A tribute to Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, who died on Wednesday. I’m playing his magnum opus, the 1966 album Pet Sounds followed by some deeper Beach Boys tracks from their post-surfer hits days, then closing with a mixture of well-known hits and album tracks. Many of those, picked by Wilson himself, were packaged on The Beach Boys Classics selected by Brian Wilson, a diverse collection released in 2002. I also drew from Greatest Hits Volume Three: Best of the Brother Years 1970–1986.

I plan to get to some Sly and The Family Stone material on my Monday June 16 show, a week after Sly Stone‘s passing, like Wilson also at age 82. My commentary on Pet Sounds, the rest of The Beach Boys material and some personal memories triggered by Wilson’s passing follows the track listings.

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The Beach Boys – Pet Sounds

1. Wouldn’t It Be Nice
2. You Still Believe In Me
3. That’s Not Me
4. Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)
5. I’m Waiting For The Day
6. Let’s Go Away For A While
7. Sloop John B
8. God Only Knows
9. I Know There’s An Answer
10. Here Today
11. I Just Wasn’t Made For These Times
12. Pet Sounds
13. Caroline No
—————–
1. Add Some Music To Your Day
2. All Summer Long
3. The Warmth Of The Sun
4. In My Room
5. Busy Doin’ Nothin’
6. This Whole World
7. Heroes And Villains
8. We’re Together Again
9. Time To Get Alone
10. Marcella
11. Honkin’ Down The Highway
12. It’s O.K.
13. Good Timin’
14. Goin’ On
15. Do It Again
16. I Get Around
17. Rock And Roll Music (Chuck Berry cover)
18. California Girls
19. Do You Wanna Dance
20. Help Me Rhonda
21. Surfer Girl
22. Surfin’ Safari
23. Surfin’ USA
24. Good Vibrations
25. Fun, Fun, Fun
26. ‘Til I Die
27. Shut Down
28. Surf’s Up
29. Sail On, Sailor

My track tales/musical memories:

My formative musical listening years were shaped in large measure by my two older siblings in our family of five kids, me being the middle child ahead of two younger brothers. In their mid- to late teens at the time, my older brother and sister were experiencing the explosion of rock and pop music and culture, things like 1967’s Summer Of Love, at that age when one’s eyes and ears are truly opening and so I was fortunate to bask in the reflected glow of the great music to which they helped introduce me.

My older brother by eight years opened my ears to artists like Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Led Zeppelin and Jethro Tull. My sister, four years older, turned me on to The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Beach Boys which my older brother also liked but my sister played more often while he tended to lean towards heavier material. So, I got the best of both worlds.

I remember, age 5, seeing The Beatles and the Stones on The Ed Sullivan Show within months of each other in 1964 and hearing some of their early songs. But my sister was the one who truly introduced me to their records via the Stones compilation albums Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) and Flowers plus Beatles studio albums Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club and, a bit later, Abbey Road. She never did own The Beatles (best known as The White Album) that I recall, silly sis, 🙂 but I heard it first via a friend and later bought it myself. Somehow, amid various moves and family members now spread throughout North America, I wound up in possession of and still have her original vinyl release of Abbey Road. It’s now somewhat unique in that it does not list the hidden track Her Majesty on the cover as subsequent re-releases do.

All of which in a roundabout down memory lane sort of way brings us to Pet Sounds which my sister also owned and is definitely tied to The Beatles. All artists influence each other and from what I’ve read, Brian Wilson was inspired at least in part by 1965’s Rubber Soul in creating Pet Sounds, out in 1966, which then inspired The Beatles, particularly Paul McCartney, to respond with Sgt. Pepper, released in 1967.

“The biggest influence on Sgt. Pepper was Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys,” McCartney was quoted as saying in a 1980 interview as related in the 1994 book of album-by-album/song analysis The Complete Guide To The Music Of The Beatles. “That album just flipped me. When I heard it, I thought ‘Oh dear, this is the album of all time. What the hell are we going to do?’ My ideas took off from that standard.”

Yet Pepper is/was a much more instantly accessible listen, at least for me and perhaps others in comparison to Pet Sounds. I instantly liked Wouldn’t It Be Nice and the traditional Caribbean cover Sloop John B but the rest of it, including the brilliant God Only Knows, took me a bit longer. But, like any great art, once you ‘get it’ it’s embedded forever. Such is the lasting and influential legacy of Wilson’s wonderful work, an album he considered a solo record.

It started a move away from the surfer hits that had sustained the Beach Boys to that point and made them stars and a consistent presence on the singles and album charts. The decline, at least commercially but I’d maintain definitely not musically, then set in where their albums sold progressively less while it could be argued their music advanced in many ways or, at least, took different, interesting directions. Yet while their commercial fortunes faded on home shores in America, Beach Boys albums from Pet Sounds forward consistently sold better in the UK and elsewhere than in the USA. That is, until the 1976 album 15 Big Ones that, driven by their top 5 cover of Chuck Berry’s Rock And Roll Music, made No. 8 on the US album charts but only No. 31 in the UK.

The Beach Boys later had a worldwide No. 1 hit with 1988’s Kokomo which Brian Wilson played no part in and while perhaps a guilty pleasure, yeah it’s catchy but it’s also latter-day Chicago-level schlock to me.

I’m closing things out with one of my favorite Beach Boys tracks, their top-50 1973 hit Sail On, Sailor which I think appropriate as Wilson sails off into the sunset. He co-wrote the song, one he said he didn’t like, yet he selected it for the aforementioned compilation The Beach Boys Classics selected by Brian Wilson, saying in the liner notes “I love how this song rocks.” And it does. It’s sung by Blondie Chaplin, briefly a member of The Beach Boys who starting in 1997 spent more than a decade as a touring musician with The Rolling Stones.

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

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1. The Rolling Stones, Out Of Control (live, from No Security)
2. The Stooges, No Fun
3. Jethro Tull, Hymn 43
4. Deep Purple, Lady Double Dealer
5. Black Sabbath, Turn Up The Night
6. Fight, Into The Pit
7. Budgie, Hot As A Docker’s Armpit
8. Steppenwolf, Hippo Stomp
9. Led Zeppelin, Heartbreaker (live, from How The West Was Won)
10. Genesis, Dodo/Lurker
11. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Couldn’t Stand The Weather
12. April Wine, Electric Jewels
13. The Who, Now I’m A Farmer
14. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Wild Horses
15. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Mean Ole World (live)
16. The Allman Brothers Band, I’m Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town (from Live At Ludlow Garage, 1970)

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Rolling Stones, Out Of Control (live, from No Security) . . . A prime example of a song truly coming, er, alive in a concert setting. Inspired by and somewhat derivative, particularly the bass line, of The Temptations Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone, Out Of Control was one of the highlights of the 1997 Stones’ album Bridges To Babylon and compelling enough in its 4:43 track time studio version. That’s about the time when this propulsive eight-minute live version from the Babylon tour truly takes off with the guitar assault – including terrific wah wah from Ronnie Wood – kicking in and building to a crescendo, Mick Jagger’s wailing harmonica adding to the mix when he’s not verbally egging the band on. To me, Out Of Control is something of a latter-day Midnight Rambler (from 1969’s Let It Bleed album) if one draws comparisons between live and studio versions. Both are compelling tracks regardless but truly take off live, evidenced by the concert rendition of Midnight Rambler from Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out!, widely considered the definitive version.

2. The Stooges, No Fun . . . Rollicking raunch from the garage rock greats’ self-titled debut album, released in 1969. Down and dirty droning, gritty guitar from Ron Asheton coupled with Iggy Pop’s tossed-off, drawling vocal delivery. Great, influential stuff by the proto-punk pioneers.

3. Jethro Tull, Hymn 43 . . . From Aqualung, Tull’s 1971 album and one of their best rockers complete with caustic commentary – as is the whole album – on organized religion. ‘If Jesus saves, well, he better save himself from the gory glory seekers who use his name in death.’

4. Deep Purple, Lady Double Dealer . . . A good demonstration of bassist Glenn Hughes adding, with his ‘oh baby’ break, to David Coverdale’s lead vocals on this charging rocker from Stormbringer. It was the Mark III version of Deep Purple’s second album and second one, after Burn, released in 1974. The Mark III lineup: Ritchie Blackmore (guitar), Ian Paice (drums), Jon Lord (keyboards), Coverdale (lead vocals), Hughes (bass, vocals). Deep Purple is now at Mark IX – Ian Gillan (long since back on lead vocals), Roger Glover (bass), Paice (drums), Don Airey (keyboards) and Simon McBride (guitar).

5. Black Sabbath, Turn Up The Night . . . A hot rocker from the 1981 Mob Rules album, the second featuring Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals, replacing Ozzy Osbourne. It’s something to me of a companion piece to Neon Knights from Heaven And Hell, the 1980 album that marked Dio’s debut with Sabbath. Both are kick-butt rockers, both lead off their respective albums, with each record also featuring similar epics in Children Of The Sea from Heaven And Hell and The Sign Of The Southern Cross on Mob Rules. Similar but different, all of them superb.

6. Fight, Into The Pit . . . From War Of Words, the debut Fight album released in 1993 after lead singer Rob Halford left Judas Priest. He was replaced by Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens for the studio albums Jugulator (1997) and Demolition (2001) and two live records. Halford returned for a reunion tour I saw in 2004 followed by the 2005 studio album Angel Of Retribution and subsequent Priest releases to the present day. Into The Pit is a screaming shredder in line with the speed metal of Painkiller, the 1990 album that was Halford’s last with Priest before he temporarily moved on.

7. Budgie, Hot As A Docker’s Armpit . . . What a title and what a riff. A stop-start rocker from the influential if not supremely commercially successful Welsh metal mavens. Budgie has been cited by Metallica, Megadeth and Iron Maiden, among others, as being an important influence with Metallica covering Breadfan and Crash Course In Brain Surgery. Docker’s Armpit is from the 1972 album Squawk with cover art of a dive-bombing fighter jet budgie by Roger Dean. Dean is likely best known for his Yes album covers but did several for Budgie as well as Uriah Heep and Asia.

8. Steppenwolf, Hippo Stomp . . . Swampy groove from Steppenwolf 7, released in 1970. The album was so named due to its being the band’s seventh overall to that point, counting two live albums.

9. Led Zeppelin, Heartbreaker (live, from How The West Was Won) . . . Slightly speeded up, as live music can tend to be, version of the Led Zeppelin II track. This raucous version was released on the 2003 triple-CD How The West Was Won, culled from a pair of 1972 California concerts in Los Angeles and nearby Long Beach.

10. Genesis, Dodo/Lurker . . . I like the driving nature of this one, similar in that way to the title track from the album from whence it came, 1981’s Abacab. The Phil Collins-fronted Genesis was well down the path of accessible, commercial hit-making by then but I thought still nicely retained and combined elements of their early progressive rock sound.

11. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Couldn’t Stand The Weather . . . Can’t do much about the weather I suppose but nevertheless I’ve been uncharacteristically bitching about our largely lousy, rainy for the most part spring in southern Ontario. But, to quote the Vulcan elder T’Pau in the Star Trek original series episode Amok Time, ‘the air is the air’ when Dr. McCoy complains to her that Captain Kirk doesn’t have a chance in a forced fight with Mr. Spock due to the heat and thinner air on Vulcan. The weather is the weather. Inspiration comes from everywhere, hence this title track to SRV’s 1984 album.

12. April Wine, Electric Jewels . . . I can never get enough of this atmospheric title track from the 1973 album. From prog to hard rock to ballad and back again, all within six minutes.

13. The Who, Now I’m A Farmer . . . Ah, that unique rat-a-tat just on the edge of losing control drumming of Keith Moon, but just a fun romp overall. Issued on an album of outtakes and such compiled by Who bassist John Entwistle, appropriately titled Odds & Sods, that filled a gap between proper studio albums when released in 1974. It did the job nicely, hitting No. 10 in the UK and 15 in the USA. Originally a 10-track release, it was expanded to a 23-song CD in 1998 which is appropriate in that it was originally conceived as a double album given the volume of material Entwistle said was available in the vaults.

14. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Wild Horses . . . One of those songs that was released by someone else before the band for which it is famous put it out. The country-rocking Burritos, led by Gram Parsons who was particularly friendly with and an influence on Keith Richards, released the Richards-Mick Jagger-penned piece on their second album, 1970’s Burrito Deluxe.

15. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Mean Ole World (live) . . . Not quite rock, not quite blues, not quite jazz, just BS & T. Recorded in 1975, the song appeared on In Concert which was released only in Europe and Japan. It was re-released worldwide in 1991 under the album title Live and Improvised.

16. The Allman Brothers Band, I’m Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town (from Live At Ludlow Garage, 1970) . . . Extended slow to mid-tempo how I like my blues. It was recorded in April 1970 at the Cincinnati venue Ludlow Garage featuring the original lineup of Gregg (vocals, organ) and Duane (guitar) Allman, Dickey Betts (guitar), Berry Oakley (bass), Butch Trucks (drums, percussion) and Jai Johanny (aka Jaimoe) Johanson. The song first came out officially on the Dreams box set in 1989 and then on Live At Ludlow Garage, released in 1990. The entire Ludlow set has since been added to expanded re-releases of the second Allmans studio album Idlewild South which originally came out in September 1970.

A ‘27 Club‘ album set featuring artists from the so-called 27 Club of those who died at age 27: Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Jim Morrison of The Doors. On the menu: Hendrix’s incendiary performance at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, Nirvana’s 1991 grunge breakthrough Nevermind and The Doors’ Strange Days, the second of two albums, including the debut, the band released in 1967. My thoughts on the albums follow the track listings.

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The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey (2007 Experience Hendrix family trust release)

1. Introduction by Brian Jones (also a member of the 27 Club) of The Rolling Stones
2. Killing Floor
3. Foxey Lady
4. Like A Rolling Stone
5. Rock Me Baby
6. Hey Joe
7. Can You See Me
8. The Wind Cries Mary
9. Purple Haze
10. Wild Thing

Nirvana – Nevermind

1. Smells Like Teen Spirit
2. In Bloom
3. Come As You Are
4. Breed
5. Lithium
6. Polly
7. Territorial Pissings
8. Drain You
9. Lounge Act
10. Stay Away
11. On A Plain
12. Something In The Way

The Doors – Strange Days

1. Strange Days
2. You’re Lost Little Girl
3. Love Me Two Times
4. Unhappy Girl
5. Horse Latitudes
6. Moonlight Drive
7. People Are Strange
8. My Eyes Have Seen You
9. I Can’t See Your Face In My Mind
10. When The Music’s Over

My track tales/album analyses:

The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey (2007 Experience Hendrix family trust release)
I first heard songs from this album, which has come out in various forms in whole or in part, when my older brother, who introduced me to so much great music, brought home Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival.

Side one of that original vinyl, released in 1970, had four songs by Hendrix; side two was five by Otis Redding. I was immediately struck by Hendrix’s performance of Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone and Redding’s reworking of The Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction plus his own Respect – including Redding’s playful intro about how Aretha Franklin had taken the song from him. Otis’s 1965 single reached No. 4 on the R & B charts and No. 35 on the overall Hot 100 while in 1967 Aretha’s version went to No. 1 on both lists.

“This is another one of mine, a song we’d like to do for everybody . . . a song that a girl took away from me, a good friend of mine, this girl she just took this song, but I’m still gonna do it anyway.”
Sadly, six months out from the Monterey festival, held June 16-18, 1967, Redding died in a plane crash between tour stops, two months after turning 26. But we still have his immortal music including the Monterey performance. It was issued as part of a terrific 4-CD box set package of the festival, released by Union Square Music’s classic album reissue label Salvo in 2013. Among the artists: The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother And The Holding Company (Janis Joplin) and The Byrds.

In addition to the four songs on ‘Historic Performances’, Hendrix’s Monterey set was released on its own in 1986 as Jimi Plays Monterey before the Hendrix family trust took over and re-issued it as The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey in 2007.

Nirvana’s Nevermind was the album – fueled by its biggest hit single Smells Like Teen Spirit – that broke the Seattle grunge sound big and opened the commercial success door to such bands as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains and any other act from that city that record companies, for a brief time at least, figured they could milk profit from. Most who have heard the album know its singles like Teen Spirit, Come As You Are, Lithium, In Bloom . . . yet among my favorites, certainly my favorite deep cut from the album, is Polly. It’s a compellingly catchy acoustic song I liked from the first time I heard it, without at first knowing its background.

Upon learning what inspired it – an arguably perversely beautiful song about a horrible, life-damaging event, which I suppose was writer Kurt Cobain’s intent – I’ve since been somewhat conflicted about liking it. It’s harrowing listening once you know the subject matter. On the flip side, what is great art if not to inform and perhaps force us to think and feel? Polly is about the abduction, rape, and torture of a 14-year-old girl returning home from a punk rock concert in Tacoma, Washington in 1987. Thankfully, the girl escaped and the perpetrator, Gerald Friend, was captured and is currently serving two consecutive 75-year prison terms. And, hopefully, his victim is alive and as well as one could be, if that’s even possible, after the trauma of such an event. She’d be age 52 now.

I am missing one track in my play of the Nevermind album, that being the experimental ‘noise rock’ ‘song’ Endless, Nameless that was a hidden track after Something In The Way, the last listed song on the record. It took 10 minutes of silence to get there. Was it worth the wait? I don’t think so and I’m all for, uh, creativity. I listened to it once, when I first got the album and noticed the CD player time still ticking, interminably. Never listened to it again until I checked it out on YouTube, where it’s available as an isolated track, while prepping the show. It’s an OK track, I guess, but all these years later it’s confirmed that I haven’t missed much, if anything. And the fact it’s not included on vinyl re-releases of the album – although it was included as a separate song on expanded CD reissues – says something.

According to various sources, the hidden track was inspired by Her Majesty from The Beatles’ Abbey Road, arguably the most famous if not the first hidden track in rock music history. If so, geez, Nirvana, gimme a break. The Beatles didn’t make you wait through 10 minutes of dead air, in the Fab Four’s case it was a few seconds, as was the case 10 years later with The Clash on London Calling and Train in Vain (Stand by Me), a last minute addition to that album. I suppose one could fast forward Something In The Way, the last listed Nirvana track on Nevermind, to get to the hidden song which occupies the same track as Something In The Way. Not worth the effort. And then other bands started doing similar long waits until a hidden track, something of a short-lived fad. Sorry, I don’t have the patience for that BS. If your song is any good, put it within easily accessible reach on the album or as a separate single. But at least we have good citizens out there who extract such songs and put them on platforms like YouTube, so they’re there if anyone is interested.

We conclude with The Doors and the ‘just what you’d be expecting’ set closer, When The Music’s Over from Strange Days. No sophomore slump for these guys on their second album, their second of 1967, released in September after the self-titled debut came out eight months earlier. A great selection of songs, Strange Days, from its opening Moog synthesizer-driven title track through familiar fare like People Are Strange (No. 1 in Canada, No. 10 in the USA), You’re Lost Little Girl, Love Me Two Times and Moonlight Drive. Just another of those classic albums that’s a compelling front-to-back listen.

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

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1. Triumph, Blinding Light Show/Moonchild
2. Argent, The Coming Of Kohoutek/Once Around The Sun/Infinite Wanderer
3. Supertramp, A Soapbox Opera
4. Ian Hunter, Noises
5. Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure (live, from 2003 reunion tour)
6. U2, God Part II
7. Arc Angels, Sent By Angels
8. Headstones, Tweeter And The Monkey Man (acoustic version)
9. Dire Straits, Millionaire Blues
10. The Allman Brothers Band, Loaded Dice
11. The Allman Brothers Band, Gambler’s Roll
12. Jose Feliciano, You’re No Good
13. Linda Ronstadt, You’re No Good
14. Van Halen, You’re No Good
15. Nazareth, Alcatraz
16. Mike Bloomfield/Al Kooper/Steve Stills, Season Of The Witch
17. The Rolling Stones, How Can I Stop

My track-by-track tales:

1. Triumph, Blinding Light Show/Moonchild . . . Progressive hard rocker from the Canadian trio to open the show, from the band’s self-titled debut album released in 1976, later retitled In The Beginning on a 1995 CD re-release.

2. Argent, The Coming Of Kohoutek/Once Around The Sun/Infinite Wanderer . . . An all instrumental cosmic journey making one song out of three from the first three tracks of Argent’s 1974 album Nexus. Best known for the 1971 single Hold Your Head Up, Rod Argent of Zombies fame’s later band was often much more. As for Kohoutek, those of a certain age, like me at closing in on 66, well remember the hype about that comet in 1973 which by all accounts was spectacular viewing in space but for we earthlings wedded to our planet, not so much. But songs came out of it, including The Coming Of Kohoutek as the first of three consecutive instrumental tracks from the Nexus album that flow like a mini-symphony.

3. Supertramp, A Soapbox Opera . . .Speaking of symphonies, somewhat symphonic rock from the 1975 album Crisis? What Crisis? with that familiar infectious refrain of ‘I said, Father Washington, you’re all mixed up collecting sinners in an old tin cup’ . . . A deep cut but a familiar one as were most of the songs on the sterling series of albums – Crime Of The Century, Crisis, Even In The Quietest Moments and Breakfast In America – Supertramp released between 1974 and 1979.

4. Ian Hunter, Noises . . . Beautifully metallic and industrial, er, noise indeed, from Hunter’s 1981 album Short Back n’ Sides from which this track is drawn. Funky electronica of sorts, played on and co-produced, along with guitarist Mick Ronson, by The Clash members Mick Jones and Topper Headon.

5. Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure (live) . . . Quirky, hypnotic title cut to Roxy’s 1973 album given the live treatment on the band’s 2001 reunion tour that was given live release in 2003 as Roxy Music Live.

6. U2, God Part II . . I played John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band album last Saturday, a record that contained the classic song God which inspired U2 to this terrific rocked up recital of U2’s own beliefs, or not, as with Lennon’s original tune. It came out on the live/studio hybrid album Rattle And Hum in 1988.

7. Arc Angels, Sent By Angels . . . Blues rock from the one and only album, self-titled, released in 1992 featuring friends – guitarists Doyle Bramhall II and Charlie Sexton – and former members – drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon – of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s band Double Trouble. The group formed after Vaughan’s death and is still around, doing live gigs although no new studio material has ever been released. No singles were issued from the album although Sent By Angels and Living In A Dream got a fair bit of FM radio play. Bramhall went on to work extensively with Eric Clapton and also was a fixture on tours by Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, his guitar prominent on Waters’ 2000 CD/DVD release In the Flesh – Live.

8. Headstones, Tweeter And The Monkey Man (acoustic version) . . . Headstones covered this Bob Dylan-penned Traveling Wilburys track in rocked up raucous style on their debut 1993 album Picture Of Health. They re-did it, unplugged and more in line with the original Wilburys version, on the 2014 release One In The Chamber Music which featured acoustic versions of well-known Headstones songs such as When Something Stands For Nothing and Smile And Wave.

9. Dire Straits, Millionaire Blues . . . A nice groove on this blues shuffle. I was prompted to play it thanks to a Dire Straits discussion I had with a friend and show follower after I recently played The Man’s Too Strong from the 1985 album Brothers In Arms. Millionaire Blues was a B-side to the single Calling Elvis from what turned out to be Dire Straits’ last studio album, the 1991 release On Every Street.

10. The Allman Brothers Band, Loaded Dice . . . From Seven Turns, the 1990 reunion album that followed a successful tour the Allmans undertook after the 1989 release of the Dreams box set, a great collection which renewed interest in the band. Lead vocals on this one by guitarist Warren Haynes in his first outing with the Allmans, joining them after having been in guitarist Dickey Betts’s solo band. Haynes went on to form Gov’t Mule while remaining a key cog in the Allmans, also appearing on their final three studio albums – Shades Of Two Worlds (1991), Where It All Begins (1994) and Hittin’ The Note (2003) – and multiple live releases.

11. The Allman Brothers Band, Gambler’s Roll . . . Gregg Allman back on lead vocals with his typical soulful delivery on this slow blues, also from the Seven Turns album.

12. Jose Feliciano, You’re No Good . . . I got stuck in a rut but it’s a good one as here come three different versions of You’re No Good, which goes back to 1963 and was arguably most notably done by Linda Ronstadt, whose No. 1 hit version from 1974’s Heart Like A Wheel album I’m playing in about three minutes. But first, Feliciano, the Puerto Rican musician who puts his typical Latin stamp on the song, as he did with countless covers including the Doors’ Light My Fire and California Dreamin’ by The Mamas & The Papas. But he could write, too, notably Feliz Navidad and the theme music to the 1970s sitcom Chico and the Man.

13. Linda Ronstadt, You’re No Good . . . Every time I play or think of Linda Ronstadt three things come to mind. 1. Her great music. 2. The excellent 2019 documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice which I highly recommend. 3. The fact that beautiful singing voice has been taken from her, and us, as a result of her having progressive supranuclear palsy, often misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s disease, all of which is touched upon in the documentary.

14. Van Halen, You’re No Good . . . Heavy stuff, which is what one would expect from Van Halen, from Van Halen II, released in 1979 with David Lee Roth on lead vocals. Another in a long line of Van Halen-ized covers that includes The Kinks’ You Really Got Me and Where Have All The Good Times Gone, Roy Orbison’s Oh, Pretty Woman and Dancing in the Street made famous by Martha and the Vandellas.

15. Nazareth, Alcatraz . . . Raunchy stuff written by Leon Russell and further rocked up by Nazareth on 1973’s Razamanaz album. It’ll probably send me back for another round of ‘did they make it?’ escape from Alcatraz documentaries as well as Clint Eastwood’s 1979 movie Escape From Alcatraz.

16. Mike Bloomfield/Al Kooper/Steve Stills, Season Of The Witch . . . A Donovan Leitch song covered by, among others, Vanilla Fudge. This version, from 1968’s Super Session album and sung by Kooper, features Stills on guitar. He was a hastily-recruited replacement for Bloomfield, who abruptly left after the first day of the scheduled two-day session citing fatigue due to insomnia. Bloomfield played on the five tracks that became side one of the original vinyl album, with Stills on board for the four songs on side two.

17. The Rolling Stones, How Can I Stop . . . A Keith Richards song that closes the Stones’ 1997 album Bridges To Babylon. He’s considered a raunchy rock and roller, which he is. Yet many of his songs, like this slow, soulful burner featuring jazz great Wayne Shorter on saxophone, are beautiful ballads.

A solo Beatles triple play: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band from 1970 which featured drummer Ringo Starr on seven of the 11 original release tracks followed by George Harrison’s 33 & 1/3 from 1976 and Paul McCartney & Wings’ 1973 blockbuster Band On The Run. My thoughts on each album follow the track listings.

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John Lennon – Plastic Ono Band

1. Mother
2. Hold On
3. I Found Out
4. Working Class Hero
5. Isolation
6. Remember
7. Love
8. Well Well Well
9. Look At Me
10. God
11. My Mummy’s Dead

George Harrison – 33 & 1/3

1. Woman Don’t You Cry For Me
2. Dear One
3. Beautiful Girl
4. This Song
5. See Yourself
6. It’s What You Value
7. True Love
8. Pure Smokey
9. Crackerbox Palace
10. Learning How To Love You

Paul McCartney & Wings – Band On The Run

1. Band On The Run
2. Jet
3. Bluebird
4. Mrs Vandebilt
5. Let Me Roll It
6. Mamunia
7. No Words
8. Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)
9. Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five

Leading off with the track-for-track cathartic album for Lennon as has been analyzed at length over time. I like the whole album but for me, it has always come down to two songs which were influential on my impressionable young mind, especially as I grew into teen years after the 1970 album release.

Working Class Hero and God. But before I delve more deeply I’ll preface my thoughts by saying I’ll likely go on longer about Lennon’s album but that doesn’t mean I necessarily rate it higher than Harrison’s or McCartney’s. For one thing, I’ll be honest; these three albums – all of which I enjoy – perfectly fit my two-hour slot. That said, each of the albums are different, all have their merits, good to great songs and particularly in McCartney’s case with a largely worldwide No. 1, high chart placings although all three albums did well. Lennon’s was top 10 in most countries with Harrison’s in the top 20. I love and grew up with The Beatles and enjoy much if not all of their material both band and solo, and for all three albums I’m playing it really comes down to just a few songs on each, if forced to choose. But the Lennon album is different in that it’s primal, personal, unvarnished, brutally honest and most shaped my thinking, particularly via Working Class Hero and God.

Working Class Hero: I remember being stunned – albeit in a ‘right on’ kind of way – on first listen that Lennon used the F word, twice. Few would bat an eye at what’s become relatively common usage on recorded works now, but in 1970, it was startling. And the line that got me thinking: ‘Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV’ which sends me off on a perhaps self-indulgent tangent. Years later, at 26, I had a similar reaction after reading what became something of a bible to me: Neil Postman‘s 1985 book Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse In The Age Of Show Business.

It’s a short book, just 163 pages, within which Postman posits that it was more Aldous Huxley in his 1932 book Brave New World than George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four who pinpointed humanity’s potential problems. He wasn’t critical of or questioning Orwell by any stretch but an excerpt from the short forward to Postman’s book boils things down to his point.

“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held . . . But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another – slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally opposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. . . . This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”

At the time of writing, Postman, who died at age 72 in 2003, put forth the premise that TV, including the news as presented on TV, was the drug Soma from Brave New World. Forty years later, one could say the same about social media and the internet. Postman – and Huxley – was prescient.

Back to Lennon, and God, the other influential song on me with its opening line ‘God is a concept by which we measure our pain’ and on into the list of all the things Lennon, in the wake of The Beatles’ breakup, didn’t believe in, culminating in the dramatic ‘I don’t believe in Beatles’ and ‘the dream is over . . . and so, dear friends, you’ll just have to carry on.’

And all The Beatles did, albeit individually although Lennon, Harrison and Ringo did work on some of each other’s albums with McCartney joinng the fray for Starr’s 1973 album Ringo.

Three years later, 33 & 1/3, released in November 1976, if nothing else afforded Harrison the opportunity to write and release This Song, making sport of the long and drawn out My Sweet Lord copyright infringement case which ruled in September of 1976 that he had plagiarized The Chiffons’ 1963 hit He’s So Fine. The first verse:

This song has nothing tricky about it
This song ain’t black or white and as far as I know
Don’t infringe on anyone’s copyright

This Song made the top 30 while the infectious Crackerbox Palace slipped inside the top 20. But the funky It’s What You Value is arguably my favorite. It opens with the line ‘Someone’s driving a 450’, a reference to Harrison paying session drummer to the stars Jim Keltner with a Mercedes 450 SL, apparently at Keltner’s request, for playing on Harrison’s 1974 Dark Horse Tour.

And back to 1973 we go for the wall-to-wall classic Band On The Run where, after a few good if inconsistent albums to start his post-Beatles career, McCartney put it all together. The opening one-two punch of the title track and Jet, Let Me Roll It, Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five, etc. People know it, most at least like it, I could go on but . . . the music speaks for itself.