Darkness / All I Have To Do Is Dream / Good Morning Freedom / Knock Knock Who's There / I Can't Tell The Bottom From The Top / (Call Me) Number One / Melting Pot Comments: Released 1971, but contains tracks from late 1969/early 1970. Unclear if “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” is the same recording as on PXLB 302. Features Elton John.

Pick of the Pops (1970 - 1971)

Volume 1 (DEA 1010)    Apr 1970

Spirit In The Sky / All Kinds Of Everything / Back Home / Daughter Of Darkness / Travellin' Band / I Can't Tell The Bottom From The Top / Gimme Dat Ding / Good Morning Freedom / Knock Knock Who's There / Young Gifted And Black / That Same Old Feeling / Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head Comments: Features Elton John. Gallery label pressing cat number: GDEA 1010. Heron label pressing has Deacon catalogue number and has additional text on the back cover, pertaining to the company’s retail outlets.

Volume 4 (DEA 1015)    Jul 1970

The Wonder Of You / Rainbow / Signed Sealed Delivered I'm Yours / (It's Like A) Sad Old Kinda Movie / In The Summertime / Lola / Yellow River / Up Around The Bend / All Right Now / Natural Sinner / Neanderthal Man / It's All In The Game Comments: Features Elton John. Despite being titled "Vol 4", this is in fact only the second album in the series. This numbering anomaly would never be corrected. Gallery label pressing cat number: GDEA 1015.

1970: Top Hits of 1970 (DEA 1040)

Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) / Spirit In The Sky / Yellow River / In The Summertime / The Wonder Of You / Lola / Rainbow / All Kinds Of Everything / Back Home / All Right Now / Venus / Woodstock Comments: Features Elton John. Gallery label pressing cat number: GDEA 1040. All tracks from main series, except “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” and “Venus”, both sourced from the earlier “Top Hits of ’69” (above).

12 Tops (1972 - 1976)
These albums were issued on the Stereo Gold Award label, which began life in (circa) 1969, courtesy of David Leonard ("DL")  Miller, along with Monty Presky, formerly a director of Pye. Both are pioneers in the budget records field. The first relevant releases were the two “Chartoppers” LPs of 1970, which act as precursors to "12 Tops".
Eighteen months passed before “12 Tops” was properly unveiled, and it went on to become one of the most prolific covers series ever – with some 30 instalments, usually at monthly intervals. Many of the recordings on “12 Tops” crop up elsewhere – for example, the whole of volume 25 may be heard on “Pye Chartbusters volume 13”.
Early on, the contents of the albums were supplied by Coombe Music, who also supplied several other labels, accounting for the cross-overs. But in due course, Miller and Presky created their own Damont Records, who supplied Stereo Gold Award with recordings for some time, until late on, when tracks were sourced from elsewhere again – this time by Beatt International. For a brief period in 1974, Damont Records directly issued albums from the "12 Tops" series on cassette and 8-track cartridge (see separate page).
In addition to the main LPs, there was a short run of US editions with different songs. Stereo Gold Award was active until the late 1970s and had an exclusive arrangement with Woolworth’s for high-street sales.
Preliminary releases: Chartoppers 1 and 2
The first albums of this type to be released on Stereo Gold Award appeared over the summer of 1970, and were called "Chartoppers". Elton John appears on the first of these. The second and last one duplicated three tracks from the first, and not all the hits were current - indicating that the label was not too committed to the format at that point.  

All Right Now / Lola / The Wonder Of You / Lady D'Arbanville / In The Summertime / Natural Sinner / Neanderthal Man / Signed Sealed Delivered I'm Yours / Big Yellow Taxi / It's All In The Game / Up Around The Bend / American Woman

In The Summertime / The Wonder Of You / Yellow River / Let It Be / Lola / Back Home / Spirit In The Sky / Wand'rin' Star / Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) / You Can Get It If You Really Want / All Kinds Of Everything / Two Little Boys

World Top 12 (1970 - 1975)
“World Top 12” was almost entirely released on the Flag label, which was a subsidiary of Boulevard. Boulevard were part of Allied Records, and came under the wider umbrella of Saga, a cut-price classical and pop enterprise based in Kensal Road in London.
Boulevard started the series with the first two volumes on the Boulevard label itself, and they were both also made available in coloured vinyl. They followied up with a somewhat premature end-of-year collection which essentially re-issued volume 1. Flag’s decision to follow volume 3 with volume 34 brought the volume numbers in line with the catalogue sequence, and may have been inadvertent - although they stuck with it for the rest of the series. Thus, it may appear that 49 volumes were released – but of course it was only 19.
These recordings overlap extravagantly with other covers albums of the day, particularly the “Pick of the Pops” / “Parade of Pops” stable. Volume 2 for example, exactly matches “Pick of the Pops” volume 5 on Deacon, while Volume 11 corresponds with Windmill’s “Parade of Pops” volume 6. Meanwhile, the "Hits" / "Smash Hits" 8-tracks (see separate page) seem to have adopted these albums for their contents during 1973 - at least two of those collections exactly match LPs listed below.

16 Hit Songs (BLVD 4901)    Jun 1970

In The Summertime / Question / Groovin' With Mr Bloe / Goodbye Sam Hello Samantha / All Right Now / Honey Come Back / Cottonfields / Love Of The Common People / Lola / Lady D'Arbanville / Neanderthal Man / Yellow River / Daughter Of Darkness / American Woman / Up Around The Bend / Signed Sealed Delivered I'm Yours

Comments: Released on the Boulevard label. Considered the first entry in the main series due to the tollow-up LP being titled "volume 2". Features Elton John. Issued in red or black vinyl.  

The albums on this page are not authentically part of the general hit covers genre, since they do not contain current material, but older recordings (except perhaps the very last one). Nonetheless, we feature them here for their obvious interest to collectors.


The Polymax and Turnover labels were London-based imprints who issued perhaps two dozen UK albums in the early 1970s. From the information we have available, most of what they released was in 1971, although at first glance their pop covers albums look earlier. In fact they are 1971 issues, but contain older hits. Only the year stated on the record labels gives the game away.


We have traced three instalments of a series called “Super Hits”, which were billed as by the Pop Express Band. They include retrospective sweeps of the charts in autumn 1969, early summer 1970 and late summer 1970. Elton John is known to perform on at least two of them, and it is fair to assume that Polymax purchased the recordings from the usual Avenue/Marble Arch sources. Indeed, practically all the tracks on the Polymax releases turn up on the Avenue albums - and Polymax PXLB 300 has identical contents to Avenue's "12 Top Hits", AVE 031.


Besides these, there are two albums called “Hits 8” and “Hits 9” which have the appearance of a separate series, although there are no vacant catalogue numbers in the run for any earlier instalments. There is no act billed on these, but Elton pops up again. It is interesting that the vintage of the songs falls between the first two “Super Hits” albums – so why didn’t Polymax simply call them all “Super Hits” and number them in order?


Lastly, on the sister label, Turnover, there is another album called “Super Hits”, where the Pop Express Band are once again credited. This LP, unlike the others, emerged in 1972 and might be the last one released on the label.

The “Pick of the Pops” albums were issued by Deacon, a London-based budget label active from 1970 until the end of 1971. For reasons unclear, some (probably all) appeared in identical sleeves, but on the Gallery label. Volume 1 also emerged in a third incarnation, via the Heron label – apparently created for a petrol forecourt retailer of that name!


“Pick of the Pops” was preceded by one early album on Deacon, taking the form of an annual round-up for 1969, before the series proper was launched. “Pick of the Pops” only ran to six editions, but the numbering got confused anyway, there being no volumes 2 or 3 in the sequence. The album contents were supplied by Hensley Music, and often turn up on other budget LPs, for example volume 7 matching Marble Arch’s “Chartbusters New Series Volume 4”.


Towards the end, Deacon were sued by Pickwick International over the similarity of “Pick of the Pops” to “Top of the Pops”, and so the series title had to change. Just before it did, the operation was moved to the Windmill label, who continued it as “Parade of Pops” (see separate page) which endured in various incarnations until the mid-1980s. Thus, this modest title in fact forms part of the largest series ever to appear, besides “Top of the Pops”.

970: 1970 Top 12 (BLVD 4060)

In The Summertime / Love Of The Common People / Goodbye Sam Hello Samantha / All Right Now / Honey Come Back / Lola / Lady D'Arbanville / Neanderthal Man / Yellow River / Daughter Of Darkness / American Woman /  Up Around The Bend Comments: Features Elton John. This is in fact a re-issue of standard LP volume 1 (“16 Hit Songs”), less four tracks. It shares the same cover art.