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My Kind of Country 
Never heard of Freddy Weller but I have the original version of “Games People Play” by singer/songwriter Joe South on his 1970 Greatest Hits LP.
Freddy Weller was a member of Paul Revere & The Raiders who ventured out into country music as a performer and songwriter. This was his biggest hit reaching #1 on Cashbox (I think it was #2 on Billboard) but hardly his best song
What were they doing letting long haired, hippie type rock and rollers into country music back in the early 1970’s!? No wonder mainstream country music went to hell in a hand basket during that “lost decade”…(jk)
I own the Joe South original and even though the instrumentation is wacky (damn those sitars!) and the production spotty, Joe’s impassioned vocals carry the day. Can’t say this twanged up countrified version measures up in comparison. Its kinda like when Elvis covered Tony Joe White’s “Polk Salad Annie”…
Joe South treated it as serious song with deep social significance. Freddy Weller approached it as a hand clappin’ sing-along. But you gotta love Red Rhodes hot steel guitar licks on Freddy’s Columbia version! The follow-up “These Are Not My People” was smokin’ too.
I’m with you on Joe South as a great singer. His vocals were always excellent. Really loved his song “Don’t It Make You Want To Go Home.”
I’d never heard of Freddy Weller before, and saturday I went to a Nashville Flood Relief concert with a bunch of songwriters, and he played there. Kinda random.