1. J. Geils Band, First I Look At The Purse (live, from Full House) . . . Probably my favorite J. Geils song and version; they are best served live, terrific band, propulsive track I could listen to 100 times in a row and never tire of.

2. The Rolling Stones, Rocks Off . . . ‘The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.” etc. That lyric ‘makes’ this song, the opening cut to the Exile On Main St. album, for me.

3. Groundhogs, Cherry Red . . . Not sure how I got into the Groundhogs, the British blues-rock powerhouse yet something of an underground act. Probably one of those times, ages ago now, I was in a music store, an independent one like Kitchener’s amazing Encore Records, and the band was playing. In any event, glad I did.

4. AC/DC, Demon Fire . . . Similar riff to Safe In New York City from the band’s 2000 album Stiff Upper Lip but what the heck, it’s 20 years later, this one’s from the most recent record Power Up in 2020 and when has AC/DC not repeated itself – yet remained excellent? And, Angus Young did raid the vaults of unreleased material in putting together the album, which was a tribute to longtime rhythm guitarist and band co-founder Malcolm Young, who died in 2017. He’s since been replaced by Stevie Young, Malcolm’s nephew. The new album was something of a comeback/reunion album for the boys, what with drummer Phil Rudd returning from legal issues, singer Brian Johnson returning from hearing issues and bassist Cliff Williams back in the fold after coming out of retirement. Demonstrating the staying power of classic rock bands, it was a No. 1 album in many countries, including the US, UK and Germany, and was 2020’s sixth-best album, worldwide, in sales counting physical copies, downloads, etc.

5. Judas Priest, Lightning Strike . . . Smokin’ track from the powerhouse 2018 album Firepower, wherein Priest got away from the somewhat progressive concept metal of their previous two albums, Nostradamus and Redeemer of Souls and largely turned the clock back to the 1970s or 80s. The two previous albums are good, but Firepower is a return to more straight-ahead blistering songwriting, with Lightning Strike, one of the singles from the album, a perfect example. Great stuff, if you like Priest and hard rock/metal.

6. Black Sabbath, The Shining . . . From The Eternal Idol, from the underappreciated – aside from dedicated Sabbath fans – Tony Martin on lead vocals version of Sabbath. Very interesting period in the band’s history; guitarist Tony Iommi the only constant, holding it all together and producing some terrific, if relatively unheard, material with typically monstrous riffs.

7. Ozzy Osbourne, Over The Mountain . . . A single and well-known track from Ozzy’s second solo album, 1981’s Diary of A Madman, the second and final Ozzy album featuring the late great guitarist Randy Rhodes. I like the tune, and the album but to me it also marks perhaps the beginning of the overproduced 80s sound that became pervasive in all genres and frankly I don’t like. The sound became the staple of ‘hair metal’ bands, mostly garbage like Poison and Winger and whoever else, Bon Jovi whose success I’ve never understood beyond the song Wanted Dead Or Alive and crap like Motley Crue, which has to be the absolute worst successful band in music history, just shit to my ears . . . OK, stream of consciousness rant over. Ozzy wasn’t shit here, but the sound was getting there. Interestingly, Sabbath, with Dio at the same time doing albums like Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules, avoided the overproduction sound.

8. Thin Lizzy, Bad Reputation . . . So many great Thin Lizzy songs beyond The Boys Are Back In Town, a great song but which, to some, particularly hockey arena programmers, is the only thing the band ever did. There’s so much depth to Lizzy’s catalog it’s ridiculous. This title cut to the band’s 1977 album is a perfect example.

9. Rory Gallagher, Big Guns . . . Title cut to a compilation that years ago truly got me deep into Rory Gallagher. The song was originally on 1982’s Jinx album. I love Gallagher’s music and that of his previous band, Taste, but was somewhat late to the party but have long since made up for lost time. I recall Rory auditioning for the Stones at the Black and Blue sessions (that would have been interesting and likely amazing, Rory in the Stones) but more so I recall a college friend late 1970s raving about Rory, which further turned me on to him and so here I am, again, playing the late great guitarist/songwriter.

10. Pink Floyd, One Of These Days . . . Classic bass line on this one, the well-known instrumental opener from Meddle, the 1971 album preceding the monster The Dark Side Of The Moon.

11. Traffic, Rock and Roll Stew, Parts 1 & 2 . . . Traffic recorded various versions of this one, which appeared as a four-minute plus track on The Low Spark OF High Heeled Boys album and then, as Parts 1 & 2, as a longer single that later appeared on expanded reissues of the album and on the 2-CD Gold compilation. Great tune from a great band, in any version.

12. Pete Townshend/Ronnie Lane, Heart To Hang Onto . . . 1977’s Rough Mix, credited to The Who’s Pete Townshend and Faces’ Ronnie Lane helped out by a host of their musical friends including the likes of Eric Clapton and Charlie Watts, is quite simply one of the greatest albums ever, in my book. This is just one of many terrific songs on it.

13. Jefferson Airplane, She Has Funny Cars . . . Opening track to Surrealistic Pillow, another of those albums handed down to me, so to speak, by my older siblings, in this case my older sister. The hits were the only two top 40 hits the Airplane ever had, Somebody To Love and White Rabbit, eternal classics of course, but the whole album is amazing.

14. Murray McLauchlan, Sixteen Lanes Of Highway . . . From McLauchlan’s 1971 debut album, Songs From The Street. The track also appears on the wonderful 2-CD compilation, issued in 2007, The Best of Murray McLauchlan: Songs From The Street.

15. Junkhouse, Burned Out Car . . . Speaking of McLauchlan, his own version of this song about homelessness is on the Songs from the Street compilation. The Junkhouse version, which came out on the Birthday Boy album in 1995, features duet vocals by Sarah McLauchlan and Junkhouse leader and artiste extraordinaire Tom Wilson.

16. Headstones, Heart Of Darkness . . . From the Picture of Health debut album, 1993. If Headstones did nothing else, and they’ve done lots since, this album alone would cement their legacy and brilliance, in my opinion. Just kick butt rock and roll.

17. Bruce Cockburn, You Get Bigger As You Go . . . Another from Humans, arguably my favorite Cockburn album and one I tend to dig into for the show every now and then.

18. Elton John, Midnight Creeper . . . The last in my Elton John series, for now. It started several weeks ago when I couldn’t decide between this song, Have Mercy On The Criminal and High Flying Bird, all from the Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player album, or Slave, from Honky Chateau. So, over the last while, I’ve now played them all.

19. Ten Years After, If You Should Love Me . . . Still fresh, bluesy and excellent after all these years. From TYA’s 1969 release, Ssssh.

20. Little Feat, All That You Dream . . . Linda Ronstadt helps out Lowell George on vocals on this cut from 1975’s The Last Record Album, which it wasn’t as the band kept going Somehow I feel like I’ve said the exact same thing fairly recently after playing this song. Oh well, if so. Great band, great tune.

21. The Band featuring Van Morrison, Caravan (live from The Last Waltz) . . . Originally on Van the Man’s 1970 Moondance album, this is a terrific live version with The Band.

22. Savoy Brown, Hellbound Train . . . Spooky, hypnotic, nine-minute blues-rock title cut from the band’s 1972 album.

23. Tommy Bolin, Post Toastee . . . Another nine-minute epic as we close the show with some extended stuff. Great riff on this one from the late great Bolin’s second solo album, 1976’s Private Eyes, after his version of Deep Purple broke up following that lineup’s lone, and fine, album Come Taste The Band.

24. Deep Purple, Bird Has Flown . . . Any follower of the show by now knows I’m a huge Deep Purple fan, all eras of the band, and its offshoots like Rainbow, early Whitesnake, Gillan, etc. It wasn’t always this way but in recent years, OK, the last 30, ha, I’ve really come to appreciate the early, progressive/psychedelic material produced by the first incarnation of Purple with Rod Evans on lead vocals and Nick Simper on bass. Like this track, from the third and final album before Evans and Simper left to be replaced by Ian Gillan and Roger Glover for 1970’s In Rock.

1. Nazareth, Morning Dew . . . Written by Canadian singer-songwriter Bonnie Dobson and covered by so many, including the Rod Stewart-fronted Jeff Beck Group on Truth, The Grateful Dead, Lulu, Robert Plant, Long John Baldry, early incarnations of what became The Allman Brothers Band and many others. I could do a whole Morning Dew show, or leave it to you, the listener, to try the various versions, all good, that are readily available online including a stirring duet between Dobson and Plant during a 2000s Plant concert. So hard to choose, but Nazareth’s extended seven-minute version from their self-titled 1971 debut album remains among my favorites, particularly for its pulsating, hypnotic, intro. Most of the well-known covers follow the rocked-up pattern of the Tim Rose version, for which he controversially claimed a writing credit after rearranging Dobson’s more pure folk version. Lots of interesting literature about the song, a post-apocalyptic lament Dobson was inspired to write and sing in her ethereal tone by the 1959 movie On The Beach, starring Gregory Peck. It’s a good movie (spoiler alert) about inhabitants of the earth’s southern hemisphere, specifically Australia, awaiting the inevitable as air currents slowly carry nuclear fallout south from the devastated north.

2. The Beatles, Rain . . . The B-side to Paperback Writer, yet another example of bands as fine as The Beatles having B-sides or album tracks that most bands would sell their souls for. Ringo considers it his best recorded drumming and the song demonstrated the band’s increasing use of the studio as an instrument in itself, what with a backing track recorded at high speed, then slowed down for release, and the opposite being done on John Lennon’s lead vocal. As detailed in a Beatles’ book I own, “the juxtaposition of speed and laziness heightened the unearthly tension of this brilliant record.” Indeed.

3. The Rolling Stones, Child Of The Moon . . . Spacey track with remnants of the sound of 1967’s Satanic Majesties album, this was the B-side to the Stones’ return to kick-butt rock and roll, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, in 1968.

4. Paul McCartney/Wings, Famous Groupies . . . Fun little ditty of the type McCartney has always done so well, in my opinion. It just happened to come up while I was plotting this little Beatles-Stones mini-set, so I decided to play it. From 1978’s London Town album.

5. Ron Wood, Ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll . . . Terrific cut from, for me, Wood’s best solo album (and he’s got many good ones), 1992’s Slide On This.

6. The Monkees, Daily Nightly . . . One of my favorite Monkees’ tunes (and there are many), this somewhat spooky 1967 song about the 1966 Sunset Strip curfew riots in Hollywood, penned by guitarist Mike Nesmith and sung by drummer Mickey Dolenz, is apparently one of the first commercial rock/pop songs to feature the Moog synthesizer, played by Dolenz.

7. Free, Broad Daylight . . . Haven’t played Free in a while. I have played Bad Company, the band which evolved out of the ashes of Free. Bad Co was of course much more successful commercially, but in many ways I (and many others) still prefer the rawer, bluesier, in some cases heavier band that was Free, both groups fronted of course by the incomparably great rock singer Paul Rodgers. Hard to pick between the two bands, though, both great. Nice guitar solo by the late great Paul Kossoff on this one, from the second, self-titled, Free album.

8. Jeff Beck, Blue Wind . . . Written by Jan Hammer, who by the time of 1976’s Wired album was collaborating extensively with Beck. Great jazz/rock/funk fusion, Beck’s fingers are on fire on the fretboard. You actually used to hear stuff like this on commercial FM radio during the 1970s.

9. George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Want Ad Blues . . . Nice bass line to open this extended cover of the John Lee Hooker tune. Thorogood, of course, doesn’t write much, but he built a solid career out of his ability, born of his love for the music that inspired him, for choosing and covering/re-interpreting some fine material. All with gloriously ‘dirty’ guitar, of course.

10. Aerosmith, No Surprize . . . Lead cut telling the story of the band from the kick-ass Night In The Ruts (Right In The Nuts on the back cover) album, 1979. It got critically panned, the band was largely out of it on booze and drugs, guitarist Joe Perry left partway through but many Aerosmith fans, me included, consider it among their best albums. It rocks. The black and white cover of the band, all grimy in a mine shaft, with “Aerosmith” and the album title scrawled on the rocks, is cool and, well, it’s just a great album, critics be damned. One of those examples in rock and roll of a band fraying at the edges yet still producing good music. And the best part, paradoxically, is that because it wasn’t hugely successful, the album has not been overplayed to death over the years so remains fresh. And how can you beat a lyric like “Midnight lady situation fetal vaccinate your ass with a phonograph needle” or the bang-on commentary on the music industry: “Candy store rock and roll corporation jelly roll play the singles it ain’t me it’s programmed insanity” ‘Nuff said.

11. Humble Pie, I Wonder . . . Out goes guitarist Peter Frampton for a successful solo career, in comes Clem Clempson for 1972’s Smokin’ album, which lived up to its title and, thanks to the hit single 30 Days In The Hole, became the Steve Marriott-led band’s best-selling album. Clempson’s guitar work on this extended slow blues cut ain’t bad, either.

12. Rod Stewart, My Way Of Giving . . . The Small Faces originally did this one, written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, before Rod Stewart and Ron Wood came out of The Jeff Beck Group to form what became Faces – many of whom, as was typical of the period, played on Stewart’s solo version of the track, on 1970’s Gasoline Alley album.

13. Led Zeppelin, Over The Hills And Far Away . . . For some unknown reason, this song, and a good one it is, was playing in my head the other night when I got up in the middle of the night to answer nature’s call. So I went back to bed, got up in the morning and was thinking “what’s the name of that Zep song that starts slow, with ‘hey lady’ and then gets gloriously heavy? I should play it.” So, I am.

14. Fleetwood Mac, Although The Sun Is Shining . . . Beautiful song, penned by guitarist Danny Kirwan for the final Peter Green-led Mac album, 1969’s brilliant Then Play On. One of the formative records of my youth, among many brought home to me by my older brother, eight years senior. What a resource and influence he was.

15. John Stewart, Gold . . . Speaking of Fleetwood Mac, remember this hit single by Stewart from 1979? Great tune, nice memories, pulled from a “Fleetwood Mac Family Album” CD I own that features various Mac members and their solo and/or collaborative ventures. Stevie Nicks of Mac is on backing vocals. Apparently Stewart, who also wrote The Monkees’ Daydream Believer, grew to dislike Gold, refusing to perform it live, calling it ‘vapid’ and ’empty’ and having no meaning for him, saying he did it for the money and to please his record company. I can see his view. If you research Stewart he was an accomplished artist and songwriter who then perhaps became associated with one song that to him perhaps became an albatross. But a good tune, nonetheless, and a deserved hit.

16. Eagles, Hollywood Waltz . . . Not much to say about this one. Hadn’t heard it in a while, came up on the computer while programming something else, nice tune from the One Of These Nights album, decided to play it.

17. Queen, Sleeping On The Sidewalk . . . I’ve said it perhaps too many times, and I haven’t actually added them up but I’d say most of my favorite Queen songs are those written by guitarist Brian May; this being yet another. Nice bluesy tune from News Of The World, 1977, a terrific album overshadowed by the good, but by now ridiculously overplayed, particularly in sports arenas, hit singles We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions.

18. Elton John, Slave . . . So, a few weeks back I mentioned I was having difficulty choosing between several Elton John tunes, and would eventually get to them all. Songs on the docket were three from 1973’s Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only The Piano Player (High Flying Bird, Have Mercy On The Criminal and Midnight Creeper) and this one, Slave, a countryish tune from Honky Chateau in 1972. All that’s now left to play from my list, in an upcoming show, perhaps next week, maybe later, is Midnight Creeper.

19. ZZ Top, A Fool For Your Stockings . . . One of my all-time favorite ZZ tunes, from 1979’s Deguello, a few years before synthesizers and huge commercial success came into the equation. I read it described by a rock journalist as ‘a fine fetish blues.”

20. Van Morrison, Tupelo Honey . . . Title cut from Van Morrison’s 1971 album, simply, to me, one of his finest ever songs.

21. Leon Russell, Out In The Woods . . . Such a funky, cool track; the instrumentation and of course the vocals. It’s obvious and self-evident but vocals, the styling, the tone, the pitch, are such an immense instrument in themselves in music.

22. Peter Tosh, Equal Rights/Downpressor Man (live) . . . It didn’t occur to me while I was planning the show but perhaps some sort of thing was going on because today, Monday, January 17 is Martin Luther King Day in the United States. And so, unplanned yet fitting, here’s this combo track from Tosh’s great Captured Live album. “Everyone is crying out for peace, none is crying out for justice. But there will be no peace, ’til man gets equal rights and justice.”

23. Bob Marley & The Wailers, Could You Be Loved . . . Funky reggae from the late great . . . and great lyrics, too, open to interpretation in an individual or collective sense. To each one’s own.

24. The Allman Brothers Band, Old Friend . . . Fantastic acoustic guitar pickin’ by Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks on this blues cut. Not sure they intended it this way because the band kept up with live performance for many years until retiring in 2014, so there was always the possibility of another studio album. But perhaps in retrospect and appropriately, it’s the last song on the last Allmans studio album, 2003’s Hittin’ The Note. The whole album is terrific but I’m a huge fan. In any event, they did hit the note on what became their final studio release.

25. Shirley Bassey, If You Go Away . . . Many versions of this song but I love Shirley Bassey’s vocals and she did several James Bond themes including the immortal version of Goldfinger, which I’ve played before and will again, perhaps in another ‘Bond’ set at some point. In any event, this came up as I was sorting CDs and came across a Bassey singles collection I own. Beautiful, sad song. And on that note, going away until next week.

1. Elvis Costello, Welcome To The Working Week
2. Elvis Costello, Waiting For The End Of The World
3. The Selecter, On My Radio
4. Pretenders, Mystery Achievement
5. Graham Parker and The Rumour, Don’t Ask Me Questions
6. Talking Heads, Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
7. Ramones, Beat On The Brat
8. Blondie, Rip Her To Shreds
9. Dead Kennedys, Holiday In Cambodia
10. The Clash, The Guns Of Brixton
11. BB Gabor, Simulated Groove
12. XTC, Ten Feet Tall
13. Teenage Head, Brand New Cadillac
14. Ian Dury, I’m Partial To Your Abracadabra
15. The Boomtown Rats, Mary Of The 4^th Form
16. The Cars, Dangerous Type
17. The Police, Bring On The Night
18. Joe Jackson, In Every Dream Home (A Nightmare)
19. The Beat, Tears Of A Clown
20. The B-52’s, Planet Claire
21. Nick Lowe, American Squirm
22. The Specials, Ghost Town
23. The Sex Pistols, Submission
24. Love Sculpture, Sabre Dance (single version)
25. The Rolling Stones, Hey Negrita
26. Joe Walsh, I Can Play That Rock & Roll
27. Chet Atkins & Mark Knopfler, Yakety Axe
28. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Lovin’ Cup
29. J.J. Cale, Crazy Mama
30. Elton John, Have Mercy On The Criminal
31. David Bowie, Fascination

It was suggested to me I might play a punk/new wave show and I dabble in such tunes on occasion, what I call my ‘college days’ soundtrack, for me that being 1978-80. But I’ve rarely done the bulk of a show to this extent. So anyway, here it is, happy to do it, followed towards the end by some more let’s say my typical classic rock fare. It was interesting in putting the set together because while I still like the ‘new wave’ tunes, and it was a fun period in my musical life, it also occurred to me that many of the bands represented, to me anyway, were good singles bands but didn’t have much depth to their catalogs. Blondie, for instance. I like the hits but not much else grabs me, the same certainly for The B-52’s – two good songs/singles to me, Planet Claire and even Rock Lobster hasn’t aged well – and XTC whose music, aside from a few cuts, I find to be pretty wimpy Brit pop type stuff. Even The Police, to me, have not aged well and I was a huge fan at one time. Just my changing ears, what can I say? And the Ramones, I dunno, love-hate relationship, I ‘get’ them and their influence I guess but at same time, it’s pretty much all one interchangeable song. Most of the early punk and new wave bands that lasted (The Clash, Joe Jackson, Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, Pretenders, Talking Heads etc.) wound up doing exactly what some of them initially criticized their forebears for doing – creatively expanding their musical palettes. Nothing wrong with that, in my book.

1. The Mothers of Invention/Frank Zappa, My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mama . . . Among Zappa’s more conventional tunes, complete with an acoustic guitar solo in the middle and an electric one towards the end. All in three and a half minutes.

2. Neil Young, Down By The River . . . One of my favorite Neil Young tunes, edited from nine minutes to three for a single release; this is the full version. Simple, repetitive yet hypnotic guitar, starting at five seconds from the two minute mark, makes the tune.

3. Whitesnake, Sweet Talker . . . Early, bluesier, better (in my opinion) Whitesnake, from 1980 and featuring three fifths of the Mk III version of Deep Purple – Whitesnake leader/singer David Coverdale with old Purple mates Jon Lord on keyboards and drummer Ian Paice.

4. Deep Purple, You Fool No One . . . And here’s Coverdale pre-Whitesnake, belting out a funky tune in harmony with bassist Glenn Hughes on 1974’s Burn album, the first of the Mk III lineup.

5. Guns N’ Roses, Estranged . . . A nine-minute epic single, that as far as I’ve researched was not released in any edited form, and a good thing, too, editing would have ruined it. It came out on Use Your Illusion II which, along with Illusion I was released on the same day in 1991. I remember people lining up at record stores to buy the albums, G N’ R was so big at the time. I’ve always liked the way the vocals change from mellow to rock on the second verse “so nobody every told you baby, how it was gonna be…”

6. The Rolling Stones, Out Of Tears . . . Here I go again, by accident or design, getting into another of these song title things; notice the pattern? First off, Mama is under siege down by the river…then a bunch of relationship titles including this one, not that any of them are necessarily connected and I can say at this point in my life have zero to do with me, but anyway.

7. Bad Company, Weep No More . . . Sticking with the weeping motif, from Bad Co’s second album, Straight Shooter, in 1974.

8. Rare Earth, What I’d Say (live) . . . I feel like I played this recently, although my research suggests it wasn’t too recently, although I did play a different Rare Earth song, Long Time Leavin’, some weeks back. I have played the studio version of Rare Earth’s interpretation of this Ray Charles classic. This is the live version, from 1971’s In Concert album, the ‘backpack cover’ one, which is how one of my old friends refers to it.

9. Blood, Sweat & Tears, I Love You More Than You’ll Ever Know . . . Bluesy cut from Child Is Father To The Man, the first BS & T album, after which founder/leader Al Kooper left, David Clayton-Thomas came in on lead vocals, the band went in more of a pop direction and, for a few albums, was a massive commercial success. Kooper, meantime, went into production and session work. His extensive resume includes producing and playing on early Lynyrd Skynyrd albums as well as releases by The Who, Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Ringo Starr among many others. He also played piano, french horn and organ on the studio version of The Rolling Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want.

10. Bob Welch, Hot Love, Cold World . . . From Bob Welch’s debut solo album, French Kiss, in 1977. This was the third single from the album and a minor hit behind the two previous singles – Ebony Eyes and Sentimental Lady, which Welch wrote for Fleetwood Mac’s Bare Trees album in 1972 and updated for his solo release.

11. Bob Dylan, When You Gonna Wake Up . . . There are many opinions on Dylan’s Christian album period from 1979-81 but there’s no denying the quality of the music, and the musicians (like Mark Knopfler and Pick Withers of Dire Straits) he had in his band at the time.

12. The Byrds, This Wheel’s On Fire . . . The Byrds were great interpreters, especially of Dylan stuff, and I’ve always liked this more rocked-up treatment, great gritty vocals by Roger McGuinn, of a tune written by Dylan and The Band’s Rick Danko. It appeared on The Band’s Music From Big Pink and the Dylan/Band collaboration The Basement Tapes. Three different versions, all excellent.

13. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, My Life/Your World . . . I was discussing Petty deep cuts with a U.S.-based music aficionado acquaintance on Twitter the other day. He was looking for suggestions for a deep cuts playlist, I mentioned this one, so I decided to play it myself. I like what I describe as hypnotic tracks, of which this is a great example.

14. Joe Cocker, Sandpaper Cadillac . . . Appropriate album title, With A Little Help From My Friends, on which Cocker famously covered The Beatles’ tune. Helping him out on his 1969 solo album debut were such luminaries as Jimmy Page, Steve Winwood, Henry McCulloch of McCartney and Wings fame, etc.

15. Yes, Heart Of The Sunrise . . . From bluesy to prog to, next track, punk as we steer the show in a couple different directions. Killer riff on this one, from Fragile, another one of those 10-minute songs that, while extended, remains compelling as it goes back and forth between riff rock and the quieter sections.

16. The Sex Pistols, Holidays In The Sun . . . So, the story goes, the Pistols really did want a holiday in the sun, on the Channel island of Jersey. But they got thrown out and went instead to Berlin, which was still divided by the wall at the time, hence the lyrics. Kick-butt rocker, regardless.

17. Black Sabbath, Junior’s Eyes . . . Sabbath’s 1978 album Never Say Die seems to get panned by critics and even fans. The band was falling apart, out of it on booze and drugs in large measure, Ozzy had temporarily quit and returned but in view of all that, they still managed to produce some good stuff. Side one of the original vinyl, in particular, is quite good, featuring the title cut, Johnny Blade and this nicely-arranged industrial-type track.

18. The Who, Pictures Of Lily . . . I was talking about essential Who albums with a friend the other day and we agreed that, although it’s a compilation, 1971’s Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy is one of them, collecting as it does the band’s 60s singles, like this one, in one tight, intoxicating package.

19. Jim Croce, Roller Derby Queen . . . I suppose this song, which came out in 1973, could be about Raquel Welch in the 1972 movie Kansas City Bomber but Raquel wasn’t fat and two-fifteen, as go the song’s lyrics. Maybe Croce was disguising it, who knows? I saw the movie ages ago, having watched roller derby a bit as a kid during the early 1970s and, OK, because I wanted to see Raquel, but I barely remember it, much less whether it was any good. Welch, apparently, said it was the first movie she ever did where she actually liked her own performance. Oh, the song’s pretty good, too. Croce, alas, died at age 30 in a plane crash in 1973, while on tour.

20. Procol Harum, Simple Sister . . . Nice hard rock riff amid the progressive, somewhat operatic leanings of the band.

21. Chris Whitley, Poison Girl . . . Whitely died of lung cancer in 2005 at age 45 but he left behind a fine catalog of blues and blues rock, including this one from his 1991 debut and I think his best album, Living With The Law.

22. Nina Simone, Wild Is The Wind . . . Written by composer Dimitri Tiomkin and lyricist Ned Washington for the 1957 film of the same name, it was a hit at the time for Johnny Mathis. Simone did a live version in 1959 and then this more well-known studio version in 1966. David Bowie covered it 10 years later, as a tribute to Simone, on his Station To Station album. I’ve played Bowie’s version before so I figured I’d go with Simone this time.

1. Tramp, Put A Record On . . . Who is Tramp? Well, they were an on again, off again British blues band often comprised of assorted members of Fleetwood Mac like drummer Mick Fleetwood, original bassist Bob Brunning, who formed Tramp in 1969, and guitarist Danny Kirwan. Tramp, fronted by the brother sister guitarist/singer combo of Dave and Jo Ann Kelly, released just two albums. The debut was out in 1969 and then in 1974 came Put A Record On, the title cut of which appears on a Fleetwood Mac Family Album CD I have. The album features the outside and solo work of the various Mac members over the many years and lineups of the parent group. Jo Ann Kelly was so highly thought of that both Canned Heat and Johnny Winter wanted her to join their bands, but she declined due to her desire to stay in England. Sadly, she died in 1990 at age 46 of a brain tumor.

2. The James Gang, The Bomber . . . Haven’t played the James Gang in a while. So I figured I’d bring them back into the loop via this epic, from the second album, Rides Again.

3. The Who, The Punk and the Godfather . . . An old friend of mine loves The Who and always swore by Quadrophenia as their best, or at least his favorite album by the band but then he’s into ‘concept’ albums and likes The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway by Genesis, which I’ve never fully gotten into so, there’s that if one is considering sources, ha. He’s also the guy I once got into a fun drunken argument with over whether Genesis was even rock akin to, say, the raunch and roll of The Rolling Stones, his argument being “ever heard The Knife, dammit!” So yeah, I’ve heard The Knife, it’s heavy, it’s on the Trespass album; Genesis can play rock, of a sort though not raunch, so I concede the point but anyway . . . back to The Who. I like Tommy, which is a concept album, but of The Who’s works I’d say I like Who’s Next, Who Are You and yes, The Who By Numbers, which I grew up with, more. But I’m more a song guy than a concept guy, when it comes to music. I do like Quadrophenia, certainly several of the songs from it, like The Punk and the Godfather, so here you go. I’d still take the more well-known 5:15, The Real Me and Love, Reign O’er Me from Quad, ahead of it, though, but this is a deep cuts show. Actually, while I’m writing these commentary notes, I just put on the Lamb and, you know, I could get more deeply into it, actually, and I realize I do know the album pretty well, The Cage, Carpet Crawlers, the title cut, etc. Next!

4. Bob Dylan, Everything Is Broken . . . Up-tempo Zimmy to kick off his fine 1989 album, Oh Mercy, wall to wall one of his best, any era. But you’ll get that when you hire Canada’s own Daniel Lanois as producer. Anything he touches turns to gold, ask U2, Peter Gabriel, Robbie Robertson, on and on. Lanois is not a bad music maker in his own right, either, judging by his solo albums.

5. Joan Baez, Diamonds and Rust . . . Speaking of Dylan, this 1975 song is all about him and for my money is one of the finest songs about love, love lost and all that stuff, ever written. Always brings a tear to my eye. It’s brilliant, sung by the voice of an angel. Judas Priest, of course, later in the 1970s covered it in their metal fashion, had a hit with it and Baez liked it. A long time later, in the 2000s, Priest re-did it in acoustic, Baez style to great effect but one would expect nothing less, given Priest lead singer Rob Halford’s pipes.

6. Leon Russell and Willie Nelson, Heartbreak Hotel . . . Leon and Willie team up on the song Elvis Presley made famous. It’s actually credited to Willie Nelson and Leon Russell but I pulled it from a Leon Russell compilation I own so I put Leon first. Just to be different.

7. The Kinks, Hatred (A Duet) . . . Famously feuding and fighting brothers Ray and Dave Davies have great fun on this one, from The Kinks’ last studio album, Phobia, which came out in 1993. It’s a great commentary on their always-tempestuous relationship, and society in general. “Why don’t you just drop dead and don’t recover. I’m the mirror to your mood, you hate me and I hate you so at least we understand each other.” Ah, brotherly love. I imagine they had a riot recording it.

8. Tim Curry, No Love On The Street . . . Great original tune by the multi-talented Curry, who came to fame as Dr. Frank-N-Furter (you’ll recall Sweet Transvestite) in The Rocky Horror Picture show. I was major into the whole Rocky Horror schtick at the time so when I heard Curry’s Fearless album playing in a record store in 1979, I liked it, bought it and soon owned the three albums he released between 1978 and 1981. He always had major music people helping him, too, like producers Michael Kamen and Bob Ezrin and guitarist Dick Wagner of Alice Cooper and Lou Reed fame. Curry, who was a scream in the 1985 movie adaptation of the board game Clue, alas is confined to a wheelchair after suffering a stroke in 2012, although he still does voice work.

9. Bee Gees, Lonely Days . . . Probably my favorite Bee Gees’ song, essentially three songs in one as it quietly builds to a crescendo, calms down again, then rebuilds to another peak. These guys were so good, yes, even the disco stuff. Just great songwriters.

10. Steppenwolf, It’s Never Too Late . . . Yet another great one by the Canadian-rooted band which is SO much more than endless classic rock station plays of Magic Carpet Ride and Born To Be Wild, great songs of course but . . .

11. Bad Company, Company Of Strangers . . . Title cut from the band’s 1995 album, with Paul Rodgers soundalike Robert Hart on lead vocals. An old work colleague of mine once said that Bad Company without Rodgers singing isn’t Bad Company. I agree for the most part, certainly given the overproduced (though commercially successful) schlock they released with Brian Howe on lead vocals during the 1980s, which is when my old work friend commented. But Company of Strangers, which features founding guitarist Mick Ralphs and drummer Simon Kirke, is pretty good, actually. It could pass for the band’s 1970s work with Rodgers, I think.

12. The Rolling Stones, Sway . . . Great guitar work, especially on the outro, from Mick Taylor on one of those what I term ‘effortlessly and effectively lazy’ Stones cuts, which nobody does better than, well, the Stones. This one’s from Sticky Fingers.

13. The Guess Who, Key . . . A nice combo of psychedelia and pop rock on this epic, near 12-minute excursion from 1969’s Wheatfield Soul album.

14. Simon and Garfunkel, Baby Driver . . . Like many 1960s and 70s albums, Bridge Over Troubled Water is so good any of its songs could have been singles. This one wasn’t though, which tells you what a quality work the album was.

15. Steve Miller Band, Space Cowboy . . . By now this is a well-known Miller tune but it arguably wasn’t when it came out in 1969 on the Brave New World album when the Steve Miller Band was still in its psychedelic/blues rock phase. The band was still some years away from its commercial mid- to late-1970s heyday starting with The Joker album and subsequent releases Fly Like An Eagle, Book of Dreams and the ubiquitous Greatest Hits 1974-78 album. But if you’re looking to sample earlier Miller, I’d recommend The Anthology and The Best of 1968-73 compilations, either physical copies or online.

16. Blue Rodeo, Diamond Mine . . . I’ve been meaning to get to some Blue Rodeo, was discussing them with a friend recently and mentioned to him that I ought to play them. Reason I haven’t, to be honest, is that my place is an unholy mess, CDs not racked (it’s a forever project) because I’m too lazy to put them away after each show. In a way, I think it helps my set list creativity because I just randomly pick up a disc, yeah I still own CDs, and load them into our station computer. So anyway, was rummaging around and, voila, found a Blue Rodeo disc so I figured I’d play the title cut, probably my favorite song of theirs, from their 1989 album. It’s quite Doors-ish, in my opinion, akin to The End or When The Music’s Over.

17. Elton John, High Flying Bird . . . Here’s the problem with Elton John in the 1970s and doing a radio show just once a week. How are you supposed to choose among his many great songs and we’re talking deep cuts, let alone hits. So, at first I was going to go with Street Kids, a rocker I like from Rock of The Westies but I realized I’ve played that fairly recently. Then up came Slave, a nice country blues-ish tune from Honky Chateau which I’ve never played I don’t think, but then that CD rummage session revealed Elton’s Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player album so it came down to either High Flying Bird or Have Mercy On The Criminal, and Bird won out. But, now you have an indication of some Elton John titles to look for in future shows.

18. Bloomfield Kooper Stills, His Holy Modal Majesty . . . From the legendary Super Session album, which features Al Kooper and guitarists Michael Bloomfield and Stephen Stills. It was a two-day session but Bloomfield, who played on this tribute to jazz giant John Coltrane, left – apparently he was having trouble sleeping and wanted to rest – so Kooper scrambled and brought Stills in to finish the album. The whole project, either guitarist, is terrific.

19. Rory Gallagher, Calling Card . . . Anyone who knows me, and the show, knows how much I like Rory Gallagher, from his days leading Taste to his extensive solo work. Just a brilliant guitarist and songwriter, yet in many ways not well known to the masses. But his brother Donal has kept the late Rory’s music alive over the years via various reissue projects, compilations, concert film re-releases and the like. That’s a good thing. Rory was amazing. Asked once how it felt to be the greatest guitarist in the world, Jimi Hendrix is said to have said, “I don’t know. Go ask Rory Gallagher.”. But of course Hendrix said similar things about Chicago’s late great Terry Kath, and B.B. King said of Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green that Green was ‘the only living guitarist to make me sweat. He had the sweetest tone I’ve ever heard.” Which really says it all about all these guys; it’s not a competition. It’s about their respective creative muses, and resulting mutual respect and admiration. 
20. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Sedan Delivery . . . Kick butt distortion tune, which is what Neil Young does when Crazy Horse is in the building with him. From 1979’s Rust Never Sleeps. Young originally recorded Sedan Delivery during the sessions for his 1975 album Zuma but it didn’t make the cut. The song was offered to Lynyrd Skynyrd for their final pre-plane crash album, Street Survivors, but they passed on it.

21. Ocean Colour Scene, The Riverboat Song . . . What an infectious, irresistible riff from these Britpop boys. I’m not super up on them but heard them playing in one of my favorite local independent record stores some years back, that would be Encore Records in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada (free plug, boys), bought a compilation and here we are.

22. Chuck Leavell, Evening Train . . . This is an interesting one, perhaps, in how I came to play it. Pianist/keyboard player Leavell, of course, is a former Allman Brother and has been playing live and on studio records with The Rolling Stones since the 1980s and also at one time fronted the Allmans’ offshoot band Sea Level, which I’ve periodically played. Anyway, I was digging through my stuff and back in 2019, the Stones’ Keith Richards was ‘guest editor’ of MOJO music magazine so the mag included with purchase a CD of some of Keef’s favorite tunes. It’s a diverse disc, featuring stuff like Funkadelic, Buckwhat Zydeco, Dion, Toots and The Maytalls (Richards loves reggae), Jimmy Reed, Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters. And, this bluesy Leavell track from his 2013 album, Back To The Woods, a tribute to the pioneers of blues piano.  
23. Ringo Starr, Goodnight Vienna/Goodnight Vienna Reprise . . . Title cut, a fun rocker and its short reprise, from Ringo’s 1974 album, written by John Lennon. And on that note, goodnight until next week.

1. Jethro Tull, To Cry You A Song . . . I always listen to music in the gym but been using my workout time lately to dig back into and savor many of my favorite albums, particularly ones I haven’t listened to in a while, because I think what often happens is, for me at least, is you know an album so well that it’s as if you don’t need to play it because you know it in your mind. But then you actually do play it again and you think, wow, is this ever good. Like Tull’s third album, Benefit, from which this song comes. As always, credit to my late older brother for introducing me to Tull all those years ago.

2. R.E.M., Oh, My Heart . . . Beautiful song from the band’s final album, 2011’s Collapse Into Now. It’s worth reading the Wikipedia entry about the album, which details how the group, which was on the down slope of commercial success, came to the decision to disband and it wasn’t just due to sales. And, also, how they developed the album as they accepted that times had changed concepts of what an ‘album’ meant. To pull a bit from Wikipedia, the group did videos for each song on the album, not just the singles,of which Oh, My Heart was the fourth. Lead singer Michael Stipe: “The idea was to present a 21^st-century version of an album. What does an album mean in the year 2011, particularly to generations of people for whom the word ‘album’ is an archaic term? An album for me as a teenager in the ’70s was a fully-formed concept. It was a body of work from an artist I liked or trusted or who excited me. I wanted to present an idea of what an album could be in the era of YouTube and the internet. This is what we do. We put together and sequenced the strongest body of work we could possibly come up with at this moment in time and put it onto this record.” I love listening to creative people discuss their work, whoever it is because, while I like them, I’m not even a massive R.E.M. fan.

3. George Harrison, I Dig Love . . . Same thing here as with my comments re the Jethro Tull song/album I started today’s show with. I hadn’t listened to Harrison’s All Things Must Pass in a long time but did so in the gym, over two workouts, last week. It’s a sprawling album, of course, three vinyl records in its original configuration as Harrison unleashed his muse after the breakup of The Beatles, using some material that didn’t ‘make’ Beatles’ albums, and his records is filled with gems. Like this very interesting, almost experimental/somewhat unconventional track. Very cool.

4. The Beatles, She’s Leaving Home . . . Interesting how things change as time offers perspective. I always liked this song, and the whole Sgt. Pepper album, but as time and life experience goes on, it’s moved up to become one of my favorites on the album. Same with George Harrison’s sitar-laden and ultimately influential Within You Without You on Pepper, which in my youth was a song I skipped – and I wasn’t alone – by lifting the needle from the vinyl record (no programming in those days).

5. Tyrannosaurus Rex, By The Light Of A Magical Moon . . . Great jaunty mid-tempo ballad with some nice guitar from 1970’s A Beard Of Stars, the last of four studio albums by the Marc Bolan-led band before they shortened their name and continued as T. Rex.

6. The Doors, The Spy . . . Nothing intentional, just developed this way, maybe it’s some Freudian sort of thing, who knows, but many of the songs in the set tonight have to do with relationships. Like this one from the bluesy Morrison Hotel album.

7. Johnny Cash, No Expectations . . . As I’ve often said, to me the best covers are reinventions, the most famous arguably being Jimi Hendrix’s reinterpretation of Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower. No Expectations by the man in black isn’t as well known, but in 1978 he took the great Rolling Stones’ track from 1968’s Beggars Banquet and gave it the Cash rockabilly-type treatment. Great stuff.

8. The Rolling Stones, Dance (Pt. 1)/If I Was A Dancer (Dance Pt. 2) . . . And, speaking of the Stones, now for something completely different, from 1980’s Emotional Rescue album. Part 1 was the opening cut on the album but Part 2 didn’t appear until the 1981 compilation, Sucking In The Seventies. I’ve slotted them back to back, and thanks to whoever, on YouTube, for connecting the tunes into one 10-minute package that I’ve used for the usual song clips on my Facebook page.

9. Elvis Presley, Little Sister . . . Always loved this Elvis tune. And, see how it goes from the Stones’ Dance to Elvis’s Little Sister, a nod to the Stones’ Dance Little Sister? Clever, aren’t I? Ha.

10. Van Morrison, Precious Time . . . I need to listen to this tune and its lyrics more because I have too many interests, which results in me having difficulty prioritizing, at times. Time is indeed precious, to be used wisely.

11. Delaney and Bonnie (with Eric Clapton), Comin’ Home . . . Here’s what happens when you dig into a box set you haven’t listened to in a while, in this case Clapton’s 1988 release Crossroads. You remember this band and this song, a good rocker from the group/then married couple of Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett and friends which at various times featured Clapton, Duane and Gregg Allman, Dave Mason, George Harrison (under the pseudonym L’Angelo Misterioso), Bobby Keys, Gram Parsons, on and on and which led to the formation of . . .

12. Derek and The Dominos, Got To Get Better In A Little While . . . Three members of Delaney Bramlett’s band, who had helped Clapton out on his first, self-titled solo album, had a falling out with Bramlett. So, Clapton scooped up keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon and the result was Derek and The Dominos. This is an early version, from the Crossroads box and without Whitlock, of a rocker scheduled for what was to be a second Dominos album, after the Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs album.

     

13. Creedence Clearwater Revival, It’s Just A Thought . . . Who says CCR was just a hit singles band? They have many great deep cuts, like this nice groove tune from the Pendulum album.

14. Blackie and The Rodeo Kings, 49 Tons . . . Cool shuffle from the Canadian combo of Stephen Fearing, Colin Linden and Tom Wilson. What began as something of a fun side project by guys with their own gigs – Fearing solo, Linden lots of production work and some solo stuff and Wilson with Junkhouse and assorted other projects – soon became a full-fledged band, and a good one.

15. Rod Stewart, Stone Cold Sober . . . I feel like I’ve played this one too recently, although I can’t find it in 2021 shows but in any event, what the heck. Good, fun rocker from Stewart’s 1975 Atlantic Crossing album, his first after he moved to the United States and first without most members of Faces as his backing band for his solo work. The album was the first of a great run in Stewart’s second distinct solo period, one that brought him great commercial and critical success up until about 1980, after which he lost the plot, went schlock, and lost me.

16. Joe Jackson, What’s The Use Of Getting Sober (When You’re Gonna Get Drunk Again) . . . J.J.’s version of a song Louis Jordan took to No. 1 on Billboard’s ‘race record chart’ (really, a ‘race’ record chart) in 1942. It appeared on Jackson’s 1981 jump blues/swing album Jumpin’ Jive, at which time, after his early angry young man punk/new wave period, I realized Jackson was an artist I wanted to follow in his various directions. He’s never disappointed me.

17. Heart, White Lightning and Wine . . . I like most Heart stuff but prefer the 1970s stuff, like this album track from 1976’s Dreamboat Annie, to the band’s (typically for the period) at least somewhat overproduced 1980s sound, although that sound gave Heart huge commercial success for a few 80s albums.

18. Mark Knopfler, Why Aye Man . . . I prefer Dire Straits to Knopfler’s solo material, which some friends remember I drunkenly and loudly proclaimed one day a few summers ago while throwing back beer on a lakeside patio. But I do like his solo work, like this tune, and need to dig back in.

19. Dire Straits, Telegraph Road . . . One of those epic tunes, 14 minutes worth, that is so good the time just flies by.

20. Buddy Guy, It’s A Jungle Out There . . . Written by Guy, the lone self-penned cut from his terrific 2001 album, Sweet Tea, which deservedly was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album.

21. Bruce Cockburn, Tibetan Side Of Town . . . From the Big Circumstance album in 1988, nice groove and guitar picking by Cockburn and a nice sax solo by Richie Cannata, a member of Billy Joel’s band during my favorite Joel period, the mid- to late 1970s.

22. The Allman Brothers Band, Instrumental Illness . . . Typically great extended (12 minutes) Allmans instrumental, from what turned out to be their last studio album, 2003’s Hittin’ The Note, although the band continued playing live until retiring in 2014.

1. 54-40, Music Man . . . Apparently a single, I don’t remember it being such.  Nice groove including the wah-wah guitar. Got into 54-40 via the first two singles – Nice To Luv You and She La – from the Dear Dear album in 1992, from which I took this song. I saw them about a decade later, good show.

2. Romantics, Open Up Your Door . . . A cover of the 1966 hit by Richard and The Young Lions released on the Romantics’ 1983 album In Heat. Good time, good rock and roll.

3. Deep Purple, What’s Going On Here . . . Great boogie rock tune featuring nice dual vocals from David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, from the first Mk. III Purple album, Burn. Already getting funky, Purple was, to the great distaste of mercurial guitarist and arguably de facto leader Ritchie Blackmore, yet he plays brilliantly on the album.

4. The Allman Brothers Band, No One To Run With . . . Jaunty sort of tune from the reconstituted band’s 1994 album, Where It All Begins, guitarist Dickey Betts’ last studio work as a Brother. Speaking of the studio, Gregg Allman didn’t like recording in studios, preferring the live arena so, the story goes, producer Tom Dowd arranged for the band’s full concert setup to be housed on a Florida film sound stage owned by actor Burt Reynolds and the band recorded that way, as a live unit, rather than as many albums are done, with parts done individually and then mixed.

5. Spooky Tooth, That Was Only Yesterday . . . Yet another great one from the Spooky Two album, which I think ought to be retitled No. 1 since it’s arguably the band’s best work.

6. Tommy Bolin, Bustin’ Out For Rosey . . . From the late great Bolin, solo artist, replacement guitarist for Joe Walsh in the James Gang and Ritchie Blackmore in Deep Purple but a brilliant artist in his own right, gone too soon as a result of his drug demons.

7. Genesis, Eleventh Earl Of Mar . . . Epic track from the second post-Peter Gabriel album, Wind and Wuthering, and the last one with guitarist Steve Hackett before his departure left Genesis a trio (Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins) that would go on to huge commercial heights.

8. Can, Spoon . . . Typically propulsive Can track, among their more accessible works in fact if you’re not into ‘weird’ stuff I’d recommend picking up, or listening to online, their Can: The Singles album, a good run-through of the band’s more conventional work.

9. King Crimson, Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Part 1 (abridged) . . . Slow build on this instrumental title cut to the 1973 album, until the heavy, metallic assault at the 3:45 mark and then again a minute later. The song is nearly 14 minutes long on the album but for tonight’s show I used bandleader Robert Fripp’s just under seven-minute, tighter abridged version which in some ways I like better; depends on my mood.

10. Soft Machine, All White . . . By the time of the ‘5’ album, Soft Machine had dispensed with vocals and was essentially a jazz, or jazz-fusion band; this slow-building cut a great example.

11. Iron Maiden, Hallowed Be Thy Name . . . I like Iron Maiden well enough but sometimes Bruce Dickinson’s somewhat to me overwrought ‘operatic’ vocals can be irritating. Not on this one, though. Early Maiden progressive metal I suppose one would call it, which they’ve expanded upon and continue to do, to great effect, on their latter-day releases. One of those bands I have great respect for in that they’ve maintained a high standard throughout their now 40-plus year career.

12. Metallica, Poor Twisted Me . . . As described by one You Tube commenter, it’s a blues metal tune. This one from the Load album, a controversial release at the time because many Metallica fans still wanted thrash but the band was evolving into a more commercial entity.

13. Pretenders, Bad Boys Get Spanked . . . From Pretenders II, released in 1981 when people were still pogo-ing on dance floors to punk and new wave music and this would be a perfect tune for that. It occurred to me for the first time in all these years, in playing it, that Concrete Blonde’s 1992 song Ghost Of A Texas Ladies Man, which I’ve played before on the show, has a very similar rhythm, to my ears, anyway. Not saying Concrete Blonde ‘pinched it’ as the Brits might say, and Concrete Blonde is a band I really like, but there it is. Interesting that I never really noticed it until now but I think that’s because I’ve actually played the Concrete Blonde tune more often.

14. The Kinks, National Health . . . From Low Budget, 1979, great album that got lots of people back into The Kinks. And, around the same time, Kinks’ leader/chief songwriter Ray Davies was romantically involved with the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde, and Pretenders recorded the Kinks’ Stop Your Sobbing on their 1979 debut album. So, I must admit when I slotted in the Pretenders’ track that The Kinks came to mind, so there you have it. Besides, I can never get enough Kinks. Or Pretenders, for that matter.

15. Chilliwack, Guilty . . . I’ve always liked the band’s 1979 Breakdown In Paradise album, or at least most of it, including this track featuring some nice piano playing amid a nice arrangement. The two other songs I really like on the record are Communication Breakdown (not the Zeppelin tune) and 148 Heavy, both of which I’ve played over time on the show. The album didn’t do well, though, thanks in part to promotion issues born of Mushroom Records’ financial problems at the time.

16. BTO, A Long Time For A Little While . . . I played Madison Avenue from BTO’s first post-Randy Bachman album Street Action last week, which prompted a full re-listen to the 1978 effort for which the band brought in former April Wine stalwart Jim Clench on bass, with C.F. (Fred) Turner moving from bass to rhythm guitar along with lead axeman Blair Thornton and drummer Rob Bachman. It’s a good album, including this song, which reminds me a bit of Looking Out For No. 1, albeit heavier.

17. Peter Frampton, Jumping Jack Flash (live) . . . Frampton covered the Stones’ tune on his 1972 studio album Winds of Change. I pulled this extended seven-minute version from Frampton’s breakthrough live album, Frampton Comes Alive.

18. The Rolling Stones, Loving Cup . . . This completes my little Exile On Main St. trilogy, spread over about five weeks. Some weeks ago I couldn’t decide between Torn and Frayed, Let It Loose and Loving Cup from Exile, so decided to play all three, over a period of weeks, in and around some other Stones’ stuff (Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow and Salt Of The Earth). So, here’s Loving Cup.

19. Pete Townshend, The Sea Refuses No River . . . Two singles – Face Dances Pt. 2 and Uniforms – were released from Townshend’s 1982 album All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. I think he picked the wrong two. This song, and Exquisitely Bored, which I’ve played before and should again soon, are clearly better in my opinion.

20. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Christine’s Tune (aka Devil In Disguise) . . . Posting YouTube clips of the songs I play often helps my commentary, given some of the comments one sees about songs. Like this one, about this track: “This is where country should have gone instead of morphing into sewage”. I’m not super up on modern country, know some of it, and the criticisms, so I’d have to agree with the sentiments expressed.

21. Quicksilver Messenger Service, Fire Brothers . . . Spooky and haunting, enough said.

22. Ten Years After, Let The Sky Fall . . . Was listening to TYA’s A Space In Time album in the gym the other day, this came on and I made a mental note to play it this week. Alvin Lee was always rightly revered for his guitar playing, but he’s no slouch as a singer, either. Always liked his bluesy vocals.

23. Dire Straits, Where Do You Think You’re Going? . . . Journalism critics can be ridiculous. One wrote that Communique, the band’s second album and source for this great track, was nothing more than a pale imitation of the first Dire Straits album. Well, if that were true, then just about every J.J. Cale album is an imitation of the previous ones, yet Cale never released a poor album and neither did Dire Straits.

24. Peter Gabriel, Home Sweet Home . . . From Gabriel’s second solo album, at the point at which all his albums were called “Peter Gabriel’ so people started ascribing titles to them based on the cover art, in this case, Scratch. No hits to speak of on the second one, after Solsbury Hill had charted on his debut solo album, but Scratch is nevertheless a good album and worth checking out.

1. Joe Jackson, Alchemy . . . From J.J.’s most recent album, 2019’s Fool. He opened (and closed, with a short reprise) his shows supporting the album with this track, a perhaps now typical late career jazzy excursion from one of my favorite artists. Jackson just announced another tour, starting in March, 2022.

2. Deep Purple, Caught In The Act (Going Down/Green Onions/Hot ‘Lanta/Dazed and Confused/Gimme Some Lovin’) . . . From the new Turning To Crime covers album, short excerpts from each song to form a seven-minute medley during which the band, as on the entire album, is clearly having lots of fun. Purple has played Green Onions on various tours since Steve Morse joined on guitar, replacing Ritchie Blackmore, in the mid-1990s so no surprise it’s included in the medley. As I mentioned last week about covers albums, I prefer new original material by bands I like, like Purple, but – as with the Stones’ Blue and Lonesome covers album – it’s clear the boys had great fun putting it together and there are some interesting takes on the various tunes, in Purple’s case, like Bob Dylan’s Watching The River Flow, Love’s 7 and 7 Is and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac’s Oh Well. Also interesting, given the pandemic, IS how they recorded it as detailed in the album liner notes – mostly from each band members’ home studios aside from singer Ian Gillan who went into an an outside studio.

3. Ohio Players, Jive Turkey . . . I just wanted to look at sexy Ohio Players album covers, in this case Skin Tight. No, seriously, I love funk, and the Players, and this came up during a station computer search of stuff I’d previously downloaded, hadn’t played the Players in a while, so here we are.

4. Gov’t Mule, She Said She Said . . . I love it when the Mule does cover tunes in fact I pulled this off a CD I burned for myself long ago that features the Allmans offshoot doing covers of various classic rock tunes over the years. This one, from The Beatles of course, begins a mini-set of covers from the Revolver album, concluding with The Beatles themselves.

    

5. Phil Collins, Tomorrow Never Knows . . . From Collins’ debut album, Face Value, in 1981 after which he started concurrent careers while becoming arguably as big, or bigger, solo as was Genesis.

6. The Beatles, I’m Only Sleeping . . . Always liked this one, from Revolver, to conclude our little mini-set of Beatles’ tunes. Sgt. Pepper gets most of the hype but Revolver and Rubber Soul, when the boys – perhaps taking Dylan’s little dig at Lennon that ‘your songs don’t say anything’ seriously – really went to another level creatively, are easily as good.

7. John Lennon, Bring On The Lucie (Freda People) . . . “All right boys, this is it, over the hill.” Lennon’s first line is worth the price of the album. Good song, too, from the Mind Games album, 1973.

8. Groundhogs, Strange Town . . . I love the ascending, hypnotic riff to this tune by these Brit blues-rock boys, from 1970’sThank Christ For The Bomb album.

9. BTO, Madison Avenue . . . An almost progressive tune, for this band at least, from the first post Randy Bachman album, Street Action, 1978. I remember having it on vinyl, almost out of curiousity at the time, and some years ago got it as a two-fer paired with the 1979 followup Rock ‘n’ Roll Nights. And you pretty much knew Randy had left simply by the album cover, of a woman, on the street, perhaps a hooker, which I doubt the strait-laced Bachman would ever have allowed. The band replaced Bachman with former April Wine member Jim Clench, who took over on bass while bassist C.F. (Fred) Turner moved to rhythm guitar alongside lead guitarist Blair Thornton and drummer Rob Bachman. And Turner handled most of the lead vocals, which suited me because I always liked the BTO songs he sung best and outside of, off top of my head, Takin’ Care of Business and You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, maybe Looking Out For No. 1, Randy Bachman’s vocals (Rock Is My Life, This Is My Song, anyone, yecch) are pretty much embarrassing in my view.

10. Robin Trower, A Tale Untold . . . Trower was amazing during his heyday (he’s still going) in the 1970s, especially with the late great James Dewar on bass/lead vocals. This typical tour de force is from the For Earth Below album, which featured the typically cool Trower album covers of the period.

11. Social Distortion, I Was Wrong . . . My favorite Social Distortion tune and the one that got me into the band, late, 1996 via the White Light, White Heat, White Trash album (cool cover) which by that point was their fifth studio platter but hell, when before this more commercial single was released did anyone ever hear Social Distortion on mainstream radio? Or ever again? They also did a nice cover of Johnny Cash’s Ring Of Fire, too, but I decided to go with this song, this time. Ring Of Fire maybe another week.

12. Ozzy Osbourne, Diary Of A Madman . . . Almost prog metal, this title cut from Ozzy’s 1981 album. Iron Maiden, at the time just one album into their career, was probably listening, learning and being influenced.

13. KK’s Priest, Hellfire Thunderbolt . .. Founding member/guitarist K.K. Downing left Judas Priest under acrimonious circumstances in 2011. In the meantime, he wrote a book about the band, and this kick butt metallic rocker is from his first post-Priest album, out just recently this year, featuring former Priest singer Ripper Owens on lead vocals. Owens, of course, famously was found by Priest in a Preist covers band when the group was searching for a replacement for Rob Halford, who left Priest for a few years to go solo during the mid-1990s. Owens did two studio albums with Priest, which I liked, before returning to relative obscurity (until now) once Halford returned for a reunion tour in 2004 (which I saw, good show) and subsequent studio work.

14. Judas Priest, Blood Red Skies . . . And here’s Priest before all of the drama, a kinetic extended piece from the Ram It Down album, 1988.

15. Marianne Faithfull, What’s The Hurry . . . Was listening to Faithfull’s terrific Broken English album, for first time in a long time in its entirety, in the gym the other day, had somewhat forgotten this propulsive track from that record.

16. The Rolling Stones, Salt Of The Earth . . . Keith Richards croaks out the opening line in one of his early forays into singing on Stones’ tunes, then in comes Mick Jagger on this closer to 1968’s Beggars Banquet which marked the beginning of a whole new phase of brilliance from the band.

17. The Tragically Hip, Born In The Water . . . I wanted to play a Hip song today. Road Apples album is always a good source.

18. Headstones, Where Does It Go? . . . See the Hip reference above. Love these guys, Headstones, maybe more than I like the Hip, actually. Darker, dirtier, harder, rougher. . . maybe, to employ a cliché, akin to a Beatles-Stones thing although there, too, I love both bands.

19. Tom Waits, Jockey Full Of Bourbon . . . I don’t even drink bourbon. Nor does Waits, anymore, apparently, having kicked booze. But drinking songs are great, aren’t they?

20. Rare Earth, Long Time Leavin’ . . . Had my parents not sent we kids off to day camp, a ‘thing’ back in the early 1970s, perhaps still is, who knows how or if I would have gotten into Rare Earth. But, I did, because one of the camp counselors kept playing the shit out of Rare Earth’s live album. So, here we are. Speaking of day camp, mentioning it brought to mind an old Peanuts cartoon where Charlie Brown and Linus are celebrating the last day of school only to have Lucy immediately herd them onto a bus headed for summer camp, to which Linus asks, “whatever happened to going home?”

21. U2, Last Night On Earth . . . OK, so I do a ‘deep cuts’ show with allowances (my rules) to play the occasional single, which this is, one of six, (SIX) U2 released out of 12 tracks on their 1997 album Pop.

22. The Doors, When The Music’s Over . . . And off we go, for another week, via this epic Doors’ track from their second album, Strange Days. Akin, somewhat, to The End from the first studio album by the band. Great tunes, both.