Former Associate Editor/Web Editor/Sports Editor at Waterloo Region Record with a keen interest in rock music, specifically classic rock with side dishes of blues, late 70s punk and new wave plus sprinklings of reggae, soul and funk.
Karlo Berkovich is the host of So Old It's New.
A two-album play, second of two such Saturday shows after last week playing The Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels and Neil Young’s Freedom, highlighting ‘comeback’ albums released in 1989 by major artists who had relatively spotty results earlier in the decade. This week, Bob Dylan’s Oh Mercy and Eric Clapton’s Journeyman. My thoughts on each album under the respective records’ song lists.
1. Political World
2. Where Teardrops Fall
3. Everything Is Broken
4. Ring Them Bells
5. Man In The Long Black Coat
6. Most Of The Time
7. What Good Am I?
8. Disease Of Conceit
9. What Was It You Wanted
10. Shooting Star
Perhaps fueled by working with the likes of Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne in the Traveling Wilburys, Dylan in 1989 unleashed – with help from producer extraordinaire Daniel Lanois’s atmospheric touch – one of his best-ever albums. Oh Mercy is a sterling listen front to back which includes several of my personal favorite Dylan tunes led by Man In The Long Black Coat amid, really, a perfect 10 tracks. Some critics suggested it was his best since 1975’s Blood On The Tracks. I’d say it’s simply among his best, period.
1. Pretending
2. Anything For Your Love
3. Bad Love
4. Running On Faith
5. Hard Times
6. Hound Dog
7. No Alibis
8. Run So Far
9. Old Love
10. Breaking Point
11. Lead Me On
12. Before You Accuse Me
At least something of a return to form after some shoddy, typically alas 1980s overly slick, overproduced albeit commercially successful albums. Journeyman is still relatively slick but, thankfully, the production this time doesn’t overwhelm the music and some truly quality slow blues like Old Love, written with Robert Cray, take priority in the overall mix of music.
1. Pretenders, Tattooed Love Boys
2. Graham Parker, Devil’s Sidewalk
3. The Police, Shadows In The Rain
4. Midnight Oil, The Last Of The Diggers
5. Chuck Berry, Jaguar and Thunderbird
6. Golden Earring, She Flies On Strange Wings (from Live, 1977)
7. Rod Stewart, You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It)
8. (Long) John Baldry, Let’s Burn Down The Cornfield
9. Gordon Lightfoot, Mister Rock Of Ages
10. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Wrote A Song For Everyone
11. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, It Ain’t Nothin’ To Me
12. Paul Rodgers, Standing Around Crying
13. The Kinks, Celluloid Heroes
14. Johnny Winter, Stray Cat Blues
15. The Rolling Stones, Midnight Rambler (live, from Ladies & Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones)
16. Kansas, The Absence Of Presence
17. Led Zeppelin, For Your Life
18. Cream, Rollin’ And Tumblin’ (from Live Cream)
My track-by-track tales:
1. Pretenders, Tattooed Love Boys . . . . A staccato-type song walking a tightope between chaos and control, from the band’s self-titled debut album released in January, 1980. A soundscape that teeters on the edge of a cliff, seemingly, as if the song is always at risk of falling apart but it doesn’t and that’s what makes it compelling. Then, this example of compact fury just ends, boom. And you wish it was longer than just three minutes. But on the flip side, leave ’em wanting more . . .
2. Graham Parker, Devil’s Sidewalk . . . Nice descending guitar riff intro on this one, perhaps my favorite song – though it’s tough to pick – on the 1980 album The Up Escalator. A hit single that could have been, in my book although it wasn’t released as such. Stupefaction and Endless Night, the latter featuring Parker fan Bruce Springsteen on backing vocals, are likely the best-known songs on what I think is a consistent record that tends to get short shrift from critics who don’t like Jimmy Iovine‘s supposedly too slick production. Iovine had previously worked as an engineer on Springsteen’s Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge of Town albums, John Lennon’s Walls and Bridges and produced Patti Smith’s Easter and Tom Petty’s Damn The Torpedoes. A sterling resume, but there’s no pleasing some people although obviously it’s a matter of personal preference and taste. Perhaps it’s because it’s the Parker album I first heard front to back thanks to radio play which prompted me to purchase it, after which I went back in his catalogue. But to me The Up Escalator maintained his early, angry young man phase of consistency and is as good as its more acclaimed predecessor, Squeezing Out Sparks.
3. The Police, Shadows In The Rain . . . A hypnotic, brooding piece from the 1980 album Zenyatta Mondatta. Another example of why, while compilations serve a purpose, depending how deeply one wants to dig into particular artists, individual albums tell the full tale.
4. Midnight Oil, The Last Of The Diggers . . . From The Real Thing, a mostly live, mostly acoustic album, released in 2000 that featured Oils’ hits plus four new studio recordings including the title track and this mid-tempo rocker.
5. Chuck Berry, Jaguar and Thunderbird . . . Short, just under two minutes, punchy rocker with rockabilly and, some have suggested, rap – before rap was a recognized genre – elements in a Bo Diddley-ish approach. The music fits the subject matter of a race down the road, police in pursuit. A non-album single issued in 1960, it didn’t dent the charts but has appeared on various Berry compilation albums.
6. Golden Earring, She Flies On Strange Wings (from Live, released in 1977) . . . From short and sweet with Chuck Berry to long and involved with Golden Earring, a multifaceted song, hard rock in spots, mellow in others. Progressive hard rock, in short. It appeared in studio form on the band’s 1971 album Seven Tears.
7. Rod Stewart, You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It) . . . A funky, stop-start rocker from Gasoline Alley, released in 1970. It was Stewart’s second solo album during the amazing 1969-74 period when he was maintaining parallel careers, fronting Faces while also using many of that band’s members, particularly guitarist Ron Wood, on his solo stuff.
8. (Long) John Baldry, Let’s Burn Down The Cornfield . . . A more up-tempo treatment of Randy Newman’s rootsy, swampy version on his 1970 album 12 Songs. It came out on Baldry’s June 1971 album It Ain’t Easy which was co-produced by Rod Stewart and Elton John. John – under his birth name Reginald Dwight – was in the band Bluesology with Baldry during the 1960s. Stewart and John each produced a side of the original vinyl album with Let’s Burn Down The Cornfield produced by John and featuring guitarist Caleb Quaye and drummer Roger Pope. They were working with John at the time and played on his Madman Across The Water album, released in November 1971. The ubiquitous guitarist Ron Wood was among the Stewart associates who played on the Stewart-produced tracks including the title song and Don’t Try To Lay No Boogie Woogie On The King Of Rock & Roll.
9. Gordon Lightfoot, Mister Rock Of Ages . . . Beautiful song, thoughtful lyrics but it’s Lightfoot, what else would one expect? From the 1980 album Dream Street Rose.
10. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Wrote A Song For Everyone . . . From Green River, the middle of three – count ’em, 3! – albums released by CCR that year. It was bracketed by Bayou Country and Willy And The Poor Boys, all of consistently high quality. CCR singles from 1969 spread over the three albums: Proud Mary, Born On The Bayou, Bad Moon Rising, Lodi, Green River, Commotion, Down On The Corner, Fortunate Son. Eight singles, five of which – Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising, Green River, Down On The Corner and Fortunate Son – made either No. 2 or 3 on the North American charts with Bad Moon Rising hitting No. 1 in the UK. A remarkable run by a remarkable band.
11. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, It Ain’t Nothin’ To Me . . . Nice intro bass line from Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, who co-wrote with Petty this horn-drenched song with a cool call-and-response hook using the song title. From the 1985 album Southern Accents which, aside from the hit single Don’t Come Around Here No More took some time to embed itself with me but long since has. Definitely a keeper.
12. Paul Rodgers, Standing Around Crying . . . David Gilmour on guitar, from Rodgers’ 1993 album Muddy Water Blues – A Tribute To Muddy Waters that featured an all-star cast of guitarists in addition to Pink Floyd’s Gilmour. Others on the album: Jeff Beck, Buddy Guy, Brian May (Queen), Steve Miller, Gary Moore, Trevor Rabin (Yes), Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi), Neil Schon (Santana, Journey), Brian Setzer (Stray Cats, The Brian Setzer Orchestra), Slash (Guns N’ Roses, Slash’s Snakepit, Velvet Revolver, etc.).
13. The Kinks, Celluloid Heroes . . . From the 1972 studio album Everybody’s In Show-Biz . . . I played Supersonic Rocket Ship from the album some weeks ago and mentioned Celluloid Heroes being a single that to me, amazingly, did not chart that I’ve played before and would play again. So here you go. Fantastic song, musically and lyrically, with Kinks’ writer Ray Davies name-checking actors Greta Garbo, Rudolph Valentino, Bela Lugosi, Bette Davis, George Sanders, Marilyn Monroe and Mickey Rooney. Kinks’ guitarist Dave Davies, often at odds with his brother, was quoted as saying it’s ‘one of my favorite songs ever, by anybody.’ I agree. Strange to me that it wasn’t more successful commercially but there’s maybe no accounting for time, place and taste but it is a well-known track to Kinks’ fans and appears on various compilations.
14. Johnny Winter, Stray Cat Blues . . . Winter’s cover, from his 1974 album Saints And Sinners, of the ribald Rolling Stones song originally on Beggars Banquet. Winter, however, more closely follows the slower, bluesier arrangement the Stones used on Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out!, the 1970 live album document of their 1969 tour although the boys have returned to the original approach when they’ve played the song on recent tours. All versions – Winter’s included which shouldn’t be surprising as he was a great interpreter of others’ material – are excellent. Winter also covered, at various times, the Stones songs Let It Bleed and Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited and Like A Rolling Stone.
15. The Rolling Stones, Midnight Rambler (live, from Ladies & Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones) . . . The Let It Bleed studio album song whose arguably definitive version remains the concert cut from Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out! The Ladies & Gentlemen take was recorded on the Stones’ 1972 tour promoting their then-current Exile On Main St. album and first saw limited official release in 1974 on the film document of that voyage. I still own bootleg copies of both movie and album although I’ve since bought the official releases which came out on DVD and Blu-ray in 2010 and on CD in 2017.
16. Kansas, The Absence Of Presence . . . . From the raunchy rock of The Rolling Stones to the prog-rock title cut of Kansas’ 2020 album. To quote the allmusic review site, ‘Kansas’ popularity is based on the canny balance of meaty prog and radio-friendly melodic rock’ and I agree. A typically epic tune from a band whose beautiful 1977 hit Dust In The Wind is actually something of an outlier in their oeuvre. Plus, I like the title, Absence of Presence, and the album cover and it gives me an opportunity to set up . . .
17. Led Zeppelin, For Your Life . . . Kansas, we do have Presence . . . or did, from the 1976 album Presence on this unconventionally compelling song driven by its stop-start riff.
18. Cream, Rollin’ And Tumblin’ (live) . . . Back to a Muddy Waters’ tune in this manic mostly just instrumental interplay Cream interpretation to close the show as I roll and tumble off the stage and outta here, so to speak. Jack Bruce sings, yes, but in many ways just ‘mouths’ sounds but it all works, very well. Recorded March 7, 1968 at the Fillmore West, San Francisco and released on Live Cream, June 1970. It’s also available online and on the 2-CD Cream Gold compilation which is split into studio and live recordings.
So Old It’s New set featuring two albums released in 1989 – Steel Wheels by The Rolling Stones and Neil Young’s Freedom. Why 1989? Well, I was dipping into a book about the Berlin Wall, which fell in 1989 so, the way my mind works, one thing led to another, the year 1989 stuck and on with the show.
It was an interesting year musically with lots of great or at least solid ‘comeback’ albums, at least by critical assessments, released by so-called classic rock artists as the Stones and Young but also Eric Clapton (Journeyman), Bob Dylan (Oh Mercy), Lou Reed (New York), among others so this may be installment one in a short series of Saturday morning shows. But, who knows where I’ll go next? My thoughts on each album appear at the bottom of this post.
1. Sad Sad Sad
2. Mixed Emotions
3. Terrifying
4. Hold On To Your Hat
5. Hearts For Sale
6. Blinded By Love
7. Rock And A Hard Place
8. Can’t Be Seen
9. Almost Hear You Sigh
10. Continental Drift
11. Break The Spell
12. Slipping Away
1. Rockin’ In The Free World (acoustic)
2. Crime In The City (Sixty To Zero Part I)
3. Don’t Cry
4. Hangin’ On A Limb
5. Eldorado
6. The Ways Of Love
7. Someday
8. On Broadway
9. Wrecking Ball
10. No More
11. Too Far Gone
12. Rockin’ In The Free World (electric)
My thoughts on Steel Wheels:
As the narrative goes, Steel Wheels was a reunion album by an apparently broken band that was in tatters or not even existing given what’s been termed “World War Three” as chief Stones’ songwriters Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were at odds in the mid-1980s thanks in part to Richards’ emergence from a decade-or more long dalliance with booze and drugs.
What’s maybe weird is, while I knew via reports of the Stones’ internal dynamics around this time, I as a fan didn’t make much if anything of it. They’d released an album (the under-appreciated in my book Dirty Work, 1986) and were working on the next one which came out as Steel Wheels. Three years between albums, by that time, didn’t seem like a lot even to those of us who grew up on an album (or 2 in Elton John’s case via his then-contract) a year by most artists.
But to the gossipers among the citizenry who seize on things . . . As the story goes, Richards was now at least relatively clean and coherent and seeking to reassert more influence in group activities beyond merely playing guitar. Jagger, meanwhile, who had essentially been the lone man at the tiller since the 1970s for the most part, certainly in a business sense, and become used to full leadership, bristled at his old friend’s desire to more fully direct Stones’ activities.
This was exacerbated by Jagger’s pursuit of a solo career which annoyed all of the band but mostly Richards. Keith famously said he’d ‘slit his throat’ if Jagger toured without the Stones and Mick did, with the brilliant Jeff Beck on guitar and survived, slitless. I have a couple bootlegs of those shows and they’re good but I must say don’t really have that ‘Stones’ sound, which maybe Mick didn’t want. They missed the Richards’ raunch which the technically obviously brilliant Beck didn’t arguably best provide but again, maybe that’s what Jagger wanted. Yet if you’re going to play Stones tunes . . .
What truly annoyed Richards primarily and the rest of the Stones was that Jagger largely built his tour on a Stones set list. Jagger had refused a Stones tour after the 1986 album Dirty Work yet subsequently goes on the road playing . . . mostly Stones tunes. I like and admire both guys, but I think Keith and the others had a point.
At any rate, Keith crowed, lyrically, once he decided, eff it, I’ll do my own album. Out came Talk Is Cheap in 1988. Keef’s critically-acclaimed as the best Stones albeit not exactly Stones release since whenever (although lagging way behind Jaggers’ solo album sales). Talk Is Cheap contained the song You Don’t Move Me including the lyric passage ‘Now you wanna roll the dice you already crapped out twice’ in reference to Jagger’s solo albums She’s The Boss and Primitive Cool which, certainly sales wise, actually did well on the charts and by far better than any Richards’ solo release. But the musical point was made, the boys buried the hatchet and Steel Wheels was the result. Listened to objectively without any baggage of who the Stones have been, it’s quite the great album including the nice touch of Continental Drift, a compelling, intoxicating track which via the use of the Master Musicians of Joujouka paid homage to founding Stones’ member Brian Jones and his work with that musical assemblage in 1968. The Stones used excerpts from Continental Drift as intro music on the Steel Wheels tour.
Overall, beyond the studio album itself Steel Wheels and its supporting tour opened a new phase in the career of The Rolling Stones in terms of their massive tours, huge stages and so on. It was now a tight, arguably scripted show, full of backup musicians and singers live band, a revue, almost. Not to all tastes yet still undeniably The Rolling Stones who at various times – the stripped down No Security Tour, the Stripped album and concerts from the 1990s, the 2013 killer unvarnished show I saw in Toronto among many of mine starting with the raunchily ragged resounding 1978 Some Girls tour stop in Buffalo with the Stones – were at their rawest.
I mentioned earlier in this ramble how Steel Wheels was seen as a return to form from the 1986 album Dirty Work which to me is groupthink at work. Say something often enough and people apparently believe it, even if they haven’t read or listened to whatever it is the media shapers are talking about.
Yes, I’m a huge Stones fan thus will arguably find merit in whatever they do but I immediately liked Dirty Work, despite reviews few of which I actually read before buying the album because the Stones were always just an automatic buy for me.
I do distinctly recall Peter Goddard, then a respected music writer at the Toronto Star, calling it an ‘angry’ and great album. Goddard didn’t expound on it very much as I recall, just reviewed the songs and the album overall, so can’t be sure if he meant the ‘anger’ in terms of the aggression in the music – which is what I took from his review, simply musically – or the anger that then existed between Stones’ songwriting principals Jagger and Richards as imposing itself on the music, as most other critics suggested.
Whatever. All in all it maybe proves another point, that being: just listen to the record and make one’s own judgement. Often, and obviously, the less you read in terms of critics’ reviews, certainly at least before consuming a book or listening to an album the more you come to things unvarnished and uninfluenced and thus make your own judgments although it can be interesting reading other viewpoints but, I’d submit, only after you’ve read or listened and formed your own opinion.
And my thoughts on Neil Young’s Freedom:
Best track on this album to me is Crime In The City, which I’ve played independently on the show. Just a brilliant story song, lengthy at nearly nine minutes but well worth the trip. Just a terrific album all of it, a combination of all Young does/has done well, acoustic tunes, rock, hard rock, everything Geffen was expecting when that record company signed Young earlier in the 1980s but were met with a shift in Young’s creative muse, resulting in albums like Trans and its Kraftwrerk-like electronic sounds, the rockabilly of Everybody’s Rockin’ and the pure country of Old Ways. Geffen was appalled, sued Young as being un-Young like, he counter sued in the name of artistic independence and a settlement was quickly reached.
In the meantime Young returned to his former longtime home Reprise Records and in 1988 released a quality jump blues album This Note’s For You which also led to some legal issues. It was first sold as Neil Young and The Bluenotes. But after a lawsuit from Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes original R & B band dating to the 1950s, Young had to change the album labelling from Neil Young & The Bluenotes to just Neil Young . . . I have both versions. Not sure if the one with ‘Bluenotes’ on the cover is rare or worth anything, just as I have the original Rolling Stones vinyl album cover of Some Girls which later, due to threatened lawsuits by various movie stars depicted on the cover, was amended to ‘under reconstruction’. The Stones one I’d submit probably is worth more, if it’s worth anything but I probably stupidly completely reduced any value it might have via me putting my initials on it for organizational purposes during a move. But, actually, I’m happy to still own it as well as the original Neil Young album cover.
1. The Allman Brothers Band, Instrumental Illness
2. Paul McCartney/Wings, Big Barn Red
3. Paul McCartney/Wings, Medley (Hold Me Tight/Lazy Dynamite/Hands Of Love/Power Cut)
4. Alvin Lee, I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
5. Elton John, Where To Now, St. Peter?
6. Tom Jones, The Young New Mexican Puppeteer
7. Bob Dylan, Ballad Of A Thin Man
8. The Dirty Mac, Yer Blues (from The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus)
9. The Rolling Stones, Prodigal Son
10. Rev. Robert Wilkins, That’s No Way To Get Along (1928 version, re-recorded by Wilkins during the 1960s as The Prodigal Son)
11. Atomic Rooster, Broken Wings
12. Faces (I Know) I’m Losing You (live at the BBC 1971, taken from Five Guys Walk Into A Bar box set)
13. Rush, Cygnus X-1
14. Rush, Cyngus X-1 Book II
1. The Allman Brothers Band, Instrumental Illness . . . From the 2003 studio album Hittin’ The Note. It’s the last original recorded work by the band and the first and only Allmans’ album to not include original guitarist Dickey Betts. He was dismissed in 2000 in what became a difficult divorce, including lawsuits, stemming from other band members’ concerns over Betts’ alcohol and substance abuse. Betts and Gregg Allman did reconcile before Allman’s death in 2017, with Betts passing away in 2024 at age 80.
Replacing Betts on Hittin’ The Note, including on this extended jazz-rock fusion instrumental featuring terrific guitar interplay, was Derek Trucks, nephew of Allmans’ drummer Butch Trucks and also a member of the Tedeschi Trucks Band with his wife Susan Tedeschi. Derek Trucks continued the tradition of the Allmans’ two-guitar attack dating to the original duo of Betts and Duane Allman. Trucks teamed with Warren Haynes, who was originally brought into the Allmans in the late 1980s from Betts’ solo band in yet another example of the various branches of musical family trees. It’s a terrific song, and album, leaving the Allmans, who continued touring until 2014, to exit studio work hittin’ a high note.
2. Paul McCartney/Wings, Big Barn Red . . . The first of two tracks from McCartney and Wings’ 1973 album Red Rose Speedway. I was inspired to play it via a text last week from a friend out of the blue, as he and I tend to in a fun way via random thoughts do. He simply said “isn’t Red Rose Speedway a terrifically underrated album?” to which I admitted that while I own the album and have pretty much all of McCartney’s material, I’ve never – beyond the hit single My Love – got into it much. The album is overshadowed by McCartney’s next two, Band On The Run and Venus And Mars. So, his text prompted me to play the song he suggested I listen to and here is, Big Barn Red. It’s a, I would say, quirky, bouncy kind of tune, great playing, kinda loose, kinda tight, kinda inconsequential on the surface yet consequential if that makes sense.
3. Paul McCartney/Wings, Medley (Hold Me Tight/Lazy Dynamite/Hands Of Love/Power Cut) . . . Another one from Red Rose Speedway which I mentioned to my friend during our text conversation as one from the album I definitely was familiar with. Some have likened it to the Abbey Road medley and while I don’t think it’s on that level – what could be, or maybe I just haven’t listened to it enough – it’s still pretty good. Of particular note to me is the Hands Of Love part, a jaunty juxtaposition within the overall offering and featuring some stinging guitar work by, presumably, Henry McCulloch who is listed as lead guitarist on the album although Macca can and does play pretty much every instrument. Power Cut, it’s been suggested by some, should have been extracted as a single and it, along with the three other parts of the medley, are available separately on YouTube. Red Rose Speedway was originally intended as a double album and in 2018 was re-issued in that form as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection.
4. Alvin Lee, I Want You (She’s So Heavy) . . . I often speak of the interconnected threads in music, as earlier in the set with The Allman Brothers Band, Dickey Betts, Derek and Butch Trucks, Warren Haynes (who also formed the formidable entity in itself Gov’t Mule). Probably I go overboard with it while understanding that in any field of endeavour there will be cross-pollination and collaboration of creativity. Still, I find it fascinating while also recognizing that many of the threads connecting bands and/or artists who might admire/respect each other from afar, were you to put them together in an attempt to form a band, it might not work for long. Which is why ‘supergroups’ like Cream, Blind Faith etc. didn’t last long although others like, say, Bad Company which is often categorized as a supergroup, did. So, it obviously depends on whatever chemistry may or may not exist.
In any case, on my April 14/25 show I played Alvin Lee’s slow blues The Bluest Blues, a terrific cut featuring his Beatle friend George Harrison on slide guitar, from Lee’s Nineteen Ninety-Four album released that year. Lee, the former Ten Years After frontman/guitarist, and Harrison were great pals, lived in the same neighborhood for at least some time and as Lee related in various album liner notes, he’d encourage Harrison to drop by and make music. The Bluest Blues was one result and another was their pairing on Lee’s cover of the John Lennon-penned Beatles tune I Want You (She’s So Heavy). It’s also from Nineteen Ninety-Four and is a terrific reinterpretation while holding true to the original on Abbey Road. Lennon deliberately and brilliantly abruptly chopped off the ending on the Abbey Road album where Lee lets it fade albeit after a descending crescendo of sound, each effective in their own way.
Also interesting to me is how Harrison’s playing, juxtaposed against that of an acknowledged virtuoso like Lee, becomes somehow more compelling in that environment vis-a-vis his great work within The Beatles who, amazing as they were, didn’t feature a Lee or a Hendrix etc. type individual player because they were always about the song, which is what ultimately resonates. And as Lee said in those various liner notes, he wanted Harrison’s slide, not just anyone’s slide, but George’s. He loved Harrison’s sound, he got it, and we, thankfully, have it to listen to on some of Lee’s solo tracks.
5. Elton John, Where To Now, St. Peter? . . . Another track, my favorite probably on the 1970 album Tumbleweed Connection, that was actually on my list of possible plays for this show but I settled on something from that album again via the text talk with my friend. He had just picked up Tumbleweed Connection (expanded re-released version no less) for bargain-basement prices at a thrift store. He’s as much a music fan as me so I was surprised he had to pick it up, me presuming he must have owned it already (which turns out he did, on vinyl but he went for the cheapie expanded CD, too). As I said to him, no huge hits but a great album as Elton – and lyrics collaborator Bernie Taupin – was starting to truly bloom both creatively and commercially.
After the lovely piano intro in comes guitar and we’re off. An interesting and compelling arrangement that builds upon itself.
6. Tom Jones, The Young New Mexican Puppeteer . . . A total outlier, perhaps as here we have Tom Jones. I’ve never played him before and faithful show followers may be thinking WTF although I do very much like his biggest hits like It’s Not Unusual and She’s A Lady. Good songs are good songs, regardless. Anyway, playing this one came about while shelving CDs and up came Tom Jones Gold, a two-disc compilation containing this track. It always reminds me of my (RIP) parents therefore I will never get rid of it although I can always easily call it up online. They loved the song, danced to it and so it conjures up fond memories. And it leads into a bunch of ‘Jones’-related material. Me and my music ‘threads’ thing again.
7. Bob Dylan, Ballad Of A Thin Man . . . Tom Jones to Mr. Jones to, you’ll see, Lennon referencing Dylan mentioning Mr. Jones. What a devastating rip job, a lacerating track, so many interpretations of it including a takedown of clueless bourgeois types trying to decode the then counterculture. ‘Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones? From Dylan’s 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited.
8. The Dirty Mac, Yer Blues (from The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus) . . . After finally seeing the film and listening to the album upon their initial official release in 1996, I’ve never understood why the Stones held back, or supposedly did, release of The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus based on their view that they had been upstaged by The Who with its version of A Quick One While He’s Away. A good song, I guess, I’ve never gotten into and that’s not due to me comparing The Who to the Stones. I just don’t see what’s so great about A Quick One, studio version or the live Rock And Roll Circus take. The Who, one of my favorite bands, have countless other better songs.
Anyway granted I’m a big fan and if they were ‘off’ on the show I’d say so but I thought the Stones were excellent so, whatever. As for Yer Blues and The Dirty Mac, this is The Beatles track from The White Album as done by John Lennon and Eric Clapton on guitars, drummer Mitch Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Keith Richards of the Stones on bass. Interestingly, perhaps, my elder son, a musician himself, is a huge Beatles (and Stones) fan; he told me once he preferred this arguably rawer, heavier, unpolished yet compellingly unvarnished version to The Beatles’ White Album version. I like them both.
9. The Rolling Stones, Prodigal Son . . . A Stones’ involvement on the previous tune (Richards) brings me to this skeletal, reverential blues cover from around the same time as the Circus show. It appeared on the Beggars Banquet album, released in 1968.
10. Rev. Robert Wilkins, That’s No Way To Get Along ((1928 version, re-recorded by Wilkins during the 1960s as The Prodigal Son) . . . And here’s the original, in a slow, spoken-sung style. Almost more sermon than song that gave the Stones something to build on and also revealed the depth of their blues knowledge and appreciation, which then fueled my own. Again, as Keith Richards has said, the best thing an artist can do is ‘pass it on’.
11. Atomic Rooster, Broken Wings . . . A few weeks ago on the show I played John Mayall’s beautiful original from his 1967 album The Blues Alone and mentioned that Atomic Rooster had, maybe uncharacteristically, covered it and promised to play it at some point soon. Here it is, from the band’s self-titled 1970 debut album. More operatic and ‘prog’ even ‘doomy’ in Rooster’s style perhaps but a great homage to the original. A worthwhile listen.
12. Faces, (I Know) I’m Losing You (live at the BBC 1971, taken from the box set Five Guys Walk Into A Bar . . . ) . . . Absolutely killer version of this tune made famous by The Temptations that Faces forntman Rod Stewart also did, with Faces backing during his dual career period, on his 1971 studio album Every Picture Tells A Story.
13. Rush, Cygnus X-1 . . .Total genre change but I’ve been meaning to get the epic 2-fer of Cygnus X-1 and Cygnus X-1 Book II in. It’s all of a piece, part I from A Farewell To Kings, the 1977 album that truly got me into Rush and arguably my favorite to this day, and Part II from the next album, 1978’s Hemispheres. Part I closed A Farewell To Kings and Part II, lead cut on Hemispheres, continued the cerebral/philosophical story.
14. Rush, Cyngus X-1, Book II . . . And that’s the end of the story, for this set.
A two-album play: Joe Jackson’s 1980 release Beat Crazy and London Calling by The Clash, from 1979. My thoughts on each album run below that record’s song list.
1. Beat Crazy
2. One To One
3. In Every Dream Home (A Nightmare)
4. The Evil Eye
5. Mad At You
6. Crime Don’t Pay
7. Someone Up There
8. Battleground
9. Biology
10. Pretty Boys
11. Fit
I’m a huge Joe Jackson fan and, as I probably too often repeat, follow him and his muse wherever it takes him and me along with it which has meant punk rock/new wave, reggae, ska, big band, classical, you name it. Yet for whatever reason, it took me a bit to get into his 1980 release Beat Crazy. I bought it, automatic purchase of something by a preferred artist when it came out, listened to it, liked it, liked the driving, musically jagged title cut (sung by bassist Graham Maby) but that was sort of it and I shelved the album for a time. Not sure why, perhaps there were other more immediate albums I was more interested in then.
But once I truly dug back into Beat Crazy, wow. Jackson was still in his early career ‘angry young man’ new wave phase at the time, before the shift first into the jazz/swing covers album Jumpin’ Jive in 1981 then into what’s been described as the ‘sophisti-pop’ of the 1982 album Night And Day which featured the hit single Steppin’ Out. But by Beat Crazy Jackson was already clearly evolving, incorporating new sounds like ska and I found a new maturity or seriousness in his songwriting. It was a darker if (likely due to its darkness) more poorly commercially performing album than his straight ahead debut Look Sharp! and its followup I’m The Man. Those were both socially conscious with biting commentary too, but also ‘party’ records featuring obvious hits like Is She Really Going Out With Him? and I’m The Man.
Beat Crazy made you think. JJ addressed, in the title cut, youth attitudes/culture of the day wrapped in allusions to the Cold War via the lyric “and if the Russians ever come they’ll all be beating bongo drums”perfectly in sync with the music. Then there’s the stirring In Every Dream Home (A Nightmare) tale of relationships including the ‘who is she, really?’ look at a high-class prostitute, the blurred morality of Crime Don’t Pay – “I got a nice suit, I got a nice car, it’s been a nice day, don’t tell me that crime don’t pay” to the racism of ‘black niggers and white niggers’ in Battleground to the superficiality of Pretty Boys to the gender identity issues of Fit. A tremendous album, ahead of its time perhaps, although ‘ahead of its time’ is arguably a cliche phrase, given that it happened at that time so it’s obviously of its time.
1. London Calling
2. Brand New Cadillac
3. Jimmy Jazz
4. Hateful
5. Rudie Can’t Fail
6. Spanish Bombs
7. The Right Profile
8. Lost In The Supermarket
9. Clampdown
10. The Guns Of Brixton
11. Wrong ‘Em Boyo
12. Death Or Glory
13. Koka Kola
14. The Card Cheat
15. Lover’s Rock
16. Four Horsemen
17. I’m Not Down
18. Revolution Rock
19. Train In Vain (Stand By Me) (hidden track on original vinyl double album)
London Calling is so full of great songs it’s ridiculous. In choosing this 1979 release to play and revisiting it after a long time between listens – although like all great albums I can pretty much play it in my head – the depth in terms of the quality and variety of music is amazing. The Clash were, as I recall a sticker on the album wrap suggesting, ‘the only band that matters’ at least at the time and I agreed and embraced them, totally. They rivalled my forever favorites, The Rolling Stones, as my favorite band at that time.
There’s the title cut with the line ‘phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust’ which I on first listen and generally took to be about the quick rise and fall of the Bay City Rollers of the 1970s, although their song Saturday Night was a pretty good guilty pleasure. Others have legitimately suggested it’s a reference to what The Clash was seeing as the decline, already, within just a few years, of punk rock as a movement. Or something of a companion to the band’s earlier song 1977 which contained the lyric “No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones in 1977”. Even as The Clash appropriated, as an homage, the artwork of Elvis’s 1956 debut album for the London Calling cover . . .
By any interpretation, a great song and opener.
Then comes Brand New Cadillac, the Vince Taylor cover spiced up with the immortal not in the original lyrics interjection ‘Jesus Christ, where’d you get that Cadillac!’ which just ‘makes’ the song . . . Train In Vain (Stand By Me) the early single and a ‘hidden track’ to end the original album . . . beyond that . . . the reggae of Revolution Rock, Spanish Bombs evoking the Spanish Civil War but updated by incorporating contemporary issues . . . Lost In The Supermarket’s tale of suburban disillusionment and rampant consumerism . . . the ‘what are we gonna do now?’ call to arms of Clampdown . . . The Right Profile with another couple of stirring screams in the chorus ‘that’s Montgomery Clift honey!’ and ‘but I prefer alcohol!!” And, to me the (literally) killer cut, The Guns Of Brixton with that intoxicating introductory bass line followed by the defiant opening lines ‘When they kick at your front door how you gonna come, with your hands on your head or on the trigger of your gun . . . when the law break in how you gonna go? Shot down on the pavement or waiting in death row’ . . .
The excellence is in the maybe not grammatically perfect yet perfectly imperfect lyrics. It’s maybe ‘wrong’, as great art often is, but sounds right, better, it just works. Akin, for just one example, to Smoke On The Water by Deep Purple where the lyrics are so much better – and probably aid in the singing tempo – as released: ‘some stupid (not some stupid idiot, just ‘some stupid’) with a flare gun burned the place to the ground’ and ‘The Rolling truck Stones thing just outside, making our music there’; putting ‘truck’ in between Rolling and Stones takes it from just another lyric mentioning the Stones’ mobile recording studio into a memorable line.
Crazy good album, London Calling. I have friends who swear by the earlier Clash stuff, the raucous debut punk rock album and all that and I get it, I like the earlier material too. But some tend to dismiss London Calling as a sellout for commercial gain. I disagree. First off, one wants to sell records, no? Otherwise, it’s like saying you’ll work for free. Noble maybe, but you have to eat and maintain roof overhead. Further, London Calling is still topical, still political, if that’s what one wants from The Clash, but it’s wrapped in more accessible songs. If that’s ‘selling out’ then I’m all for it because few are going to listen to your lyrics if the musicality of the songs themselves doesn’t first draw you in. And London Calling achieves that. Easily one of the greatest albums of all time.
So Old It’s New three-album play, a singer-songwriter set featuring three classic, seminal albums: Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water from 1970, Carole King’s Tapestry from 1971 and John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan, released in 1967. My thoughts on each album appear under that record’s song list. No show on my usual Monday night; I’m preempted for the station’s coverage of the Canadian federal election.
1. Bridge Over Troubled Water
2. El Condor Pasa (If I Could)
3. Cecilia
4. Keep The Customer Satisfied
5. So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright
6. The Boxer
7. Baby Driver
8. The Only Living Boy In New York
9. Why Don’t You Write Me
10. Bye Bye Love
11. Song For The Asking
Personal memories of this album go back to when I was in Grade 7 in the school year 1970-71 and part of the school choir as per our compulsory music curriculum. If memory serves it was a Christmas assembly but in any case it was a public performance in front of family, friends and anyone who wanted to drop by and we closed the evening with the title track, Bridge Over Troubled Water. I remember our 5-foot nothing, or less, music teacher with her pitch pipe, endlessly – and sometimes annoyingly 🙂 such was her pursuit of perfection – drilling us for what she hoped for and intended to be a peak performance. And it was. We nailed it on the night, complete with all the transitional vocal harmonies amid the various voices – sopranos, altos, tenors (me, then) and basses. She was so proud of us, Miss Lee was her name as I recall and we of her particularly as a lesson in dedication, focus and persistence.
Later that year I remember smiling at a school dance as she slow-danced with her boyfriend, easily a foot and a half taller than she was, while I took the last slow dance with a friend and classmate named Cecilia, the title of one of the tracks, albeit an uptempo and excellent tune on Bridge Over Troubled Water. I was so naive then in relationships I had no idea a ‘last dance’ might represent something of significance. Nothing ever ensued between Cecilia and me, due to streaming of students based on where we lived she went to a different high school, but she does come to mind in a fun way when I hear the song. Part of it might also be that she was of Spanish background and in 1970 my family had just returned from four years living in Peru, a formative, defining time for me, so she perhaps resonated as somewhat representative of that experience.
Further re the album itself there is the classic song The Boxer with that distinctive ‘cheeuuh’ if I can ‘write’ a sound, one achieved by drummer Hal Blaine via a heavily reverbed snare drum. Blaine, according to analyses, I’m no drummer, pounded the snare drum hard while recording, and the reverberation of the sound in a hallway near an elevator shaft created the desired effect. Overall, just a great album musically and lyrically.
1. I Feel The Earth Move
2. So Far Away
3. It’s Too Late
4. Home Again
5. Beautiful
6. Way Over Yonder
7. You’ve Got A Friend
8. Where You Lead
9. Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
10. Smackwater Jack
11. Tapestry
12. (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
Simply one of the greatest albums ever. Not sure what else to say about it or what could be said though much has been written and is easily available. It’s all in the music and lyrics. A greatest hits album, essentially, a must-have/listen. A true telling of Carole King though, I think can be furthered by looking at the 2-CD Essential Carole King. Four of the songs on it – I Feel The Earth Move, So Far Away, It’s Too Late and You’ve Got A Friend – come from Tapestry along with other quality King material. But the compilation is nicely split by the two discs – one of her as ‘The Singer’, the other as ‘The Songwriter’, often with then-husband Gerry Goffin, on such songs as Pleasant Valley Sunday by The Monkees and The Loco-Motion by Little Eva and also done by Grand Funk Railroad. Tied as a companion to Tapestry, it’s terrific stuff.
1. John Wesley Harding
2. As I Went Out One Morning
3. I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
4. All Along The Watchtower
5. The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest
6. Drifter’s Escape
7. Dear Landlord
8. I Am A Lonesome Hobo
9. I Pity The Poor Immigrant
10. The Wicked Messenger
11. Down Along The Cove
12. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
A notable album for among other songs, the one from which the hard rock/metal band Judas Priest took its name, The Ballad Of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest, plus other great tracks like my favorites As I Went Out One Morning and Dylan’s original All Along The Watchtower. Sounds like sacrilege to some, probably, but I truly prefer Dylan’s original – maybe better expressed it’s a tie – to the more famous Jimi Hendrix cover version which Dylan himself later started attempting to do, in concert, in Hendrix style. In my view he needn’t have. Dylan’s version is classic if not by now as well remembered or recognized but to me it’s a matter of lyrics and delivery. As great as the Hendrix version is, the lyrical impact is lost amid the amazing playing relative to how it comes out in Dylan’s original. And it was a mutual admiration society; Hendrix also famously and brilliantly covered Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival including that wonderful interaction with an audience member “yeah I know I missed a verse, don’t worry” as Jimi played on.
1. AC/DC, Let There Be Rock
2. AC/DC, Demon Fire
3. Black Sabbath, Into The Void
4. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Sledgehammer
5. Blackfoot, Gimme Gimme Gimme
6. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Devil In The Bottle
7. Jimi Hendrix, Bold As Love
8. Deep Purple, April
9. Queen, The Hitman
10. Aerosmith, Jailbait
11. Robin Trower, Too Rolling Stoned
12. The Rolling Stones, Tops
13. Joe Jackson, Girl (live)
14. The Beatles, Cry Baby Cry
15. Neil Young, Like An Inca
16. Groundhogs, Split, Parts 1-4
My track-by-track tales:
1. AC/DC, Let There Be Rock . . . Title cut from the 1977 album, Bon Scott still alive and on lead vocals, uncompromising raunch and roll setting the tone for at least the first few songs of the set.
2. AC/DC, Demon Fire . . . One of two tracks – Shot In The Dark the other – AC/DC is playing on its just-begun Power Up tour in support of its 2020 album. A long time between the record release and its supporting tour but lots happened in between: Covid, lead singer Brian Johnson’s hearing issues such that he was replaced by Axl Rose of Guns ‘N Roses on a previous tour – including a period where Rose, with a broken leg, sang from a wheelchair. Kudos to Rose, he did a fine job overall in my view based on available video. Johnson, 77, recovered and alongside lead guitarist Angus Young, 70, AC/DC is still around, alive and kicking by all concert review accounts so far. As for Demon Fire, it’s got a similar funky infectious riff to Safe In New York City from the 2000 album Stiff Upper Lip. That’s a good thing. Are they ripping themselves off? Of course, but that’s AC/DC’s genius – doing variations on a theme for years yet still sounding fresh because discerning listeners know it’s not all the same if one actually investigates the albums, deep cuts and all. Still, Young had fun with that perception years ago:
“I’m sick to death of people saying we’ve made 11 albums (at the time) that sound exactly the same. In fact, we’ve made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.”
3. Black Sabbath, Into The Void . . . Hugely influential metal/doom sludge rock track before there were such categorizations, riding one of guitarist Tony Iommi’s darkest riffs, from Sabbath’s 1971 album Master Of Reality.
4. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Sledgehammer . . . Another band revived and on tour. BTO has been on the road since April 1 in Canada playing all the expected hits plus Guess Who tracks from Randy Bachman’s time in the band plus an encore medley of rock and roll from various artists including BTO: Hey You / All Right Now / Rock’n Me / You Shook Me All Night Long / Honky Tonk Women / Get It On (Bang a Gong) / (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction / Old Time Rock and Roll / Hey You (reprise). No Sledgehammer, though, which is of course cool but a fine deep track with combined lead vocals by Bachman and bassist C.F. (Fred) Turner from 1973’s Not Fragile album which featured the hit single You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet. BTO wraps up the Canadian leg of its tour in early May before starting a series of US dates in mid-July, running through the summer.
5. Blackfoot, Gimme Gimme Gimme . . . Straight ahead southern riff raunch and roll from 1980’s Tomcattin’ album, fuelled by leader Rickey Medlocke’s guitar and lead vocals. Medlocke was an early, pre-released recordings member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, playing drums on demos, some of which eventually surfaced on the post-plane crash compilation Skynyrd’s First and… Last which was later expanded and re-released as Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album. Medlocke rejoined Skynyrd full time, on guitar, for the 1997 album Twenty and has been a core member of the reconstituted band since.
6. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Devil In The Bottle . . . Speaking of Skynyrd (without Medlocke) . . . A touching tale about demon alcohol from the unplugged 1994 album Endangered Species that featured classic pre-plane crash Skynyrd tracks like Sweet Home Alabama, Down South Jukin’, Saturday Night Special and I Ain’t The One as well as material done by the reconstituted band and a cover of Elvis’s Heartbreak Hotel. At the time of Endangered Species, the group still featured several of the plane crash survivors or previous, pre-crash players in the band.
The lineup: Gary Rossington and Ed King on guitars; Leon Wilkeson bass; Billy Powell piano from the classic-era group plus lead singer Johnny Van Zant, the departed singer Ronnie Van Zant’s brother. I like all Skynyrd stuff. I think – and that’s cool – people who criticize the latter-day group as being nothing more than a tribute band may not have sampled and thus are missing lots of good music but that’s ok and understandable. But if people can’t make the full leap from band version to version, I’d recommend Endangered Species as a possible entry point if one is at all curious.
7. Jimi Hendrix, Bold As Love . . . Title cut to Axis: Bold As Love. There’s no real hook to it, yet it’s completely compelling with of course fine playing by Hendrix and band as you float along on the bed of instrumentation they lay down.
8. Deep Purple, April . . . I had to get this classical/progressive/hard rock piece in before the end of April. It’s from the so-called Mark I version of Deep Purple. The lineup featured Nick Simper on bass and Rod Evans on lead vocals although Evans doesn’t come in until almost nine minutes into this 12-minute track from the third and final album done by Mark I, simply titled Deep Purple. It was released in 1969. An underappreciated, inventive period of Purple.
9. Queen, The Hitman . . . A hard rocker from 1991’s excellent Innuendo album, the last record the band released while lead singer Freddie Mercury was alive and a nod to classic 1970s Queen not only on this song but throughout the record.
10. Aerosmith, Jailbait . . . Sleazy start/stop/start rocker from the 1982 album Rock In A Hard Place. It’s an appropriate album title in that guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford had left a band disintegrating amid drug abuse and other issues. They were replaced by Jimmy Crespo (sessions with Rod Stewart, Stevie Nicks and Meat Loaf among others) and Rick Dufay (various sessions). Yet, some quality Aerosmith material was still produced, like this bluesy boozy raunchy rolling track that starts with a wild intro, comes to a stop, then winds up again. Lightning Strikes, which I’ve played before, perhaps too often, remains to me the best track on the album but this rocker isn’t far behind.
11. Robin Trower, Too Rolling Stoned . . . My favorite Trower track from arguably his best album, the 1974 release Bridge Of Sighs. It also serves as an obvious segue to the next band/song.
12. The Rolling Stones, Tops . . . The Stones, wanting a new studio album to tour behind in 1981 but pressed for time, visited their vaults to cobble leftovers into the chart-topping feast that became the Tattoo You album propelled by the hit single Start Me Up. But there’s so much depth to the album including this mid-tempo ballad whose history goes back to 1972 sessions and features great drumming from Charlie Watts and lead guitar from Mick Taylor.
13. Joe Jackson, Girl (from Live Music) . . . No guitars. Piano-driven cover of The Beatles’ cut from Rubber Soul, issued on Jackson’s 2011 live album taken from a 2010 tour of Europe. JJ labeled his band at the time the Joe Jackson Trio, a terrific unit featuring his perennial on bass (Graham Maby) going back to the 1979 debut album Look Sharp! David Houghton, the drummer on Look Sharp! and Jackson’s first few albums and several later ones, is also on board.
14. The Beatles, Cry Baby Cry . . . Haunting yet beautiful track from The White Album, written and sung by John Lennon and punctuated by Paul McCartney’s ‘can you take me back’ coda.
15. Neil Young, Like An Inca . . . How can you not get into, or at least try, a track that starts with the lyric ‘said the condor to the preying mantis’ ? This extended piece from 1982’s off the wall Kraftwerk-like electronic album Trans is actually a curveball within the context of the record, given it’s a ‘traditional’ or conventional-sounding Young song on an otherwise experimental entry. Geffen Records sued Young at the time for not sounding like Neil Young (?!, he obviously should be open to creating as his muse moves him but, understandably perhaps, Geffen would have been expecting Neil Young as folk or grunge Neil Young, not Kraftwerk or whatever). Young countersued in the interests of creative freedom. Both lawsuits were soon dropped and Young received a personal apology from label leader David Geffen for interfering in the creative process. Trans is an interesting album as are all Young’s experiments – albeit not to all tastes – while he was signed to Geffen including Everybody’s Rockin’ (rockabilly) in 1983 and the country album Old Ways in 1985.
16. Groundhogs, Split, Parts 1-4 . . . Time to ‘split’ from the studio via this multi-part title suite from the British blues rock band’s 1971 album. They’re all individual songs, they each ‘end’ on a fadeout and aren’t conventionally connected yet are an overall unified piece.
A mishmash ‘throw stuff at the wall see what sticks’ set, including some leftovers I couldn’t fit into previous shows. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. Muddy Waters, All Aboard
2. Buddy Holly, Early In The Morning
3. Mott The Hoople, All The Way From Memphis
4. Eric Burdon and War, Blues For Memphis Slim
5. The Band, Back To Memphis
6. Stray Cats, 18 Miles To Memphis
7. Roy Buchanan, Down By The River (live)
8. Alan Parsons Project, In The Lap Of The Gods
9. Alan Parsons Project, Lucifer
10. James Gang, Alexis
11. MC5, Come Together
12. Colin James, I’m Losing You
13. Pearl Jam, Glorified G
14. Peter Tosh, Bush Doctor (from Captured Live)
15. Alannah Myles, Tumbleweed
16. Talking Heads, Gangster Of Love
17. Elton John, You’re So Static
18. Jason and The Scorchers, 19th Nervous Breakdown
19. The Rolling Stones, Baby Break It Down
20. Little Feat, Day At The Dog Races (live, from Waiting For Columbus)
21. Patti Smith Group, Easter
My track-by-track tales:
1. Muddy Waters, All Aboard (from Fathers and Sons featuring Otis Spann, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn, Sam Lay and Buddy Miles) . . . You feel like you’re on a train on this one about love lost and maybe regained with someone new, chugging along complete with opening train whistle. Not much more to say beyond my list of who plays on Muddy’s 1969 album, other than it’s great. It was wonderful how, as an elder statesman of the blues by then, Muddy’s ‘sons’ flocked to help him out on albums, including as the decade of the 1970s progressed, Johnny Winter who played on and produced three late period Muddy albums plus the excellent Muddy ‘Mississippi’ Waters live record.
2. Buddy Holly, Early In The Morning . . . One of those ‘what might have been’ tracks in terms of directions Holly might have taken had he lived. The shuffling rock and roll tune co-written by Bobby Darin of Splish Splash fame and his somewhat regular writing partner Woody Harris was recorded by Holly in 1958 including gospel-tinged background vocals by The Helen Way Singers. Darin did his own version of the song around the same time.
North America album cover
UK album cover
3. Mott The Hoople, All The Way From Memphis . . . We start a mini-Memphis-themed set with this rousing lead cut from the 1973 album Mott, driven by Mick Ralphs’ guitar riff and a sizzling saxophone solo from Andy Mackay of Roxy Music. The song went top 10 in the UK but didn’t chart in North America, although it did get considerable FM radio airplay and is one of the band’s best-known tracks.
4. Eric Burdon and War, Blues For Memphis Slim . . . Extended, 13-minute piece of jazzy funk blues from the April 1970 release Eric Burdon Declares ‘War’. A great meeting of musical minds between the Animals’ singer and the progressive soul and R & B band that resulted in the great single Spill The Wine, from the same album. Eight months later, December, 1970, came The Black-Man’s Burdon album after which the pairing parted ways.
5. The Band, Back To Memphis . . . A Chuck Berry tune that first appeared in a live version on the comprehensive 2-CD compilation To Kingdom Come: The Definitive Collection released in 1989 and now out of print. I’ve long had my copy so I’m good. The track, in studio form and recorded at the time, was later added to expanded releases of The Band’s 1973 covers album Moondog Matinee, where it’s titled Going Back To Memphis.
6. Stray Cats, 18 Miles To Memphis . . . Typically terrific rockabilly boogie by the band, channeling the 1950s, as was their wont, on the 1983 album Rant N’ Rave With The Stray Cats.
7. Roy Buchanan, Down By The River (live) . . . A previously – until 1992’s Sweet Dreams: The Anthology and 2006’s Definitive Collection – unreleased live version by the great blues/rock guitarist of the Neil Young classic originally on Young’s second solo album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, recorded with Crazy Horse.
8. Alan Parsons Project, In The Lap Of The Gods . . . A moody, orchestral prog-rock piece from 1978’s Pyramid with that great album cover, the first of two straight instrumentals, from consecutive albums by the Project.
9. Alan Parsons Project, Lucifer . . . An eerie yet funky and, once you hear the hook, instantly familiar lead track from the 1979 album Eve.
10. James Gang, Alexis . . . What starts as a mellow ballad builds into a guitar showcase for future Deep Purple member Tommy Bolin, who also sings the song, during his period with the James Gang. It’s from the 1973 album Bang, Bolin’s first of two with the group after founding guitarist Joe Walsh and his replacement, Domenic Triano left. After 1974’s Miami album off, too, went Bolin to a solo career and Deep Purple for one album, the 1975 release Come Taste The Band.
11. MC5, Come Together . . . Not The Beatles tune but rather manic Motor City-area mayhem from the punk rock pioneers’ debut album, the live Kick Out The Jams, released in 1969. It was recorded at a late 1968 concert in Detroit.
12. Colin James, I’m Losing You . . . Faithful cover, great guitar, of the John Lennon tune from 1980’s Double Fantasy album. Canadian blues singer/guitarist James’s version came out on his 2003 album Traveler.
13. Pearl Jam, Glorified G . . . This funky and sarcastic diatribe against gun culture wasn’t a single but for my money is one of the best songs on the band’s second album, 1993’s Vs. Many apparently agree since it got enough airplay to make No. 39 on the US Billboard chart.
14. Peter Tosh, Bush Doctor (from Captured Live) . . . Fiery live version of the title cut from Tosh’s 1978 studio album which featured Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards on the track and Mick Jagger with co-lead vocals on the single (You Gotta Walk And) Don’t Look Back, a cover of The Temptations’ 1965 hit they titled Don’t Look Back. The Bush Doctor album came during a period when Tosh, signed to Rolling Stones Records at the time, was often an opening act at Stones concerts. As for Bush Doctor the song, it’s something of a companion piece to the title track from Tosh’s 1976 studio album Legalize It, celebrating in Tosh’s view the health benefits of and calling for the legalization of marijuana.
15. Alannah Myles, Tumbleweed . . . Country-tinged pop-rock tune with Myles’ sultry voice floating over the bluesy guitar riffs. Myles’ self-titled debut album in 1989 gets most of the hype in large measure due to its worldwide hit single Black Velvet. But I find 1992’s Rockinghorse, her second album from which Tumbleweed is taken, equally good.
16. Talking Heads, Gangster Of Love . . . Not Steve Miller’s cover of the Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson song but a rhythmic, worldbeat type track from sessions that produced the albums Remain In Light (1980) and Naked (1988). The band eventually polished and released the song in 1992 on the 2-disc compilation Popular Favorites 1976–1992: Sand in the Vaseline.
17. Elton John, You’re So Static . . . Funky pop rock tune fueled by the Tower Of Power horn section. Catchy stuff, from the 1974 album Caribou.
18. Jason and The Scorchers, 19th Nervous Breakdown . . . An, er, scorching version of the Stones’ hit single from 1966. It was released on The Scorchers’ 1986 album Still Standing. It also appears on the 1998 album Cover You: A Tribute To The Rolling Stones which contains covers of Stones’ songs by artists like Otis Redding (Satisfaction), Linda Ronstadt (Tumbling Dice), Johnny Cash (No Expectations) and Johnny Winter (Jumpin’ Jack Flash) among others.
19. The Rolling Stones, Baby Break It Down . . . Mid-tempo track from 1994’s Voodoo Lounge album featuring a great pedal steel guitar solo from Ron Wood. Another one of those largely unknown – other than to Stones freaks like me – gems that pepper their studio albums, particularly their latter-day releases.
20. Little Feat, Day At The Dog Races (live, from Waiting For Columbus) . . . Twice the length of the six-minute studio track from the 1977 album Time Loves A Hero, this instrumental Weather Report-like jazz fusion jam didn’t appear on the original 1978 release of the classic live album Waiting For Columbus although it was recorded on the 1977 tour from which Columbus came. Day At The Dog Races was one of several bonus tracks from that tour added to a 2002 re-release of the live album.
21. Patti Smith Group, Easter . . . Well, it is Easter weekend – Happy Easter, everyone – so how could I resist playing this haunting, evocative title track to the 1978 album?
A blues rock set, albeit alas limited within the confines of my two-hour slot, to just some of the myriad masters of the genre and only scratching the surface of artists they inspired. The set wound up, as it often does, going in different directions once into it by just letting it flow, resulting in some duplicate tracks – originals and covers – as things evolved but the great thing in a way is, many of the artists ‘left out’ so to speak and not in this set stay in mind for future such shows. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. Alvin Lee, The Bluest Blues
2. Robert Johnson, Preachin’ Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)
3. Mississippi Fred McDowell, You Gotta Move
4. The Rolling Stones, You Gotta Move (from Love You Live)
5. The Rolling Stones, Down In The Hole
6. Keith Richards, Blues In The Morning
7. John Lee Hooker, I Don’t Wanna Go To Vietnam
8. Canned Heat & John Lee Hooker, The World Today (from Hooker ‘N Heat)
9. Van Morrison with John Lee Hooker, Gloria . . . (from Van Morrison’s Too Long In Exile)
10. Blind Willie Johnson, It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine
11. Led Zeppelin, Nobody’s Fault But Mine
12. John Mayall, Broken Wings
13. Buddy Guy, Stone Crazy
14. Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, When The Levee Breaks
15. Led Zeppelin, When The Levee Breaks
16. Eric Clapton with Santana, Eyesight To The Blind / Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? (from Crossroads 2 live in the seventies box set)
My track-by-track tales:
1. Alvin Lee, The Bluest Blues . . . Beatle George Harrison on slide guitar on this slow-burner from the Ten Years After frontman/guitarist’s 1994 solo album named, what else, Nineteen Ninety-Four although in the USA it was called I Hear You Rockin’. To quote Lee about Harrison’s contribution, from the liner notes to a Lee compilation released in 2003:
“It’s one of the best slide guitar solos I’ve ever heard. I did a version of it, before George came down, and played my usual mad guitar solo. Then I said ‘George, how about putting some slide on there?’ He did the first solo and he did this beautiful slow, laid back and lifting solo and it made me change my whole attitude. I had to take off more gently from there, rather than blowing at the speed of light. It turned the song into something special for me. George lived down the road, and he was always up for coming over to make music. I loved his slide playing. George had perfect pitch. He was a lovely man and he is sorely missed.” As is Lee, who died in 2013. Harrison passed away in 2001.
2. Robert Johnson, Preachin’ Blues (Up Jumped The Devil) . . . Not as often covered by rock greats as his songs like Crossroad Blues, Ramblin’ On My Mind, Traveling Riverside Blues, Stop Breaking Down Blues and Love In Vain, among others. But this boogie yet haunting tune embodies the crossroads mythology surrounding Johnson having made a deal with the devil, trading his soul for musical mastery.
3. Mississippi Fred McDowell, You Gotta Move . . . A song I, and perhaps many of my age, first heard on The Rolling Stones’ 1971 album Sticky Fingers although they’d previously played it during their 1969 American tour and it’s appeared on subsequent expanded re-releases of Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out! , the classic 1970 live album document of that trip. I have McDowell’s earthy, hypnotic version on a few compilations including 2018’s Confessin’ The Blues which was curated by members of the Stones – including cover art by guitarist Ron Wood. The comp features McDowell and many other blues greats from whom the Stones drew inspiration.
4. The Rolling Stones, You Gotta Move, (from Love You Live) . . . I thought I’d go not with the studio version from Sticky Fingers, nor the live version from 1969 but this jam-type sing-along rendition from the Stones’ 1975-76 tour of North America and Europe that appeared on their 1977 live release.
5. The Rolling Stones, Down In The Hole . . . A great original blues from 1980’s Emotional Rescue, almost out of place on an album otherwise infused with disco, reggae and straight-ahead pop-rock songs plus the off the wall but addictive multi-part title track. Down In The Hole, featuring fabulous harmonica from Sugar Blue, was the B-side to the Emotional Rescue single and appeared directly before it in the album track order – jarring, cleverly effective juxtapositions in my book.
6. Keith Richards, Blues In The Morning . . . I suppose I should be playing this up-tempo rootsy rocker featuring that distinctive Richards’ riffing on my Saturday morning show. But . . . that’s just what you’d be expecting. An almost casually tossed off yet compelling piece from Keef’s most recent solo album, the 2015 release Crosseyed Heart.
7. John Lee Hooker, I Don’t Wanna Go To Vietnam . . . The first of three straight songs featuring Hooker on his own or in collaboration with others. A typically hypnotic Hooker groove on this anti-war excursion that still resonates, aside from the specific war it’s discussing, released on his 1969 album Simply The Truth.
We got so much trouble at home
We don’t need to go to Vietnam
Yeah, yeah, there’s a whole lot of trouble right here at home
Don’t need to go to Vietnam
We oughta stay at home, stay out of trouble
I don’t wanna go
I don’t wanna go
Vietnam
8. Canned Heat & John Lee Hooker, The World Today (from Hooker ‘N Heat) . . . An extended conversation about conflict, written by Hooker. Minimalist, strikingly almost spoken-word blues from the respective artists’ 1971 collaboration.
9. Van Morrison with John Lee Hooker, Gloria . . . From Van The Man’s 1993 album Too Long In Exile, a terrific, extended version of Them’s Morrison-penned 1965 hit. Two vocal virtuosos in tandem amid intoxicating instrumentation.
10. Blind Willie Johnson, It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine . . . Another one of those, like Mississippi Fred McDowell and The Rolling Stones covering You Gotta Move, where a rock band introduces you to the brilliance of those who inspired them. As Keith Richards of the Stones has said, arguably the greatest compliment one can grant a musician is that they passed it on. In this case, Led Zeppelin took the baton from Blind Willie and transformed his acoustic, spiritual version recorded in 1927 into a powerhouse, rocked up production on the 1976 album Presence, while retaining the essence of the original.
11. Led Zeppelin, Nobody’s Fault But Mine . . . See my thoughts on Blind Willie Johnson.
12. John Mayall, Broken Wings . . . A beautiful if sad ballad, one of my favorite songs by Mayall from one of my favorite of his albums, the 1967 release The Blues Alone. The album title is somewhat misleading, as the album does feature contributions from drummer Keith “Keef” Hartley but it is mostly Mayall – on vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano, organ and . . . drums on two tracks although it’s Hartley on this one.
13. Buddy Guy, Stone Crazy . . . Straight slow blues from 1961, drenched in Guy’s great guitar and soulful vocals to the extent that B.B. King anointed Guy, then 25, his heir apparent. It was released on the 1970 compilation I Was Walking Through The Woods, part of the Chess Records Vintage Series and comprised of Guy’s material recorded between 1960 and 1964.
14. Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, When The Levee Breaks. . . Recorded by blues artists and then-married couple McCoy and Minnie (birth name Lizzie Douglas) in 1929, a haunting historical snapshot of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.
15. Led Zeppelin, When The Levee Breaks . . . Another one reimagined and transformed by Led Zep, featuring that defining drumbeat by John Bonham.
16. Eric Clapton with Santana, Eyesight To The Blind / Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad ? (from Crossroads 2 live in the seventies box set) . . . A sprawling, fiery finale to the show blending a Sonny Boy Williamson song with a soulful Derek And The Dominos number, from Clapton’s 1975 tour. Santana served as the opening act, joining Clapton on stage for an epic 24-minute encore.
A three-Pete performance of my favorite Townshend albums, including a nice collaboration with Ronnie Lane of Faces fame.
The show features Rough Mix (1977), Empty Glass (1980) and All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982). It was inspired by me having recently read various biographies of Who members but also thanks to finding, while doing some filing, my long apparently lost copy of Pete Townshend Gold. It’s a 2-CD compilation I own because, after the three studio albums I’m playing, and his 1972 debut Who Came First featuring the great song Sheraton Gibson, I found Townshend was increasingly losing me full album wise, aside from occasional quality tracks (that rightly made the compilation) like Give Blood, Face The Face and Secondhand Love from White City: A Novel. White City, released in 1985, was the first of three consecutive concept albums that included The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend (1989) and Psychoderelict (1993). OK stuff I probably should revisit as full listens but . . . the market maybe told the tale as the latter two didn’t chart and Townshend hasn’t released a solo album since amid various Who tours and two latter-day Who studio albums – Endless Wire in 2006 and WHO in 2019.
So here, to me, is prime Pete, helped along by Rough Mix with Faces bassist/singer Lane that also includes appearances by musical friends including Rolling Stones’ drummer Charlie Watts, Eric Clapton, Bad Company bassist Boz Burrell and Townshend’s Who partner in crime, bassist John Entwistle. Further thoughts on each album, under each record’s track list.
1. My Baby Gives It Away
2. Nowhere To Run
3. Rough Mix
4. Annie
5. Keep Me Turning
6. Catmelody
7. Misunderstood
8. April Fool
9. Street In The City
10. Heart To Hang Onto
11. Till The Rivers All Run Dry
An album full of great tracks like Keep Me Turning, Misunderstood, Street In The City and perhaps my favorite, the emotive Heart To Hang Onto with shared vocals by Lane and Townshend. I was always into The Who but I remember exploring a Toronto record store, I would have been 18 in 1977 and I came across Rough Mix in The Who rack, shortly after it came out. I’d been unaware of it to that point but, trusting the names on the album sleeve, bought it sight unseen and I’ve been immensely and repeatedly rewarded ever since.
1. Rough Boys
2. I Am An Animal
3. And I Moved
4. Let My Love Open The Door
5. Jools And Jim
6. Keep On Working
7. Cat’s In The Cupboard
8. A Little Is Enough
9. Empty Glass
10. Gonna Get Ya
Empty Glass is simply one of those albums where every track is excellent. An album so good that at the time, Who singer Roger Daltrey said he felt Townshend was maybe holding back his best work for solo albums. I respect and understand Roger’s view but at the same time, Daltrey was often reluctant – as on 1975’s The Who By Numbers – to sing very personal, ‘confessional’ Townshend tunes like However Much I Booze which Townshend wound up singing himself. So, given that many of the tracks on Empty Glass are indeed personal, despite Daltrey’s concerns, it’s likely best how it came out – a Townshend solo record. I’d rate it his best.
1. Stop Hurting People
2. The Sea Refuses No River
3. Prelude
4. Face Dances Part Two
5. Exquisitely Bored
6. Communication
7. Stardom In Action
8. Uniforms (Corp d’esprit)
9. North Country Girl
10. Somebody Saved Me
11. Slit Skirts
Inconsistent, to my ears, certainly as compared to the sustained brilliance of Empty Glass albeit a very good album, beyond which I think the choice of singles (Face Dances Part 2 and Uniforms) was questionable. Ever heard them much? Didn’t think so. The fact the excellent Exquisitely Bored, to me the best song on the album with The Sea Refuses No River a close second (and also not a single), wasn’t chosen as a single release is mind boggling. Townshend, or his record company, addressed this obvious error by putting both songs on the 2-CD Gold compilation, released in 2005. Uniforms made the comp, but Face Dances Part 2 didn’t, which tells you something.
“We all came out to . . . make records with a mobile”, to quote Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water lyric as a description of this set made up of tunes by various artists recorded using The Rolling Stones Mobile Studio aka the mobile ‘unit’ or ‘the Rolling truck Stones thing’ as further described in the lyrics to Smoke On The Water. Here’s a couple videos about the mobile, total time about 15 minutes.
My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. Dire Straits, Telegraph Road (from Alchemy – Dire Straits Live)
2. Bob Marley and The Wailers, No Woman No Cry (from Live!)
3. Santana, Dance Sister Dance (live, from Moonflower)
4. Ten Years After, Help Me (from Recorded Live)
5. Led Zeppelin, The Rover
6. Fleetwood Mac, Hypnotized
7. Nazareth, Silver Dollar Forger (Parts 1 & 2)
8. Deep Purple, When A Blind Man Cries
9. Iron Maiden, Tailgunner
10. The Rolling Stones, Let It Rock (live, Leeds University 1971)
11. Bad Company, Silver, Blue & Gold
12. The Who, Water (live, 1971 appeared on Who’s Next deluxe expanded release)
13. Wishbone Ash, Baby What You Want Me To Do (from Live Dates)
14. Dire Straits, Solid Rock/Going Home – Theme From ‘Local Hero’ (from Alchemy – Dire Straits Live)
1. Dire Straits, Telegraph Road (from Alchemy – Dire Straits Live) . . . Epic storytelling track released on the band’s 1984 live album, originally on the studio record Love Over Gold from 1982.
2. Bob Marley and The Wailers, No Woman No Cry (from Live!) . . . Originally on the 1974 studio album Natty Dread, this soulful version from 1975’s Live! has become, to many, the definitive one, evidenced by its appearance on various Marley compilations.
3. Santana, Dance Sister Dance (live, from Moonflower) . . . From the 1977 release, a part studio, part live album, the live album recorded using the Stones’ mobile unit. A blend of Latin rhythms, fusion, and extended jamming; intoxicating, as much of Santana’s best work tends to be.
4. Ten Years After, Help Me (from Recorded Live) . . . A driving riff by guitarist/singer Alvin Lee on the Willie Dixon tune as interpreted not only by TYA but by blues great Sonny Boy Williamson II aka Rice Miller, from whom TYA drew inspiration. A raw, gritty, blues-rock odyssey from TYA’s 1973 album.
5. Led Zeppelin, The Rover . . . I love the sort of, how would I describe it, ‘backwards entry’ of the killer riff off the initial drumbeat on this one from 1975’s Physical Graffiti. To my ears, it’s like it comes in from where one might not expect yet when it comes, there it is as if that’s where it obviously should have been. It all works and tends to conjure up in me an image of a plane coming in for a landing for some reason, not sure why but I feel like I’m flying when I listen to it.
6. Fleetwood Mac, Hypnotized . . . Trippy, dreamy laid back groove, a mesmerizing and, er, hypnotizing track that is one of my favorites from the middle period of Fleetwood Mac featuring Bob Welch on guitar, often lead vocals and songwriting duties. This one’s from the 1973 album Mystery To Me. Two years and one album later, out was Welch, in came guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac became a pop-rock phenomenon. I like that version of the band but am still partial to the initial Peter Green-fronted early blues years and the, I think, underappreciated Welch lineup.
7. Nazareth, Silver Dollar Forger (Parts 1 & 2) . . . A heavy riff rocker from the 1974 album Rampant, produced by Roger Glover of Deep Purple bass-playing fame. He was at the helm of several Nazareth albums, others being the previous releases to Rampant and among the band’s most successful – Razamanaz and Loud ‘n’ Proud.
8. Deep Purple, When A Blind Man Cries . . . B-side to the single Never Before, issued from 1972’s Machine Head album that yielded Purple’s signature song, Smoke On The Water which, perhaps strangely, none of the band members apparently thought would be a hit although it obviously became an iconic rock track. Never Before made No. 4 in Switzerland and No. 35 in the UK while Smoke On The Water made the top five in most countries, No. 3 in the US and No. 2 in Canada although never No. 1. As for When A Blind Man Cries, it’s a beautiful blues ballad. It was recorded for Machine Head but according to singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore ”no like” (despite his typically fine playing) so it didn’t make the album until subsequent remastered re-releases. The song has, since Blackmore’s departure from Purple in the mid-1990s, being replaced by Steve Morse and then Simon McBride, been regularly played in concert.
9. Iron Maiden, Tailgunner . . . Pulsating war-themed lead cut from the 1990 album No Prayer For The Dying, recorded in bass player Steve Harris’s barn using the Stones mobile. Maiden was attempting – and succeeding at, via mobile studio methods or otherwise – to achieve a more earthy, stripped down production sound within the typical Maiden metal method.
10. The Rolling Stones, Let It Rock (live, Leeds University 1971) . . . Great version of the Chuck Berry classic from the Stones’ 1971 so-called Goodbye Britain tour where they were escaping the onerous UK taxman, eventually resulting in them being at a villa in southern France, using their mobile truck again, to come up with 1972’s classic Exile On Main St. album. I first heard this version of a song the Stones have done various times on the terrific Get Your Leeds Lungs Out! bootleg I still own. The album has subsequently been officially released, with Let It Rock also included on the Rarities 1971-2003 compilation.
11. Bad Company, Silver, Blue & Gold . . . Not a single but could have been and a Bad Co. fan favorite by all accounts, and definitely one of mine by the band. It’s from the 1976 album Run With The Pack.
12. The Who, Water (live, 1971 appeared on Who’s Next deluxe expanded release, 2003) . . . Stirring, gritty vocals by Roger Daltrey on a relatively obscure track The Who did in typically raw fashion during a London gig. It appeared on later, expanded versions of the Who’s Next album. Explosive stuff, Daltrey rising above but also enveloped in that all-encompassing volcanic Who sound.
13. Wishbone Ash, Baby What You Want Me To Do (from Live Dates) . . . Wishbone Ash was a for the most part progressive hard rock band but they had roots in the British blues and here they are on their 1973 album Live Dates with an extended, more electrified version of the Jimmy Reed tune – Ash-ified as it were while retaining key elements of the original.
14. Dire Straits, Solid Rock/Going Home – Theme From ‘Local Hero’ (from Alchemy – Dire Straits Live) . . . Coming full circle to close the set with Dire Straits live, putting the songs together as they appeared in order on Alchemy. Solid Rock, taken from the studio album Making Movies, is paired with the majestic instrumental Going Home from the soundtrack to the 1983 movie Local Hero, composed by Straits’ leader Mark Knopfler.
A three-headed monster mash featuring 1980 albums by Teenage Head and Talking Heads plus Headstones’ 2022 release Flight Risk. To quote the opening line from Teenage Head’s Disgusteen: Nice day for a party, isn’t it? Which I did a fair bit of with Frantic City by Teenage Head and Talking Heads’ Remain In Light as a soundtrack during college daze, including seeing Teenage Head live when they played at my school.
1. Wild One
2. Somethin’ On My Mind
3. Total Love
4. Let’s Shake
5. Infected
6. Those Things You Do
7. Somethin’ Else
8. Take It
9. Brand New Cadillac
10. Disgusteen – notable not only for “Nice day for a party, isn’t it?” but the conversation with the dark side, adapted from The Exorcist:
Come on in, Father Karras.
Regan’s inside here with me, she’s going nowhere.
But please, it’s so cold, you must let her go.
She’s not going anywhere.
Not till I’m finished with her, you understand.
Just untie my hands,
Let me free, I’ll show you the power
The power of Christ doesn’t compel anyone, not today, understand.
1. Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
2. Crosseyed And Painless
3. The Great Curve
4. Once In A Lifetime
5. Houses In Motion
6. Seen And Not Seen
7. Listening Wind
8. The Overload
1. Headlight Holds A Deer
2. Everything Or Nothing At All
3. Flight Risk
4. When It Goes Badly
5. Tangled
6. Hotel Room
7. Neon Rome
8. Ashes
9. Psychotropic
10. Pilot Light
11. Rink
A program split between ‘fool’ songs, including several from the Deep Purple family, in advance of April Fool’s Day tomorrow, and some random fare. Some of the ‘fool’ songs are repeats from a Saturday morning show I did on April 1, 2023. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Fool
2. Deep Purple, Fools
3. Deep Purple, You Fool No One, live from Made In Europe
4. Whitesnake, Fool For Your Loving (original 1980 version from Ready An’ Willing album)
5. Peter Green, A Fool No More
6. Joe Jackson, Fool
7. Bobbie Gentry, Find Em, Fool Em, Forget About Em
8. ZZ Top, Made Into A Movie
9. Rod Stewart, Alright For An Hour
10. Jethro Tull, Black Sunday
11. Robert Plant, Wreckless Love
12. Warren Zevon, Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School
13. Moby Grape, Miller’s Blues (live)
14. Nazareth, Telegram (Part 1: On Your Way/Part 2: So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star/Part 3: Sound Check/Part 4: Here We Are Again)
15. Charlie Watts Quintet . . . Going, Going, Going, Gone
My track-by-track tales:
1. Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Fool . . . My opener this week, a spooky, psychedelic piece that swerves into folk, blues and acid rock, from the San Francisco band’s self-titled 1968 debut that I played late in what became a 28-song set two years ago on April 1. At the time, I marvelled at how many songs have ‘fool’ in their title, particularly deep cuts which are the foundation of my show. Especially when, as I wrote then, I had initially thought I might struggle to fill a set only to find I had four hours’ worth of songs I had to shave down for my two-hour slot.
But it’s not actually April 1 yet so I’m not doing an entire ‘fools’ show this time, as mentioned in my preamble and due to some lengthy songs like this 12-minute voyage, the set is about half the number of tunes, at 15. As for Quicksilver’s The Fool, according to Wikipedia “the multi-sectional, quasi-symphonic psych epic The Fool had begun with lyrics typed on a typewriter during an LSD trip.” And, as I mentioned two years ago, quite the trip it is, in line with what Quicksilver Messenger Service, at least on their various such lengthy tracks like the Who Do You Love suite on the 1969 album Happy Trails, were all about.
2. Deep Purple, Fools . . . A Purple classic in my opinion but, granted, I’m a huge fan of the band, all phases during its long existence. I love the slow, almost sinister buildup until things explode into a hard rocker with progressive accents including the power of Ian Gillan’s vocals, adaptable to any situation, as they were in his prime at the time of the 1971 album Fireball from which Fools comes. Perhaps that’s at least part of why Gillan has said it’s his favorite Purple album although critics tend to find it wanting relatively speaking, coming as it did between the explosive first album of the Mark II Purple unit, In Rock and the Smoke On The Water, Highway Star and other Purple perfections of Machine Head. All I can say is that an album with songs like the title cut, No No No, Strange Kind Of Woman and No One Came along with Fools is equally worthy.
3. Deep Purple, You Fool No One, live from Made In Europe . . . I played this boogie rock tune from the 1974 album Burn the last time I did an April Fool’s show, a four-minutes and change song in its original studio form. I’m going the epic route this time, 16 minutes and 42 seconds from the Made In Europe album, which highlighted the so-called Mark III version of Purple (David Coverdale lead vocals; Glenn Hughes on bass and vocals). Tracks were drawn from the two studio albums done by that lineup – Burn and Stormbringer – during a time when guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was already planning his exit to form Rainbow although he performed remarkably as evidenced on the live material from that Purple period.
Aside from Blackmore’s brilliance and the ever-reliable Ian Paice on drums and Jon Lord on keyboards, it can be risky going with an extended live piece from that era of Purple. Hughes’ vocal histrionics and, particularly, stage patter seemingly trying to upstage Coverdale (although they apparently were and have been great pals) can get annoying. But in fairness, Hughes had come to Purple after being the frontman in Trapeze although from what I’ve read he occasionally had to be reminded that it was Coverdale who was hired as lead singer. That said, I do like his and Coverdale’s tandem vocal work and Hughes’ lead singing efforts in Purple, with Holy Man from Stormbringer a particular standout. Much of Hughes’ solo stuff is worthy as well as are his contributions to hard blues-rocking Black Country Communion alongside guitarist Joe Bonamassa and drummer Jason Bonham.
This live treatment of You Fool No One starts with Blackmore playfully fiddling around with Hava Nagila before he rips into the song proper, then into some Hendrixian pyrotechnics followed by a bluesy interlude before returning to the familiar tune. Along the way is a short drum solo on what became Paice’s showcase in the Mark III version, replacing The Mule from the Ian Gillan-Roger Glover Mark II lineup as heard on the live classic Made In Japan. Made In Europe doesn’t get the accolades of Made In Japan, but as a high school teen at the time, I embraced both albums equally.
4. Whitesnake, Fool For Your Loving (original 1980 version from Ready An’ Willing album) . . . From the bluesy and my favorite phase of Whitesnake, immediately after David Coverdale left Deep Purple after that band’s first and thought at the time to be final breakup. The later ‘hair metal’ version of Whitesnake redid the song in 1989 after the band became big worldwide, particularly in a United States/North America that had, relatively speaking, ignored them to that point. Here I Go Again, originally released in 1982, was also similarly reworked into a ‘hair metal’ hit. I like all the versions but much prefer the less dressed up with studio gunk originals, which in addition to Coverdale also featured original Purple players Ian Paice on drums and Jon Lord on keyboards who by that point had joined Whitesnake. Interestingly, perhaps, the original Fool For Your Loving charted higher (No. 13) in the UK than did the ‘Americanized’ version that hit No. 2 in the US but only No. 43 in the UK. I’m with the UK listeners.
5. Peter Green, A Fool No More . . . Long and slow and intoxicatingly so, a haunting track from the Fleetwood Mac founder’s 1979 album In The Skies.
6. Joe Jackson, Fool . . . It’s rock, it’s jazz, it’s funk, it’s great. It’s the title cut to JJ’s 2019 album Fool as I continue to travel with him wherever he’s gone since his 1979 punk rock/new wave debut album Look Sharp! New wave, rock, reggae/ska, big band, jazz, classical – I’ve always followed, seen him live twice, never been disappointed.
7. Bobbie Gentry, Find Em, Fool Em, Forget About Em . . . From Gentry’s 1970 studio album Fancy. To quote from my April 1, 2023 track tales: Soul country, I suppose one would describe this one from the Ode To Billie Joe singer, one of the first American women to compose and produce her own material. She had 11 chart hits, including Billie Joe, the 1967 No. 1 that propelled her to stardom. Some years ago I was listening to Ode To Billie Joe, amazing song of course, and decided to dig deeper into Gentry’s work. I’ve been reaping the rewards ever since. One of those music mysteries, too. She was active until April, 1982 when she left the industry and essentially disappeared off the face of the earth after appearing at a country music awards show. She’d just had enough, apparently, which I find kinda cool. I’m done, see ya. She’d be 82 now, with various reports having her living in a gated community near Memphis, Tennessee. Or Los Angeles, depending on one’s source. She was once briefly married to casino magnate Bill Harrah and later to Jim Stafford, known for the 1970s hits Spiders & Snakes and the double entendre My Girl Bill.
8. ZZ Top, Made Into A Movie . . . Slow, hard, swampy almost metallic blues from the 1999 album XXX so named to mark the band’s 30th anniversary during a time when ZZ Top was slowly but surely returning to the blues and blues rock from which the band originated. The shift started with the Antenna album in 1994, a departure or at least the beginning of one from the synthesizer phase of massive hit singles/videos like Legs during the 1980s. In terms of sales, the return to their original foundation didn’t help ZZ Top much through albums like XXX, its predecessor Rhythmeen and later efforts like Mescalaro and La Futura, but there’s loads of quality music within.
9. Rod Stewart, Alright For An Hour . . . From Atlantic Crossing, Stewart’s appropriately-titled 1975 album as he’d crossed the ocean – as shown on the cool album cover – in reality and musically. No longer were members of former band Faces backing him, no longer was he maintaining concurrent careers; now it was Stewart and studio musicians, some of whom eventually morphed into what briefly became known as The Rod Stewart Group at least in terms of studio credits. A great funky, swaggering tune on an album that proved to be the launching point for subsequent hit releases A Night On The Town, Footloose And Fancy Free and Blondes Have More Fun.
10. Jethro Tull, Black Sunday . . . Ian Anderson goes into the studio in 1980 intending to record a solo album but, under record company pressure which he’s since been quoted as saying he regrets succumbing to, the album comes out as ‘A’ – ostensibly for Anderson solo as the tapes were apparently marked as such – but as a Jethro Tull release. There are myriad tales about what transpired but in short, the musicians Anderson was using for what he initially planned as a solo album became Jethro Tull, in some ways similar to what’s transpired with Tull in the 2020s since Anderson revived the Tull brand. In 1980, it resulted in the dismissal/departure of such 1970s Tull stalwarts as drummer Barriemore Barlow and keyboardist John Evan, among others. As well, Tull, or Anderson, were moving in a more synthesizer and electronic sounds direction, a precursor to the next few albums: Tull’s The Broadsword And The Beast in 1982, Anderson’s first actual solo album Walk Into Light in 1983 and the full-blown, uncharacteristically sounding synth-pop albeit interesting 1984 Tull album Under Wraps which threw me (and many Tull fans) for a loop at first but I’ve come to appreciate.
All of that said, Black Sunday is an, er, A-list track featuring changing time signatures typical of Tull with an ominous, almost progressive-metal feel in places.
11. Robert Plant, Wreckless Love . . . . Speaking of Tull and Barriemore Barlow, the drummer slaps the skins on this funky cool one from Plant’s 1983 album The Principle Of Moments.
12. Warren Zevon, Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School . . . Rollicking title track to Zevon’s 1980 followup album to 1978’s breakthrough Excitable Boy with its hit single Werewolves Of London and other well-known songs from that record. Zevon managed a minor hit with his cover on Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School of the Yardbirds’ song A Certain Girl, written by Allen Toussaint, both versions of which I’ve previously played. Bad Luck Streak may not have sold as much, nor done as well on the charts but it’s Zevon, which means it’s full of typical witty storytelling and acerbic lyrics.
13. Moby Grape, Miller’s Blues (live) . . . . A live version of a blues track, in spots slow and emotionally stirring and in others rousing and raunchy, by the San Francisco psychedelic band, written by Grape guitarist Jerry Miller. It originally appeared in studio form on the Wow album in April of 1968. This version didn’t see official release until the comprehensive 2-CD compilation Vintage: The Very Best of Moby Grape came out in 1993.
14. Nazareth, Telegram (Part 1: On Your Way/Part 2: So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star/Part 3: Sound Check/Part 4: Here We Are Again) . . . A multi-part ‘life on the road’ suite from Nazareth’s 1976 album Close Enough for Rock ‘n’ Roll, effectively incorporating The Byrds’ So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star.
15. Charlie Watts Quintet . . . Going, Going, Going, Gone . . . Beautiful, mellow music from the live album A Tribute to Charlie Parker With Strings, released in 1992 in honor of the iconic jazz saxophonist, and jazz in general, including narration and some singing by Rolling Stones’ backup vocalist Bernard Fowler. It was done during the 1992-93 period when the various individual Stones were releasing excellent, worthwhile and satisfying solo projects in between the 1989 studio album Steel Wheels and 1994’s Voodoo Lounge. The so-called World War III of the Dirty Work album era of the mid- to late 1980s had ended in a truce when it seemed to become understood by all parties that solo work didn’t have to detract from the Stones but could in fact fuel the members’ collective creativity. Out of it came excellent albums by Keith Richards (1992’s Main Offender), Ron Wood’s 1992 effort Slide On This and arguably Mick Jagger’s best solo work, 1993’s Wandering Spirit. All of which led to, when the mother ship again sailed, the strong album Voodoo Lounge.
A soul/funk/R & B album set, something of a progression within those genres starting with a classic James Brown live album followed by Otis Redding and ending with, via the Funkadelic album Maggot Brain and the amazing guitar of the late great Eddie Hazel, an off ramp into heavy acid rock and psychedelic soul. Each album is explosive in its own way—Brown’s live intensity, Otis’s aching soul, Funkadelic’s mind-melting funk-rock.
1. Introduction
2. I’ll Go Crazy
3. Try Me
4. Think
5. I Don’t Mind
6. Lost Someone
7. Medley: Please Please Please/You’ve Got The Power/I Found Someone/Why Do You Do Me/I Want You So Bad/I Love You, Yes I Do/Strange Things Happen/Bewildered/Please Please Please
8. Night Train
1. Ole Man Trouble
2. Respect
3. Change Gonna Come
4. Down In The Valley
5. I’ve Been Loving You Too Long
6. Shake
7. My Girl
8. Wonderful World
9. Rock Me Baby
10. Satisfaction
11. You Don’t Miss Your Water
1. Maggot Brain
2. Can You Get To That
3. Hit It And Quit It
4. You And Your Folks, Me And My Folks
5. Super Stupid
6. Back In Our Minds
7. Wars Of Armageddon
1. Rush, The Main Monkey Business
2. Rush, The Seeker
3. The Rolling Stones, Stop Breaking Down
4. The Rolling Stones, No Spare Parts
5. Deep Purple, Anthem
6. Chicago, Prelude To Aire/Aire
7. The Moody Blues, The Actor
8. The Silkie, You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away
9. Billy Joel, Until The Night
10. The Kinks, Supersonic Rocket Ship
11. Montrose, Space Station #5
12. Pink Floyd, Is There Anybody Out There?
13. Heart, Soul Of The Sea
14. John Mayall, Possessive Emotions
15. Headstones, Pretty Little Death Song
16. Bruce Springsteen, Johnny 99
17. John Mellencamp, The Full Catastrophe
18. Tom Wilson, What A Bummer
19. Bob Dylan, Man Of Constant Sorrow
20. The Specials, Maggie’s Farm
21. Gerry Groom, Mick Taylor And Friends, Long Distance Call
My track-by-track tales:
1. Rush, The Main Monkey Business . . . Hard-driving and heavy in spots yet melodic throughout, this six-minute instrumental highlights Rush’s technical prowess. Described by drummer Neil Peart as “a tour-de-force to write, arrange, and perform” it’s one of three instrumentals – the most ever on a Rush album – from the 2007 release Snakes & Arrows.
2. Rush, The Seeker . . . One of my favorite Who tracks faithfully done by Rush on the covers EP Feedback, released in 2004 to mark the 30th anniversary of the band’s self-titled debut album. That record featured original drummer John Rutsey, replaced by Neil Peart the same year, 1974.
Covering songs like The Seeker and others on the EP like Summertime Blues (in the Blue Cheer arrangement of the Eddie Cochran song) and Cream’s fiery take on Robert Johnson’s Crossroads might seem at first glance a departure given Rush’s progressive (albeit often hard rock) leanings. But as Peart points out in the Feedback liner notes, the songs Rush covered were ones he, bassist/lead singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson grew up learning and playing in their pre-Rush formative years/bands. And musically, the 1974 debut album was influenced by bands like The Who, Cream and Led Zeppelin, although Rush soon ventured down trails blazed by such British prog rock bands as Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd.
Members of Rush have suggested in various interviews that they were recharged by the simpler approach taken for the type of songs on Feedback. It inspired them as a working template for their next full studio album, Snakes & Arrows, from which I drew for The Main Monkey Business set opener. Snakes & Arrows is still a typical Rush album in the sense of it having progressive rock elements but I’m forever fascinated by the creative process. For Rush, that included Lifeson meeting Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour during a Gilmour tour stop in Toronto. Gilmour recommended writing songs on an acoustic guitar to best test a song’s strength. The suggestion earned Gilmour a ‘thank you’ from Lifeson in the Snakes & Arrows liner notes.
3. The Rolling Stones, Stop Breaking Down . . . The greatest gift my favorite band gave me besides their own original music is the fact they were rooted in the blues. That sent me down paths in pursuit of the amazing artists who had inspired – and been covered by – the Stones as on Robert Johnson’s renowned piece as interpreted to typically raunchy electrified effect on Exile On Main St.
4. The Rolling Stones, No Spare Parts . . . A country rock road-trip tune done during the sessions for 1978’s Some Girls album. It was dressed up with some new lyrics and vocals by Mick Jagger and came out in 2011 on the bonus disc of previously unreleased material on an expanded reissue of Some Girls.
“The idea for the song began at the Some Girls sessions,” Jagger is quoted in the book The Rolling Stones All The Songs – The Story Behind Every Track. “but I finished the idea and turned it into a complete piece. It’s all about driving from San Antonio to Los Angeles to meet a woman, which I did once, so it’s based on my own experience.”
5. Deep Purple, Anthem . . . Psychedelic, progressive, orchestral, classical, rock. This track from 1968’s The Book Of Taliesyn, the second of the three albums released by the first incarnation of Deep Purple, is all of those things. But aside from the hit single Hush, the lineup featuring Rod Evans on lead vocals and Nick Simper on bass along with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, drummer Ian Paice and keyboardist Jon Lord is largely underappreciated by if not unknown to casual listeners and none of the three albums made much, if any, dent in the charts. To many, Deep Purple really began in 1970 when singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover joined the group for the so-called Mark II unit that debuted with the In Rock album, later went on to record Smoke On The Water and is widely considered the classic lineup. I’m not disputing that but the other ‘Marks’ in the band’s long career – including the various periods with singer David Coverdale, singer/bassist Glenn Hughes and guitarists Tommy Bolin, Steve Morse and new axeman Simon McBride – are worthy of investigation as most, er, deeply invested fans appreciate.
6. Chicago, Prelude To Aire/Aire . . . It was February 24th, interestingly enough given today is March 24th, when I played the 10-minute instrumental jazz-rock fusion piece Devil’s Sweet from 1974’s Chicago VII album that featured the hit singles (I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long, Wishing You Were Here and Call On Me. At the time, I couldn’t decide between Devil’s Sweet and Prelude To Aire/Aire. So here’s that other option, two pieces totalling nearly 10 minutes and best heard, via direct segue, as one. It opened the album and, with Devil’s Sweet, formed an all-instrumental jazz/progressive rock fusion side one on the original vinyl of the double LP. Like Devil’s Sweet, Prelude To Aire is driven by Danny Seraphine’s drumming before the band more fully joins him nearly three minutes later on Aire, featuring Chicago’s typical for that period intricate horn arrangements and the late great Terry Kath’s guitar. As I wrote a month ago about Devil’s Sweet, it’s a universe away from the schlock show, albeit a commercially successful schlock show, Chicago later became.
7. The Moody Blues, The Actor . . . Beautiful, introspective ballad from In Search of the Lost Chord, released in 1968. A typically lush Moody Blues arrangement featuring the interesting instruments in the band’s arsenal including Mellotron and flute supporting Justin Hayward’s delicate, almost plaintive vocals as he either waits for, or just thinks about, his absent – or former – lover on a rainy day. But who knows? Beyond the obvious, lyrically, songs can be interpreted in as many ways as they have listeners. Which is as it should be, arguably, and also why for me it’s usually music first, or at least at first, lyrics second because if the music isn’t enough to draw you in, you’ll never listen to the lyrics.
8. The Silkie, You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away . . . Here’s one that randomly found a spot in the set after I picked up a “British Invasion” compilation while putting CDs back on my shelves. A Beatles’ cover, faithful if softer than the original, released around the same time as the Fab Four’s version on their 1965 album Help! John Lennon and Paul McCartney produced what became the only chart hit – unsurprisingly given the Beatles’ popularity – for The Silkie, an English folk group along the lines of American act Peter, Paul and Mary.
9. Billy Joel, Until The Night . . . From 1978’s 52nd Street, the almost equally-successful in sales followup to Joel’s blockbuster breakthrough 1977 album The Stranger. Apparently written as a tribute to The Righteous Brothers of You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ fame. It does have the feel of a Brothers’ song as written and/or produced by Phil Spector, who did the honors, using his famous Wall of Sound technique, on You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ and others by the duo. According to Wikipedia, one reviewer called Joel’s song “a schlock masterpiece.” Until The Night made No. 50 in the UK but wasn’t released as a single across the Atlantic, although it’s a fairly well-known track as is most of 52nd Street.
10. The Kinks, Supersonic Rocket Ship . . . As we lift off into the ‘spacey’ section of the set via this reggae/calypso tune from the 1972 album Everybody’s In Show-Biz. It was a top-20 hit in the UK but didn’t crack the top 100 elsewhere, sadly par for the course for songs from an album that also featured the brilliant single Celluloid Heroes which, ridiculously, didn’t chart anywhere. I’ll have to play ‘Heroes’ again sometime soon.
11. Montrose, Space Station #5 . . . Fifty seconds of floating in space via the atmospheric intro then you’re jolted from your reverie by the riff rock of guitarist Ronnie Montrose coupled with Sammy Hagar’s vocals. It’s from Montrose’s self-titled debut album, released in 1973. The platter was produced by Ted Templeman, which leads into one of those musical family tree tales. Templeman was later at the helm of many Van Halen albums including the 1978 debut where, the story goes, the band asked him to help achieve a sound akin to the first album by Montrose, some of whose songs an embyronic Van Halen had covered. Still later, of course, Sammy Hagar wound up fronting Van Halen after the first departure of lead singer David Lee Roth.
12. Pink Floyd, Is There Anybody Out There? . . . Eerie, minimalist piece from 1979’s The Wall, just the title repeated a few times – after an initial excerpt of dialogue from the old Gunsmoke TV western – followed by an acoustic/classical guitar solo. It’s often paired with the next song on the album, Nobody Home, but in this instance I was looking for the sparse, spooky effect of just the one song, hauntingly reinforcing the album’s concept of isolation.
13. Heart, Soul Of The Sea . . . An ethereal, mystical ballad that gets funky in spots, spoken-word in others, no real chorus or hook but that’s what makes it compelling over its six minutes, complete with sounds of the sea. It’s from Heart’s debut album, Dreamboat Annie, released in 1975 and featuring the singles Magic Man, Crazy On You and the title track.
14. John Mayall, Possessive Emotions . . . Funky blues from the 1970 album USA Union which always reminds me of my late older brother by eight years who I often cite because he introduced me in my pre-teen years to so much music – Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull . . . and John Mayall via USA Union. The album features former Canned Heat members Harvey Mandel (guitar) and Larry Taylor (bass) along with violinist Don “Sugarcane” Harris with Mayall on lead vocals, guitar, harmonica and keyboards. And no drums, as my brother pointed out to my initial disbelief. The album came during a period when the ever-experimenting if not innovative Mayall had, as he wrote in the liner notes to the 1969 live album The Turning Point, “decided to dispense with heavy lead guitar and drums, usually a ‘must’ for blues groups today” in an effort to “explore seldom-used areas within the framework of low-volume music.”
15. Headstones, Pretty Little Death Song . . . Into a dark period of the set, either by song title, lyrics or mood, opening with the Canadian band Headstones. Among my favorite artists, they work within the framework of high volume intensity, evidenced by this catchy riff rocker from the 1996 album Smile & Wave. I was prompted to play them when a friend advised me this week that he’d picked up a cheap used copy of The High Co$t Of Low Living, a 2005 album by Headstones’ lead singer (and actor) Hugh Dillon and his band The Redemption Choir.
16. Bruce Springsteen, Johnny 99 . . . A dark tale of a laid-off worker turning to violence, from Springsteen’s influential, stripped down, lo-fi album Nebraska, released in 1982. It’s just Springsteen, recorded at home on what initially were demos to be worked on by the E Street Band only to be released as a pure solo album when the band sessions failed to capture what Springsteen felt was the spirit of most of what he’d put on tape. It’s one of those creative accidents that can result in highly-acclaimed and lasting art. That said, several demos – Born In The U.S.A, Working On The Highway and Downbound Train – did work in full band treatment, emerging on Springsteen’s blockbuster 1984 album Born In The U.S.A.
17. John Mellencamp, The Full Catastrophe . . . A shufflling jazz/blues song with interesting instrumentation including violins and assorted horns, from the 1996 album Mr. Happy Go Lucky. Lyrically, it’s a reflection on the ups and downs of life inspired by a line by actor Anthony Quinn in the 1964 movie Zorba The Greek. Asked if he is married, Quinn (Zorba) replies: “Am I not a man? And is not a man stupid? I’m a man, so I’m married. Wife, children, house—everything. The full catastrophe.”
18. Tom Wilson, What A Bummer . . . Second song in the set inspired by the same friend who reminded me of the Headstones, in this case advising me he’d also purchased, used, Wilson’s album Planet Love, a 2001 release from which I pulled this hypnotic groove track. As often stated, I’m a big Wilson fan via his work with The Florida Razors, Junkhouse, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings, Lee Harvey Osmond and solo.
19. Bob Dylan, Man Of Constant Sorrow . . . My computer screen saver gives me time, date, weather, and current and historical news items and told me last week that it was 63 years ago, March 19, 1962, that Dylan’s self-titled debut album was released. So, I thought I’d play something from it. Dylan became one of the greatest-ever writers of original songs but his first album was comprised mainly of traditional folk and blues standards like Man Of Constant Sorrow. It’s been covered and reinterpreted by many artists including Rod Stewart, whose version was the first I heard. It was released on Stewart’s 1969 debut solo album An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down, retitled The Rod Stewart Album in North America.
20. The Specials, Maggie’s Farm . . . A ska reinvention, great rhythmic percussion/drumming, of the Bob Dylan classic from his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. Another of those choices that came to mind, like The Silkie cover of The Beatles’ You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away earlier in the set, while tidying CDs. In this case I was putting The Specials: The Singles Collection back on the shelf although now, along with the British Invasion compilation, it’s coming with me to the Radio Waterloo studio.
21. Gerry Groom, Mick Taylor And Friends, Long Distance Call . . . . Lengthy, soulful, acoustic blues treatment of the Muddy Waters classic by Groom and former Rolling Stone guitarist Taylor released on the 1991 album Once In A Blue Moon that, Stones’ completist that I am, I picked up somewhere along the way in my musical travels. The album also features drummer Matt Abts, who worked with Dickey Betts of The Allman Brothers Band during the 1980s and in 1994 was, along with guitarist Warren Haynes and bassist Allen Woody, a founding member of the Allmans’ offshoot Gov’t Mule and is, with Haynes, still a Mule member. Woody died, apparently of a heroin overdose, at age 44 in 2000. Groom, who according to the album liner notes died in a scuba diving accident in 1992, was a singer/guitarist from Florida about whom not much information is available other than he was a protege of Duane Allman’s and widely respected and admired within the blues community, having rubbed shoulders with the likes of Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, James Cotton and Willie Dixon.
Three classic albums: Who’s Next along with Pearl, Janis Joplin’s posthumously released last recorded statement, and Led Zeppelin’s fourth album. All came out in the amazing year for popular music that was 1971. More thoughts on 1971 below the show’s track list.
1. Baba O’Riley
2. Bargain
3. Love Ain’t For Keeping
4. My Wife
5. The Song Is Over
6. Getting In Tune
7. Going Mobile
8. Behind Blue Eyes
9. Won’t Get Fooled Again
1. Move Over
2. Cry Baby
3. A Woman Left Lonely
4. Half Moon
5. Buried Alive In The Blues
6. My Baby
7. Me And Bobby McGee
8. Mercedes Benz
9. Trust Me
10. Get It While You Can
1. Black Dog
2. Rock And Roll
3. The Battle Of Evermore
4. Stairway To Heaven
5. Misty Mountain Hop
6. Four Sticks
7. Going To California
8. When The Levee Breaks
I went with the three albums I’m playing in part because, to be honest, they’re the ones that best fit my two-hour slot in a three-album play but of course all three are worthy of appearance, among many contenders from that year. And at some point I’ll perhaps do a show filled with songs from 1971, or any other year. It’s the sort of project I started once, beginning in 1964, but only got a couple years into before, well, not continuing. Definitely an idea worth revisiting.
As for 1971 albums there’s almost too many to list but among the other notable records released that year: The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers, Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, Carole King’s Tapestry, John Lennon’s Imagine, Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells A Story along with him fronting Faces’ A Nod Is As Good As A Wink . . . To A Blind Horse and before that, Faces’ Long Player in a busy year for Rod; The Doors’ L.A. Woman (which I played recently), Joni Mitchell’s Blue (played last Saturday), Fragile by Yes, Pink Floyd’s Meddle, which I played in full a year ago, Elton John’s Madman Across The Water, The Kinks’ Muswell Hillbillies, Traffic’s The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On . . . and I could go on, and on. So many great years for music, obviously, but an argument can be made that 1971 was among the best. A recent book, Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded, makes that point and is the basis of a documentary series 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything, available on Apple TV+.
A St. Patrick’s Day set featuring Irish bands/artists and/or songs about Ireland. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. The Boomtown Rats, Up All Night
2. Taste, On The Boards
3. Rory Gallagher, Walk On Hot Coals (from Check Shirt Wizard Live In ’77)
4. Van Morrison, Cyprus Avenue
5. Gary Moore & Phil Lynott, Out In The Fields
6. U2, Bullet The Blue Sky
7. Paul McCartney/Wings, Give Ireland Back To The Irish
8. John Lennon, The Luck Of The Irish
9. The Chieftains with The Rolling Stones, The Rocky Road To Dublin
10. Rory Gallagher, Too Much Alcohol (live, Irish Tour ’74)
11. Van Morrison, It’s All In The Game/You Know What They’re Writing About (from Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast)
12. Rory Gallagher, A Million Miles Away (from Check Shirt Wizard Live In ’77)
13. The Chieftains with Mick Jagger, The Long Black Veil
14. Van Morrison, Rave On John Donne/Rave On Part Two (from Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast)
15. Rory Gallagher, Bad Penny
16. Van Morrison, And The Healing Has Begun
17. U2, Exit
My track-by-track tales:
1. The Boomtown Rats, Up All Night . . . While I was still – to paraphrase the lyrics to the song All The Young Dudes – for the most part at home with my Beatles and my Stones, there was a period during my college days and for a brief time after when I was sampling most of the punk and new wave stuff coming to North America from across the Atlantic. Not too many of those bands seemed to have staying power, though, or at least were more singles sellers than full album artists, which is fine. So my ride with the Rats was shortlived – three albums or, I should probably say, three songs – I Don’t Like Mondays from 1979’s The Fine Art Of Surfacing, Banana Republic from Mondo Bongo in 1981 and Up All Night, a catchy tune/ode to insomnia from V Deep in 1982. “Up all night ooh za za ooh staying up all night.” V Deep, by the way, is pronounced ‘five’ Deep as in the Roman numeral V, representing the group’s fifth album and the fact they had gone from a six- to five-piece band. Their commercial performance was falling, however, and soon enough frontman/chief songwriter Bob Geldof was making a bigger name for himself as an activist and organizer of benefit concerts like Live Aid and Live 8. The band broke up in 1986, two years after their to that point last studio album, 1984’s In the Long Grass. They reformed in 2013 for live gigs and released a studio album, Citizens Of Boomtown, in 2020.
2. Taste, On The Boards . . . Beautiful jazz-blues title track to Taste’s second album, with bandleader Rory Gallagher adding saxophone passages to the piece. On The Boards was Taste’s final studio album, coming out in 1970 although two live albums, Live Taste and Live At The Isle Of Wight, both recorded at 1970 concerts, were released in 1971 after the band broke up with Gallagher going solo. Live At The Isle Of Wight was reissued in expanded form in 2015 and retitled What’s Going On – Live At The Isle Of Wight.
3. Rory Gallagher, Walk On Hot Coals (from Check Shirt Wizard Live In ’77) . . . Speaking of Gallagher’s solo career . . . Live fireworks from the late great guitarist on this blistering version of a track originally on his 1973 studio album Blueprint. It’s one of two songs I’ve selected for the show from the 2020 archival release Check Shirt Wizard, put together from four concerts in early 1977.
4. Van Morrison, Cyprus Avenue . . . Slowing the pace down with this evocative jazz/folk rock piece from Van The Man’s 1968 masterpiece Astral Weeks. It’s one of those critically-acclaimed records that can admittedly take some time to appreciate but once immersed in its grooves, once you ‘get it’, you’re forever in its embrace. The song is a wistful reflection on Morrison’s adolescence including, depending upon interpretation, apparent frustration regarding an unattainable love interest that he can only observe but not reach, one living outside his own economic station. Morrison described Cyprus Avenue as “a street in Belfast, a place where there’s a lot of wealth. It wasn’t far from where I was brought up and it was a very different scene. To me it was a very mystical place. It was a whole avenue lined with trees and I found it a place where I could think.”
5. Gary Moore & Phil Lynott, Out In The Fields . . . Piercing guitar playing from Moore on this rocker, an anti-war anthem about ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, issued as a single in 1985 in a singing and playing collaboration with Lynott, Thin Lizzy’s frontman and Moore’s one-time bandmate in that group. The track also appeared on Moore’s 1985 hard rock/metal studio album Run For Cover which features Deep Purple family tree members Glenn Hughes (bass, vocals) and Don Airey (keyboards) among other of Moore’s musical friends.
6. U2, Bullet The Blue Sky . . . Nothing to do with Ireland, but it is from an Irish band and happens to be among my favorite U2 songs. From the 1987 blockbuster album The Joshua Tree, it’s a musically and lyrically powerful, politically-charged track inspired by U.S. involvement in Central America though its themes apply anywhere. U2 of course often wrote about their home country and in particular ‘The Troubles’ in the band’s hit single from 1983’s War album, Sunday Bloody Sunday.
7. Paul McCartney/Wings, Give Ireland Back To The Irish . . . Speaking of Bloody Sunday . . . an uncharacteristically overtly political song by McCartney, released as Wings’ first single in February 1972 in response to Bloody Sunday, an incident during ‘The Troubles’ when British soldiers shot and killed 13 civilians, injuring others, during a protest march in Derry, Northern Ireland. The song was banned from broadcast in the UK by the BBC and others, and McCartney was condemned by British media for his seemingly pro-IRA stance. The single, a mid-tempo rocker which topped the Irish charts, still made No. 16 in the UK and the top 40 elsewhere. It later appeared on CD reissues of Wild Life, the 1971 debut album by McCartney’s Wings band.
8. John Lennon, The Luck Of The Irish . . . A few months after the McCartney single, out came his old Beatles’ bandmate Lennon (with wife Yoko Ono) and his similar take on ‘The Troubles’ on this folk/waltz piece from the 1972 album Some Time In New York City, released in June. By that time, the former songwriting partners had resolved to stop taking shots at each other through song and, apparently, albeit briefly, separately took aim at the UK. The Luck Of The Irish was written in late 1971 and had already been performed live before its studio release. It was one of two such Irish situation-themed diatribes on Some Time In New York City, the other being the pulsating rocker Sunday Bloody Sunday, a title U2 later used for their musically and lyrically unrelated hit single.
9. The Chieftains with The Rolling Stones, The Rocky Road To Dublin . . . A mischievous momentary lick of the riff from (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction spices up this treatment of a fast-paced Irish folk tune done by world-renowned Dubliners The Chieftains teamed with the obviously delightfully engaged Rolling Stones. The track is from the 1995 release The Long Black Veil. The album, credited to The Chieftains, featured an all-star aggregation of artists including Van Morrison, Sting, Sinead O’Connor, Mark Knopfler, Ry Cooder, Tom Jones, Colin James, Marianne Faithfull and Mick Jagger – who I’ll get to in a bit, singing the title cut. Morrison also worked with The Chieftains on Irish Heartbeat, a 1983 album of mostly traditional tunes.
10. Rory Gallagher, Too Much Alcohol (from Irish Tour ’74) . . . More live magic from Mr. Gallagher on this extended blues workout, a cover of a tune written by American bluesman J.B. Hutto.
11. Van Morrison, It’s All In The Game/You Know What They’re Writing About (from Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast) . . . Morrison combines the standard It’s All In The Game with an original piece in a meditative, emotional performance during a March, 1983 show released on his 1984 live album. The two songs first appeared back to back as the closing tracks on Morrison’s 1979 studio album Into The Music.
12. Rory Gallagher, A Million Miles Away (from Check Shirt Wizard Live In ’77) . . . Originally on the 1973 studio album Tattoo, beautiful mid-tempo blues rock propelled by Gallagher’s graceful guitar and lyrical imagery.
This hotel bar is full of people,
The piano man is really laying it down,
The old bartender is as high as a steeple,
So why tonight should I wear a frown? . . .
There’s a song on the lips of everybody,
There’s a smile all around the room,
There’s conversation overflowing,
But I sit here with the blues.
This hotel bar has lost all its people,
The piano man has caught the last bus home,
The old bartender just collapsed in the corner,
Why I’m still here, I just don’t know, I don’t know.
13. The Chieftains with Mick Jagger, The Long Black Veil . . . Spooky treatment, particularly the instrumental opening followed by Jagger’s haunting vocals on a traditional tune covered by countless artists, notably Johnny Cash and The Band. Colin James plays guitar and mandolin with Darryl Jones, bassist on most Stones’ studio albums and all tours since the departure of Bill Wyman in 1993, also contributing.
14. Van Morrison, Rave On John Donne/Rave On Part Two (from Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast) . . . A tribute to poets and visionaries in one of Morrison’s spiritual and mystical pieces. He name-checks John Donne and other literary figures (William Butler Yeats, Walt Whitman among others) in a typically passionate vocal and instrumental performance blending blues, jazz, and Irish folk influences. And as of this show, off into a Van The Man phase I go. Again.
15. Rory Gallagher, Bad Penny . . . Or a Rory Gallagher phase, or one with any of these excellent artists. I always say that the best song/artist/album is the one you are listening to right now, in the moment, if you like it. That said, if I had to pick just one Gallagher tune, pretty sure it would be Bad Penny, a gritty blues-rocker from his 1979 album Top Priority. Great riff, searing solo, biting lyrics. I never tire of it, as soon as it ends, off I often go with it again.
16. Van Morrison, And The Healing Has Begun . . . Soulful song from 1979’s Into The Music, a terrific tune featuring the best of all instruments on his albums, Morrison’s voice.
“And we’ll walk down the avenue again, and we’ll sing all the songs from way back when, yeah, and we’ll walk down the avenue again and the healing has begun. . . . I want you to put on your pretty summer dress. You can wear your Easter bonnet and all the rest and I wanna make love to you yes, yes, yes.”
It occurred to me while prepping the show, just popped into my head after all these years and only he would know for sure, but the tapestry of threads that is a life had me wondering whether Morrison in 1979 was, at least figuratively, referring to that girl back on Cyprus Avenue from the Astral Weeks album in 1968?
17. U2, Exit . . . Dark, intense, atmospheric track from The Joshua Tree that ebbs and flows, slowly building to a climax then receding only to speed up again before the final fade.
A folk rock-oriented set from Canadian-born artists Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Bruce Cockburn. I’m playing Young’s 1978 album Comes A Time, Mitchell’s Blue from 1971 and Cockburn’s Humans, released in 1980.
My individual album thoughts appear under each record’s song list.
Neil Young – Comes A Time
1. Goin’ Back
2. Comes A Time
3. Look Out For My Love
4. Lotta Love
5. Peace Of Mind
6. Human Highway
7. Already One
8. Field Of Opportunity
9. Motorcycle Mama
10. Four Strong Winds
An album that balances folk and country influences and is also a showcase for Nicolette Larson, Young’s harmony vocals accomplice throughout most of the album including a great performance on the lone rocker on the record, the duet Motorcycle Mama. Interestingly, Larson didn’t sing on Young’s Lotta Love, which later became one of her solo hits.
Joni Mitchell – Blue
1. All I Want
2. My Old Man
3. Little Green
4. Carey
5. Blue
6. California
7. This Flight Tonight
8. River
9. A Case Of You
10. The Last Time I Saw Richard
Likely Mitchell’s most acclaimed album, a great fusion of folk, jazz and storytelling, said by some to be arguably the most confessional singer-songwriter album ever made as she laid bare her soul during and after relationships with Graham Nash and James Taylor, among others. Hard rock band Nazareth transformed This Flight Tonight into a hit single in 1973 to the point that Mitchell, who liked their version (and, no doubt, the royalty cheques), took to introducing it in her own concerts as “a Nazareth song.”
Bruce Cockburn – Humans
1. Grim Travellers
2. Rumours Of Glory
3. More Not More
4. You Get Bigger As You Go
5. What About The Bond
6. How I Spent My Fall Vacation
7. Guerilla Betrayed
8. Tokyo
9. Fascist Architecture
10. The Rose Above The Sky
In late 2022, the American website allmusic.com did an article on Cockburn headlined ‘Canada’s Forgotten Singer-Songwriter”. Outside of Canada, at least. He’s legendary here and rightly so but in fairness, the article was positive about his work; it was merely discussing his US success, or relative lack thereof, as compared to that of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.
Years before that article, I experienced that sentiment firsthand. I was living in Peace River, northern Alberta, went out west 1981-83 for my first journalism job and wound up sharing a house with several people including a woman from Washington state who was getting into Cockburn and one day approached me, marvelling at how good he was but surprised at his relative anonymity in the United States. That’s not unique to Cockburn; many artists are popular in some countries but not in others, for various reasons including the distribution and/or marketing of their albums, or have particularly passionate fan bases in one country, like Cheap Trick in Japan. In any case, she’d never heard Cockburn, or of him, nor had any of her American circle of friends, until her entry point since moving north, the Humans album. By then, I was a big fan, having gotten into Cockburn myself not much earlier, during my second-last year of college back in Ontario via his previous album, the 1979 release Dancing In The Dragon’s Jaws and its hit single Wondering Where The Lions Are.
A great artist throughout his discography with by now many perhaps universally or at least relatively well-known tunes like The Trouble With Normal, Lovers In A Dangerous Time, If I Had A Rocket Launcher and Call It Democracy , among others. But Humans, which featured the hit single Tokyo (at least in Canada) remains probably his favorite of mine, a superbly consistent release.
My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. The Rolling Stones, Look What The Cat Dragged In
2. The Monkees, Take A Giant Step
3. The Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows
4. John Lennon, Meat City
5. Paul McCartney/Wings, Rockestra Theme
6. Paul McCartney/Wings, Old Siam, Sir
7. The Who, The Good’s Gone
8. Jethro Tull, Drink From The Same Well
9. Frank Zappa, Cosmik Debris
10. The Stooges, Dirt
11. Three Dog Night, Play Something Sweet (Brickyard Blues)
12. Joe Cocker, Blue Medley (I’ll Drown In My Own Tears/When Something Is Wrong With My Baby/I’ve Been Loving You Too Long) live, from Mad Dogs & Englishmen)
13. The Guess Who, Love And A Yellow Rose
14. Them, The Story of Them Parts 1 and 2
15. Detroit (featuring Mitch Ryder), Rock ‘N Roll
16. Peter Gabriel, The Family And The Fishing Net (from Peter Gabriel/Plays Live)
17. R.E.M., Living Well Is the Best Revenge
18. Queen, It’s Late
My track-by-track tales:
1. The Rolling Stones, Look What The Cat Dragged In . . . Garage riff rocker featuring some particularly fine soloing from guitarist Ron Wood, from 2005’s A Bigger Bang album. The song is described as ‘an absolute rocket’ in the album-by-album, track-by-track book The Rolling Stones: All The Songs. The riff bears a resemblance and is perhaps an homage to the 1987 INXS hit Need You Tonight although taken at a much faster tempo by the Stones.
2. The Monkees, Take A Giant Step . . . Terrific proto-psychedelic track from the self-titled 1966 debut album, written by the powerhouse songwriting team and onetime partners in love Carole King and Gerry Goffin. The pitter-patter percussion hook at various points just ‘makes’ the song for me. It was the B-side to the single Last Train To Clarksville and was later covered by bluesman/genre bending artist Taj Mahal in a rearranged version that was the title track to his 1969 double album Giant Step/De Ole Folks At Home, comprised of electric (Giant Step) and acoustic (De Ole Folks At Home) albums.
3. The Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows . . . Speaking of taking a giant step outside your mind, to quote the Monkees’ lyric . . . A mesmerizing, drug-influenced masterpiece from the 1966 album Revolver, a great leap forward in studio sophistication for The Beatles, beyond even the advances they’d made on the previous record, 1965’s Rubber Soul. The entire period is nicely summed up in the 1994 book The Complete Guide To The Music Of The Beatles as a time when John Lennon and Paul McCartney, still at the time the band’s prime songwriters, began “creating mind movies, extending webs of noise that were based around tape loops and ‘found sounds’.”
4. John Lennon, Meat City . . . Jagged, distortion-fueled funky boogie rocker that was the compellingly chaotic B-side to the single Mind Games, the title cut to that 1973 album.
5. Paul McCartney/Wings, Rockestra Theme . . . From the last album by Wings, Back To The Egg, released in 1979 before McCartney returned to releasing material solely under his own name. I distinctly recall the hype around not so much the album as this track due to it featuring a who’s who of rock stars of the day who formed the ‘rockestra’. Among the biggest names: David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Pete Townshend (The Who), John Paul Jones and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin and Ronnie Lane and Kenney Jones of Faces fame. Jones by then was a member of The Who, having replaced Keith Moon, who had been scheduled to appear on the song but died a month before the recording sessions. Released as a single in France, the guitar-driven track won the 1980 Grammy Award for best rock instrumental performance.
6. Paul McCartney/Wings, Old Siam, Sir . . . Always loved this tune, also from Back To The Egg. A gritty rocker with a relatively slow tempo that just sort of marches along, to great effect. It was the B-side to Rockestra Theme in France, an A-side in the UK where it made No. 35 on the charts and a B-side to the US/North American single Arrow Through Me.
7. The Who, The Good’s Gone . . . From the band’s 1965 debut album, My Generation, a dark, droning song about a relationship breakup, apparently inspired by The Kinks’ song See My Friends that came out earlier the same year. Roger Daltrey’s vocals, sung in a deeper register than usual, fuels the brooding atmosphere.
8. Jethro Tull, Drink From The Same Well . . . Near 17-minute epic from the new Jethro Tull album, Curious Ruminant, released last Friday, March 7. After a listen or two, I’d describe the album as a placid overall performance and that’s meant in a positive way. It rocks in spots but overall is a very much flute-driven, meditative release. That’s particularly true of this song, an instrumental until halfway through. It was finally polished from a demo which, Tull leader Ian Anderson advises in his liner notes, had been lying around unfinished for several years.
9. Frank Zappa, Cosmik Debris . . . Funky, jazz-bluesy strut featuring Zappa’s typically great guitar and biting talk-singing delivery, from the 1974 album Apostrophe (‘)
10. The Stooges, Dirt . . . Primal, slow-burning blues, masterfully, menacingly ‘dirty’ indeed, from 1970’s Fun House album.
11. Three Dog Night, Play Something Sweet (Brickyard Blues) . . . Soulful number, written by Allen Toussaint, which naturally lends the song its New Orleans rhythm to go with Three Dog Night’s rock renderings. From the 1974 album Hard Labor whose cover art depicting the birth of a vinyl record was controversial. It was then re-released with a band-aid covering the birth but the original album art has since been restored on subsequent physical releases.
12. Joe Cocker, Blue Medley (I’ll Drown In My Own Tears/When Something Is Wrong With My Baby/I’ve Been Loving You Too Long) live, from Mad Dogs & Englishmen) . . . A typical vocal tour de force from Cocker backed by his traveling road show of singers/musicians that included Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge, session drummer supreme Jim Keltner, saxophone specialist Bobby Keys of Rolling Stones touring and session fame and various members of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends and Eric Clapton’s Derek and The Dominos.
13. The Guess Who, Love And A Yellow Rose . . . A great deep cut from the 1969 album Wheatfield Soul. I’d wager that if you played this atypical psychedelic raga-rock in spots piece for someone who’s only ever heard the band’s hits, they’d never guess – unless they recognized Burton Cumming’s voice but even then – that it was The Guess Who. And that’s a cool thing, the essence of an album track.
14. Them, The Story of Them Parts 1 and 2 . . . Early, bluesy brilliance from Them featuring the incomparable vocals of Van The Man Morrison, all of that and hypnotic harmonica playing, too.
15. Detroit (featuring Mitch Ryder), Rock ‘N Roll . . From the one and only album Ryder, of Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels fame, released under the band name Detroit. It came out in 1971 and Lou Reed liked this cover of his Velvet Underground song so much he was quoted as saying the Detroit version was how the song was supposed to sound. Reed then recruited Detroit guitarist Steve Hunter for his own band, with Hunter appearing on the 1973 Reed studio album Berlin and subsequent live albums Rock ‘n Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live.
16. Peter Gabriel, The Family And The Fishing Net (from Peter Gabriel/Plays Live) . . . A typically percussive soundscape of a song about wedding rituals that is even more pronounced in the live environment. It was originally released on Gabriel’s fourth solo album, released in 1982 and featuring the hit single Shock The Monkey. Each of Gabriel’s first four albums were titled simply ‘Peter Gabriel’ although, to Gabriel’s chagrin, a sticker with the word ‘Security’ was slapped on the album wrapping in North America, which is what it became known as for many.
17. R.E.M., Living Well Is the Best Revenge . . . Fiery, fast-paced rocker that, appropriately enough, kicks off Accelerate, the band’s 2008 studio album of largely up-tempo tunes.
18. Queen, It’s Late . . . A terrific track written by guitarist Brian May in the form of a three-scene play alternating between power balladry and hard rock, from 1977’s News Of The World, the album that gave us the ubiquitous We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions.
A progressive rock show – ending with a Gov’t Mule blues/rock/jam band twist given the Mule’s take on a King Crimson song. Nothing to do with music, perhaps, but March 8 also happens to be the 54th anniversary of the so-called Fight Of The Century, the first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier boxing match between then-unbeaten heavyweights at New York’s Madison Square Garden, March 8, 1971. And, to digress further, 54 was my football number in high school and college. OK, enough of that; on with the show.
As for the artwork, it’s a progression of rocks, in acknowledgement of the progressive rock theme.
1. King Crimson, Book Of Saturday
2. Genesis, The Musical Box
3. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Knife-Edge
4. Yes, The Gates Of Delirium
5. Soft Machine, Chloe And The Pirates
6. Kansas, The Pinnacle
7. Jethro Tull, Baker St. Muse
8. Supertramp, Rudy (live, from Paris)
9. Pink Floyd, Echoes
10. Gov’t Mule, 21st Century Schizoid Man (King Crimson cover, live, from Mulennium)
My track-by-track tales:
1. King Crimson, Book Of Saturday . . . A natural for a Saturday show, from Crimson’s 1973 album Larks’ Tongues In Aspic. A pastoral song with typically interesting instrumental accents courtesy Robert Fripp’s guitar and David Cross’s violin, all propelled by John Wetton’s warm vocals. Wetton was later part of the first lineup of prog/pop rock band Asia that also featured drummer Carl Palmer of Atomic Rooster and Emerson, Lake & Palmer fame, plus Yes-men Steve Howe on guitar and keyboardist Geoff Downes. Downes, back in Yes since 2011, played on the one-off Yes album Drama, released in 1980 featuring former Buggles members Downes and vocalist/bassistTrevor Horn of Video Killed The Radio Star fame. It was a controversial albeit I think excellent Yes release featuring my favorite track from that period, the metallic Machine Messiah.
2. Genesis, The Musical Box . . . A powerful performance of shifting elements of light and heavy music from 1971’s Nursery Cryme album, the first to feature drummer Phil Collins and guitarist Steve Hackett in what fans of truly prog-period Genesis consider the classic lineup of Collins, Hackett, singer Peter Gabriel, bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks.
3. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Knife-Edge . . . A hard-edged, dark track from ELP’s self-titled 1970 debut album, adapting classical pieces – as ELP often did – in this case by Czech composer Leoš Janáček and Germany’s Johann Sebastian Bach. The classical-meets-rock approach is, to use a term music critics love to employ, accurate but overused so I write it with tongue planted firmly in cheek, “quintessential” ELP.
4. Yes, The Gates Of Delirium . . . Music is is an experience often fueled by one’s mood, so while obviously I’m primed for progressive rock for this show, it’s still fun to suggest that Yes represents the ultimate in prog-rock excess. Between 1972 and 1974 the band released three studio albums – Close To The Edge, double vinyl album Tales From Topographic Oceans and Relayer, from which The Gates Of Delirium comes. Total song count over the three albums: 10 – three on Close To The Edge (albeit two of them featuring multi-part suites, essentially songs in themselves), four (one per vinyl album side) on Topographic Oceans and three on Relayer. Relayer is the only Yes studio album to feature keyboardist Patrick Moraz, who brought jazz fusion elements to the party. The 22-minute Gates Of Delirium is loosely based on the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and includes heavy rock portions depicting battle, with the soothing final section, Soon, extracted as a single.
5. Soft Machine, Chloe And The Pirates . . . Hauntingly beautiful, dreamlike jazz fusion from Six, the 1973 release split between live and studio albums, by which time the band and its ever-changing roster of musicians had long since abandoned vocals and become a purely instrumental unit.
6. Kansas, The Pinnacle . . . Perhaps the, er, pinnacle of Kansas’s progressive rock achievements? Difficult to say, lots to choose from although this symphonic epic from the 1975 album Masque is up there with the band’s best such statements. It took me a while to embrace Kansas as a prog act. Like perhaps many people, I discovered them via their 1970s hit singles Carry On Wayward Son and Dust In The Wind and aside from, in high school, owning Dust In The Wind’s parent album Point Of Know Return and thus discovering excellent songs like Portrait (He Knew), I really wasn’t much aware of their output beyond those singles and compilation albums. Until, that is, I got into other progressive rock acts, almost exclusively British bands like Genesis, Yes, ELP and King Crimson and finally decided to take a full crack at this American act that was travelling some of the same territory. It’s been a rewarding experience.
7. Jethro Tull, Baker St. Muse . . . I’m a big Jethro Tull fan and about to go out and purchase the new album Curious Ruminant, released today, once I finish writing these track tales on Friday, March 7, in advance of Saturday’s show. Curious Ruminant is the suddenly wildly productive band’s third album in four years after a long hiatus of formal Jethro Tull releases during which leader/singer/flautist/multi-instrumentalist Ian Anderson was releasing albums under his own name, eventually essentially stamping his solo band with the Tull label.
The new album has been getting mostly good to excellent reviews, despite the challenges faced by Anderson’s ‘shot’ voice which is too painful even for me, fan that I am, to consider ever seeing the band live again since the disappointment of a less-than stellar 2007 gig in Toronto. The show was still decent enough, but not up to previous standards I had experienced. But the studio setting, particularly on new material, can be tailored to adapt to those vocal limitations, as has been the case on recent Anderson and Tull releases. We shall see and hear of course. I’ve heard a couple earlier-released tracks online, they’re fine, harken somewhat back to the period of the album Songs From The Wood in 1977, and I plan to play at least one cut from the new record on Monday night’s show.
All of which is a long, roundabout way of saying that the new album features a long song – Drink From The Same Well – of exactly the same length, 16 minutes, 42 seconds, as Baker St. Muse from 1975’s Minstrel In The Gallery album. Perhaps that’s why the new track is titled, with a twinkle in Anderson’s eye, what it is. As for Baker St. Muse, the lyrics muse, with a typical Tull mixture of wit and introspective social commentary, about city life amid a musical menu of acoustic passages and full-band bombast.
8. Supertramp, Rudy (live, from Paris album) . . . A song from 1974’s studio album Crime Of The Century, taken from the live document of 1979’s Breakfast In America tour, when Supertramp was among the biggest bands on the planet. I saw the tour in Toronto, the last of three summer stadium shows before a combined audience of more than 150,000. I hadn’t planned on going but, on a whim one Saturday afternoon, a college friend and I decided to head to the show, ticketless but aiming to purchase entry from scalpers. We got tickets, at not much higher than list price, perhaps an hour before the gates opened only to soon discover that our tickets were forged, good forgeries but lacking the grocery store chain logo of legitimate tickets. Thankfully, they were general admission tickets, not assigned seats, we got in, unlikely these days with scanners and such, ran like hell in the stampede to the front of the stage, and enjoyed the show. But I remember thinking ‘there but for the grace of god go I’ might-have-been of that risky race to the Supertramp stage when, sadly, five months later dozens of people were trampled and 11 died in similar general admission circumstances at a Who show in Cincinnati, at least temporarily putting a pause on what’s known as festival seating.
9. Pink Floyd, Echoes . . . Mind-blowing music that closes 1971’s Meddle. It’s the album that arguably broke Pink Floyd more into the mainstream after the band’s earlier more experimental phase often guided in large measure by the creative vision of co-founder Syd Barrett. Thanks in part to drug use, Barrett sadly became increasingly erratic and was ousted from the band in 1968, leaving one to wonder sometimes in what direction Pink Floyd might have headed, would they have been as commercially successful, had he stayed. At 23 minutes and change, Echoes is an immersive experience in various musical forms from spacey atmospherics to blues-based improvisation, not to mention those ‘pings’ that start the song and always make me think of submarine warfare books and movies. And then, after Meddle, came The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall during a dynamically creative period through the 1970s.
10. Gov’t Mule, 21st Century Schizoid Man (King Crimson cover, live, from Mulennium) . . . A twist in the prog tale, a progressive rock group’s song covered by a blues rock jam band. That said, 21st Century Schizoid Man, from King Crimson’s 1969 debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King is more hard rock, even metal, than it is progressive rock but then again, there are myriad heavy musical moments throughout the influential King Crimson catalogue. This live version by the Mule appeared on the band’s 2010 release Mulennium, documenting a show at the Roxy Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia as 1999 became 2000. Gov’t Mule, a band led by guitarist/singer/songwriter Warren Haynes that formed in 1994 as a side project of The Allman Brothers Band, shines on its own material but has proved so proficient on covers of classic rock tunes that, long ago, I burned my own mix CD of that material.
The list is a long one, including The Beatles’ She Said She Said and Helter Skelter, Steppenwolf’s Don’t Step On The Grass, Sam, Free’s Mr. Big, War Pigs by Black Sabbath, Humble Pie’s 30 Days In The Hole, Deep Purple’s Maybe I’m A Leo and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man. The Mule has also pulled off excellent full covers albums like Dark Side Of The Mule (Pink Floyd), Stoned Side Of The Mule (The Rolling Stones) and Dub Side Of The Mule, a largely reggae-tinged release of Mule songs, classic rock covers and a set fronted by the late Toots Hibbert of the Maytals fame, featuring tracks like Pressure Drop and Reggae Got Soul.
1. Spirit, Fresh Garbage
2. Led Zeppelin, In My Time Of Dying
3. Bob Dylan, Ain’t Gonna Go To Hell For Anybody (previously unreleased track recorded live in 1980 in Montreal, taken from The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 Trouble No More 1979-1981, Dylan’s ‘Christian’ period
4. Bob Dylan, Murder Most Foul
5. Slim Harpo, Folsom Prison Blues
6. Gary Moore, The Prophet
7. The Rolling Stones, Parachute Woman
8. Neil Young, Ordinary People
9. Little Feat, Rock & Roll Everynight (from Live From Neon Park)
10. J.J. Cale, Money Talks
11. T. Rex, Mambo Sun
12. Graham Parker, Howlin’ Wind
13. Parliament, Chocolate City
14. James Brown, It’s Too Funky In Here
15. Wilson Pickett, In The Midnight Hour (live extended version)
My track-by-track tales:
1. Spirit, Fresh Garbage . . . Jazzy psychedelic rock from Spirit’s self-titled debut album, 1968, featuring Randy California’s sharp guitar work. An impressive trip in various musical directions, all in just a shade over three minutes.
2. Led Zeppelin, In My Time Of Dying . . . From the 1975 double vinyl album Physical Graffiti. One of the things I think of when I think of Physical Graffiti, it being a double studio album, is how so many great groups/artists seem to have at least one classic double vinyl studio album in their catalogue. I’m not talking albums like Cream’s Wheels Of Fire which featured sides of live tracks; great as they were but I’m speaking of original studio material spread over four sides of vinyl. That’s a lot of work, lots of songs, yet in all cases, consistent quality which is a testament to these great artists’ abilities and creativity.
Albums like, and it’s quite a list, just off the top of my head while I’m sure I’ve left more than a few out: The Beatles White Album, Exile On Main St. from The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde, The Who’s Tommy and Quadrophenia, Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway from Genesis and yes, even the overblown and not to all tastes four-song, one per vinyl side, Yes album Tales From Topographic Oceans, arguably the ultimate in prog rock excess . . . Bruce Springsteen’s The River, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, London Calling from The Clash followed up by their triple-vinyl studio release Sandinista! . . .
As for Zep’s Physical Graffiti and the song In My Time Of Dying . . . it’s a traditional, composer actually unknown – as far as is, uh, known 🙂 – but originally known to be first recorded if not perhaps written by bluesman Blind Willie Johnson in 1927. Bob Dylan recorded it on his debut album in 1962. Zep, as was their often disturbing plaigiaristic wont, ‘adapted’ it and took full songwriting credit although later releases of Graffiti do add Johnson to the credits. All that aside, I love that initial drum break – and John Bonham’s drums throughout – off the slow intro and then into Jimmy Page’s guitar riff, the full band comes in followed by Robert Plant’s bluesy vocal. A raw and apocalyptic adventure, nicely done.
3. Bob Dylan, Ain’t Gonna Go To Hell For Anybody (previously unreleased track recorded live in 1980 in Montreal, taken from The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 Trouble No More 1979-1981) . . . A fiery track including effective female gospel backup singers, from Dylan’s controversial ‘Christian’ period. It was a time during which he released the albums Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot Of Love although by Shot Of Love in 1981 it was evident he, mercurial and ‘do whatever I feel like, whenever’ as always, was already moving on from that period. He was soon to release the great 1983 album Infidels featuring Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame and former Rolling Stone Mick Taylor on guitar.
While the ‘Christian’ period is a controversial time in Dylan’s career given his then-new religious leanings, musically it was a brilliant slice in time during which he employed, as always, crack bands. Knopfler guested on guitar on Slow Train Coming while aces like latter-day Little Feat guitarist Fred Tackett, keyboardist/producer/man for all seasons musically Al Kooper and session drumming ace Jim Keltner were in Dylan’s touring band. Over time, I think, the ‘religious’ controversy around that period of Dylan’s career has rightly faded such that one can simply enjoy the great music on the individual albums and in the live environment on Vol. 13 of his ongoing Bootleg Series, released in 2017. It’s really good.
4. Bob Dylan, Murder Most Foul . . . The Dylan of today, or at least his talk-singing voice of recent times. It’s still very effective as he adapts to his aging vocal limitations. This 17-minute epic from the 2020 album Rough And Rowdy Ways takes us through the assassination of JFK in 1963 fused with all manner of cultural and musical references – The Rolling Stones’ ill-fated 1969 Altamont concert, John Lee Hooker, Guitar Slim, Etta James, members of The Beach Boys, Wolfman Jack, Billy Joel referenced not in name but by the title of his song Only The Good Die Young, the Eagles, Oscar Peterson, Houdini gets a mention, on and on . . . it’s Dylan at his best both in the spare musical treatment and lyrically in this tapestry of pop culture, history, and mysticism. Dylan has many great long songs. Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands, Brownsville Girl, Highlands just to name three that immediately come to mind for me. Murder Most Foul takes its place among them.
5. Slim Harpo, Folsom Prison Blues . . . Harpo gives Johnny Cash’s signature song a swamp-blues groove makeover with classic, understated but effective harmonica playing on a track recorded in 1969. Another example of what to me makes a great cover – it’s a reinvention.
6. Gary Moore, The Prophet . . . Expressive slow blues via Moore’s guitar on this track from his 2001 album Back To The Blues as he continued to go back and forth between always interesting and compelling rock, hard rock/metal and blues albums. Sadly long lost to us in 2011 to a heart attack at age 58, Moore was marvelous as he continually straddled myriad genres – rock (including with Thin Lizzy for a time), hard rock/metal, and blues including not only his big hit Still Got The Blues (For You) but albums like Blues For Greeny, his 1995 covers tribute to Fleetwood Mac founder/guitarist Peter Green.
7. The Rolling Stones, Parachute Woman . . . A friend of mine has ‘Beggars Banquet’ nights, whether his mood is good, bad, or indifferent it seems to be his go-to album, drink(s) in hand, just letting one of the Stones’ classic albums envelop him. I like it, too. Including, from Beggars, this dirty, swampy blues track, full of murky guitar and Mick Jagger’s slurred, suggestive vocals as the Stones embrace their roots while adding their own sleazy edge.
The production is raw and unpolished, giving it an almost demo-like feel that works in its favor. It’s one of their deep cuts that perfectly captures the band’s bluesy swagger. And for me, major Stones fan, it’s amazing how, within a year, 1967 to 1968, and I like all their albums, the Stones progressed or changed from the pop/psychedelia of releases like Their Satanic Majesties Request and Between The Buttons to the down and dirty nature of Beggars Banquet and songs like Parachute Woman. It’s as if they were an entirely new and different band. However it transpired creatively, it signalled a new phase of The Rolling Stones, soon to be fortified by the addition of virtuoso guitarist Mick Taylor starting with the next album, Let It Bleed. It was a period that yielded the so-called in Stones’ lore ‘Big Four’ albums Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St. and I’ll always add a fifth album, the live Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out smack in the middle of the studio releases. All in all a widely acknowledged brilliant period for a band who I submit, despite some critics’ and fans’ views, has continued to issue quality music to the present day. The eclecticism of their output over 60-plus years of recording is remarkable.
8. Neil Young, Ordinary People . . . Dylan-like, albeit with grungier guitar accents, a lengthy ‘story’ track of 18 minutes that is so compelling it flies by. It’s from the Chrome Dreams II album released in 2007. There was a Chrome Dreams I, held back but eventually released in 2023 and it’s more a compilation – with some previously unreleased tracks – of reworked or remixed or otherwise redone songs like Like A Hurricane, Pocahontas, Sedan Delivery and Powderfinger that had appeared on previous Neil Young albums.
9. Little Feat, Rock & Roll Everynight (from Live From Neon Park) . . . Shaun Murphy on lead vocals during her time with the latter day configuration of Little Feat on this up-tempo boogie number from Live From Neon Park that first appeared on the band’s 1995 studio album Ain’t Had Enough Fun. Nice boogie-woogie piano by the perennial Bill Payne, co-founder of the band in 1969 along with (RIP) Lowell George. Payne is the last original member of Little Feat, which continues to record and tour to this day. And yes, ‘Everynight’ is written that way, one word, on both the studio and live albums.
10. J.J. Cale, Money Talks . . . Typical signature shuffle, detached delivery from J.J. and another example of his huge influence on people like Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler. It’s from his eighth studio album, issued in 1983 and titled, wait for it, #8, in line with his fifth album (5) and 10th (Number 10) although J.J. for the most part used more creative/conventional titles like Naturally, his 1972 debut, Really, Shades, Grasshopper, Guitar Man, etc.
11. T. Rex, Mambo Sun . . . From 1971’s Electric Warrior, the album that featured the band’s big hit – at least in North America; the UK had long since embraced the group where it was consistently high on the charts – Get It On, which was retitled Bang a Gong (Get It On) for the US market. But, like, say, a band like Free known by some, particularly in North America, only for the hit single All Right Now, T. Rex was so much more. Earlier known as full dinosaur Tyrannosaurus Rex, they’d already seen success on home shores in the UK before the worldwide breakthrough as T. Rex via Get It On. Some things are just a matter of time and place. As for Mambo Sun, it’s the lead track on Electric Warrior and could easily have been a single; a funky, slinky song driven by Marc Bolan’s hypnotic guitar riff and signature boogie swagger.
12. Graham Parker, Howlin’ Wind . . . We’ve had some windy weather of late where I live in southern Ontario, so I’ve been planning to play this and finally getting around to doing so, naturally enough now that the wind, for the most part, has waned. It’s the title track from Parker’s debut album in 1976.
13. Parliament, Chocolate City . . . Typical funk excursion by Parliament in a tribute to Washington, D.C. and its black cultural influence, the title cut to an album released in April, 1975. The lyrics assign various political positions to black icons including Muhammad Ali as president, James Brown as VP, Stevie Wonder as Secretary of Fine Arts and Aretha Franklin as First Lady.
14. James Brown, It’s Too Funky In Here . . . Every time I listen to James Brown I find myself singing along, out loud or in my mind, engaging along with him in various vocalizations like ‘ugh, agh, humph, hump, yeah, yeh, oooww” . . . etc. You don’t even need any musical instruments, just groove to his voice. He’s another of those artists – Bob Dylan, Van Morrison come to my mind – whose voices are intrinsic to their sound. A song by any of them, great as covers can be, is simply not the same if it’s not them singing. And Brown kept that going through this cut from his 1979 album The Original Disco Man, and beyond.
15. Wilson Pickett, In The Midnight Hour (live extended version) . . . From the excellent, arguably all you really need 2-CD compilation A Man And A Half. It’s a previously unreleased version where Pickett, backed by Booker T. & The MGs, transforms one of his signature songs into an eight-minute, still recognizable soul workout.
I’m featuring The Concert For Bangladesh from George Harrison and musical friends released in December 1971 after the actual concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden on August 1 of that year. The show was a triumph for Harrison – whose 82nd birthday would have been this past Tuesday, February 25 – and set a precedent for benefit concerts, inspiring Live Aid and other major charity events. I’ve filled in the remainder of my 2-hour slot with a couple instrumental tracks from the “Apple Jam” portion of the former Beatle’s 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass.
1. George Harrison/Ravi Shankar Introduction
2. Ravi Shankar, Bangla Dhun
3. George Harrison, Wah-Wah
4. George Harrison, My Sweet Lord
5. George Harrison, Awaiting On You All
6. Billy Preston, That’s The Way God Planned It
7. Ringo Starr, It Don’t Come Easy
8. George Harrison and Leon Russell, Beware Of Darkness
9. George Harrison with Eric Clapton, While My Guitar Gently Weeps
10. Leon Russell, Jumpin’ Jack Flash/Youngblood
11. George Harrison, Here Comes The Sun
12. Bob Dylan, A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall
13. Bob Dylan, It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
14. Bob Dylan, Blowin’ In The Wind
15. Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine Man
16. Bob Dylan, Just Like A Woman
17. George Harrison, Something
18. George Harrison, Bangla Desh
1. Elton John, Have Mercy On The Criminal
2. Black Sabbath, Falling Off The Edge Of The World
3. Steppenwolf, Renegade
4. Bad Company, Painted Face
5. Warren Zevon, Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner (live, from Learning To Flinch)
6. The Tragically Hip, Fight
7. Roxy Music, My Only Love (from Roxy Music Live, a document of the band’s 2001 reunion tour, released in 2003)
8. The Beach Boys, I Know There’s An Answer
9. Frank Zappa, Dumb All Over (previously unreleased live version of the You Are What You Is studio track from 1981, issued on the 1997 compilation Have I Offended Someone?)
10. John Lennon, Well Well Well
11. Pete Townshend, I Am An Animal
12. The Rolling Stones, Too Tight
13. Chicago, Devil’s Sweet
14. Tom Waits, Shore Leave
15. The Butterfield Blues Band, Driftin’ And Driftin’ (from The Butterfield Blues Band Live)
My track-by-track tales:
1. Elton John, Have Mercy On The Criminal . . . Yet another deep cut from EJ’s 1970s heyday that essentially made all or most of his studio albums hits compilations. It’s from 1973’s Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player which yielded the hit singles Daniel and Crocodile Rock but is filled with great songs, like this one. Noted arranger, composer, conductor and longtime Elton John collaborator Paul Buckmaster handled the orchestration on a song that starts with a dramatic, fast flourish before settling in to a ballad painting, via Bernie Taupin’s lyrics, a picture of an outlaw on the run.
2. Black Sabbath, Falling Off The Edge Of The World . . . I went down the internet rabbit hole the other day when an article popped up in my feed listing what the author thought were the best Sabbath songs from the Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals era. This song, from 1981’s Mob Rules album, Dio’s second with Sabbath after 1980’s Heaven And Hell, was on the list and I agree. A moody, atmospheric opening builds the tension that you know is going to soon explode, as it does, into a full-throttle hard rock/metal assault.
3. Steppenwolf, Renegade . . . A brooding, bluesy autobiographical track about Steppenwolf leader/singer John Kay, then age 4, and his mother’s 1948 escape to the West from the Soviet occupation zone in Germany, where Kay was born. It’s from the album Steppenwolf 7, released in 1970.
4. Bad Company, Painted Face . . . Funky boogie from 1982’s Rough Diamonds album. It was the last studio album from the original Paul Rodgers-fronted Bad Company lineup that also included guitarist Mick Ralphs, drummer Simon Kirke and bassist Boz Burrell. Rodgers later returned, off and on, in various later configurations of the band for tours and to record four then-new songs for the 1999 original lineup reunion compilation The ‘Original’ Bad Co. Anthology.
5. Warren Zevon, Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner (live, from Learning To Flinch) . . . Live albums aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and while I generally prefer studio versions of songs, I do like concert albums because they can obviously go down entirely new avenues as artists may rearrange or otherwise adjust and adapt their tunes. This version of the track originally on Zevon’s 1978 breakthrough album Excitable Boy (which featured the hit single Werwolves Of London) is a perfect example. Learning To Flinch, released in 1993, is from a solo acoustic world tour Zevon did in 1992, just him on guitar, keyboards, harmonica and vocals. On Roland, he takes what was a shade under four-minute studio track and reworks it into an 11-minute haunting epic. It starts with “Roland Chorale”, an instrumental intro that merges into a familiar yet, in Zevon’s voice and piano playing, transformed yet still-recognizable song about his fictional mercenary.
6. The Tragically Hip, Fight . . . I had the Hip on my list of artists I hadn’t played in a while so here they are, finally, again prompted in some measure by a discussion about the band I had with a friend last week. Fight is from the classic 1991 album Road Apples. It’s a bluesy groove tune with lyrics to which anyone who’s been in a relationship can relate.
“We wake up different, rifle through our dreams
Another placid day ripples at the seams
Do you think I bow out ’cause I think you’re right
Or ’cause I don’t want to fight?
Do you think I bow out ’cause I think you’re right
“We lay down seething, smell our pillows burn
And drift off to the place where you’d think we’d learn
Do you think I bow out ’cause I think you’re right
Or ’cause I don’t want to fight?
“Do you think I bow out ’cause I think you’re right
Or ’cause I don’t want to fight?
Oh, go ahead and fight
I give, oh, I give, I said, I give”
7. Roxy Music, My Only Love (from Roxy Music Live, a document of the band’s 2001 reunion tour, released in 2003) . . . Extended version of a song originally on 1980’s Flesh And Blood studio album. It’s a terrific live album with, on this track, Phil Manzanera’s expressive guitar solo near the end leading into a showcase, as lead singer Bryan Ferry cedes the stage, for the vocalizations of backing singers Sarah Brown, Yanick Etienne, Michelle John and Sharon White. It’s reminiscent to me of Clare Torry’s performance on Pink Floyd’s The Great Gig In The Sky.
8. The Beach Boys, I Know There’s An Answer . . . From Pet Sounds, the 1966 album that, by most accounts, inspired The Beatles to produce their Sgt. Pepper album, released in 1967. I Know There’s An Answer was originally titled Hang On To Your Ego but objections arose within the band as to lyrics referring to drug culture, so it was rewritten although Hang On To Your Ego has appeared as a bonus track on various reissues of Pet Sounds. Musically, the song features an unorthodox structure driven by myriad instruments including guitars, tambourine, piano, banjo, clarinets, flutes, electric keyboards, timpani and harmonica.
9. Frank Zappa, Dumb All Over (previously unreleased live version of the You Are What You Is studio track from 1981, issued on the 1997 compilation Have I Offended Someone?) . . . A typically scathing Zappa social commentary punctuated by an incendiary guitar solo.
10. John Lennon, Well Well Well . . . Grungy guitars from well before ‘grunge’ was a musical genre, spare production, raw, primal scream therapy vocals, all from the harrowing, personal, Plastic Ono Band album, released in 1970. Hugely influential album on my impressionable young mind, musically but particularly lyrically in the songs God and Working Class Hero, both of which I’ve played before on the show and inevitably will return to.
11. Pete Townshend, I Am An Animal . . . . An introspective song from 1980’s Empty Glass, featuring the immortal line “I will be immersed, Queen of the fucking universe.” A terrific hit album full of great songs that prompted Who singer Roger Daltrey to suggest that Townshend was by that point saving his best stuff for himself or, at least, spreading himself too thin in terms of providing material for the mother ship band. The counter to Daltrey’s argument would be that Townshend’s songs can be intensely personal and even as far back as 1975’s album The Who By Numbers, Daltrey was reluctant to sing songs like However Much I Booze – lead vocals by Townshend – since they were so clearly tales of Townshend’s travails.
12. The Rolling Stones, Too Tight . . . The kind of energetic riff rocker the Stones seem to be able to toss off in their sleep, which isn’t a criticism by any stretch. It’s another indication of their innate songwriting abilities resulting in deep cuts like this, from 1997’s Bridges To Babylon album, that many bands would love to have as a single.
13. Chicago, Devil’s Sweet . . . Some have compared this 10-minute instrumental jazz-rock fusion piece from Chicago VII in 1974 to Weather Report with slices of Miles Davis, Santana and Soft Machine. It’s all of those things in at least some measure but really, it’s simply Chicago in their early glory days of inventive, experimental energy, this time propelled by shifting time signatures and Danny Seraphine’s great drumming. A universe away from the schlock show, albeit a commercially successful schlock show, they later became.
14. Tom Waits, Shore Leave . . . Surreal, percussive, almost industrial sounds on this noir-like track from 1983’s Swordfishtrombones album. And that’s just the music. Lyrically, we follow . . . No, check that, we ‘see’, through Waits’ words, a sailor on shore leave through various encounters in, apparently, Hong Kong while “trying to make it all last, squeezing all the life out of a lousy two day pass.”
Someone on YouTube summed it up nicely: “A movie in 4:16” (the song time).
15. The Butterfield Blues Band, Driftin’ And Driftin’ (from The Butterfield Blues Band Live) . . . Live version of a track originally on the third Butterfield Band studio album, The Resurrection Of Pigboy Crabshaw, released in 1967. By the time of The Butterfield Blues Band Live’s recording at The Troubador in Los Angeles in early 1970, Pigboy (guitarist Elvin Bishop’s nickname) had left the band which now featured a four-man horn section with Ralph Wash on guitar. The group had evolved into a blues outfit with jazz and R & B chops ranging all over the musical map. It’s compelling stuff, led always by Butterfield’s singing and harmonica playing which is well described in liner notes.
“His mix of amplified and acoustic work on Driftin’ and Driftin’ show how he could capture and enthrall an audience with his emotive style; his instrumental is a mini-history of the blues harp, not only calling to mind Butterfield’s mentor Little Walter but Sonny Boy Williamson, Rice Miller (aka Sonny Boy Williamson II) and others. However it is never the work of a copyist. It is always the immediately recognizable sound and style of Paul Butterfield.”
Three albums released in 1976 on the menu: The Rolling Stones’ Black And Blue, Rod Stewart’s A Night On The Town and The Royal Scam, by Steely Dan. My album commentaries follow each record’s track list.
The Rolling Stones – Black And Blue
1. Hot Stuff
2. Hand Of Fate
3. Cherry Oh Baby
4. Memory Motel
5. Hey Negrita
6. Melody
7. Fool To Cry
8. Crazy Mama
One thing you can say for Black And Blue: it prompted perhaps the best, arguably funniest and most memorable rock album review ever, up there with Greil Marcus’s “what is this shit?” opening line to his Rolling Stone magazine review of Bob Dylan’s 1970 album Self Portrait.
“The heat’s off,” Lester Bangs, the noted American writer/critic who was actually a big fan of the band, wrote of Black And Blue in Creem magazine. “because it’s all over. They really don’t matter anymore or stand for anything, which is certainly lucky for both them and us. I mean, it was a heavy weight to carry for all concerned. This is the first meaningless Stones album, and thank God.”
I still chuckle every time I read it. As for the actual album, I’ve liked it since day one because it does what I love the Stones for doing – putting their own rock and roll stamp on things while they explore myriad musical styles. And Black And Blue, a largely funky, groove-based record with dashes of reggae (the Eric Donaldson cover Cherry Oh Baby) plus typical ballads like the hit single Fool To Cry and travelogue Memory Motel, collectively was unlike anything they’d done before. That was in at least some measure because the band was auditioning guitarists to replace Mick Taylor, who left after 1974’s It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll album. Among the axemen in studio during the sessions, not all of whose work wound up on the album, were Jeff Beck, Rory Gallagher, Harvey Mandel, formerly of Canned Heat – who played lead guitar on disco-funk album opener Hot Stuff – and session ace Wayne Perkins, who was once asked to join Lynyrd Skynyrd and who delivered a searing, Taylor-like solo on one of my favorites from the album, Hand Of Fate. That’s one of two ‘traditional’ or typical type Stones’ tunes on the platter, the hard rocker Crazy Mama that closes the record being the other.
Ron Wood of Jeff Beck Group and Faces fame wound up landing the guitar gig – his staccato riffing on Hey Negrita was a highlight – which in itself has been controversial among some Stones fans who are not enamoured of his playing and prefer the Taylor years. Still, ‘the new boy’ has been in the band ever since. He’s served as a buffer between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ periodic conflicts and his ‘Englishness’ and playing compatibility that Richards says he prefers – their much-ballyhooed ‘ancient art of weaving’ where two guitars work in unison as one rather than a distinct lead/rhythm split – won him the job.
I read somewhere once that Eric Clapton, who the Stones had considered, said to Wood “I could have had that job.” To which Wood replied “Yeah, but Eric, you gotta live with ’em.” The chemistry has worked as the Stones roll on.
Rod Stewart – A Night On The Town
Slow Side (side one of original vinyl)
1. Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright)
2. The First Cut Is The Deepest
3. Fool For You
4. The Killing Of Georgie (Part I and II)
Fast Side (side two)
5. The Ball Trap
6. Pretty Flamingo
7. Big Bayou
8. The Wild Side Of Life
9. Trade Winds
Stewart split the original vinyl album into two halves: a rock-and-roll side – aside from the album closing track Trade Winds – and a more reflective, folk-tinged side. He did the same thing for his previous album, 1975’s Atlantic Crossing. It was apparently at the suggestion of his then-girlfriend Britt Ekland, a Swedish actress, model and singer who was a Bond girl in 1974’s The Man With The Golden Gun which featured Christopher Lee of Dracula fame as the titular villain. Only difference was, on Atlantic Crossing, side one was the ‘fast side’ and side two the ‘slow side’, with Stewart flipping that script for A Night On The Town. Atlantic Crossing had marked a new chapter in Stewart’s solo career, the end of the brilliant 1969-74 period when he had concurrent careers with Faces and as a solo artist, with Faces members, particularly guitarist Ron Wood and keyboardist Ian McLagan, serving among his backing musicians.
Stewart then used session players like the members of Booker T. & The MGs to great effect as he continued a run of chart-topping albums through Atlantic Crossing and the even better-selling A Night On The Town, propelled by singles like Tonight’s The Night, The First Cut Is The Deepest and The Killing Of Georgie. My favorite Stewart is his Faces-era period. But he continued releasing quality material/stuff I like through A Night On The Town and its followup, Footloose And Fancy Free but started losing steam for me with Blondes Have More Fun in 1978, although I’ll admit the disco hit single from that album, Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? is a guilty pleasure. By 1981’s Tonight I’m Yours album, though, Stewart had pretty much lost me although I do like the single Passion from his 1980 album Foolish Behaviour.
Steely Dan – The Royal Scam
1. Kid Charlemagne
2. The Caves Of Altamira
3. Don’t Take Me Alive
4. Sign In Stranger
5. The Fez
6. Green Earrings
7. Haitian Divorce
8. Everything You Did
9. The Royal Scam
I find Steely Dan to be so consistently excellent that if I had to pick a favorite album, I couldn’t. Instead, I’d employ my musical mantra: The best artist, album or song is the one you are listening to right now, in the moment, if you like it. So, today for me as far as Steely Dan goes, it’s The Royal Scam and it happens to fit with the other two albums I’m playing for this show, also released in 1976. It’s your usual Steely Dan amalgam of styles – funk, fusion, jazz rock and sophisticated grooves coupled with biting lyrics and great guitar work, particularly on songs like Don’t Take Me Alive by session man to the stars Larry Carlton, who played on three other Steely Dan albums – Katy Lied (1975), Aja (1977) and Gaucho (1980). Journalist Michael Watts, writing for British magazine Melody Maker, summed it up pretty well upon the album’s release.
“I wouldn’t wish to say whether it’s better than the other four Steely Dan records; they don’t compete with each other, they co-exist. But I will say that I’m playing it to death. And of course, the listener doesn’t have to delve into the lyrics. You can just tap your foot.”
One thing I’ve never understood, though. And it really doesn’t matter, because I own all the Steely Dan albums and nowadays, you can listen to anything you want online. But why the dark, brooding, title cut, The Royal Scam, is on no Steely Dan compilation I know of, is beyond me. It’s my favorite song on the album but, same as another personal favorite, Midnite Cruiser from the Dan’s 1972 debut Can’t Buy A Thrill, it didn’t make a compilation cut. One would think the band, or record company, would have wanted the wider exposure compilations often bring, reeling in casual consumers, at least in pre-internet times.
A show loosely tied – via song titles, band names and a couple compilations I’ve drawn from – to the Family Day holiday in most Canadian provinces. Also, a ‘winter’ portion as a nod to the relentless snow we’ve been getting in southern Ontario and much of Canada of late. In between, a week late, a celebration of the 55th anniversary release of a classic Doors album – Morrison Hotel – I was reminded of by a friend which was timely, since I was thinking of playing The Doors in any event. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list. Audio log will be posted after the show airs. Song clips also available on my Facebook page.
1. Family, The Weaver’s Answer
2. Jethro Tull, Back To The Family
3. John Mellencamp, Case 795 (The Family)
4. The Rolling Stones, Family
5. Danny Kirwan, Ram Jam City (from his solo album Second Chapter via The Fleetwood Mac Family Album compilation)
6. Rossington Collins Band, Tashauna (from the 1981 album This Is The Way via the Lynyrd Skynyrd: Family compilation)
——– The Doors – Morrison Hotel
Original vinyl
Side One – Hard Rock Cafe (original name for the album)
1. Roadhouse Blues
2. Waiting For The Sun
3. You Make Me Real
4. Peace Frog
5. Blue Sunday
6. Ship Of Fools
Side Two – Morrison Hotel
7. Land Ho!
8. The Spy
9. Queen Of The Highway
10. Indian Summer
11. Maggie M’Gill
——
7. Judas Priest, Winter/Deep Freeze/Winter Retreat
8. Genesis, Snowbound
9. Black Sabbath, Snowblind
10. Joe Jackson, Heart Of Ice
11. J. Geils Band, The Lady Makes Demands
12. Santana, Savor/Toussaint L’Overture (live, from Moonflower)
My track-by-track tales:
1. Family, The Weaver’s Answer . . . From the English progressive rock band’s 1969 album Family Entertainment, their second studio release. Arguably the band’s signature song, it tells the tale of a man looking back on his life as he nears death. Roger Chapman’s vibrato vocals add an urgent, theatrical quality to the shifting time signatures arrangement.
2. Jethro Tull, Back To The Family . . . A track that blends rock and folk, with often sarcastic lyrics contrasting the comforts of family life with its realities and one’s desire for independence from it. The song is from Stand Up, Tull’s 1969 album. It was the band’s second studio release and marked a change in direction – and introduced new guitarist Martin Barre – from the blues-based sound of the 1968 debut This Was that featured guitarist Mick Abrahams. Abrahams and lead singer/songwriter/flautist/multi-instrumentalist Ian Anderson then clashed over musical direction, with Abrahams leaving to continue his blues approach with Blodwyn Pig, a great if short-lived band in its own right I’ve played recently. Anderson has forever referred to This Was as being an appropriate album title, given that it ‘was’ Jethro Tull, at the time, before his creative vision prevailed although Tull has often still delved into the blues, just not in as singularly pronounced a manner as on the debut album.
I remember my musically influential on me older brother, by eight years, bringing Stand Up – and Led Zeppelin II – home upon release. We were living in Peru at the time, where my father was working. My older brother and sister were attending high school in Canada and in those days, the late 1960s, things weren’t as immediate as they are now. So, when the older siblings attending school in North America came home for holidays, it was not only a reunion celebration for all the American and Canadian families in town but a window, via what they brought back with them, through which we could see what was fresh and happening, particularly in entertainment. Hence albums like Stand Up and Zep II, which shook us out of our early Beatles and Stones listening habits, great as they obviously were, and further expanded our musical horizons.
3. John Mellencamp, Case 795 (The Family) . . . A gritty, grisly, bluesy song from Mellencamp’s 1993 album Human Wheels. The lyrics reveal a definitely dysfunctional family where things are rationalized as ‘everything’s all right’ despite various instances of violence amid family struggles, economic hardship and personal conflict. Not exactly Family Day fare, perhaps, but the title fits. Great tune, regardless, nice swampy groove.
4. The Rolling Stones, Family . . . An obscure Stones track, darkly cynical in a spare, mostly acoustic arrangement with unsettling lyrics about dysfunction and decay within a family in which, among other things, a daughter aspires to be a prostitute having her father as a customer and other such upbeat ideas. It’s from the 1968 Beggars Banquet album sessions, finally appearing in 1975 on Metamorphosis, a pseudo-official compilation of outtakes and alternate versions. It was issued by the Stones’ former manager Allen Klein, who at that point still retained rights to the band’s pre-1971 material, coming out on the same day as the Stones’ first authorized 1970s hits compilation, Made In The Shade.
5. Danny Kirwan, Ram Jam City . . . From the former Fleetwood Mac guitarist’s debut solo album, Second Chapter, issued in 1975. It ties into Family Day because I pulled it from a compilation – The Fleetwood Mac Family album – I own that features solo and offshoot band material from Fleetwood Mac members past and present. A melodic track with a folk-rock feel, it’s described in the compilation liner notes, accurately enough, as having a Celtic feel within a bluegrass – and I’d suggest almost rockabilly – context. Engaging stuff.
6. Rossington Collins Band, Tashauna . . . Beautiful, Lynyrd Skynyrd-like track but then that’s to be expected from a band formed from the surviving post-1977 plane crash members of Skynyrd, issued on the Rossington Collins band’s second release, 1981’s This Is The Way. Among the Skynyrd alumni on the album were guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins, bassist Leon Wilkeson and pianist Billy Powell backing the terrifically atmospheric and emotional lead vocals of Dale Krantz-Rossington, Gary’s wife. I pulled it from another ‘family’ album, the 2006 compilation Lynyrd Skynyrd: Family that features various Skynyrd tracks as well as those by offshoot bands.
——–
The Doors – Morrison Hotel
Original vinyl Side One Hard Rock Cafe (original name for the album)
1. Roadhouse Blues . . . Likely the best-known track on the album, a blues-rock anthem driven by a gritty riff and Jim Morrison’s commanding vocal delivery. “Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel . . . let it roll, baby, roll . . . ”
2. Waiting For The Sun . . . It could have been the title cut to the band’s 1968 album but one of those cases – like Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack just one example – where a song done for one album wound up being held back for a future release. Sheer Heart Attack was left unfinished during the sessions for Queen’s 1974 album of that name and didn’t appear on record until three releases later, 1977’s News Of The World. Similar happened with The Doors on this hazy, dreamlike, spooky track with an anthemic chorus, finally released on Morrison Hotel in 1970.
3. You Make Me Real . . . A fast-paced, piano-driven energetic toe-tapping rocker that showcases Ray Manzarek’s rollicking keyboard work combined with Jim Morrison’s wild and playful vocals.
4. Peace Frog . . . Funky rocker with striking lyrical imagery, referencing police violence and blood on the streets, mentioning various American cities including Chicago, a reference to the violence-plagued 1968 Democratic Party convention. Then the song abruptly stops and we’re into . . .
5. Blue Sunday . . . A slow, crooning love song contrasting sharply with Peace Frog. The pacing on the album is exemplary. It’s why, while hits compilations are great, often it pays to immerse oneself in a full album as a statement designed by an artist.
6. Ship Of Fools . . . A mid-tempo track lyrically playing on the metaphor of a world heading toward destruction. Musically compelling to draw you in, social commentary lyrics to make you think.
Side Two Morrison Hotel
7. Land Ho! . . . A lighthearted sea shanty-style rocker with a catchy chorus. Propulsive.
8. The Spy . . . A slow, sultry blues number I played, independent of the album, some time ago. Dark, mysterious and at once seductive and almost menacing, but such could be the quality of Jim Morrison’s vocals coupled with the band’s music.
9. Queen Of The Highway . . . Hypnotic groove with a driving rhythm fueled by the bassline and percussion.
10. Indian Summer . . . A quiet, meditative piece, sparse instrumentation and gentle delivery. Personal preference of course but it’s one of those songs that is another argument for listening to individual albums over just hits compilations, as good as those usually are.
11. Maggie M’Gill . . . A gritty album closer with a swampy feel arguably presaging the bluesy brilliance of the band’s next album, L.A. Woman. The opening part of this one could easily fit on something like ZZ Top’s Deguello album – nine years before the ZZ record was released. Perhaps the Texas trio was listening.
——
7. Judas Priest, Winter/Deep Freeze/Winter Retreat . . . We start the ‘winter’ portion of the overall set with this trilogy from the first Priest album, 1974’s Rocka Rolla. It was a time before the band fully embraced metal and was more a hard rocking yet bluesy band with progressive rock elements. It’s dark, eerie and atmospheric across the near seven minutes of the combined songs, best heard as a single piece.
8. Genesis, Snowbound . . . A delicate, haunting track from the 1978 album And Then There Were Three which, via its hit single Follow You Follow Me introduced many people to Genesis – which to that point was rarely if ever played on AM radio. It broadened the band’s horizons and fan base while causing many who were more fond of the fully progressive rock epics of the Peter Gabriel era to abandon ship. Still, after Gabriel left, the group was able to strike a balance between prog and mass popularity on albums like 1976’s A Trick Of The Tail, And Then There Were Three and Duke in 1980 before 1981’s Abacab, which I really like, brought a new, even more commercial sound including horns.
9. Black Sabbath, Snowblind . . . A heavy, sludgy slab from 1972’s Vol. 4 album. The musical heaviness is trademark Sabbath of course but what often strikes me about early Sabbath is Ozzy Osbourne’s detached vocals. Perhaps it’s a function of production, or how I hear things, but however it comes about, his voice seems to enter each song from sideways somehow, from parts unknown if that description makes sense. It’s a potent mix of musical talent, both vocal and instrumental.
10. Joe Jackson, Heart Of Ice . . . A moody, jazz-infused track that starts and continues for the longest time in its seven-minute duration as an instrumental but finally incorporates sparse, haunting vocals in an intoxicating arrangement featuring saxophone and keyboards. It’s from JJ’s 1984 album Body And Soul which featured the hit single You Can’t Get What You Want (Until You Know What You Want).
11. J. Geils Band, The Lady Makes Demands . . . Typical J. Geils R & B/rock fusion energy on a track from the band’s 1973 album Ladies Invited. Lyrically, it pretty much sums up the push-and-pull of at least some relationships. From a man’s perspective, at least.
12. Santana, Savor/Toussaint L’Overture (live, from Moonflower) . . . An extended 13-minute jam highlighting Santana’s blend of Latin rock, jazz fusion and typically great playing, from the 1977 album that combined live with studio cuts.
