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Heaven Help the Child is a 1973 studio album by country singer-songwriter Mickey Newbury. The album was Newbury's third consecutive release recorded at Cinderella Studios. Noted for its dramatic remakes of four previous Newbury songs: "Sweet Memories" and "Good Morning Dear" from Harlequin Melodies, "Sunshine" from Sings His Own, and "San Francisco Mabel Joy" from Looks Like Rain, the album is considered equal among Newbury's acclaimed Looks Like Rain and Frisco Mabel Joy. Apart from its definitive versions of three of Newbury's early songwriting hits, the album is also acclaimed for its title track, with its multi-generational narrative, the haunting "Cortelia Clark", and the bluegrass classic "Why You Been Gone So Long". In his AllMusic review of the LP, Thom Jurek declares, "Newbury, for the third time in as many recording sessions, came up with a record that defies categorization. And for the third time in a row, he had done the impossible, created a masterpiece, a work of perfection."
Heaven Help the Child was collected for CD issue on the eight-disc Mickey Newbury Collection from Mountain Retreat, Newbury's own label in the mid-1990s, along with nine other Newbury albums from 1969–1981. In 2011, it was reissued again as part of the four-disc Mickey Newbury box set An American Trilogy on Saint Cecilia Knows, alongside two other albums recorded at Cinderella Sound, Looks Like Rain and Frisco Mabel Joy. This release marks the first time that Heaven Help the Child has been released on CD in remastered form, after the original master tapes (long thought to have been destroyed in a fire) were rediscovered in 2010.
"San Francisco Mabel Joy" was heavily covered as both a folk and country song in the early 1970s. Joan Baez recorded the song for her 1971 hit double album Blessed Are... . Waylon Jennings included his version on his 1973 breakthrough Lonesome, On'ry and Mean. The song was also featured on Kenny Rogers' 1978 country smash The Gambler and John Denver's recording is on his 1981 album Some Days Are Diamonds. The Box Tops recorded a presumably early version under the title "Georgia Farm Boy," which was included as a bonus track on the 2000 reissue of The Letter/Neon Rainbow.
