Music for a Monday night. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Nut Rocker (live, from Pictures at an Exhibition)
2. Golden Earring, Sleepwalkin’
3. Deep Purple, A Bit On The Side
4. Jethro Tull, Rock Island
5. David Bowie, Shadow Man
6. The Rolling Stones, Laugh I Nearly Died
7. Elvis Costello, Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down
8. The Byrds, You’re Still On My Mind
9. Warren Zevon, Poisonous Lookalike
10. The Kingsmen, Death Of An Angel
11. Grand Funk Railroad, Creepin’
12. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Don’t Kill It Carol
13. Gov’t Mule, Silent Scream
14. Eric Clapton, Black Summer Rain
15. Rory Gallagher, I’m Not Awake Yet
16. The Butterfield Blues Band, Just To Be With You
17. Kansas, Throwing Mountains
18. Patti Smith, Birdland
19. George Thorogood & The Destroyers, That’s It, I Quit

My track-by-track tales:

1. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Nut Rocker (live, from Pictures at an Exhibition) . . . One of ELP’s several rock interpretations of classical works, this one from the album where the band put its stamp on the piano suite by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. Nut Rocker, however, was the last track on the album and lone piece not by Mussorgsky. It was ELP’s adaptation of a work by another Russian composer, Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Nut Rocker was also a hit single in 1962 for American instrumental ensemble B. Bumble and the Stingers, who were famously among the many artists name-checked by the one-hit wonder band Reunion on their 1974 hit Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me), which I played a few weeks ago although B. Bumble is referred to as B.B. Bumble in the first verse of the Reunion song.

2. Golden Earring, Sleepwalkin’ . . . Funky boogie boppin’ single, didn’t chart, from the 1976 album To The Hilt. Much more to the Dutch band than just the songs Radar Love and Twilight Zone.

3. Deep Purple, A Bit On The Side . . . Chugging, driving rocker from the new Deep Purple album, = 1, released this past Friday, July 19, to celebrate my birthday. 🙂 Officially a senior now, at 65. Just coincidence, of course, but a nice birthday present to myself. It’s the first studio album to feature Purple’s new guitarist, Northern Irish player Simon McBride. McBride replaces Steve Morse, who McBride filled in for on tour a couple years ago when Morse took a break from the band to care for his ailing wife who has, alas, since died. Morse eventually left the group and McBride was made a fulltime member. I liked the Morse period, which covered eight studio albums from 1996 to 2021, but McBride has fit right in and the album, rightly, is getting good reviews but I’m probably the wrong person to ask, being a huge Deep Purple fan. As for the album’s title, according to Wikipedia “the album has been described as having a loose concept around the idea that in a world growing ever more complex, everything eventually simplifies down to a single, unified essence. Everything equals one.” There’s a mathematical equation on the inside sleeve of the album cover, which gives me nightmares about high school algebra, but the cover is cool: a simple = 1 and “Deep Purple” on an otherwise entirely white background, somewhat akin to The Beatles’ White Album.

4. Jethro Tull, Rock Island . . . I’ve been going through some of Tull’s more recent albums of late, and played Occasional Demons from 1993’s Catfish Rising a couple weeks ago. This is the title cut from the album preceding that one, released in 1989. Typical Tull, part ballad, some riff rocking, nice.

5. David Bowie, Shadow Man . . . Haunting, spooky track featuring a stirring vocal performance by Bowie. It was originally recorded in 1971, but left unfinished, during the sessions for the classic 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars. Bowie reworked it in 2000 for the Toy album project, which wasn’t released on its own until 2021 although Shadow Man was included on the 3-CD deluxe edition of the compilation Nothing Has Changed, released in 2014.

6. The Rolling Stones, Laugh I Nearly Died . . . Slow burning bluesy funk track, if that makes sense but I think you can marry myriad genres, a mashup of sorts. Apparently used in the TV series Supernatural, which I’ve never seen but aside from sports, history documentaries and Star Trek I’m not a big TV watcher although all of that consumes enough time. Probably a good thing I’ve not seen Supernatural, although now I’m tempted, because then I’d think of scenes from the show instead of enjoying the song. It’s like when a novel becomes a movie and the paperback is re-released with a character or two, as portrayed by actors, on the cover. Just not my cup of tea – I prefer to imagine what characters look like or interpret the song for myself, but I ‘get’ the tie-ins.

7. Elvis Costello, Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down . . . Just randomly picked Almost Blue, Costello’s 1981 country and western covers album, off the shelf and played it driving back and forth to the gym this past week. A Merle Haggard tune, nicely done, on a solid album. The older I get, the more I seem to enjoy country music. Interesting.

8. The Byrds, You’re Still On My Mind . . . Still in the country groove, here’s another hurtin’ tune, from the Sweetheart Of The Rodeo album, the one record Gram Parsons, who sings the tune, did with the Byrds before leaving to form The Flying Burrito Brothers.

9. Warren Zevon, Poisonous Lookalike . . . About a relationship gone bad, from Zevon’s 1995 album Mutineer. David Lindley helps out on fiddle and cittern, a guitar-like stringed instrument, similar to a lute, dating to the Renaissance. Lindley, who had an extensive session playing history with many artists including Zevon, Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt, is perhaps best known on his own for his 1981 debut solo album El Rayo-X. That record featured the hit single Mercury Blues (also done by Steve Miller on the Fly Like An Eagle album), written by blues musicians K. C. Douglas and Robert Geddins and first recorded by Douglas in 1948.

10. The Kingsmen, Death Of An Angel . . . Slightly speeded up version of a spooky sort of song originally done in 1955 by the Los Angeles-based doo-wop vocal group Donald Woods and The Vel-Aires. It was released on the 1964 album The Kingsmen Volume II, subtitled “More Great Songs From The Group That Gave You ‘Louie, Louie’ “.

11. Grand Funk Railroad, Creepin’ . . . Inspired to play it by a friend mentioning it, an appropriately-titled track from 1973’s We’re An American Band album, it was the B-side to the title cut No. 1 single.

12. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Don’t Kill It Carol . . . Two different English bands with one leader. There’s the 1960s Manfred Mann of hits like Do Wah Diddy Diddy, Pretty Flamingo and their cover of Bob Dylan’s Quinn The Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn), released as Mighty Quinn by Manfred Mann. Then there’s the 1970s progressive/jazz rock Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, best known for their 1976 hit single cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Blinded By The Light. The trippy, psychedelic Don’t Kill It Carol, from 1979’s Angel Station album, made it just inside the top 50 in the UK.

13. Gov’t Mule, Silent Scream . . . Bluesy, dark, near 11-minute epic from the Mule’s 2004 album Deja Voodoo.

14. Eric Clapton, Black Summer Rain . . . Lovely track from the 1976 album No Reason To Cry. Among the personnel on the album were Bob Dylan, all members of The Band, Ron Wood, ace session guitarist Jesse Ed Davis and Yvonne Elliman, who contributed vocals to four Clapton studio albums during the 1970s and was part of his touring band.

15. Rory Gallagher, I’m Not Awake Yet . . . Typically fine guitar picking on this cantering cut from Gallagher’s second solo album – Deuce, released in 1971 – after the 1970 breakup of Taste.

16. The Butterfield Blues Band, Just To Be With You . . . Soulful blues from Paul Buttefield and friends from the In Your Own Dream album, released in 1968.

17. Kansas, Throwing Mountains . . . Great prog rock from a band that, like a lot of people, I first appreciated during the 1970s for their hits Carry On Wayward Son and Dust In The Wind but investigated more deeply, and was rewarded, as time passed. This one’s from a latter day album with a great title – The Absence of Presence – released in 2020.

18. Patti Smith, Birdland . . . I’d describe this harrowing, nine-minute production from Smith’s debut release, the 1975 album Horses, as progressive punk stirring spoken word art rock. According to Wikipedia, it was inspired by A Book of Dreams, a 1973 memoir of Austrian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich by his son Peter, and revolves around a narrative in which Peter, at his father’s funeral, imagines leaving on a UFO piloted by his father’s spirit.

19. George Thorogood & The Destroyers, That’s It, I Quit . . . I’m outta here, quitting for the night as Thorogood covers a Nick Lowe-penned song, from The Destroyers’ 2003 album Ride ‘Til I Die. The song was also done by English band Dr. Feelgood, released on the 1977 album Be Seeing You, produced by Lowe.

Another album replay set list for my Saturday show. The three records I’m playing – Black And Blue by The Rolling Stones, In Through The Out Door by Led Zeppelin and Drama from Yes – all came to mind thanks to chats with friends the past week or so.

The Stones and Zep albums, released in 1976 and 1979, respectively, came up in a discussion about albums that may not have been necessarily well received critically upon release but have seemed to stand the test of time and in the view of some, and also in so-called retrospective reviews by journalists, have risen in stature.

There’s the Stones, “auditioning guitar players” as Keith Richards termed Black And Blue. It was recorded in sessions stretching, in various stints, from late 1974 to early 1976 before its April, 1976 release and featured various guitarists including eventual Stone Ron Wood after the departure of Mick Taylor. What resulted was a brew of rock, funk, soul, disco and reggae helped along by the presence, among others, of keyboardist Billy Preston who contributed live and in studio to various Stones projects during that period, and percussionist Ollie Brown. The departed Taylor was on record as saying he enjoyed the album.

Then Zeppelin, in relative tatters with Robert Plant still mourning the death of his young son and Jimmy Page and John Bonham in the throes of drug and booze addiction, releasing a somewhat uncharacteristic, keyboard-heavy album. That’s due in large measure to the influence of bassist/keyboard player John Paul Jones, a noted if perhaps underappreciated session player along with Page in the early 1960s, who co-wrote six of the seven songs on the album, previously unheard of for anyone outside the Page-Plant songwriting duo.

And then there’s Drama, the out of left field in terms of personnel Yes album from 1980 featuring members of The Buggles of Video Killed The Radio Star fame when Trevor Horn (lead vocals, replaced longtime Yes singer Jon Anderson) and Geoff Downes (keyboards) replaced Rick Wakeman. I got talking about it, and Yes in general, when a friend mentioned he was going to see Yes on a bill with Deep Purple coming up in August and we agreed that Drama is a damn fine album. It’s one of my favorites by Yes, I don’t hear much difference between Horn’s vocals and Anderson’s, but that’s not even really the point because I like the almost metallic sound of the record, particularly its opening track, the 10-minute epic Machine Messiah. And the rest of it. So, here you go, three interesting albums for a Saturday morning.

The Rolling Stones – Black And Blue

1. Hot Stuff
2. Hand Of Fate
3. Cherry Oh Baby
4. Memory Motel
5. Hey Negrita
6. Melody
7. Fool To Cry
8. Crazy Mama

Led Zeppelin – In Through The Out Door

1. In The Evening
2. South Bound Suarez
3. Fool In The Rain
4. Hot Dog
5. Carouselambra
6. All My Love
7. I’m Gonna Crawl

Yes – Drama

1. Machine Messiah
2. White Car
3. Does It Really Happen?
4. Into The Lens
5. Run Through The Light
6. Tempus Fugit

My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list. Audio log of the show unavailable, alas, this week.

1. Montrose, Space Station #5
2. Atomic Rooster, Head In The Sky
3. Camel, Never Let Go
4. J.J. Cale, Stay Around
5. Steely Dan, I Got The News
6. The Rolling Stones, Terrifying
7. Boz Scaggs, Runnin’ Blue
8. Paris, Black Book
9. Fleetwood Mac, Born Enchanter
10. Joe Cocker, Hitchcock Railway
11. Jimi Hendrix, Ezy Ryder
12. Bill Withers, Harlem
13. Peter Gabriel, The Rhythm Of The Heat
14. Pink Floyd, Cymbaline
15. Ten Years After, Convention Prevention
16. Steve Earle, I’m Looking Through You (Beatles cover)
17. Traffic, Many A Mile To Freedom
18. Frank Zappa/The Mothers Of Invention (credited as The Mothers), Fifty-Fifty
19. Rare Earth, Ma

My track-by-track tales:

1. Montrose, Space Station #5 . . . Montrose has been top of mind because I watched a documentary on Sammy Hagar last week, so here you go. Cool ‘space’ intro and then into a propulsive hard rock tune from Montrose’s self-titled debut album, released in 1973 with Hagar of course on lead vocals. It’s where the eventual connections between Hagar and Van Halen arguably began. Eddie Van Halen was a fan of Montrose guitarist Ronnie Montrose and the Montrose album was produced by Ted Templeman, five years before Van Halen’s debut which was produced by Templeman among many Van Halen albums he was involved with, although just one, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, with the Van Hagar version of the band. Templeman, well-known for his production work with The Doobie Brothers and Van Morrison, also worked on solo albums by both Hagar and David Lee Roth.

2. Atomic Rooster, Head In The Sky . . . Driving rocker from a progressive British band whose roots are traced to The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown (known for the single Fire) which featured the late keyboardist Vincent Crane and drummer Carl Palmer, before he left in 1970 after one album with Rooster to join Emerson, Lake and Palmer. This is from the band’s third album, In Hearing Of, released in 1971.

3. Camel, Never Let Go . . . From the English progressive rock band’s self-titled debut album in 1973, melding acoustic and harder rock flourishes.

4. J.J. Cale, Stay Around . . . Typical bluesy, relaxed groove from J.J., an artist I often say did essentially the same thing for countless albums yet was always different enough to never be boring or repetitive. This is the title cut from a 2019 posthumous release of to that point unreleased material. It was put together by Cale’s widow Christine Lakeland, who was a member of his band and appeared on many albums, and his longtime friend and manager, Mike Kappus, who also worked extensively with John Lee Hooker and Robert Cray, among others.

5. Steely Dan, I Got The News . . . Funky, jazzy track from an often funky, jazzy band, from 1977’s Aja album.

6. The Rolling Stones, Terrifying . . . A swinging tune from the 1989 album Steel Wheels. It was the fourth single released from the album, did reasonably well yet isn’t among the band’s well-known tracks in terms of widespread recognition. So, I’m happy to use it as a relative deep cut.

7. Boz Scaggs, Runnin’ Blue . . . Many people I think remember Boz Scaggs for hits like Lido Shuffle and Lowdown but, long before those hits he was a member of the pre-commercial hits Steve Miller Band during that group’s early, psychedelic and blues period, then a fine solo artist in his own right as evidenced by this rhythm and blues tune from his 1971 album Boz Scaggs & Band.

8. Paris, Black Book . . . Hard rocking tune by a hard rocking, Led Zeppelin-ish band put together by mid-period Fleetwood Mac member and, later, solo artist Bob Welch, after he left Fleetwood Mac following 1974’s Heroes Are Hard To Find album. Also in the band, which released two albums in 1976, was former/original Jethro Tull bass player Glenn Cornick.

9. Fleetwood Mac, Born Enchanter . . . And here’s Welch in a different light, on this jazzy, er, enchanting tune he wrote and sang for the aforementioned 1974 Fleetwood Mac album Heroes Are Hard To Find. It was Welch’s last of five albums with the Mac, which recruited Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham and went on to massive commercial success. The band was essentially three different groups: the early, blues-oriented outfit led by Peter Green, the Welch period and the Nicks-Buckingham lineup, all excellent in their own ways.

10. Joe Cocker, Hitchcock Railway . . . Bouncy, jaunty track from Cocker’s second album, the 1969 release Joe Cocker! Cocker is joined by a host of session players including The Grease Band. That group, which backed Cocker at Woodstock, included such luminaries as keyboardist/bassist Chris Stainton, whose long list of credits include albums with Eric Clapton, Leon Russell (who also plays on the Cocker album), Spooky Tooth, Pete Townshend and Ian Hunter, and guitarist Henry McCullough, later of Paul McCartney and Wings.

11. Jimi Hendrix, Ezy Ryder . . . From the first of countless posthumous Hendrix releases, the Cry Of Love which came out in March, 1971. I remember my older brother having it, him being a big Hendrix fan who introduced me to Jimi’s music. The album was comprised of material Hendrix was working on for a planned fourth studio album, which he never completed before his death. Ezy Ryder, a funk-driven rocker, is one of the few available studio recordings by the Band of Gypsys – Hendrix, bass player Billy Cox and drummer Buddy Miles. The trio is well-known for the album Band of Gypsys, recorded at New York City’s Fillmore East venue as the calendar flipped from 1969 to 1970.

12. Bill Withers, Harlem . . . Ever-escalating soul track from Withers’ 1971 album Just As I Am. It’s the one featuring his biggest hit, Ain’t No Sunshine and is notable for the who’s who of musicians backing Withers, including Stephen Stills, Booker T. Jones and Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn of of Booker T. and The M.G.’s fame, and session drummer to the stars Jim Keltner.

13. Peter Gabriel, The Rhythm Of The Heat . . . Haunting track from Gabriel’s 1982 album, his fourth. It was called Security in North America and featured the hit Shock The Monkey, although Gabriel reluctantly went along with the ‘Security’ nomenclature the record company wanted in order to differentiate the album from what preceded it. The first four Gabriel albums are officially called, simply, Peter Gabriel but the first three are also unofficially known and identifiable as, in order, Car, Scratch and Melt based on their cover art.

14. Pink Floyd, Cymbaline . . . Early Floyd, a pastoral-type track whose sound is at odds with the dark lyrics. It’s from the More movie soundtrack, released in 1969. The movie, about drug addiction, is currently available on YouTube but, regardless, the album hangs together well as a stand-alone statement.

15. Ten Years After, Convention Prevention . . . Typically fine boogie rock from TYA, from 1972’s Rock & Roll Music To The World album.

16. Steve Earle, I’m Looking Through You (Beatles cover) . . . Earle gives the Rubber Soul song the country/bluegrass treatment; from his 1995 album Train a Comin’.

17. Traffic, Many A Mile To Freedom . . . Beautiful track from The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys album, released in 1971. Jethro Tull, and I love that band, isn’t the only group employing fabulous flute playing – here courtesy Chris Wood.

18. Frank Zappa/The Mothers Of Invention (credited as simply The Mothers), Fifty-Fifty . . . Typically great guitar by Zappa on this one from 1973’s Over-Nite Sensation, coupled with the renowned Jean-Luc Ponty on violin. Vocals by Ricky Lancelotti, lost to the world to a drug overdose in 1980, age 35.

19. Rare Earth, Ma . . . Epic, 17-minutes and change title track from the band’s 1973 album. Written by Motown ace songwriter/producer Norman Whitfield, who often teamed with Barrett Strong to write such classics as Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone, to which Ma is considered to be something of a companion piece. Among their other collaborations: I Heard It Through The Grapevine, War and Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me).

I’m featuring late 1970s-early 1980s punk/new wave and ska songs, stuff I got into during my college days, plus a segment, near the end of the set, of one-hit wonder type material of the kind one used to find on compilations from record labels like K-tel. I’ve done full shows of one-hit wonder stuff in the past, likely will do so again at some point.

This show includes Reunion’s Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me), which famously name-checks myriad artists, songs and record companies, and Blue Swede’s Hooked On A Feeling, aka the Ooga-Chaka song (Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga Ooga-Chaka …). The Blue Swede song returned to prominence via its presence in the first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie and as lead cut on the soundtrack, in 2014.

Sugarloaf, meantime, was at least a two-hit wonder. Besides what I’m playing, Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You, the group’s Green-Eyed Lady was an even bigger hit. And Hot Chocolate, represented in the set by the song Emma (you may recall the lyric Emma, Emmalene…a sad song, actually) had many hits in the UK and North America, including You Sexy Thing, Every 1’s A Winner, You Could Have Been A Lady (a North American hit single for April Wine) and Brother Louie, which American band Stories turned into the North American chart-topping version I’m playing on the show.

I’ve got a double dip of Flash and The Pan because I think those two, similar songs, Walking In The Rain from the first album and the title cut from the second release, Lights In the Night, are something of a piece, to my ears anyway.

1. Madness, One Step Beyond
2. The Selecter, On My Radio
3. The Clash, Revolution Rock
4. Dead Kennedys, Too Drunk To Fuck
5. Devo, (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
6. Blondie, I Know But I Don’t Know
7. Ramones, I Just Want To Have Something To Do
8. The Specials, Rat Race
9. Flash and The Pan, Walking In The Rain
10. Flash and The Pan, Lights In The Night
11. Elvis Costello, Waiting For The End Of The World
12. Joe Jackson, Throw It Away
13. Teenage Head, Brand New Cadillac
14. Graham Parker and The Rumour, The Heat In Harlem
15. Talking Heads, The Overload
16. The Police, Deathwish
17. Nick Lowe, Big Kick, Plain Scrap!
18. Split Enz, What’s The Matter With You
19. Ian Dury, There Ain’t Half Been Some Clever Bastards
20. Pretenders, Private Life
21. The Boomtown Rats, Up All Night
22. The Cars, You Can’t Hold On Too Long
23. The Motels, Take The L
24. XTC, Ten Feet Tall
25. Reunion, Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)
26. Stories, Brother Louie
27. Sammy Johns, Chevy Van
28. Redbone, Come And Get Your Love
29. Sugarloaf, Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You
30. Hot Chocolate, Emma
31. Blue Swede, Hooked On A Feeling
32. Billy Swan, I Can Help
33. Hot Butter, Popcorn

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

1. New Barbarians (Ron Wood, Keith Richards and friends), Am I Grooving You (live)
2. John Mayall, Gimme Some Of That Gumbo
3. Robin Trower, Victims Of The Fury
4. UFO, Queen Of The Deep
5. Pat Benatar, My Clone Sleeps Alone
6. Budgie, Parents
7. Dio, Don’t Talk To Strangers
8. Black Sabbath, End Of The Beginning
9. Bad Company, Evil Wind
10. Jeff Beck, Let Me Love You
11. ZZ Top, Snappy Kakkie
12. Stevie Wonder, Another Star
13. Joe Jackson, Blaze Of Glory
14. Jethro Tull, Occasional Demons
15. Little Feat, I Do What The Telephone Tells Me To Do
16. Santana, Every Step Of The Way (live, from Lotus)

My track-by-track tales:

1. New Barbarians (Ron Wood, Keith Richards and famous musician friends), Am I Grooving You (live) . . . A song I first heard on Wood’s debut solo record, 1974’s I’ve Got My Own Album To Do, first recorded in 1967 by American soul singer Freddie Scott. The New Barbarians were comprised of Wood, Richards, saxophonist and Rolling Stones session player/touring member Bobby Keys, renowned bassist Stanley Clarke, keyboardist Ian McLagan of Faces fame, who also played with the Stones on their 1978 tour of the United States, and drummer Joseph (Ziggy/Zigaboo) Modeliste of funk band The Meters. They toured the US in 1979 in support of Wood’s then new album Gimme Some Neck. They also stopped in Oshawa, Ontario for the Keith Richards/New Barbarians/Rolling Stones show I still can barely believe I somehow managed to get tickets to, proceeds to the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). It was Richards’ sentence for his 1978 conviction on drug charges resulting from an arrest in Toronto in 1977 around the time the Stones were in the city leading up to their famous club shows at the El Mocambo. That resulted in one vinyl side of the live album Love You Live and, more recently, a full-blown (and mind-blowing) 2-CD release of the shows, El Mocambo 1977, issued in 2022.

This live version is from New Barbarians: Live In Maryland – Buried Alive, a document of the tour that was released in a 2-CD package in 2006. Am I Grooving You was c0-written by Bert Berns (aka Bert Russell; he was born Bert Russell Berns) and Jeff Barry, hitmakers extraordinaire with a long list they either wrote or co-wrote with others. From Berns: Twist and Shout, Piece Of My Heart, Here Comes The Night, Hang On Sloopy, Cry To Me and Everybody Needs Somebody To Love. From Barry: Do Wah Diddy Diddy, Da Doo Ron Ron, River Deep-Mountain High, Leader Of The Pack, Sugar Sugar and I Honestly Love You. Berns wasn’t with us long. He had a history of cardiac trouble after his heart was damaged by a childhood bout with rheumatic fever and died of heart failure in 1967, age 38. He was the subject of the 2016 film Bang! The Bert Berns Story.

2. John Mayall, Gimme Some Of That Gumbo . . . Now age 90, the blues legend announced his retirement from touring in 2021, but left open the possibility of doing shows close to his California home. He’s released new studio albums, consistently, every two or three years, the most recent being The Sun Is Shining Down in 2022. This funky, bluesy number, featuring some fine lead guitar work from Rocky Athas, no longer in the band but who was with Mayall when I saw him at the 2011 Kitchener Blues Festival, is from the 2016 album Talk About That.

3. Robin Trower, Victims Of The Fury . . . Spooky title track from Trower’s 1980 album, the last to feature the guitarist’s classic trio of himself, bassist/soulful singer James Dewar and drummer Bill Lordan.

4. UFO, Queen Of The Deep . . . From 1974’s Phenomenon album, the third UFO album and first to feature guitarist Michael Schenker as the band moved to a more straightforward hard rock sound from their earlier space rock, psychedelic approach.

5. Pat Benatar, My Clone Sleeps Alone . . . From her first, and still for my money best album, the 1979 debut release In The Heat Of The Night. Benatar hit it really big a year later with the Hit Me With Your Best Shot single from the Crimes Of Passion album, a good record, but I still prefer the first one.

6. Budgie, Parents . . . And we enter the hard rock/metal portion of the show with this 10-minute piece from the Welsh band that never achieved widespread commercial success but was influential. Among Budgie’s disciples are Iron Maiden and Metallica, who covered Breadfan, a hellacious riff rocker I’ve played before on the show, on the Garage, Inc. covers album.

7. Dio, Don’t Talk To Strangers . . . The late Ronnie James Dio was a fantastic singer and while I like his work with his namesake band, I prefer his stuff fronting Rainbow and Black Sabbath during the time he was with those groups. Perhaps it’s because, while Dio the band had lots of fine guitarists, in Rainbow and Sabbath, Dio the singer was working with all-time great guitarist/songwriters Ritchie Blackmore and Tony Iommi. Still, as mentioned I do like Dio the band and this is a good song if you’re into hard rock/metal, from a solid record, Dio’s debut release, 1983’s Holy Diver.

8. Black Sabbath, End Of The Beginning . . . Speaking of Sabbath, a doom metal track from 13, the final studio album by the group, released in 2013 which, according to bassist Geezer Butler, is part of the reason for the album title, apparently suggested by singer Ozzy Osbourne. Also according to Butler, the band was being pressured by the record company for a 13-song album but in the end just eight songs made the standard edition although my deluxe 2-CD version has 11 tracks. The original lineup – Ozzy, Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward – had previously reunited for a concert that resulted in the 1998 live album Reuion, which featured two new studio songs including the hit single Psycho Man. But 13 wasn’t a full reunion as Ward did not participate, citing contractual issues. Brad Wilk of Rage Against The Machine and Audioslave fame handled the drumsticks in Ward’s place.

The song title reminds me of Winston Churchill’s famous line, one of my favorites of his many, after the British victory over the Germans at El Alamein in North Africa in November, 1942 as the tide of World War II turned in favor of the Allies: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” What an orator Churchill was.

9. Bad Company, Evil Wind . . . Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy was the big hit on the 1979 album Desolation Angels, and it’s a good one along with the other single, Gone Gone Gone, but the release is full of great songs, this being one of them. “That was full of Paul’s (singer Rodgers) tumbleweed across the plains imagery,” drummer Simon Kirke is quoted as saying in the liner notes booklet to The “Original” Bad Company Anthology. “I think Paul was a cowboy or one of those bounty hunters in another life.”

10. Jeff Beck, Let Me Love You . . . The Truth is, the album from which this comes is ridiculously good.

11. ZZ Top, Snappy Kakkie . . . If you played this funky groove tune to casual, hits-oriented listeners and asked them to identify the band, I wonder whether they could. And it’s OK if they couldn’t. We’re all into what we’re into, as deeply as we want to be. But that’s what of course makes great bands and albums and shows the value of listening to deep cuts. From the Tejas album, 1976.

12. Stevie Wonder, Another Star . . . I was spinning Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life the other day and was ‘oh yeah’ on this one, remembering it, having not heard it in a while. I’m playing the full 8:28 album version, which was cut down to five minutes and change for single release. The Latin-influenced exercise in rhythm was the fourth of five singles released from the album. I Wish, Isn’t She Lovely, Sir Duke and As were the others. Another Star made No. 32 on the US Billboard chart, No. 29 in the UK, No. 51 in Canada and No. 2 on Billboard’s dance/disco list.

13. Joe Jackson, Blaze Of Glory . . . Title track to JJ’s 1989 album. Despite being full of good songs, like this one, it had just one single that charted to any great degree. That was Nineteen Forever, which made the top 20 in the USA. Another good one, Down To London, managed to make, wait for it, No. 126 in Australia, despite much critical acclaim both for the song and album. No wonder Jackson was disappointed; he thought the record represented some of his finest work and I agree, but then I’m a huge fan.

14. Jethro Tull, Occasional Demons . . . Good rocker from the 1993 release Catfish Rising, one of my favorite later period (30 years ago now!) Tull albums.

15. Little Feat, I Do What The Telephone Tells Me To Do . . . Prescient, perhaps, given the ubiquity of people and their (smart)phones although this song, from 2003’s latter-day Kickin’ It At The Barn album, is more about actually calling on a phone or waiting for it to ring than, say, walking, head down and oblivious, texting or scrolling and risking bumping into people or something worse, say at a crosswalk. “Head’s up!” I have been known to say, sometimes to a ‘thank you’ response, other times drawing a dirty look. Anyway . . . Little Feat is still around, with original member and keyboard player Bill Payne still in the band as are longtime stalwarts Sam Clayton (congas, percussion, vocals) and bassist Kenny Gradney, both of whom have been in the lineup since 1972. And they’ve just released a new album. It’s called Sam’s Place, Clayton does most of the singing and is well-suited to the mostly blues covers like Got My Mojo Working and Long Distance Call, which features Bonnie Raitt on co-lead vocals with Clayton.

16. Santana, Every Step Of The Way (live, from Lotus) . . . Intoxicating instrumental that saw studio release as a nine-minute cut on 1972’s Caravanserai, whose 10 tracks included seven instrumentals as Santana moved in a jazz fusion direction. The Lotus version runs 11 minutes, 30 seconds featuring typically fiery fretwork from Carlos Santana along with the usual Santana band brew of bongos, congas and maracas.

An all R.E.M. set list, inspired by one of my show’s followers who had posted to Facebook R.E.M.’s song Low, a hypnotic favorite of mine from the band’s Out Of Time album. As a result, we got discussing the band and, since I’ve of late been doing themed shows for my Saturday programmed sets, live albums for the last four weeks, he suggested that at some point I might do an R.E.M. playlist.

So, here it is, mostly deeper cuts from throughout the band’s career as they went from an alternative ‘college radio’ band to worldwide mainstream success to, in their later days as a trio after the retirement of drummer Bill Berry 1997, declining sales and chart success in North America but solid sales and high chart placings for both albums and singles in the UK.

Berry, incidentally, became a farmer in the band’s home state of Georgia and did some sporadic music work before returning to the industry in 2022 as part of the Georgia band The Bad Ends, who released an album in 2023. I was always aware of R.E.M. but didn’t get into them until they hit the mainstream with the single The One I Love from 1987’s Document album. As tends to happen if one likes what one is hearing, I went back, and forward with them on each subsequent release. The band amicably called it a day in 2011 but not before assembling the terrific 2-CD compilation Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011.

Here’s the set list, with source album information.

1. Begin The Begin . . . From Lifes Rich Pageant album, 1986
2. The Wake-Up Bomb . . . New Adventures in Hi-Fi, 1996
3. A Month Of Saturdays . . . unreleased until issued on Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011, 2011.
4. Living Well Is The Best Revenge . . . Accelerate, 2008
5. Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter . . . Collapse Into Now, 2011
6. Low . . . Out Of Time, 1991
7. Bad Day . . . first issued in 2003 as a single from In Time: The Best Of R.E.M. 1988-2003, later also on the Part Lies . . . compilation, 2011.
8. Talk About The Passion . . . Murmur, 1983
9. Gardening At Night . . . Chronic Town EP, 1982
10. Supernatural Superserious . . . Accelerate, 2008
11. We All Go Back To Where We Belong . . . unreleased until issued on Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011, 2011.
12. The Great Beyond . . . Man On The Moon movie soundtrack, 1999
13. New Test Leper . . . New Adventures In Hi-Fi, 1996
14. Country Feedback . . . Out Of Time, 1991
15. Finest Worksong . . . Document, 1987
16. Driver 8 . . . Fables Of The Reconstruction, 1985
17. Lotus . . . Up, 1998
18. How The West Was Won And Where It Got Us . . . New Adventures In Hi-Fi, 1996
19. I Took Your Name . . . Monster, 1994
20. Tongue . . . Monster, 1994
21. Fall On Me . . . Lifes Rich Pageant, 1986
22. Sitting Still . . . Murmur, 1983
23. Imitation Of Life . . . Reveal, 2001
24. King Of Comedy . . . Monster, 1994
25. Uberlin . . . Collapse Into Now, 2011
26. Star 69 . . . Monster, 1994
27. Hallelujah . . . unreleased until issued on Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage 1982-2011, 2011.
28. Radio Song . . . Out Of Time, 1991
29. (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville . . . Reckoning, 1984

An all-Canadian artists set for Canada Day. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, T-Bone
2. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, I Think You Better Slow Down/Slow Down Boogie
3. The Guess Who, Coming Down Off The Money Bag/Song Of The Dog
4. Colin James, National Steel
5. Danko Jones, Bounce
6. Trooper, 3 Dressed Up As A 9
7. Gordon Lightfoot, That Same Old Obsession
8. Alannah Myles, Hurry Make Love
9. Tom Wilson, Sex etc . . .
10. Joni Mitchell, Sex Kills
11. Kim Mitchell, Love Ties
12. The Tragically Hip, Killing Time
13. Pat Travers, Killer
14. Rush, Something For Nothing (live, from All The World’s A Stage)
15. April Wine, Juvenile Delinquent (from Live At The El Mocambo)
16. Tom Cochrane, Willie Dixon Said
17. David Wilcox, On A Roll
18. Headstones, Cut
19. Bruce Cockburn, Burn
20. Big Sugar, Joe Louis/Judgment Day
21. Murray McLauchlan, Out Past The Timberline

My track-by-track tales:

1. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, T-Bone . . . Best lyrics ever 🙂 ; certainly easy to remember, on this bruising tune from 1981’s Re·ac·tor record. I was in northern Alberta, starting my journalism career where more of the jobs were at the time after graduating from college in Ontario, when the album came out and I remember a friend of mine raving about the song in part because of the sheer ballsiness of putting out a nine-plus minute tune whose lyrics are: Got mashed potatoes, ain’t got no T-Bone. Seven words, or eight if you count T-Bone as two words, repeated amid the guitar riffology. It actually works, and never ceases to make me smile.

2. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, I Think You Better Slow Down/Slow Down Boogie . . . Another nine-minute rocker, this one originally recorded during the sessions for BTO’s self-titled 1973 debut album, although it didn’t survive the final cut for that record. The song first saw official light of day on CD – and that’s when I first heard it though I followed BTO through the 1970s – with the release of the 2-disc Bachman-Turner Overdrive: The Anthology in 1993. That compilation was released as part of Polygram Records’ Chronicles series which has also, among other releases, compiled material by Free, Roy Buchanan and The Fillmore Concerts by The Allman Brothers Band, all of which I also own and are of high quality. The Allmans reissue is a 2-disc expanded release of songs, some in alternate form from different shows, from the Fillmore East concerts in New York City on March 12-13 in 1971 that initially resulted in the classic live album At Fillmore East, with some of the recordings later winding up on the live portions of the Allmans’ Eat A Peach album and the later deluxe expanded release of At Fillmore East.

So, there’s just a little history for you, for what it’s worth, as I started digging into it and finding it fascinating in terms of the tentacles of massive corporations. Polygram has long since been absorbed by Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest music company and one of the ‘big three’ along with Sony Music Group and Warner Music Group. Universal – which has ties to and shares a logo with Universal Pictures the movie company – has musical roots going back to the American branch of the UK’s Decca Records, which became MCA Records and also released material on the London Records imprint in North America. Decca Records, of course, is infamous for turning down The Beatles, with Decca executives saying they felt ‘guitar groups are on the way out’ and “The Beatles have no future in show business.” Decca soon corrected its error, at least in some measure, by signing The Rolling Stones, reportedly at least in part on the recommendation of Beatle George Harrison, who had by then become a fan of the Stones.

3. The Guess Who, Coming Down Off The Money Bag/Song Of The Dog . . . I’ve always loved this toe-tapping bluesy, country-ish, rockabilly-ish ditty from the band’s Share The Land album. It was the first album after Randy Bachman left the group. Guitarists Kurt Winter and Greg Leskiw – who sings this tune he co-wrote with usual lead singer Burton Cummings – replaced Bachman and the band kept on rolling while Bachman formed Brave Belt, which morphed into BTO.

4. Colin James, National Steel . . . Fabulous acoustic blues title cut from James’s 1997 mostly covers album of classic blues tunes like Muddy Waters’ Rollin’ Stone, Taj Mahal’s Going Up To The Country and Bukka White’s Fixin’ To Die. Yet, National Steel, which James co-wrote with Canadian musicians/songwriters Daryl Burgess and Christopher Ward, proves his blues bonafides alongside the legendary best.

5. Danko Jones, Bounce . . . Appropriately titled tune from the Toronto rock trio, named after its leader Danko Jones, from their 2001 album I’m Alive And On Fire. Indeed.

6. Trooper, 3 Dressed Up As A 9 . . . Yeah, this is a for the very most part deep cuts show and I know it was a single, and a sort of hit, in addition to being the leadoff cut on Trooper’s 1979 studio album Flying Colors. But, as I always say, I do play occasional singles I, or listeners, may not have heard in a while. That applies to this tune, for me.

I don’t own any actual original studio albums by Trooper but I was rifling through CDs in prepping this show and came across a ‘Green Series’ (environmentally correct cardboard packaging) Trooper compilation released in 2008 that I picked up at a used CD shop somewhere along the way and 3 Dressed Up As A 9 is on it. It’s also on another Trooper comp I don’t own, a 2010 release called Hits From 10 Albums but, perhaps surprisingly, it ISN’T on that Trooper compilation I also own and seems ubiquitous in most Canadian homes, 1979’s now 6-time platinum compilation Hot Shots. 80,000 units is platinum in Canada; platinum is 1 million in the USA so it’s the usual approximate multiply by 10 for population difference. What’s interesting about Hot Shots is how The Boys In The Bright White Sports Car became a hit single off that compilation, in a slightly different re-recorded version of a song that wasn’t released as a single in its original form on the 1976 studio album Two For The Show. I really can’t discern the difference between the versions and don’t know for sure, can’t find definitive information, but presume it’s a different master for single release as compared to the studio album.

7. Gordon Lightfoot, That Same Old Obsession . . . So I had my set list all done on Saturday night for tonight’s Canada Day show and when I got up Sunday morning I realized, I have no Gordon Lightfoot in it. I also realized that as far as The Guess Who and Canada goes, I perhaps should have played their tune Maple Fudge but, frankly, the Guess Who tune I played, Coming Down Off The Money Bag, I much prefer and I’m just playing Canadian artists, for the most part there’s no deeper meaning to the set list.

Still, as for overlooking Lightfoot in a Canadian artists’ show? That’s sacrilege! Or, it means, there’s loads of quality Canadian artists to choose from, and there indeed are, successful in Canada and abroad to varying degrees but to not include Lightfoot in such a show would be, well, yes, sacrilegious. So, I updated the list and here we go. A beautiful lament of lost love, released as a single on Lightfoot’s 1972 album Old Dan’s Records. It did well on what I would describe as ‘refined’ charts; that is, refined or distilled down to things like the ‘bubbling under hot 100″ or ‘adult contemporary” charts, where the song was top 5 or better in a selective situation but on the main charts like Billboard in the US and even in Canada, this single sort of stiffed. It’s even described as not making much of an impact, as a single, in the liner notes to a Lightfoot collection of his singles and B-sides I own. That said, it’s Gordon Lightfoot. It’s great.

8. Alannah Myles, Hurry Make Love . . . From her self-titled first album that was overwhelmed by the success of the hit single Black Velvet; in fact Myles’ whole career could be said to have been overwhelmed by that song. She’s so much more, her first album overall is terrific as is her second, Rockinghorse in particular the title cut. This is from the debut album, short, sweet, sexy.

9. Tom Wilson, Sex etc . . . Anyone who’s ever followed my show over the years knows the high regard in which I hold Tom Wilson. Amazing artist, whether it be with his early band The Florida Razors which I admit I must delve more deeply into but what I know I like, but certainly since then Junkhouse, which introduced me to Wilson, then his solo stuff, his work with musical friends Colin Linden and Stephen Fearing in Blackie and The Rodeo Kings, and his cleverly-titled project Lee Harvey Osmond which also features members of Canadian acts Cowboy Junkies and Skydiggers. This hypnotic track – and being a Stones fan I obviously love the lyrical nod to the Stones’ live album Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out! – is from Wilson’s 2001 solo album Planet Love.

10. Joni Mitchell, Sex Kills . . . I have a few actual studio albums by Joni Mitchell, the classic Blue among them, but for the most part with certain artists, she being one of them, I tend to be a compilation guy. There’s only so much money to spend, if one is still actually spending on music and I’m still into physical copies, generational I suppose but so be it. But, that said, she did a brilliant thing, I thought, in 1996 when she released two compilations on the same day, October 29. One was called Hits and had everything one would expect from an artists’ hits compilation; in Joni’s case such songs as Big Yellow Taxi, Free Man In Paris, Help Me, etc. But the other compilation, Misses, deep cuts, chosen by Mitchell herself, represented her more obscure to most listeners stuff and forays beyond commerciality. It was, and remains, deeply rewarding and thus served as incentive to at least investigate some of her studio albums from which Misses tracks were drawn, that may not have received their just due. They should. This track is one of them, from her 1994 release Turbulent Indigo which actually won a Grammy Award as best pop album.

11. Kim Mitchell, Love Ties . . . I don’t play Max Webster or Kim Mitchell much because, I’ll admit, I’ve never really gone beyond the hits so, doing a deep cuts show, I naturally am limiting myself with regard to Max and Kim. However, I do have a couple Kim Mitchell studio albums, which I bought years ago because I hate it when compilations are released with remixed songs and such happened with a Kim Mitchell compilation I bought ages ago. I can’t remember what song it was that was shortened or remixed to a sound I didn’t like, thus making the song something I didn’t know or ‘hear’ as I remembered it, but in any event it prompted me to buy the actual 1984 release Akimbo Alogo. That’s the one with two of Mitchell’s biggest hits, Go For Soda and Lager and Ale but it also features this funky, electronica-type tune. Really good, to my ears, different from what one might ‘expect’ of Max Webster/Kim Mitchell, at least based on commercial rock radio play, but that’s the beauty of studio albums that obviously go beyond the hits to show the depth of the artists’ talent and experimentation.

12. The Tragically Hip, Killing Time . . . I love the darkness of this song, the vocals, all of it. From the first Hip EP, 1987, self-titled, a shade under 30 minutes, before most people knew who the Hip was in advance of what became their breakthrough full album release, 1989’s Up To Here featuring Blow At High Dough, New Orleans Is Sinking and so on. I didn’t know who they were. I got into them via Up To Here when I read in a now long defunct Canadian rock magazine that they were Stones-ish so I decided to check them out. I liked what I heard so then I went back to the EP, and forward with them as subsequent albums were released.

13. Pat Travers, Killer . . . From an album that bombed, pretty much, the Hot Shot release of 1984 (interestingly a similar title to the Trooper compilation I touched on earlier) by which time Travers had long since faded from the heights of the 1970s with such albums as Crash and Burn and its title cut along with Snortin’ Whiskey and the rest of that period. But this one, albeit a tad overproduced with maybe too much of that annoying to my ears almost hair metal 80s sound, nevertheless kicks butt. I saw Travers at the Kitchener Bluesfest some years back, great show.

14. Rush, Something For Nothing (live, from All The World’s A Stage) . . . Interesting maybe only to me but I’ve always thought of this as a pretty well-known song and likely a single, although it actually wasn’t a single while appearing on Rush’s 2112 album released in 1976. It did gets lots of radio play on the great FM stations of the day that played hits, full albums, album sides, whatever struck their fancy in the days before marketing mavens decided playing Stairway To Heaven five times an hour was the way to go – an annoyance that prompted me to do my show. Anyway, this is a version from Rush’s first live album, recorded at Toronto’s Massey Hall.

15. April Wine, Juvenile Delinquent (from Live At The El Mocambo) . . . A song that, to my knowledge and research, April Wine never did a studio version of but played at the El Mocambo when they opened for The Rolling Stones’ famous 1977 club shows there and which resulted in tracks for both April Wine’s live album and Love You Live by the Stones. One of my favorites from that April Wine live disc, it was writtten by American/Canadian artist/songwriter Bob Segarini who established a life in Canada, the Toronto area, after moving from California. I slow danced to it with a college girlfriend as Segarini played it at one of the regular concert pub nights the school held.

16. Tom Cochrane, Willie Dixon Said . . . Bluesy cut, as it should be if you’re using Willie Dixon’s name in a song title, from Cochrane’s 1999 album xray sierra. Yes, the album title is in lower case letters.

17. David Wilcox, On A Roll . . . How does one describe that incessant riff and the sort of descending riff that envelops it? Just listen, I suppose; words can’t do it justice.

18. Headstones, Cut . . . These guys are, generally, so dark, devious and delicious, right from the first album, titled Picture of Health with a cover of someone doing something unhealthy, lighting a cigarette. Not advocating smoking, I don’t smoke, but I like the cheeky cover, and the raunchy rock Headstones provide.

19. Bruce Cockburn, Burn . . . Early Cockburn, a minor hit from his 1975 album Joy Will Find A Way.

20. Big Sugar, Joe Louis/Judgment Day . . . Compelling reggae rock, this near 9-minute cut from Big Sugar’s 1996 album Hemi-Vision which featured the Canadian hit singles Diggin’ A Hole and If I Had My Way.

21. Murray McLauchlan, Out Past The Timberline . . . From McLauchlan’s 1983 album Timberline which I recently discovered has been released on CD after being out of print for years. I first cottoned to the song via a superb 2-CD MM collection Songs From The Street, released in 2007. I’d never heard the song before that although I knew MM’s hits. And it’s now definitely among my favorites of his many great tunes. Not to maybe overrate it, but it could be our national anthem if only because of the lyrics throughout but especially this passage that always hits me, near the end: “Oh Canada, ain’t no Cabinet man in the Rideau Club at election time . . . Canada is somewhere out there (which he’s described, so-called ordinary hard working salt of the earth people, throughout the song) … out past the timberline.” Beautiful, musically and lyrically.

Fourth, and for now final, in my series of Saturday morning live album replay shows. I’m starting with Rod Stewart/Faces Live Coast To Coast: Overture and Beginners, released in 1974; playing it at the suggestion of a friend. Also on the menu is The J. Geils Band which I think is best served live as evidenced by the group’s 1972 release “Live” Full House. And, to fill out the two-hour slot, some of my favorite tracks from another of Geils’ fine live albums, the appropriately titled 1976 record Blow Your Face Out. That album features lead singer Peter Wolf’s famous impromptu rap that introduces the song Musta Got Lost.

Rod Stewart/Faces Live Coast To Coast: Overture and Beginners

1. It’s All Over Now
2. Cut Across Shorty
3. Too Bad/Every Picture Tells A Story
4. Angel
5. Stay With Me
6. I Wish It Would Rain
7. I’d Rather Go Blind
8. Borstal Boys/Amazing Grace
9. Jealous Guy

The J. Geils Band – “Live’ Full House

1. First I Look At The Purse
2. Homework
3. Pack Fair And Square
4. Whammer Jammer
5. Hard Drivin’ Man
6. Serves You Right To Suffer
7. Cruisin’ For A Love
8. Looking For A Love

The J. Geils Band – from Blow Your Face Out

1. (Ain’t Nuthin’ But A) Houseparty
2. Musta Got Lost
3. Love-Itis
4. Detroit Breakdown
5. Chimes

Here’s my programmed 3-play set of a few of my favorite albums – David Bowie, The Kinks and The Beatles.

David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The World

1. The Width Of A Circle
2. All The Madmen
3. Black Country Rock
4. After All
5. Running Gun Blues
6. Saviour Machine
7. She Shook Me Cold
8. The Man Who Sold The World
9. The Supermen

The Kinks – Give The People What They Want

1. Around The Dial
2. Give The People What They Want
3. Killer’s Eyes
4. Predictable
5. Add It Up
6. Destroyer
7. Yo-Yo
8. Back To Front
9. Art Lover
10. A Little Bit Of Abuse
11. Better Things

The Beatles – Rubber Soul (UK track listing)

1. Drive My Car
2. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
3. You Won’t See Me
4. Nowhere Man
5. Think For Yourself
6. The Word
7. Michelle
8. What Goes On
9. Girl
10. I’m Looking Through You
11. In My Life
12. Wait
13. If I Needed Someone
14. Run For Your Life

Third in a series of Saturday morning set lists featuring classic live albums. This week I’m playing a pair of albums recorded at New York’s famous Fillmore East venue – The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East, recorded in March, 1971, and Jimi Hendrix Band Of Gypsys, with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox joining Hendrix on an influential journey blending blues, funk, fusion and rock, recorded on New Year’s Eve as 1969 became 1970. Both albums are the original track listings; there’s been subsequent expanded re-releases.

The Allman Brothers Band – At Fillmore East

1. Statesboro Blues
2. Done Somebody Wrong
3. Stormy Monday
4. You Don’t Love Me
5. Hot ‘Lanta
6. In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed
7. Whipping Post

Jimi Hendrix – Band of Gypsys

1. Who Knows
2. Machine Gun
3. Changes
4. Power To Love
5. Message To Love
6. We Gotta Live Together

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

1. Queen, Mustapha
2. Queen, Let Me Entertain You
3. Trapeze, Black Cloud
4. AC/DC, Skies On Fire
5. 10cc, The Second Sitting For The Last Supper
6. Roxy Music, Mother Of Pearl
7. Nazareth, Donna – Get Off That Crack
8. The Rolling Stones, All The Rage (Goats Head Soup outtake issued on expanded album re-release in 2020)
9. Thin Lizzy, Suicide
10. Aerosmith, Get The Lead Out
11. Wolfmother, The Simple Life
12. Chuck Berry, Too Much Monkey Business (live, Toronto Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival 1969)
13. Jerry Lee Lewis, How’s My Ex Treating You (live)
14. Jeff Beck, Head For Backstage Pass
15. Steppenwolf, Tighten Up Your Wig
16. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Flat Broke Love
17. McKenna Mendelson Mainline, Bad Women Are Killing Me (1968 alternate version to Bad Women, released on 1969’s Stink album)
18. Stevie Wonder, We Can Work It Out (Beatles cover)
19. Dr. John, I Walk On Guilded Splinters
20. Peter Tosh, Till Your Well Runs Dry

My track-by-track tales:

1. Queen, Mustapha . . . Opening cut on 1978’s Jazz album where, as soon as the needle hit the vinyl grooves many people, myself included, were “WTF”? Then you grow to really like it and are thankful you maybe got introduced to such music via this Arabic rocker, lyrics in English and Arabic, that, arguably, only Freddie Mercury among rock singers could likely pull off. It’s one that reflected his background, born in Zanzibar to Parsi-Indian parents. Today, nobody would bat an eye at this progressive/art/hard rocker and it would also go under the ‘world music’ file. Terrific stuff.

2. Queen, Let Me Entertain You . . . And now for some let’s say more typical Queen from that same Jazz album, and yes, they could entertain. I saw the Jazz tour at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens, a smoking hot show, one might have termed it, er, Killer Queen, to quote the title of one of their songs, which they did play that night I saw them, and on the tour. The tour was documented on the 1979 release Live Killers, recorded on the European leg of the journey.

3. Trapeze, Black Cloud . . . From the band that brought singer/bassist Glenn Hughes, later of Deep Purple, to prominence. Solid hard rock from the terrific Medusa album, released in 1970 on The Moody Blues’ Threshold Records and produced by Moody Blues bassist John Lodge.

4. AC/DC, Skies On Fire . . . Latter-day typically dependable AC/DC, from 2008’s Black Ice album and when I say latter day, geez, that’s already 16 years ago. Anyway. When I say ‘typically dependable” and I’ve said it in different ways before, but AC/DC’s magic is that they’ve done essentially the same thing for many decades now yet there’s enough little twists and turns throughout the repertoire that it never gets old. If you actually listen. To me, at least, or those who like the band but I can appreciate those who think it’s just the same old stuff. To repeat (pun intended) the band’s in on the joke, to quote guitarist Angus Young from some years ago: “I’m sick to death of people saying we’ve made 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we’ve made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.” He later, when teased on a UK TV show that the band had made the same album “14 times over”, updated it to: “No, we haven’t – we’ve made it 15 times over.” As of their most recent album, 2020’s Power Up, they’re now at 18 times over. 🙂 And for me, at least, difficult to believe that’s it’s already been four years since their last release of original, new material. At some point, inevitably, due to age it will stop but I look forward to whatever they might be doing next.

5. 10cc, The Second Sitting For The Last Supper . . . From 1974’s The Original Soundtrack album which, as far as I know and have researched, isn’t the soundtrack to anything but the album itself, so presumably an attempt at being clever in terms of title. It’s the album that gave us 10cc’s biggest hit, I’m Not In Love but this largely soft rock or progressive pop band could also rock, as the galloping guitar riffing on this one suggests. The brief opening salvo and then the occasional returns to it during the four-minutes plus track could, and I know it sounds crazy maybe but, almost be Iron Maiden, and those boys, who formed their band in 1975, who knows, might have been listening.

6. Roxy Music, Mother Of Pearl . . . Early, more progressive Roxy although some journalism critics were already suggesting they were going more mainstream but I don’t see it on this track, biting guitar and “treatments’ as per the album liner notes, from Phil Manzanera and Bryan Ferry’s distinctive vocals expressing the lyrics about a love story, of sorts, on this one from 1973’s Stranded album. Like most early Roxy albums, it features a woman in a state of undress on the cover, in this case Playboy model Marilyn Cole, who was a Playmate of the Month in 1972 and became Playmate of the Year for 1973, which is how she got noticed by Ferry. Now in her 70s, according to her Wikipedia entry she now works as a journalist covering, among other things, professional boxing. Not to go on about her, I really know nothing about her but in researching for my track tales, I found her story as interesting perhaps as the album but everyone has a perhaps compelling story of some sort. Here are her thoughts, apparently expressed in a 2007 interview, on appearing on the album cover.

“It was at a tiny studio, somewhere off the Edgware Road in London. I’d never even heard of Roxy Music. I very soon understood that I was in safe hands, among some very talented people. There was a red dress hanging up, and I thought, ‘Ooh, good, I’m going to get to wear a really nice dress’… whereupon, as I’m having my make-up done, Antony (photographer Price) comes in and starts ripping the dress – a hole there, a slash there. I was thinking, ‘Oh no.’ They stuck me on this big log and explained I was supposed to be stranded in a jungle, and then they started spraying me; they sprayed my hair gold, and there was a whole mist coming over me and the dress was getting wet in all the right places.”

Oh, another thing. For the second through fifth Roxy albums – For Your Pleasure, Stranded, Country Life and Siren – each one announced, somewhere on the cover or in the liner notes, that it was “the (second, third, fourth, fifth) Roxy Music album”. Just in case, one supposes, people got distracted by the album covers and couldn’t keep track. All this said, I do really like Roxy Music’s music. It certainly wasn’t a case for me of having near-explicit album covers to draw you in only to find there’s little of value in the package. The contents are great, as is Bryan Ferry’s solo stuff. Quality, experimental, often sensual and seductive, compelling stuff for the most part.

7. Nazareth, Donna – Get Off That Crack . . . Some nice riffing on this one from guitarist Manny Charlton in the founding Nazareth member’s final foray with the band, 1989’s Snakes ‘N’ Ladders. He left for other projects in 1990 and died in 2022 at age 80. It was a maybe weird period for Nazareth, far removed from their early 1970s hit-making heyday and, apart from lots of their music that I like, leaves me with a soft spot for this band of survivors through thick and commercial thins over the years. At this point, late 1980s, Nazareth’s commercial fortunes were in such a poor state that the album was only at first released in Europe and Japan and not even on their home turf of Scotland/the UK. More recent Nazareth – yes they’re still around, having released two albums since the death of original singer Dan McCafferty in 2022, Carl Sentance now on lead vocals with McCafferty’s blessing once he retired from the band in 2013 due to health issues – has returned to more consistent, straight ahead hard rock even when McCafferty was still around. But during the 1980s they seemed on a flavor of the moment kick, trying every which genre, with varying degrees of success while losing their way at times, as detailed in the re-release liner notes to Snakes ‘N’ Ladders. But, not on this one, “a sordid tale of a drug casualty’ as described in those liner notes. A good, rocking tune.

8. The Rolling Stones, All The Rage (Goats Head Soup outtake issued on expanded album re-release in 2020) . . . Chugging rocker from the sessions that produced the Stones’ 1973 studio album, featuring the distinctive riffing/rhythm/lead guitar interplay between Keith Richards and Mick Taylor that was a feature of the Stones’ sound of the time.

9. Thin Lizzy, Suicide . . . A multi-faceted tune from 1975’s Fighting album featuring galloping guitar (and again I’ll mention, as some on YouTube have, that the formative members of Iron Maiden must have been listening), a pounding, compelling beat and, well, what more do you want from a rock and roll song?

10. Aerosmith, Get The Lead Out . . . I played Aerosmith (The Farm, from 1997) last week and that tune harkened back to 1970s Aerosmith which prompted me to start playing Live Bootleg in the car back and forth to the gym so I figured I’d actually go back to the 1970s on the show for this tune from perhaps my favorite Aero album, Rocks, from 1976. Lots of people, due to the Steven Tyler-Joe Perry singer/guitarist duo as doubles for Mick Jagger/Keith Richards often compare Aerosmith to the Stones and it’s an obvious comparison but in many ways, as some have pointed out, Aerosmith’s music actually might owe more of a debt to Led Zeppelin so one wonders if this tune was actually…Get The Led Out? Great track, regardless.

11. Wolfmother, The Simple Life . . . Speaking of Led Zeppelin, I remember when the first Wolfmother album, still their most successful commercially and in terms of airplay, came out in 2005 and I embraced it, my then teenaged older son saying, “Dad, it’s Zep”, suggesting how derivative it was to which I replied something on the order of, “yeah, so?” And pointed out how derivative Oasis, one of his favorite bands and I like them a lot too, is.

Anyway, Wolfmother – essentially leader Andrew Stockdale and whoever’s playing in the band with him at a given time – continues on its happily riff rock way, having released a new studio album as recently as 2021. They’ve become ‘classic rock’ in that sense that while the market embraces new sounds and genres, which is all well, good and as it should be, Wolfmother continues to farm its own furrow and some of us still follow them, as on this typically fine riff rocker from the band’s 2016 album Victorious.

12. Chuck Berry, Too Much Monkey Business (live, Toronto Rock ‘N’ Roll Revival 1969) . . . Well-known Berry tune I was actually surprised to find didn’t chart on the main music charts although it got to No. 4 on the R & B charts after release in 1956. So, it fits as a deep cut which is the essence of my show although I’ve always mentioned the caveat of me playing occasional singles, usually by relatively obscure bands, including those that didn’t necessarily chart. In any event, this version of Too Much Monkey Business comes from the 1969 festival well known for the appearance of John Lennon but the entirety of Berry’s performance was released on CD in 2020 although videos of the various performances by Berry and others like Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard have long been available on YouTube.

13. Jerry Lee Lewis, How’s My Ex Treating You (live) . . . Speaking of Jerry Lee, here he is, but not in Toronto in 1969 but earlier, in 1966 in Fort Worth, Texas on a live album called By Request: More Of The Greatest Live Show On Earth, ‘slowin’ it down’ as he says in his intro to the countryish tune. If you’re interested in Jerry Lee and/or the album, it’s available on a fantastic 4-pack of albums available online from the UK label BGO (Beat Goes On) Records that features: The Golden Hits Of Jerry Lee Lewis/Live At The Star-Club Hamburg/The Greatest Live Show On Earth/By Request: More Of The Greatest Live Show On Earth. I’ve played material from the outstanding and raucous Hamburg show before, will again, it’s amazing and arguably one of the best (if perhaps relatively unknown) live albums out there, by anyone.

14. Jeff Beck, Head For Backstage Pass . . . Funky excursion from 1976’s Wired album.

15. Steppenwolf, Tighten Up Your Wig . . . Boogie blues rock tune from The Second, the appropriately-titled second ‘Wolf album in 1968. It’s indebted to Junior Wells’ Messin’ With The Kid which Steppenwolf acknowledges in the lyrics:

“Just before we go, I’d like to mention Junior Wells
We stole his thing from him, and he from someone else
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he plays the blues like few before
May he play forevermore.”

16. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Flat Broke Love . . . A personal favorite BTO deep cut, hypnotic, nice bass line by, on this tune, lead singer C.F. (Fred) Turner, the best BTO singer in my view.

17. McKenna Mendelson Mainline, Bad Women Are Killing Me (1968 alternate version to Bad Women, released on 1969’s Stink album) . . . It seems as if anyone into music in Canada knows MMM’s Stink album. Great blues/blues rock. But there was something before, 1968 tapes that didn’t get released (on CD not until 1996 which I somehow found in a used store at some point and glad for it) for a long time after the initial vinyl release. It was released as an album called McKenna Mendelson Blues and this track is among the songs, an alternate, with dirtier, fuzzier guitar than Bad Women from Stink. Both versions are great, but I’ve played the Stink version before so thought I’d go with the “Blues’ album version this time.

18. Stevie Wonder, We Can Work It Out (Beatles cover) . . . From 1970’s Signed, Sealed & Delivered album which yielded the title cut hit but this funky treatment of The Beatles’ tune did well on the charts, too, and rightly so.

19. Dr. John, I Walk On Guilded Splinters . . . Seven plus minutes of intoxicating voodoo from the doctor.

20. Peter Tosh, Till Your Well Runs Dry . . . Someone on YouTube suggested this is the first country/reggae tune and I’d never thought of it that way until I read that comment, but there’s merit in that assessment. It’s from Tosh’s 1976 debut solo album, Legalize It, after he left Bob Marley’s Wailers.

Another live album replay set list for a Saturday morning, after last week’s Live Bullet (Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band) and Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out! (The Rolling Stones). This week I’m featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Live at Knebworth ’76 and the lean, mean, original 6-song version of The Who’s acclaimed Live At Leeds, which has since seen a few expanded re-releases. The Skynyrd show, re-released as a CD-DVD package in 2021, is from the band’s renowned performance opening for the Stones at the English festival that also that year included 10cc, Hot Tuna, Todd Rundgren and short-lived American roots rock group The Don Harrison Band, which counted among its members former Creedence Clearwater Revival bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford.

Lynyrd Skynyrd Live at Knebworth ’76

1. Workin’ For MCA
2. I Ain’t The One
3. Saturday Night Special
4. Searching
5. Whiskey Rock-A-Roller
6. Travelin’ Man
7. Gimme Three Steps
8. Call Me The Breeze
9. T For Texas
10. Sweet Home Alabama
11. Free Bird

The Who Live At Leeds

1. Young Man Blues
2. Substitute
3. Summertime Blues
4. Shakin’ All Over
5. My Generation
6. Magic Bus

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

1. Joe Walsh, I Can Play That Rock & Roll
2. Black Sabbath, Heaven And Hell
3. Elvis Costello and The Attractions, Goon Squad
4. Tracy Chapman, The Rape Of The World
5. Atlanta Rhythm Section, Champagne Jam
6. Gov’t Mule, Monkey Man (Rolling Stones cover)
7. The Rolling Stones, Out Of Time
8. Aerosmith, The Farm
9. John Mellencamp, You’ve Got To Stand For Somethin’
10. Led Zeppelin, The Battle Of Evermore
11. Neil Young, Running Dry (Requiem For The Rockets)
12. Paul McCartney, Only Mama Knows
13. Free, Wild Indian Woman
14. The Black Crowes, Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution
15. Bachman & Turner, Can’t Go Back To Memphis
16. Bruce Cockburn, Hoop Dancer
17. Bobbie Gentry, Ace Insurance Man
18. Bob Dylan, Isis
19. Ian Hunter, Old Records Never Die

My track-by-track tales:

1. Joe Walsh, I Can Play That Rock & Roll . . . Listen to the opening riff before the vocals kick in – and the entire song in fact – and you’d think it was a Rolling Stones track. And, according to Walsh, it is, or at least is a tribute to the Stones. The song was the lead cut on Walsh’s typically humorously-titled 1983 album You Bought It – You Name It but Walsh describes the genesis of the track in the liner notes to his Look What I Did! The Joe Walsh Anthology compilation, a 2-CD set released in 1995. Although Waddy Wachtel is not credited as a co-writer on the 1983 album, Walsh does name Wachtel, a pal of Keith Richards who later played in Richard’s solo band The X-Pensive Winos, as helping inspire the song.
“Written with Waddy Wachtel. Waddy showed me 5-string tuning that Keith Richards uses. We were trying to be The Rolling Stones. This is a tribute to them.” It’s a good one.

2. Black Sabbath, Heaven And Hell . . . Epic title cut to Sabbath’s 1980 album, the first with former Rainbow singer Ronnie James Dio taking over from Ozzy Osbourne. It’s one of those albums where a band loses its well-known and usually original lead singer yet manages to continue on to, sometimes, even more success, depending upon how one might define success whether it be commercial sales or critically successful artistic accomplishment. The other examples that immediately come to mind for me are AC/DC, which brought in Brian Johnson after the death of Bon Scott and released the monumental Back In Black, and the so-called Van Hagar version of Van Halen, when Sammy Hagar replaced David Lee Roth and the band, albeit with a different sound and lyrical approach, actually went on to bigger commercial success even though the Van Hagar band divided some of the original fan base. In any event, Heaven And Hell, the album and the song, rejuvenated Black Sabbath, which had been in decline for various reasons including substance abuse, over the course of the two previous albums with Ozzy, Never Say Die! and Technical Ecstasy which have their moments but were relative disappointments both commercially and critically.

3. Elvis Costello and The Attractions, Goon Squad . . . One of those songs with a driving beat one gets into for the music and then over time the lyrics start embedding themselves. Essentially a diatribe against attempts at groupthink control, at least that’s how I interpret it, released on 1979’s Armed Forces album.

4. Tracy Chapman, The Rape Of The World . . . An environmental activisim song by Chapman from her 1995 album New Beginning. She’s of course known for her breakthrough 1988 hit Fast Car and, later, Give Me One Reason from the New Beginning album but, now essentially retired from the industry, she’s not released any new material since 2008, alas. She has said she withdrew from performing because she was uncomfortable with being in the public eye which perhaps leaves the door open to her releasing new studio material at some point. Her most recent release was a hits compilation, issued in 2015.

5. Atlanta Rhythm Section, Champagne Jam . . . Title cut from the band’s 1978 album. The hit was Imaginary Lover but the band had come to prominence two years before with the hit single So Into You. So, they earned an opening slot – and they were excellent – on The Rolling Stones 1978 summer tour of the United States, my first Stones’ show, July 4, 1978 at what was then called Rich Stadium, where the NFL’s Bills play. Also on the bill were April Wine, whose set we missed because our tour bus from Toronto got stuck in ridiculous traffic entering the stadium, and pre-Steve Perry on lead vocals Journey.

6. Gov’t Mule, Monkey Man (Rolling Stones cover) . . . The Mule, led by guitarist/singer/songwriter Warren Haynes, who first attained prominence in Dickey Betts’ solo band then joined The Allman Brothers Band at the behest of Betts, is an amazing band in its own right playing its own material. But The Mule is also a fantastic covers band and has released many covers of classic rock tunes, live and studio versions, including material by Steppenwolf, Humble Pie, Deep Purple and many others. The Mule has also released full compilations of covers of bands they admire, like Pink Floyd (Dark Side Of The Mule) and the Stones, Stoned Side Of The Mule, from which I drew this cover originally on the Stones’ Let It Bleed album.

7. The Rolling Stones, Out Of Time . . . And here are the Stones, from the UK version of the Aftermath album, released in 1966 during a time when UK and USA track listings were somewhat different with bands like the Stones, Beatles and Kinks. I first heard this track on the 1967 North America-only compilation Flowers which my older sister owned and which collected singles and deeper cuts from the Stones’ previous UK releases that hadn’t made the US issues of their albums. The Flowers’ version was shortened by almost two minutes from the original 5-minute plus Aftermath release, which I’m playing tonight. The Stones played the song in the opening show of their current American tour, apparently the first time they’d ever played it live in the USA.

8. Aerosmith, The Farm . . . From 1997’s Nine Lives album, a hard rocking dronish tune harkening somewhat back to Aerosmith’s raunch and roll 1970s output.

9. John Mellencamp, You’ve Got To Stand For Somethin’ . . . Or you’ll fall for anything, as the lyrics state. From Mellencamp’s 1985 album Scarecrow.

10. Led Zeppelin, The Battle Of Evermore . . . The late great Sandy Denny, one of my favorites singers, of Fairport Convention fame, helps out Robert Plant on this one from the fourth Zep album; the one with Stairway To Heaven on it.

11. Neil Young, Running Dry (Requiem For The Rockets) . . . From Young’s second solo album, 1969’s Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, backed by Crazy Horse. I leave it to Wikipedia entry for background:

“Running Dry (Requiem for the Rockets)” is dedicated to The Rockets, the six-piece band that evolved into Young’s collaborators Crazy Horse. Rocket violinist Bobby Notkoff plays on the track. Young expresses his feelings about breaking up The Rockets in the 1997 film Year of the Horse: “I asked those three guys to play with me as Crazy Horse. And I thought the Rockets could go on, too. But the truth is, I probably did steal them away from the other band, which was a good band. But only because what we did, we went somewhere. What they were doing, it didn’t go anywhere at that time, so this thing moved, this thing took off, and the other thing didn’t. But the other thing could have gone on, I guess. That’s the hardest part, is the guilt of the trail of destruction that I’ve left behind me.”

12. Paul McCartney, Only Mama Knows . . . Starts slow, then rocks. One of those great tracks by an amazing artist who most people always go back to for the obviously worthy tried and true like McCartney’s hits with The Beatles and Wings but if you keep following the guy and dig deeper, you get gems like this one from 2007’s Memory Almost Full album. McCartney re-released it on the 2016 compilation Pure McCartney, which came in 2- and 4-CD versions.

13. Free, Wild Indian Woman . . . Been a while since I’ve played Free. This one’s from the 1969 debut, Tons Of Sobs. All of the guys in the band including singer Paul Rodgers who of course later achieved great fame in Bad Company, were still teenagers at the time yet they sound like a veteran blues rock band.

14. The Black Crowes, Goodbye Daughters Of The Revolution . . . First single released from the 2008 album Warpaint by which time the Crowes had evolved from the hitmakers of their 1990 debut Shake Your Moneymaker to a jam type band, still quite quality material but not the type of stuff that sells or makes the charts. So, the single bombed and so, relatively speaking, did the album but the band persevered and, through various breakups is back together and continues to release music, the most recent of which is the fine 2024 album Happiness Bastards.

15. Bachman & Turner, Can’t Go Back To Memphis . . . Funky hard rocker from Randy Bachman and C.F. (Fred) Turner’s 2010 album which essentially, and it’s a good tune, sounds like an update on Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s 1970s glories. They had to be billed as Bachman & Turner due to various complicated lawsuits over band naming rights to do with who owns what re various former members of BTO, similar to the seemingly constant battles Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings have been fighting with former colleagues in The Guess Who.

16. Bruce Cockburn, Hoop Dancer . . . Hypnotic sort of spoken word intoxicating tune from Cockburn’s 1983 album The Trouble With Normal. This is why you listen to full albums. There’s the hits, like the title cut. Then there’s stuff like this amazing track.

17. Bobbie Gentry, Ace Insurance Man . . . She’s best known for her massive 1967 hit Ode To Billie Joe (sometimes writtten as Billy Joe) but her importance to music goes beyond that. She was one of the first female artists to write, produce and manage the direction of her own music and career and for that, subsequent artists owe a debt. And then, as of 1982, she elected to retire, quit, disappear, she lives in gated communities in either Memphis, Tennesse or Los Angeles, nobody’s quite sure. Good for her.

18. Bob Dylan, Isis . . . On one of his live albums, Dylan introduces this track from the 1975 studio album Desire with ‘this is a song about marriage’.

“Isis, oh, Isis, you mystical child
What drives me to you is what drives me insane . . . ”

19. Ian Hunter, Old Records Never Die . . . It’s never been absolutely confirmed but Hunter’s Short Back n’ Sides album came out in 1981 at a time when lots of people were doing tributes to John Lennon, who had been slain in December 1980. And the opening lyric:

“Sometimes you realize that there is an end to life
Yesterday I heard them say
A hero’s blown away.”

Would seem to indicate as much. In any event, beautiful, poignant song the spirit of which – old records never die – also serves my show.

A live album replay set list featuring two of my favorite live albums, both considered among the best alltime live sets – Bob Seger’s Live Bullet and Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! by The Rolling Stones.

Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band – Live Bullet

1. Nutbush City Limits
2. Travelin’ Man
3. Beautiful Loser
4. Jody Girl
5. I’ve Been Working
6. Turn The Page
7. U.M.C.
8. Bo Diddley
9. Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man
10. Heavy Music
11. Katmandu
12. Lookin’ Back
13. Get Out Of Denver
14. Let It Rock

The Rolling Stones – Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out!

1. Jumpin’ Jack Flash
2. Carol
3. Stray Cat Blues
4. Love In Vain
5. Midnight Rambler
6. Sympathy For The Devil
7. Live With Me
8. Little Queenie
9. Honky Tonk Women
10. Street Fighting Man