So Old It’s new prog rock set for Saturday. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Pink Floyd, Welcome To The Machine
2. Genesis, Get ‘Em Out By Friday
3. King Crimson, Fallen Angel
4. Yes, Starship Trooper
5. Rush, Cygnus X-1
6. Can, Mother Sky
7. Hawkwind, Space Is Deep
8. The Moody Blues, Veteran Cosmic Rocker
9. Saga, Careful Where You Step
10. Jethro Tull, Black Satin Dancer
11. Soft Machine, Hope For Happiness
12. Supertramp, Another Man’s Woman
13. Kansas, The Pinnacle
14. Electric Light Orchestra, Dreaming Of 4000
15. Gentle Giant, Schooldays
16. Camel, A Song Within A Song
17. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Endless Enigma Part One/Fugue/The Endless Enigma Part Two

My track-by-track tales:

1. Pink Floyd, Welcome To The Machine . . . From the Wish You Were Here album, 1975. Spooky, dark, machine-like indeed. Lyrics as relevant today – probably even more so – than they were then. I’ve been in a bit of a Floyd phase, put together a suite of their mostly instrumental songs for my show last Saturday – The Great Gig In The Sky/Marooned/On The Run/Cluster One/Terminal Frost/Signs Of Life – and plan to open Monday’s show with a song to do, at least somewhat, with something happening in the sky that day. You’ll see, if you can’t figure it out already but I’m sure most Pink Floyd fans have.

2. Genesis, Get ‘Em Out By Friday . . . A song about what’s now called rent-eviction. From 1972’s Foxtrot album, perhaps best known for the 23-minute epic Supper’s Ready.

3. King Crimson, Fallen Angel . . . A multi-layered track, but then most Crimson songs are, from the 1974 album Red. Brooding, then soft, then hard and heavy, including the drumming of Bill Bruford on the first of two straight songs, with two different bands, featuring Bruford, which also allows me to sneak in a little tale about Geddy Lee reacting to an uninformed interviewer in a documentary I saw some years back on Rush. But let’s wait until I get to the Rush song.

4. Yes, Starship Trooper . . . Bruford again, preceding the time he spent in King Crimson, this time with Yes-mates Jon Anderson (vocals), Chris Squire (bass), Steve Howe (guitars) and at the time of this recording, before Rick Wakeman joined the band for Fragile, Tony Kay (organ/Moog synthesizer). Bruford was with Yes for the band’s first five albums – Yes, Time and a Word, The Yes Album from which I pulled this amazing piece of music, Fragile and Close To The Edge, later returning for Union, in terms of studio work, in 1991. Starship Trooper is, as one reviewer termed it, an astonishing composition/production in three distinct parts featuring myriad tempo changes – Life Seeker, Disillusion and Wurm – displaying all the band could throw at you from its instrumental and vocal arsenal. The essence of prog, in short.

5. Rush, Cygnus X-1 . . . Love this one, especially the spooky start, but all of it, from A Farewell To Kings, 1977, the first Rush album I bought with my own money, age 18. I had known their short, straight-ahead singles like In The Mood from their debut album and Fly By Night and bought A Farewell To Kings for another such song, Closer To The Heart and in doing so was introduced to Rush’s progressive rock side via extended pieces like Cygnus X-1 and Xanadu. It’s likely still my favorite Rush album, and not simply for nostalgic reasons. As for the Bill Bruford-Geddy Lee tale I promised: Rush often cited Yes as an influence and if memory serves, I think it was on the excellent documentary Beyond The Lighted Stage, might have been another one, Lee is interviewed backstage by an obviously less than prepared journalist and Lee mentions Yes and Bill Bruford but it’s clear the interviewer doesn’t have a clue about either Yes or Bruford and while Lee is too polite and too nice a guy to say anything, as he patiently proceeds telling his tale, the look of irritation on his face is priceless.

6. Can, Mother Sky . . . Propulsive track from the Krautrock band, originally on their 1970 release of songs they did for films, called Soundtracks. It’s 14-plus minutes long there but while I like that version, I decided to play the edited down, more concise offering that appeared on the 1994 compilation Anthology that got me into the band. I’d always known of them but decided to take the plunge via that compilation, was hooked and very quickly acquired the entire studio catalog.

7. Hawkwind, Space Is Deep . . . Another of those songs in this set that perhaps presages things I’m doing for my upcoming Monday show, to do with space and the sky and such, obviously influenced by a celestial event that is happening on April 8 and I’ll have a few more songs in that vein, title-wise anyway, on Monday. This is from Motorhead founder (after he left Hawkwind) Lemmy’s first studio foray with space rockers Hawkwind, the cleverly – or eye rolling, depending on one’s point of view – titled Doremi Fasol Latido album, released in late 1972.

8. The Moody Blues, Veteran Cosmic Rocker . . . From 1981’s Long Distance Voyager album, likely my favorite full piece of work by the band, probably because music is so often one of those time and place things in terms of what was going on in your life, what the music of the day was, etc. And for me, it was a fun spring and summer, immediately post-college graduation, spent in the San Francisco area of California where my dad had taken a new job. Long Distance Voyager was all over the radio, along with Kim Carnes’ Bette Davis Eyes and Burnin’ For You from Blue Oyster Cult’s Fire Of Unknown Origin album. I wound up buying Long Distance Voyager and Fire Of Unknown Origin, and just enjoying the Carnes song, great tune, great voice, which of course now I can call up any time I wish to hear it.

9. Saga, Careful Where You Step . . . Not a huge Saga fan, even if they are from my hometown of Oakville, Ontario, but I do like their early stuff and this is from the 1980 album Silent Knight, which featured the song Don’t Be Late and got me into the band for a time, following them through such hits or at least well-known tracks like On The Loose, Wind Him Up, The Flyer and Scratching The Surface. In one of those interesting things that happen in music where bands can be huge in a certain place beyond their appeal anywhere else (see Cheap Trick and Japan, just one example; what broke Cheap Trick big was the live at Budokan album), Saga is/was huge in Germany.

10. Jethro Tull, Black Satin Dancer . . . From the Minstrel In The Gallery album, 1975. It’s a record that, over time, and I’m a huge Tull fan, has cemented itself as one of my alltime favorites in the extensive catalog. Obviously, one could say this about so many Tull tracks but we’re talking deeper cuts here and this song is the essence of Tull, encapsulating what the band has been about: tempo changes, flute, acoustic, hard rock, guitar solos, stop, start, back and forth, including sometimes interesting vocals or, rather, mouthing effects. Just listen and you’ll know what I mean. Ridiculously good.

11. Soft Machine, Hope For Happiness . . . From the debut album, 1968, simply titled The Soft Machine, from back before myriad lineup changes to the point where no original members remained, and changes in direction to where Soft Machine eventually – and rather quickly, by the fourth album in 1971 – became an instrumentals-only jazz/jazz fusion/jazz rock band. Quirky, always interesting, ever-changing, worth checking out.

12. Supertramp, Another Man’s Woman . . . Another band I credit my dear departed older brother by eight years for introducing me to when he brought back their first album of any real consequence, Crime Of The Century, in 1974. This is from the followup, 1975’s Crisis, What Crisis? At the time, the band members weren’t happy with the album as they felt it was rushed due to record company pressure to strike while the iron was hot so to speak and issue a followup to Crime Of The Century. Yet Roger Hodgson later termed it his favorite Supertramp record. I like it, can’t really decide between for me the band’s best works – Crime Of The Century, Crisis and Even In The Quietest Moments with a nod to the first post-Hodgson album, 1985’s Brother Where You Bound. No Breakfast In America? No, not really, for me. I saw the tour in Toronto and it was fantastic but as for the album? It’s OK. Lots of hits but way overplayed and far too commercial and pandering to the US audience for me. I mean the songs are infectious ear candy, but no real depth, certainly not as compared to previous records. It worked, commercially, finally broke them in the USA, but it didn’t last long.

13. Kansas, The Pinnacle . . . There are fans of music who may only know Kansas by their two big commercial hits – Carry On Wayward Son and Dust In The Wind – and that’s all well and good. But, unless they bought the actual albums on which those songs appeared – like Leftoverture with the extended piece Magnum Opus or Point Of Know Return with Hopelessly Human and Closet Chronicles – they might not think of Kansas as a progressive rock band producer of multifaceted epics like this. From the Masque album, 1975, which preceded the aforementioned Leftoverture and Point Of Know Return in 1976 and 1977, respectively. For a moment in time, Kansas popped into the commercial rock singles consciousness but like the tide, receded pretty much permanently – and good for it – into the full-blown progressive rock ocean represented by songs like this one.

14. Electric Light Orchestra, Dreaming Of 4000 . . . That heavy guitar riff kicks in at the 12-second mark and you’re thinking hard rock/metal but no, that’s not what prog is about, of course. Suddenly we’ve slowed down, then speeded up, then later on that hard rock guitar riff returns. Etc. Early ELO, from 1973’s On The Third Day. The commercial hits from the album, and great ones they were, were Showdown and Ma-Ma-Ma Belle but that’s why you do full albums, you draw ’em in with the singles so you can expose ’em to killer stuff like Dreaming Of 4000, to be maybe used, sometime down the road, by a DJ doing a deep cuts show.

15. Gentle Giant, Schooldays . . . Such amazing sounds on this one from the British prog, er, giants. You just sort of let yourself be embraced by the sounds, the vocals, all of it. From the 1972 album Three Friends, a concept piece about three childhood friends and their subsequent lives.

16. Camel, A Song Within A Song . . . As the title suggests, truly a song, or songs, within a song. At risk of repeating myself, like so many progressive rock songs, the tempo changes are the appeal, at a given moment things can move in a different direction within the same overall piece, which is the obvious attraction for avid consumers of this form of music. From the English band’s 1976 release Moonmadness. Perhaps a subtle nod on my part, again, to something involving the moon that will happen on Monday, April 8.

17. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Endless Enigma Part One/Fugue/The Endless Enigma Part Two . . . The three-part suite that opens ELP’s third album, Trilogy. As I told a friend, my default position on music I mostly listen to is Rolling Stones-ish raunch and roll but I do have a lot of prog and when I listen to it, or play it for the show, it reinforces in me the thought that, while critics of it often suggest it is or can be boring, pretentious stuff, it’s actually brilliant stuff. And it rocks, a lot of the time. Thanks for listening.

My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Elvis Costello, Welcome To The Working Week
2. Chicago, Sing A Mean Tune Kid
3. The Clash, The Guns Of Brixton
4. The J. Geils Band, Chimes (live, from Blow Your Face Out)
5. Frank Sinatra, Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
6. Bob Dylan, Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You
7. Robert Palmer, What Do You Care
8. Johnny Cash, (There’ll Be) Peace In The Valley (live, from Johnny Cash at San Quentin)
9. Black Sabbath, Country Girl
10. Emmylou Harris, Two More Bottles Of Wine
11. Mick Jagger, Party Doll
12. Junkhouse, Drink
13. Foreigner, Love Has Taken Its Toll
14. Tim Curry, No Love On The Street
15. Bruce Cockburn, The Rose Above The Sky
16. Molly Hatchet, Fall Of The Peacemakers
17. Patti Smith Group, Space Monkey
18. Grateful Dead, New Speedway Boogie
19. UFO, Rock Bottom
20. Savoy Brown, Leavin’ Again

My track-by-track tales:

1. Elvis Costello, Welcome To The Working Week . . . The only thing wrong with this opening rocker to Costello’s first studio album, My Aim Is True, is that it’s too short. But at one minute, 22 seconds, that’s what makes it so effective; leaves you wanting more. It was the B-side to the Alison single which, remarkably, though it’s come to be one of Costello’s best-known songs, didn’t chart, even on his home turf of the UK. Linda Ronstadt’s beautiful cover version of Alison – how could it not be beautiful, given Ronstadt’s amazing voice now sadly silenced due to a form of Parkinson’s – however, did make No. 30 in the US and No. 66 in the UK. Costello apparently was derisive towards Ronstadt’s version, but was quoted as saying “I didn’t mind spending the money that she earned me (in royalties).”

2. Chicago, Sing A Mean Tune Kid . . . Thank you to my older brother and sister for joining the Columbia Record Club for a time in 1970 and ’71, which helped introduce me to bands who were on that label at the time – Santana, Blood Sweat & Tears and the early, and best, inventive, jazz rock fusion version of Chicago. All of the Terry Kath-era albums are very good, lots of great songs and singles throughout but as whole pieces of creativity, the first three albums, to me, are sublime. This extended track, part song, part band jam, part Kath guitar showcase, is the lead cut on Chicago III, from 1971.

3. The Clash, The Guns Of Brixton . . . Speaking of mean tunes, from London Calling, one of my favorite Clash songs. It was written and sung by bass player Paul Simonon in something of a departure for the band, most of whose material was written and sung by Joe Strummer or Mick Jones. London Calling, a more mainstream offering than previous Clash material, was the album, released in 1979, that broke them big and for a time, into the early 1980s, for me they may truly have lived up to their billing as ‘the only band that matters” and were a group that rivalled my all-time favorites The Rolling Stones as a go-to listen.

“When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun?”

The opening verse is compelling and does what good art does, it prompts you to research and learn about that which prompted the song, which described the tensions that existed in Brixton and led to the 1981 riot but more so, the tune is inspired by the 1972 movie The Harder They Come, starring Jamaican reggae artist Jimmy Cliff.

4. The J. Geils Band, Chimes (live, from Blow Your Face Out) . . . I love the J. Geils Band, especially their pre-overtly commercial stuff like the Freeze Frame album, and especially live. And how can you not love – or want to investigate – an album called Blow Your Face Out ? Which they always did, live. Even on slower material like this or, for another example, their cover of John Lee Hooker’s Serves You Right To Suffer on Geils’ first live album, Full House. Chimes was originally a five-minute track on their 1973 studio release Ladies Invited, and a good version that is, but something magic happened when J. Geils Band went live in concert, evidenced by the 9-minute version on Blow Your Face Out.

5. Frank Sinatra, Bad, Bad Leroy Brown . . . Yeah, I know. Frank Sinatra? Talk about out of left field, perhaps, but I like and embrace all kinds of music, a good song is a good song is a good song, besides which yeah, I sometimes do go out on a limb and there’s some method to this apparent madness. Blame a buddy of mine, or me and him, together. I was talking to him about how I do like throwing the occasional curveball, I’ve done it forever on the show with perhaps jarring genre changes from one song to another, so I said something like I may even play Frank Sinatra sometime, as I continue becoming my dear departed dad, in my own aging time, I think. So be it. So, here you go, with Sinatra’s cover of the Jim Croce hit. It’s not going to replace Croce’s original for me, but not a bad job, Ol’ Blue Eyes. It appeared on Sinatra’s 1974 comeback from a brief retirement (1971-73) album, Some Nice Things I’ve Missed. And we miss Jim Croce (RIP), taken from us at the height of his popularity in a plane crash while on tour in 1973, age 30.

6. Bob Dylan, Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You . . . A single that wasn’t a big hit, made No. 50 and you don’t arguably hear it very much compared to other Dylan tunes, but a jaunty sort of jingle that is one of my favorites of his but of course, being a big Dylan fan, there are countless favorites. It’s from his country rock album, Nashville Skyline, released in 1969 and featuring Johnny Cash, although not on this song, among the musicians. Speaking of Johnny Cash, wait . . .

7. Robert Palmer, What Do You Care . . . Palmer, who sadly died of a heart attack in 2003, age 54, became massively commercially successful with mid- to late 1980s hits like Addicted To Love, Simply Irresistible, I Didn’t Mean To Turn You On, good songs all, and his work with members of Duran Duran as the band The Power Station including hit singles Some Like It Hot and the T. Rex cover (Get It On) Bang A Gong. But I prefer his earlier stuff, songs like Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley and then the two front to back solid albums that made me a fan during my college days, Secrets and Clues, the latter of which I mined for What Do You Care.

8. Johnny Cash, (There’ll Be) Peace In The Valley (live, from Johnny Cash at San Quentin) . . . The wait is over, from the earlier Dylan tune. Here’s Cash, from an album my dad owned and played incessantly and I’m glad he did, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, with a stirring rendition of this spiritual tune.

9. Black Sabbath, Country Girl . . . Speaking of perhaps jarring genre changes, here’s the Ronnie James Dio version of Black Sabbath, from the Mob Rules album. Not only is it a great, melodic tune as so much hard rock actually is, but it serves to set up . . . a country girl.

10. Emmylou Harris, Two More Bottles Of Wine . . . And here she is, country girl Emmylou with a Delbert McClinton-penned tune she took to No. 1 on the country charts in 1978. But you don’t play hits, Bald Boy, it’s a deep cuts show. Or supposed to be. True. But it’s my show, my rules, and as often stated I do play the occasional single that didn’t do well, or a single released by an obscure band that typically doesn’t do well . . . or a country tune my mostly rock audience may not have heard. And, hey, she collaborated with Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame on the excellent 2006 album All The Roadrunning from which I’ve played songs in the past so, she’s more than worthy, a great artist. And I appreciate her sentiments, or those of McClinton’s lyrics, good to have booze in reserve, especially on long weekends like Easter, when so many things are closed.

11. Mick Jagger, Party Doll . . . From his second solo album, Primitive Cool, released in 1987. This, to me, is the type of country-ish ballad Jagger does best as evidenced by similar tunes Evening Gown and Hang On To Me Tonight on his 1993 and arguably best solo release Wandering Spirit.

12. Junkhouse, Drink . . . I’ve stated it many times, I like anything Tom Wilson is involved in whether it be as leader of Junkhouse where he first came to prominence, soon branching out to solo work and his involvement with Blackie and The Rodeo Kings and as main person in Lee Harvey Osmond. Wilson kicked booze, sober to this day as far as I know but he wrote about it a lot during his drinking days; this from the 1995 Junkhouse album Birthday Boy.

13. Foreigner, Love Has Taken Its Toll . . . Foreigner is one of those bands where, usually, a compilation of hits will suffice and we all likely know Foreigner’s hits well. But sometimes, you have to own or at least know about an album to get a great deep cut, like this one from the Double Vision album. I bought the album on release in 1978 for the title cut single as well as another single, Hot Blooded, only to discover what might be my favorite Foreigner song.

14. Tim Curry, No Love On The Street . . . From the multi-talented Curry, perhaps best known as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture show movie, which I got into in a big way in college. Curry was also the hilarious butler in the movie Clue. So, anyway, when I was browsing the old Sam The Record Man main store in Toronto back then, and they were playing Curry’s just-released 1979 album Fearless, it was an impulse buy I’ve never regretted because it caused me to discover his full discography selected songs of which, including this one and Sloe Gin, have been covered by American blues rocker Joe Bonamassa. But, sorry Joe, love your playing but you don’t have the vocal chops to match Curry’s passion. I’ve played Curry’s Sloe Gin before and will do so again. A great talent, Curry, sadly reduced since a 2012 stroke but still performing.

15. Bruce Cockburn, The Rose Above The Sky . . . Beautiful stuff from his 1980 album Humans. In a 1981 interview about the album, Cockburn touched on what had been a difficult time for him, including a separation from his wife which influenced several songs on the album, like What About The Bond, but cited The Rose Above The Sky as “about moving from downness into something that opens up, although what that something is is not really spelled out.”

16. Molly Hatchet, Fall Of The Peacemakers . . . Every so-called southern rock band seems to have a classic epic track. For Lynyrd Skynyrd, it’s of course Freebird. The Outlaws have Green Grass and High Tides and for Molly Hatchet, it’s this one.

17. Patti Smith Group, Space Monkey . . . From Easter, the 1978 album I got into via a bar band in the pub I worked in during college days playing Easter’s hit single, Because The Night, co-written by Bruce Springsteen.

18. Grateful Dead, New Speedway Boogie . . . A bluesy shuffle from Workingman’s Dead, from 1970.

19. UFO, Rock Bottom . . . Guitar showcase for Michael Schenker on his first outing with UFO, the 1974 album Phenomenom, which could be a reference to his guitar playing.

20. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Superstition (Stevie Wonder cover, from Live Alive) . . . Funky, bluesy, still will always prefer the original classic but SRV puts his own cool stamp on it.

21. The Who, How Many Friends . . . One of my favorite songs from one of my favorite Who albums, The Who By Numbers. It was somewhat dismissed by music critics because it’s not Tommy, Who’s Next or Quadrophenia but cut for cut I think it’s great, probably because I was age 16 in 1975 when it came out, coming of age so to speak in high school, and that’s when so many things truly resonate or we look back on fondly. It was the first Who non-compilation studio album I bought with my own money (for the single, Squeeze Box, which quickly took a back seat to the rest of the record) and to this day it remains a favorite of mine.

22. Savoy Brown, Leavin’ Again . . . Extended blues rock from the 1970 album Looking In. I finally saw Savoy Brown, by then billed as (leader/guitarist and lone constant member) Kim Simmonds (RIP as of 2022) and Savoy Brown, at the Kitchener Blues Festival in 2013. Great show.

An all-instrumentals show, including a Pink Floyd song suite I put together, cheating a bit with Clare Torry’s improvised ‘wordless vocals’ on The Great Gig In The Sky, drawing from various of their albums. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. The Allman Brothers Band, Instrumental Illness
2. The Alan Parsons Project, Lucifer
3. The Alan Parsons Project, In The Lap Of The Gods
4. Pink Floyd, The Great Gig In The Sky/Marooned/On The Run/Cluster One/Terminal Frost/Signs Of Life
5. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Hoedown
6. Jeff Beck, Beck’s Bolero
7. The Butterfield Blues Band, East West
8. Eagles, Journey Of The Sorcerer
9. Santana, Soul Sacrifice (live at Fillmore West, 1968)
10. Deep Purple, Son Of Alerik
11. Joe Jackson, Zemeo
12. Genesis, Los Endos

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Allman Brothers Band, Instrumental Illness . . . Twelve-minute track from the final studio album by the band, Hittin’ The Note, released in 2003, serves as the title cut for my all-instrumental song show. Interesting, maybe, for me it is, how the set lists can develop. I enjoy the process of putting things together, developing a flow, throwing the occasional deliberate curveball with a genre change from one song to another, etc. Not to overanalyze it but it’s revealing perhaps in terms of how our brains work, how one thought leads to another, and in this case, the decision to do an all-instrumentals show came from searching for Gram Parsons and Flying Burrito Brothers songs in our radio station’s computer system. Searching his name also brought up The Alan Parsons Project, so I listened to that group’s instrumental In The Lap Of The Gods and that was my eureka moment for this week. Out went Gram Parsons, for this show at least, in came instrumentals, and who better to start with than a band, the Allmans, well known for them. It’s a long list that includes In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed, Pegasus, Mountain Jam to name just a few. And, I’m throwing in a couple from The Alan Parsons Project, too.

2. The Alan Parsons Project, Lucifer . . . A hit in Europe, from the 1979 album Eve. I think most people might recognize the groove, soon enough you’re thinking ‘I know that tune”. The song has been used as the theme music to a German political affairs magazine show, Monitor. Damned If I Do was the hit from Eve in North America (No. 16 in Canada, No. 27 in the US).

3. The Alan Parsons Project, In The Lap Of The Gods . . . And here’s the random song that inspired the set, via the Gram Parsons search. It’s from Pyramid, the 1978 album that preceded Eve.

4. Pink Floyd, The Great Gig In The Sky/Marooned/On The Run/Cluster One/Terminal Frost/Signs Of Life . . . I’m cheating with The Great Gig In The Sky as the lead cut in a nearly half hour suite of Pink Floyd instrumentals I’ve put together, given the spoken word parts and, more so, session singer Clare Torry’s stunning, improvised ‘wordless vocals’ on the track from The Dark Side Of The Moon. Interestingly enough, it’s an album on which Alan Parsons served as a studio engineer and suggested Torry, who he had worked with before, as someone who could add something to keyboard player Richard Wright’s composition. The band had no lyrics for the tune, asked Torry if she could improvise something, and the rest is history. She was originally credited as the vocalist, but later sued and received an undisclosed settlement and a songwriting credit. Marooned, Cluster One (both from The Division Bell album), Terminal Frost and Signs Of Life (from A Momentary Lapse Of Reason) are from the post-Roger Waters, David Gilmour-led version of Pink Floyd while On The Run is also from The Dark Side Of The Moon.

5. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Hoedown . . . An arrangment of a composition by Aaron Copland, who did the music for the ballet Rodeo, which premiered in 1942 and on which his version, titled Hoe-Down, appeared. ELP released their interpretation, with Copland’s permission and credit to him, on their 1972 album Trilogy.

6. Jeff Beck, Beck’s Bolero . . . Writing space, even though it’s unlimited on the web 🙂 does not permit all the insights and intrigue about this track which finally appeared on album on Beck’s seminal 1968 release Truth. But the truth about the track itself is rather murky and has taken many twists and turns over the years. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame wrote it, or Jeff Beck might have, or they both did, and either Page, Beck or other people produced it. Gee, Jimmy Page involved in disputes or at least questions about credits? Nah, can’t be. See Led Zeppelin and plagiarism. Oh, also, drummer Keith Moon of The Who, credited as “You Know Who” played on it, so did noted session pianist Nicky Hopkins and future Zeppelin bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones and for a while some combination of those guys might have become the first lineup of Led Zeppelin. And Who bassist John Entwistle was also hanging around the studio at the time. Worth reading up on. As for the song itself, you know it, you love it, you’ll know you know it when you hear it.

7. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, East West . . . Another piece that books, or at least long essays, have been written about. It was apparently inspired by an LSD trip taken by guitarist Mike Bloomfield and incorporates elements of jazz, what’s now called ‘world’ music and psychedelic acid rock. It’s the title cut of the second Butterfield band album, released in 1966. It truly is quite the trip.

8. Eagles, Journey Of The Sorcerer . . . The long and winding road that is the root of this instrumental show brings us back, sort of, to Gram Parsons and The Flying Burrito Brothers. That’s because Bernie Leadon, who had been in the Burritos along with Parsons before joining the Eagles, wrote this piece that appeared on the One Of These Nights album, after which Leadon left the band, being replaced by Joe Walsh of solo and James Gang fame. Leadon did return to tour with the Eagles from 2013-15.

9. Santana, Soul Sacrifice (live at Fillmore West, 1968) . . . Not the famous 1969 Woodstock performance that made Santana stars but a 14-plus minute version from an earlier gig, recorded in December of 1968 on the band’s home turf of San Francisco, eight months before the first studio album was released. The performance finally saw physical copy release in 1997 on the Live At The Fillmore 1968 album.

10. Deep Purple, Son Of Alerik . . . Bluesy 10-minute guitar showcase for Ritchie Blackmore with tasteful input from keyboardist Jon Lord, apparently about a Visigoth king, more commonly spelled Alaric. It’s from the Perfect Strangers album in 1984, the first reunion record released by the celebrated so-called Mark II version of Purple – Blackmore, Lord, singer Ian Gillan, bassist Roger Glover and drummer Ian Paice. An edited version was the B side to the Perfect Strangers single and, later, the full version was added as a bonus track on CD re-releases of the album.

11. Joe Jackson, Zemeo . . . Extended moody piece from the excellent Mike’s Murder movie soundtrack album, released in 1983. The movie, starring Debra Winger and about the seedy side of the Los Angeles entertainment world, bombed at the box office. It had a tortured history, was revamped before release and most of Jackson’s music was replaced with a score done by John Barry, noted for his James Bond movie music and theme. But the soundtrack album is to me one of Jackson’s finest and is essentially a companion piece to his 1982 album Night and Day, although he later released Night and Day II, in 2000.

12. Genesis, Los Endos . . . Ending the show with the final track, appropriately titled, from the first album, A Trick Of The Tail, Genesis did after the departure of lead singer Peter Gabriel. That left drummer Phil Collins, somewhat reluctantly at first and surprising as it may seem now, to eventually take the microphone as new frontman after new singer auditions proved fruitless. Collins sings a barely audible snippet from Supper’s Ready, the epic song from the Gabriel era, on the fadeout as a tribute to the original lead singer.

My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list:

1. Peter Gabriel, Intruder
2. Led Zeppelin, In The Evening
3. The Rolling Stones, Fingerprint File
4. Peter Frampton (I’ll Give You) Monday (live, from Frampton Comes Alive!)
5. Headstones, Captain Of The Shit Out Of Luck
6. Gov’t Mule, Have Mercy On The Criminal (Elton John cover)
7. Black Oak Arkansas, Mutants Of The Monster
8. Richie Havens, Rocky Raccoon (Beatles cover, live)
9. Bruce Springsteen, Adam Raised A Cain
10. Johnny Winter, I’m Yours And I’m Hers
11. Little Feat, Willin’ (original version, from 1971 self-titled debut album; updated and better-known version appeared on 1972’s Sailin’ Shoes album)
12. Linda Ronstadt, Roll Um Easy (Little Feat cover)
13. Dave Edmunds, (I’m Gonna Start) Living Again If It Kills Me
14. John Lee Hooker, Tupelo
15. Nirvana, Polly
16. Soundgarden, Fresh Tendrils
17. Thin Lizzy, Opium Trail
18. John Hiatt, Perfectly Good Guitar
19.Thunderclap Newman, Accidents
20. Canned Heat, Gotta Boogie (The World Boogie)

My track-by-track tales.

1. Peter Gabriel, Intruder . . . Spooky opening track to Gabriel’s third solo album, all of them to that point simply called “Peter Gabriel’ so the third album became known as ‘Melt’ due to its cover art of Gabriel’s face melting. Gabriel’s old Genesis bandmate Phil Collins guests on drums using the ‘gated reverb’ audio proecessing sound technique for the first time, which Collins later used to great effect on his hit single In The Air Tonight on his first solo album, Face Value. I’m no drum or instrument expert, so I leave the audience to look up ‘gated reverb’. Bottom line, it’s a great drum sound.

2. Led Zeppelin, In The Evening . . . I was going to start this evening’s show with this, from In Through The Out Door, makes sense of course but then I thought, the Intruder is, er, intruding In The Evening. Some have criticized Robert Plant’s vocals for being barely understandable. Yeah, maybe, never occurred to me all that much, actually. Most rock songs, let’s face it, you only focus on certain lyrics anyway, the chorus, the signature line, whatever, I mean we’re not talking Bob Dylan or whoever all the time, it’s bloody rock and roll, after all and this is a pulsating, extended rock track with a nice riff; it kicks butt. So there.

3. The Rolling Stones, Fingerprint File . . . This is why you listen to full albums, not just hits compilations. Amazing funk/rock by the boys, Mick Jagger even goes into a spoken-word rap before rap was a big thing, from 1974’s It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll album which got mixed reviews but some rock critics I think are looking to write something more interesting and provocative, being negative towards great artists, than what they might actually be listening to, if they took the time to really listen. Their loss, in my opinion.

4. Peter Frampton, (I’ll Give You) Money (live, from Frampton Comes Alive!) . . . Nice rocker from the live album that finally made Frampton a big solo star, some years after he had left Humble Pie and released several solo records. The studio version of this song is on his fourth studio album, simply titled Frampton and issued in 1975, and it’s good, but as with most of his material it’s long since been eclipsed, to most people, by the versions on Frampton Comes Alive!

5. Headstones, Captain Of The Shit Out Of Luck . . . Short (2 minutes, 14 seconds) sweet, typically blistering Headstones, great song title, from their 2017 album Little Army. Nice harmonica break by lead singer Hugh Dillon.

6. Gov’t Mule, Have Mercy On The Criminal (Elton John cover) . . . The Mule, led by guitarist/vocalist Warren Haynes, is a band that emerged in the 1990s as a side project out of latter-day versions of The Allman Brothers Band to become a top entry in its own right. The Mule does their own great, original blues-based rock but are also excellent at classic rock covers, either in studio or live versions, this studio version of the Elton John/Bernie Taupin tune from the Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player album among them. It appeared on the bonus 3rd disc of the band’s 2021 mostly blues covers release, Heavy Load Blues.

I like The Mule’s classic rock covers so much that, years ago, I burned a CD of their versions of such material: The Beatles’ She Said She Said and Helter Skelter, Free’s Mr. Big, Steppenwolf’s Don’t Step On The Grass, Sam, Black Sabbath’s War Pigs, Humble Pie’s 30 Days In The Hole, King Crimson’s 21st Century Schizoid Man, Deep Purple’s Maybe I’m A Leo, Grand Funk Railroad’s Sin’s A Good Man’s Brother, The Who’s We’re Not Gonna Take It and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man. The band has also done tribute albums of Pink Floyd (Dark Side Of The Mule) and The Rolling Stones (Stoned Side Of The Mule) material. They’ve also done a reggae album of covers and their own stuff, Dub Side Of The Mule. Great stuff, all of it, a fair bit of their work produced by Canadian Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar fame.

7. Black Oak Arkansas, Mutants Of The Monster . . . Two things about Black Oak Arkansas, the southern hard rock/country rock/boogie rock band fronted by Jim “Dandy’ Mangrum. 1. Van Halen’s David Lee Roth was obviously influenced by Mangrum, just listen, read, look at photos. Not criticizing, I liked Roth as Van Halen’s singer during his heyday (his vocals during various reunions tours were embarrassing; he’d lost it), just saying. It’s pretty evident to anyone. 2. Great tune, Mutants Of The Monster, from an even better named album: 1972’s If An Angel Came To See You, Would You Make Her Feel At Home?

8. Richie Havens, Rocky Racoon (live) . . . Havens reinvented various Beatles tunes including Eleanor Rigby, Lady Madonna, Here Comes The Sun, several others in addition to various Bob Dylan tunes. Here’s his speeded up take on this White Album track and, as is often the case it’s his fast acoustic guitar strumming that draws you in for the duration.

9. Bruce Springsteen, Adam Raised A Cain . . . So, I was on Twittter, now of course known as X, the other day posting a previous show of mine and someone was throwing out one of those sorts of random rock and roll questions that can be irresistible. The question: favourite Springsteen album? I couldn’t really pick between what are and always will be my three favourites from that amazing run Springsteen had starting with 1975’s Born To Run, then 1978’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town and 1980’s The River. So I cheated and listed all three. I like the first two Springsteen albums, preceding those three, and subsequent stuff like Nebraska and Tunnel Of Love and assorted great songs throughout the catalog but if forced to pick, it would be those three and if forced to narrow it down to one it might well be Darkness. And then picking a track from that? Well, so many good ones including the title cut which resonates so much, lyrically, to me. But I threw darts and hit on Adam Raised A Cain. No way to go wrong with that album, really.

10. Johnny Winter, I’m Yours And I’m Hers . . . Usually, it was Johnny Winter covering The Rolling Stones (Jumping Jack Flash, Let It Bleed, Silver Train) but the Stones actually at least once covered Winter. They played this tune, from Winter’s 1969 debut album, to open the 1969 Hyde Park tribute concert to the then-recently deceased Brian Jones. It apparently had been Jones’ favorite song.

11. Little Feat, Willin’ (original version, from Little Feat’s self-titled debut album in 1971; updated and likely best-known version appeared on 1972’s Sailin’ Shoes album) . . . A more spare, acoustic take on the Lowell George-penned tune, Willin’ also later done by the next artist in my set.

12. Linda Ronstadt, Roll Um Easy (Little Feat cover) . . . Speaking of Lowell George, he plays slide guitar on this cover of his tune that Ronstadt did for her 1975 album Prisoner In Disguise. Ronstadt covered Willin’ a year earlier on her Heart Like A Wheel album.

13. Dave Edmunds, (I’m Gonna Start) Living Again If It Kills Me . . . It can be interesting what happens as time passes. Case in point, this song. And in fact the album from which it came, Edmunds’ 1981 release Twangin’. I had gotten into him during my second-last year of college when he had a fairly big hit album, Repeat When Necessary, featuring such commercial tracks as Elvis Costello’s Girls Talk and Graham Parker’s Crawling From The Wreckage. All three artists by then had become favorites of mine but when Twangin’ came out, I remember buying it and being disappointed because to my still obviously developing ears, there was nothing immediate that struck me. Years later, I like the album and this song, both in its ballad but slightly rocked up pace but more so, the lyrics about moving on from the past. Sometimes, you have to live for a while for things to resonate.

14. John Lee Hooker, Tupelo . . . So good. One of my favorite Hooker tracks, any era, this one from his late 1980s-1990s rebirth with various guest stars that started with 1989’s The Healer album. But this spare, acoustic blues is all Hooker, from his 1995 album Chill Out. Carlos Santana, Van Morrison and Booker T. Jones are among the guests on the album but this track is just Hooker, his guitar, his voice. Sublime.

15. Nirvana, Polly . . . Disturbing subject matter always makes it a difficult listen for me and I almost hesitate to play it, but I do like the song, musically. It was written, from the perspective of the perpetrator, about the abduction, rape, and torture, with a blowtorch, of a 14-year-old girl returning home from a punk rock concert in Tacoma, Washington in 1987. The girl managed to escape and the perpetrator was arrested and convicted. He’s serving two consecutive 75-year prison terms.

16. Soundgarden, Fresh Tendrils . . . One of those songs that seems and is familiar – love the sort of descending, backwards riff is how I’d describe it – that one might think it was a hit single but that’s what happens with blockbuster albums, like Superunknown. It’s a terrific album, broke Soundgarden big during that early- to mid-1990s period where it seemed the Seattle grunge sound was taking over music, yet Fresh Tendrils, with its catchy ‘long time coming’ refrain wasn’t a single on an album full of them (Black Hole Sun, Fell On Black Days, Spoonman, maybe my favorite Soundgarden song, among them).

17. Thin Lizzy, Opium Trail . . . Yet another of those songs, this one from the Bad Reputation album (which features that also great title cut) in 1977, that shows Lizzy as being far more than just The Boys Are Back In Town. But Lizzy fans know the depth of quality of the band’s catalog, it’s up to others to investigate if they so choose.

18. John Hiatt, Perfectly Good Guitar . . . Hiatt is one of those artists, like Tom Waits, perhaps, where more people have hits with his songs (Bonnie Raitt with Thing Called Love; George Thorogood a minor hit with The Usual) than Hiatt has had himself. I remember hearing Perfectly Good Guitar, great song, I think so anyway, on the radio when the album of the same name came out in 1993. But, turns out, it wasn’t a chart hit, nor was the album which charted, according to my research, only in Australia where it made the lofty heights of No. 83. I shouldn’t have mentioned The Usual. Now I want a drink. To Hiatt’s songwriting.

19. Thunderclap Newman, Accidents . . . One album, one big hit single, Something In The Air, one big name producer and benefactor, The Who’s Pete Townshend, and then, well, we still have this extended piece from 1969’s debut and only record, Hollywood Dream. Guitarist Jimmy McCulloch, later of Paul McCartney and Wings who died as a result of drug and alcohol abuse at age 26 in 1979, was among the personnel on the Thunderclap Newman album and his solo is a featured portion on Accidents.

20. Canned Heat, Gotta Boogie (The World Boogie) . . . That John Lee Hooker Boogie Chillen riff . . . As we boogie on out of here.