Alphabet soup set list – songs are by bands/artists A to Z. Set list with my track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Atomic Rooster, Death Walks Behind You
2. Bad Company, Crazy Circles
3. J.J. Cale, Call The Doctor
4. The Doors, Been Down So Long
5. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Bitches Crystal
6. Faces, Cut Across Shorty (live)
7. The Guess Who, Self Pity
8. Heart, Bebe Le Strange
9. Chris Isaak, Speak Of The Devil
10. Jefferson Airplane, The Last Wall Of The Castle
11. The Kinks, Holloway Jail
12. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Four Walls Of Raiford (demo version)
13. Mott The Hoople, Thunderbuck Ram
14. Nazareth, Fat Man
15. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Chicken Train
16. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, The Last DJ
17. Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Fool
18. Keith Richards, Amnesia
19. Steppenwolf, Power Play
20. Ten Years After, Woman Trouble
21. U2, The Three Sunrises
22. Van Halen, Little Dreamer
23. Wishbone Ash, Time Was
24. XTC, Ten Feet Tall
25. Yes, Parallels
26. Warren Zevon, The Overdraft

My track-by-track tales:

1. Atomic Rooster, Death Walks Behind You . . . Spooky title cut, including a galloping riff the future members of Iron Maiden might have been listening to, on the 1970 release from the British progressive hard rockers. It was the band’s second album, released after drummer Carl Palmer, who had been with Rooster keyboardist Vincent Crane in The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, left to join Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

2. Bad Company, Crazy Circles . . . From the 1979 album Desolation Angels. Rock ‘n Roll Fantasy was the big hit and a great track and one of my favorites by Bad Co it is, but I remember this getting a fair bit of airplay back when commercial FM radio played deeper cuts, or maybe I just played it a lot. Cliche/obvious lyrics about life, perhaps, like this verse, but it works for me:

Life is like a game of chance
Some find riches and some romance
Some find happiness and some find sorrow
Some find it today and some maybe tomorrow

I’ve found all of what’s described, as perhaps many may have, at various times.

3. J.J. Cale, Call The Doctor . . . One of those great J.J. Cale tracks (aren’t they all?) that you won’t find on one of his various compilations, so you have to own, search or stream his 1971 debut album, Naturally, to hear it. Most J.J. Cale songs, like this one, are under three minutes and it never ceases to amaze me how much greatness he’s able to squeeze into such short time frames. Less is indeed often more, I suppose, leaving you wanting more and I submit one can never get enough J.J. Cale. The album produced two Cale songs, Call Me The Breeze and After Midnight, later taken to more commercial success by, respectively, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Eric Clapton in more uptempo versions than Cale’s signature laid back style. I like those versions and artists but still prefer Cale’s originals.

4. The Doors, Been Down So Long . . . From perhaps my favorite Doors album, the bluesy L.A. Woman. The track has received varying reviews over the years but I’m going with the reviewer who, according to Wikipedia, said it’s one of the Doors’ ‘must hear’ blues tracks.

5. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Bitches Crystal . . . From Tarkus, ELP’s second album highlighted by the 21-minute title cut that was the entire side one of the original vinyl. This one, Bitches Crystal, condenses all progressive rock elements from each individual artist in the band – keyboards, drums, vocals, guitar and bass – into four minutes.

6. Faces, Cut Across Shorty (live) . . . From the rambling, shambling and that’s exactly what the fun Faces were all about, live album from 1974, Coast to Coast: Overture and Beginners. I had the record on vinyl when it came out, lost it over time, but recovered it on CD via a used shop some time back and glad to have it again. A studio version of this track, popularized by Eddie Cochran, appeared on the Rod Stewart solo album Gasoline Alley during what ultimately became an awkward 1969-74 period (of to me and many people, Rod Stewart’s greatest solo years) where Faces members were backing Stewart on his parallel solo excursions until ultimately Rod broke away, or the band broke from him, Ronnie Wood joined The Rolling Stones and Faces went kaput. The band has reunited off and on, including a stint with former Simply Red singer Mick Hucknall replacing Stewart, and a news report in February 2024 suggested the surviving members of the band (Wood and drummer Kenney Jones) were working on a new album although Stewart said they were ‘struggling’.

“I’ve sent a lot of them [songs] to Ronnie Wood,” Stewart said, according to a story on American songwriter.com. “I told him, ‘This is stuff we’ve recorded with my band, maybe The Faces would like to do it instead?’ We’re still struggling to make this album. We’ll see. Some of them might see the light of day.”

7. The Guess Who, Self Pity . . . I admire Randy Bachman as a guitarist, bandleader and producer but I doubt The Guess Who would have done such a terrific funky, vocal-powered by Burton Cummings song like this one from their 1973 album No. 10, had Bachman not left the band after the American Woman album in 1970, leaving Cummings as the undisputed leader.

8. Heart, Bebe Le Strange . . . Title cut from the band’s 1980 album released as the second single from the record (Even It Up was the first) but it was the first Heart single not to make the US Billboard Top 100. Ridiculous of course, it’s a great song, maybe too similar to Even It Up, but a great staccato type track nevertheless, should have been a bigger hit, I like it, so I’m playing it.

9. Chris Isaak, Speak Of The Devil . . . Isaak is best known by most people for his sultry, sexy hit single Wicked Game from the 1989 album Heart Shaped World. Long ago, before one could call up a song at a keystroke, I bought a compilation of his just to have it, and discovered other great stuff, like this one from an artist whose sound has been compared to the likes of Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson and Duane Eddy.

10. Jefferson Airplane, The Last Wall Of The Castle . . . Jefferson Airplane has a big hit album with Surrealistic Pillow in 1967, an album containing the band’s best-known hit songs Somebody To Love and White Rabbit and what do they do as a followup? They go, essentially, back underground, doing the type of thing I admire in creative terms, releasing the almost anti-commercial, psychedelic After Bathing At Baxters, including this Jorma Kaukonen-penned tune featuring his wicked lead guitar.

11. The Kinks, Holloway Jail . . . A couple jail tunes coming up, led by this one from the to me exceptional but commercial failure album that was Muswell Hillbillies, released in 1971. It would probably be categorized as Americana and might do better on the charts were it released today, which is interesting given that Ray Davies did roots rock solo albums titled Americana and Our Country: Americana Act II in 2017 and ’18.

12. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Four Walls Of Raiford (demo version) . . . Acoustic, blues; it’s not really Lynyrd Skynyrd, in a way. It’s original Skynyrd singer Ronnie Van Zant and guitarist Jeff Carlisi, a longtime member of .38 Special, on a song recorded in 1976 and available on bootlegs and/or the Lynyrd Skynyrd box set released in 1991. Regardless how it came about, a great tune.

13. Mott The Hoople, Thunderbuck Ram . . . Mick Ralphs in a rare lead vocal performance (Ian Hunter of course usually sang lead for Mott) on what becomes a kick butt rocker shortly after the beautiful acoustic intro. An AllMusic site reviewer declared this and the entire Mad Shadows second album by Mott The Hoople, released in 1970 before the band achieved stardom, to be a ‘descent downward into murk.’ To which I say: Open your ears.

14. Nazareth, Fat Man . . . Heavy, bluesy, brooding track from the band’s self-titled debut album, released in 1971.
15. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Chicken Train . . . Harmonica, fiddles and other fun stuff from the band likely best known for their hits If You Wanna Get To Heaven and Jackie Blue. Dig deeper and they’re so much more, evidenced by this track from their 1973 debut album. I’ve heard it described as “a hillbilly song’. I agree. I like it.

16. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, The Last DJ . . . OK, yeah this title cut from Petty’s 2002 album was a No. 22 hit but when one is talking the late great Petty, how often do you hear this song referenced? Besides which, while mine is a deep cuts show, I’ve forever stated I do play the occasional single, even hit ones, but for the most part ones that didn’t do so well on the charts or are not often heard since they came out, or are not embedded in the public consciousness as are so many, for instance, of Petty’s songs. So, disclaimer done, this song and the lyrics are exactly why I do my deep cuts show – I play what I want and thankfully am at an independent station that allows me and my fellow DJs here to do so, unlike commercial radio which is rigidly formatted and which prompted me to become a DJ here and create this show. Several songs on the album, like this one, were critical of the music industry and were boycotted by some radio stations, proving Petty’s point.

“I was elated when my song was banned,” Petty told Billboard. “I remember when the radio meant something. We enjoyed the people who were on it, even if we hated them. They had personalities. They were people of taste, who we trusted. And I see that vanishing.”

17. Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Fool . . . Long jam from a band that was part of the 1960s San Francisco scene along with the Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead yet never ascended to those bands’ commercial heights.

18. Keith Richards, Amnesia . . . From Richard’s most recent and so far last solo album, 2015’s Crosseyed Heart. It chugs along around Richards’ distinctive guitar sound and soloing.

19. Steppenwolf, Power Play . . As I’ve often said, Steppenwolf is so far beyond just Magic Carpet Ride and Born To Be Wild, great tunes both of course but selling the band short on the many great songs, with topical at the time and forever lyrics, that the group has released.

20. Ten Years After, Woman Trouble . . . Boogie rock from Alvin Lee and company from the second TYA album, Stonedhenge, released in 1969. TYA was immortalized by Lee’s guitar performace on I’m Going Home from Woodstock yet Lee, and TYA, were more than that space in time – my deliberate nod to the band’s 1971 album A Space In Time which yielded the terrific hit single I’d Love To Change The World. A band well worth exploring more deeply, if you haven’t.

21. U2, The Three Sunrises . . . Nice guitar work from The Edge on this track, originally a B-side on The Unforgettable Fire single from that album in 1984. It was later released on the Wide Awake In America EP in 1985 and then a limited edition expanded version of the compilation The Best Of 1980-1990, released in 1998.

22. Van Halen, Little Dreamer . . . One of my favorites from an album full of them, the band’s explosive 1978 debut record that gave us such timeless tunes as Runnin’ With The Devil, the Eddie Van Halen guitar showcase Eruption, Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love and VH’s cover of the Kinks’ classic You Really Got Me.

23. Wishbone Ash, Time Was . . . All the elements of Wishbone Ash – progressive, folk and hard rock – come together on this 10-minute highlight of the Argus album, 1972.

24. XTC, Ten Feet Tall . . . Making Plans For Nigel and a great track it was, was the only single released from the 1979 XTC album Drums And Wires but I recall this song getting lots of airplay in Canada during my college days.

25. Yes, Parallels . . From the Going For The One album, 1977. The song, written by bassist Chris Squire, was originally targetted for his solo album Fish Out Of Water but he didn’t think it fit for that record so he brought it to the band which gave it a typical orchestral type Yes treatment.

26. Warren Zevon, The Overdraft . . . No, this rocker from the 1982 album The Envoy is not about the usual/perpetual state of my bank account. But it could be. Nice guitar from a usual Zevon accomplice, Waddy Wachtel, later to become a key member of Rolling Stone Keith Richards’ X-Pensive Winos.

So Old It’s New set list for Monday, March 11, 2024
1. Golden Earring, Are You Receiving Me
2. Blind Faith, Had To Cry Today
3. Rush, I Think I’m Going Bald
4. Detroit (featuring Mitch Ryder), Rock ‘N Roll (Lou Reed/Velvet Underground cover)
5. Lou Reed, Kicks
6. The Moving Sidewalks (featuring Billy Gibbons, pre-ZZ Top), Joe Blues
7. The Rolling Stones, Dreamy Skies
8. Robin Trower, Too Rolling Stoned
9. The 31st Of February, (precursor band to The Allman Brothers Band), God Rest His Soul
10. The Allman Brothers Band, Leave My Blues At Home
11. Elton John, Your Sister Can’t Twist (but she can rock ‘n roll)
12. Judas Priest, Invincible Shield
13. KK’s Priest, Reap The Whirlwind
14. Paul McCartney/Wings, Dear Friend
15. John Lennon, Out The Blue
16. George Harrison, Woman Don’t You Cry For Me
17. Ringo Starr, Beaucoups Of Blues
18. Roger Waters, Picture That

Here’s my set list for Saturday morning, March 9/24 airing 8-10 am ET. My track-by-track commentary follows the bare-bones set.

1. The Beatles, Good Morning Good Morning
2. Free, Come Together In The Morning
3. Bob Dylan, When You Gonna Wake Up
4. Johnny Winter, Highway 61 Revisited
5. Jimi Hendrix, Like A Rolling Stone (live, 1967 Monterey Pop Festival version)
6. J. Geils Band, First I Look At The Purse (live, from Full House)
7. Savoy Brown, Money Can’t Save Your Soul
8. Rory Gallagher, Bad Penny
9. Eagles, Those Shoes
10. Supertramp, Another Man’s Woman
11. Status Quo, Big Fat Mama
12. The Rolling Stones, She Smiled Sweetly
13. Neil Young, Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown
14. AC/DC, Sin City
15. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, Heavy Music (from Live Bullet)
16. Funkadelic, Maggot Brain
17. Pink Floyd, Pigs (Three Different Ones)
18. Steely Dan, Don’t Take Me Alive
19. Van Morrison, And The Healing Has Begun
20. Dire Straits, Follow Me Home

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Beatles, Good Morning Good Morning . . . Clever, aren’t I? 🙂 Morning show, so, good morning with a song John Lennon wrote for the Sgt. Pepper album after being inspired by watching a commercial for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, and adapting the jingle. So much good in so many songs comes not just from the tunes, but the vocals. Good morning-ah. That sort of thing often really makes it for me.

2. Free, Come Together In The Morning . . . Sticking with our morning theme, bluesy ballad from singer Paul Rodgers and company, some of whom (drummer Simon Kirke) later formed Bad Company along with Rodgers.

3. Bob Dylan, When You Gonna Wake Up . . . Up-tempo tune, biting lyrics, from Dylan’s Slow Train Coming album in 1979. It was his first after converting to Christianity and threw much of his fan base for a loop, which Dylan has always seemed to like doing or, at least, doing whatever it is he chooses to do, which of course is and should be up to him, then watching the reaction with likely amusement. The album gave us the hit single Gotta Serve Somebody for which Dylan won a Grammy Award but beyond that it’s a terrific listen, certainly musically including this track and the title cut.

4. Johnny Winter, Highway 61 Revisited . . . Playing a Dylan tune inspired me to play people covering Dylan tunes, so here’s Winter’s fiery interpretation of the Dylan classic.
5. Jimi Hendrix, Like A Rolling Stone (live from Monterey Pop Festival, 1967) . . . Great version of another Dylan classic. Hendrix was a huge Dylan fan and of course reinterpreted Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower to huge success and acclaim, so much so that Dylan himself started playing Watchtower in concert, or attempting to, a la Hendrix version. But this is the song, Like A Rolling Stone, as done by Hendrix, that got me into Jimi (and Otis Redding, too) when I heard it on a live album my older brother, a huge musical influence on me, had of the Monterey Pop Festival. It featured Hendrix on one side of the vinyl release and Otis Redding on the other. That album is called Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival.
6. J. Geils Band, First I Look At The Purse, (live, from Full House) . . . Propulsive track from a propulsive live band, best heard live and arguably my favorite by Geils in this live version, a song written by Smokey Robinson and his Miracles band partner Bobby Rogers.

7. Savoy Brown, Money Can’t Save Your Soul . . . I got into music discussions on Twitter/X the other night which inspired several tracks I’m playing Saturday morning. This is one of them, from the British blues/rock band Savoy Brown, an arguably underappreciated band but one of my favorites. I saw them, billed as Kim Simmonds (the late great guitarist/singer/songwriter/bandleader) and Savoy Brown, in the mid-2000s at the Kitchener Blues Festival. Great show. A band worth checking out and one that proved to be the building blocks for Foghat, which was formed by three members of Savoy Brown after a split in the original Savoy Brown band in 1971.

8. Rory Gallagher, Bad Penny . . . Another artist and track inspired by my Twitter/X discussions. Someone posted a question, asking for people’s favorite songs by Gallagher, the late great and arguably underrated/underappreciated by the masses, Irish guitarist, songwriter and leader of the band Taste before he went solo. So, I listed a few but Bad Penny is likely my alltimer by Rory G, who has been described as ‘the greatest guitarist you’ve never heard of.” People who know his material know how great he was, of course, and he’s been cited by the likes of Eric Clapton, Alex Lifeson of Rush, Brian May of Queen and U2’s The Edge as being a major influence on their playing.

9. Eagles, Those Shoes . . . Another of those songs that came up in the Twitter/X discussion when I mentioned The Long Run, in response to a discussion question, as being among my favorite Eagles albums despite its dismissal by many critics and even some members of the band in the wake of the monumental Hotel California that preceded it. This is my favorite song on The Long Run.

10. Supertramp, Another Man’s Woman . . . From Crisis, What Crisis?, the band’s 1975 album. Supertramp were huge in Canada by this time, on the heels of the brilliant 1974 record Crime Of The Century but it took a while for widespread U.S. chart success which didn’t happen for the band until the deliberately targeted Breakfast In America commercial monster from 1979 that was a worldwide No. 1 album but I consider to be, while good, too pop-oriented, almost candy-ass crap in spots with Bee Gee-like falsetto vocals the Bee Gees got criticized for yet Supertramp seemed to get a pass on. Breakfast is the worst, to me, of the 4-album run that started in 1974 with Crime Of The Century on through Crisis, What Crisis?, Even In The Quietest Moments and then Breakfast In America.
11. Status Quo, Big Fat Mama . . . Kick butt rocker from the band which first came to prominence with the psychedelic pop hit Pictures Of Matchstick Men in 1968 after which the band started going in a harder rock, boogie rock direction. They lost me after the mid-1970s for the most part, for me that early- to mid-70s period was their hard rocking best with songs like this from the appropriately named 1972 album Piledriver.

12. The Rolling Stones, She Smiled Sweetly . . . Beautiful ballad from the 1967 album Between The Buttons, recorded when founding member/guitarist Brian Jones was still in the band and the Stones arguably sometimes explored tangents they later discarded when they became more the bloozy raunch and roll Stones of legend starting with the 1968 album Beggars Banquet. The late Roy Carr (he died in 2018 at 73), a respected English rock music critic, somewhat dismissed Between The Buttons in his fine 1976 book The Rolling Stones: An Illustrated Record. Carr termed Buttons an album that “sounds more like a bunch of vaudevillian Kinks’ outtakes than a bona fide Stones’ collection.” To which I would say a few things, me being a major Stones fan and all, and even if I weren’t:
1. Roy, my boy, what’s your problem with The Kinks? Amazing band, arguably grossly underappreciated when discussed amid the other big original British Invasion bands like The Beatles, Stones and The Who and possessed, in Ray Davies, of one of the all-time songwriters. And if the Stones were maybe sounding like The Kinks, well, they weren’t; no matter what the Stones do or have ever done – rock, reggae, folk, country, disco, whatever – they always sound like the Stones. That’s why they’re so great – they put their own unique stamp on everything they try and moreso, they’re fearless; they try anything yeah sometimes more successfully than other times but at least they give it a go and by doing so open perhaps unknown or undiscovered avenues to their many listeners.

2. Between The Buttons has really grown on me over the years. I think it’s a brilliant album, full of great tunes like She Smiled Sweetly, My Obession, Backstreet Girl, Connection, Please Go Home to name a few not to mention, on the U.S. version released at that time when bands like The Beatles and Stones had different track listings on many albums in the US and UK, the singles Ruby Tuesday and Let’s Spend The Night Together. But I won’t be too harsh on Roy; he did cite Backstreet Girl and Connection as being worthy . . .
3. But so is She Smiled Sweetly. Great song, great vocal performance by Mick Jagger.
13. Neil Young, Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown . . . Notice the pattern here, in terms of song titles as I typically can’t help myself? We started off with the morning motif. Then we got into money, with it not being able to save a soul, a bad penny and looking at purses when selecting a mate . . . and then . . . relationship issues, another man’s woman, a big fat mama who smiles sweetly and now Neil Young wants to go downtown with her on this track that appeared on his bleak, grief-prompted 1975 release Tonight’s The Night, much of which was written in memory of Young’s Crazy Horse guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry, both lost to drug overdoses. A good rocker, nevertheless.
14. AC/DC, Sin City . . . And now we’re downtown, in Sin City, one of my favorite AC/DC tracks, from the Bon Scott era and 1978’s Powerage album.

15. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, Heavy Music . . . From Live Bullet, the 1976 live album, recorded in 1975, that brought Seger into the wider public consciousness beyond his home stomping grounds of Detroit and the state of Michigan. It came out during that 1970s period where double vinyl live albums were breaking some bands, like Seger’s, big; others being KISS with KISS Alive and Peter Frampton with Frampton Comes Alive! This is the second live song in my set that was recorded in Detroit. This Seger tune was recorded at Cobo Hall, which was once the home arena of the NBA’s Detroit Pistons. The other Detroit live recording was earlier in my set, the J. Geils Band’s First I Look At The Purse, recorded at Detroit’s Cinderella Ballroom. Geils was a Boston-area band but developed a huge following in Detroit.
16. Funkadelic, Maggot Brain . . . 10-minute title track improvisation workout by guitar great Eddie Hazel, from the 1971 album by George Clinton’s Funkadelic, part of his music collective P-Funk that also includes Parliament. It’s complex, and space doesn’t permit but it’s all only a keystroke away on the web and worthwhile reading if one is so inclined.
17. Pink Floyd, Pigs (Three Different Ones) . . . Lengthy, nearly 12-minute almost metallic piece, a Roger Waters diatribe against the manipulative elites of our society, from Floyd’s 1977 album Animals and one of my alltime favorite Floyd songs from an album which tends sometimes to get overlooked amid The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Wall but is, I think, on par with all of them and then there’s Meddle, before Dark Side, too . . . And The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn debut when Syd Barrett was still in the band and, and, and. Just get all of it, you’ll like it if you don’t already. But, I will say that the run from Meddle through The Wall, if forced to choose, would my favorite five by Floyd.

18. Steely Dan, Don’t Take Me Alive . . . Great guitar work from Larry Charlton, who played on four Steely Dan albums including the one from which I pulled this track, The Royal Scam. Others were Katy Lied, Aja and Gaucho in a career that has seen Charlton play on albums from the likes of Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Johnny Rivers, Barbra Streisand, The Partridge Family (yes, The Partridge Family and David Cassidy solo stuff, too), on and on. Look Charlton up, a lengthy, eclectic discography – not to mention his own work as a solo artist/bandleader.
19. Van Morrison, And The Healing Has Begun . . . One of my favorites, of which yeah there are likely too many to count, from Van The Man, the man whose voice is so much, more so in my opinion than many artists, an amazing instrument in itself. From 1979’s Into The Music album. Brilliant stuff.

20. Dire Straits, Follow Me Home . . . Last track on the second Straits’ album, Communique and a good one to finish up on, this bluesy track, because I am going home in the sense that the show’s done for Saturday morning. Back Monday, live in studio, 8-10 pm ET. Thanks for listening, and reading, if you have and even if not . . . Take care, all.