1. The Rolling Stones, Flip The Switch . . . One of those great kick butt album openers by the boys. At that point, it was 1997’s Bridges To Babylon album, the latest in a line of bracing opening tracks including Sticky Fingers’ Brown Sugar, Exile On Main St.’s Rocks Off, It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll’s If You Can’t Rock Me, Start Me Up from Tattoo You and One Hit (To The Body) from Dirty Work. And then in 2005 came Rough Justice, from the band’s most recent but to this fan hopefully not last full album of original recorded material, A Bigger Bang.

2. Jefferson Airplane, Blues From An Airplane . . . Opening cut from the band’s debut album, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, in 1966. Written and sung by Marty Balin, before Grace Slick joined the group. Signe Anderson was the female vocalist at the time – with powerful lead singing on the record’s Chauffeur Blues – before quitting to raise a family. Yeah, I know. Why didn’t I play Chauffeur Blues, then? Didn’t think about it. Soon, perhaps.

3. Status Quo, Paper Plane . . . Good rocker from the appropriately titled Pile Driver album. It made No. 8 on the UK singles charts.

4. The Kinks, Give The People What They Want . . . Title cut from the band’s 1981 album. I like the tune, great lyrics as always from Ray Davies, but I’m playing it deliberately to set up a request I had after last Monday’s show.

5. Ry Cooder, Tattler . . . That request was for some Ry Cooder. No song specified, so I randomly picked this one from Cooder’s 1974 album Paradise and Lunch, featuring his typically fine guitar work. Linda Ronstadt covered the tune, written by American gospel artist George Washington Phillips under the title You Can’t Stop A Tattler, as The Tattler on her 1976 album Hasten Down The Wind.

6. Bert Jansch, Angie . . . Wonderful acoustic guitar picking instrumental from the influential Scottish artist and founder of the band Pentangle.

7. The Doobie Brothers, Steamer Lane Breakdown . . . Aside from the song Takin’ It To The Streets, I’m not big into the Michael McDonald-fronted, massively commercially successful version of The Doobie Brothers. But there’s a track here and there amid what I consider largely schlock that I like, like this toe-tapper instrumental by founding and forever band member Patrick Simmons.

8. Black Oak Arkansas, Jim Dandy . . . He’s not a household name, especially all these years later from the band’s1970s heyday, but were it not for Black Oak frontman Jim “Dandy’ Mangrum, Van Halen’s David Lee Roth might never have existed, so to speak. Check out some old live clips of Black Oak Arkansas.

9. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Lost In The Ozone . . . One drink of wine, two drinks of gin, I’m lost in the ozone again.

10. Pete Townshend/Ronnie Lane, Nowhere To Run . . . From one of those albums, 1977’s Rough Mix, you pick up at random because you’re a Who and Faces fan and are endlessly rewarded for it to this day and forever. One of the best albums of all time, period.

11. Leon Russell, Out In The Woods . . . Love this funky gumbo type stuff.

12. Steve Winwood, Night Train . . . Such a talent. Winwood played every instrument on his breakthrough 1980 solo album Arc Of A Diver, from which this track comes.

13. Supertramp, Brother Where You Bound . . . Epic, 16-minute title track from the band’s 1985 album, the first after the split between chief songwriters Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson, who departed for a solo career leaving Davies in charge. The group produced arguably a harder-edged album than some of the syrupy commercially-oriented material that had brought them mainstream success with Breakfast In America, and this song is indicative of that. David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame guests on guitar.

14. Danny Kirwan, Ram Jam City . . . Up-tempo ditty from the late former Fleetwood Mac guitarist’s debut solo album, Second Chapter, released in 1975.

15. Warren Zevon, Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead . . . From the Mr. Bad Example album, 1991. I was chatting with fellow music fan friends the other night, we were talking about great session players populating myriad albums and there he is, drummer Jim Keltner, on this track.

16. UFO, Mother Mary . . . Three words: Guitarist Michael Schenker.

17. Nick Lowe, Switchboard Susan . . . A minor hit single, in Canada at least, from Labour Of Lust, the album that got me into Lowe during my college days.

18. Headstones, Supersmart . . . Typical raunch and roll from one of my favorite bands, Canadian or otherwise.

19. Bob Dylan, Ballad Of A Thin Man . . . Because something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones? Poor Mr. Jones. So much available literature on this song. Worth reading.

20. Junkhouse, Down In The Liver . . . Harrowing lyrics by Tom Wilson, the subject matter reminiscent of Kris Kristofferson’s Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.

21. Rush, Cinderella Man . . . One of my favorite Rush songs, from probably my favorite Rush album, 1977’s A Farewell To Kings. It’s one of the few songs whose lyrics weren’t written by drummer Neil Peart after he joined the band after the debut album, replacing John Rutsey as the group went in a more progressive rock direction. Bassist/singer Geddy Lee wrote the words.

22. Kansas, The Pinnacle . . . American prog from a band likely best known to the masses for the hits Carry On Wayward Son and Dust In The Wind but a catalog with far more depth than those two excellent songs. Kansas is celebrating its 50^th anniversary (!) in 2023, with a comprehensive new 3-CD career-spanning compilation just out to mark the milestone. It covers from their first release up to their most recent studio work, the 2020 album The Absence of Presence.

23. King Crimson, Red . . . British prog. Sort of. The highly-influential Crimson is a bit of everything, really, isn’t it? Metal, hard rock, ballads, inventive progressive stylings, often all in the same song. It’s what’s made them consistently great, amid myriad lineups under the direction of leader Robert Fripp, since the debut album in 1969.

24. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Trilogy . . . More British prog, featuring beautiful piano from Keith Emerson on a track that eventually highlights the prowess of all the players including the ethereal vocals of Greg Lake.

25. The Beach Boys, Shut Down . . . OK, that’s enough. Here come The Beach Boys to shut down that indulgent prog stuff with a short rock and roller that was the B-side to Surfin’ USA and later a hit single in its own right.

26. T Bone Burnett, Kill Switch . . . Stones open with Flip The Switch. T Bone closes with Kill Switch. Outta here until Monday. Take care, all.

Set list with commentary follows the bare-bones list.

1. The Beatles, Taxman
2. Richie Havens, Here Comes The Sun
3. Love, You Set The Scene
4. Chet Atkins & Mark Knopfler, There’ll Be Some Changes Made
5. Doug and The Slugs, No No No (Nobody But Me)
6. The Guess Who, When The Band Was Singin’ Shakin’ All Over
7. Little Feat, Lafayette Railroad
8. Grand Funk Railroad, Sin’s A Good Man’s Brother
9. Hindu Love Gods, Raspberry Beret
10. Simon and Garfunkel, A Hazy Shade Of Winter
11. The Motels, Suddenly Last Summer
12. Procol Harum, Pandora’s Box
13. The Clash, Spanish Bombs
14. Flash and The Pan, War Games
15. Deep Purple, Sun Goes Down
16. The Rolling Stones, Take It Or Leave It
17. Joe Jackson, The Old Songs
18. Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Goode/Carol/Promised Land (Live, Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival 1969)
19. Canned Heat, Can’t Hold On Much Longer
20. The Steve Miller Band, Mercury Blues (Live at Monterey Pop Festival, 1967)
21. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Homemade Wine
22. Gerry Rafferty, Get It Right Next Time
23. Pink Floyd, Echoes
    
    Set list with my track-by-track tales: 
    1. The Beatles, Taxman . . . I read somewhere once where, during the early 1960s, Bob Dylan was talking to John Lennon and Dylan said that while he liked The Beatles, he told Lennon that ‘your songs don’t say anything’ because they were to that point what songs often typically are about, love and relationships. And that’s of course fine, and Dylan did and does write such songs too. But the slight criticism no doubt sparked Lennon, and The Beatles, to writing more topical, often politically-charged songs. Like this one, actually written by George Harrison, with some help on lyrics from Lennon and great and innovative musically with that ridiculously great guitar solo between 1:12 and 1:24, played by Paul McCartney. It’s the most effective sort of solo, too, in my view: short, compelling, leaves you wanting more which is often such a key to great art even though you want it to go on but in the end realize it’s better short, like CCR’s song Fortunate Son, for instance. Taxman (later covered by Stevie Ray Vaughan) was the lead cut on Revolver, which has recently been re-released in a big box set treatment, the latest in a series of such remastered/remixed Beatles re-releases.
    2. Richie Havens, Here Comes The Sun . . . Speaking of George Harrison, here’s Havens’ treatment of Harrison’s Abbey Road cut. Havens, who opened the Woodstock Festival (apparently wasn’t supposed to but other performers were stuck in traffic en route) to great acclaim, had that distinctive heavy acoustic guitar strumming that, to me at least, is instantly identifiable. A commenter on YouTube on this song perhaps put it best: “this is acoustic but it’s the most electric song I know.”
    3. Love, You Set The Scene . . . Another of my periodic digs into Love’s great Forever Changes album. It’s one of those records that is critically-renowned, didn’t sell much, one wonders what all the fuss is about, then one buys it and it’s like, OK, yeah, I get it, why wasn’t this massive commercially? Of course, then there are other critically-acclaimed albums one does that with and comes away with the thought, huh? The mysteries of life.
    4. Chet Atkins & Mark Knopfler, There’ll Be Some Changes Made . . . What a fun shuffle from the Neck and Neck 1990 album collaboration between the two great axemen. The song itself goes back a century, well worth reading up on, and has been covered by countless artists including Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Tony Bennett and in various styles and genres, often with adapted lyrics as on the Atkins-Knopfler version. Their extended take includes name-dropping Prince and Michael Jackson as well as fun references to their own songs and guitar playing. Just a great tune from a terrific album.

        

    5. Doug and The Slugs, No No No (Nobody But Me) . . . Written by members of The Isley Brothers, the track is one of the few cover tunes in the Slugs’ discography of which the vast majority were written by lead singer Doug Bennett. The Slugs’ version was the third single from Music For The Hard Of Thinking, released in 1982 but didn’t chart in Canada, although to me it’s arguably better than the Bennett-penned charting singles Who Knows How To Make Love Stay and Making It Work. I liked Doug Bennett’s work, and the album was nominated for a 1983 Juno Award although I’ll always prefer the debut release, Cognac and Bologna. And as I recall from a recent documentary I watched on the group, Doug and The Slugs and Me, by the Time Music For The Hard Of Thinking was released, the band members felt their creativity was being compromised by record company demands (a typical music industry story) and the decline set in although the original group continued on for several years, recording several more albums and backing the late Bennett on his solo album Animato, released in 1986. Bennett, a lifelong heavy drinker, died in 2004 of liver cirrhosis at age 52. By that point, the original band had long since broken up but Bennett was still fronting a rotating group of musicians, still billed as Doug and The Slugs. The original group reunited in 2009 and now does live shows with new lead singer Ted Okos. I highly recommend the documentary, which seems to be getting regular rotation on The Documentary Channel in Canada and apparently will get wider release on CBC TV sometime in 2023 and, hopefully, online.

        

    6. The Guess Who, When The Band Was Singin’ Shakin’ All Over . . . From 1975’s Power In The Music, the last album on which Burton Cummings sang lead vocals and featuring Domenic Triano on guitar in his second outing with The Guess Who, the first being the previous year’s Flavours album. The song references a time when, indeed, The Guess Who, then known as Chad Allan and The Expressions, had covered the Johnny Kidd and The Pirates’ tune, taking it to No. 1 in Canada in 1965.
    7. Little Feat, Lafayette Railroad . . . I feel like I’ve played this too recently. Ah, well, one can never get enough Little Feat, I say.
    8. Grand Funk Railroad, Sin’s A Good Man’s Brother . . . Last time I played a Grand Funk tune an old journalism pal good-naturedly ripped me but that’s the kind of thing the band itself dealt with from music snobs throughout their career. I like ’em – especially the earlier stuff – and ain’t apologizing.
    9. Hindu Love Gods, Raspberry Beret . . . In which Zevon and R.E.M.’s Bill Berry, Peter Buck and Mike Mills, who backed Zevon on his Sentimental Hygiene album in 1987 and were already a largely unrecorded R.E.M. side project, get drunk one night during the Hygiene sessions, record a bunch of blues standards and this Prince tune. It all came out three years later on the self-titled Hindu Love Gods album. I prefer the Love Gods’ reiterpretation but then while I respect him and have tried, I’ve really tried, I’ve just never ‘gotten’ Prince.

        

    10. Simon and Garfunkel, A Hazy Shade Of Winter . . . Interesting how you can be going through a band or artist’s work and immediately it’s like, oh yeah, this one. I know it was a top-20 hit, almost top 10 (No. 11 in Canada) but dunno, I had somewhat forgotten about it. Silly me. Here it is.
    11. The Motels, Suddenly Last Summer . . . I had The Motels on vinyl when I was out west in Alberta early 1980s but over time had gotten rid of the couple albums I owned. Then, a couple weeks ago, I was in my favorite friendly neighborhood record store and somebody had just dumped a pile of used CDs on them, including a Motels’ compilation. So, now I have the Motels again in my collection and yes I could just listen online and I do, but I still like owning physical copies. Anyway, I like this track which was a successful single but, perhaps contrary to some opinions, it has nothing to do with the Tennessee Williams play, nor the 1959 movie adapted from it, starring Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift. Good flick. Pure coincidence, according to the Motels’ Martha Davis, who had not read the play nor seen the movie until long after the song was released.
    12. Procol Harum, Pandora’s Box . . . From Procol’s Ninth, signifying the band’s ninth album (eight studio works) to that point, 1975.
    13. The Clash, Spanish Bombs . . . My younger son has of late taken great interest in the histories of various wars and international relations that bred them, which led us to talking a bit about the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. It’s a conflict touched on, among other things, in this song from London Calling. So that’s probably why, unconsciously, I decided to play it, besides the fact anything from that album is, as the English soccer/football commentators say, quality.
    14. Flash and The Pan, War Games . . . From Headlines, 1982. Great lyrics.
    15. Deep Purple, Sun Goes Down . . . Kind of a heavy ballad, if that’s such a thing, from the 2003 album Bananas. It was the first to feature Don Airey on keyboards, with the blessing of Jon Lord, who had retired.

         

    16. The Rolling Stones, Take It Or Leave It . . . Back I go to my likely tiresome US/UK Aftermath/Between The Buttons/Flowers compilation discussion, as I’ve been mining those albums for Stones songs of late. It stems from back when track listings often differed depending on what country one was in. This song appeared on the UK version of Aftermath in 1966 but not on the version released in the colonies across the pond. I first heard it on the Flowers compilation put together by London Records, Decca’s North American distributor, that my older sister owned.
    17. Joe Jackson, The Old Songs . . . Another song that could be my theme song, along with Free’s Songs of Yesterday which I played recently. This is from JJ’s 1991 Laughter and Lust album, which came up in a discussion with friends last week. The lyrics are likely appropriate to many relationships including my long-over marriage. It sticks out because I saw the tour at Toronto’s Massey Hall with my then-wife but what started as a fun night went off the rails. Why? Well, we spent most of the day in Toronto, ate an early dinner then split up (before we actually split up 10 years later) to go shop our respective interests on Yonge St. Naturally, I went to Sam The Record Man where they happened to have a big sale on CDs, including those by The Rolling Stones, my favorite band. Bear in mind that back then, CDs were still new and expensive, but the store had the Stones’ stuff on for $10 each as I recall, so I bought 6 as I was in the process of replacing my vinyl. Ooh, that did not go over well. Here we were, combined making damn good money, but $60 plus tax was an undisciplined expense, apparently. And sure, I was let’s say a bit cavalier with money then but we never wanted for anything nor did our kids, you only live once and what, spend $60 for 6 or wait and spend, at the time, $20-$25 each, over time? I’ll take the bargain when it presents itself. Whatever. So, I got the silent treatment as we watched JJ from row 2 at Toronto’s Massey Hall. I still had fun. Turned out a solo ticket holder came down and sat beside me, he was a big JJ fan so we spent the evening chatting and enjoying. It pissed her off and we were talking again by the end. Ah, marriage/relationships.
    18. Chuck Berry, Johnny B. Goode/Carol/Promised Land (Live, Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival 1969) . . . Ever since Jerry Lee Lewis died a while ago and I played some tracks in tribute to him, plus a full live album on my Saturday show, I’ve really been back into the 1950s rock and roll greats. Like Chuck Berry, whose performance at the 1969 Toronto festival is now available on CD, which I picked up recently. Great medley, here, You can watch it, too, on YouTube where film of the performance – and Jerry Lee’s and Little Richard’s energetic sets at the same event – has long been available. This of course was the show, also with Chicago, Alice Cooper and The Doors among others, which featured John Lennon and his Plastic Ono Band, immortalized in film and on the Live Peace In Toronto album.
    19. Canned Heat, Can’t Hold On Much Longer . . . From Vintage, with the cool (or hot) cover of flames coming out of a can. I picked it up on CD recently. I’ve got two truly comprehensive Canned Heat compilations, one a 2-CD and the other a 3-CD version with not a lot of duplication, and Hooker N Heat, their collaboration with John Lee Hooker. So I’ve really seen no need to get the other individual albums but I saw this in a used rack and had to have it, largely for sentimental reasons in memory of my late older brother. He was such a musical influence on me, as I often mention in these missives, and who I remember having the record on vinyl. RIP, Rob.
    20. The Steve Miller Band, Mercury Blues (Live at Monterey Pop Festival, 1967) . . . Way different than the slower, recorded version on his later album Fly Like An Eagle and different again from perhaps the most well-known version by David Lindley. All three versions are well worth a listen.
    21. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Homemade Wine . . . Best known for Jackie Blue (great song which actually is arguably uncharacteristic of the band’s output) and If You Wanna Get To Heaven, the Daredevils are so much more than those two songs and worth checking out for their countryish southern rock. A great toe-tapper, this one. And, speaking of homemade wine, 3 things. 1. Forget it, buy from the liquor store. 2. My late uncle made his own, got better over the years but still, buy it from the liquor store. 3. Had a neighbor once, made wine and beer. Offered it to my then-wife and I. Great guy. But again: buy it from the liquor store. Sorry, I’m sure there are great home wine makers, distillers and brewers but I’ve yet to experience any such product.
    22. Gerry Rafferty, Get It Right Next Time . . . Speaking of drink, another victim, sadly. Anyway, great tune from his 1979 Night Owl album, was a successful single and I’m going to stop saying I rarely play singles because while this is a deep cuts show, I do play singles – just ones that may not have been massive hits or that you, me or we haven’t heard in ages. Like this one. Great stuff from a period when the former Stealers Wheel member was enjoying great solo success with 1978’s City To City album and its 1979 follow-up Night Owl, the two albums featuring such great singles as Baker Street, Right Down The Line (both from City To City), Days Gone Down (Still Got The Light In Your Eyes) and Get It Right Next Time (from Night Owl).
    23. Pink Floyd, Echoes . . . Always good to have a 23-minute cut in hand when you’re behind on the day, rushing to put the show together and need to fill time. But it’s not just for that reason I’m playing Echoes (again). I love the track, most people do, how could you not, and I was discussing the Meddle album with an old friend and work colleague the other day. So, here we go.

Three classics for this Saturday: Elvis Costello’s 1977 debut My Aim Is True, The Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet from 1968 and Lou Reed’s Transformer, from 1972.

Elvis Costello – My Aim Is True

1. Welcome To The Working Week
2. Miracle Man
3. No Dancing
4. Blame It On Cain
5. Alison
6. Sneaky Feelings
7. Watching The Detectives (UK single, added as last track on original side one of North American vinyl release)
8. (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
9. Less Than Zero
10. Mystery Dance
11. Pay It Back
12. I’m Not Angry
13. Waiting For The End Of The World

The Rolling Stones – Beggars Banquet

1. Sympathy For The Devil
2. No Expectations
3. Dear Doctor
4. Parachute Woman
5. Jigsaw Puzzle
6. Street Fighting Man
7. Prodigal Son
8. Stray Cat Blues
9. Factory Girl
10. Salt Of The Earth

Lou Reed – Transformer

1. Vicious
2. Andy’s Chest
3. Perfect Day
4. Hangin’ ‘Round
5. Walk On The Wild Side
6. Make Up
7. Satellite Of Love
8. Wagon Wheel
9. New York Telephone Conversation
10. I’m So Free
11. Goodnight Ladies

1. Chicago, Movin’ In . . . From the Chicago I like, the early jazz-rock fusion version, this one from the second album, 1970. I got into a fun bar-room discussion about pre-Terry Kath and post-Terry Kath Chicago the other day. For those who may not know, Kath was the band’s original guitarist and, along with keyboard player Robert Lamm, arguably the man who kept Chicago to its jazz-rock fusion roots. After his untimely death due to a self-inflicted accidental gunshot wound in 1978 when he put what he thought was an unloaded gun to his head, the band slid into commercially successful but artistically awful schlock although the malaise had already set in two years earlier with the successful syrupy single If You Leave Me Now. That was sung by bass player Peter Cetera who had earlier sung such great hits as 25 or 6 to 4. But the massive success of the single – and I do like it but not as a template for every future song – got the record company thinking, hmm, can you guys do that again and keep doing it, maybe ditch the horns for the most part while we make Cetera the focus of the group even though you guys had always previously and firmly been a collective enterprise?All of which is a long way of getting to the point that, the consensus among the beer-drinking, chicken-wing inhaling group at our gathering was that schlock producer David Foster, the energy behind most of the excrement, was the real villain of the piece as he led Chicago to middle of the road success while producing maudlin music that actually sold, proving that most people have awful ears.

2. Free, Songs Of Yesterday . . . Could easily be my show’s theme song. You know the catch line: Old bands, old tracks, old bands, their new stuff if they’re still around, alive and kicking.

3. Paul Kossoff, Molten Gold . . . An interesting one. It’s a Free song, in large measure yet credited to Free guitarist Kossoff from his first solo album, Back Street Crawler. Kossoff’s record came out in 1973, the same year Free disbanded. Paul Rodgers, who went on to big commercial success with Bad Company, sings lead vocals on the track, backed by guitarist Jess Roden and that’s because the track had its genesis in the sessions for Free’s 1972 album Free At Last. But it didn’t come out until Kossoff’s record. Apparently the band, or the record company, thought enough of it that it’s the title of and appears on a Free compilation. 
4. Funkadelic, Super Stupid . . . Yet another guitar showcase from the late great Eddie Hazel, who co-wrote the tune for Funkadelic’s 1971 album Maggot Brain.

5. Atomic Rooster, Winter . . . The band from which drummer Carl Palmer of Emerson, Lake and Palmer came, not to mention Vincent Crane, the troubled keyboardist and once a member of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown. Crane co-wrote The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown’s hit single Fire.

6. The Rolling Stones, Backstreet Girl . . . A beautiful song that belies its lyrics of forbidden, or hidden, love and sex. According to the book The Rolling Stones Complete Recording Sessions, Mick Jagger rated it his favorite from 1967’s Between The Buttons album, UK version. It wasn’t on the US/North American version of the record but did appear on the North American compilation Flowers. That was one of the first Stones’ albums I heard, along with 1966’s Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass), another of the compilations my older sister owned. This was back in the days when UK and North American versions of albums often differed due to the British practice of not putting singles on albums, while the North American labels often offered bastardized versions of similarly-titled albums or their own, stand-alone compilations – like the excellent Flowers.

7. Todd Rundgren, Can We Still Be Friends . . . I was actually looking for Robert Palmer songs in the station computer system when this came up, since Palmer covered it for his 1979 Secrets album. So, what the heck, rarely play Rundgren.I know he’s renowned and I respect that, especially his production work (like with Meat Loaf, for instance) but I’m not much into him besides his hits (of which this was one). And we’ll get to Palmer in a few minutes.

8. Rory Gallagher, In Your Town . . . I’m a huge fan so admittedly biased, but there’s nothing from the late great Gallagher I won’t listen to or think is worthwhile listening – whether that be in his solo career or before that, with Taste. This one’s from the Gallagher album Deuce, 1971. 
9. Robert Palmer, Woman You’re Wonderful . . . Speaking of Robert Palmer and the Secrets album . . . A funky cool song in its own right but I’m deliberately using it as an intro to a six-song set of songs sung by Christine (Perfect) McVie’s career with British blues band Chicken Shack, her early solo work and later stuff that she’s best known for with Fleetwood Mac. McVie died last week at age 79. Yet another classic rocker passing but the sad reality is so many of the greats those of a certain vintage (like me) grew up listening to are in their 70s and 80s now so . . . As I mentioned to my buddies over beer last week, The Atlantic magazine recently did an article about exactly that. But the great thing is, we and our descendants, if they are interested, have the music to listen to, forever.

10. Chicken Shack, I’d Rather Go Blind . . . Christine McVie singing lead vocals on the blues classic co-written by Etta James in this version for Chicken Shack. McVie also covered the tune after leaving that band, and before she joined Fleetwood Mac, on her self-titled debut solo album under her maiden name Christine Perfect, in 1970.

11. Christine Perfect (McVie), When You Say . . . Speaking of that Christine Perfect debut album. Beautiful stuff.

12. Fleetwood Mac, Show Me A Smile . . . From the 1971 album Future Games, the first on which McVie was a full Fleetwood Mac band member and contributed writing. She wrote three songs for the record, all of which she also sang lead vocals on, and this is one of them.

13. Fleetwood Mac, Over And Over . . . From Tusk, the 1979 album that followed the monster commerical success of 1977’s Rumours. Tusk sold millions as well, just not as many millions, so was considered a relative failure in that sense although, given that it was a double album, it contains many overlooked and lasting gems. 
14. Fleetwood Mac, Honey Hi . . . Another McVie lead vocal from the Tusk album.

15. Fleetwood Mac, Morning Rain . . . Back to Future Games we go for this uptempo number, another one written and sung by McVie and featuring fine guitar interplay from Bob Welch and Danny Kirwan.

16. Rare Earth, (I Know) I’m Losing You (live) . . . I can’t imagine how much money from royalties the mainly Motown songwriters/musicians Cornelius Grant, Eddie Holland and Norman Whitfield made with this amazing tune, covered by countless including Rod Stewart/Faces, The Commodores, many others and, originally, a 1966 hit by The Temptations for which Grant played guitar. This is the 14-minute epic from Rare Earth’s ‘backpack cover’ live album In Concert. The album always sticks in my memory not only because I own it but because I probably own it because a camp counsellor at day camp the summer before high school started for me, September, 1972, played the living you know what out of it on his prerecorded cassette tape copy. Great stuff.

17. David Bowie, Saviour Machine . . . From The Man Who Sold The World album, which did poorly upon initial release in 1970 but was more successful upon re-release in 1972, by which time Bowie had released the Ziggy Stardust album and, as a result, was a household name. The Man Who Sold The World marked the first appearance of guitarist Mick Ronson as part of Bowie’s band.

18. Groundhogs, Earth Is Not Room Enough . . . From the 1972 album Who Will Save The World? The Mighty Groundhogs. It’s a concept album, of sorts, dealing with the ills of war, over-population, war, religion, pollution, all the perpetual real and/or perceived evils we still have no real answers for. Yet we’re still here, somehow.

19. Frank Zappa, Wonderful Wino . . . Sad, funny, typical Zappa I suppose, as social commentary coupled with typically fine guitar playing, from 1976’s Zoot Allures album, one of his most commercially accessible releases.

20. Paice Ashton Lord, I’m Gonna Stop Drinking Again . . . I keep trying. But I like the vino. From Malice In Wonderland, the 1977 album put together as a one-off by Deep Purple mates Ian Paice (drums) and Jon Lord (keyboards), accompanied by singer/instrumentalist Tony Ashton. I’ve mentioned it before, but Nazareth released an album by the same title, in 1980, featuring the hit Holiday. I like Nazareth a lot, but I remember when their album came out I thought, you lazy you know whats, come up with your own title. But of course, few people aside from Purple fanatics like me knew of the somewhat obscure Paice Ashton Lord release.

21. The Butterfield Blues Band, Driftin’ and Driftin’ . . . Extended (13 minutes plus) version from The Butterfield Blues Band Live album, 1970, featuring the fine harmonica playing one would expect of Paul Butterfield.

22. Aerosmith, Movin’ Out (alternate version) . . . Different albeit still similar version from the same sessions that resulted in the band’s debut album in 1973, on which the song appears. This version was released on the Pandora’s Box 3-cd compilation, in 1991.

The latest in my periodic/ongoing series of album replay shows: I’m opening with a progressive rock/concept album in Pink Floyd’s 1977 work Animals, which is one of my favorites by the band yet seemingly sometimes overlooked amid the run of great albums the band released starting with Meddle in 1971 (also often overlooked), The Dark Side Of The Moon in 1973 and continuing through Wish You Were Here in 1975, Animals and The Wall in 1979.

And then a genre shift as we go full reggae with Peter Tosh’s first solo album after he left The (Bob Marley’s) Wailers, the 1976 release Legalize It. Wrapping things up is one of the best live albums of all time, Jerry Lee Lewis’s Live At The Star-Club, Hamburg, from 1964. I’ve been in a Jerry Lee mood since he died recently, built one of my recent shows around him and his 1950s rock and roll contemporaries, so here he is again in that blistering 1964 release.

Set list:

Pink Floyd – Animals

1. Pigs On The Wing (Part One)
2. Dogs
3. Pigs (Three Different Ones)
4. Sheep
5. Pigs On The Wing (Part Two)

Peter Tosh – Legalize It

1. Legalize It
2. Burial
3. Watcha Gonna Do
4. No Sympathy
5. Why Must I Cry
6. Igziabeher (Let Jah Be Praised)
7. Ketchy Shuby
8. Till Your Well Runs Dry
9. Brand New Second Hand

Jerry Lee Lewis – Live At The Star-Club, Hamburg

1. I Got A Woman (Mean Woman Blues)
2. High School Confidential
3. Money
4. Matchbox
5. What’d I Say – Part I
6. What’d I Say – Part II
7. Great Balls Of Fire
8. Good Golly, Miss Molly
9. Lewis’ Boogie
10. Your Cheating Heart
11. Hound Dog
12. Long Tall Sally
13. Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On

1. Nazareth, Just To Get Into It . . . Getting into tonight’s show with this rocker, in honor of original Nazareth lead singer Dan McCafferty, who died three weeks ago to, sadly, little fanfare. I’ll have a mini Nazareth set, as a tribute, in the middle of my overall set list. 
2. Nash The Slash, Dopes On The Water . . . Nash’s take, with altered lyrics, on the Deep Purple classic Smoke On The Water. It came out on 1981’s Children of The Night album which also featured covers of Jan and Dean’s Dead Man’s Curve and The Rolling Stones’ 19^th Nervous Breakdown.

3. Cheap Trick, Need Your Love (live, from At Budokan album) . . . Not a huge Cheap Trick fan but I like hypnotic, extended cuts like this one. 
4. XTC, Dear God . . . A friend mentioned this tune as coming to mind after last Saturday’s Jesus Christ Superstar and a few other somewhat related songs show, although I didn’t include Dear God. Forgot about it/didn’t have room. So, here it is.

5. The Tragically Hip, Trickle Down . . . From Up To Here, the 1989 release that was the Hip’s first full studio album (there was an earlier EP) and contained what became standards like Blow at High Dough and New Orleans Is Sinking. I remember reading a review of the record, bought it sight unseen and heard in those days before technology put everything just a keystroke or voice command away, and was happily rewarded.

6. Robbie Robertson, Hell’s Half Acre . . . From The Band man’s first, self-titled solo album, in 1987.

7. Nick Lowe, The Gee and the Rick and the Three Card Trick . . . Country-ish tune from Lowe’s 1984 album Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit.

8. Aerosmith, Kings and Queens . . . Was a single but not a hit from the Draw The Line album in 1977. It’s a good one, though, and the band obviously liked it enough that it was put on their first greatest hits album.

9. John Mayall, Room To Move . . . I got talking Mayall with an old friend dating to high school the other day. Turns out we attended, separately, the same Mayall show, with former Rolling Stone and Bluesbreaker Mick Taylor opening, during the 1980s at the old Ontario Place Forum, which featured a rotating stage. He mentioned the excellent Jazz Blues Fusion album so I dug it out and intended to play something from it. But I also pulled out The Turning Point and decided on this fairly famous, at least to Mayall aficionados, harmonica workout. I’m aiming to get back to Jazz Blues Fusion at some point.

10. Van Morrison, Angelou . . . From 1979’s Into The Music, yet another of those songs where Morrison’s great voice is, I’d argue more so than with most artists, an instrument in itself.

11. Faces, Ooh La La . . . A rare instance where Ron Wood took lead vocals on a Faces song. Nicely done. Versions were recorded with lead singer Rod Stewart and bassist Ronnie Lane taking vocal turns but neither liked their own efforts, so the band went with Woody’s for official release as the title cut from the band’s 1973 album.

12. Nazareth, Light Comes Down . . . And off we go into our main Nazareth set with this one from 1998’s Boogaloo album. By this point, after a period in the wilderness of exploring some slightly different styles, Nazareth had returned to its hard-rocking roots and for a time opened shows with this song.

13. Nazareth, Vigilante Man . . . Slow blues cover of the Woody Guthrie tune, from 1973’s Razamanaz album, one of the foundations of Nazareth’s 1970s output.

14. Nazareth, Steamroller . . . Appropriate title for this cut from 1994’s Move Me album.

15. Nazareth, Hire and Fire . . . Few but band die-hards were listening by this point, 1991. As a result, much great music was missed, like this perhaps a touch overproduced but nevertheless great cut from the No Jive album.

16. Nazareth, Crazy (A Suitable Case For Treatment) . . . Nice hard rocking groove on this one. It appeared on the 1981 Heavy Metal movie soundtrack and later expanded re-releases of The Fool Circle album.

17. Nazareth, Expect No Mercy . . . Scorcher of a title cut from the band’s 1977 album.

18. Nazareth, Big Dog’s Gonna Howl . . . Latter-day Nazareth, still kicking butt on this one from 2011’s Big Dogz album. Yes, Dogz, with a ‘z’.

19. The Boomtown Rats, Up All Night . . . Well, what would you expect, after Big Dog’s been howling? I actually decided on this one after some recent insomnia kept me, well, up all night.

20. Queen, Sleeping On The Sidewalk . . . Maybe this would have worked. Yet another winner written and sung by guitarist Brian May, from 1977’s News Of The World album.

21. The Kinks, Holloway Jail . . . From the brilliant, and inexplicable to me commercial failure that was 1971’s Muswell Hillbillies album. It’s a Kinks’ masterpiece.

22. Nazareth, Silver Dollar Forger (Parts 1 & 2) . . . Back to Nazareth we go, one more time, to set up a ‘silver’ set. I’m shameless in my contrived creativity.

23. The Rolling Stones, You Got The Silver . . . Keith Richards sings this one, from Let It Bleed and it often forms part of his usual 2-3 song mini-set within Stones concerts.

24. Steve Miller Band, Quicksilver Girl . . . From the pre-hit, psychedelic era and a nice intro for our next band.

25. Quicksilver Messenger Service, Pride Of Man . . . Cover of the Hamilton Camp tune, from Quicksilver’s debut album in 1968. Canada’s Gordon Lightfoot, among many others, also covered the song as did Gram Parsons, each of them taking varied and interesting approaches.

26. Santana, Blue Skies . . . Extended cut from Santana’s excellent 2019 album Africa Speaks, A beautiful ballad before some fierce Santana fretwork takes over the tune halfway through. It’s sung by Buika, a Spaniard who did lead vocals on the album, with help, on just this track, from British singer Laura Mvula.

Every time I play a track from what I think is the brilliant 1970 soundtrack version of Jesus Christ Superstar, I say that one of these days, I’ll play the entire album because that’s how the songs are best heard, in my view. That day has come. It’s a terrific album I’ve enjoyed since my older brother and sister got it as members of the old Columbia Record Club back in the mail order days. It’s the best version of the show, in my opinion, featuring such artists as Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan (Jesus), Murray Head (Judas in a brilliant performance), Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene and Mike D’Abo of Handbags and Gladrags song fame (interpreted wonderfully by Rod Stewart) as King Herod. And among those in the band is guitarist Henry McCulloch, who played with Paul McCartney & Wings, Joe Cocker and Spooky Tooth, among others.

So, here it is. I’ve filled in the remaining time in my two-hour slot with somewhat related material from various artists before wrapping with The Who’s Underture, from Tommy, to bracket JC Superstar’s opening Overture.

Set list:

1. Overture
2. Heaven On Their Minds
3. What’s The Buzz/Strange Thing Mystifying
4. Everything’s Alright
5. This Jesus Must Die
6. Hosanna
7. Simon Zealotes/Poor Jerusalem
8. Pilate’s Dream
9. The Temple
10. Everything’s Alright (reprise)
11. I Don’t Know How To Love Him
12. Damned For All Time/Blood Money
13. The Last Supper
14. Gethsemane (I Only Want To Say)
15. The Arrest
16. Peter’s Denial
17. Pilate and Christ
18. King Herod’s Song (Try It And See)
19. Judas’ Death
20. Trial Before Pilate (including the 39 Lashes)
21. Superstar
22. Crucifixion
23. John Nineteen Forty-One
24. Bob Dylan, Man Gave Names To All The Animals
25. Jethro Tull, When Jesus Came To Play
26. John Lennon, God
27. Motorhead, (Don’t Need) Religion
28. The Rolling Stones, I Just Want To See His Face
29. The Who, Underture

1. Madness, One Step Beyond . . . Lead and title cut from the UK ska band’s debut album, 1979. It’s a cover of a tune by Jamaican ska singer Prince Buster, recorded in 1964. Madness hooked me with this particular tune, although I’m not a huge fan of the band. I first saw/heard it as a video on Toronto TV station CITY-TVs old The New Music show – predating the more celebrated US MTV. The spoken-word intro makes you sit up and take notice, then off you go riding the main riff and simple lyrics – just the title, shouted occasionally – the rest of the way. Some people I know didn’t get it. To quote one of my younger brothers, used to me mostly listening to raunch and roll stuff like the Stones: “What’s happened to you?” Nothing. It’s called having an open mind.

2. Doug and The Slugs, To Be Laughing . . . I like Doug and The Slugs anyway but was prompted to play them after watching a terrific documentary, released this year, Doug and The Slugs and Me, on the Documentary Channel in Canada. It’s well worth a look.

3. The Rolling Stones, Let It Loose . . . We’re about to, er, let loose, via this great gospelish Stones’ tune from Exile On Main St., with the kick-butt tunes that follow.

4. MC5, Kick Out The Jams (live) . . . What kind of band issues a live album as their first release? The MC5 did. Great intro, to all mothereffers. Listen to it and you’ll hear what I mean, if you don’t already.

5. The Stooges, 1969 . . . The MC5 album was released in 1969 so I figured I’d play one from their punk-ish brothers, Stooges.

6. Lou Reed, Vicious . . . From his most commercial album, Transformer, the one with Walk On The Wild Side on it. Vicious was a B-side and then later a single on its own. Didn’t chart. Ridiculous.

7. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, T-Bone . . . Got mashed potatoes. Ain’t got no T-bone. Seven words. Repeated, around grungy guitars and other assorted instruments, for 9-plus minutes. That takes talent, in my book. Hypnotic.

8. Argent, Thunder and Lightning . . . Former Zombie Rod Argent, singer-guitarist songwriter Russ Ballard and friends did far more than their well-known song Hold Your Head Up. Here’s an example. This pulsating track reminds me of some of the work of the one-off Deep Purple late 1970s offshoot, Paice Ashton Lord, which reminds me to get back to playing some of their work. So much music, so little time.

9. Delaney and Bonnie, Soul Shake . . . Funky tune from the then-married singer-songwriter duo of Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, who famously toured with Eric Clapton and other music friends and released a live album from it. Duane Allman guests on guitar, on this one.

10. Johnny Jenkins, Down Along The Cove . . . Another one featuring Duane Allman I pulled from one of two outstanding Anthology double-disc CD compilations – An Anthology and An Anthology Volume II – that feature his session work and Allman Brothers Band material. This one’s a cover of the Bob Dylan tune, from the 1967 John Wesley Harding album, released by blues master Jenkins on his 1970 record Ton-Ton Macoute!

11. The Allman Brothers Band, Melissa . . . A single from the Eat A Peach album, didn’t chart. Absurd. One of my younger son’s favorite songs. Good taste.

12. Eric Burdon & War, Gun . . . An amazing combination of rock, funk, soul and R & B, Burdon and War. This tune is yet another example, from The Black-Man’s Burdon, the second of the two albums (the other, Eric Burdon Declares War) from their collaboration.

13. Tim Curry, Paradise Garage . . . From the Rocky Horror Picture Show’s Dr. Frank N. Furter’s Fearless album, released in 1979. I was into the movie and its attendant activities at the time and remember being in Toronto’s downtown Sam The Record Man, just browsing one day, and the album was playing on the sound system. It turned into a worthwhile impulse buy.

14. Bruce Cockburn, Burn . . . “Never mind what the government said, they’re either lying or they’ve been misled.” Great lyric, pretty much applicable to any government and circumstance.

15. Murray McLauchlan, Out Past The Timberline . . . I only came to this song some years ago via a compilation album. But to me, lyrically, musically, it’s arguably MM’s best song. It rings so true, as McLauchlan cuts to the bone about elites vs ‘real’ people in terms of who and what truly represents a country.

16. Syd Barrett, Octopus . . . Solo, weird-ish work from the onetime, late great, Pink Floyd leader.

17. The Hollies, King Midas In Reverse . . . A song that, apparently, was the impetus for Graham Nash’s eventual departure from The Hollies. He wrote the tune, which was different than most Hollies’ more pop-ish stuff to that point, 1967. It was a hit, but didn’t match their previous chart success and soon enough, Nash had moved on to collaborations with David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Neil Young.

18. Arlo Guthrie, City Of New Orleans . . . Cover of the Steve Goodman-penned well-known tune was the son of Woody Guthrie’s lone top 40 hit, although he issued much quality music including Alice’s Restaurant.

19. April Wine, Juvenile Delinquent (live) . . . From April Wine’s Live at the El Mocambo album, recorded the weekend they played there in support of The Rolling Stones’ famous club gigs. It’s written by Bob Segarini, an American singer-songwriter who had some success in Canada in the late 1970s and 80s. He performed at a pub during my college days. As far as I can tell, April Wine never recorded a studio version of it.

20. Camel, Slow Yourself Down . . . One of those prog songs that neatly wraps up so much, including various time signature changes, all within just under five minutes.

21. Elton John, Mellow . . . Haven’t played EJ in a while. Overdue. So I threw darts at my Honky Chateau album board and hit this one, not that one could go wrong picking any 1970s Elton John tune.

22. Jethro Tull, No Lullaby . . . Great drumming by Barriemore Barlow introduces this epic from Tull’s Heavy Horses album.

23. Wishbone Ash, Time Was . . . An old friend of mine tells me I’ve turned him into a Wishbone Ash fan by my occasional playing of that progressive/hard rock/guitar-oriented band’s stuff. Cool.

24. The Guess Who, So Long, Bannatyne . . . Title cut story song from the band’s 1971 album. Bannatyne is a common name for streets, schools and other landmarks in Winnipeg, The Guess Who’s hometown, honoring one of the city’s leading citizens.

A new thing, perhaps for a while; we’ll see how it goes. I’ll be playing classic albums, and others among my favorites, from my own collection. It’s inspired by the commercial FM radio of my youth, where stations, often overnight, would play full album sides or whole albums. The format often introduced me to some albums and artists I may otherwise not have investigated. I may do this every Saturday, or mix and match with ‘single song’ shows, in addition to my Monday 8-10 pm ET show, but in any event here’s ‘album replay’ show 1: Van Morrison’s Moondance, Medusa by Trapeze, a band which featured future Deep Purple bassist/singer Glenn Hughes and the one and only Blind Faith studio album by the late 1960s supergroup of guitarist Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker of Cream fame, singer Steve Winwood from Traffic and bass player Ric Grech of Family.

Van Morrison – Moondance

1. And It Stoned Me
2. Moondance
3. Crazy Love
4. Into The Mystic
5. Come Running
6. These Dreams Of You
7. Brand New Day
8. Everyone
9. Glad Tidings

Trapeze – Medusa

1. Black Cloud
2. Jury
3. Your Love Is Alright
4. Touch My Life
5. Seafull
6. Makes You Wanna Cry
7. Medusa

Blind Faith – Blind Faith

1. Had To Cry Today
2. Can’t Find My Way Home
3. Well All Right
4. Presence Of The Lord
5. Sea Of Joy
6. Do What You Like

1. Ten Years After, The Sounds . . . Spooky single that, as was the UK tradition at least back then, wasn’t issued on TYA’s 1967 debut album but came out on later compilations and expanded reissues.

2. Spooky Tooth, I Am The Walrus . . . A Vanilla Fudge-type reinterpretation of The Beatles’ hit. Great stuff.

3. Vanilla Fudge, Season Of The Witch . . . Speaking of Vanilla Fudge. . . . One of many covers of Donovan’s great song.

    

4. Savoy Brown, Money Can’t Save Your Soul . . . Love the wah wah guitar, general vibe and lyrics on this one, from 1970’s Looking In album. It was the sixth Savoy Brown album and last one before three of the four members – guitarist ‘Lonesome’ Dave Peverett, drummer Roger Earl and bassist Tone Stevens – left to form Foghat. That left lead guitarist Kim Simmonds to carry the Savoy Brown torch, which he’s doing to this day, sometimes billed as Kim Simmonds and Savoy Brown and usually now a trio. I saw them at the Kitchener Blues Festival some years back. Good show.

5. Paul McCartney/Wings, Old Siam Sir . . . This was the first single, in the UK anyway, from 1979’s Back To The Egg. It was the B-side, in North America, to Arrow Through Me. While I’d say it’s a a pretty well-known track, and one of the best on the album (along with Arrow Through Me), it just scraped into the Top 40, making No. 35 in the UK.

6. Blackfoot, Highway Song . . . A lead-in to some, er, highway type songs. Blackfoot, a southern US rock band led by current Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Rickey Medlocke, like seemingly most such groups has their Freebird-like epic. Medlocke was the drummer in very early versions of Skynyrd, before they released an album although some of his work has long since been available on various archival releases.

7. Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Truck Drivin’ Man . . . It wasn’t used, but this one, released in 1972, could easily have fit as part of the soundtrack to Smokey and the Bandit, the movie that came out in 1977.

8. Little Feat, Truck Stop Girl . . . Continuing the life on the road/trucker theme. From the first, self-titled, Little Feat album, released in 1971.

9. Linda Ronstadt, Willin’ . . . Cover of the Feat classic, from Ronstadt’s 1974 album Heart Like A Wheel.

10. Outlaws, Green Grass and High Tides . . . Back to the Freebird-ish tunes we go. Likely the Outlaws’ signature song, the epic track closed the band’s self-titled debut album in 1975, and most of their concerts. The late Hughie Thomasson, the Outlaws’ lead guitarist and singer, was in post-plane crash incarnations of Lynyrd Skynyrd before leaving to reform the Outlaws. He died of a heart attack, at age 55, in 2007. The song title is a play on the 1966 Rolling Stones compilation Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass).

11. Molly Hatchet, Fall Of The Peacemakers . . . One more time with the southern rock epics.

12. Thin Lizzy, Killer Without A Cause . . . Bad Reputation might be my favorite of Lizzy’s studio albums. Full of great tracks, like this one, the title cut, Dancing In the Moonlight, etc. Maybe that’s why I mine it for my show quite a bit. Either that or, besides compilations, it’s I think the only Lizzy album I’ve gotten off my lazy butt and made time to download into our station’s computer system. It is a great album, though. Really. And I will get cracking on more downloads.

13. Van Morrison, And It Stoned Me . . . Speaking of great albums . . . Sometimes you know an album so well you rarely play it, because you can essentially call it up in your mind. Then when you actually do play it, it’s like, wow. Moondance is one of those. I had it on in the car last week. This well-known, amazing track wasn’t even a single. I love the way it kicks in, one little lick and then the vocals. I’ve been thinking of doing an ‘album replay’ show at some point, either on a Monday or my still new Saturday (7-9 am ET) morning show. If so, Moondance will definitely be up for consideration.

14. Queen, Tie Your Mother Down . . . Another of those classic, well-known songs by a great band that was a single, yet perhaps surprisingly, didn’t burn up the charts. It was No. 31 in the UK, 49 in the US and 68 in Canada. The Dutch obviously have more discerning tastes – it made No. 10 there and No. 18 in the primarly Dutch-speaking Flanders region of Belgium. The French in Belgium’s Wallonia region? They were less receptive, with the song hitting No. 42 there. Great opener to the A Day At The Races album, in any event.

15. The Rolling Stones, Out Of Time . . . This one – and its ‘you’re obsolete, my baby’ – came up during a recent chat with a friend about ‘eff you’ lines in songs. This is the full-length, 5:36 cut from the UK version of the Aftermath album. It didn’t hit the North American colonies until the 1967 Flowers compilation, in abridged form, which is where I first heard it via my older sister’s disc.

16. The Doors, When The Music’s Over . . . Not quite yet, we have one more, zany, epic to go.

17. Pink Floyd, Atom Heart Mother Suite . . . I wanted to play a long Pink Floyd track but couldn’t decide between this and Echoes, from Meddle. I’ve played them both, over time. This time, Atom Heart Mother’s cow album cover proved decisive in my thought process.

1. Bobby Keys, Command Performance . . . Longtime Rolling Stones’ saxophone player Bobby Keys kicks us off with a funky tune from his 1972 all-instrumental solo album. It featured a who’s who of players including George Harrison and Ringo Starr, Dave Mason of Traffic and solo fame, Leslie West, Corky Laing and Felix Pappalardi of Mountain, Beatles’ solo album collaborator and bassist Klaus Voorman, Stones’ session and 1970s tour trumpet player Jim Price, Cream’s Jack Bruce and session star to the Stones and other artists, pianist Nicky Hopkins.

2. Tim Ries, Paint It Black . . . From the first of two “Tim Ries Rolling Stones Project’ albums, released in 2005. The album is made up of jazz and jazz-rock reinventions of Stones songs, put together by Ries, a latter-day tenor saxophonist in the Stones’ touring band. Paint It Black is a 10-minute instrumental jazz take on the Stones’ classic. It starts with the 1966 hit’s recognizable riff, takes flight with a long middle section before closing with the original riff. It’s one of the few of the album’s 11 tracks not to feature any members of The Rolling Stones or their various recent collaborators/touring band members. Backup singers Lisa Fischer and Bernard Fowler, bassist Darryl Jones plus Stones members Keith Richards, Ron Wood and Charlie Watts all appear, together and individually, on various selections.

3. Charlie Watts and Jim Keltner, Art Blakey . . . From the Charlie Watts-Jim Keltner Project, a collaboration between the late Stones drummer and session ace drummer/percussionist Keltner, released in 2000. Each of the album’s tracks are named after famous jazz-oriented drummers.

4. Quicksilver Messenger Service, Edward, The Mad Shirt Grinder (featuring Nicky Hopkins) . . . From Quicksilver’s 1969 Shady Grove album on which session man to the stars, including the Stones, Hopkins was actually a full-fledged Quicksilver band member. This epic track showcases “Edward’s” keyboard talents, Edward being a nickname bestowed on Hopkins by original Rolling Stone Brian Jones. Jones, the story goes, was tuning his guitar and wanted an ‘E’ note from Hopkins, on piano, during a 1967 recording session. But due to other studio noise, Hopkins couldn’t hear Jones properly so the guitarist yelled out “Give me an E, like in Edward!”

5. Bill Wyman, Nuclear Reactions . . . A buddy of mine, after I played Wyman rcently, called him ‘a barnacle on the Stones’. So I thought I’d torture my pal, again. This one’s from Wyman’s self-titled 1982 synth-pop/new wave album that featured Si Si (Je Suis un Rock Star), which made the top 10 singles lists in various countries.

6. Hopkins/Cooder/Jagger/Wyman/Watts, Highland Fling . . . From Jamming With Edward, “a nice piece of bullshit’ according to Mick Jagger’s liner notes, that the assembled musicians – Nicky Hopkins (Edward), Ry Cooder, Jagger, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts – put together while waiting for Keith Richards to return to the studio during 1969’s Let It Bleed sessions. Richards and Cooder didn’t get along, at least at the time, which apparently accounted for Richards’ absence. Cooder, meantime, accused the Stones of stealing some of his licks, calling them “a reptilian bunch of people.” Richards has been up front about Cooder teaching him open-G guitar tuning, a prominent feature of the subsequent Stones sound on such tracks as Gimme Shelter, Brown Sugar and Start Me Up. Jamming With Edward didn’t see the light of day until its release in 1972.

7. Billy Preston, That’s The Way God Planned It . . Live version from George Harrison’s 1971 Concert for Bangladesh show and album. Preston, of course, played with The Beatles on their Let It Be album, on several of their post-breakup solo albums and was essentially a member of the Stones from Sticky Fingers through the Black and Blue album, both in studio and on tour.

8. Mick Taylor, Spanish/A Minor . . . Long, bluesy instrumental cut, with a nod to one of Taylor’s finest Stones’ moments, Time Waits For No One. The track appeared on Taylor’s self-titled 1979 debut solo album, five years after he left the Stones.

9. Keith Richards, Whip It Up . . . From Richards’ solo debut album, Talk Is Cheap, 1988.

10. Mick Jagger with The Red Devils, Checkin’ Up On My Baby . . . A Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller) tune Jagger did with the California blues band. While working on what became his 1993 solo album Wandering Spirit, Jagger recorded several blues standards with The Red Devils, ostensibly for a possible album but only Checkin’ Up On My Baby eventually was released, on The Very Best of Mick Jagger compilation that came out in 2007. The seeds of a great blues covers album were obviously there.

11. Ron Wood, Sure The One You Need . . . Mick and Keith wrote and gave this one to Ronnie before he was even in the band. It appeared on Wood’s first solo effort, I’ve Got My Own Album To Do. The album features various members of the Faces and the Stones, including Mick Taylor, who was soon replaced by Wood. For my money, it’s tied with 1992’s check Slide On This as Woody’s best solo record.

12. New Barbarians (Ron Wood, Keith Richards and friends), Sweet Little Rock ‘n’ Roller (live) . . . Chuck Berry tune that opened most Barbarians shows during the band’s short but spirited life and 1979 tour that included the combined Keith Richards/Stones benefit for the blind concert in Oshawa, Ontario, Richards’ penance for his 1977 drug bust in Toronto. Still amazed that I managed to get tickets and attend the first of the two shows that April afternoon in Oshawa’s 5,000-seat hockey arena.

13. Keith Richards, Will But You Won’t . . . He is, after all, known as the riff master. From Richards’ second solo album, Main Offender, released in 1992.

14. Mick Jagger, Evening Gown . . . Jagger is great at ballads like these, whether in the Stones or solo. I’ve selected a series of them, as you’ll see/hear. This one’s from 1993’s Wandering Spirit album, the most Stones-like of his solo releases.

15. Keith Richards, Yap Yap . . . You talk too much, the lyric goes. Probably talking about Mick.

16. Mick Jagger, Hang On To Me Tonight . . . Another of those great ballads. I like ’em, anyway. From Wandering Spirit.

17. Ron Wood & Bo Diddley, They Don’t Make Outlaws Like They Used To (live) . . . From a 1987 show at the Ritz, New York that came out on Live At The Ritz in 1988. A mixture of Bo Diddley, Faces, Stones and solo songs, it made No. 40 in Japan.

18. Mick Jagger, Party Doll . . . Best song, to me, this ballad from Jagger’s critically-panned 1987 Primitive Cool album. The thing with Jagger solo albums is that, aside from Wandering Spirit, they’re not like Stones albums – because they’re solo albums – so if that’s what people are expecting, going in, chances are their judgments are going to be based on that with the risk being perhaps not granting the work an open-minded listen. I, too, prefer Stones-like material, but repeat listens reveal Primitive Cool, for all its 1980s overly slick production and so on, to be not nearly as bad as the savaging it took upon release. Songs like War Baby, Kow Tow, Peace For The Wicked, the title cut, among others, are pretty good. But Jagger didn’t help himself by releasing Let’s Work, likely the album’s weakest cut, as the lead single.

19. Ron Wood, Must Be Love . . . From Slide On This, Wood’s excellent 1992 album. It came during a fertile period 1992-93 period, solo-wise, from the Stones. Wood had this album, Keith Richards released Main Offender, also in 1992 and Mick Jagger followed with Wandering Spirit in 1993. All were released once the band realized that solo albums needn’t be a source of friction between them, especially Jagger and Richards, but possible fuel for future band collaborations. The result was 1994’s Voodoo Lounge, one of the group’s best latter-day albums.

20. Marianne Faithfull, Sister Morphine . . . Twelve-inch single version of the song she co-wrote with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and released as a Faithfull single, produced by Jagger, in 1969. The Stones’ own version, featuring slide guitar from Ry Cooder, was recorded during the Let It Bleed album sessions in 1969 but didn’t appear until 1971’s Sticky Fingers album. This Faithfull version appeared on expanded editions of her 1979 album, Broken English.

21. Marianne Faithfull, Why D’Ya Do It? . . . My pick for the most vitriolic, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned songs/lyrics ever. It was absolutely jarring to hear on first listen. From the Broken English album.

22. Keith Richards, You Don’t Move Me . . . Well, that’s why I did it, you don’t move me anymore. Actually, it’s a shot at Mick Jagger, during the so-called mid-1980s World War III between the Stones’ leaders, and appeared on Richards’ first solo album, Talk Is Cheap, in 1988.

1. Heart, Rock and Roll (live) . . . Fun intro from Ann Wilson channelling John Lennon’s “thank you on behalf of the group’ , from the Beatles’ rooftop concert, before Heart rips into covering one of their favorite bands, and inspirations, Led Zeppelin. The live cut appeared on Heart’s Greatest Hits/Live compilation release in 1980.

2. Rory Gallagher, Big Guns . . . Fast cuts only today, like this one from the late great Gallagher.

3. Bob Dylan, Neighborhood Bully . . . Dylan is not generally known for rockers but he kicks butt on this defiant defence of Israel. It’s from 1983’s Infidels album as he broke from his Christian-born again album trilogy (Slow Train, Saved and Shot Of Love) on a terrific record which featured Mick Taylor, Mark Knopfler and the Jamaican rhythm section team of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare.

    

4. Aerosmith, My Fist Your Face . . . From, in many ways, the last ‘original’ Aerosmith album, Done With Mirrors, 1985. It was their last album before they started using outside writers, ascended to greater commercial mainstream heights, but lost much of their earlier raunch and roll edge.

5. Jethro Tull, Cross-Eyed Mary . . . I wanted to play a Tull rocker, settled on this one, from 1971’s Aqualung album. Iron Maiden covered it in 1983. Ian Anderson’s reaction: “A spirited rendition by a young Bruce (Dickinson) testing out his vocal range in a key not really suited to him!”

6. The Rolling Stones, Bitch . . . One of my favorite Stones’ songs, great guitar tandem work by Mick Taylor and Keith Richards including what Taylor described as one of Richards’ best solos, mid song. The story goes that during the recording of the Sticky Fingers album, the band, at first without Richards who was late to the studio, was struggling with the track. He walks in, goes to the studio kitchen, starts eating a bowl of cereal, sits and listens for a bit, gets increasingly frustrated at what he hears as an aimless racket, asks for a guitar, and the song we know is born. It reminds me of another story I’ve read about Richards, and Taylor. It was long after Taylor left the Stones, mid-1980s he’s doing a club tour. I saw one of the shows; he was the opening act to John Mayall at Ontario Place in Toronto and sat in with his old mentor Mayall on some tunes. Due to his contributions to the tune, Taylor generally includes at least the long instrumental passage from Can’t You Hear Me Knocking in his sets. But on this particular night, Richards is in the audience, Taylor calls him up on stage and an intoxicating jam performance of the song results. I have it on bootleg, from a New York state club show, Dec. 28, 1986.

7. Santana, Hope You’re Feeling Better . . . Nice rocker, outside of Black Magic Woman likely my favorite track from the Abraxas album.

8. The J. Geils Band, First I Look At The Purse (live) . . . One of my favorite songs, by anyone, done the way Geils ought to be heard, live from Full House. The band was from the Boston area but their second home, due their popularity there, was Detroit, where this was recorded.

9. Ted Nugent, Motor City Madhouse . . . Speaking of the motor city, and the Motor City Madman . . .

10. Blue Oyster Cult, Cities On Flame With Rock and Roll . . . All one generally hears of BOC on commercial radio is (Don’t Fear) The Reaper or Burnin’ For You. Excellent songs, obviously, but so is this one, well known to BOC fans and, as a deep cut, a reason why my show exists.

11. Bob Seger, Heavy Music/Katmandu (Live Bullet version) . . . Speaking, again, of Detroit . . . Michigan guy, Seger, Michigan venue, Detroit’s Cobo Hall, great live album that upon its early 1976 release broke the then-journeyman artist to a wider audience and deservedly so.

12. Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell . . . Heavy music, indeed…Title cut from one of those albums, like AC/DC’s Back in Black, where a new singer (Ronnie James Dio) comes in to replace an icon like Ozzy Osbourne as Brian Johnson did Bon Scott, the fan base wonders how things will go . . . and all is well.

13. AC/DC, Evil Walks . . . Speaking of AC/DC, as our songs/titles delve into dark realms.

14. Atomic Rooster, Death Walks Behind You . . . An old buddy from early in my newspaper career was major into Atomic Rooster who, at the time, early 1980s, I had heard of but not heard. Thanks to him, got into them, and the rest is history.

15. Budgie, Homicidal Suicidal . . . Not that I’m on a death or downer kick but again, look at the last few song titles. Just coincidence, really, picking out hard rock songs.

16. Van Halen, D.O.A. . . . I like both the David Lee Roth and Sammy (Van Hagar) versions of Van Halen but this is the type of vocal performance, not to mention the insistent Eddie Van Halen riff, that proponents of the ‘Van Halen is only Van Halen when Roth is singing school’ might point to. Unless, that is, they listened to the Tokyo Dome Live In Concert album, recorded on the reunited band’s 2013 tour and released in 2015. I took it back. It’s terrible. The playing is fine, but Roth can’t sing anymore; if he ever really could, although he sang his way – being more an entertaining and effective ad-libber talk-singer. On the Tokyo album it’s just embarrassing.

17. Headstones, Headlight Holds A Deer . . . Another good one from the just released Flight Risk album from the take-no-prisoners Canadian rockers. I played Hotel Room from the same album last Saturday on my early morning show. It’s a great record, but no surprise, the Headstones I find are pretty consistent.

18. Accept, Fast As A Shark . . . Fun intro with the Germanic beer/dance hall stuff, then the needle scratching the vinyl, the scream, the riff and we’re into some speed/heavy metal.

19. Motorhead, The Chase Is Better Than The Catch . . . Often true. Then comes the actual relationship, the compromises, etc. What a concept.

20. Megadeth, Peace Sells . . . But, as the lyrics go, who’s buying? Nobody, really, ever, if human history is a judge. We humans tend to talk about it a lot, though. Wasted words, apparently, to quote an Allman Brothers Band song title.

21. Metallica, Better Than You . . . The Load and Reload albums totally split the Metallica fan base, which started splintering an album earlier upon release of the more mainstream monster sales album Metallica, aka The Black Album, 1991. So the band changed their look, got haircuts, changed their sound a bit, so what? The music’s still good, just maybe different, and they’ve since largely returned to their thrash metal roots. All a matter of preference and taste, of course. This one’s from Reload.

22. Judas Priest, One For The Road . . . Likely largely forgotten track from Rocka Rolla, the band’s debut release in 1974. It was a different Priest, then, heavy, but more progressive and pscychedelic, quite good, to me, although the album stiffed and the band’s future was in question. Still, this song, in spots, could be seen as a precursor to the full hard rock/metal the band later regularly issued, even as soon as the very next album, Sad Wings Of Destiny. That title cut and other songs like The Ripper set Priest on the road to mass popularity.

23. Deep Purple, Comin’ Home . . . Love this rocker from the very diverseCome Taste The Band album, the one and only record featuring the late great Tommy Bolin, who replaced iconic original guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. Reviews were mixed, even some band members like Jon Lord didn’t consider it truly a Purple album, but its merits have become more appreciated over time since it came out in 1975. I’ve liked it from first listen, upon release.

1. R.E.M. (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville . . . A single from the band’s second album, Reckoning, which failed to chart in 1984 when the group was still something of an underground act, albeit critically acclaimed. It’s about a real place, Rockville, Maryland, part of the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Band member Mike Mills wrote the tune as a plea to his then-girlfriend not to return to the city, where her parents lived.

2. Atlanta Rhythm Section, Doraville . . . A tribute to the Atlanta suburb where the group formed, originally as the session band at Studio One in Doraville.

3. Joe Cocker, Inner City Blues . . . Cocker’s cover of the Marvin Gaye tune, from Gaye’s 1971 blockbuster What’s Going On album. Cocker’s version appeared as a bonus track on expanded re-releases of his 1982 album Sheffield Steel.

4. Led Zeppelin, I’m Gonna Crawl . . . Bluesy cut from the band’s final studio album, In Through The Out Door, released in 1979.

5. Headstones, Hotel Room . . . Typical blistering track from the Canadian band’s just-released new album, Flight Risk.

6. David Bowie, Win . . . From Young Americans, 1974. Bowie described the album as ‘plastic soul’, a term for soul music that is believed to lack authenticity. “It’s the definitive plastic soul record,” Bowie was quoted as saying about Young Americans. “It’s the squashed remains of ethnic music as it survives in the age of Muzak, written and sung by a white limey.” I like it. The quote and the music.

7. Colin James, National Steel . . . Acoustic blues title song, one of the few non-covers of great blues tunes but not at all out of place among them, from James’ 1997 album. The record earned James the 1998 Juno Award for best blues album.

8. Bill Wyman, Every Sixty Seconds . . . From Wyman’s second solo album, 1976’s Stone Alone, which followed Monkey Grip, released in 1974. A long list of musician friends helped Wyman out on the record, including Van Morrison, Joe Walsh, Ron Wood, Dr. John, Jim Keltner and Danny “Kootch’ Kortchmar. Stone Alone is also the name of Wyman’s 1990 book on The Rolling Stones.

9. Long John Baldry, It Ain’t Easy . . . Title song from Baldry’s 1971 album. Excellent stuff, with members of Faces and Elton John’s band at the time helping out.

10. 10cc, The Second Sitting For The Last Supper . . . Nice riff to this one from The Original Soundtrack, the 1975 album that featured the band’s big hit, I’m Not In Love.

     

11. Steely Dan, Kings . . . Speaking of nice guitar playing, check out the solo by session ace Elliott Randall, who also did the well-known solo and played lead on Reelin’ In The Years, also from the band’s 1972 debut album, Can’t Buy A Thrill. I didn’t play a track from the album for this reason, but noticed in putting the set together that Can’t Buy A Thrill is 50 years old now (!!??), released in November 1972. Where does the time go?

12. Neil Young, Coupe de Ville . . . I love this spooky, brooding track from Young’s 1988 This Note’s For You album.

13. Donovan, Young Girl Blues . . . One of those songs – and a good one it is – that comes up, via title association, while I’m searching from something else among the many tunes from my collection that I’ve downloaded into the station’s computer. It’s a fun, somewhat random way of putting together at least part of my sets each time.

14. Townes Van Zandt, Colorado Girl . . . Same ‘related search’ thing with this tune from the troubled Townes, whose own demons of drugs and alcohol often inspired his art but, ultimately, sadly did him in at 52.

15. David Wilcox, My Eyes Keep Me In Trouble . . . Title song from the Canadian icon’s 1983 album. Many men can relate to the sentiments expressed within, I’d suggest. Not that one necessarily acts on those sentiments.

16. Simon and Garfunkel, Cecilia . . . It’s a deep cuts show and this was a big hit, top five and better in most countries, but what the heck? My show is called So Old It’s New, after all, and when’s the last time you heard it unless you’ve listened to the Bridge Over Troubled Water album or a Simon and Garfunkel compilation, lately? I knew a Cecilia in Grades 7 and 8. Pretty girl, very nice, had the last (slow) dance with her at a school dance in Grade 8. Nothing developed, though, given my not finely-tuned antennae at the time.

17. Rod Stewart, You’re My Girl (I Don’t Want To Discuss It) . . . So, here’s the ‘girl’ song I was actually looking for when all the other ones preceding it in my set list came up. Nice rocker from Gasoline Alley, Stewart’s second solo album, 1970, when he was maintaining parallel careers alongside Faces, most members of whom backed him on his terrific solo releases between 1969 and 1974.

18. Dickey Betts, Bougainvillea . . . Co-written by actor and sometime musician Don Johnson, probably best known via the 1980s TV show Miami Vice. Johnson also does backing vocals on the track, a seven-minute piece featuring typically fine guitar from Betts, of Allman Brothers fame. It’s from the 1977 album, Dickey Betts & Great Southern (his backing band).

19. Steppenwolf, Monster/Suicide/America . . . Extended title cut from the band’s most politically-charged album in a career full of them, released in 1969.

     

20. The Notting Hillbillies, Railroad Worksong . . . From the wonderful one-off project by Mark Knopfler and then-Dire Straits bandmate Guy Fletcher. It resulted in just the one album, 1990’s Missing . . . Presumed Having A Good Time.

21. Dire Straits, Telegraph Road . . . Epic, 14-minute opener to the band’s 1982 Love Over Gold album.

22. Trapeze, Medusa . . . This is what happens when you get around to at least sort of tidying your place, specifically your spare room where the CD shelves are housed . You find and remember albums and songs from bands you’ve never played on the show because, well, you couldn’t find the damn record to download into the studio computer. Anyway, title cut from the 1970 album by Trapeze, the band singer/bassist Glenn Hughes was in before he was recruited for and joined Deep Purple in 1974. Hughes re-recorded the track for the 2010 debut album by Black Country Communion, the hard rock band also featuring guitarist Joe Bonamassa, drummer Jason Bonham and keyboardist Derek Sherinian.

23. Deep Purple, The Battle Rages On . . . Title track from the band’s 1993 album, the last one featuring the classic so-called Mk. II lineup of guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, singer Ian Gillan, bassist Roger Glover, drummer Ian Paice and keyboardist Jon Lord. It was the second reunion of the lineup, during which Blackmore finally had enough, mostly about fighting with Gillan in their mutual loathing society, and quit in the middle of the tour promoting the record. Guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani came to the rescue to finish the tour and was asked to join the band but declined, preferring to focus on his solo career although he did open for Purple on subsequent tours, one of which I saw in 2004 with Steve Morse on guitar. Purple’s productive and excellent Morse period, which included eight studio albums between 1996 and 2021, ended in 2022 when Morse took first a temporary hiatus and then permanent departure to care for his wife, who is battling cancer. Simon McBride, an Irish singer/guitarist who stepped in for Morse on tour, has since been named a permanent replacement/full fledged member of Deep Purple, which is planning a new studio album for 2023.

A spooky title cut to Alice Cooper’s 1971 album serves as a sort of Halloween song but it’s more my way of introducing something of a tribute show to Jerry Lee Lewis, who was known as The Killer. The last man standing of the great 1950s rock and rollers, he died last Friday, Oct. 28, at age 87. I had planned to do a ’50s rock and roll show soon, but upon Lewis’s passing I decided to move things up. So, here we are with Lewis and many of his 1950s contemporaries, plus a few cover tunes by some of the later greats who were inspired by them.

1. Alice Cooper, Killer
2. Jerry Lee Lewis, Chantilly Lace
3. Jerry Lee Lewis, Breathless
4. Jerry Lee Lewis, High School Confidential
5. Jerry Lee Lewis, What’d I Say
6. Jerry Lee Lewis, Thirty Nine and Holding
7. Jerry Lee Lewis, Me and Bobby McGee
8. Elvis Presley, Little Sister
9. Screaming Jay Hawkins, Little Demon
10. Chuck Berry, The Downbound Train
11. Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, Shakin’ All Over
12. Gene Vincent, Race With The Devil
13. Little Richard, Lucille
14. Smiley Lewis, I Hear You Knocking
15. Jackie Brenston, Rocket 88
16. Vince Taylor and his Playboys, Brand New Cadillac
17. Duane Eddy, Rebel Rouser
18. Frankie Ford, Sea Cruise
19. Lloyd Price, Lawdy Miss Clawdy
20. Buddy Holly, Well All Right
21. The Coasters, Yakety Yak
22. Johnny & The Hurricanes, Reveille Rock
23. Johnny Burnette and The Rock ‘N’ Roll Trio, The Train Kept A-Rollin’
24. Larry Williams, Short Fat Fannie
25. The Ventures, Walk – Don’t Run
26. Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, I’m Not A Juvenile Delinquent
27. The Champs, Tequila
28. Dion, Runaround Sue
29. Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry, Ain’t Got No Home
30. Larry Williams, Bony Moronie
31. Danny and The Juniors, Rock and Roll Is Here To Stay
32. The Rolling Stones, Let It Rock (live, Leeds University 1971)
33. Johnny & Edgar Winter, Rock & Roll Medley (Slippin’ and Slidin’/Jailhouse Rock/Tutti-Frutti/Sick and Tired/I’m Ready/Reelin’ and Rockin’/Blue Suede Shoes/Jenny Take A Ride/Good Golly Miss Molly)
34. Eddie Cochran, Twenty Flight Rock
35. The Who, Summertime Blues (Live at Leeds version)
36. The Beatles, Money
37. Big Joe Turner, Shake Rattle and Roll
38. Jerry Lee Lewis, Once More With Feeling
39. Jerry Lee Lewis, Drinking Wine Spo-Dee O-Dee
40. Jerry Lee Lewis, Great Balls Of Fire
41. Jerry Lee Lewis, Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On
42. Bobby Charles, See You Later Alligator

1. Teenage Head, Disgusteen . . . Nice day for a party, isn’t it? Great spoken intro, plays on scenes from The Exorcist, hypnotic hook, what else can one ask for?

2. Ramones, Do You Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio? . . . The Ramones under the influene of exacting “wall of sound’ producer Phil Spector, from their 1980 album End Of The Century. The marriage was a divorce waiting to happen, given Spector’s painstaking, perfectionist producing of a band that was, by its nature, anything but polished and was used to doing things very quickly and damn the details. Yet for all that, what is something of an outlier album in the Ramones’ ouvre is the highest-charting (No. 44 on Billboard) of their records and achieved its intent – breaking the band to a more mainstream audience.

3. Sex Pistols, EMI . . . An eff you to their previous record company, which dropped them out of fear of the label’s reputation being damaged due to the band’s antics. Kick-butt tune, musically, as is the entire Never Mind The Bollocks album.

4. Graham Parker & The Rumour, Passion Is No Ordinary Word . . . Never a single yet one of those tracks that becomes widely associated with an artist. He even used it as the title to his excellent 1993 two-CD compilation album.

5. Elvis Costello, I’m Not Angry . . . Yes you are. Or were. That’s why I bracketed you with GP and JJ, the other two ‘angry young men’ of that late 1970s period when punk and new wave were all the rage, coinciding with my college years. Great times.

6. Joe Jackson, Mad At You . . . One can never account for why and how some things succeed and others don’t. The easy answer is that if something’s good, it will be successful, and vice-versa. But art is not so cut and dried, obviously. The Beat Crazy album, to me, is one of JJ’s finest achievements, the third and last of his early, new wave period. Cut for cut, it’s easily as good as his first two, Look Sharp and I’m the Man. Yet it didn’t get much airplay and bombed, relatively speaking, as did this infectious, bass-driven beauty, which was the first single.

7. Blondie, 11:59 . . . Up-tempo tune from Parallel Lines, the 1978 album full of well-known tracks like Heart of Glass, Hanging On The Telephone and One Way Or Another, in many ways the core of Blondie’s catalog.

8. Talking Heads, Drugs . . . The hypnotic music perfectly matches the title in this creation by the band and producer Brian Eno, who co-wrote the track with head Head David Byrne.

9. The Clash, Charlie Don’t Surf . . . Cue the classic scene, featuring Robert Duvall, from Apocalypse Now. From Sandinista! It’s a sprawling album, three vinyl records worth upon release in December 1980. It followed the double album mainstream breakthrough London Calling, and while the argument is often made by critics that double or (rare) triple studio albums would be better edited down to one, tighter release, I disagree but grant that it likely depends on the album. I was listening to Sandinista in the car this week, first time in a long time listening to it all the way through. And while one could argue there’s some filler, the album wouldn’t be the same without it as the band fuses myriad genres into an intoxicating whole. It’s akin to The Beatles’ White Album, which acclaimed producer George Martin said would better have been shaved to one disc. With all due respect to Sir George, I disagree.

10. Flash And The Pan, Walking In The Rain/Lights In The Night . . . Two songs from two different albums, Flash And The Pan’s debut and the title cut from the album that followed it, but to me they’ve always been of a piece in style and content, so I always tie them together. Great lyrics, at least to me, particularly in Lights In The Night: Talking to the ceiling, feeling kinda ill, if the radio doesn’t get me, the TV will. . . . Kiss another bottle, sink another drink, throw away the feeling, throw away the pill, if the bottle doesn’t get me, the thinking will.

11. Ian Dury, Wake Up And Make Love With Me . . . So there I was, first year college student still, like the brother back at home with his Beatles and his Stones from Mott The Hoople’s David Bowie-penned All The Young Dudes, and a new classmate puts on the New Boots and Panties album as we drive to a party. I was hooked. My big, tough football teammates thought I was insane and wondered what happened to the Beatles, Stones, Deep Purple, Zeppelin, etc. in my listening habits. I said, open your ears and minds; they’re all still there, you can like more than one thing at once. Then I put on the Talking Heads to drive them even more nuts.  
12. Television, Friction . . . It took me ages to get into Television’s Marquee Moon album. I could never ‘get’ why it was considered such a classic. Then, one day, it all clicked.

13. Dead Kennedys, The Prey . . . Spooky track, scary subject, an assault.

14. The B-52’s, Lava . . . I must admit I’m not that big on the B-52’s, the band I mean. The drink’s ok, although I haven’t had many, never having acquired much of a taste for the so-called hard stuff. I’ve dabbled, just never gone further. As for the band, outside of Planet Claire, easily their best song, and maybe Rock Lobster, which I don’t think has aged well, the B-52’s are more, to me, a goofball curio from a place and time although they’re still around. Anyway, I figured a show featuring late ’70s/early ’80s punk/new wave would be lacking without one of their songs, so here you go. Yeah, I know, what a backhanded endorsement. So be it. 
15. Martha and The Muffins, Paint By Number Heart . . . Third single from their Echo Beach-dominated 1980 debut, Metro Music. Nice saxophone work by Andy Haas.

16. BB Gabor, Big Yellow Taxi . . . As we transition, via Gabor’s reinvention of the Joni Mitchell hit, from a punk/new wave show into my more typical fare, so-called classic rock. I just realized I forgot to play Devo in the new wave portion, and The Police, too. Probably others. Oh well, the show is set and, well, maybe next time.

17. Bruce Springsteen, Drive All Night . . . I was reading a review of The River album, one of my favorites by Springsteen along with Born To Run and Darkness On The Edge of Town, wherein the critic mentioned Springsteen’s sometimes ‘overwrought’ singing which is the best description I’ve heard and is evident towards the end of this track. Still, it’s a fine, lengthy piece about lost love or, in the words of the same reviewer about the whole album: ‘a bitter empathy, these are the wages of young romantic love among those who get paid by the hour.’ It’s the root of Springsteen’s appeal, or at least was, during his early days.

18. Gregg Allman, Dark End Of The Street . . . Allman’s version of the classic soul song, covered countless times by various artists and worth reading up on. This one’s from Allman’s excellent 1997 album Searching For Simplicity.

19. The Allman Brothers Band, Dreams . . . I was cruising the web the other day and up popped an article detailing ‘the five Allman Brothers deep cuts you must hear”. Maybe because I’m a big fan of the band, I never thought of Dreams as a deep cut; it’s quite well known. At least to Allmans fans. On the other hand, aside from Ramblin’ Man, which made No. 2, the Allmans never had a top 10 single, amazingly enough, perhaps. So, I suppose to casual listeners, Dreams would be a deep cut. Works for me.

20. John Mellencamp, Circling Around The Moon . . . Every now and then you go back to albums you haven’t listened to in ages, like Mellencamp’s 1996 release Mr. Happy Go Lucky and think, wow, that’s a great album, and that’s a great song. And it is. What a relatively unknown, underappreciated gem, musically and lyrically: “On the day we met, I began to want you; on the day we met I began to lose you, too.”

21. Van Morrison, Hymns To The Silence . . . Lengthy title cut, a shade under 10 mnutes, from Van The Man’s 1991 album. A brilliant artist on so many levels, he’s very good at long songs, always compelling, never boring, seemingly shorter than their actual length because time passes quickly listening to them.

22. The Rolling Stones, Goin’ Home . . . From Aftermath, the fine 1966 album which, for the first time, featured no cover tunes, all songs by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as the band continued to blossom creatively. Going Home is perhaps an atypical Stones’ track, certainly in terms of length. At 11 ½ minutes, it was, at the time, the longest studio track ever released by a major rock band. And, on that note, I am goin’ home.

1. Pink Floyd, Welcome To The Machine . . This song, and much of the Wish You Were Here album, particularly Have A Cigar, is about record company BS but it could also be taken in a dystopian sense which, by titles at least, my first few selections tonight represent although as always there are stories, inspirations and motivations behind playing them.

2. Yes, Machine Messiah . . . This came up by word association while searching Welcome To The Machine. So, while I’ve played it fairly recently but not too recently, I thought what the heck, it fits the early theme of the show in both a prog rock, lyrical and song title sense. It’s from the sort of outlier Drama album by Yes, 1980, when singer Jon Anderson and keyboardist Rick Wakeman had left the band and in came singer Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoff Downes from The Buggles and Video Killed The Radio Star fame. It seemed a bizarre addition but then out came Drama, leading off with this epic and it was like relax, Yes fans, we’re still prog rock and . . . perhaps even a bit metallic. Cool cut from one of my favorite Yes albums.

3. Genesis, The Colony of Slippermen . . . Any time I listen to or hear anything from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway album I inevitably think of an old and still, from afar, buddy of mine, Gerry. He loved and still (I think) loves Genesis and would always wax rapturously about the album, starting by saying simply, “The Lamb…” and then getting into whatever point he was making. He follows the show, much appreciated. This one’s for you, friend. I like it, too.
   
4. Soft Machine, Chloe and The Pirates . . . Chloe is stuck with pirates on the colony of slippermen. No, I don’t know that, just felt like connecting the two and who knows what Chloe is or was thinking and doing? Nobody is talking because by this point, Soft Machine was an instrumental jazz progressive rock band.
   
5. Rush, Cygnus X-1 . . . From likely my favorite Rush album, A Farewell To Kings, all things considered. It’s the one I grew up with, know best and play most often although as with any great band, the catalog is deep and worthwhile listening throughout, even some of the mid- to late 80s synthesizer-dominated stuff, to a point. Playing this song tonight resulted from an auto correct typo. I was texting with one of my boys on Saturday evening and one word in whatever it was I said became Cygnus and I didn’t notice it before sending. So, I quickly recouped, blamed auto correct (not my poor editing skills), mentioned it was a Rush song, or at least part of one, and so here we are. Cygnus X-1 is, as many know, a black hole in the constellation Cygnus. Many bands write about sex, drugs and rock and roll. Rush writes about black holes which I suppose could be taken sexually. In fact, I remember although never saw the 1979 movie The Black Hole, which one of my buddies at the time in college referenced with respect to another friend’s girlfriend and, well, I better shut up now especially given the often ‘cancel culture’ nature of society these days. It’s a joke, people! As for Rush, Cygnus X-1 is part one of a two-parter. Full title Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage, it was the last song on A Farewell To Kings. On the next album, Hemispheres, they completed the epic by opening with Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres. Yeah, I know, perhaps I should have paired them today but I did that long ago and, well, just didn’t feel like it but perhaps a revisit is in order on some future full-blown prog rock show. Wonder what might have happened if, after Book I, the band broke up after promising a Book II? Well, it didn’t happen but it’s like when (Van Halen Best of Volume I comes to mind) a band releases a ‘volume I” compilation album but, due to breakup, whatever, there’s never a Volume II. I wouldn’t risk the possible bad karma, but that’s me. Anyway, Rush of course survived until retirement.
   
6. FM, Black Noise . . . From the Canadian band from which Nash The Slash came. Great track. Love the instrumental transition then heavy into the bass around the seven-minute mark of the 10-minute epic. But that’s prog rock for you, and a great thing.
   
7. King Crimson, Moonchild . . . From the ridiculously brilliant debut album, 1969, In The Court Of The Crimson King. Still and forever, although I like all their stuff, my favorite King Crimson album.

8. Joe Walsh, Decades . . . We depart from the prog theme of the first seven songs, although this is still prog-ish, in length at least, at 12 minutes. I wanted to play something from the sometimes almost deliberate but not necessarily true goofball persona that is Joe Walsh and here he, the apparent forever joker, comes with serious shit. It’s Walsh’s overview observations, sometimes autobiographical, decade by decade, of humanity’s various exercises in nonsense, mostly war, over the century of the 1900s. Worthwhile reading of the lyrics, even if you’re not into the music. From his 1992 album Songs For A Dying Planet. It bombed commercially, interestingly enough, since he mentions the A-bomb in this song’s lyrics.
   
9. The Rolling Stones, 2000 Man . . . Walsh’s album came out before the 20^th century was out, so I’m having the Stones fill in the blanks up to 2000, so to speak, by title, in this somewhat prescient tale from 1967 and the Satanic Majesties album. “Well my name is a number a piece of plastic film . . . ” “I’m having an affair with the random computer.” Etc. Kiss covered 2000 Man on their Dynasty album, released in 1979 and containing their disco-ish hit I Was Made For Lovin’ You which, and I’m not a Kiss fan, to me is a brilliant track although it naturally confused and split their fan base.

10. Deep Purple, Flight Of The Rat . . . Propulsive rocker from In Rock, the brilliant first album (and fourth overall under the Deep Purple moniker) released in 1970 by the Mk. II and most famous and successful version of the band: Ian Gillan (vocals); Ritchie Blackmore (guitar); Roger Glover (bass); Ian Paice (drums); Jon Lord (keyboards).

11. Led Zeppelin, Four Sticks . . . From Zep IV, the one with the overplayed (albeit great) Stairway To Heaven on it. Hypnotic stuff.

12. Saga, The Security Of Illusion . . . From the Canadian prog rockers, and they’re from my hometown of Oakville, Ontario, too. Nice lyrics. Sort of fit, or could be applied to, my concluding two tracks from Jethro Tull and Ian Anderson’s diatribes against organized religion. As a recovering Catholic long distanced from the church or any organzied religion, I approve of such diatribes. There is faith, especially in oneself, there is spirituality. Religion and especially religious dogma are irrelevant societal/business constructs.

13. Jethro Tull, My God . . . I blew my then age 9 or 10 elder son’s mind playing this track from Aqualung for him one night. To that point, he had only heard or been into Tull’s best-known songs/hits. So, we laid on the floor, between two speakers, and just let it wash over us. He popped up and said “dad, holy shit.” About the lyrics. And the music. Later on, as he was learning/becoming expert on guitar, we did the same between the headphones thing one night listening to the live version of the Stones’ Sympathy For The Devil, from Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out as my son so wonderfully explained the separation in a great guitar tandem (Keith Richards and Mick Taylor then) between rhythm and lead playing as so well exemplified on that Stones track where first Richards, with a brilliant solo, then Taylor to finish up, are out of this world.

14. Jethro Tull, Wind Up . . . Another perfect title to end a show and, while I usually, unless I’m doing a themed show, don’t play two in a row from a band, I’ve always seen My God and Wind Up, also from Aqualung, as lyrically connected although they are separated by other songs on the album.

Here, there and everywhere we go with the Fab Four. My Beatles’ listening habits tend to focus on the Rubber Soul album forward, Rubber Soul being the first of the band’s studio albums I ever heard, upon release in 1965 via my older sister’s collection. But in putting together today’s show, I found myself rediscovering albums I like a lot but seem to play less often, like the UK version of Help! and, in particular 1963’s With The Beatles from which I drew Please Mr. Postman, You Really Got A Hold On Me, Not A Second Time and the relatively obscure gem Don’t Bother Me. Don’t Bother Me was George Harrison’s first credited composition on a Beatles’ disc. I hadn’t heard it in ages but, as with many relatively obscure Beatles’ tunes, my reaction was “oh,  I remember this.”

Great stuff from an amazing band, particularly when one considers how these are deeper cuts yet because it’s The Beatles, many of the songs are as well known as their big hit singles. Like, for instance,  the slowed down White Album version of Revolution 1, coupled with the wacky weirdness of Revolution 9. Numbah 9…Numbah 9…on with the show which, as is often my wont, in several spots tells interconnected tales via song titles and lyrics within.

1. Good Morning Good Morning
2. I’m Only Sleeping
3. I’m So Tired
4. The Night Before
5. Dizzy Miss Lizzie
6. Getting Better
7. And Your Bird Can Sing
8. Blackbird
9. Hey Bulldog
10. Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey
11. Fixing A Hole
12. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite
13. Please Mr. Postman
14. Dear Prudence
15. For You Blue
16. Girl
17. I’m Looking Through You
18. Not A Second Time
19. Cry Baby Cry
20. Oh! Darling
21. You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away
22. You Won’t See Me
23. Lovely Rita
24. Wait
25. I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
26. You Really Got A Hold On Me
27. Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?
28. When I’m Sixty-Four
29. Dig It
30. The Word
31. Happiness Is A Warm Gun
32. Don’t Bother Me
33. Think For Yourself
34. She Said She Said
35. Tomorrow Never Knows
36. Glass Onion
37. Rain
38. Revolution 1
39. Revolution 9
40. Long, Long, Long
41. The End

1. Five Man Electrical Band, We Play Rock ‘N Roll . . . And the sign said the band known mostly for that great song, Signs, did a lot of other good stuff. Like this one, cliché band making music lyrics aside.

2. Jethro Tull, When Jesus Came To Play . . . 1991’s Catfish Rising album, from which I pulled this typically hilariously cynical Ian Anderson-penned cut, seems to get short shrift, even from Tull fans of which I am a big one. Not sure why, except for the reality that everyone hears things differently and that’s cool. It’s one of my favorite Tull albums – good hard rocking bluesy stuff for the most part full of great songs like Rocks On The Road, Roll Your Own, this one and many others.

3. Doug and The Slugs, Thunder Makes The Noise . . . The tyranny of too many choices ruling our lives but particularly our TV and internet packages and indeed home entertainment options these days means, unless we’re disciplined, that we often don’t get to or, hell, don’t even know all that’s available to us. Like, for me, The Documentary Channel in my TV package I only recently discovered I have but then I’m not a huge TV or for that matter streaming service consumer. I just have what I have, mostly for sports channels, then find that things like The Documentary Channel come with it. All of which is my usual stream of consciousness way of saying that I recently noticed, and recorded, a documentary on Doug and The Slugs, which prompted me playing the band today. Have I watched the doc yet? Of course not. It’s in my ‘to watch’ list along with books, etc. I’ll get to it, eventually, but definitely sooner than later. I saw the Slugs in 1979 in a bar in Oakville, Ontario thanks to a girl I was dating at the time during my college days, before most people knew of the band.

4. Fleetwood Mac, One Sunny Day . . . Need I tell you the story again of my older brother bringing home the Then Play On album and how much of a great musical influence he was on me? Anyway, another from that terrific album, the last of the Peter Green era.

    

5. The Rolling Stones, Loving Cup . . . This was one of mine when a Twitter music aficionado acquaintance last week asked people to name four favorite tracks from Exile On Main Street. I did add the point that, favorites are, really, each of the 18 songs on arguably the Stones’ best album, and likely my favorite album of theirs although so difficult to pick.

6. Murray McLauchlan, Playin’ Your Emotions . . . He’s obviously well known to people of a certain vintage but the breadth of McLauchlan’s songwriting and musical talent is truly revealed by the 2-CD Songs From The Street compilation, also available online, that came out several years ago and was an important release for those who still like physical product, since many of his albums have gone out of print, alas.

7. The Lovin’ Spoonful, Darlin’ Companion . . . I first heard this song, written by the Spoonful’s John Sebastian, via Johnny Cash covering it in a duet with his wife, June Carter Cash, on my dad’s Johnny Cash At San Quentin live album. Sebastian later wrote Welcome Back, the theme song to the 1970s sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter along with of course the big Spoonful hits Do You Believe In Magic and Summer In The City, the latter co-written with his brother Mark and Spoonful bandmate Steve Boone.

    

8. Elton John, Blues For Baby And Me . . . Sometimes credited as Blues For My Baby And Me. Either way, another great early to mid-1970s EJ song, a time when everything he touched turned to gold. Or platinum. Multiple times. This one’s from the Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player album.

    

9. Bob Dylan, Love Sick . . . The joy of having fellow music aficionado friends: You get texts like this, out of the blue: “When was the last time you listened to Time Out Of Mind straight through? Highly recommended for someone in need of something making sense. Just finished! Two bourbons and phew, peace for a minute.” It’s been a while, for me, listening to Dylan’s brilliant 1997 album, front to back but I will again soon, thanks to my friend’s text. And I promised him I’d play something from it today, inspired by his message and reminder of the record. Love Sick, the opening song on the Time Out Of Mind album, was released as a single but as is often now typical for classic rock artists, didn’t chart that I’m aware of and in fact made a list of ‘greatest Dylan songs that aren’t the greatest hits.” It’s pretty great, to me. But then I’m a huge fan and admire and like all his work. And I do mean all of it, even those songs that might be considered by some to be outlier failures, like some of his Christian period material for instance.

10. Meat Loaf, Life Is A Lemon and I Want My Money Back . . . Arguably a guilty pleasure for me, Meat Loaf. Just so over the top and bombastic, it’s great. Plus, sometimes, one can’t help but agree with the song title. This comes from the second Bat Out Of Hell album, Bat Out Of Hell II: Back Into Hell, released in 1993. It was almost as good as the first blockbuster, released in 1977. The third and last in the series, Bat Out Of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, came out in 2006. It wasn’t as successful but it did spawn a tour which yielded a great DVD, 3 Bats Live, taken from a London, Ontario show from that trek. Great show, during which Meat Loaf did justice to the Stones’ Gimme Shelter in a closing concert assault of covers that also featured Black Betty and Mercury Blues. I confess that, while I own a Meat Loaf 2-CD compilation that covers some of his other stuff, all I ever really listen to are the first two Bat Out Of Hell albums. And speaking of Meat Loaf DVDs, also well worth seeking out or finding online is The Original Tour, a 1978 German Rockpalast show from the original Bat Out Of Hell tour.

11. Van Morrison, T.B. Sheets . . . I think this is one of Van The Man’s best but of course they are so many, this one being yet another of those where his voice is an amazing instrument in itself. A dark tale about tuberculosis, I can’t do justice to analyzing it but it is worth reading the Wikepedia entry on it which delves into various reactions to and interpretations of it.

12. Eric Burdon and War, Blues For Memphis Slim . . . Extended, 13-minute piece of jazzy funk blues including the “Mother Earth’ segments noting the truism of men (and some women) coming out of somewhere then spending the rest of their lives trying to get back in. Burdon and War were an amazing combination over the three studio albums they did together.

13. Jon Lord with The Hoochie Coochie Men and Jimmy Barnes, 12 Bar Blow Jam (live) . . . The late great Deep Purple keyboardist at the helm for this kick ass jam from the Live At The Basement album, recorded in Australia and released in 2004.

14. John Mayall/Bluesbreakers, Ain’t No Brakeman . . . I was playing a 1990s period Mayall compilation, from his days on the Silvertone label, in the car last week. This came up, so in it goes, on the show. Originally on 1995’s Spinning Coin album.

15. Stephen Stills, Johnny’s Garden . . . Amazingly, this was not a single from the Manassas album, released in 1972. It’s well-known though, and rightly so.

16. Bloomfield/Kooper/Stills, His Holy Modal Majesty . . . Speaking of Stills, he’s credited on the overall Super Session album project but didn’t play on this tribute to John Coltrane. It’s Mike Bloomfield on guitar, before he left the sessions claiming he was having issues sleeping. So Al Kooper, who was running the show, called Stills in for the songs – including a great, extended cover of Donovan’s Season Of The Witch – that appeared on side 2 of the original vinyl album release.
    
17. The Moody Blues, English Sunset . . . I’m not typically fond of synthesizer-driven tracks but I do like this up tempo one from the 1990 Strange Times album, which barely scraped into the Top 100. English Sunset, the opening cut on the album, was the only single. It didn’t chart.

     

18. Love, You Set The Scene . . . From the the Forever Changes album, Love starts us down the scenic route (you’ll see) to close the show.

19. Billy Joel, Scenes From An Italian Restaurant . . . From the blockbuster The Stranger album. Interestingly, his record company was close to dropping Joel before he produced arguably his finest work and a deserved hit album commercially and creatively. Not a single although a well-known and popular Joel track. As for the wine of which he speaks, I started with whites but once I took a chance and realized it didn’t trigger my migraine headaches, moved to reds. And, thankfully, the migraines have faded to almost never having them, as I’ve aged. Must be the red wine. Who knew?

20. Bob Seger, The Famous Final Scene . . . Haven’t played Seger in a while. This is a studio cut from Stranger In Town but occurs to me in playing it that I meant to include something from Seger’s Live Bullet on last Saturday’s all live albums show, but I forgot amid the various other tracks. So many great songs, so little time, even with now two, two-hour shows for me each week. I’m sure I’ll get to Live Bullet again, either independently or on another live albums show somewhere down the line.

1. Paul McCartney and Wings, Venus and Mars/Rock Show/Jet (from Wings Over America)
2. Paul McCartney and Wings, Beware My Love (Wings Over America)
3. The J. Geils Band, (Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party (Blow Your Face Out)
4. Blue Oyster Cult, Dominance and Submission (Extraterrestrial Live)
5. The Rolling Stones, Dance Little Sister (El Mocambo 1977)
6. Ted Nugent, Yank Me Crank Me (Double Live Gonzo!)
7. Roxy Music, In Every Dream Home A Heartache (Viva! Roxy Music)
8. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Searching (One More From The Road)
9. Peter Tosh, Coming In Hot (Captured Live)
10. Bob Marley & The Wailers, War/No More Trouble (Babylon By Bus)
11. Eric Clapton, Driftin’ Blues (E.C. Was Here)
12. The Guess Who, Pain Train (Live At The Paramount)
13. Rory Gallagher, Too Much Alcohol (Irish Tour ’74)
14. The Allman Brothers Band, Instrumental Illness (One Way Out)
15. Yes, Close To The Edge (Yesssongs)

1. Ian Hunter, Cleveland Rocks
2. Judas Priest, Ram It Down
3. Black Sabbath, Disturbing The Priest
4. KK’s Priest, Return Of The Sentinel
5. Deep Purple, Pictures Of Home
6. Robert Palmer, Love Stop
7. Trooper, Baby Woncha Please Come Home
8. Blodwyn Pig, Ain’t Ya Comin’ Home, Babe?
9. Stray, Mama’s Coming Home
10. The Doors, Been Down So Long
11. David Bowie, Be My Wife
12. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, You Can Still Change Your Mind
13. David + David, Being Alone Together
14. David Wilcox, Between The Lines
15. Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles, Them Changes (live)
16. Stories, Brother Louie
17. Robin Trower, Confessin’ Midnight
18. Van Halen, Can’t Get This Stuff No More
19. Chicago, It Better End Soon suite from Chicago II/movements 1-4 plus Where Do We Go From Here?
20. Sea Level, That’s Your Secret
21. New Barbarians (Ron Wood/Keith Richards and friends), F.U.C. Her (live)
22. The Rolling Stones, Please Go Home
23. Tom Waits, Earth Died Screaming

1. Maria Muldaur, I’m A Woman . . . Perfect song to kick off my all-woman lead vocals show (with one sneaky exception you’ll see, coming up). Muldaur is argualby best known for her 1973 hit, Midnight at the Oasis, from her first, self-titled album but in many ways that song isn’t representative of some of her bluesier, swampy style stuff she once termed “bluesiana’ – a combination of blues and Louisiana good-time music. I’m A Woman, once done by Peggy Lee, is from her second album, Waitress In A Donut Shop.

2. Koko Taylor, I’m A Woman . . . Not the same song as the Muldaur track. This one is blues belter Taylor’s reinterpretation, lyrically, from a woman’s point of view, of the Muddy Waters/Bo Diddley/Mel London-penned Mannish Boy. Da na na na num, boom de boom.

3. Pretenders, Stop Your Sobbing . . . A cover of the Ray Davies-written Kinks’ tune, which led to a relationship between Pretenders’ frontwoman Chrissie Hynde and Davies. The song appeared on the Kinks’ first album in 1964 and the Pretenders’ debut in 1979. It’s one of those few instances where I prefer the cover version and I’m a huge Kinks fan. It’s not markedly different, just sounds better to me, perhaps due to more advanced sound and production techniques. The Kinks’ version on their live One For The Road album kicks better butt given it was done later, on their tour promoting the 1979 major comeback Low Budget album.

4. Bonnie Raitt, Spit Of Love . . . Raitt’s albums are usually heavy on covers of songs by great writers like John Hiatt but she wrote this nice groove tune, from her 1998 album Fundamental.

5. Linda Ronstadt, Mental Revenge . . . A Mel Tillis song from her 1970 album Silk Purse. Early stuff. Very country, more so, arguably, than Tillis’s own version. Like Raitt, to an even greater degree Ronstadt was more an interpreter, and a great one, of songs written by others, than a writer herself. That’s not meant as a criticism by any stretch. There have been many artists – Elvis Presley for one – who didn’t write much of their own material although in Elvis’s case, he might have written but it was more a matter of that’s how the industry worked then; writers and performers were often separate. And in any behind-the-scenes looks at Elvis recording, it’s apparent he’s in command of the sessions so it’s not as if he and those like him were just voices for other people’s words. In Ronstadt’s case, there’s lots to be said for an artist’s ability to select great material to cover and she once said that some of the favorites among the songs she sang were not her hits, but deeper cuts. Like this one. Sadly, I had to say Ronstadt ‘was’ more an interpreter because she’s long since retired – her amazing and versatile voice has been silenced by progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative disease affecting the brain. Her wonderful career, including her sad decline, is well covered in the excellent documentary, The Sound of My Voice. A must watch for any music fan.

6. Pat Benatar, Rated X . . . Likely my favorite Benatar tune from my favorite album of hers, the debut In The Heat Of The Night, 1979. Rated X, surprisingly to me not on any compilation Benatar has released, was the first song I heard from the album and hence the first Benatar I ever heard, back when commerical rock radio dug a little deeper, because the song was only released as a single in France where it made No. 30. Written and also performed by England-born, Vancouver-raised Nick Gilder of Sweeney Todd and solo fame.

7. Keith Richards/Norah Jones, Illusion . . . Here’s my sneaky exception to the all-woman show theme, although there are occasional male voices on other songs in the set, via backing vocals. But no outright duets like this one with Jones from Richards’ most recent solo album, Crosseyed Heart, released in 2015. I play something from my favorite band, the Stones or Stones-related (what I call Stones, Inc.) material every Monday on my other show. And while I don’t intend to do that on this still-new Saturday gig (although I do plan to do a solo Stones show at some point along with solo Beatles, etc.), I wanted to play something from Jones and, well, this came up first in the computer when I was searching Heart tracks. Later, I saw other Norah stuff but, by then I was set so . . .

8. Marianne Faithfull, Guilt . . . Another from Stones, Inc. I suppose one could say, Faithfull of course once having been involved with Mick Jagger. From her brilliant Broken English album.

9. Fleetwood Mac, Storms . . . Stevie Nicks wrote and sang this one, from 1979’s Tusk album. Some people, critics included, were perplexed by the double album given the immediacy and more commercial appeal of the two records – the self-titled so-called white album and Rumours – that preceded Tusk but like so many doublt albums, it’s full of gems that reward repeat listens.

10. Alannah Myles, Rockinghorse . . . Myles had the massive hit with Black Velvet, from her debut album, along with several other big singles but this title cut from her second album, while not released as a single, remains one of my favorites of hers.

11. Sass Jordan, Ugly . . . Kick butt rocker from the Rats album. George Clinton of Parliament/Funkadelic fame is credited with ‘talking, backing vocals’ on the record and I’m pretty sure that’s him yakking on the intro and outro although there’s other guys playing instruments and providing backup singing on the track. Jordan has entered the covers album industry and that’s a good thing. She’s released two blues covers albums since 2020, the latest coming out in June of 2022. Rebel Moon Blues and Bitches Blues are terrific albums and unsurprisingly so, given Jordan’s throaty, seductive voice. It’s made for deep blues.

12. Jefferson Airplane, Greasy Heart . . . One of the great examples, to me, of Grace Slick’s singing. Viciously aggressive I’d call it, over top of great rhythm guitar work by Martin Balin and Paul Kantner. Jorma Kaukonen provides the lead guitar theatrics.

13. Janis Joplin, Half Moon . . . From Pearl, her final album, released in January of 1971, three months after Joplin died. Track for track, it’s her best, in my opinion but it’s the one I know best since I grew up with it thanks to my older sister playing the shit out of it and why wouldn’t she? It’s a great album. I had great sibling role models for my music in my older sister and brother, who I’ve often mentioned.

14. Bobbie Gentry, Apartment 21 . . . I’ve said it enough whenever I play her but it bears repeating for those who only know Gentry for her big hit, Ode To Billie Joe. I strongly suggest digging deeper. Great artist, one of the first women who wrote and produced much of her own material. She quit the music industry in the late 1970s, having had enough. I find that kinda cool. I’ve done it, I’m done, kind of thing. I like nonconformists, being one myself and it’s not contrived, it’s just one’s nature. She last performed publicly in 1981 and last appeared in public at the Academy of Country Music Awards in 1982 after which she essentially disappeared off the face of the earth. Now 80, presuming she’s still around, she lives in a gated community near Memphis, Tennessee, according to some reports. Or, according to other reports, she’s in Los Angeles.

     

15. Heart, Bebe Le Strange . . . Title cut rocker from the band’s 1980 album. It was released as a single but, ridiculously, didn’t make the top 100 on Billboard, the first Heart single not to achieve that status.

16. The Mamas & The Papas, Dream A Little Dream Of Me . . . Mama Cass, Cass Elliott, takes lead vocals on this standard that dates to 1931. John Phillips, prime papa, says so at the beginning of the song. And I trust him.

17. Melissa Etheridge, Refugee . . . Yes, it’s the Tom Petty song, done semi-acoustically, at least to start things off. It was a ‘new’ track on Etheridge’s 2005 greatest hits album. Nice version.

18. Martha and The Muffins/M + M, Obedience . . . This is an outlier among the more rock and blues-oriented sound of this set, a new wave, techno Talking Heads-type track from 1983’s Danseparc album, issued during the band’s brief and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to rebrand as M + M. The evolution of the band’s name is interesting reading. Originally, Martha and The Muffins was supposed to be a temporary name, but the name stuck, thanks in large measure to the band’s first and best-known hit, Echo Beach.

19. Patti Smith, Soul Kitchen . . . Cover of the Doors’ song, from the excellent all-covers album, Twelve, which I often mine for my shows if and when I play Patti.

20. Nina Simone, Wild Is The Wind . . . Great song, amazing voice. Thanks to David Bowie for introducing me to it via his version that appeared on the 1976 album Station To Station. Johnny Mathis also did it.

21. Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, Hound Dog . . . Made famous in the mainstream by Elvis Presley, this is the original version of the Jerry Leiber-Mike Stoller track, recorded by Thornton in 1952 and released in 1953 and a big hit for her on the blues and R & B charts. Elvis followed it in 1956.

22. Joni Mitchell, The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey . . . Terrific experimental track from Mingus, the 1979 album Mitchell recorded with jazz legend Charles Mingus, his final musical project, recorded in the months before he died. Other jazz and jazz-fusion luminaries on the album are bassist Jaco Pastorius, sax player Wayne Shorter and pianist Herbie Hancock.

23. Blackmore’s Night, Fires At Midnight . . . From former Deep Purple founding guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s folk, rock and medieval rock project in collaboration with his wife and lead vocalist, Candice Night.

24. Fairport Convention, Who Knows Where The Time Goes . . . Where does it go, indeed? The wonderful voice of the late great Sandy Denny, who also wrote the song, searches for answers. Led Zeppelin fans likely cottoned to her via her shared vocals with Robert Plant on The Battle of Evermore, from Zep IV.

25. Joan Baez, Simple Twist Of Fate . . . Baez covers one of her former flame’s tunes. I love how Baez, starting at the 2:24 mark for 25 seconds, sounds almost exactly like Bob Dylan. Maybe it is him. Good sense of humor, Joan.

26. Billie Holiday, Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off . . . I played Billie’s Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do on my Monday show last week. It came down to a choice between that song and this one, so I pushed this to Saturday, knowing I’d be doing a women’s artist show.

27. Dinah Washington, Baby Get Lost . . . All right, I’m leaving soon. Calm down, Dinah, alhough you’re sexy when you’re angry. Be happy you had a No. 1 R & B hit with this in 1949. I wasn’t even around then, so gimme a break; you’re obviously mistaking me for someone else. I showed up on the planet 10 years later.

28. Blondie, Fade Away and Radiate . . . From Parallel Lines, the 1979 album that broke Blondie big with hits like Heart of Glass, Hanging On The Telephone and One Way Or Another. This has a much different vibe than those songs, almost progressive rock in spots, and one of my favorite Blondie tracks.

1. R.E.M., Radio Song . . . Fun ditty spoofing radio was the fourth single from Out of Time, the band’s blockbuster 1991 album that featured the big hit single Losing My Religion. Radio Song was a minor hit everywhere and did make No. 5 in Ireland. The ‘hey hey hey’ refrain, as I remember it, was a bit of a shot at The Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction or, at least, classic rock radio playing the same songs by the same bands over and over again – which is exactly why I started this deep cuts show long ago.

2. Ian Dury, Dance Little Rude Boy . . . So much music, so little time that sometimes, one discovers ‘new’ music among stuff you already own but have never made the time to fully go through, or listen to very much. Such is the case for an Ian Dury compilation I own, The Very Best of Ian Dury & The Blockheads – Reasons To Be Cheerful. I own his early studio albums like New Boots and Panties!! but picked up the compilation some years ago to fill in the blanks, so to speak. And, on that compilation, up pop a few cool cuts, like this one, from his final, posthumous album, Ten More Turnips for the Tip.

3. The Rolling Stones, Suck On The Jugular . . . I almost played this funk tune from the Voodoo Lounge album last week but settled on Sparks Will Fly to open the show. But I kept it in mind so, sticking with the same album for my weekly Stones’ cut, here it is.

    

4. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Blind Leading The Blind . . . Bluesy, funky, horn-drenched catchy tune from the final album, Sometimes I Just Feel Like Smilin’, under the Butterfield Blues Band moniker, before he formed Paul Butterfield’s Better Days.

5. Roxy Music, The Space Between . . . An old work colleague of mine swears by the Avalon album, with good reason. So when I decided to get back to a Roxy Music cut this week, to that album I went. It’s an intoxicating listen, track for track.

6. Blue Cheer, Fruit And Icebergs . . . Somewhat spooky psychedelic hard rock from the band’s third album, New! Improved! Released in 1969, it’s a hybrid album in that the two sides of the original vinyl release were recorded by two different band lineups. Side two, including this track, features the writing and playing of new guitarist Randy Holden, who replaced original axeman Leigh Stephens.

7. Bad Company, Electricland . . . The only single from the original lineup’s final pre-breakup studio album, 1982’s Rough Diamonds. There’s been various reunions since for live work but it remains the last studio work with Paul Rodgers on lead vocals. The album and single were among the worst performing, commercially speaking, for the band. Good tune, though.

8. Dire Straits, Once Upon A Time In The West . . . I had a plan in mind to pair this with R.E.M.’s How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us and perhaps should have. But, best laid plans fell apart when I decided to open with R.E.M.’s Radio Song. I suppose I could have played two R.E.M. songs, and considered that, but I tend not to have a one-band, one-song policy. Enough of my mental, retrospective, gymnastics. Next tune . . .

9. The Monkees, Mary, Mary . . . Another great Mike Nesmith-penned Monkees song. The Butterfield Blues Band, who I played earlier in the set, covered it on their second album, East-West, released in 1966.

10. Billie Holiday, Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do . . . What a singer the lady was. And I agree with her sentiments as expressed in the title and lyrics.

11. Marvin Gaye, Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) . . . As we now enter the ‘message’ song segment of tonight’s set. Just listen to the lyrics of the next few songs. I was inspired to play Gaye in perhaps a surprising way: Members of a nostalgia football group I’m in on Facebook were discussing Lem Barney, a defensive back for the Detroit Lions of the 1960s and 70s and someone asked, ‘wasn’t he one of the voices on Marvin Gaye’s song What’s Going On?” Yes, he was, along with his teammate Mel Farr. So, I dug up my What’s Going On album, and here we are.

12. Stevie Wonder, Black Man . . . Not sure what to say so I’ll keep it short. Wonder is a, er, wonder. Musical genius.

13. Queen, White Man . . . I played this fairly recently if I recall correctly and too lazy to look it up. But it fits with the ‘message’ theme, lyrically. Musically, a terrific cut from A Day At The Races, 1976.

14. Joe Jackson, Battleground . . . JJ likely would never get away with the lyrics to this song, from 1980’s Beat Crazy, in today’s so-called cancel culture. But again, there’s a message beyond superficial assessments.

15. Peter Tosh, Babylon Queendom . . . One of those tunes I came upon, as often happens, when I go searching for one band (Queen) in our station computer that’s filled with so many downloads from my personal collection I ought to be getting royalties. An outtake from the Equal Rights album, it later appeared on expanded re-releases of that record.

16. Golden Earring, Vanilla Queen . . . Another from the Queen (band) search. It’s like throwing darts and often works for me at least some of the time. Killer cut from the band’s most well-known album (and rightly so), Moontan.

17. Screaming Trees, Alice Said . . . From the Seattle sound of things. Screaming Trees never seemed to get the hype of other such bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains but there’s lots of great stuff in their catalog. Good riff rocker.

18. Neil Young, Hangin’ On A Limb . . . Beautiful song from Young’s 1989 album Freedom. That’s Linda Ronstadt helping Neil out on vocals.

19. Free, Be My Friend . . . Another beauty, from the great if relatively unheralded band Paul Rodgers was in before Bad Company. Free is/was so much more than All Right Now, which is all one ever hears on commercial rock radio.

20. Patti Smith Group, Privilege (Set Me Free) . . . Interesting how one gets into bands/artists. I was a doorman in a bar, working my way through college. A covers band we had in one weekend played Because The Night, co-written by Smith and Bruce Springsteen. So I went out and bought her Easter album, from which this song comes. And the rest, as the saying goes, is history.

21. The Beatles, Because . . . One of those songs that, as a kid, was perhaps one of my least favorite from Abbey Road, as was the case with Within You Without You from Sgt. Pepper. Slow, boring, whatever. Then you start growing up, and things change.

     

22. The Byrds, Tiffany Queen . . . Yup, from that Queen search mentioned earlier. See what I mean, though? Throw darts at the board and…great little pop rocker from the later version of the band featuring the late great innovative and influential guitarist Clarence White.

23. Gillan and Glover, I Can’t Dance To That . . . From one of the many branches of Deep Purple, Inc. This rocker appeared on Accidentally on Purpose, released by Purple singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover in 1988. Well worth a listen. Dr. John (piano) and session ace Andy Newmark (drums) are the ‘name’ musician friends lending a hand. Ira Siegel and Nick Maroch aren’t household names but shine on guitars.

24. ZZ Top, 2000 Blues . . . The band was still immersed in its big commercial success synthesizer sound by 1990’s Recycler album, but a return to their blues roots was obviously brewing.

25. Gov’t Mule, I Shall Return . . . And I shall return – Saturday with my new So Old It’s New ‘2’ show, from 7-9 am ET and my regular Monday 8-10 pm ET gig.

1. Are You Ready (Brian Johnson vocals)
2. For Those About To Rock (We Salute You) (Johnson)
3. If You Want Blood (You’ve Got It) (Bon Scott vocals)
4. Bad Boy Boogie (Scott)
5. Whole Lotta Rosie (Scott)
6. What Do You Do For Money Honey (Johnson)
7. Soul Stripper (Scott)
8. Let’s Get It Up (Johnson)
9. Go Down (Scott)
10. Givin The Dog A Bone (Johnson)
11. Girls Got Rhythm (Scott)
12. Got You By The Balls (Johnson)
13. Problem Child (Scott)
14. Walk All Over You (Scott)
15. Shot Down In Flames (Scott)
16. Baby Please Don’t Go (Scott)
17. Down Payment Blues (Scott)
18. Hell Ain’t A Bad Place To Be (Scott)
19. Live Wire (Scott)
20. High Voltage (Scott)
21. Jailbreak (Scott)
22. Bedlam In Belgium (Johnson)
23. Night Prowler (Scott)
24. Overdose (Scott)
25. Rock N Roll Damnation (Scott)

So, behold my AC/DC show for Saturday, Oct. 1. Of the 25 studio recordings, 18 are sung by the late Bon Scott, the band’s original lead vocalist, and seven by Brian Johnson, who replaced Scott starting with 1980’s blockbuster Back In Black album. The numbers don’t lean heavily one way because I like Scott’s songs better; I’m a big AC/DC fan and have no preference between the singers. But, in putting the set together I was cognizant of the fact Johnson’s been at the helm vocally for just over 40 years now while Scott was the frontman for about five years before his death so perhaps subconsciously I wanted to favor Bon in terms of volume, since he obviously can’t contribute anymore. So the set just came together as it did. For my own listening pleasure, some years ago I burned seven (!?) CDs of AC/DC material – two discs featuring both singers plus a Bon 1 and 2 and a Brian 1, 2 and 3, from which I drew much of this set. At some point I may do separate shows with each singer, or a set more heavily featuring Johnson-sung material. I couldn’t help but smile while putting it together, given some of the song titles and lyrics, which support what Johnson was once quoted as saying: “We’re a filthy band.”

1. The Rolling Stones, Sparks Will Fly . . . One of those latter day Stones’ songs, from 1994’s Voodoo Lounge album, that perhaps is known only to aficionados of the band but, in another time, might have been a hit single. The whole album is arguably that way. Guitar World magazine, in a retrospective 2014 review, had the record at No. 42 on its ‘Superunknown Top 50 iconic albums that defined 1994’ list which, naturally, featured Soundgarden’s great album Superunknown from that year.

2. Dead Kennedys, Police Truck . . . It’s fun perusing YouTube comments on songs. Two come to mind re this ‘message track’, musically speaking, which could apply to most if not all Dead Kennedy’s songs: “This band has a kinda creepy sound to their music,’ says one observer. “It’s due to the guitar playing. It’s like evil surf rock,” responds another person. Yes.

3. David Bowie, D.J. . . . That’s me, your DJ. A minor hit single, Talking Heads-like, from Bowie/s1979 Lodger album.

4. Talking Heads, Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On) . . . And here’s they are, from the excellent Remain in Light album, in their style of the time.

5. Sugarloaf, Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You . . . Little wonder this was a hit single, from two-hit wonders Sugarloaf, the other being Green Eyed Lady. I don’t usually play hit singles on this deep cuts show but, what the hell. Sometimes I do, and after all, It’s So Old It’s New. It came up while searching something else. A nascent Van Halen, I also discovered, did a cover of Don’t Call Us in 1975. That version is available on a bootleg recording on YouTube. David Lee Roth introduces it by saying “I was against doing it when we learned it, but check it out, it’s good.” And it is.

6. Big Sugar, Skull Ring . . . Reggae rock from the Canadian band. Good thing we’re listening to it on the radio, not live, so you can control the volume. Great band, but geez they play too effing loud, or at least did. Saw them once in a club in Toronto, 2004. Good show but my ears were ringing for three days and I was on the verge of seeking treatment, really, before things got back to normal, thankfully. One and done seeing them live, for me, as a result. Yeah, call me an old fart but try them sometime. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Unnecessarily loud.

    

7. The Police, Shadows In The Rain . . . It was raining, on and off in my town this weekend, perhaps inspiring this terrific track from Zenyatta Mondatta.

8. Fleetwood Mac, Sugar Daddy . . . I came upon this one, written and sung by Christine McVie, in the station computer system while searching Big Sugar songs. It wasn’t a single, but may as well have been given the airplay the band’s self-titled 1975 album justifiably received. It was the first one with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham in the band, marked a shift in musical direction, yielded hit singles like Over My Head, Rhiannon and Say You Love Me and two years later came the similar but bigger commercial monster Rumours.

9. Jeff Beck, Head For Backstage Pass . . . To say Jeff Beck is eclectic is, well, it goes without saying. Short, sweet, superb, from his 1976 album Wired, his second straight great instrumental album, Blow By Blow the previous one.

10. Peter Frampton, White Sugar (live) . . . Another one I noticed during the Big Sugar search. Originally on the Frampton’s Camel studio album in 1973, it was played on the tour that yielded the blockbuster breakthrough Frampton Comes Alive in 1976 but didn’t appear on the first issue of that album but was included on subsequent expanded re-releases, beginning with the 25^th anniversary set. It’s interesting how Frampton’s solo studio stuff was not so much ignored as it didn’t do well, commercially, when he came out of Humble Pie but then boom, the live album happened and the rest is history. Same thing happened, to varying degrees, with Kiss and Kiss Alive and Bob Seger and Live Bullet, both of which arguably fueled the double live album trend of the 1970s that Paul McCartney took one full vinyl record further with his triple Wings Over America.

11. Bob Dylan, Man Of Peace . . . Put on your best “how does it fee-el” Bob Dylan voice and sing “you know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.” Yes, evil people do just that and there are many in our midst, always. Great song, great lyrics, from 1983’s Infidels.

12. Electric Light Orchestra, Tightrope . . . Never a single but a well-known cut by ELO. It’s the first song on the 1976 album A New World Record, was played extensively live and to me with its orchestral opening seguing into rock and roll would have been a great concert opener and perhaps it was although I can’t find much evidence of that on the various set list sites. ELO lost me after the 1970s but boy, were they big then. I remember the Out Of The Blue album tour, 1978. Well, not actually, I didn’t go so I wasn’t among the 70,000 or so at Toronto’s Exhibition Stadium. I didn’t like ELO THAT much and, frankly, glad I didn’t because from what I’ve seen they’re kinda boring live. Great studio band and songs, though. And, I have seen the show on YouTube (search Electric Light Orchestra Live in USA 1978) and I remember reading about it. They had a flying saucer stage setup that opened to reveal the band, although you don’t see the saucer on the concert film which tells me whoever posted the video should have prefaced it with Jefferson Airplane’s song Have You Seen The Saucers? But you can’t expect such depth of music knowledge from most people. And besides, a flying saucer opening I don’t think compares to Pink Floyd crashing a model airplane while playing On The Run live.

13. Donovan, Atlantis . . . It’s worth reading about this great song, how the various record company people on either side of the pond debated it as being either an A- or B-side, thinking its spoken-word early part would not resonate. But as often happens, the execs didn’t properly read how the public hears or otherwise accepts things that the so-called experts deem to not be of value. In short, it became a hit, and justifiably so.

14. Flash and The Pan, Atlantis Calling . . . Well, I just had to play this after playing the Donovan track. And, as listeners/followers of the show know, Flash and The Pan remains one of my favorite bands. I won’t drone on, OK maybe just a bit, about how Harry Vanda and George Young, the brains behind the band, produced early AC/DC records, with George Young being the older brother to AC/DC’s Angus and Malcolm Young.

15. Streetheart, Can You Feel It . . . I originally had this rocker pegged for my debut So Old It’s New ‘2” show this past Saturday which featured kick-ass hard-rocking tunes but given the nature of much of what I played, I took it out as not ‘hard’ enough to fit the theme. It could have, still, but anyway I went with a different lineup so here it comes at you tonight.

16. The Yardbirds, A Certain Girl . . . I’ll be honest. I actually prefer Warren Zevon’s cover of this to the Yardbirds’ version but I’ll admit it’s also perhaps a production thing, 1960s to 70s-early 80s achievable sounds, akin to Aerosmith maybe doing a better job on Train Kept A Rollin’ than did the Yardbirds. Then again, the guitar solo just kicked in so dismiss everything I just said and besides, given Clapton was in the Yardbirds, it sets up the next song, which was my intention in the first place.

17. Eric Clapton, Next Time You See Her . . . A Certain Girl…Next Time You See Her…Get it? Oh, shut up, Bald Boy with your silly word play. Always loved this one, from Slowhand which, as I’ve said before when I’ve played stuff from it, is just a brilliant album, excellence personified track for track.

18. Neil Young, Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown . . . Great song from Tonight’s The Night and another deliberate setup for my next tune.

19. Petula Clark, Downtown . . . I’ve always loved this song and forever will. One of the first songs I remember hearing, in 1964, age 5, along with early Beatles and Rolling Stones songs. Was a hit, of course, and this is a deep cuts show but as my mantra goes, So Old It’s New (with occasional long lost or unknown singles like the Sugarloaf song I played earlier) and to some or many, it may be new. Clark never matched Downtown commercially but she had lots of great stuff like I Know A Place, My Love and many more. Just a great singer, one of those you might listen to beyond Downtown and think, oh, that’s her?

20. John Lee Hooker and Canned Heat, Burning Hell . . . This is the full version, from Hooker N Heat, with about 90 seconds of pre-song dialogue between Hooker and the band, well worth hearing before the typical sort of Hooker shuffle backed the Heat.

21. Canned Heat, Fried Hockey Boogie . . . And here’s the Heat, on their own. Playing it largely because not only do I like Canned Heat but perhaps unbelievably, although it’s believable of course because it’s happening, it’s already hockey season again with teams in camp and pre-season games at all levels being played.

22. Faces, Wicked Messenger . . . Faces do Dylan, from their first album, First Step, after the breakup of The Small Faces, with Rod Stewart and Ron Wood now in the band. Dylan’s song appeared on his 1967 John Wesley Harding album. Another of those tunes that’s worth reading up on, given its Biblical inspirations, that space here does not permit.

23. Tom Waits, Clap Hands . . . I love Tom Waits’ music, which sometimes isn’t even conventional music. Sometimes he reminds me, vocally, of the teacher in the old Charlie Brown cartoons you’d see on TV, wah wah, wah wah wah, wah. Like Dylan sometimes, almost not understandable. Yet great, This song isn’t one of those but I just thought I’d mention it. Not to mention the fact Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, my favorite band, played on the album from which this comes, Rain Dogs.

24. Van Morrison, Till We Get The Healing Done . . . Maybe a sequel, sounds sort of like one, from his 1979 song I cherish, And The Healing Has Begun from Into The Music but regardless, another brilliant, extended, Van The Man tune. From 1993’s Too Long In Exile album.

25. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Don’t Ask Me No Questions . . . I haven’t played Skynyrd in a while. Wanted to play some. I threw darts at the board because you can’t go wrong with Skynyrd. This hit the bullseye.

26. Pink Floyd, Eclipse . . . I spoke of Pink Floyd and crashing a plane and all that, earlier in tonight’s set. So, here they are. It’s perhaps folly to pull a separate track from an album like The Dark Side Of The Moon because all of the songs flow together in an artistic statement, but so be it. It’s probably, even subconsciously, why thanks to a station slot opening I’ve started my new Saturday morning show (7 to 9 am ET) because not only does it give me two more hours a week to play with but will enable me to not only fit more music in beyond Mondays but do themed shows, full album plays and so on. And The Dark Side Of The Moon is obviously and definitely a full album play candidate. This coming Saturday, Oct. 1, though, I’m leaning towards an AC/DC show split between Brian Johnson and Bon Scott vocals.

1. Murray McLauchlan, Hard Rock Town . . . not the hardest rocking tune, but appropriate to introduce the rest of this week’s ‘wake up the neighbors’ hard rocking show. I plan to get back to full commentaries for this new Saturday show (in addition to my 8-10 pm ET Monday show), next week. 
2. Judas Priest, Delivering The Goods
3. Blue Oyster Cult, Before The Kiss, A Redcap
4. Accept, Balls To The Wall
5. AC/DC, Let Me Put My Love Into You
6. Soundgarden, Birth Ritual
7. Black Sabbath, A National Acrobat
8. Pantera, Drag The Waters
9. Slayer, Dead Skin Mask
10. Queen, Brighton Rock
11. Led Zeppelin, Communication Breakdown
12. Whitesnake, Ain’t Gonna Cry No More
13. Rainbow, Gates Of Babylon
14. Mountain, Back Where I Belong
15. Deep Purple, Bad Attitude
16. The Rolling Stones, Lies
17. Headstones, Hindsight
18. Aerosmith, Nobody’s Fault
19. Pink Floyd, The Nile Song
20. April Wine, 21^st Century Schizoid Man
21. Metallica, The Outlaw Torn
22. Megadeth, Tornado Of Souls
23. The Amboy Dukes, Flight Of The Bird
24. Iron Maiden, Where Eagles Dare