Jack Hamm

The original idea was for Art Garfunkel to record an album of songs written by Jimmy Webb. But when the leadoff single, "Crying in My Sleep," failed to make the charts, Columbia Records withdrew the album and induced Garfunkel to put together a cover of Sam Cooke's "(What A) Wonderful World" with Paul Simon and James Taylor harmonizing. The single and a revised version of the album then made the Top 40.

Ozzy Osbourne may well be ripe for mainstream acclaim as a founding father of heavy metal, but thankfully Bat Head Soup: A Tribute to Ozzy is not one of those increasingly common, cute, and "eclectic" tribute albums where bands and artists are seemingly chosen on the basis of how far away they are, musically, from the honoree. Nor is it – like Legend of a Madman, Ozzified, and Land of the Wizard, the previous Osbourne tributes – an attempt by record labels to showcase the no-name acts on their roster. This one gives the Ozzy Osbourne songbook the full-bore, hard rock treatment with a lineup that includes members and ex-members of Ratt, Kiss, Night Ranger, Poison, Slaughter, Twisted Sister, and Judas Priest, to name just a few…