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

Song clips also available on my Facebook page.

1. Budgie, Napoleon Bona Part 1 & 2
2. George Thorogood and The Destroyers, Night Time (from Live In Boston 1982: The Complete Concert
3. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Midnight Moses
4. The Everly Brothers, Lord Of The Manor
5. Murray McLauchlan, Child’s Song
6. Gene Clark, Some Misunderstanding
7. Joe Jackson, Fools In Love (from Live 1980-86)
8. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, Brave Strangers
9. David Bowie, Beauty And The Beast (live, from Stage)
10. King Crimson, Frame By Frame
11. Lee Harvey Osmond, Kingdom Come
12. T-Bone Burnett, Monkey Dance
13. T. Rex, Life’s An Elevator
14. The Rolling Stones, Moonlight Mile
15. Quicksilver Messenger Service, Mona/Maiden Of The Cancer Moon/Calvary (live, from Happy Trails)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Budgie, Napoleon Bona Part 1 & 2 . . . A slow build for two minutes then the musical “galloping” begins and from 2:45 onward in this seven-minute track we’re in Iron Maiden territory . . . except that Iron Maiden, which came into existence after Budgie had long been around with its galloping sound, complete with great echo effect, is actually in and has always been, in Budgie territory. A highly influential band from Wales but as can happen, Budgie was not nearly as commercially successful as many of the groups (like Maiden and Metallica to name two, both of whom have covered Budgie songs like, in Metallica’s case, Breadfan and Crash Course In Brain Surgery) it influenced.

2. George Thorogood and The Destroyers, Night Time (from Live In Boston 1982: The Complete Concert) . . . From a concert initially released that year as a 12-track album simply called Live In Boston, 1982 but re-released as the full 25-song show (plus two spoken-word intro to song tracks including audience participation) in a 2-CD set in 2020. Typical Thorogood raunch and roll, taken to more raucous heights in the live arena.

3. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Midnight Moses . . . A driving rocker from the band’s 1972 debut album Frame. Nice guitar work from Zal Cleminson, later a member of Nazareth for two albums – 1979’s No Mean City and the 1980 release Malice In Wonderland with its hit single Holiday.

4. The Everly Brothers, Lord Of The Manor . . . A haunting soundscape from 1968. Hey, that rhymes. 🙂 An at least somewhat uncharacteristic song if all you know about the Everlys is their early hits and sound, material like Bye Bye Love and Wake Up Little Susie. Great ones, those two, and many others, to be sure. But this one, after their halcyon days, is as good in its own way.

5. Murray McLauchlan, Child’s Song . . . A beautiful, touching, at least somewhat sad, definitely thought-provoking song about family. It’s from MM’s 1971 debut album Song From The Street, a title echoed in the excellent 2-disc compilation The Best Of Murray McLauchlan: Songs From The Street, released in 2007.

6. Gene Clark, Some Misunderstanding . . . From a song about family by Murray McLauchlan to one digging even deeper, perhaps. A meaning of life song of questions and attempts at answers from what was apparently a tortured soul in Clark, a founding member of The Byrds who arguably – despite his writing such Byrds hits as I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better and Eight Miles High – tends to be given short shrift as compared to Jim/Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of that great group. Clark later went solo and the highlight of his output, to me, anyway, is the 1974 album No Other with its terrific title cut I’ve played on the show before, among many great songs, like this outstanding extended ballad. Yet the album bombed, commercially, much to the fragile Clark’s consternation as he, thanks in part to circumstances such as a divorce, and drug abuse, declined both personally and professionally. He died at age 46, in 1991 from heart disease resulting in part from a bleeding ulcer after he had already been diagnosed with throat cancer.

7. Joe Jackson, Fools In Love (from Live 1980-86) . . . As the album subtitle says “new interpretations of 22 classic songs featuring four different bands”. It’s divided into selections from various Jackson albums and their supporting tours between 1980 and ’86. Songs are drawn from the 1980 Beat Crazy tour, the Night And Day trek of 1982-83, Body And Soul in 1984 and the Big World tour of 1986 which was the first time I saw him live. The twist is, you get revamps of songs, like this seven-minute version of Fools In Love. It first appeared, at a shade more than half this live length, on JJ’s punk/new wave album debut Look Sharp! in 1979. But, taken from the Night And Day tour for the live album, it’s rearranged (while still recognizable) in the jazzy style of that 1982 studio record that featured the top 10 single Steppin’ Out. Not to all tastes, perhaps, but I like this version. I’m a big fan, seen Jackson in concert a few times and, as he writes in the live album liner notes, he likes to keep things interesting for himself and his bands and hopefully the audiences appreciate it. I think most of his fan base does, knowing his wide variety of musical approaches through the years. And, as he says, you can always play the studio albums if you prefer those versions although inevitably, you might jar some concert-goers not fully up on Jackson and expecting note-for-note copies of the studio songs.

8. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, Brave Strangers . . . . From that period of the mid- to late 1970s into the 1980s when Seger was on an amazing hot streak of hit albums and singles. The breakthrough came via Live Bullet in 1976 which – as with Kiss Alive and Frampton Comes Alive! – featured his earlier material like Turn The Page and Beautiful Loser, done in the live environment and released on what became a hit double vinyl album. Then came the studio album Night Moves in 1976 with its title cut hit single along with the song Mainstreet followed in 1978 by the Stranger In Town album that yielded Brave Strangers but also four of Seger’s enduring songs – Still The Same, Hollywood Nights, We’ve Got Tonite and the ubiquitous party hit Old Time Rock and Roll. The roll continued with the 1980 album Against The Wind, its title cut hit single and others like Fire Lake and You’ll Accomp’ny Me. I remember browsing in the old Yonge Street Sam The Record Man store in downtown Toronto when Against The Wind came out; it was playing on the store’s sound system and I overheard someone perusing the records racks close to me and all he said was ‘sounds like new Seger’ and it was. Instant buy.

9. David Bowie, Beauty And The Beast (live, from Stage) . . . From Bowie’s 1978 tour, live version of a song that met with minor singles chart success in the UK, from Bowie’s 1977 studio album “Heroes”. Fine guitar interplay between Carlos Alomar, who was in Bowie’s band from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s, and Adrian Belew, known for stints with Frank Zappa, guest appearances with Talking Heads around the time of the Heads’ 1980 album Remain In Light, and as a member of King Crimson from 1981-2013.

10. King Crimson, Frame By Frame . . . Speaking of Adrian Belew in King Crimson . . . From the 1981 album Discipline which marked the return of King Crimson, with a Talking Heads-like sound of that period, after the initial disbanding of the group in 1974. The new lineup – initially called Discipline – was founding member/leader Robert Fripp on guitar along with Belew, drummer Bill Bruford, noted for his work in Yes and earlier versions of King Crimson, and bassist Tony Levin. Frame By Frame also became the name of a 1991 Crimson box set.

11. Lee Harvey Osmond, Kingdom Come . . . Up tempo chugger from one of Canadian artist Tom Wilson’s many projects, all of which I’m a big fan of including The Florida Razors, Junkhouse, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings and his solo work.

12. T-Bone Burnett, Monkey Dance . . . Swirling, hypnotic stuff from Burnett’s 1987 album The Talking Animals. A reputable artist in his own right, Burnett, a guitarist in Bob Dylan’s band during the 1970s, is perhaps better known for his production work with myriad musicians – Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp, Los Lobos, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant, Elton John and Gregg Allman among them – as well as film soundtrack work including the Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line.

13. T. Rex, Life’s An Elevator . . . A spooky, acoustic selection about how, yes, life, like an elevator, goes up and down. Profound. 🙂 T. Rex, led by the late Marc Bolan, remains universally known for the 1972 hit Get It On aka Bang A Gong (Get It On) but consistently topped the singles and album charts in the UK. Life’s An Elevator was the B-side to the 1976 non-album single Laser Love.

14. The Rolling Stones, Moonlight Mile . . . About cocaine (‘a head full of snow”) although Mick Jagger denied it, although given the lyrics it’s part of it. But, more so, a tale of life on the road for a rock band, any touring artist or, really, people like long-haul truck drivers.

Here’s the full lyrics of this beautiful song from the Sticky Fingers album, a deep cut (although well-known and highly regarded by Stones fans) which I was blown away to see and hear the band play in 1999 in Toronto on their No Security tour.

When the wind blows and the rain feels cold
with a head full of snow
with a head full of snow
In the window there’s a face you know
Don’t the night pass slow
Don’t the night pass slow

I’m hiding sister and I’m dreaming
I’m riding down your moonlight mile
I’m hiding sister and I’m dreaming
I’m riding down your moonlight mile
There I go now coming home now baby
Yeah, there I go now coming home now baby
Yeah, I’m coming home ’cause
I’m just about a moonlight mile on down the road
On down the road, down the road

15. Quicksilver Messenger Service, Mona/Maiden Of The Cancer Moon/Calvary (live, from Happy Trails) . . . Improvisational psychedelic/acid rock from the San Francisco band that incorporates Bo Diddley’s Mona with two of Quicksilver’s instrumental originals. The songs, which segue into each other, total almost 24 minutes which momentarily gave me pause in terms of whether to play them together but this is independent radio, we’re not wedded to formatted or corporately-mandated song sets so, what the heck? I’ve done similar before with long pieces like Pink Floyd’s 23-minute Echoes, just one example. I was originally just going to go with the 13-minute Calvary but the three songs belong together as a suite. Besides which, it’s never boring, at least to me, and features great guitar interplay between John Cipollina on lead and Gary Duncan on rhythm. It formed most of the second side of the original vinyl of 1969’s Happy Trails album which concludes with the band’s version of that Roy Rogers/Dale Evans song as the title track. The first side was Quicksilver’s take on Diddley’s Who Do You Love, known as the Who Do You Love Suite. It’s split into Diddley’s song, which opens and closes the suite, around improvisations from the individual band members titled When You Love, Where You Love, How You Love and Which Do You Love.

No So Old It’s New classic rock deep cuts show until Monday, Jan. 13, at least not with me at the mixing board/controls. Taking a break. Happy New Year to all. If you happen to tune in, AI (i.e. the auto computer feed, da dum) will be selecting songs in the genre I generally play, usually from stuff I’ve entered into the system, between 8-10 pm ET Mondays and 8-10 am ET Saturdays. I’m curious myself as to what the system will select. It better be good and if so, I might be out of a (volunteer) job. 🙂 Take care, everyone.

Hard rock/metal set, a bit less of a deep cuts show than usual in spots. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Ted Nugent, Wang Dang Sweet Poontang (from Double Live Gonzo!)
2. Judas Priest, Ram It Down
3. UFO, Rock Bottom (live, from Strangers In The Night)
4. Iron Maiden, Bring Your Daughter . . . To The Slaughter
5. Black Sabbath, Digital Bitch
6. The Rolling Stones, Bitch
7. Metallica, Ain’t My Bitch
8. Slayer, Seasons In The Abyss
9. Pantera, Drag The Waters
10. AC/DC, Emission Control
11. The Who, Trick Of The Light
12. Led Zeppelin, Communication Breakdown
13. Deep Purple, Speed King
14. April Wine, 21st Century Schizoid Man
15. Nazareth, Steamroller
16. Uriah Heep, One Way Or Another
17. Pink Floyd, The Nile Song
18. Iggy & The Stooges, I’m Sick Of You
19. Blue Oyster Cult, Mommy
20. Whitesnake, Sweet Talker
21. Grand Funk Railroad, Mr. Limousine Driver
22. Ted Nugent, Motor City Madhouse (from Double Live Gonzo!)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Ted Nugent, Wang Dang Sweet Poontang (from Double Live Gonzo!) . . . At risk of repetition (guilty) this has become an occasional go-to song for me whenever I decide on a hard rock/metal show. The song itself is a driving rocker but what makes it the perfect intro is Nugent’s classic, politically incorrect pre-song rap, not to all tastes but . . . “Anybody wants to get mellow you can turn around and get the fuck out of here . . . This is a love song, I’d like to dedicate this to all that Nashville pussy.”

That last line, as the song is taken from a 1977 show in Nashville, inspired the name of an actual band, hard rock/southern rock group Nashville Pussy (from Georgia, actually). Two of that band’s four members are women, lead guitarist Ruyter Suys (pronounced Rider Sighs and wife of rhythm guitarist/lead vocalist Blaine Cartwright) and bassist Bonnie Buitrago. I’ve heard them but can’t say I’m familiar with any Nashville Pussy material but I do find it interesting how bands come by their names, including song names. The title of Southern rock band the Outlaws’ signature song Green Grass and High Tides, for instance, was a play on The Rolling Stones’ 1966 compilation album title Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass).

I’m not necessarily a fan of Nugent’s political views but I can still like much of his music. It is possible and I’d suggest even necessary, with any artist, to separate the two as previously mentioned when playing Nugent. So, as I dig myself out of this lengthy digression, with the original working title, More Fast Numbers, to The Rolling Stones’ 1978 album Some Girls in mind, here we go, nothing slow for a Saturday morning. I’d say wake up the neighbors, to paraphrase a Bryan Adams album title but I’m not into his music. So, think of it as your alarm clock, even if you do sleep in on weekends.

2. Judas Priest, Ram It Down . . . A pile-driving title cut from Priest’s 1988 album. It starts with lead singer Rob Halford’s banshee wail and goes from there. ‘Metal maniacs’ is in the lyrics, appropriately.

3. UFO, Rock Bottom (live, from Strangers In The Night) . . . UFO extends the original six-minute studio cut to nearly twice the length on this version from one of the acknowledged best live albums of all time, certainly in the hard rock genre. It’s one I was listening to in the car while on various runnings around this past week.

4. Iron Maiden, Bring Your Daughter . . . To The Slaughter . . . As with Nugent, speaking of politically incorrect. But, an irresistible rocker and that’s what usually draws me in, music first, lyrics later because, my theory is, you could write the greatest lyrics ever but if your tune doesn’t compel people to listen, nobody will ever hear your words of wisdom. And if you don’t like the lyrics, you can still enjoy the music.

5. Black Sabbath, Digital Bitch . . . From the controversial 1983 album Born Again, sometimes referred to as Deep Sabbath or Black Purple because Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan was fronting Sabbath, for just one album, after original singer Ozzy Osbourne’s replacement Ronnie James Dio left. Space does not permit, so I’m linking to a couple articles about the escapades that in part inspired the classic comedy This Is Spinal Tap. All that said, I like the album, among Sabbath’s heaviest.

6. The Rolling Stones, Bitch . . . Pretty well known B-side to hit single Brown Sugar from the Sticky Fingers album, released in 1971 and among my favorite Stones tunes, and albums.

The story of the song, via engineer/producer Andy Johns, from various books on the band:
“When we were doing “Bitch”, Keith (Richards) was very late. (Mick) Jagger and Mick Taylor had been playing the song without him and it didn’t sound very good. I walked out of the kitchen and he was sitting on the floor with no shoes, eating a bowl of cereal. Suddenly he said, Oi, Andy! Give me that guitar. I handed him his guitar, he put it on, kicked the song up in tempo, and just put the vibe right on it. Instantly, it went from being this laconic mess into a real groove. And I thought, Wow. THAT’S what he does.”

Included is a great Richards solo in the middle which Mick Taylor, certainly more a virtuoso than Richards in purely technical terms, but they obviously worked well musically together, acknowledged as among Keith’s best. But the whole band is firing on all cylinders.

7. Metallica, Ain’t My Bitch . . . I like Metallica’s early thrash stuff, which they’ve returned to in some measure in recent years. I like their more conventional melodic stuff that began with the so-called Black album, the self-titled 1991 record that made them superstars via commercial hit songs like Enter Sandman, Nothing Else Matters and The Unforgiven. And they weren’t forgiven by some fans for then, egads, cutting their hair and embracing an even more commercial sound for the 1996 album Load, from which this track comes. Yet this is heavy, driving, quality rock and roll. Bands evolve. Be stuck in the past if you want, but you might miss something good.

8. Slayer, Seasons In The Abyss . . . What starts out like doomy Black Sabbath before speeding up is one of Slayer’s most conventional and accessible songs for those who might not like their speed metal/thrash stuff like Raining Blood, etc. I got into Slayer 30-plus years ago when I decided to sample them after reading an album guide to heavy metal bands. At first, as with Pantera (more on them in a moment) I thought, this isn’t even music as I was jarred by and unused to the thrash nature of their output. But it soon grew on me and it wound up for whatever reason, when I was commuting for work on my then hourlong drive, being my “in blizzard” music. Somehow, maybe the violence of the music, Slayer seemed to focus me as I drove through the sometimes scary snowstorms. As did Pantera.

9. Pantera, Drag The Waters . . . As with Slayer, same story, one of Pantera’s more conventional, accessible tunes. Heavy, yet melodic.

10. AC/DC, Emission Control . . . AC/DC’s climate change anthem. No, not really. It seems to be about sex. From the 2016 album Rock Or Bust.

11. The Who, Trick Of The Light . . . I’m about halfway through a biography of the late Who bassist John Entwistle, called The Ox, his nickname, written by Paul Rees. So he and The Who have been top of mind. This heavy rocker, written by Entwistle, has always been musically and lyrically one of my favorites from the 1978 album Who Are You as it describes a session with a prostitute with typical wry/dry Entwistle humor evidenced in previous Who songs he wrote like Boris The Spider and My Wife.

“Did I take you to the height of ecstacy, did a shadow of emotion cross your face or was it just another trick of the light?

“And I’d like to get to know you
On closer terms than this
But I guess you’ve heard it all before
Lady of the night
Won’t you steal away with me?
Lady of the night
Won’t you steal away with me?
The money’s lyin’ on the floor, she looks at me
Shakes her head and sighs
Out of time, out the door
Red light shinin’ in my eyes

But was I all right?”

12. Led Zeppelin, Communication Breakdown . . . From the first Zep album. Driving riff, passionate vocals, the whole band in sync. Short, sweet, superb.

13. Deep Purple, Speed King . . . A well-known Purple song from In Rock, the 1970 album that firmly established the band’s hard rock bona fides, yet perhaps surprisingly it didn’t chart as a single.

14. April Wine, 21st Century Schizoid Man . . . April Wine’s take, pretty much rote but worthwhile and perhaps they sent some people in the direction of the King Crimson classic which was the opening cut to Crimson’s seminal 1969 album In The Court Of The Crimson King. April Wine’s version appeared on the band’s 1979 album Harder . . . . Faster which spawned such well-known Wine tracks as I Like To Rock and Say Hello.

15. Nazareth, Steamroller . . . From the 1994 album Move Me, which was criticized from being overproduced and too much schlock rock as Nazareth seemed to be chasing musical trends around this time rather than doing what the band does best: rock. It’s a good assessment but on this one, they definitely do rock, perfectly reflecting the song title.

16. Uriah Heep, One Way Or Another . . . Great hook on this one, a riff underlying the whole song that is incessant throughout; you’re almost unknowingly immersed in it as you listen to the song as a whole, with all its other instrumental excursions. It’s from the 1976 album High And Mighty.

17. Pink Floyd, The Nile Song . . . What’s a Pink Floyd song doing in a hard rock set? Seems uncharacteristic, but listen. A heavy tune, raging vocals by David Gilmour also of course on guitar, from the More movie soundtrack that also serves as an official Floyd album, released in 1969.

18. Iggy & The Stooges, I’m Sick Of You . . . A track from the sessions for the 1973 album Raw Power that didn’t see wide release until an EP of the same name came out in 1977. The song has subsequently appeared on various Iggy Pop/Stooges compilations. A slow building track for the first two of its six-plus minutes, before all hell breaks loose.

19. Blue Oyster Cult, Mommy . . . Driving rocker outtake from the sessions for the 1974 album Secret Treaties.

20. Whitesnake, Sweet Talker . . . From the early days of Whitesnake before they went hair metal in the mid-1980s, to much commercial success and I like a lot of that stuff but . . . Before that, coming out of Deep Purple, lead singer David Coverdale and friends were more a blues-hard rock band. It’s my favorite period of the group via songs like this from the 1980 album Ready an’ Willing which also featured Deep Purple alumni Ian Paice (drums) and Jon Lord (keyboards). “The bitch is in heat’ is one of the lyrics so I suppose I should have placed this higher up with Sabbath’s Digital Bitch, the Stones’ Bitch and Metallica’s Ain’t My Bitch but, well, life’s a bitch sometimes.

21. Grand Funk Railroad, Mr. Limousine Driver . . . Funky rocker from the Railroad’s second record, simply titled Grand Funk, released in late December, 1969.

22. Ted Nugent, Motor City Madhouse (from Double Live Gonzo!) . . . Started with “The Nuge” and finishing with the Motor City Madman as he takes the original almost five-minute studio cut to epic 10-minute lengths filled with guitar and other assorted pyrotechnics.

A Christmas show with selected songs from various artists bracketing The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, a terrific 2003 studio release by one of my favorite bands. As Tull leader Ian Anderson says in the liner notes: “If you liked (the song) Bouree and the Songs From The Wood record, you will love this Jethro Tull Christmas Album. The aim was to find some uplifting traditional Christmas carols, some new songs and to re-record some old Tull pieces on the Christmas topic.”

Tull’s aim was true, as the album hits the bull’s-eye. It’s a Christmas album but an atypical one – indeed harkening back to the 1977 album Songs From The Wood – thanks to the group’s typically outstanding musicianship that results in what is a great folk-rock record, regardless its theme. It stands on its own considerable merits in the band’s catalogue.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Song clips on my Facebook page And listen to the show in the audio logs posted above.

1. Elton John, Step Into Christmas
2. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, I Believe In Father Christmas
3. The Kinks, Father Christmas
————————————————————————-
The Jethro Tull Christmas Album

1. Birthday Card At Christmas
2. Holly Herald
3. A Christmas Song
4. Another Christmas Song
5. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
6. Jack Frost And The Hooded Crow
7. Last Man At The Party
8. Weathercock
9. Pavane
10. First Snow On Brooklyn
11. Greensleeved
12. Fire At Midnight
13. We Five Kings
14. Ring Out Solstice Bells
15. Bouree
16. A Winter Snowscape
—————————————————————–
4. Roy Orbison, Pretty Paper
5. Elvis Presley, Blue Christmas
6. Bob Dylan, Here Comes Santa Claus
7. AC/DC, Mistress For Christmas
8. Paul McCartney/Wings, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reggae
9. Chuck Berry, Run Rudolph Run
10. Chuck Berry, Merry Christmas Baby
11. Eagles, Please Come Home For Christmas
12. John Lennon/Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band with The Harlem Community Choir, Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Elton John, Step Into Christmas . . . Up-tempo pop tune, upbeat lyrics celebrating the season, a happy song EJ released as a single in late November, 1973. It made No. 8 on the UK regular charts and No. 1 on US Billboard’s Christmas singles chart. Starting in 2007 it’s been released in the UK most Christmas seasons and continues to chart, ranging anywhere from the top 10 to the top 100. Just this past week it was re-released as a parody video starring actor and model Cara Delevingne, who plays a young Elton in a new take incorporating the new video with the original. The song itself was added, as a bonus track, to the 1995 reissue of the 1974 album Caribou and has also appeared on various compilations.

2. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, I Believe In Father Christmas . . . The beautiful voice of Greg Lake on a track that appeared on ELP’s Works Volume 2 album, 1977.

3. The Kinks, Father Christmas . . . A non-album single rocker from 1977 and not your typical happy Christmas song. Rather, it’s trademark Ray Davies’ ascerbic social commentary. To wit:

When I was small I believed in Santa Claus
Though I knew it was my dad
And I would hang up my stocking at Christmas
Open my presents and I’d be glad
But the last time I played Father Christmas
I stood outside a department store
A gang of kids came over and mugged me
And knocked my reindeer to the floor
They said
Father Christmas, give us some money
Don’t mess around with those silly toys
We’ll beat you up if you don’t hand it over
We want your bread so don’t make us annoyed
Give all the toys to the little rich boys
But give my daddy a job ’cause he needs one
He’s got lots of mouths to feed

Have yourself a merry merry Christmas
Have yourself a good time
But remember the kids who got nothin’
While you’re drinkin’ down your wine

Dave Davies, Ray’s brother and Kinks’ lead guitarist, on the song, in the liner notes to a compilation it appears on: “I love the humor of it, and the aggression and bitternesss of it. People do think like that at Christmas, especially people who grew up in an environment where . . . not that we were poor or anything, we were just a regular working-class house.”

————————————————————————-

The Jethro Tull Christmas Album

1. Birthday Card At Christmas . . . A new track, at least it was in 2003, written by Ian Anderson. Fine flute playing throughout on one of the heavier numbers on the album. Anderson said he was inspired to write it due to his daughter’s birthday being close to and, as can be the case, overshadowed by Christmas.

People have showered me with presents
While their minds were fixed on other things
Sleigh bells, bearded red suit uncles, pointy trees and angel wings
I am the shadow in your Christmas. I am the corner of your smile
Perfunctory in celebration. You offer content but no style

2. Holly Herald . . . An instrumental medley, arranged by Anderson, comprised of the traditional British folk Christmas carol The Holly and the Ivy and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

3. A Christmas Song . . . A single from 1968, redone but retaining (how could they not?) the classic spoken word ending “Hey! Santa! Pass us that bottle, will you?” by Tull’s 2003 lineup – Anderson (flute, vocals, acoustic guitars, mandolin, piccolo), guitarist Martin Barre, drummer Doane Perry, bassist Jonathan Noyce and keyboardist Andrew Giddings. A tight and cohesive unit from 1995-2006, it was one of the longest serving of the many Tull lineups over the years. It’s the version of Tull I saw most often live in my many concert experiences with the band.

4. Another Christmas Song . . . Another redo of a previous release. Another Christmas Song, a mid-tempo tune with lyrics, in part, about an old man thinking of his children, first appeared on the 1989 album Rock Island.

5. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen . . . Arranged by Anderson as an instrumental.

6. Jack Frost And The Hooded Crow . . . A redo of a 1986 single, about helping those in need at Christmas, that also appeared on the 1988 box set 20 Years Of Jethro Tull.

7. Last Man At The Party . . . A new song written for the Christmas album, a lively tune about celebrating the season.

Sister Bridget by the stair… a glass of wine and she’s almost there.
Cousin Jimmy at the door… another beer and he’s on the floor.
Friends and neighbours come around,
waste no time we’re heaven-bound.
But not before we raise a glass to good camaraderie. . .

So make yourselves jolly under mistletoe, holly and ivy.
Get to it – and be in good cheer.
And when it’s all over… pigs gone to clover –
Will the last man at the party wish me a happy New Year.

8. Weathercock . . . Beautiful song, originally released on the 1978 album Heavy Horses, the middle record in the so-called rustic trio of mostly folk rock Tull records that began with Songs From The Wood in 1977 and ended with Stormwatch in 1979. That said, I’ve never felt Stormwatch – which was arguably ahead of its time with some of its focus on environmental among other societal concerns – quite fits with the other two. It’s darker, still folk in spots but heavier overall. I didn’t warm to it at first but Stormwatch, as albums can tend to do, has grown on me over repeat listens.

9. Pavane . . . Written by French composer Gabriel Faure in 1887 and titled after a Spanish processional dance common in Europe during the Renaissance. It features flute among the instruments played, perfect for Tull in this arrangement by Ian Anderson.

10. First Snow On Brooklyn . . . Thought-provoking lyrical imagery tied to the title. You can visualize the light snow falling en route to becoming a blizzard as the protagonist of the piece returns to the New York City borough, questioning his decision to do so, apparently in a lament for the might have beens of a relationship.

I flew in on the evening plane
Is it such a good idea that I’m here again?
And I could cut my cold breath with a knife
and taste the winter of another life

. . . And the snow covers my footprints, deep regrets and heavy heartbeats; when you wake you’ll never see the spot that I was standing on . . . some things are best forgotten; some are better half-remembered. I just thought that I might be there, on your Christmas night.

The song epitomizes to me the quality and depth of the album and why I termed it an atypical Christmas album. It’s not simply a rock band doing Christmas carols, though they are part of the song lineup in various forms arranged by the group. It goes beyond that, songs that are set in the snow of the season but using Christmas as a vehicle to comment on the human condition.

11. Greensleeved . . . The classic traditional English folk song Greensleeves, done in so many ways by so many over the years, here retitled slightly, and arranged in instrumental form by Ian Anderson.

12. Fire At Midnight . . . The closing track on the original release of the Songs From The Wood album, redone by the 2003 version of Tull. Nothing really to do with Christmas but it fits the folk rock, traditional tune theme and to reiterate what Ian Anderson says in his liner notes to the Christmas album, if you liked Songs From The Wood, you’ll feel the same way about the Christmas album.

13. We Five Kings . . . We Three Kings, arranged by Anderson in instrumental form and cheekily retitled because there were five guys in the Tull band at the time. As for We Three Kings, I always remember the version my late father had on his reel-to-reel Sony tape deck through the late 1960s into the 1970s. I often talk about my older brother as a huge influence on me in terms of the rock and roll I listen to and embraced, and he was, but so was dad in the sense that music in all its forms was always playing thanks to his love of opera, classical and . . . American country music from the likes of Johnny Cash and Glen Campbell.

Anyway, back to We Three Kings and my dad’s version: Each of the wise men sings his verse, speaking of the gift he brings to baby Jesus in Bethlehem and then comes a big, booming voice . . . “And Gaspar spoke . . . ” It’s just so powerful, not just that specific part but the whole thing and has stuck with me since those childhood days whenever I hear or think of We Three Kings.

14. Ring Out Solstice Bells . . . Another one redone by the 2003 Tull lineup of a track originally on Songs From The Wood. It mentions mistletoe but again, one of those Tull ‘Christmas’ songs that isn’t a carol but fits the context of the album perfectly.

15. Bouree . . . One of the perpetually popular Jethro Tull instrumental pieces, by Johann Sebastian Bach and originally adapted and released on Tull’s second studio album, Stand Up, from 1969. It’s redone for the Christmas album by the 2003 version of Tull.

16. A Winter Snowscape . . . A rare composition, this one an instrumental by guitarist Martin Barre, on a Tull album that is not written by leader/chief songwriter/focal point Ian Anderson. Together in Tull since the second album, Stand Up, the longtime collaborators had something of an acrimonious split in 2011. That’s when Anderson decided to put Tull on apparently permanent hold and proceed as a solo artist, which he had done previously while pursuing parallel careers. In the end what resulted in 2017 was Anderson essentially rebranding his solo band as a new version of Tull which has since released two studio albums without Barre, who unlike Anderson is not a songwriter of note but has been touring Tull’s catalogue as a live solo act.

An interesting and compelling album, Tull’s Christmas offering. It was done at the behest of a record company executive who, according to Ian Anderson’s liner notes, emailed him two days before Christmas 2002, suggesting a Tull Christmas album for the following year. Anderson, who says he had considered the idea over time, got down to it and we have the results. The original 2003 release was reissued earlier this month as a five-disc box set including two concerts on CD and a blu-ray disc of the shows.

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4. Roy Orbison, Pretty Paper . . . Written by Willie Nelson, it became a hit for Orbison in 1963. A tale of a lonely street vendor selling pencils and paper on the streets as busy Christmas shoppers swirl around him, oblivious, uncaring, it could easily have been titled Pretty Pauper.

5. Elvis Presley, Blue Christmas . . . From Elvis’ Christmas Album, released in 1957 and considered a classic of such seasonal songs. “I’ll have a blue Christmas, without you . . . ”

6. Bob Dylan, Here Comes Santa Claus . . . From his 2009 album Christmas In The Heart. Like anything/everything with the enigmatic Dylan, there’s a WTF? aspect to it all but every artist seems to do a Christmas album, in one form or other, so why not Mr. Zimmerman, by this point, croaky voice and all? It’s good, bad, fun, funny, ridiculous and he’s obviously in on the joke, so what the hell?

7. AC/DC, Mistress For Christmas . . . So, you see, Dylan sings of Santa Claus coming and AC/DC has a request of the jolly ol’ elf. Typical tongue in cheek lewd and yeah maybe dumb or crass but so what, it’s AC/DC, from the 1990 album The Razors Edge.

“I just can’t wait ’til Christmastime when I can grope you in the hay” and “I want the woman in red at the bottom of my bed . . . Mistress for Christmas I can hear you coming down my smoke stack, yeah I want to ride on your reindeer, honey, and ring my bells, yeah” As lead singer Brian Johnson was once quoted as saying, “We’re a filthy band.”

8. Paul McCartney/Wings, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reggae . . . Instrumental cover of the perennial Christmas song by noted American holiday standards writer Johnny Marks (look him up, extensive catalog of such tunes) with a slight title twist. McCartney recorded it in 1975, it appeared as a 1979 single and was a bonus track on expanded editions of the 1979 Wings album Back To The Egg.

9. Chuck Berry, Run Rudolph Run . . . Typical Chuck Berry rocker, themed to Christmas.

10. Chuck Berry, Merry Christmas Baby . . . I couldn’t decide between two Chuck Berry tunes so I’m playing them both, provided I can squeeze them into the time slot. This one’s a deep blues of the sort for which Berry isn’t usually widely recognized. Check out the 2003 compilation of his early blues material, Chuck Berry Blues, for further evidence of his bona fides.

11. Eagles, Please Come Home For Christmas . . . Holiday single from 1978 of the song made famous by blues great Charles Brown, who, along with “the Queen of R & B” Ruth Brown (unrelated) I saw open for Bonnie Raitt in 1995 in Toronto as part of Raitt’s North American tour.

12. John Lennon/Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band with The Harlem Community Choir, Happy Xmas (War Is Over) . . .

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very Merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

And on that note . . .

The original intent was an album play show and Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion albums came to mind and if I played one, I should play the other since they’re of a piece. But playing both of them – released on the same day in 1991 when the band was so big that I remember lineups waiting for record stores to open on release day back pre-streaming when everyone bought physical product – came out half an hour longer than my 2-hour slot. So, I made my own compilation – and in doing so was reminded of how raunch and roll good G N’ R were and are – of some favorites from each album. So we have eight songs from Use Your Illusion I and seven from II, and I filled in the remaining time in the slot with The Doors’ second album, the 1967 release Strange Days.

Guns N’ Roses Use Your Illusion I/II compilation

1. Dust N’ Bones
2. Live And Let Die
3. Don’t Cry
4. You Ain’t The First
5. Bad Obsession
6. Double Talkin’ Jive
7. November Rain
8. The Garden
9. Civil War
10. 14 Years
11. Yesterdays
12. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
13. Locomotive
14. Estranged
15. You Could Be Mine

The Doors – Strange Days

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

More than a few songs with ‘house’ or ‘home’ in the title as a tribute to my younger of two sons. He and his fiancee have bought a home and take possession today. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Humble Pie, I Don’t Need No Doctor (live, from Performance – Rockin’ The Fillmore)
2. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, The House Is Rockin’
3 . Paul McCartney, House Of Wax (live, from Amoeba Gig)
4. AC/DC, House Of Jazz
5. The Kinks, A House In The Country
6. Talking Heads, Houses In Motion
7. Jimi Hendrix, Red House (live, from In The West)
8. Cheap Trick, Gonna Raise Hell
9. Genesis, The Dividing Line
10. The Yardbirds, Drinking Muddy Water
11. Muddy Waters, Mean Disposition
12. The Rolling Stones, Brand New Car (live, from Welcome To Shepherd’s Bush)
13. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Loner/Cinnamon Girl/Down By The River (live, from 4 Way Street)
14. The Mamas & The Papas, Dancing Bear
15. Van Halen, Take Your Whiskey Home
16. Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, Can’t Find My Way Home (from Live From Madison Square Garden)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Humble Pie, I Don’t Need No Doctor (live, from Performance – Rockin’ The Fillmore) . . . Rockin’, indeed. An incendiary nine-minute performance of a song, also famously done by Ray Charles, which was cut to around four minutes for release as a single from Humble Pie’s 1971 live album. The record was Peter Frampton’s last with Humble Pie before he went solo. Singer/guitarist Steve Marriott carried on as the band released the album Smokin’, which featured likely the group’s best-known song, 30 Days In The Hole.

2. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, The House Is Rockin’ . . . A toe-tapper from In Step, the 1989 album that, alas, proved to be the last one released during Vaughan’s lifetime. He died in a helicopter crash, after a concert in Wisconsin, in August, 1990 at age 35.

3 . Paul McCartney, House Of Wax (live, from Amoeba Gig) . . . The California independent chain Amoeba Music is a house of wax given that it sells vinyl records, along with CDs and other entertainment products while continuing to thrive selling physical material in the web streaming age thanks in some measure to its trade-in programs adopted by many such stores. So it’s an appropriate selection for McCartney to play. This track, featuring some nice guitar interplay between longtime McCartney band members Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, is from McCartney’s 2007 studio release Memory Almost Full and was played in a ‘secret show’ at the Amoeba outlet in Hollywood that summer. Selected tracks from the concert were released as a four-song EP, Amoeba’s Secret, in November 2007 before the entire show – featuring Beatles’ and McCartney solo tunes – was released as Amoeba Gig in 2019. House Of Wax is the type of song, from a latter-day album by a legacy act like McCartney whose newer material might otherwise get overlooked, that when you put it on a live album amid the well-known hits, perhaps gets deserved exposure.

4. AC/DC, House Of Jazz . . . The title mentions jazz but it’s actually a slow-burning bluesy cut with a typically catchy AC/DC riff, from the band’s Stiff Upper Lip album, released in 2000.

5. The Kinks, A House In The Country . . . Jaunty pop rocker from the 1966 album Face To Face during a period in which Kinks’ chief songwriter Ray Davies’ fascination with English class and social structure was reflected in the concept albums, replete with often cynical, biting lyrics, the group was releasing at the time.

For instance, the first verse and first line of the second:

“He don’t need no sedatives to ease his troubled mind.
At work he is invariably unpleasant and unkind.
Why should he care if he is hated in his home,
‘Cause he’s got a house in the country,
And a big sports car.

“But he ain’t got a home, oh no . . . ”

Etc.

6. Talking Heads, Houses In Motion . . . A potent brew of stimulating sounds on this song from a terrific album, 1980’s Remain In Light, that is full of such rhythmic adventures. Adrian Belew is a guest guitarist on the album, later to join King Crimson whose trio of albums – Discipline, Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair – released between 1981 and 1984 have, perhaps unsurprisingly, always to me sounded musically similar to Remain In Light.

7. Jimi Hendrix, Red House (live, from In The West) . . . What is widely considered Hendrix’s finest-ever live performance of his signature blues tune. It’s a 13-minute tour de force take, recorded in May 1969 in San Diego, on the four-minute track originally on the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut studio album, Are You Experienced, released in 1967.

8. Cheap Trick, Gonna Raise Hell . . . Nice groove on this pulsating nine-minute piece from the band’s 1979 album Dream Police. Cheap Trick was top of mind thanks to a chat with an artist friend of mine the other day. He’s painting portraits of various music legends on the front window of my local independent music store. He hasn’t done Cheap Trick, at least not yet. I don’t expect he will because good as Cheap Trick might be they don’t have the cachet of artists like The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and David Bowie that he’s done so far and he’s following the store owner’s direction in terms of who to draw.

That’s why KISS is on the window, which prompted a conversation about how I am not a big KISS fan but, by accident, really, saw them in concert, with Cheap Trick as their support act, in the summer of 1979. It’s a story I’ve likely told far too often whenever I play Cheap Trick, but this was the first time my artist friend had heard it so bear with me. It resulted from me and a college friend wanting to see Cheap Trick, hot at the time as a result of their blockbuster live album At Budokan. We couldn’t get tickets for the Toronto show but they were playing at the old Silverdome football stadium in Pontiac, Michigan, outside Detroit the next week. So, down to Detroit we drove to learn, while picking up a newspaper over lunch, that Cheap Trick was ‘special guest’ opening for KISS in all their over-the-top glory, painted-face and costumed KISS Army fans, young and old alike, included. I still chuckle at the memory of what was a good show by both bands. My youngest brother, the big KISS fan in our family through which I knew their music, was at least mildly miffed that I saw them while he didn’t.

9. Genesis, The Dividing Line . . . A showcase for session drummer Nir Zidkyahu, aka Nir Z. It’s from Calling All Stations, the ill-fated Genesis album released in 1997 after the departure of drummer and frontman Phil Collins, who was replaced on lead vocals, for the one album and subsequent tour, by Ray Wilson. The album, something of a return to Genesis’ art/prog rock roots as evidenced by this song, and tour were successful in the UK and Europe. North America was a different story, where first an arena tour and then a scaled-down theatre run were both cancelled due to poor ticket sales as fans apparently were unaccepting of a Genesis without Collins. In any case, this fulfills a promise I made last week to soon play something from the I think underappreciated Wilson period, which I discussed while playing Conversations With 2 Stools. That drum duel between Collins and longtime touring drummer Chester Thompson was released on the 2007 album Live Over Europe, a document of the reunion tour with Collins that also welcomed back touring members Thompson and guitarist Daryl Stuermer who were not on board for the Calling All Stations dates. I’m not suggesting Calling All Stations is necessarily prime Genesis at the level of some of the classic Peter Gabriel or Collins-fronted material, but it’s a worthwhile listen, in my opinion.

10. The Yardbirds, Drinking Muddy Water . . . Appropriate that the title namedrops the blues legend as it’s essentially a cover of Rollin’ And Tumblin’ as done by Muddy Waters but a driving, effective one nevertheless. It’s from the 1967 Little Games album during the period Jimmy Page was Yardbirds’ guitarist. Ian Stewart of Rolling Stones fame guests on piano.

11. Muddy Waters (Fathers And Sons), Mean Disposition . . . Soulful deep blues from the aptly-titled Fathers And Sons album from 1969. ‘Sons’ Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield of Butterfield Blues Band fame, along with Donald “Duck” Dunn of Booker T. & The MG’s, help out ‘Fathers’ Muddy Waters and Otis Spann on an excellent album collaboration.

12. The Rolling Stones, Brand New Car (live, from Welcome To Shepherd’s Bush) . . . The wah-wah guitar from the studio version of this song from 1994’s Voodoo Lounge album is taken to greater heights on this live version from the Stones’ latest archival release, which came out a week ago. It’s from a theatre show in London before 1,800 fans in June, 1999 that served as a warmup to the group’s dates a few days later at Wembley Stadium. It’s a deep cuts fan’s delight, featuring rarely if ever played in concert songs like the title track to the Some Girls album, Melody from Black And Blue, I Got The Blues from Sticky Fingers and Moon Is Up, also from Voodoo Lounge. As Mick Jagger states from the stage, ‘If you want to hear the hits, go to the big place down the road’ although the Stones do play the usual suspects like Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Women, Tumbling Dice and It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It).

13. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Loner/Cinnamon Girl/Down By The River (live, from 4 Way Street) . . . It’s CSNY but really in this case a Neil Young acoustic solo set medley within the overall show, and it’s awesome.

14. The Mamas & The Papas, Dancing Bear . . . Beautiful balladry, spooky and haunting at times, featuring the vocals of Denny Doherty, Cass Elliott and Michelle Phillips interpreting the words of chief songwriter John Phillips. It’s from the group’s self-titled second album, released in 1966.

15. Van Halen, Take Your Whiskey Home . . . Acoustic finger picking and then into the heavy electric riff on this one from the 1980 album Women And Children First.

16. Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, Can’t Find My Way Home (from Live From Madison Square Garden) … Onetime Blind Faith bandmates Clapton and Winwood (who wrote this Blind Faith tune) teamed up for a short American tour in 2009. The result was a live album and DVD/Blu-Ray nicely combining their solo work with material from Blind Faith and Traffic along with some rock and blues covers. Perhaps surprisingly, no Cream songs like Strange Brew, Crossroads or Badge on which Clapton was lead vocalist.

A three-album play, with my commentary beneath each album’s song list.

Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

1. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
2. A National Acrobat
3. Fluff
4. Sabbra Cadabra
5. Killing Yourself To Live
6. Who Are You
7. Looking For Today
8. Spiral Architect

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, crazy good album as are all in this album set, in my opinion but of course it’s my set. The Sabs’ record often reminds me of my Grade 10 English class in high school. It was a segment where the teacher asked us to present poetry that had been impactful, perhaps to that point, on our lives. If memory serves, I chose Rudyard Kipling’s “If” which, a few years earlier, I had been chosen to deliver to an elementary school assembly.

The outlier in Grade 10 English, though, came from a classmate of mine who brought in Sabbath Bloody Sabbath with the lyrics to every song on Black Sabbath’s 1973 record. There were some raised eyebrows from teacher and class members but I admired his gumption in terms of pushing the envelope and maybe breaking whatever rules may have existed. His presentation was convincing and in the end it turned me on to the album, full of great tracks starting with the killer title track, and I’m a forever fan of the band.

Van Halen – Fair Warning

1. Mean Street
2. Dirty Movies
3. Sinner’s Swing!
4. Hear About It Later
5. Unchained
6. Push Comes To Shove
7. So This Is Love?
8. Sunday Afternoon In The Park
9. One Foot Out The Door

In all respects and reviews, Fair Warning is acknowledged as being Van Halen’s darkest album. And that’s why it’s so good albeit not as commercially successful but just canvas listeners on various online platforms and the consensus as to quality is universally positive.

No hit singles to speak of, really, although Unchained is well known but even it, perhaps surprisingly, barely dented the charts. The key forever to me has been the deep dark opener, Mean Street, one of my alltime favorite VH songs which contains the lyric “fair warning’ from which the album is named. Who knows why they didn’t release it as a single or put it on any compilations. And, amid the heavy rock is the cool bluesy boozy Push Comes To Shove with David Lee Roth’s cooly expressed “anything left in that bottle?’ talk/sing line amid an apparent conversation among friends partying the night away to which I can well relate from my errant youth.

Rainbow – Rising

1. Tarot Woman
2. Run With The Wolf
3. Starstruck
4. Do You Close Your Eyes
5. Stargazer
6. A Light In The Black

Widely acknowledged as one of the best and most influential hard rock albums of all time, Rainbow’s Rising. It was the second release by the former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s band formed in 1975 and featuring the one and only vocals of the late great Ronnie James Dio. Dio came to Blackmore’s attention when Dio’s band Elf opened for Deep Purple on early 1970s tours. By 1975, Blackmore had left Deep Purple and formed Rainbow with elements of Dio’s previous band Elf but by the time of Rising, outside of Dio, former Elf members were gone in favour of aces like drummer Cozy Powell.

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

1. Led Zeppelin, Moby Dick/Bonzo’s Montreux
2. Genesis, Conversations With 2 Stools (from Live Over Europe 2007)
3. Mick Jagger, War Baby
4. The Steve Miller Band, Kow Kow Calqulator
5. Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Rock That Boogie
6. Moon Martin, Hot Nite In Dallas
7. Link Wray, Studio Blues
8. Steve Earle, Continental Trailways Blues
9. Dave Edmunds, Singin’ The Blues
10. Elmore James, Look On Yonder Wall
11. Maria Muldaur, It’s A Blessing
12. Harry Chapin, Dance Band On The Titanic
13. Arlo Guthrie, Alice’s Restaurant Massacree
14. Ian Dury, Clevor Trever
15. David Baerwald, A Secret Silken World
16. Bob Dylan, What Was It You Wanted
17. Murray Head, One Night In Bangkok
18. Dishwalla, Charlie Brown’s Parents
19. Mountain, The Great Train Robbery

My track-by-track tales:

1. Led Zeppelin, Moby Dick/Bonzo’s Montreux . . . A couple of drum showcases to start the set, the first a combination track featuring the late John Bonham put together by Zep guitarist/producer Jimmy Page for the band’s 1990 box set, simply titled Led Zeppelin. “Previously unreleased in this form” as the liner notes on the box set state, as Page merged Moby Dick, which also featured his guitar riff, from Led Zeppelin II in 1969, with Bonzo’s Montreux which was recorded in 1976 but not officially released until the 1982 compilation Coda which consisted of previously unreleased and/or live tracks.

2. Genesis, Conversations With 2 Stools (from Live Over Europe) . . . In which Phil Collins goes back behind the kit to musically converse with longtime Genesis touring drummer Chester Thompson in a six-minute duel. This version is from the band’s 2007 Turn It On Again tour that saw the return of Collins to the Genesis fold after he had left in 1996 to fully concentrate on his solo career. He was replaced by singer Ray Wilson for the ill-fated 1997 studio album Calling All Stations. The ‘conversation’ is something Collins and Thompson started doing beginning with Genesis’ 1977 tour, although Collins – who took over lead vocals in the mid-1970s after Peter Gabriel left the band – continued to do the drumming on studio albums and some live songs over the years.

The Ray Wilson period of Genesis I don’t think is as bad as many critics would suggest. I think the album – which I intend to play again on the show sometime – has good songs and it made No. 2 in the UK charts and was successful in Europe. It’s just that the fan base, particularly in North America where a planned tour was cancelled due to poor ticket sales, wasn’t apparently accepting of anyone replacing what had by then become the iconic Collins. That’s interesting given how Collins was easily accepted as the replacement for the thought-to-be irreplaceable Peter Gabriel in the mid-1970s. Interviews with band members about the Wilson period are available on YouTube and some of the opinion, including from Wilson himself, is that, had the Wilson-Tony Banks-Mike Rutherford lineup done a second album, starting from scratch as a unit (Wilson came in with Calling All Stations already mostly written by Banks and Rutherford) things might have turned out differently, perhaps a more successful third version of the band. Who knows, it didn’t happen. Collins himself suggests in one of the interviews that it was easier for him to take over and the band adjust to the departure of Gabriel, given that the group had been around for less than a decade at that point, than it was for Wilson, who came in after Collins had fronted and written with the band for 30 years.

As for Chester Thompson, he was also in Phil Collins’ solo touring band but the two had a falling out during a 2010 tour; apparently Collins was dissatisified with Thompson’s playing. And that’s the last association Thompson – a veteran who lists on his resume time with Frank Zappa and Weather Report – had with any Genesis member. He was replaced by Collins’ son Nic Collins on the band’s final tour, the 2021 trek The Last Domino? Tour. Thompson was originally hurt by the split with Collins but apparently things have been smoothed out to the point where he was supportive of Collins’ son joining the touring band. Nic Collins had travelled with the group on the 2007 tour and Thompson said it was evident he had great potential.

“I was pretty upset. But I’m over it now,” Thompson is quoted in a Wikipedia entry about his relationship with Phil Collins. “I wish him nothing but the best.”

And as for Nic Collins, now age 23: “We knew at five or six years old that this kid was going to be a monster. I think it’s fantastic that he got to play with his dad,” Thompson said.
But Nic couldn’t play directly with his father on shared drum stool conversation, alas. Phil, due to various health issues including spinal injuries, at last report can no longer play the drums and he sat in a chair at the front of the stage, doing lead vocals, on the most recent Genesis tour.

3. Mick Jagger, War Baby . . . Primitive Cool, Jagger’s second solo album, released in 1987, gets trashed and I’d trash it, too, if all I’d ever heard from it was the first single, Let’s Work. It’s actually in retrospect not a bad dance type track as Jagger, as he usually does when doing solo albums and kudos to him for that, tries to separate himself from the Rolling Stones sound and in this case is helped along by the production gloss of Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame. But there’s the ridiculous video of fit Mick doing aerobics and running and such and lecturing people to get off their butts and to work, etc. and I remember thinking, WTF, Mick? Yet another case where sometimes an artist, or the record company, picks the wrong single and/or video. And then the whole album is judged by it because not all listeners dig deeper.

There’s much better songs on Primitive Cool than Let’s Work. Like Party Doll, the type of hurtin’ country ballad Jagger does so well and I’ve played on the show before and this one, War Baby. It came to mind because I’m currently reading a biography of Who bassist John Entwistle and the first line of the first chapter talks about how Entwistle, born in 1944 was, like Jagger (born 1943) a ‘war baby’ raised amid the rubble wrought by Nazi bombing of the UK. And Jagger speaks to that in an anti-war song too easily overlooked by random, quick assessments of the album. I will always think Jagger’s next solo album, the 1993 record Wandering Spirit, is easily his best solo effort in large measure because it’s the solo album of his that sounds most like The Rolling Stones. But Primitive Cool, for those who haven’t dug in, is worthy of deeper investigation; you arguably need to approach it from the point of view that it’s a Jagger album, not a Stones’ record. Jeff Beck is lead guitarist on the album.

4. The Steve Miller Band, Kow Kow Calqulator . . . From the 1969 album Brave New World and it would be a new world of bluesy and psychedelic rock for any fans of Miller who only know him for his many 1970s hits like Take The Money And Run, Fly Like An Eagle, The Joker, etc. that make up the bulk of one of the best-selling compilations ever, Greatest Hits 1974-78. There was a Steve Miller Band before all of that, with albums released starting in 1968. A different sort of band. Boz Scaggs of later fame via solo hit singles like Lido Shuffle and Lowdown was in the group, although Boz left before Brave New World, having played on the first two Miller band albums. Miller continued on in the same vein until achieving commercial success starting with The Joker in 1973 and then the back-to-back full of hits albums Fly Like An Eagle and Book Of Dreams in 1976 and ’77.

5. Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Rock That Boogie . . . I never would have thought so but I must have some rockabilly, or rockabilly boogie, in my soul because I seem to play a fair bit of it. Maybe it goes back to me getting blitzed on Purple Jesus with friends going into a bluegrass festival while in college during the summer of 1980. We weren’t at all into bluegrass, although I’ve come to like it over the years but back then we just went for the party. We realized we’d forgotten or not bothered to get any mix – no purple, just Jesus! – so we just drank the straight booze, passing a bottle of grain alcohol between us, essentially three drunks walking down the street into the festival, little of which, predictably, we saw or heard but again, we weren’t really there for the music. We survived the occasion, such as it was. I crashed out early in a tent we were sharing with other friends we met up with, dirt was the floor such that when I returned home the next day, in relatively fine fettle but white sweat shirt caked with mud, my older and one of my younger brothers asked “what the eff happened to you?”

6. Moon Martin, Hot Nite In Dallas . . . Pulsating production, this straight ahead rock and roller from the guy who gave us two hits, his own Rolene and Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor) covered by Robert Palmer on his Secrets album. The songs were released within a month of each other in the summer months of 1979.

7. Link Wray, Studio Blues . . . I just felt like hearing more instrumental guitar wank from the father of feedback/doctor of distortion, so here we are. With some horns, to boot.

8. Steve Earle, Continental Trailways Blues . . . According to the liner notes on Essential Steve Earle, a 1993 retrospective, this slow burn country rockabilly-ish tune appeared during the 1987 Steve Martin-John Candy movie Planes Trains and Automobiles which I’ve never seen in full, caught bits and pieces while channel surfing whenever it shows up on TV so I’ve gotten the gist of the picture, all well and good. This tune was also released on a 1988 country compilation titled Country And Eastern. Earle, a buddy of mine once said, could sing the phone book (if any still exist but you get the gist) and he’d listen. I agree.

9. Dave Edmunds, Singin’ The Blues . . . Twangin’ is a great album title for Edmunds’ 1981 release in terms of suiting what’s within. I remember initially being disappointed by the album, having come to Edmunds largely via his previous hit record Repeat When Necessary, issued in 1979 and featuring songs like Crawling From The Wreckage by Graham Parker and Girls Talk via Elvis Costello. So I was expecting more instantly immersive songs. Twangin’ ? No real hits, great music. Sometimes, as Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones has said, you have to let things marinate, then you ‘get’ it.

10. Elmore James, Look On Yonder Wall . . . This one’s from 1961. Listening to the great underproduced (or more likely perfectly produced) blues including the vocals and spare yet effective instrumentation, it’s no wonder so many rock artists were inspired by this sort of thing.

11. Maria Muldaur, It’s A Blessing . . . Bonnie Raitt is a backing vocalist on this deep acoustic blues track from Muldaur’s 2001 album Richland Woman Blues. Muldaur is best known for her 1970s hit Midnight At The Oasis but much of her material is bluesy brilliance.

12. Harry Chapin, Dance Band On The Titanic . . . Uptempo tune on yet another of Chapin’s typically great story songs, in this case about that ‘unsinkable’ ship and also a commentary on how diversions can be created to distract from real problems.

Nothing to do with the music but often when I think of the Titanic – and like many I’m endlessly fascinated by the story, the what ifs, etc. – as a sports fan and retired sportswriter I also think of a hockey player, Morris Titanic. He was a hotshot junior scorer drafted in the first round, 12th overall, by the Buffalo Sabres in 1973 but never scored a goal nor earned an assist in the National Hockey League. He had a clean sheet of 0-0-0, not even any penalty minutes, in 19 games over two seasons. I remember various newspaper headlines when he was sent down to the minor leagues:

“Titanic goes down” How could they resist?

Titanic wound up having a six-season minor league career before going into coaching. Others in his draft class fared better in the NHL, among them Hockey Hall of Famers Denis Potvin, Lanny McDonald and Bob Gainey.

13. Arlo Guthrie, Alice’s Restaurant Massacree . . . I first heard this in my high school gym, mid-1970s, a talent show where a classmate of mine played it. He seemed to get mixed reviews despite his excellent performance, perhaps because the song is long, nearly 19 minutes but it’s worthwhile of course, lyrically and musically.

14. Ian Dury, Clevor Trever . . . Yes, it’s spelled that way. Clevor Trever, not the Clever Trevor you might expect. Creativity, you know. A funky groove tune from the New Boots and Panties!! album released in 1977. I got to it in 1978 via a first-year college friend who introduced me to it via the single Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll which was on the North American album but not, at the time given industry practice, on UK releases.

15. David Baerwald, A Secret Silken World . . . Spooky track, harrowing lyrics, it opens with “I took a ride with a sadist on a Saturday night’ and devolves from there. It’s from one half of the perhaps cult figure Davids, Baerwald and Ricketts, who in 1986 under the banner David + David released one of my favorite albums, Boomtown, which I’ve often delved into. Baerwald now does music scores for film and TV with occasional music releases including this one from the 1992 album Triage, while Ricketts has done session work and production.

16. Bob Dylan, What Was It You Wanted . . . “Who are you, anyway’ great line in the context of a full song of brilliant lines, maybe about him, maybe us, maybe someone in particular. One never truly knows with Dylan, which is his lyrical magic. This is from his 1989 album Oh Mercy.

17. Murray Head, One Night In Bangkok . . . Murray Head, as Judas, was a prominent performer on the Jesus Christ Superstar, soundtrack, the 1970 version that is, to me, the best soundtrack of that production. Also starring with Head were Ian Gillan of Deep Purple as Jesus and Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene. Head is in a different musical milieu on this compelling rap/disco/spoken word highlight of the mid-1980s musical Chess, which revolves around a Cold War-era tournament of the best game ever invented.

18. Dishwalla, Charlie Brown’s Parents . . . Heavy riffing from a band that is still around and they rock but turned out to be, perhaps unfairly, a one-hit wonder group – the terrific 1990s hit single Counting Blue Cars that they never managed to follow up to any extent.

19. Mountain, The Great Train Robbery . . . Another story song to finish the set, this one about the famous 1963 robbery in England. It’s from Mountain’s 1971 album Nantucket Sleighride.

Lots of guitar pyrotechnics, often lengthy but always compelling, from various virtuosos and assorted raunch and rollers. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. AC/DC, Bad Boy Boogie (live, from If You Want Blood You’ve Got It)
2. Ted Nugent, Hibernation (Amboy Dukes track on Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo! album)
3. The Amboy Dukes, Migration
4. Chicago, Free Form Guitar
5. Jimi Hendrix, The Star-Spangled Banner (live at Woodstock)
6. The Rolling Stones, Fingerprint File (from Love You Live)
7. Queen, The Prophet’s Song
8. Jeff Beck, My Tiled White Floor
9. Ian Hunter, Wild East
10. Vanilla Fudge, Street Walking Woman
11. Gov’t Mule, I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)
12. Deep Purple, Mistreated (live, from Made In Europe)
13. The Who, My Generation (extended version of the hit single, interpolating various Tommy and other tracks, from Live At Leeds)
14. Johnny Winter, It’s All Over Now (from Captured Live!)

My track-by-track tales:

1. AC/DC, Bad Boy Boogie (live, from If You Want Blood You’ve Got It) . . . Three minutes longer, and the better for it, than the four minutes and change studio version which is terrific, too, originally released on the 1977 studio album Let There Be Rock. AC/DC came to mind to play because the band this past week announced a North American tour for 2025 in support of the 2020 album Power Up.

It seems like a long time between an album coming out and a tour promoting it as a followup but the album was released during the pandemic lockdowns and beyond that, AC/DC has been touring in support of the record in Europe and elsewhere. The band is finally coming back to North America with the first show of the tour scheduled for Minneapolis, Minnesota on April 10, 2025 with the lone Canadian date, so far anyway, scheduled for Vancouver, April 22.

I’ve seen AC/DC live twice, but I won’t be going to, say, close to me locations the band is hitting like Detroit or Cleveland, although I’m sure it will be a great show. Probably. I’m to the point where my big concert days are likely if not certainly done. I’ve missed some, but in general seen all the classic bands/artists I want to see, like AC/DC, the Stones, etc., multiple times and I suppose part of it for me is that, as I and they age, I don’t want to risk seeing them in a bad performance that can happen due to advancing years. I saw AC/DC on their own tour in support of the Ballbreaker album in Toronto in 1996, fantastic show, and then again at the Toronto Rocks SARS show in 2003 in support of The Rolling Stones on a bill that also featured Rush and The Guess Who among many others. I saw the Stones for the millionth time (actually about 20 counting multiple concerts on a given tour; I saw every tour from 1978 on) in 2013, amazing show, and I thought, that’s it for me: I don’t want to risk seeing them not deliver live – as they yet continue to deliver to this day based on reports and fan feedback. But I’m satisfied with the shows I’ve experienced with my alltime favorite band.

I’d never want it to get to where it did with another favorite, Jethro Tull where I’d seen the band numerous times yet when I saw them in 2007 it was clear Ian Anderson’s voice was shot and the show, while competent, made too many allowances via long instrumental incursions and arrangements into well-known tracks that weren’t so much creative as it seemed obvious they were covering for Anderson’s vocal challenges. It was disappointing and sad and many Tull fans have remarked on the decline of his singing over the years yet he’s still out there, albeit with now from what I’ve read a backing vocalist. So that was it for me and Tull. I get it, people age, things change, challenges arise, I don’t begrudge them for continuing, it’s what artists do, but in any case I have all the music to continually enjoy . . . best wishes to AC/DC I’m sure they will continue to rock.

2. Ted Nugent, Hibernation (live, Amboy Dukes track on Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo! album) . . . A lenghty (16 compelling minutes) instrumental from Nugent’s days with The Amboy Dukes which he released as a by then solo artist in a live version on 1978’s Double Live Gonzo! album. Nugent’s address to the audience introducing the song is worth the price of admission alone: “This guitar was born in the motor city, Detroit, murder capital, such a healthy place for all the boys and girls the murder capital of the world (editor’s note: hey, that rhymes) . . . This guitar I been told was one time out on safari, this guitar right here is guaranteed to blow the balls off a charging rhino at 60 paces. . . . You see, this guitar definitely refuses to play sweet shit.”

Good for Detroit that, at my last look, had dropped to No. 12 in the US in terms of murders but back then, Nugent was pretty much bang on. And then he rocked the house. Some despise him for his politics, I’m of the ‘I don’t give a shit I can separate things, I just enjoy much of his music’ persuasion and that applies for me to any artist, when they’re actually playing their music.

3. The Amboy Dukes, Migration . . . Another instrumental, a driving at times spooky title cut to the band’s 1969 album, Nugent out front on propulsive lead guitar.

4. Chicago, Free Form Guitar . . . Utterly out of character cut, this is, for anyone thinking of Chicago as the syrupy ballad band via tracks like If You Leave Me Now (albit a good song) that presaged the group’s subsequent somewhat record company pressured but nevertheless move to in my mind overproduced ballad and power-ballad success of schlock during the 1980s and beyond.

But before that, sublime success certainly creatively and the only Chicago I listen to. Free Form Guitar is a 1969 recording that is the kind of performance where, during a concert – whether it be an extended (and boring to some, sometimes me included although I generally appreciate them) drum or guitar solo – some in the stands go for a bathroom break or a beverage and such experimental avant-garde excursions are usually confined to the live experience. But, not in this case. This almost seven-minute solo slab of the great Chicago guitarist Terry Kath was a studio cut on the band’s debut album, Chicago Transit Authority. But that’s how it was, back then, on radio and album; you’d hear such things and it was a good thing but I’m biased, I grew up back then. In any case, Kath’s perhaps not to all taste’s track apparently inspired what comes next, from a guy, Hendrix, who was on record as suggesting that Kath was better than he was. Who can say? Music isn’t or shouldn’t be a competition, there are so many greats bringing so much to their art, through the decades, we all have our favorites, best to just enjoy what they bring, in my book.

5. Jimi Hendrix, The Star-Spangled Banner (live at Woodstock) . . . By now, from my sports follower’s view of ongoing events, there’s been many guitarists playing the US national anthem. But Hendrix’s performance at Woodstock remains arguably the most well-known. Epic and influential.

6. The Rolling Stones, Fingerprint File (from Love You Live) . . . Raunchy live version (as are all versions of the songs on Love You Live) of this track from 1974’s It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll album, released on the Stones’ 1977 live album. I recall the record – aside from the bluesy El Mocambo side – getting trashed by some media critics yet fans, clearly evidenced now in online comments but back then in general conversation, loved it. As do I.

7. Queen, The Prophet’s Song . . . A lengthy, progish track from the 1975 album A Night At The Opera which featured the hit Bohemian Rhapsody but was, other than that single, an album of great depth as Queen, successful to that point, ascended to a higher level.

8. Jeff Beck, My Tiled White Floor . . . One of two studio tracks on the 2015 live album Jeff Beck Live + . Electronic, hypnotic rock propelled along by the drumming and lead vocals of Veronica Bellino, a noted California session player by way of New York.

9. Ian Hunter, Wild East . . . A lesser known, perhaps, but by no means less quality offering than the rest of Hunter’s 1979 album You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic which featured at well known songs like Cleveland Rocks, Just Another Night, When The Daylight comes, I could go on because the whole album is a quality front-to-back listen. I remember linguists suggesting the album title should have been You’re Never Alone As A Schizophrenic which I can see makes sense but whatever.

10. Vanilla Fudge, Street Walking Woman . . . Hard rock psychedelic offering from the band that was, well, hard rock/psychedelic. From the 1969 album Rock & Roll. Drummer Carmine Appice and bassist Tim Bogert went on to form the band Cactus while, later, Appice played in Rod Stewart’s post-Faces bands and both were members of the short-lived group (Jeff) Beck, Bogert Appice.

11. Gov’t Mule, I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline) . . . Lengthy treatment in the typical harder-rocking manner Gov’t Mule tends to give its blues covers, in this case of the Howlin’ Wolf tune. From the 2021 album Heavy Load Blues.

12. Deep Purple, Mistreated (live, from Made In Europe) . . . Made In Japan tends to get most of the accolades and deservedly so but among the now countless Deep Purple live albums via various formations of the group, Made In Europe, released in 1976, was to my teenage mind equally great and remains so to this day. It was from the so-called Mk. III version of the band: David Coverdale (vocals with a particularly impassioned performance here) and Glenn Hughes (bass/vocals) having replaced singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover for the albums Burn and Stormbringer, from which Made In Europe was drawn.

13. The Who, My Generation (extended version of the hit single, interpolating various Tommy and other tracks, from Live At Leeds) . . . A hit, yes, and this is a deep cuts show for the most part but the depth is in the extension of the original three-minute single into an epic 15-minute excursion.

14. Johnny Winter, It’s All Over Now (from Captured Live!) . . . And we’re outta here, another show over, on Winter’s typically smokin’ version of a tune, in this case the Bobby and Shirley Womack-penned song famously covered by The Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart, among others.

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

1. Elton John, Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
2. Black Sabbath, When Death Calls
3. Megadeth, Killing Is My Business . . . And Business Is Good!
4. Judas Priest, Beyond The Realms Of Death
5. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Lucretia MacEvil (full album version)
6. Bruce Hornsby, Spider Fingers (live)
7. The Spencer Davis Group, Waltz For Lumumba (instrumental)
8. The Rolling Stones, Moon Is Up
9. Led Zeppelin, Down By The Seaside
10. Robin Trower, Day Of The Eagle
11. Nirvana, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter
12. Joe Jackson, A Slow Song
13. Cry Of Love, Too Cold In The Winter
14. J. Geils Band, Monkey Island
15. The Beatles, What’s The New Mary Jane
16. Slade, Keep On Rocking (live)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Elton John, Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding . . . I was discussing great double albums by great bands when I played Led Zeppelin’s In The Light from Physical Graffiti on Saturday’s show. Elton John’s 1973 double vinyl Goodbye Yellow Brick Road of course is one of those classics along with, as previously mentioned, The Beatles’ White Album, Exile On Main St. by The Rolling Stones, London Calling by The Clash, Bruce Springsteen’s The River, many others. I’ve been meaning to get back to Elton John for a few weeks, so here we go with this epic Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album opener.

2. Black Sabbath, When Death Calls . . . Sticking with the death theme, not that I’m in a morbid mood at all, it just played out that way. I suppose I should have started with When Death Calls, then a funeral song as whoever is put to rest, but the Sabs’ when Death Calls is more a doomy slower piece and I generally like to start with more of a rocker, although Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding does take a bit before it speeds up but when it does . . . In any case, this is another – I played The Shining from 1987’s Eternal Idol a few weeks ago – from the I think underappreciated Tony Martin on lead vocals period of Black Sabbath. It’s from the 1989 album Headless Cross. Brian May of Queen is a guitar guest on When Death Calls, playing the first solo.

3. Megadeth, Killing Is My Business . . . And Business Is Good! . . . Early thrash/speed metal, title cut to the band’s 1985 debut album.

4. Judas Priest, Beyond The Realms Of Death . . . Half ballad, half metallic rocker, back and forth over seven minutes on this slab of guitar soloing from the 1978 album Stained Class.

5. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Lucretia MacEvil (full album version) . . . “Ooh Lucy you just so damn bad. . . ” Love that lyric and David Clayton-Thomas’s vocal delivery. Among my favorite BS & T tunes, this is the full version, three ticks short of six minutes, twice the length of the single extracted from Blood, Sweat & Tears 3, the group’s 1970 album. And it’s better than the truncated single, allowing for full flowering of the instrumental and vocal interplay of, along with Chicago, one of the early 1970s best bands in the jazz-rock genre.

6. Bruce Hornsby, Spider Fingers (live) . . . I watched the 1955 sci-fi monster movie Tarantula the other day as I pared down some accumulated backlog of recordings, perhaps accounting for me playing a song with ‘spider’ in the title. It’s a funky fingers foray by piano man Bruce Hornsby on this live version of a jazzy tune originally on his 1995 studio album Hot House. Hornsby is still likely best known to the masses for his 1980s hits The Way It Is and The Valley Road, both great songs, but he’s much more, a talent who counts among his exploits having been a longtime touring member of the latter-day Grateful Dead, among other projects and his own solo work.

7. The Spencer Davis Group, Waltz For Lumumba (instrumental) . . . I played the band Family last week which got me thinking of Ric Grech who was a member, which got me thinking of Blind Faith of which Grech was also a member, which got me thinking of Steve Winwood of Traffic fame who was also in Blind Faith along with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker. But before that, Winwood was lead singer in The Spencer Davis Group although he doesn’t sing on this instrumental which, given what later followed, could be seen as a precursor to the jam band type material later versions of Traffic embraced.

8. The Rolling Stones, Moon Is Up . . . Charlie Watts on ‘mystery drum’, according to the Voodoo Lounge album liner notes. The drum was an overturned metal garbage can with Watts being recorded while isolated in a stairwell, hammering the can with brushes.

9. Led Zeppelin, Down By The Seaside . . . I played In The Light last Saturday after someone mentioned Down By The Seaside, also from the 1975 Zep albun Physical Graffiti, to me earlier that week. In The Light fit Saturday’s space rock theme and at the time I wrote that I’d play Seaside again soon, perhaps as early as Monday, so here we are. A bluesy acoustic ballad that a third of the way through turns, at points, into a rocker. Overall the song is apparently an homage by Robert Plant to Neil Young’s work around the time of Young’s After The Goldrush album, released in 1970.

10. Robin Trower, Day Of The Eagle . . . Opening track riff rocker to arguably Trower’s finest hour, the 1974 album Bridge Of Sighs featuring the other members of his prime period 1970s power trio of drummer Reg Isidore and bassist/soulful singer James Dewar. Geoff Emerick, longtime engineer at Apple Studios who worked on many Beatles albums as well as Paul McCartney’s Band On The Run, London Town, Tug Of War and Flaming Pie, was sound engineer on Bridge Of Sighs.

11. Nirvana, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter . . . Bleak, nihilistic stuff belying the tongue in cheek song title from the 1993 album In Utero after Nirvana seemingly came out of nowhere to achieve superstardom, propelled by the hit single Smells Like Teen Spirit but many other great songs, and shifting millions of units of their breakthrough 1991 album Nevermind.

12. Joe Jackson, A Slow Song . . . Great long song, seven minutes, slow for the most part but up tempo in spots, from JJ’s 1982 album Night And Day. He is, as often mentioned, one of my favorite artists, been following him since his punk/new wave beginnings with the debut Look Sharp! album in 1979 and he’s never disappointed me through his often daring travels through myriad genres including jazz, jump blues and classical. And in response to his lyric “And I get tired of DJs, why is it always what he plays, I’m gonna push right through, I’m gonna tell him to, tell him to play us, play us a slow song . . . ” Done, Joe.

13. Cry Of Love, Too Cold In The Winter . . . If you didn’t know better, you’d think this was Free or Bad Company but it’s Cry Of Love, a North Carolina band that formed in 1989 and lasted until 1997, releasing two studio albums. And they’re not ripoffs of those aformentioned Paul Rodgers on lead vocals-fronted great bands, more a tribute to them embracing the influences but coming up with Cry Of Love’s own distinctive sound. I remain perplexed as to why they weren’t bigger, particularly via this song from the excellent 1993 debut Brother which I think is the album’s best cut. It was co-written by the group’s guitarist, Audley Freed, who later spent some time in The Black Crowes. The song title fits with the cold weather we’ve had in southern Ontario the last few days after a great run of balmy weather deep into the fall.

14. J. Geils Band, Monkey Island . . . Extended, spooky in spots nine-minute title track to the group’s 1977 album. No hit singles to speak of although I suppose I Do is relatively well known. The album did not chart high, everything about it seemed different from previous J. Geils releases including the black and white cover art of some band members in apparent silhouette not to mention the one-time cover billing of the group as just ‘Geils’, no ‘J’. To me, though, it’s akin to, say, The Kinks’ Muswell Hillbillies, yet another brilliant album that seemed to escape many people or achieve commercial success but is worth investigating.

15. The Beatles, What’s The New Mary Jane . . . Weird and wonderful, depending on one’s mood it’s either crap or creative. A reject from The White Album, I suppose the boys said ‘John (Lennon) we’re giving you Revolution 9 you can’t have this, too, on the album.” According to The Beatles Anthology 3 CD release, of the official Beatles it’s just Lennon and George Harrison on this track along with Yoko Ono and Beatles road manager/personal assistant Mal Evans. Lennon is on vocals and piano, Harrison on guitar and Yoko and Evans on various sound effects.

16. Slade, Keep On Rocking (live) . . . Love the (perhaps, probably drunken?) intro to this one: “this is a, this is a rock and roll, it sounds good (I think that’s what he says it’s relatively unintelligible) heah’s one . . . ” And then they kick in and indeed rock. I’m not even really a Slade fan, a guilty pleasure I guess, I have a compilation just because, plus the live album, Slade Alive! from which this track comes, a CD that, in a purge, I tried to trade in for $$ but no used store wanted it which may tell you something. Anyway . . . that’s not meant as a slag on the UK glam/hard rock group because I’m glad I still own it; Alive! is a good, energetic album which opens with a cover of Hear Me Calling by one of my favorite bands, Ten Years After, and is further evidenced by this track. Slade Alive! came out in 1972, before Slade’s hits like 1973’s Cum On Feel The Noize, a song American band Quiet Riot 10 years later took to the top 10 in North America. Slade’s version was No. 1 in the UK but didn’t chart in North America.

A space rock show, occurred to me for whatever reason when I woke up in the middle of the night around 3 am Wednesday. Some songs started filling my head so I got up and scribbled them down. In the end here we are with lots of extended pieces like the near 20-minute but never boring live version of Space Truckin’ from Deep Purple’s Made In Japan, some bands that are categorized as space rock, like Hawkwind which earns two cuts, and other tunes with either spacey lyrics or song titles that fit the theme. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Flash And The Pan, Welcome To The Universe
2. The Guess Who, Truckin’ Off Across The Sky (from Live At The Paramount)
3. Deep Purple, Space Truckin’ (live, from Made In Japan)
4. Hawkwind, Sputnik Stan
5. Pink Floyd, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun (live, from Ummagumma)
6. Led Zeppelin, In The Light
7. King Crimson, Moonchild
8. Hawkwind, Space Is Deep
8. The Rolling Stones, 2000 Light Years From Home
9. Rush, Cyngnus X-1
10. Yes, Close To The Edge

My track-by-track tales:

1. Flash And The Pan, Welcome To The Universe . . . From the Aussie band’s second album, Lights In The Night. An interesting band, particularly due to the seeming incongruity of a new wave group like Flash And The Pan being comprised of people who produced albums by hard rock band AC/DC, particularly during the Bon Scott on lead vocals period. That would be Harry Vanda and George Young, both members of the 1960s Australian band The Easybeats, George being the older brother of AC/DC guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young. Just another example of how the arts know no boundaries.

2. The Guess Who, Truckin’ Off Across The Sky (live) . . . A long jam about trips into the universe of one’s nind, never released on any studio album, from the band’s 1972 album Live At The Paramount. Verbal pyrotechnics by lead singer Burton Cummings supported by the equally transportive instrumental excursions of guitarists Kurt Winter and Don McDougall, drummer Gary Peterson and bassist Jim Kale.

3. Deep Purple, Space Truckin’ (live) . . . Nearly 20 minutes of instrumental and vocal interplay from one of the classic live albums, Made In Japan. I was initially going to play the 4:31 studio cut from Machine Head but listened to them both and thought, let’s go long.

4. Hawkwind, Sputnik Stan . . . Hawkwind, known as a ‘space rock’ band, has so many tracks that could be applied to a themed show such as this. This hard-driving for the most part cut is from the 1995 album Alien 4.

5. Pink Floyd, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun (live) . . . I played a few tracks from the studio disc of Ummagumma in my ‘weird shit’ show of Saturday, November 16/24 and within my comments I mentioned the live portion of Ummagumma and that I might play the entire Ummagumma album at some point. Not yet, but as mentioned previously the live part of that studio-live album is killer stuff, and here’s another of Floyd’s versions of a song that initially appeared on the 1968 studio album A Saucerful Of Secrets.

6. Led Zeppelin, In The Light . . . Every great band/artist seems to have a great double (at the time, on vinyl) studio album. The Beatles’ White Album officially just titled The Beatles. Exile On Main St. by The Rolling Stones, Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, The Clash’s London Calling, many others. Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album Physical Graffiti easily fits the category and it’s the album from which I drew this track. So, we’re coming from Floyd’s setting controls for the heart of the sun to being in the light of the sun, or something like that, by titles, anyway. In The Light came to mind because someone had in conversation during the week mentioned Zep’s Down By The Seaside, one of my favorite of their songs. It’s from Physical Graffiti so it got me thinking of the album. As for Down By The Seaside, I’ve played it before and will again, perhaps as soon as Monday’s show.

7. King Crimson, Moonchild . . . King Crimson did many amazing records and songs, genre-bending and otherwise but if forced to choose, I will always go back to the 1969 debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King. It’s brilliant, this song one example.

8. Hawkwind, Space Is Deep . . . Endless, actually, to our knowledge; the universe is, so far, ever-expanding. This is from Hawkwind’s cleverly titled 1972 album Doremi Fasol Latido.

8. The Rolling Stones, 2000 Light Years From Home . . . Well-known track for Stones fans, the B-side to the She’s A Rainbow single from the controversial 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request where the Stones were accused of lamely copying The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album. I love both bands but the only thing I’d say the Stones may have copied is their variation, tongue in cheek as always, on the album cover. The music within is entirely different, evidenced by this and many other tracks. Satanic Majesties has its weak moments but The Beatles, with much obvious respect, never did anything like this or many of the terrific tunes on Satanic Majesties, like Citadel or The Lantern. Nor did the Stones do anything like many of the things on Pepper. So what? Different bands, sounds, approaches, you can like them both without endlessly, ridiculously, comparing. The Stones did this cosmic rocker to great effect, light show and otherwise, when they resurrected it for the 1989 Steel Wheels tour I saw in Toronto.

9. Rush, Cyngnus X-1 . . . I’ve probably played this too often when I play Rush but it fits the sci-fi/space rock theme of the show and it’s one of my favorite Rush tracks. It’s from 1977’s A Farewell To Kings, which I was attracted to by the hit single Closer To The Heart but upon buying it back then I was hooked on the band, album by album, although A Farewell To Kings remains my favorite Rush record.

10. Yes, Close To The Edge . . . So, via song titles at least, we’ve come from entering and being welcomed to the universe to flying around it via various means to now, perhaps, via this epic title track to Yes’s 1972 album, being close to the edge . . . maybe falling off it.

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

1. Family, Good News Bad News (live)
2. Chicago, Movin’ In
3. Peter Gabriel, That Voice Again
4. Genesis, Me And Virgil
5. The Guess Who, Those Show Biz Shoes
6. Aerosmith, Hoodoo/Voodoo Medicine Man
7. The Rolling Stones, Keep Up Blues
8. Paul McCartney, Run Devil Run
9. George Harrison, Sue Me, Sue You Blues
10. Trapeze, Jury
11. The Doobie Brothers, I Cheat The Hangman
12. Billy Cobham, Stratus
13. Blackmore’s Night, Storm
14. Queen, Long Away
15. Foghat, Take It Or Leave It
16. Peter Green, Cryin’ Won’t Bring You Back
17. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Keep On Chooglin’ (live)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Family, Good News Bad News (live) . . . High energy progressive rock from the English band, a good example of the quiet-to-loud dynamic that can work so well, and Family could and often did flit from folk rock to near metal. Back and forth we go between light verses and all-out instrumental assault choruses bolstered by the electrifying vocals of Roger Chapman. Chapman’s singing style is said to be drawn from his attempts at emulating Little Richard and Ray Charles, who he particularly idolized, although with Chapman’s more whiskey-and-cigarettes raspy vibe.

Good News Bad News is a live track from Family’s half-live, half studio 1970 album Anyway. Family, formed in 1966, was never a hugely successful commercial act, at least not outside the UK where the band’s albums were usually in the top 30 on the charts, but they did rub shoulders and tour with more commercially successful contemporaries like Jethro Tull, Ten Years After and Emerson, Lake and Palmer and well-known, or relatively well-known names in popular music did pass through Family. I first heard of the band when my older brother brought home the lone studio album by supergroup Blind Faith, which was comprised of former Cream members Eric Clapton (guitar/vocals) and Ginger Baker (drums/percussion), Steve Winwood (lead vocals/keyboards/guitar) of Traffic fame and . . . Family’s Ric Grech, likely the least known of the quartet, on bass and violin. Multi-instrumentalist and singer John Wetton, whose resume included stints in King Crimson, Uriah Heep, Roxy Music and Asia, among others, was a Family member in the band’s early days as was guitarist/bassist Jim Cregan. Cregan was a regular member of Rod Stewart’s band from the 1977 album Footloose & Fancy Free through 1995 and earned co-writing credits on various songs including the hit singles Passion and Forever Young. Keyboardist/singer Tony Ashton, who collaborated with Deep Purple members on several outside projects including the excellent 1977 album Malice In Wonderland – not to be confused with the 1980 Nazareth album by the same name – by Paice Ashton Lord with Purple drummer Ian Paice and keyboardist Jon Lord, was also, early on, a branch of the Family tree.

2. Chicago, Movin’ In . . . All a matter of personal taste, of course, but early Chicago is the best Chicago, particularly for me the first three albums although there’s great progressive jazz-rock throughout most of the first nine studio albums released before the death of guitarist Terry Kath, who sings Movin’ In. It’s the opening track on the second Chicago album, released in January, 1970. The record is now commonly referred to as Chicago II although when it came out it was just “Chicago”, the band having shortened their name from The Chicago Transit Authority, also the title of their debut album, after a threatened lawsuit by the actual mass transit operator.

3. Peter Gabriel, That Voice Again . . . Propulsive percussion from ace session player Manu Katche on this, er, catchy tune from Gabriel’s 1986 blockbuster album So. The record featured hits like worldwide smash Sledgehammer, Big Time, In Your Eyes, Red Rain and Don’t Give Up (with Kate Bush). That Voice Again was issued as a promotional single before the album came out and made No. 14 on the US Billboard charts. The So album was drummer/percussionist Katche’s first collaboration with Gabriel, with whom he’s since worked to the present day while also maintaining a solo career as well as numerous albums with Sting starting around the same time as his association with Gabriel.

4. Genesis, Me And Virgil . . . One of five studio songs on the international edition of Three Sides Live, the original vinyl album released in 1982 as a document of the tour in support of the 1981 studio album Abacab. Two of the songs (Evidence Of Autumn and Open Door) were B-sides from the previous album, 1980’s Duke, while Me And Virgil, You Might Recall and Paperlate, originally pegged for Abacab, didn’t make the final cut and wound up on the EP 3 X 3, released in the UK, where Three Sides Live was an entirely live album.

Paperlate, featuring the Earth, Wind & Fire horn section, became a hit single. Me And Virgil is a poppy folk type song with some aggresssive progressive elements, but the writer, Phil Collins, doesn’t like it, according to Wikipedia calling it a ‘dog’ and suggesting it was a failed attempt by Genesis to do a song similar to The Band’s work. I like it, but it’s interesting, and natural in creative work, how artists can look askance at their own material. Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, for instance, is on record as saying about Get Off Of My Cloud that he “never dug it as a record”, (?!) thinking it was poorly produced and a rushed attempt to follow up the previous single (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.

As mentioned, Three Sides Live was an entirely live album in the UK, reflecting the sometimes different markets, and marketing, of music. Because EPs never became as commercially viable elsewhere as in the UK, the record company, and the band, decided to put the aforementioned studio cuts from the 3 X 3 EP and the Duke sessions on one side of the international release of the live album. One For The Vine (from Wind And Wuthering), The Fountain Of Salmacis (Nursery Cryme) and the pairing of It from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and Watcher Of The Skies from Foxtrot rounded out the UK live album. “Songs like One For The Vine had never been very popular in America and we felt it wasn’t right to put them on the US album,” keyboardist Tony Banks is quoted as saying in the 1995 book The Complete Guide To The Music Of Genesis. “We could also call the British LP Three Sides Live because there were three of us!” (in the band; guitarist/bassist Mike Rutherford rounding out what by then was a trio). Subsequent reissues of Three Sides Live feature the original UK all live track list, with the studio songs – aside from Me And Virgil, which Collins apparently vetoed – appearing on later archival Genesis box sets. I still own the original 1982 international release of Three Sides Live which I bought primarily because I liked Paperlate and to that point, unless you had the UK EP, it was hard to find Paperlate although it’s since appeared on various Genesis compilations.

5. The Guess Who, Those Show Biz Shoes . . . A fun jam from the 1973 album Artificial Paradise. Burton Cummings in full cry with his singing and spoken word vocals of the stream of consciousness lyrics, not to mention his keyboard playing, myriad tempo changes throughout the song, twin guitar attack from Kurt Winter and Don McDougall . . . satisfying stuff.

6. Aerosmith, Hoodoo/Voodoo Medicine Man . . . Aerosmith enjoyed a commercial rebirth with the 1987 album Permanent Vacation by transitioning to outside songwriters like Desmond Child and Jim Vallance to complement the band’s own writers. A good album, I like it, but arguably much of the raunch from 1970s classic albums like Rocks and Toys In The Attic had been smoothed over, maybe too much for aficionados of the ‘old’ Aerosmith. However, the next album, 1989’s Pump, turned the clock back a touch, particularly on tracks like the haunting Hoodoo/Voodoo Medicine Man.

7. The Rolling Stones, Keep Up Blues . . . The backing instrumental track for this bloozy cut was done by the band, including then-bassist Bill Wyman, during the Some Girls album sessions in 1978. Mick Jagger added new lyrics, vocals and a nice harmonica line for the double disc 2011 reissue of Some Girls that featured previously unreleased material from the original sessions.

8. Paul McCartney, Run Devil Run . . . Rip-roaring old time rock ‘n’ roll from McCartney. It’s the title cut to his 1999 release that features classics like All Shook Up, made famous by Elvis Presley, and Chuck Berry’s Brown Eyed Handsome Man, along with McCartney originals like Run Devil Run. “I saw this herbal medicine shop in Atlanta selling Run Devil Run products,” McCartney says in the album’s song-by-song liner notes. “I thought, that is a great rock ‘n’ roll title. So I did a story, Chuck Berry style.” The shop itself is the album cover. Run Devil Run features David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame on guitar and drummer Ian Paice of Deep Purple. Gilmour plays on all of the album’s 15 tracks, with Paice on board for 13 of the 15 songs.

9. George Harrison, Sue Me, Sue You Blues . . . Terrific tune, musically and lyrically, in which Harrison opines on the various lawsuits that swirled around The Beatles at the time of the band’s breakup, and for some time beyond. It’s from the 1973 album Living In The Material World. Harrison tackled legal issues again three albums later, on the 1976 album 33 1/3 with This Song, a satirical commentary on the copyright infringement suit against him over his 1970 worldwide hit single My Sweet Lord.

10. Trapeze, Jury . . . Like Family’s Good News Bad News which I opened the show with, another example, and I suppose it’s fairly common, of the fast and slow, light and heavy dynamic in this eight-minute piece from the 1970 album Medusa. It’s a solid record, arguably Trapeze’s best, produced by John Lodge of The Moody Blues and issued, along with three other Trapeze albums, on the Moodies’ Threshold label.

11. The Doobie Brothers, I Cheat The Hangman . . . A spooky, ethereal track written by founding and forever Doobie Brothers member Patrick Simmons, from the 1975 album Stampede. It was former Steely Dan ace guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter’s first as a fulltime member of The Doobie Brothers, although he had contributed, as a session player, to previous albums. I Cheat The Hangman features Maria Muldaur of Midnight At The Oasis fame on backing vocals and was inspired by the famous short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, written by American writer and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce.

12. Billy Cobham, Stratus . . . Jazz-rock fusion from drummer Cobham’s first solo album, Spectrum, released in 1973. The album featured Cobham’s former Mahavishnu Orchestra bandmate Jan Hammer on keyboards and synthesizer along with guitarist Tommy Bolin and resulted in Bolin eventually joining Deep Purple. Purple was in a pinch in 1975, with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore having departed to form Rainbow, when then-Purple singer David Coverdale convinced his bandmates that Bolin warranted an audition based on his playing on Spectrum. Bolin got the Purple job, resulting in the 1975 album Come Taste The Band. As for Stratus, it’s a remarkable 10-minute piece of ensemble playing by Cobham, Hammer, Bolin and bassist Lee Sklar, a session player of great renown within the music industry. Still active at age 77, Sklar has appeared on more than 2,000 albums in a wide variety of genres but most notably recording and/or touring with James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King and Phil Collins as well as contributing to numerous film and TV soundtracks and theme songs. Web searches reveal his remarkable resume.

13. Blackmore’s Night, Storm . . . Having come from a hard rock background with Deep Purple and Rainbow, Ritchie Blackmore raised some eyebrows in 1997 when he formed the folk rock/medieval music band Blackmore’s Night together with his then girlfriend now wife Candice Night, who handles lead vocals. The band started off playing mostly acoustic material but, as on Storm from the third album, 2001’s Fires At Midnight, has increasingly incorporated more electric guitar. The material reminds me of some Jethro Tull – Tull’s Ian Anderson contributed flute to one track, Play Minstrel Play on the first Blackmore’s Night album Shadow Of The Moon – and Fairport Convention. It’s terrific stuff.

14. Queen, Long Away . . . Beautiful if melancholic song written and sung by guitarist Brian May, one of my favorites from the 1976 album A Day At The Races and one for which May has said he’d like to be remembered.

15. Foghat, Take It Or Leave It . . . Smooth, mid-tempo tune from the Fool For The City album, released in 1975 and known for the title track and the big hit single Slow Ride.

16. Peter Green, Cryin’ Won’t Bring You Back . . . Typically beautiful guitar playing and emotive singing on this bluesy ballad from the Fleetwood Mac founder’s 1980 album Little Dreamer. The song, along with many during this period of Peter Green’s career when he was re-emerging professionally while dealing with mental health issues and drug abuse, was written by his older brother Mike, a guitarist and singer in his own right who gave a pre-teen Peter his first lessons on guitar. It’s standard fare lyrically, lamenting lost love but also an appropriate title, given Peter Green left us in 2020. But we’ll always have the amazing music he left behind – solo, with Fleetwood Mac and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.

17. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Keep On Chooglin’ (live) . . . As we choogle on out of here at show’s end, riding the southern fried groove of an extended track that first appeared in studio form on the 1969 album Bayou Country. This version, recorded in Oakland, California in January of 1970, appeared on The Concert live album, released in 1980, long after CCR packed up. The Concert was originally mistakenly released under the title The Royal Albert Hall Concert, until it was discovered the tapes came from the Oakland show, not a gig at the London, England venue. The actual Royal Albert Hall show was released in 2022 as a companion album to the documentary film, and an excellent one it is, Travelin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall. The film is on Netflix and many of the song performances are on YouTube.

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

1. Santana, All Aboard
2. Edgar Winter’s White Trash, Give It Everything You Got
3. Santana, Soul Sacrifice (live at The Fillmore 1968)
4. The Rolling Stones, Gunface
5. Bruce Springsteen, Point Blank
6. Tom Waits, 16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six
7. Stray Cats, 18 Miles From Memphis
8. Cat Stevens, 18th Avenue (Kansas City Nightmare)
9. Spirit, 1984
10. Guns N’ Roses, 14 Years
11. Izzy Stradlin, Shuffle It All
12. Ron Wood, Seven Days
13. Keith Richards, Struggle
14. 54-40, Nice To Luv You
15. The Kinks, Yo-Yo
16. Steely Dan, Babylon Sisters
17. The Police, It’s Alright For You
18. Gordon Lightfoot, I’m Not Sayin’/Ribbon Of Darkness
19. Bob Dylan, Slow Train
20. Humble Pie, Road Hog
21. The Doors, I Can’t See Your Face In My Mind
22. Eric Clapton, Double Trouble (live, from Just One Night)
23. Jethro Tull, Life Is A Long Song
24. U2, Until The End Of The World

My track-by-track tales:

1. Santana, All Aboard . . . A short instrumental to start things off, from the 2016 album Santana IV. It was so named as it represented a reunion of most of the original members of the Santana band which had recorded the group’s first three albums – Santana, Abraxas and Santana (commonly referred to as Santana III to distinguish it from the first album) – between 1969 and 1971.

2. Edgar Winter’s White Trash, Give It Everything You Got . . . Funky, bluesy, soulful song from Winter’s second studio album but first under the moniker of his White Trash group, released in 1971 after 1970’s debut Entrance. White Trash was produced by Rick Derringer, who worked extensively with both Edgar and Johnny Winter, played guitar on the White Trash album and toured with Edgar’s band, resulting in the 1972 live album Roadwork.

3. Santana, Soul Sacrifice (live at The Fillmore 1968) . . . Back to Santana we go, this one a 14.5 minute version of the instrumental that, before the band had ever released a studio album, brought them to prominence thanks to its performance at the 1969 Woodstock festival. The version I’m playing was recorded months earlier, in December, 1968 at Fillmore West in San Francisco but not commercially released until 1997 as part of the album Live At The Fillmore 1968.

4. The Rolling Stones, Gunface . . . Menacing funk rocker, lots of great guitar, from the 1997 album Bridges To Babylon, a latter day Stones’ treat. It’s memorable for me not just for the album itself, which I like as I do all Stones’ material, but because I took my then age 9 older son to his first concert, Stones on their Bridges To Babylon tour at Toronto’s then-named Skydome, now Rogers Centre, April 1998.

Three things from that show stick out to me, beyond the actual concert. Pre-show, outside the stadium we run into a couple work friends of mine who are startled by, when in fun quizzing my son Mark about the Stones, he responds with mentions of deep tracks he’s learned (and my friends may not have known) through my playing of Stones’ albums at home. So, they stood corrected or at least surprised. Second, once we got to our seats, Mark just looking around the massive stadium, marvelling at it all, the stage, etc. and turning to me and saying “this is so cool.” And it was. And third, the Stones come out, blitz through the opener Satisfaction and I turn to my son in jest and say “wow, we can go home now that was so great a performance.” But of course we didn’t. An amazing and memorable night, our first of several Stones trips together.

5. Bruce Springsteen, Point Blank . . . One of my favorites from The River, the third album in the remarkable streak that saw Springsteen issue Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town and The River between 1975 and 1980 and in many ways those three albums remain the foundation of his art. A brooding lament to lost love and the twists and turns of life.

6. Tom Waits, 16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six . . . From 1983’s Swordfishtrombones album, where Waits moved from more traditional song structures to experimental sounds often housed within odd time signatures. In short, unconventional. An acquired taste, perhaps, but Waits puts many fine offerings on the menu.

7. Stray Cats, 18 Miles From Memphis . . . Infectious rockabilly, typical of the band, from their 1983 album Rant N Rave With The Stray Cats, the followup to their 1982 breakthrough Built For Speed which featured such hits as Rock This Town and Stray Cat Strut. Built For Speed, the group’s first North American release, was actually a compilation of their first two albums, the self-titled debut and Gonna Ball, both released in 1981 in the UK where the group first achieved success before returning to the USA.

8. Cat Stevens, 18th Avenue (Kansas City Nightmare) . . . One of those multi-faceted Stevens’ productions, this one from his 1972 album Catch Bull At Four. Slow buildup, then into a relatively heavy rocking orchestral portion as the song plays out over its four minutes and change. I played Stevens’ 18-minute Foreigner Suite in mid-October and commented at the time on what a wonderful trip through assorted tempos that song is; Stevens does similar things here, within a much shorter time frame.

9. Spirit, 1984 . . . Los Angeles psychedelic/progressive rock band Spirit is perhaps best known to some as being involved in a lawsuit with Led Zeppelin – ultimately settled in Zep’s favor – over similarities in the Spirit instrumental Taurus, released in 1968, and the intro to Stairway To Heaven, released in 1971. Much reading available on that and people will form their own views. But there’s far more to Spirit than that one instrumental and the song 1984 is just one example. A haunting, hypnotic bass line is a feature of this 1969 track which fits the lyrics revolving around the warnings within George Orwell’s dystopian novel.

10. Guns N’ Roses, 14 Years . . . A co-write between Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin, who was soon to leave the band after the Use Your Illusion albums. This bluesy track, mainly sung by Stradlin, was on Use Your Illusion II, released simultaneously with Use Your Illusion I on September 17, 1991. The music market was obviously different then but G N’ R was among the biggest bands on the planet at that point and I recall lineups at record stores waiting to purchase the albums.

11. Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds, Shuffle It All . . . From Stradlin’s first solo album after leaving Guns N’ Roses, released in 1992 and sounding very much like a Keith Richards of Rolling Stones fame solo album. So yes, it’s derivative, but so many bands were inspired by the Stones who were in turn inspired by their deep blues predecessors and, as Richards has said, the best tribute a musician can have is that he or she ‘passed it on.” And we’ll get to Keith in a solo song soon but first a track from his Stones’ guitar henchman/ancient art of weaving compadre Ronnie Wood.

12. Ron Wood, Seven Days . . . A Bob Dylan tune Wood covered on his 1979 album Gimme Some Neck after which he and Keith Richards formed the New Barbarians, who toured North America and opened for Led Zeppelin at the Knebworth (UK) Festival. I saw the New Barbarians at the Rolling Stones one-off concert in Oshawa, Ontario that was part of Richards’ penance for an earlier drug bust in Toronto, great show by both bands. Another worthy cover of Seven Days is by Joe Cocker, on his 1982 album Sheffield Steel.

13. Keith Richards, Struggle . . . Instantly recognizable riffology from Richards, from his debut solo album Talk Is Cheap, 1988 during the so-called World War III period where Richards and Rolling Stones partner/frontman Mick Jagger were at odds. Richards’ solo albums were rightfully critically acclaimed as media seemed to take sides in the ‘war’ but Jagger’s solo albums – particularly Wandering Spirit, his 1993 offering that was the most Stones’ like – were solid as well. The difference to me as a fan of the band and both songwriting principals being that Jagger was going for experimentation outside the Stones’ bubble – which can be argued should be the essence of a solo album, be different than what your band is known for – while Richards preferred, and that’s obviously fine, to continue musically to live within that basic Stones framework.

14. 54-40, Nice To Luv You . . . Likely the song that turned me on to 54-40. I’d heard of them, the Canadian band having been around for more than 10 years before their 1992 album Dear Dear came out but this single, which charted in Canada, is what got me into the band along with the second single from the album, She-La. I saw them live in Toronto in the early 2000s; great show.

15. The Kinks, Yo-Yo . . . The Kinks were on a hot streak during the early 1960s – You Really Got Me; All Day And All Of The Night – and then again during the late 1970s into the early 1980s starting maybe with 1977’s Sleepwalker and 1978’s Misfits but truly breaking through with 1979’s Low Budget album and its follow up, 1981’s Give The People What They Want, from which I pulled this track. In between Give The People and Low Budget was the raucously terrific live album One For The Road.

16. Steely Dan, Babylon Sisters . . . Suave and sophisticated in typically jazzy Steely Dan fashion, from the 1980 album Gaucho, which was to be the group’s last studio album until their reunion 20 years later for -after some live reunion tours and a live album – two more studio efforts.

17. The Police, It’s Alright For You . . . Driving rocker from the band’s second album, Reggata de Blanc with its big hit single Message In A Bottle. Could easily have been a single, wasn’t, but likely and rightly so remains a well-known Police track to fans of the band.

18. Gordon Lightfoot, I’m Not Sayin’/Ribbon Of Darkness . . . A combination of two tracks that initially appeared on Lightfoot’s debut album, Lightfoot! released in 1966. It was later put together for the Gord’s Gold compilation. Marty Robbins took Ribbon Of Darkness to No. 1 on the country charts in 1965.

19. Bob Dylan, Slow Train . . . Dylan threw critics and some fans for a loop when he came out with the Slow Train Coming album in 1979, the artist having embraced Christianity. But to me what seemed to have been somewhat lost over his three ‘Christian’ albums – Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot Of Love – was not only the great players Dylan had backing him, people like Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame, session drummer to the stars Jim Keltner to name two, but more so the typically great and often prescient Dylan lyrics throughout the trilogy. Slow Train has, to my reading of the lyrics, nothing much if anything to do with religion, it’s cutting social/political commentary. As for the playing, I recommend not just the studio albums but The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Trouble No More 1979–1981 which features Dylan’s crack band in live settings.

20. Humble Pie, Road Hog . . . Nice blues rocker from the 1975 Street Rats album, the band falling apart, critically panned but what do critics know, constantly comparing to what was or what they think should be.

21. The Doors, I Can’t See Your Face In My Mind . . . One of those spooky, immersive Doors tracks you can only find by investigating the actual studio albums; this one from the band’s second release, 1967’s Strange Days.

22. Eric Clapton, Double Trouble (live, from Just One Night album) . . . Eric does justice to the Otis Rush tune on his, Clapton’s, 1980 live album. I well knew, from college days, but never actually owned this album until recently, some tracks from it are on the Clapton Crossroads box set but there I was earlier this year, flipping through the used CD rack in my friendly neighborhood and still thankfully surviving local record store and lo and behold there it was, cheap, too . . . I thrust my arms in the air in victory, to knowing smiles from the staff, and bought the sucker.

23. Jethro Tull, Life Is A Long Song . . . A nice one from one of my alltime favorite groups, Tull. It was first released on an EP in the United Kingdom, later placed on the 1972 compilation album Living In The Past which was, for many in North America at least, something of an intro to Tull and as such almost standing alone, albeit being a compilation, as a studio album in its own right, while not actually being one. Tull opened with this when my eldest son and I saw them for the fourth of five shows, over time together as we saw them, this time in 2005 at Toronto’s Massey Hall.

24. U2, Until The End Of The World . . . Another of those probably well-known songs by a great band where one thinks, this was a hit single yet it wasn’t. It’s an album track on Achtung Baby which may be my favorite U2 record although I’m also partial to War, Boy and I guess the great but overplayed Joshua Tree whose best track, to me, is the non-single Bullet The Blue Sky. Back to Until The End Of The World: Great lyrics to a pulsating riffing beat: “Everybody having a good time, except you, you were talking about the end of the world . . . you miss too much these days if you stop to think . . . I was drowning in sorrows but my sorrows they learned to swim…”

What was also impressive to me is how U2 played the Achtung Baby album live. They knew they had a good one; on the tour they came out and the first six songs and seven of the first nine were from the new album they risked the audience not knowing yet, but on they went to great acclaim. It to me was akin, and even more daring since U2 opened with entirely new stuff, to when I saw The Rolling Stones in 1978 on the Some Girls album tour and they confidently played eight of 10 songs from the album in the middle of the set, knowing they were promoting a winner that would come to be known as such.

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

1. The Rolling Stones, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking
2. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Born To Run
3. Johnny Winter, Feedback On Highway 101
4. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Arroyo
5. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, F*!#n’ Up
6. Bob Seger, Love The One You’re With
7. John Mellencamp, French Shoes
8. Pretenders, Pop Star
9. Ten Years After, Let The Sky Fall
10. Bruce Springsteen, Blinded By The Light
11. Black Sabbath, The Shining
12. Robert Palmer, Under Suspicion
13. Dead Kennedys, Police Truck
14. Ozzy Osbourne, Diary Of A Madman
15. Talking Heads, Memories Can’t Wait
16. Small Faces, The Autumn Stone
17. Jeff Beck, Let Me Love You
18. Small Faces/Faces, Three Button Hand Me Down
19. Faces, Maybe I’m Amazed (live)
20. Rod Stewart, Seems Like A Long Time
21. George Thorogood, No Expectations

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Rolling Stones, Can’t You Hear Me Knocking . . . Two songs in one, really, opening with the great Keith Richards riff before the entire band kicks in along with Mick Jagger’s vocals and then a bit before halfway through it becomes a Santana-esque instrumental jam highlighted by Mick Taylor’s guitar improvisations teamed up with saxophone player Bobby Keys as they just kept the tapes running.

2. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Born To Run . . . Along with the title track of The Last Rebel album, released in 1993 and from which Born To Run (not the Springsteen song) comes, this extended bluesy rock piece is one of my favorites by the post-plane crash version of Lynyrd Skynyrd and in fact one of my favorites of theirs, period. I’m admittedly loyal to the brand, but it’s because in my view the band has released quality music throughout their career, still going strong at least on the touring circuit, eight studio albums (though none since 2012) since the plane crash in 1977. Yet they aren’t always given a chance by fans of the so-called original band and that’s fine, but those fans tend to forget or overlook that Skynyrd’s lineup, even during the so-called classic years and they were of course the foundation upon which the reputation was built, was relatively fluid and changing, easily looked up. Guitarist Steve Gaines, for instance, who tragically perished in the plane crash, seems to be looked upon in some quarters as an original member yet, brilliant as he was, he only played on one studio album, the pre-crash 1977 release Street Survivors and before that, the 1976 live album One More From The Road.

3. Johnny Winter, Feedback On Highway 101 . . . Boogie rocker from Winter’s 1974 album Saints & Sinners. It was written by Van Morrison and targeted for Van The Man’s 1973 album Hard Nose The Highway but shelved, only appearing on bootlegs, with Winter’s cover to my knowledge the only official commercial release.

4. The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Arroyo . . . Funky country blues from the band’s 1976 album Men From Earth. Like many, perhaps, for the longest time I was satisfied with knowing the Daredevils’ two mid-1970s hits, Jackie Blue and If You Wanna Get To Heaven. Then, one day, I picked up, cheap in a used store, their 21-track CD compilation Time Warp: The Very Best Of The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, released in 2000. What a revelation. Great stuff, beyond those two aforementioned well-known hits, including a terrific swamp rock song, E.E. Lawson, I played back on my April 15, 2023 show. So it’s long past time I dug back into the Daredevils.

5. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, F*!#n’ Up . . . From Neil’s grungy, feedback- and distortion-laden 1990 album Ragged Glory and that it is, terrific unadulterated raunch and roll in all its glory. The chorus/hook “why do I keep effing up” is, I suppose, something we all feel from time to time as we may periodcally fall down, the key of course being to get back up. As time passes and now halfway into my seventh decade, as long as I maintain roof overhead and food on the table, I’m good.

6. Bob Seger, Love The One You’re With . . . Seger’s cover of Stephen Still’s 1970 hit single, from Stills’ self-titled debut solo album. Seger did it on his 1972 mostly-covers release, Smokin’ O.P.’s, which apparently stood for ‘smoking other people’s songs’. Among the other songs on a solid, mostly hard-rocking record are Bo Diddley’s Bo Diddley, Tim Hardin’s If I Were A Carpenter and Chuck Berry’s Let It Rock along with Seger’s own Heavy Music. Heavy Music, Bo Diddley and Let It Rock became staples of Seger’s early concerts and appeared on his first live album, Live Bullet, released in 1976.

7. John Mellencamp, French Shoes . . . A seeming diatribe against a man’s choice of footwear, the Los Angeles Times’ review said the lyrics – “you know the type, without any heels, leather soles, kind of a slip-on deal; no man should be wearin’ those funny French shoes” were ‘vaguely homophobic’ as Mellencamp goes on with this passage “I know it’s not right to judge a man by his clothes, by the way he looks or the people he may know; I’m embarrassed to say if I had to choose I could never really trust any man wearing those funny French shoes.”

Hmm. I just like the musical groove on this one, from Mellencamp’s 1993 album Human Wheels.

8. Pretenders, Pop Star . . . Biting, cynical lyrics about music and celebrity culture in general, set to a driving, infectious, raw beat with a razor-like riff, topped as always on Pretenders material by Chrissie Hynde’s uniquely compelling vocals. From the 1999 album Viva El Amor!

9. Ten Years After, Let The Sky Fall . . . Melodic rocker from TYA’s A Space In Time album. It was released in 1971 and featured a less heavy sound but as compelling in its way as the harder mostly blues rock of previous efforts and resulted in the hit single I’d Love To Change The World.

10. Bruce Springsteen, Blinded By The Light . . . From Springsteen’s 1973 debut album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. The song came about when Columbia Records president Clive Davis listened to an early version of the album and felt it lacked a potential single. So Springsteen wrote Blinded By The Light and Spirit In The Night, both of which became hit singles with Blinded By The Light going to No. 1 in 1976 — for Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. I like the Springsteen versions of each song as much, though. Springsteen’s wordplay is more pronounced and compelling in his versions, particularly I’d suggest in Blinded By the Light, while musically, arguably, Manfred Mann’s takes are more striking. To me it’s akin to hearing Bob Dylan’s original All Along The Watchtower, a lyrical tour de force as is so much Dylan, as compared to the famous Jimi Hendrix musical reinvention.

11. Black Sabbath, The Shining . . . Typical monumental riffing from guitarist Tony Iommi on this one, from the 1987 album The Eternal Idol, during the arguably underappreciated Tony Martin on lead vocals era. It was a period during which Iommi was the lone constant in a revolving door of musicians that sometimes included original bassist Geezer Butler and also featured, at times, noted drummer Cozy Powell, although it’s former Kiss sticksman Eric Singer on this album.

12. Robert Palmer, Under Suspicion . . . A lament to lost love, “under suspicion of leaving the scene of a broken heart/a hit and run love affair’. It’s from Palmer’s 1979 album Secrets which is what got me – and perhaps many others – into his material via such hits as the Moon Martin-penned track Bad Case Of Lovin’ You (Doctor Doctor), Jealous and Todd Rundgren’s Can We Still Be Friends?

13. Dead Kennedys, Police Truck . . . A staccato driving riff by Raymond John “East Bay Ray” Pepperall of the San Francisco Bay Area punk/hardcore band on this satirical attack on police brutality. It was released in 1980 as the B-side to the single Holiday In Cambodia, one of my go-to Dead Kennedys tracks I’ve previously played on the show, along with Too Drunk To Fuck. Reading about musicians’ influences I always find interesting given the genres they wind up working most often in, like punk rock. But music is an art form of time, place and mood such that you can be listening to jazz one minute and metal the next. In Pepperall’s case, his musical education was broad in a household where his parents listened to a wide range of music including blues artists like Muddy Waters, jazz like Count Basie and folk/protest singer/songwriters like Pete Seeger. Once he picked up a guitar himself, he was fueled by such disparate sounds as Syd Barrett on Pink Floyd’s debut album The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, The Ohio Players and Elvis Presley’s renowned guitarist Scotty Moore, as well as the music of spaghetti western movies.

14. Ozzy Osbourne, Diary Of A Madman . . . Ever-changing from slow to fast, soft and heavy and back again title track from Ozzy’s second solo album after his departure from Black Sabbath, released a year after his debut Blizzard Of Ozz came out in 1980.

15. Talking Heads, Memories Can’t Wait . . . A random selection as I happened to pick out a mix CD I burned years ago of tracks by Talking Heads, Martha and The Muffins, B-52s, The Monks and The Cars for some listening in the car while doing errands and such last week. Memories Can’t Wait, with that mesmerizing bass line, is from the 1979 album Fear Of Music and, while it’s a pretty well-known Talking Heads track, was perhaps surprisingly never released as a single although it’s wound up on several compilations of the band’s work. Life During Wartime – ‘this ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around, no time for dancing, or lovey dovey, I ain’t got time for that now’ etc. – was the hit single from Fear Of Music, an excellent album.

16. Small Faces, The Autumn Stone . . . Rod Stewart came to mind to play, and he’s coming up, but that thought process led me to a mini-set featuring Faces, Small included, and some of the people involved before and during the time Stewart was in the group. Small Faces featured Steve Marriott on lead vocals, guitar, harmonica and piano, Ronnie Lane bass and vocals, Ian McLagan on keyboards and Kenney Jones on drums. The Autumn Stone, a beautiful if haunting folk-rock song, wasn’t released until a 1969 compilation of live songs and unreleased studio cuts called In Memoriam (for that version of the band) after Marriott left to form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton. Stewart and Ron Wood came from the Jeff Beck Group to fill out the roster of what became known as, simply, Faces – apparently partly due to the fact Stewart and Wood were taller than the other guys hence ‘Small’ would no longer have made sense. Unless they called it Small/Tall Faces.

17. Jeff Beck, Let Me Love You . . . Heavy blues rock from 1968 and the Truth is, OK I couldn’t resist that play on the album title, it’s an essential release for anyone interested in what’s become known as classic rock music. Jeff Beck on guitar, Rod Stewart lead vocals, Ron Wood bass, Mick Waller on drums. After one more album, Beck-Ola, together, the band broke up with Stewart and Wood, now on guitar as well as occasional bass, were off to lend some height, and a raunchier sound, to Small Faces.

18. Small Faces/Faces, Three Button Hand Me Down . . . They were still called Small Faces, in some quarters at least, which is why I’ve listed the artist as Small Faces/Faces. This boogie rocker is from 1970’s First Step, the reconfigured band’s, er, first step together with the new boys on the album cover along with the holdovers although depending on the market in which the record was released, it was credited either to Small Faces (like my copy, in North America) or Faces, elsewhere. Ron Wood, sitting in the middle of the group photo, holds a copy of the book First Step: How to Play the Guitar Plectrum (pick) Style, evidently symbolic of the fact he’d moved from bass with Jeff Beck’s band to guitar with Faces.

19. Faces, Maybe I’m Amazed (live) . . . Live version of the Paul McCartney classic. It was recorded at Fillmore East in New York City and, along with another cover, of the Big Bill Broonzy song I Feel So Good, placed on the otherwise all studio second Faces album, Long Player, released in 1971. Rod Stewart’s intro: “Here’s one you may well know, you may not know it, and if you don’t know it I really don’t know where you’ve been, so you should know the tune, here we go . . . ”

20. Rod Stewart, Seems Like A Long Time . . . From Every Picture Tells A Story, the 1971 Stewart solo album that included his big hit single Maggie May. Stewart, who had a concurrent solo and Faces career between 1969 and 1974, was often backed by all or some members of Faces on his solo releases, with Ron Wood on guitar and Ian McLagan on organ on Every Picture Tells A Story. On drums was Stewart and Wood’s former Jeff Beck bandmate Mick Waller. The years 1969-74 were a remarkable creative time for Stewart, nicely described in the liner notes to a 3-CD package, Reason To Believe: The Complete Mercury Studio Recordings containing every studio album plus non-album rarities he recorded for the label: “The seamless blend of electric and acoustic instrumentation employed blurred the lines between the blues, rock, folk, country and soul.” It’s my favorite Stewart period although 1975-77, after Faces broke up and featuring the albums Atlantic Crossing, A Night On The Town and Footloose & Fancy Free, has much to recommend it.

21. George Thorogood, No Expectations . . . I started the set with the Stones, ending with them, sort of. Here’s Thorogood’s pretty faithful to the original cover of the Beggars Banquet tune, from his 2017 solo album Party Of One. No Destroyers, just Thorogood and his guitar doing songs such as Willie Dixon’s Wang Dang Doodle, John Lee Hooker’s Boogie Chillen and Elmore James’ The Sky Is Crying. Other notable covers of No Expectations – I should play them sometime – are uptempo takes by Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings on the bluesy acoustic original.

So Old It’s New ‘weird shit’ (a shit-show, perhaps?) and a few other things, curios and otherwise, that struck my fancy in assembling this set. Lots of Pink Floyd to start, from a couple albums that Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, according to one of my books on the band, did actually refer to as “our weird shit” period. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Pink Floyd, Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast (Rise and Shine/Sunny Side Up/Morning Glory)
2. Pink Floyd, Atom Heart Mother (Father’s Shout/Breasty Milky/Mother Fore/Funky Dung/Mind Your Throats Please/Remergence)
3. Pink Floyd, Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict
4. Pink Floyd, The Grand Vizer’s Garden Party: Entrance/Entertainment/Exit
5. Pink Floyd, A Saucerful Of Secrets (live, from Ummagumma)
6. The Beatles, Revolution 1
7. The Beatles, Revolution 9
8. Plastic Ono Band, John John (Let’s Hope For Peace) (live)
9. The Rolling Stones, Country Honk
10. Frank Zappa, He Used To Cut The Grass
11. Soft Machine, All White
12. King Crimson, Book Of Saturday
13. Genesis, Duke’s Travels/Duke’s End

My track-by-track tales:

1. Pink Floyd, Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast (Rise and Shine/Sunny Side Up/Morning Glory) . . . A 13-minute ‘song’ in three sections during which Floyd roadie Alan Stiles goes about his morning routine, talks about liking marmalade among other things, fries some bacon, pours some cereal into a bowl, etc. all to interspersed musical accompaniment, mostly piano/keyboards and acoustic guitar but the full band does get into it in the concluding Morning Glory segment. This was actually the last track on the 1970 album Atom Heart Mother, the one with the cow – named Lulabelle III, apparently – on the cover but, since this is a morning show logic dictates I serve breakfast first. The ‘Psychedelic’ in the title is rooted in at least one of the many species of morning glory plants whose seeds contain a hallucinogen. Pink Floyd performed the piece a handful of times on stage, during which roadies cooked and fed the band breakfast and the group took time, as is the English way, for tea.

2. Pink Floyd, Atom Heart Mother (Father’s Shout/Breasty Milky/Mother Fore/Funky Dung/Mind Your Throats Please/Remergence) . . . This was the first track on the album, an almost 24-minute instrumental epic in six movements taking up the entire side one of the original vinyl, as Pink Floyd gets to the heart of the matter. Speaking of ‘Breasty Milky’ it could lend itself to the cow on the album cover but, apparently, from my readings the cow cover – and no text whatsoever to indicate the artist behind the album – was deliberately designed to have no meaning or relation to the songs within, hmm . . . as with all art, likely best left open to interpretation.

3. Pink Floyd, Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict . . . Arguably, the best parts of Ummagumma are the live album – which I dip into shortly – and the front and back covers although there are interesting or bizarre, depending on one’s point of view, experimental excursions – like this one – on the studio album portion.

The front cover is a Droste Effect (a repeated picture within a picture within a picture . . . ) of the four band members, although it’s not exactly the same picture as they shift positions in each image. It’s one of the most well-known covers in rock music. Guitarist David Gilmour sits on a chair in a doorway in the foreground of the lead image, with bassist Roger Waters sitting on the floor behind him, drummer Nick Mason standing looking skyward behind Waters and keyboardist Richard Wright doing a shoulder stand on the grass, behind Mason. Gilmour then moves to the grass as the last person in ‘line’ in the second image – although I always noticed he doesn’t do the shoulder stand as well as the others, maybe intentionally, who knows; Gilmour splayed his legs open while everyone else held them tight together – with Waters moving up to sit in the chair, Mason sitting on the floor and Wright standing where Mason was, and back, back, back it goes.

Fascinating stuff when you’re a 10-year-old kid in 1969 and your older brother by eight years brings the album home; one can only imagine the effect of looking at it under the influence. I may have done so later on, when I started experimenting, but I can’t remember. I do remember in college, during a ‘stone’, a buddy of mine swimming, doing the crawl stroke including turning his head to the side to take breaths, on my apartment carpet to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon while another friend begged me not to under any circumstances put on any Emerson, Lake & Palmer when I went to grab another LP, because in his stoned state he figured he couldn’t handle it.

“No, no, no, not that,” is an exact quote. I would have thought Floyd was more ‘damaging’ than ELP, but our minds all work in their individual ways and I suppose the album title and artwork of Brain Salad Surgery, or Tarkus (a giant armadillo tank) could send you for a loop, in a stoned state or otherwise.

Back to Ummagumma. The back cover is Floyd roadies Alan Styles (him again, from Atom Heart Mother’s Psychedelic Breakfast) and Peter Watts standing on an airport runway with the band’s impressive array of equipment arranged in the shape of an arrowhead, set up to create the illusion of a military aircraft about to take off with its payload.

The ‘song’ about furry animals grooving with a Pict (an indigenous people living in what is now Scotland during the Middle Ages) is a Roger Waters soundscape, including some spoken-word passages, as one of five studio creations on the album. Each band member got one track except for Waters with two, his other one the more conventional pastoral ballad Grantchester Meadows, very nice piece actually, complete with bird sounds throughout, along with a buzzing bee that gets swatted at the abrupt end, appropriately enough, for the insect.

4. Pink Floyd, The Grand Vizer’s Garden Party: Entrance/Entertainment/Exit . . . A drum and percussion showcase, with flute passages by Nick Mason’s then wife Lindy, an accomplished flautist, on Mason’s studio track on Ummagumma. The name of the album is an English slang term for sex, although in the book Pink Floyd: All The Songs – The Story Behind Every Track, Mason suggests the title meant nothing, it just “sounded interesting and nice.” It’s also been suggested, according to the same book, that it could be a tribute to the Dune science fiction universe since Umma means prophet in one of the languages spoken in author Frank Herbert’s creation. As for the other individual members’ studio tracks that I’m not playing (perhaps I should do an Ummagumma full album play), Gilmour in some parts of his The Narrow Way gives a hint of the type of playing that was to come on the epic Echoes from 1971’s Meddle album, while keyboardist Wright runs the gamut of classical, symphonic and experimental music on his four-part Sysyphus instrumental piece, named after the character Sisyphus in Greek mythology condemned to roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back, endlessly. Wright chose to spell his piece Sysyphus, reasons unclear, perhaps he liked the ‘sysy’ effect.

5. Pink Floyd, A Saucerful Of Secrets (live, from Ummagumma) . . . Terrific version, some have suggested it’s the definitive take and I can see/hear it, of the instrumental title track to Floyd’s 1968 studio album, recorded in the UK in the spring of 1969. The other live tracks on Ummagumma are Astronomy Domine, Careful With That Axe, Eugene and Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun.

6. The Beatles, Revolution 1 . . . If you want fast hard rock, you listen to the best-known version of Revolution, released as the B-side of the No. 1 smash hit Hey Jude but Revolution of course a Beatles’ classic in its own right that topped charts in some countries and made No. 12 on the US Billboard list. If you want a laid-back, bluesy version, you listen to Revolution 1, very cool, I think, from The Beatles (aka likely best known as The White Album). If you want experimental . . .

7. The Beatles, Revolution 9 . . . It’s Number 9, Number 9, Number 9 . . . you know it, you love it or hate it, but there it is, the John Lennon-Yoko Ono soundscape production. You never know what you’ll discover on repeat listens, which I’ll admit don’t happen often, it’s usually a skip for me while listening to the album which is why you discover, or rediscover, new things when you come to it fresh after a long period of avoidance. Originally, Revolution 1 was a shade over 10 minutes long, with the last six minutes of experimental sounds winding up being cut and forming the basis of Revolution 9. George Harrison participated in the production of 9 but Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr didn’t, and McCartney didn’t want it on the album. He wasn’t necessarily opposed to the piece, he just didn’t think such a release should come under The Beatles name.

According to All The Songs – The Story Behind Every Beatles Release, McCartney took Revolution 9’s presence on The White Album, to quote from the book, “very badly, especially since he was very much involved in the avant-garde and had already created a similar sound edit in January 1967 for the Carnival of Light for the London Roundhouse Theatre. He had worked on it with The Beatles, but had never considered it a work that would fit on a Beatles album.” The session, and sounds coming out of it, for the Carnival of Light track is described in Mark Lewisohn’s superbly comprehensive book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions – The Official Story Of The Abbey Road Years.

As for All The Songs, it’s a great series of hefty hardcovers that recently took flight, quite a number of them now and more coming including one on Fleetwood Mac due for publication in 2025. Others in the series I own are on Pink Floyd, as mentioned earlier, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Bob Dylan. Others on my list, when time and money permit although I’ve flipped the ones I’ve seen in bookstores, are on David Bowie, Queen, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Led Zeppelin and Metallica, among others including Prince, Michael Jackson and Dolly Parton.

8. Plastic Ono Band, John John (Let’s Hope For Peace) . . . Speaking of ‘weird’ . . . It’s a Yoko creation from Plastic Ono Band – Live Peace In Toronto 1969 at the Rock and Roll Revival festival, an event played by John Lennon’s hastily-assembled band that included guitarist Eric Clapton, future Yes drummer Alan White and longtime Beatles’ associate Klaus Voorman on bass. And Yoko, on lead and backing vocals, ‘wind’ and ‘presence’ on such tracks as this one, one of two Ono songs comprising side two of the original vinyl. Side one featured rock and roll standards like Money and Blue Suede Shoes, plus The Beatles’ Yer Blues, written by Lennon, and Lennon/Plastic Ono Band songs Cold Turkey and Give Peace A Chance. That side met with generally positive reviews, the Yoko side, not so much.

Here’s a hilarious take on Yoko’s performance from an archived allmusic site review that’s on the Live Peace In Toronto album’s Wikipedia page and I confirmed by finding the original on a web search, although you won’t see it now on allmusic. It seems to have been edited out and while the review of her part of the album retains parts of the original review, it’s much less harsh. But the original is worthwhile reading and some would no doubt think, bang on:

“Side two, alas, was devoted entirely to Ono’s wailing, pitchless, brainless, banshee vocalizing on “Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow)” and “John John (Let’s Hope for Peace)” – the former backed with plodding rock rhythms and the latter with feedback. No wonder you see many used copies of the LP with worn A-sides and clean, unplayed B-sides – and Yoko’s “art” is just as irritating today as it was in 1969. But in those days, if you wanted John you had to take the whole package.”

Yet, in listening to the entire 13 minutes of John John in prepping the show . . . call me crazy but it’s actually digestible and not as bad as I remember when, like a lot of people, I probably played side two of the album just once, first listen when I got the record, due to what I used to describe as Yoko’s ‘haiiiyi yi yip yip yipping’, or something like that. And I’m likely not alone in thinking that the applause from the audience after her tracks wasn’t in appreciation but rather more a ‘Thank God it’s over’ response. Iggy Pop, though, said he found the Yoko side more interesting and I can see the musically adventurous Pop thinking that, while Perry Farrell of alternative rock band Jane’s Addiction, according to Wikipedia, said Ono’s sound experimentations were a cornerstone of his musical education.

I will say that I’m still not necessarily a fan of Yoko’s music or however one would term what she does and has done, but she has become let’s say more palatable to me over time. For instance, I – and many others – hated it when I first got Lennon’s 1980 comeback from five years away album Double Fantasy which was sequenced as a Lennon track, then a Yoko track, etc. which meant you, back in the original vinyl days, had to keep lifting the needle off the record just to hear Lennon’s stuff unlike once CDs came into existence you could program around Yoko. One solution at the time was, just make a cassette tape of the album, sans Yoko. Yet in listening to some of that stuff now, not saying she’s great or whatever, parts of me will always think she was just an opportunist, but as mentioned, it’s actually listenable, Talking Heads-ish in spots, etc. Or, you can call me crazy.

9. The Rolling Stones, Country Honk . . . Much more conventional music now but still something of a curio from the Let It Bleed album, this country version of Honky Tonk Women, an homage to artists such as Hank Williams. It was one of the first Stones tracks guitarist Mick Taylor played on, as he also did on the universally-known hit single. Keith Richards, who was friends and sharing musical ideas with country rock artist Gram Parsons at the time, is on record as saying this version is how he originally envisioned Honky Tonk Women. And while reviews seem divided on Country Honk, I can see the merits in it, but obviously to most ears I think Honky Tonky Women is ‘the’ version. It’s perhaps akin to The Beatles’ Revolution 1 and Revolution, the rock single version.

10. Frank Zappa, He Used To Cut The Grass . . . Improvisational excellence featuring Zappa’s typical great guitar, from the 1979 album Joe’s Garage. Is it jazz, is it rock . . . It’s Zappa music.

11. Soft Machine, All White . . . From Fifth, the 1972 album, yes, the fifth by the band, by which time the ever-changing in both members and music Soft Machine had abandoned vocals entirely and gone from progressive and psychedelic experimental rock to working almost entirely within the jazz idiom. Soft Machine was inactive as a group in terms of studio releases between 1981 and 2018, when several former members revived the brand with a new studio album, Hidden Details, following up with Other Doors in 2023.

12. King Crimson, Book Of Saturdays . . . Beautiful acoustic track featuring the nice touch of a violin player, new member at the time David Cross, from the 1973 album Larks’ Tongues In Aspic. It was the fifth studio album by King Crimson which, aside from the one constant in guitarist/leader Robert Fripp was, like Soft Machine, an ever-evolving project that Fripp, by all accounts, put to bed permanently after a 2021 tour.

13. Genesis, Duke’s Travels/Duke’s End . . . Classic closing suite featuring some great drumming by Phil Collins as Genesis seemed to perfectly balance their progressive rock origins with their newfound affinity for pop music on Duke, the band’s 1980 album.

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

1. The Law, Laying Down The Law
2. Chris Whitley, Phone Call From Leavenworth
3. Joe Satriani, Clouds Race Across The Sky
4. War, Galaxy
5. Ohio Players, Good Luck Charm
6. David Wilcox, Cheap Beer Joint
7. Van Morrison, Moonshine Whiskey
8. The White Stripes, One More Cup Of Coffee
9. Supertramp, Child Of Vision
10. Midnight Oil, Seeing Is Believing
11. Love, The Castle
12. Iggy Pop, Wild America
13. Gary Moore, World Of Confusion
14. The Motels, Apocalypso
15. Doug And The Slugs, Tropical Rainstorm
16. Jimi Hendrix, In From The Storm
17. Styx, Man In The Wilderness
18. Status Quo, Softer Ride
19. Gov’t Mule, Inside Outside Woman Blues #3
20. The Rolling Stones, Till The Next Goodbye

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Law, Laying Down The Law . . . I forgot about this Paul Rodgers-penned tune when I did a mini-Rodgers set last Saturday featuring a song each from his solo career and time with Free, Bad Company and The Firm. He also did one album with drummer Kenney Jones of Faces and The Who fame, in 1991, under the banner of The Law. To me this Bad Company-like song is the best on the record and actually hit No. 2 on the US singles charts (No. 68 in Canada) but then it’s going to sound like that, or Free, with Rodgers singing. Among those playing on various tracks on the album were David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame, Chris Rea and Pino Palladino, who toured as The Who’s bass player after the death of John Entwistle and played on the band’s two – so far – 21st century studio albums, Endless Wire (2006) and WHO (2019). Palladino is a prolific session bassist who has also worked with Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Don Henley, among many others.

2. Chris Whitley, Phone Call From Leavenworth . . . Acoustic bluesy brilliance from the late Whitley, lost to us at age 45, in 2005, of lung cancer. But he left behind lots of not always commercially successful but nevertheless fine albums, perhaps the best of which remains his debut, the 1991 release Living With The Law from which I pulled this track. As for Leavenworth, I recommend the book The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison by Pete Early which I read years ago. It’s a harrowing, rivetting trip into the US prison system in general and, at least as of Early’s 1992 book, what was considered among the most notorious, dreaded facilities in America. It apparently remains so.

I have no opinion on it, not trying to be political in any way and I don’t imagine victims of the incarcerated criminals would have much if any sympathy. I was just thinking of the song, remembered the book I’d read years ago, and researched the prison to the present day so I’m merely an observer. Leavenworth, in May, 2024, came out of a 2-month lockdown on inmates’ movements and daily routines imposed because a firearm got into the facility. Friends and family of inmates say conditions inside the prison are inhumane while the employees’ union says the prison is woefully understaffed, leading to problems. A story via a Kansas City TV station.

3. Joe Satriani, Clouds Race Across The Sky . . . A jazzy sort of trip from Satriani’s electronic music oriented 2000 album Engines Of Creation. It was originally titled As They Sleep, referring to Satriani watching his wife and son sleeping while “having metaphysical questions race through my head” as he wrote in the liner notes to the 2-CD collection The Essential Joe Satriani. He later changed the title to Clouds Race Across The Sky as he sat on his porch one night, strumming his guitar while watching the clouds do exactly that, as he contemplated life and our place in it.

4. War, Galaxy . . . Funky title track to War’s 1977 album from the band that brought us such hits as Why Can’t We Be Friends?, Low Rider and The Cisco Kid after starting their career with two albums collaborating with Eric Burdon of The Animals fame, which produced the hit Spill The Wine.

5. Ohio Players, Good Luck Charm . . . An extended piece of nearly 10 minutes, more in a jazz vein than perhaps more typical Ohio Players funky, raunchy fare like Love Rollercoaster; this one’s sultry smooth. From the 1977 album Mr. Mean.

6. David Wilcox, Cheap Beer Joint . . . If ever a song matched its title . . . you feel like you’re in a smoky dive listening to it. Nothing wrong with dive bars, they have character. And characters. Wilcox, who cut his teeth with Ian and Sylvia Tyson’s Great Speckled Bird, playing on the second and third of that group’s three studio albums, later went solo and has been a perennial on the Canadian music scene since his first album, Out Of The Woods, was released in 1977. I saw/heard him play most of it, including this bluesy barroom song, while working in an Oakville, Ontario bar myself paying my way through college. If you’re wondering, the bar I worked in wasn’t a dive but rather a multiple-room place – live rock bands upstairs, a disco on the ground floor, a folk band-oriented intimate room a floor down and a summertime patio bar beside one of the rivers/creeks that flows through town. It was called, naturally, The Riverside, later Sharkey’s, now long gone.

7. Van Morrison, Moonshine Whiskey . . . Terrific ever-changing tempo country rock/soul tune from 1971’s Tupelo Honey album. Ronnie Montrose of Montrose band fame was the lead guitarist on the album that was produced by Ted Templeman, who has worked a few Van The Man albums along with Montrose, Van Halen and Doobie Brothers releases, among many others, over the course of his lengthy career.

8. The White Stripes, One More Cup Of Coffee . . . As a big Bob Dylan fan I hereby put my stamp of approval on this cover of one of my favorite Dylan songs, which he released on his 1976 album Desire. That said, nobody can sing the line “Your daddy, he’s an outlaw and a wanderer by trade, he’ll teach you how to pick and choose, and how to throw the blade” like Dylan. In Dylan-speak, it’s ‘blade-uh”.

9. Supertramp, Child Of Vision . . . It might sound sacrilegious to some, but of Supertramp’s big four albums – Crime Of The Century, Crisis? What Crisis?, Even In The Quietest Moments and Breakfast In America, Breakfast – the most successful one commercially – is my least favorite. Probably because hit singles like The Logical Song, Goodbye Stranger and Take The Long Way Home have been played to the point of overkill. It’s a great album, don’t get me wrong, and I loved it when it came out, saw the tour in Toronto but, well, beyond the overplayed hits, it’s a bit too pop for me compared to the previous three records. But, this is why you have deeper cuts, like Child Of Vision from Breakfast, which I’d suggest harkens back to earlier Supertramp, with the last four minutes or so of this 7:31-long track a nice keyboard-dominated instrumental.

10. Midnight Oil, Seeing Is Believing . . . As is hearing. Great groove on this one. The opening riff/hook, which repeats at points throughout, sounds almost like, but different enough, from the James Bond theme I opened last Monday’s show with. Seeing Is Believing is from one of my favorite if relatively underappreciated Midnight Oil albums, the almost metallic/industrial-sounding 1998 release Redneck Wonderland.

11. Love, The Castle . . . Inventive playing and tempo changes on this psychedelic/progressive rock tune – all in three minutes – from Love’s second album, the 1966 release Da Capo.

12. Iggy Pop, Wild America . . . Grungy, metallic rocker from Pop’s 1993 album American Caesar. Terrific tune. Song-title wise, maybe 30 years ahead of its time, given last week’s election results? Relax, I’m just having fun.

13. Gary Moore, World Of Confusion . . . I’ve heard this song, a Moore original, described as “Manic Depression (by Jimi Hendrix) on steroids” and it is very derivative of the Hendrix song and we’ll get to Jimi in a bit. A nice heavy one, regardless, from Moore’s 2002 album Scars.

14. The Motels, Apocalypso . . . Latinesque in spots, to my ears, with some sterling saxophone from the band’s keyboard player Marty Jourard supporting the distinctive singing of Martha Davis, the band’s chief songwriter who also plays guitar. It’s from the new wave/pop band’s All Four One album, released in 1982. It was The Motels’ commercial breakthrough with hits Take The L and Only The Lonely which the group followed on 1983’s Little Robbers release with the hit Suddenly Last Summer. All Four One was originally to be titled Apocalypso but that version of the album was rejected by the record company as being too dark and not having any potential hits, although Only The Lonely was on the track list albeit in a less polished, production-wise, form. So the entire album was redone and came out as All Four One. Some Motels fans prefer the more raw version but the redo served its intended purpose as All Four One sold well. The Apocalpyso album was eventually released in 2011, 30 years after its recording. There’s an 18-minute YouTube video comparing the two albums I discovered while putting the show together, worthwhile viewing to anyone interested.

15. Doug And The Slugs, Tropical Rainstorm . . . The hit was the pop song Too Bad and I like it but this bluesy cut is one of my favorites from the Canadian band’s 1980 debut album Cognac and Bologna, and one of my favorite Slugs tunes, period. A clear case where what you hear released as singles isn’t always truly representative of a band or, at least, some of what they can do.

16. Jimi Hendrix, In From The Storm . . . Good rocker in an R & B vein, which is supposedly the direction Hendrix was heading before he died. In From The Storm came out on The Cry Of Love album in 1971, the first posthumous Hendrix release after his death in September, 1970. The entire Cry Of Love album was re-issued in 1997 as part of First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, put together by the Hendrix family trust on its Experience Hendrix label. Experience Hendrix re-released The Cry Of Love, on its own, in 2014.

17. Styx, Man In The Wilderness . . . Originally a six-minute album track on the band’s 1977 record The Grand Illusion, this is the previously unreleased full version, a minute longer, that came out on the 2004 double disc compilation Come Sail Away – The Styx Anthology. That release was retitled Gold in 2006 as part of Universal Music’s compilation series and it’s all I need of Styx. I was never a huge fan, my younger brother was, although I do like most of the hits of theirs that I know plus Miss America, a good rocker from The Grand Illusion that wasn’t released as a single but is on Gold. So it is a good comp in that sense as it digs relatively deep. Lyrically, Man In The Wilderness what one would expect from its title, someone trying to find themselves. Musically, it starts as a power ballad of sorts before transitioning into a guitar riff and soloing showcase about midway through, on both versions of the song.

18. Status Quo, Softer Ride . . . Softer, for about a minute of funky finger-picking on the four-minute tune before things heat up on a nice boogie rocker from Quo’s 1973 album Hello! It was their sixth studio album and first UK chart-topper.

19. Gov’t Mule, Inside Outside Woman Blues #3 . . . Nine minutes of bluesy, metallic, hard-rocking guitar-shredding from Warren Haynes and the boys, from the 2009 album By A Thread. The record was co-produced by Haynes and Gordie Johnson of Big Sugar and Grady fame, who has worked with Gov’t Mule on several albums among his many production credits.
“The number “3” refers to the fact that we did three versions of it, and we liked all three of them, so we included ‘3’ on the CD,” Haynes told The Washington Post upon the album’s release. “No. 1 is on the vinyl and No. 2 will come out somewhere — we’re not sure exactly where — but eventually all three versions will be available. 1 and 2 are just live performances with the vocal and all the instrumentation going to tape live, as if we were on stage, so they just kind of have their own vibe. They differ a bit in arrangement and from a sonic perspective, but mostly in the interpretation and the improvisation.”

Version 1 is on YouTube; I’ve never seen or heard Version 2 but maybe, as Haynes said, it’s out there somewhere.

20. The Rolling Stones, Till The Next Goodbye . . . A lovely ballad from 1974’s It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll album as I say adios, for this show, at least.

I start with a four-song ‘sung by Paul Rodgers’ set from various stages of the great singer’s career with The Firm (along with Jimmy Page), Free, Bad Company and as a solo artist. Then on to a few songs – Pete Townshend, Bob Dylan and three involving session keyboardist to the stars Nicky Hopkins – inspired by conversations I had with friends this past week. I wrap up with Neil Young, some reggae, Deep Purple and The Allman Brothers Band.

1. The Firm, Midnight Moonlight
2. Paul Rodgers, Morning After The Night Before
3. Free, Come Together In The Morning
4. Bad Company, Electricland
5. Pete Townshend, Sheraton Gibson
6. Bob Dylan, Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands
7. Nicky Hopkins/Ry Cooder/Mick Jagger/Bill Wyman/Charlie Watts, Blow With Ry
8. Nicky Hopkins/Ry Cooder/Mick Jagger/Bill Wyman/Charlie Watts, Edward’s Thrump Up
9. Quicksilver Messenger Service, Edward, The Mad Shirt Grinder
10. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Sedan Delivery
11. Peter Tosh, Stepping Razor
12. Bob Marley and The Wailers, Concrete Jungle
13. Deep Purple, The Mule
14. The Allman Brothers Band, Mountain Jam (live)

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Firm, Midnight Moonlight . . . From the 1980s supergroup’s self-titled debut album, released in 1985 and featuring singer Paul Rodgers of Free and Bad Company fame and former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. Also on board were drummer Chris Slade (Manfred Mann’s Earth Band and later AC/DC, notably on the Razors Edge album) and bassist Tony Franklin. Franklin’s extensive resume includes Page’s 1988 album Outrider and several albums with English folk rock singer/songwriter/guitarist Roy Harper, with whom Page and Zeppelin had a long association, including naming the song Hats Off To (Roy) Harper, from Led Zeppelin III, after him. Harper is also known for his lead vocals on Pink Floyd’s Have A Cigar, from the 1975 album Wish You Were Here.

A nine-minute combination acoustic/electric guitar-based track that ebbs and flows along depending which guitar takes the spotlight along with Rodgers’ vocals, Midnight Moonlight is rooted in the sessions for the Led Zeppelin album Physical Graffiti, released in 1975. It was then titled Swan Song (also the name of Led Zeppelin’s record label) but left unfinished at that point although it is available on YouTube. After a second album, Mean Business, released in 1986, The Firm closed up shop.

2. Paul Rodgers, Morning After The Night Before . . . Appropriate title and tune, for some mornings, perhaps. It’s a good one, a catchy mid-tempo rocker about life on the rock and roll road featuring lyrics like “the morning after the night before, I pick up my suitcase and I head for the door, I may never see this old room again, but the one I’m headed for will be exactly the same” later changing to “I may never see this room again, but I’ll always remember your voice (later changing to your face) and your name . . . ” It’s likely my favorite on Rodgers’ first solo album, Cut Loose, released in 1983 after the breakup of the original Bad Company. It’s a solo album in the truest sense of the term as Rodgers wrote and sang every song, played every instrument – guitar, bass, drums and keyboards – and produced the disc.

3. Free, Come Together In The Morning . . . The beautiful and bluesy sounds of Free, from the band’s final studio album, Heartbreaker, released in 1973.

4. Bad Company, Electricland . . . From Rough Diamonds, the 1982 album that was the last for the original lineup of Rodgers, guitarist Mick Ralphs, bassist Boz Burrell and drummer Simon Kirke. It tends to get critically panned but, and granted I’m a fan of anything Rodgers has been involved in, particularly Free and Bad Company, but I’ve always liked the album particularly this nice groove track and Painted Face, both written by Rodgers. He apparently wrote it while flying into Las Vegas, hence lyrics like “the neon lights go flashing by, electric land is in my eyes, the underworld is on the move and everybody’s got something to prove . . . ”

5. Pete Townshend, Sheraton Gibson . . . First of a few songs in what I’ll call my “inspiration from conversation” set within the overall list. I played The Who’s Quadrophenia album on last Saturday’s show and mid-week a friend texted me, talking about a Pete Townshend solo live performance of the Quadrophenia song I’m One (from Deep End Live!, released in 1986). There’s a lyric in that song “I got a Gibson, without a case . . . ” which my friend cited, prompting me to text back that he had reminded me of one of my favorite Townshend tunes, Sheraton Gibson. To which my friend replied “in my mind is a Cleveland afternoon”, one of the lines in Sheraton Gibson – which opens with the phrase, repeated throughout, “I’m sittin’ in the Sheraton Gibson playin’ my Gibson . . .”
The song, from Townshend’s first solo album, 1972’s Who Came First, is about missing home while on tour. I’ll let Townshend explain it, as he did in the liner notes to the expanded 2006 re-release of the album.

“I wrote this after a really good barbecue with the James Gang, their managers and families outside Cleveland. I had a good, good day. The next day (in Cincinnati), I was not only missing home as usual, but also Cleveland.”

Hence lyrics like “Cleveland, you blow my mind . . . thinkin’ about a sunny barbecue; I’m sittin’ in the Sheraton Gibson playin’ my Gibson, in my mind is a Cleveland afternoon.”

The Sheraton Gibson, a Cincinnati landmark since 1849, closed in 1974 but lives on in Townshend’s terrific tune.

6. Bob Dylan, Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands . . . That text chat got me thinking of hotels, which led me to thinking of the line from Dylan’s stirring song of memories and lament to his estranged wife Sara, who happened to visit the studio and have Dylan look at her and say ‘this one’s for you’ as he recorded the tune that appeared on his 1976 album Desire. She was stunned by the tribute, they reconciled but finally divorced in 1977.

“Stayin’ up for days in the Chelsea Hotel
Writin’ Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands for you”

So, I figured I’d play Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands, the epic 11-plus minute track from Dylan’s classic 1966 album Blonde On Blonde.

Sad Eyed Lady brings up another personal memory, about the song and the album from which it came. My older brother had always been into Dylan, which is how I was introduced to his music although for the most part I was into the hits or well-known songs – Like A Rolling Stone, Lay Lady Lay, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, songs like Hurricane from the Desire album, etc. Then came the fall of 1981. I was in Peace River, Alberta, starting my journalism career, sharing a house with a few other people and one Sunday afternoon, everyone else was out and I was lying on the couch reading but noticed a friend’s pre-recorded cassette tape of Blonde On Blonde sitting on a coffee table. I popped it in and within moments down went the book – I am compelled to listen to Dylan undistracted, he’s not background music at least to me – and I lay back and let the album wash over me. Visions Of Johanna, Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again, Sad Eyed Lady, on and on. I was transfixed and soon enough was catching up on his catalogue and then moving forward, album by album as they were released.

7. Nicky Hopkins/Ry Cooder/Mick Jagger/Bill Wyman/Charlie Watts, Blow With Ry . . . From Jamming With Edward, a pseudo-Rolling Stones release featuring their longtime session pianist/organist Hopkins and guitarist Cooder that a different friend of mine mentioned this week, we got discussing it, and here we are, the first of two tracks from it for this show. I’ve played material from Jamming With Edward before, but not recently. It was recorded in 1969 during the sessions for the Stones’ Let It Bleed album “while waiting for our guitar player to get out of bed” Mick Jagger writes about the absent Keith Richards in the liner notes to the album, finally released in 1972. It’s the kind of thing that, had it not been a band the stature of the Stones, had they not had their own label, Rolling Stones Records, chances are it would never have been released but it was, after being brought out of mothballs by producer Glyn Johns and Rolling Stones Records founding president Marshall Chess. People seem to like it or dismiss it or consign it to bootleg status, but I like it as do most Stones fans I know – it’s loose, sloppy and fun and there’s some fine, er, jamming on it. As the liner notes on the 1995 Virgin Records re-release state: A curio to top all curios, perhaps?

Here’s Jagger’s full notes/letter to buyers/listeners, from the original 1972 release, which tell the tale:

“Howdy doody whoever receives this record.

“Here’s a nice little piece of bullshit about this hot waxing which we cut one night in London, England while waiting for our guitar player to get out of bed. It was promptly forgotten (which may have been for the better) until it was unearthed from the family vaults by those two impressive entrepreneurs – Glyn Johns and Marshall Chess. It was they who convinced the artists that this historic jam of the giants should be unleashed on an unsuspecting public.

“As it cost about $2.98 to make the record, we thought that a price of $3.98 was appropriate for the finished product. I think that is about what it is worth. No doubt some stores may even give it away. The album consists of the Rolling Stones’ rhythm section plus solos from two instrumentalists – Nicky ‘Woof Woof’ Hopkins and Ry Cooder, plus the numbled bathroom mumblings of myself. I hope you spend longer listing to this record than we did making it.”

Yours faithfully,

Mick Jagger

The album made No. 7 on the Dutch charts and No. 33 on Billboard in the US.

As for the titular Edward, that’s Hopkins, who played not only with the Stones but countless artists including The Kinks, The Who, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart and on solo albums by Beatles John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The late Stones’ guitarist and founding member of the band, Brian Jones, bestowed the nickname on Hopkins during a 1967 session in London. The story goes that Jones was tuning his guitar and asked Hopkins to give him an E chord on piano. Given other studio noise, Hopkins couldn’t quite hear Jones so Jones shouted “Give me an E, like in Edward!” The rest, including some album and song titles, is history.

8. Nicky Hopkins/Ry Cooder/Mick Jagger/Bill Wyman/Charlie Watts, Edward’s Thrump Up . . . Song titles like this one for a nice groove track that is an eight-minute showcase for Hopkins’ talents.

9. Quicksilver Messenger Service, Edward, The Mad Shirt Grinder . . . Another piano showcase for Hopkins via this extended piece he wrote – as briefly a full-time group member – for the San Francisco psychedelic rock band’s 1969 album Shady Grove.

10. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Sedan Delivery . . . Dirty, gritty, grungy raunch and roll from 1979’s Rust Never Sleeps album.

11. Peter Tosh, Stepping Razor . . . A song written in 1967 by Joe Higgs, a mentor to many Jamaican reggae artists, including Tosh, Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff, who described him as the ‘Father of reggae’. Tosh released it on his second solo album after he left Marley’s Wailers, the 1977 record Equal Rights. Tosh originally credited it to himself and it’s his memorable performance that made the song well known but, after litigation, subsequent re-releases of the album – and appearances the song has made on Tosh compilations – have credited Higgs. It’s a hypnotic, powerful, angry song with what I’d describe as having a catchy, escalating chorus, culminating in the well-known line “I’m dangerous.”:

“I’m like a flashing laser and a rolling thunder
I’m dangerous, dangerous
I’m like a stepping razor
Don’t you watch my size
I’m dangerous, I’m dangerous
Treat me good
If you wanna live
You better treat me good”

12. Bob Marley and The Wailers, Concrete Jungle . . . From the harder edge of Tosh to Marley, from his 1973 album Catch A Fire, which still featured Tosh along with enduring Marley songs like Concrete Jungle, Kinky Reggae and Stir It Up. Just me, perhaps, but I’ve always seen Tosh as The Rolling Stones to Marley’s being The Beatles in terms of approach but of course four giant artists I enjoy who stand alone within their genres. Marley’s is an arguably more subtle style than Tosh’s more direct approach, perhaps heard in their respective versions of the song Get Up, Stand Up, which they co-wrote. The Stones collaborated with Tosh on his 1978 album Bush Doctor which Keith Richards plays on and contains the Tosh-Mick Jagger duet on The Temptations’ track (You Gotta Walk) Don’t Look Back. It was the first of three records Tosh did while signed to Rolling Stones Records and he also opened for the Stones on some dates on their 1978 American tour in support of the Some Girls album.

13. Deep Purple, The Mule . . . I suppose we all know people who are stubborn as a mule as the saying goes although the song was, according to Purple singer Ian Gillan, inspired by the character The Mule from science fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. The Mule is a mutant who can sense and manipulate the emotions of others. “Now I have become a fool because I listened to the mule.” In any case, a good track showcasing Purple’s typical instrumental talents, from 1971’s Fireball album. It was often extended to twice or more its 5:16 studio length in concert and on live albums like Made In Japan as a showcase for a drum solo by Ian Paice.

14. The Allman Brothers Band, Mountain Jam (live) . . . Something of a convoluted history on the release of this one. Originally played and recorded at the March 12-13, 1971 shows that became the landmark live album At Fillmore East, the 33-minute epic wasn’t on the original Fillmore record which was limited to seven songs on vinyl. This version of Mountain Jam first appeared on Eat A Peach, which was released in 1972 and featured new studio material and live work from the March, 1971 shows that didn’t fit on the original At Fillmore East, plus material from Fillmore shows the band did in June 1971. At Fillmore East was re-released in expanded form in 2003 and included Mountain Jam which by then had also come out on a 1992 compilation of all the Fillmore shows the Allmans did in 1971, titled The Fillmore Concerts. As Robert Shaw’s character in the 1973 movie The Sting was wont to say ‘ya falla (follow)?’

It’s 33 minutes that are never boring, which was the Allmans’ genius, their ability to sustain your interest throughout their long jams. A passage in the liner notes to The Fillmore Concerts release perhaps says it best:

“In other hands, the idea of extended jams that The Allman Brothers Band perfected during their early-Seventies heyday has deteriorated into long-winded show-off exercises. But one can’t blame the Allmans for that; it’s not their fault their imitators turned out to be far less inspired, that few could replicate their devotion to the blues and their determination to burn their own trail.”

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

1. The John Barry Orchestra, James Bond Theme
2. Johnny Rivers, Secret Agent Man
3. Shirley Bassey, Goldfinger
4. Pink Floyd, What Do You Want From Me
5. Can, Mushroom
6. Traffic, Tragic Magic (live, from On The Road)
7. Junkhouse, The Sky Is Falling
8. Fleetwood Mac, Worried Dream
9. George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Howlin’ For My Baby
10. Johnny Cash, Ragged Old Flag
11. Jefferson Airplane, Rock Me Baby, (live, from Bless Its Pointed Little Head)
12. T. Rex, The King Of The Mountain Cometh
13. Rory Gallagher, Cradle Rock (from The Best of Rory Gallagher At The BBC)
14. Thin Lizzy, Angel Of Death (live, from Life/Live)
15. Motorhead, Stone Dead Forever
16. Flash And The Pan, Up Against The Wall
17. Roxy Music, Like A Hurricane (live)
18. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Black Moon
19. Elvis Presley, Paralyzed
20. The Birds, No Good Without You Baby (early Ron Wood band, not to be confused with The Byrds)
21. The Rolling Stones, Gotta Get Away

My track-by-track tales:

1. The John Barry Orchestra, James Bond theme . . . I was filing CDs as part of my ongoing and not quite yet successful attempts at tidying my place and atop one pile – so let’s call this the top of the pile show because honestly that’s from where most of the songs I’m playing come – was a disc of Bond movie songs. So here we go, setting the tone for the early part of the show.

2. Johnny Rivers, Secret Agent Man . . . A hit for master of covers Rivers and I don’t often play hits but it fits the Bond theme of my first few songs.

3. Shirley Bassey, Goldfinger . . . My favorite Bond song, or maybe tied with Paul McCartney’s Live And Let Die, those are the two that really stick out to me, but I love Bassey’s passionate, expressive vocals. Bassey also sang the theme song to the Bond films Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker – she is the only artist to do more than one Bond movie song – and covered The Beatles’ Something and The Fool On The Hill as well as other songs like If You Go Away. Hugely successful in the UK, the Welsh singer is still active at 87 and released a studio album as recently as 2020 in celebration of her 70 years in the industry.

4. Pink Floyd, What Do You Want From Me . . . Perhaps my favorite Floyd song from the post-Roger Waters era, from the 1994 album The Division Bell. Written by David Gilmour, keyboardist Richard Wright and Gilmour’s wife Polly Samson, an English writer who has contributed lyrics to the post-Waters Floyd albums and Gilmour’s solo work. It’s similar, to my ears, to the Gilmour track There’s No Way Out Of Here. That song, written by UK songwriter Ken Baker, appeared on Gilmour’s first, self-titled solo album in 1978.

5. Can, Mushroom . . . Hypnotic stuff from a band that often went out on various flights of sometimes impenetrable fancy yet on the flip side has a wealth of tighter, single-worthy (and this song was a single) tracks that in a that context still manage to convey the progressive elements of the band.

6. Traffic, Tragic Magic (live, from On The Road) . . . Intoxicating near nine-minute musical excursion from one of my favorite bands, flutes and sax and guitars and percussion all cooked up in that typical Traffic stew.

7. Junkhouse, The Sky Is Falling . . . From the debut Junkhouse album, Strays, released in 1993 and through which I quickly became a fan of all things Tom Wilson, a Canadian artist whose credits include the Florida Razors, Junkhouse, solo work, Blackie And The Rodeo Kings and Lee Harvey Osmond.

8. Fleetwood Mac, Worried Dream . . . An old work colleague and I were discussing early, Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac the other day so here we are. Worried Dream is a cover of a B.B. King-penned tune that appeared on King’s 1968 album Blues On Top Of Blues. The Fleetwood Mac version was released on the Green-era compilation The Original Fleetwood Mac which covers songs recorded in 1967 and 1968. The compilation came out in 1971, a year after Green left the group after the 1969 Then Play On album and a 1970 tour.

9. George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Howlin’ For My Baby . . . From the slow blues of early Fleetwood Mac to typical Thorogood raunch on a track written by Willie Dixon and Howlin’ Wolf. It’s from Thorogood’s 1993 album Haircut which featured his hit Get A Haircut.

10. Johnny Cash, Ragged Old Flag . . . Title cut from Cash’s 1974 album, a spoken word tribute to patriotism and the American flag that was criticized and celebrated, depending on viewpoint. It was written by Cash during the time of the Watergate scandal which led to the resignation of America president Richard Nixon, who Cash had initially supported but apparently soured on due to the Vietnam War quagmire. Cash said he wrote it to “reaffirm faith in the country and the goodness of the American people.”

11. Jefferson Airplane, Rock Me Baby, (live, recorded October 1968 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, released on Bless Its Pointed Little Head, 1969) . . . The Airplane takes, er, flight on this eight-minute version of the blues standard popularized by B.B. King and Muddy Waters (as Rock Me) and covered by many. Both the King and Waters’ versions were based on the 1950 song Rockin’ and Rollin’ by Lil’ Son Jackson which itself was inspired by earlier blues songs, as is the case with many standards. The roots and branches of songs, well-known and otherwise, make for interesting reading.

12. T. Rex, The King Of The Mountain Cometh . . . That distinctive bouncy boogie, maybe repetitive but still compelling and unmistakenly the sound of T. Rex. It’s from the time of the hit album Electric Warrior, which was released in 1971 and was propelled to prominence by the hit single Get It On (Bang A Gong). The King Of The Mountain Cometh didn’t cometh into wide release until various compilations and expanded re-releases of Electric Warrior.

13. Rory Gallagher, Cradle Rock (from The Best of Rory Gallagher At The BBC) . . . A new release from the vaults, came out in October, with Gallagher on absolute fire on recordings done in studio for the 1970s BBC program Sounds Of The Seventies. That’s one disc of the 2-CD set, with the other featuring a BBC concert from 1979. It’s a terrific package and, if you really want to get serious, it’s also available as The BBC Collection – a 20 disc set that includes 18 CDs containing radio concerts and sessions from 1971 to 1986 and two Blu Ray discs of BBC TV concerts and studio performances from 1973 to 1984. I’m a big Gallagher fan and the spirit is willing but the wallet is weak as far as that comprehensive package goes although perhaps at some point and it may all wind up online; the 2-CD highlights package already is.

14. Thin Lizzy, Angel Of Death (live, from Life/Live) . . . Smokin’ version of the lead single from 1981’s Renegade album that was released on 1983’s live album which was criticized for not measuring up to Lizzy’s previous live epic, 1978’s Live And Dangerous, but what could? It’s still a great song and a great version featuring good riffing and soloing from perennial Lizzy guitarist Scott Gorham and hired gun John Sykes, later of the hair metal mid- to late 1980s version of Whitesnake.

15. Motorhead, Stone Dead Forever . . . Typically propulsive Motorhead yet at the same time strangely, maybe, for such a tune, melodic. It’s from the 1979 album Bomber, produced by former Traffic and Rolling Stones collaborator Jimmy Miller.

16. Flash And The Pan, Up Against The Wall . . . This one wasn’t originally on the planning radar for this show but I was in the car on Saturday evening, going out to get some grub; usually I play music but I turned the radio on to the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game. The Leafs were in St. Louis, down late in a game they’d lose 4-2 and the play-by-play guy says “they’re up against the wall.” My thoughts immediately turned to this Flash And The Pan track from their 1982 album Headlines. Inspiration comes from anywhere, everywhere.

17. Roxy Music, Like A Hurricane (live) . . . I first heard this terrific cover of the Neil Young song on The High Road 4-song vinyl EP with its Roxy “Musique’ cover which I bought in early 1983. It later came out – along with the other three songs from the EP – on the Heart Still Beating live album released in 1990. The other three songs were Can’t Let Go, My Only Love and Roxy’s cover of John Lennon’s Jealous Guy.

18. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Black Moon . . . Almost industrial metallic, latter/later day ELP, somewhat uncharacteristic; maybe they were reaching, bereft of ideas so trying to get on a musical train, that’s essentially what the critics said. Whatever. A good song is a good song, no matter by whom and it’s all of course subjective. I dig this title cut from ELP’s 1992 release.

19. Elvis Presley, Paralyzed . . . Great boogie rockabilly, relatively unknown to those understandably owning, listening to or being familiar only with Elvis’s well-known hits. This one’s from his 1956 studio album simply titled Elvis, his second studio album, released in October 1956. I’ve always been one to, like many, being an Elvis compilation guy but in recent months, yes I’ve told this tale before, I was in my friendly neighborhood music store and lo and behold they had on CD a 4-disc, 8-album box set of Elvis’s early studio albums, and it cost me maybe $15. It’s about $50 at least on Amazon. I had to have it, got it, never a regret.

Presley was truly great and further to that, during Elvis’s time it was the practice that artists generally performed but didn’t write their own material; people like Bob Dylan and The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and Kinks later changed that. So, I’ll admit that in my younger days I somewhat dismissed Elvis, while enjoying his hit songs, due to his not writing songs but I came to realize and understand the circumstances under which he and others of his time operated. Yet even so, for all that, he could and did write albeit not extensively and beyond even that, any viewing on available video of him in studio sessions with his band reveals just how in charge musically he always was: he knew what he wanted musically, how to achieve it, and he did. Amazing artist.

20. The Birds, No Good Without You Baby . . . Not The Byrds but The Birds, an early band Ron Wood later of the Jeff Beck Group, Faces and The Rolling Stones, was a member of. A gritty, wonderfully dirty, raunchy version of a Marvin Gaye track from his 1965 album How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You which of course features that hit single title cut. The Birds version of No Good Without You Baby, depending on source including the 2-CD Wood anthology The Essential Crossexion, adds the word ‘baby’ to the song title and it’s in the lyrics although Gaye’s album lists it as simply No Good Without You. But that happens a lot, witness my earlier playing of Rock Me Baby by Jefferson Airplane, which B.B. King listed as Rock Me Baby while Muddy Waters did the same song, but titled it Rock Me. The Birds/Marvin Gaye song was written by William Stevenson, still around at age 87 and his name might not spring immediately to mind but he wrote or co-wrote many hits including Hitch Hike (covered in their early days by The Rolling Stones, among others) and most notably Dancing In The Street and Devil With The Blue Dress aka Devil With The Blue Dress On.

21. The Rolling Stones, Gotta Get Away . . . I gotta, gotta, gotta get away, to quote the song lyrics . . . time’s up for this show. I exit via this I think underappreciated Stones song, recorded in 1965. It was the B-side in the USA to As Tears Go By.

Two albums – The Who’s Quadrophenia, from 1973 and Billy Joel’s The Stranger, released in 1977. We’ll see, but I expect this will be my last album set for a while after six straight Saturdays, back to individual songs or some other theme next Saturday. My album commentaries are beneath each record’s track list.

The Who – Quadrophenia

1. I Am The Sea
2. The Real Me
3. Quadrophenia
4. Cut My Hair
5. The Punk And The Godfather
6. I’m One
7. The Dirty Jobs
8. Helpless Dancer
9. Is It In My Head?
10. I’ve Had Enough
11. 5:15
12. Sea And Sand
13. Drowned
14. Bell Boy
15. Doctor Jimmy
16. The Rock
17. Love Reign O’er Me

I agree with the allmusic review site’s assessment of Quadrophenia – which was about the British mod culture of the late 1950s into the 1960s that was at least part of the roots of The Who – that “the concept might ultimately have been too obscure and confusing for a mass audience.” Particularly if you didn’t grow up in the UK of that time.

But, as allmusic also says, and I concur, the album is full of great songs that can stand on their own, including the well-known and excellent singles 5:15, The Real Me and Love Reign O’er Me. And, also, to me, The Punk And The Godfather, The Dirty Jobs, Sea and Sand, Doctor Jimmy . . . so many, and so many of them propelled by Keith Moon’s propulsive rat-a-tat drumming.

The song 5:15 and its lyrics “out of my brain on the 5:15; out of my brain on the train” always resonates with me not only because I like the song but because, like the song narrator Jimmy, I, too, was out of my brain on a train although he had consumed lots of drugs, in my case it was drink.

Fall 1978, I had worked for a year to save money to pay my way through college, so at the place I worked friends and colleagues took me out for a mostly liquid lunch on my last day, where I got reasonably hammered such that I dozed off on the GO commuter train – and it quite likely was a 5:15 pm or so train – home from Toronto to Oakville.

Not sure why an attendant wouldn’t have woken me up at the Oakville stop, the end of the line going west (if you wanted to GO further west back then, you had to grab a connecting bus) but anyway when I finally woke from my slumber I looked out the train window and I was in Pickering – the eastern end of the line on the other side of Toronto. That sobered me up right quick as back we went, Pickering back to Toronto’s Union station and on to Oakville – a half-hour commute home on the train, thanks to me being out of my brain, becoming a 2.5 hour round-trip: Toronto-Oakville-Toronto-Pickering-Toronto-Oakville. Back and forth we go . . .

Billy Joel – The Stranger

1. Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song)
2. The Stranger
3. Just The Way You Are
4. Scenes From An Italian Restaurant
5. Vienna
6. Only The Good Die Young
7. She’s Always A Woman
8. Get It Right The First Time
9. Everybody Has A Dream

A huge album for Billy Joel not only due to its massive success but it arguably saved his career. Joel had achieved success with his 1973 album Piano Man and its title track hit single, although the entire album is terrific and includes another of his classics, the epic Captain Jack. But his subsequent releases, Streetlife Serenade and, particularly, Turnstiles (despite the presence of the hit single Say Goodbye To Hollywood) saw a sharp decline in sales and chart positions such that Joel was at risk of being dropped by Columbia Records. Then came The Stranger, with singles like Just The Way You Are, Movin’ Out (Anthony’s Song), Only The Good Die Young, She’s Always A Woman and the epic non-single classic Scenes From An Italian Restaurant and the rest is history. It’s one of those albums where every song is familiar including one of my favorites, the title track which was released as a single in Japan where it hit No. 2.

A Halloween/horror-themed set. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, Science Fiction/Double Feature
2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, Over At The Frankenstein Place
3. Alice Cooper, Welcome To My Nightmare
4. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Little Demon
5. Ramones, I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement
6. David Bowie, Subterraneans
7. Blue Oyster Cult, Subhuman (live, from On Your Feet Or On Your Knees)
8. The Rolling Stones, Dancing With Mr. D
9. Alice Cooper, Devil’s Food/The Black Widow
10. Link Wray, The Black Widow
11. Link Wray, Switchblade
12. Ramones, Chain Saw
13. Link Wray, Jack The Ripper
14. Talking Heads, Psycho Killer (live, from Stop Making Sense)
15. Alice Cooper, I Love The Dead
16. Tom Waits, Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard
17. Black Sabbath, Disturbing The Priest
18. Link Wray, The Shadow Knows
19. AC/DC, Night Prowler
20. Concrete Blonde, Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)
21. Tim Curry, No Love On The Street
22. Savoy Brown, Hellbound Train

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, Science Fiction/Double Feature . . . College daze memories come flooding back listening to any song from this album, released along with the movie in 1975. Thanks to the brilliance of singer/songwriter/musician/producer and brains behind the whole thing Richard O’Brien, who played Riff Raff in the movie, plus Tim Curry as Frank-N-Furter, it’s a terrific and fun listen. This album opener name drops many classic sci-fi or horror movies and features that to me classic line sung so memorably by O’Brien: “I wanna go . . . in the back row.” A pre-Bat Out Of Hell album (released in 1977) Meat Loaf appears in the movie as delivery boy/biker Eddie, performing the song Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul.

I first saw the film in a quiet college auditorium in 1978 as part of a film elective I took during my journalism school days so I first saw it unvarnished, without all the rice-throwing and other participatory elements that became part of the Rocky Horror cult phenomenon. So I actually had an appreciation for it as a movie, such as it was, without having to figure out whatever actual plot or flow existed amid the extraneous stuff that developed around the movie and stage plays of it.

I did, however, soon enough get into all of it, attending and participating in the movie, six times as I recall, at a theatre in Burlington, Ontario that ran it throughout the summer of 1979. Fun times.

2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, Over At The Frankenstein Place . . . Triple vocalists – Richard O’Brien again with his stirring “into my life . . . into my liiiiiffe’ refrain halfway through – Susan Sarandon in one of her first film roles and her co-star/fiance in the movie, Barry Bostwick.

3. Alice Cooper, Welcome To My Nightmare . . . It’s a deep cuts show and this was a single but I do play the occasional single, obscure, not heard in ages, or otherwise. Title track from the 1975 album whose big hit was Only Women Bleed. Welcome To My Nightmare made it to No. 45 on the Billboard charts and has been ranked in the top 10 on many lists of best Halloween songs.

4. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Little Demon . . . Best, I think, to let the influential shock rocker tell his own tale:

“You gotta be real cool to hear the words he said . . . Mugmgmgugmgubumububmub” . . .

“He made the sky turn green, he made the grass turn red
He even put pretty hair on Grandma’s bald head
He made the moon back up, he even pushed back time
He took the Frutti out of Tutti, he had the devil drinkin’ wine”

Etc.

5. Ramones, I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement . . . Nor do you want to look under your bed, your pillow, all those childhood scare locations. The monsters await . . .

6. David Bowie, Subterraneans . . . underneath, in the caverns real or imagined in your mind. Bowie, dark, ambient, from Low, part of his 1970s Berlin trilogy of albums – the others being Heroes and Lodger. This minimalist, lyrically speaking, musical piece has nothing to do with Halloween or horror, but it fits.

7. Blue Oyster Cult, Subhuman (live, from On Your Feet Or On Your Knees) . . . Extended live version of the typically early BOC-spooky type piece, originally – three minutes shorter than this 7-plus minute version – on the studio album Secret Treaties, released in 1974.

8. The Rolling Stones, Dancing With Mr. D . . . From the 1973 album Goats Head Soup, thought to be something of a sequel to 1968’s Sympathy For The Devil, depending on who is analyzing the Stones’ output. A different vibe, more pedestrian perhaps as some critics have dismissed it, but compelling.

9. Alice Cooper, Devil’s Food/The Black Widow . . . From the Welcome To My Nightmare album featuring a fun spoken word cameo from actor Vincent Price in celebration of would-be spider supremacy.

10. Link Wray, The Black Widow . . . Not the same Black Widow song. Just typical instrumental intensity from the original master and maybe inventor of the power chord, depending on who and what one reads.

11. Link Wray, Switchblade . . . From Wray’s 1979 Bullshot album, with a similar riff to the B-52’s song Planet Claire, released on that band’s debut album from the same year.

12. Ramones, Chain Saw . . . Switchblades, now chainsaws, leading to . . . a no doubt foggy night. In London.

13. Link Wray, Jack The Ripper . . . Dark, spooky, moody, expressive.

14. Talking Heads, Psycho Killer (live, from Stop Making Sense movie/soundtrack album) . . . A different, similar and recognizable but funkier live arrangement of the hit (although while well known it just scaped inside the top 100 at No. 97) from the Heads’ 1977 debut album Talking Heads: 77. In the concert movie, Head, er, Head David Bryne notably wore an oversized suit.

15. Alice Cooper, I Love The Dead . . . The Billion Dollar Babies album, released in February, 1973, was a constant presence on my high school cafeteria juke box. You could count on hearing a tune from it no matter what time of day you went in for breakfast, lunch, a card game or just a break. But it was usually Hello Hooray, Elected, Generation Landslide, the title cut and No More Mr. Nice Guy, not this tongue in cheek take on necrophilia. Probably wouldn’t have been allowed.

16. Tom Waits, Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard . . . Originally on Waits’ 1978 album Blue Valentine, it was later covered by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, who I played earlier, and definitely fits Hawkins’ shock rock persona such that some think Waits covered Hawkins.

17. Black Sabbath, Disturbing The Priest . . . I could have chosen any number of Sabbath songs for a show like this, from all eras and singers of Sabbath. But I decided to go with this one, from the 1983 album Born Again, the one and only album Sabbath did – complete with controversial devil baby album cover – with Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan out front as lead singer and whose maniacal vocals are the feature attraction along with Tony Iommi’s cascading, metallic guitar riffs.

18. Link Wray, The Shadow Knows . . . Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men . . . followed by diabolical cackles. ‘Nuff said.

19. AC/DC, Night Prowler . . . Bluesy hard rocker from the last album, Highway To Hell, the band did before lead singer Bon Scott’s death. It caused AC/DC controversy as serial killer/rapist Richard Ramirez, an AC/DC fan, used the song title as one of his nicknames (actually the Night Stalker but Night Prowler was a favorite song of his) although the band always said it’s about a boy sneaking into his girlfriend’s room at night. However, reading the lyrics – and I’m not criticizing the band – one can see a disturbed person using them for their own ends.

20. Concrete Blonde, Bloodletting (The Vampire Song) . . . Brooding title cut from the band’s commercial breakthrough album, released in 1990 and featuring the compelling vocals of one of my favorite singers, Johnette Napolitano. The song was the first single from the album but didn’t do much on the charts. It was the later-released singles, Joey in particular plus Caroline and Tomorrow, Wendy which had the biggest impact.

21. Tim Curry, No Love On The Street . . . The song, from Curry’s 1979 album Fearless, has nothing – that I can tell – to do with Halloween or horror. But, guitarist Dick Wagner of Alice Cooper fame plays on it, I played Alice earlier in the set and Curry was the key character Dr. Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which I opened the set with, so here you go. Curry, as I’ve often mentioned, is a terrific talent; a scream as an actor/singer in Rocky Horror and also the movie Clue, a 1985 film adaptation of the board game where he hilariously plays the butler. Curry sadly suffered a serious stroke in 2012 but continues to perform as a voice actor and singer.

22. Savoy Brown, Hellbound Train . . . Pulsating, propulsive nine-minute title cut from the British blues band’s 1972 album. I saw them in 2013 at the Kitchener Blues Festival, great show with some of the performances available on YouTube. Founding and forever member, guitarist and chief songwriter Kim Simmonds died in 2022, and the band with him.

Three albums I think are classics: Dire Straits’ self-titled debut, released in 1978, Jethro Tull’s Stand Up from 1969 and Fragile by Yes, released in 1971. My album commentaries are beneath each record’s track list.

Dire Straits – Dire Straits

1. Down To The Waterline
2. Water Of Love
3. Setting Me Up
4. Six Blade Knife
5. Southbound Again
6. Sultans Of Swing
7. In The Gallery
8. Wild West End
9. Lions

I was in college when the first Dire Straits album came out in 1978 and its one of those cases where one buys an album for the hit single, in this case Sultans Of Swing, only to be rewarded with a stellar start to finish blues-rock record in the vein of J.J. Cale and what Eric Clapton had been offering via his 1970s albums like 461 Ocean Boulevard, Slowhand and such. It showed that Dire Straits was a band with staying power. I was inspired to play it thanks to a conversation with an old high school and college friend who mentioned to me he had been working out to Dire Straits’ third album, Making Movies, the other day. I replied that it was a good reminder to me to play the band, since I had not in a while. So here we are and since my pal “4C” (his clever nomenclature, a play on his surname) just listened to Making Movies, I thought I’d not repeat that one – great album though it is as is all Dire Straits and Mark Knopfler solo work – and go with the debut.

Jethro Tull – Stand Up

1. A New Day Yesterday
2. Jeffrey Goes To Leicester Square
3. Bouree
4. Back To The Family
5. Look Into The Sun
6. Nothing Is Easy
7. Fat Man
8. We Used To Know
9. Reasons For Waiting
10. For A Thousand Mothers

From what I’ve read over the years, including in liner notes on various re-issues, Stand Up is perhaps Tull leader Ian Anderson’s favorite Jethro Tull album. Mine, too, even if I didn’t know of Anderson’s opinion. Anderson tends to look at it from the point of view, and he’s said this on the record, that to him it was in essence the first Jethro Tull album although it was the second release by the band, coming out in 1969. This Was was the actual first Tull release, in 1968. But, while excellent, that was a blues-rock album with blues-oriented guitarist Mick Abrahams in the band and, as Anderson has said, the title This Was perfectly reflects the situation because that’s where Tull ‘was’ with Abrahams on board.

Anderson wanted to diversify the sound to, as he describes in the expanded Stand Up release liner notes, not just blues but to jazz, classical, folk and what wasn’t yet termed ‘world’ music. Abrahams didn’t and left. In came new guitarist Martin Barre and the tone of Tull was set for the future as the band, in various lineups but always until recently with the core duo of Anderson and Barre leading the way, went on to the wonderfully eclectic and unique sound of Jethro Tull’s music in all its myriad forms as anyone who has ever dipped more than a toe into Tull’s ouvre would recognize.

Stand Up is full of great songs, including We Used To Know, which the Eagles – who had toured with Tull in 1972 – have long been accused of plagiarizing for their hit Hotel California. However Don Felder of the Eagles, who wrote the music, didn’t join the Eagles until 1974 and has said he was unaware of Tull outside of the fact he knew their leader played flute. And Ian Anderson has always been gracious – there’s a video on YouTube of him discussing it – that while the Eagles may have subconsciously been influenced by We Used To Know, it wasn’t ripped off and he’s complimentary about Hotel California. “It’s not plagiarism,” Anderson has been quoted as saying while further suggesting there are only so many notes and chord sequences available in a rock music context.

“It’s just the same chord sequence. It’s in a different time signature, different key, different context. … Harmonic progression — it’s almost a mathematical certainty that you’re going to crop up with the same thing sooner or later if you’re strumming a few chords on a guitar.”

I have two distinct memories tied to the Stand Up album, beyond just playing it often as I never tire of it even 55 (!) years later. The first came in 1969 when my family was living in Peru 1967-70 as my dad was working there. Many of the older kids would go back to the United States or Canada for high school, and so every holiday time became a wonderful reunion as they returned to Peru and their families for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving . . . and they’d often bring with them what was new and big in music at the time in North America. We could get it all in Peru, eventually, but this was a different time, obviously, not the instant time of today in all things, so sometimes it took a while but we had a sort of quicker messenger service via our older siblings.

So, in 1969 here came my older brother Rob, then age 18, with two new albums, Led Zeppelin II and Jethro Tull Stand Up. I was going to play Zep II as well on this show until I checked and saw I’d played it on a recent Saturday album replay. In any case, for we younger siblings still listening to earlier Beatles, Rolling Stones and Monkees, Zeppelin and Tull represented something entirely new, often heavier (certainly in Zep’s case) and simply different. It was jarring at first, to be honest, but we quickly grew to like it and it’s via Stand Up that I became a Jethro Tull fan, and I remain so to this day, having seen the band in concert numerous times.

And having seen Tull in concert leads to my other cherished memory, thanks to Stand Up. I had seen Tull in 1987 at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens with my then-wife and in 1988 our first of two sons was born, the second in 1992 and they were both soon immersed in my what’s now termed classic rock music to the point where we created our own fun air guitar band with which we’d play and sing along to the Stones, Tull, AC/DC, The Beatles, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and whoever else. And by 1998 I had taken my older son, then age 9, to see The Rolling Stones in Toronto on their Bridges To Babylon album tour and by 2000 there we were in Hamilton Place, taking in Jethro Tull two days after my eldest son Mark’s 12th birthday. By then he knew all of Tull’s familiar tunes like Aqualung but the lights go down and here comes Ian Anderson from stage right doing a one-legged jig cutting across the stage, his flute ferociously accompanying the band kicking into the set opener For A Thousand Mothers, from Stand Up and then quickly into Nothing Is Easy from the same album. The opening reminded me somewhat of that first time I saw Tull, the 1987 tour in support of the then-current album Crest Of A Knave when they opened with Songs From The Wood and Anderson just appeared way, way stage right almost, from our vantage point, as if he were in the seats, and on with that concert.

Back to the Hamilton show. Mark had heard the Stand Up album, of course. But as the show went on and Tull went with an arguably deeper cuts set that included Ian Anderson solo stuff to material from the then-new album J-Tull Dot Com (this was still relatively early days of the internet, accounting for the then-maybe clever but now dated album title) I worried that perhaps they weren’t playing enough classic material familiar to him although Aqualung, Locomotive Breath and Thick As A Brick were present and accounted for.

Yet, I was gratified that Mark thoroughly enjoyed what was an entertaining show and we went on together to become a father-son Tull touring buddy duo, seeing the band again in 2002, 2005 and 2007 until, sadly, in 2007 we looked at each other midway through and acknowledged that, decent enough show at Toronto’s Massey Hall but Ian Anderson’s voice was just too shot – hence the band playing long instrumental passages that don’t exist on the actual recorded songs to cover for him – to enjoy seeing and hearing live anymore although Anderson and Tull continue to record and tour to this day. But we’ll always of course have the brilliant albums, and the memories, of which Stand Up is one.

Yes – Fragile

1. Roundabout
2. Cans And Brahms
3. We Have Heaven
4. South Side Of The Sky
5. Five Per Cent For Nothing
6. Long Distance Runaround
7. The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus)
8. Mood For A Day
9. Heart Of The Sunrise

Progressive rock, which to some, and understandably, can mean long and interminable yet not so with this great album which is prog and commercial all at once. A high school friend of mine, football teammate and sometime gym workout partner swore by this album and why not? I wasn’t much into progressive rock at the time although I, like most people, knew the hit single Roundabout. But him often talking about Fragile prompted me to eventually listen to the whole thing and buy it, never a regret. Also about Yes and Fragile; same friend told me of someone he knew, who only listened to Yes. Nothing else. Not sure I fully believed it but I’m sure it was close to being accurate and I get it because I often feel that way about The Rolling Stones, or Deep Purple or Jethro Tull or The Beatles, just to name a few of my favorite bands. As I often say, the best band/artist, song or album ever is the one you are listening to right now, in the moment, if you like it.

I later knew a work colleague who was the same with Bruce Springsteen. I was kidding him one day and said something like “you don’t listen to anything else?” and he replied, ‘no, why would I?”. I fully respect that and it also reminds me of a good pal who defaults to listening to the Stones’ Beggars Banquet album depending on mood – good, bad or indifferent – as a sort of cure-all and a great one it is. And that’s the thing about great music. Sure, it’s great to explore new stuff, and I do, we all do and we arguably should. Even if ‘new’ might mean not just actual new bands and songs but old stuff we overlooked or just weren’t exposed to previously. But, every minute spent exploring new stuff means fewer minutes to listen yet again and have that satisfying experience of listening to, say, Beggars Banquet – or Fragile – for the millionth time. At some of our ages there’s more time behind us than ahead, so why waste it and not just do and listen to what one enjoys?

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

1. Camel, Ice
2. Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles, Them Changes (from Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles! Live!)
3. John McLaughlin, Marbles
4. Ten Years After, Love Like A Man
5. Elf, Hoochie Koochie Lady
6. The Rolling Stones, Heaven/Feel On Baby
7. The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Time/Confusion
8. Atomic Rooster, Sleeping For Years
9. The Byrds, Full Circle
10. Professor Longhair, Byrd’s Blues
11. Albert King, Blues Power (live)
12. The Smithereens, Blues Before And After
13. Jimmy Reed, Little Rain
14. B.B. King, Don’t Answer The Door
15. Taj Mahal, The Celebrated Walkin’ Blues
16. Fairport Convention, Who Knows Where The Time Goes

My track-by-track tales:

1. Camel, Ice . . . Beautiful 10-minutes and change instrumental from the English progressive rock band’s 1979 album I Can See Your House From Here. It features fine electric and acoustic guitar from Camel founding member and main songwriter Andrew Latimer. The unrelated Collins boys, Phil of Genesis fame (on percussion) and saxophonist Mel (King Crimson, among other bands) are guest musicians on the album.

2. Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles, Them Changes (from Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles! Live!) . . . Fiery title cut written by drummer Miles (the Electric Flag, Jimi Hendrix’s Band Of Gypsys) for his 1970 album, recorded on tour with the Santana band on Jan. 1, 1972 inside the Diamond Head crater on Oahu, Hawaii. The concert was part of the 1970s series of Diamond Head Crater Festivals, sometimes called the Sunshine Festival, on New Year’s Eve/Day and the Fourth Of July. Other acts appearing over the years were the Grateful Dead, America, Styx, Journey, War, and Tower of Power.

3. John McLaughlin, Marbles . . . Santana and Miles covered McLaughlin’s Marbles on their Hawaii show’s live album and both collaborated with the English guitarist (Miles played drums on the original studio recording) at various points. So, here’s McLaughlin, shredding up a storm from his 1970 album Devotion.

4. Ten Years After, Love Like A Man . . . Speaking of shredding, typically fine riffing and soloing from Alvin Lee on this one from the 1970 album Cricklewood Green.

5. Elf, Hoochie Koochie Lady . . . Bluesy rocker by Ronnie James Dio’s first band of significance which, after touring with Deep Purple in the mid-1970s, wound up being absorbed into Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s new project Rainbow for that group’s first album, released in 1975. Hoochie Koochie Lady is from Elf’s self-titled debut album, produced by Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover and drummer Ian Paice and released in 1972.

“This was Elf, kind of piano based rock,” Dio writes in the liner notes to Stand Up And Shout: The Anthology, a fine 2003 compilation of his work fronting his own bands as well as Rainbow and Black Sabbath. “We wanted to write a Rolling Stones song, and this was it. Hoochie koochie ladies were like honky-tonk women. This was the first vocalizing for me, the first ‘stone’, first ripple in the pond.”

6. The Rolling Stones, Heaven/Feel On Baby . . . And here are the Stones, although a different sort of Stones, not rocking at all like Hoochie Koochie Lady or Honky Tonk Women, but showing their versatility in different musical approaches. Two songs from two different albums (Heaven from 1981’s Tattoo You; Feel On Baby from 1983’s Undercover) that I like putting together as one near 10-minute hypnotic groove. There’s the ethereal, tranquil and, well, heavenly Heaven (an amazing listen on headphones) followed by the soulful reggae of Feel On Baby. Feel On Baby features the famed reggae tandem of Sly (Dunbar) and Robbie (Shakespeare) on percussion and bass, respectively, although while Shakespeare is credited in a few Stones track-by-track who-played-what books I own, he isn’t on the actual Undercover album liner notes.

7. The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, Time/Confusion . . . Another song title with a slash in it but unlike my intentionally putting two Rolling Stones songs together, Time/Confusion is one song, albeit transitioning about halfway through its five minutes from a spooky part spoken word approach to heavier rock. The self-titled 1968 album, known for its hit single Fire, is described as being from the psychedelic soul genre and that’s what it is, with at times unsettling vocals by “crazy”Arthur Brown, whose singing and performance style were influential on the likes of Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Kiss. Of note is that the album originally was released in the UK on Track Records, the label started by then Who managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, and is produced by Lambert and co-produced by The Who’s Pete Townshend. The hit single Fire was co-written by Arthur Brown and Vincent Crane, his keyboard player who also handled orchestral arrangements and went on to form Atomic Rooster with drummer Carl Palmer. Palmer had joined Brown’s band in mid-tour when original drummer Drachen Theaker, who had played on the debut album, quit. Palmer left Atomic Rooster after their self-titled first album in 1970 and went on to further fame with Emerson, Lake & Palmer.

8. Atomic Rooster, Sleeping For Years . . . Speaking of Atomic Rooster . . . Progressive hard rock near metal built around the guitar work of John Du Cann, who wrote this tune that appeared on the Rooster’s second album Death Walks Behind You, also released in 1970.

9. The Byrds, Full Circle . . . Some softer stuff, a catchy countryish tune written by Gene Clark as The Byrds indeed come full circle on their self-titled reunion album, released in 1973 . It featured original 1960s members Clark, Roger McGuinn, Michael Clarke, David Crosby and Chris Hillman.

10. Professor Longhair, Byrd’s Blues . . . Swampy piano boogie woogie by the Professor, birth name Henry Roeland Byrd who went by Roy and was also known as Fess. This track, recorded in New Orleans in 1949 under the credit of Roy Byrd and His Blues Jumpers, also features some sterling saxophone dueling between Big Easy legends Lee Allen and Leroy “Batman’ Rankin. Allen, who collaborated with T-Bone Walker, Big Joe Turner, Dr. John and the Stray Cats among others, also appeared with The Rolling Stones for a few dates on their 1981 American tour.

11. Albert King, Blues Power (live) . . . A 10-minute guitar showcase before a San Francisco audience, released on the 1968 album Live Wire/Blues Power.

12. The Smithereens, Blues Before And After . . . I played some blues before this song, and more is coming after it. An infectious rocker released in 1989 by the New Jersey band also known for the hit single A Girl Like You. The group’s lead singer, guitarist and chief songwrtier Pat DiNizio died in 2017 but the group is still doing live work using an assortment of guest vocalists including Marshall Crenshaw.

13. Jimmy Reed, Little Rain . . . Slow blues from 1957, guitar and harmonica by Reed, whose rhythmic foot tapping represents raindrops falling. A hugely influential artist, Reed’s Bright Lights Big City was recorded by many bands including The Animals and Them. The Rolling Stones, who covered Reed’s Honest I Do on their debut studio album, included Bright Lights Big City, Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby and Shame Shame Shame in their early concert set lists and came full circle with Reed when they did Little Rain on their well-received 2016 covers album Blue & Lonesome.

14. B.B. King, Don’t Answer The Door . . . Another great slow blues, a No. 2 hit on the R & B charts for King in 1966.

15. Taj Mahal, The Celebrated Walkin’ Blues . . . Intoxicating stuff from Mahal’s self-titled 1968 debut album which featured Mahal’s old Rising Sons bandmate Ry Cooder on rythym guitar and mandolin along with ace session guitarist to the stars Jesse Ed Davis. Davis played on countless albums including ones by Eric Clapton, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Bryan Ferry and Rod Stewart.

16. Fairport Convention, Who Knows Where The Time Goes . . . Indeed, as time’s up on this show as we take our leave via the beautiful voice of the late Sandy Denny, who also wrote this stirring song that appeared on the 1969 album Unhalfbricking.

A hard-rocking set to wake you up on a Saturday morning: Black Sabbath’s 1980 album Heaven And Hell, Machine Head from Deep Purple, released in 1972 and Aerosmith’s 1976 album Rocks. My album commentaries are below each record’s track list.

Black Sabbath – Heaven And Hell

1. Neon Knights
2. Children Of The Sea
3. Lady Evil
4. Heaven And Hell
5. Wishing Well
6. Die Young
7. Walk Away
8. Lonely Is The Word

One of those albums where a band replaces an iconic singer perhaps thought to be irreplaceable and rolls on, sometimes to greater at least commercial if not always critical success, depending on the critics’ tastes. Three other albums and bands come immediately to mind: AC/DC in 1980 – the same year Heaven And Hell was released – with Back In Black, Brian Johnson replacing (RIP) Bon Scott, Van Halen with Sammy Hagar taking over for David Lee Roth for the 1986 album 5150 and Genesis with Phil Collins as lead singer in place of Peter Gabriel starting with the 1976 album A Trick Of The Tail.

In Sabbath’s case, replacing Ozzy Osbourne with Ronnie James Dio rejuvenated the band, which was somewhat in disarray due to substance abuse and a perceived dropoff in quality of their at that point most recent two albums – Technical Ecstasy and Never Say Die! I’ve always seen merit in both, and have played material from them like Johnny Blade and Junior’s Eyes, just to name two songs, on the show over time. But that’s true of me with every Sabbath release. I’m a fan of the band, all eras and singers including Tony Martin and Ian Gillan of Deep Purple’s one album foray (for 1983’s Born Again) as frontman.

As for Heaven And Hell, interesting that the last song recorded during the sessions, Neon Knights, is the first song on the album and a scorcher it is, intentionally or not a signal to listeners that – as with Back In Black’s opener Hells Bells – all’s well with this new version of the band. A classic track on a classic release full of great songs, as is the case with the other two albums I’m playing on this show.

Deep Purple – Machine Head

1. Highway Star
2. Maybe I’m A Leo
3. Pictures Of Home
4. Never Before
5. Smoke On The Water
6. Lazy
7. Space Truckin’

The album which gave the world Deep Purple’s best-known song Smoke On The Water and other familiar tunes like Highway Star, the propulsive opener Purple has also often used to open its concerts to this day, and Space Truckin’. May as well mention the rest of them: Maybe I’m A Leo, Pictures Of Home, Never Before and Lazy. An essential album for lovers of rock music.

Aerosmith – Rocks

1. Back In The Saddle
2. Last Child
3. Rats In The Cellar
4. Combination
5. Sick As A Dog
6. Nobody’s Fault
7. Get The Lead Out
8. Lick And A Promise
9. Home Tonight

It’s arguably a tie amongst many Aerosmith aficionados between Toys In The Attic from 1975, featuring such classics as Walk This Way and Sweet Emotion, and the 1976 followup Rocks as the band’s best. And not only does Rocks feature such well-known hit tunes as Back In The Saddle and Last Child that find their way to most compilations but it also contains likely my favorite Aerosmith deep cut and song of theirs in general, the apocalyptic Nobody’s Fault. Rocks is definitely an appropriate title as the album does just that – except for the slightly less rocking ballad Home Tonight that closes the record. The lyrics in the opening verse of Home Tonight can be seen as taking on a different meaning now, given that Aerosmith announced in August that it was cancelling its farewell tour and retiring from the road as a result of a vocal cord injury to lead singer Steven Tyler.

“Now it’s time
To say good night to you
Now its time
To bid you sweet adieu”

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

1. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Cold Turkey
2. The Marshall Tucker Band, Ramblin’
3. Nazareth, Kentucky Fried Blues
4. The Monks Bad Habits
5. The Monkees No Time
6. Warren Zevon, Boom Boom Mancini
7. The Rolling Stones, Long Long While
8. Neil Young, Birds
9. AC/DC, Let’s Get It Up
10. Peter Frampton, While My Guitar Gently Weeps
11. Cat Stevens, Foreigner Suite
12. Steely Dan, Two Against Nature
13. John Lee Hooker, John L’s House Rent Boogie/One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
14. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lend A Helpin’ Hand
15. Funkadelic, Wars Of Armaggedon
16. Bruce Springsteen, Drive All Night

My track-by-track tales:

1. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Cold Turkey . . . Nothing to do with Thanksgiving, of course, it’s a harrowing track about withdrawal from addiction, specifically in this case heroin addiction, but I figured I’d play something turkey-related on this Canadian Thanksgiving Monday/weekend and this is the first song that occurred to me. Plus, well, I like it. Apologies if it may be in poor taste but hey, lighten up, maybe Lennon was really writing about turkey leftovers in the fridge. 🙂

Released in October of 1969 under the moniker of the Plastic Ono Band, it features Beatle Ringo on drums, Eric Clapton on guitar and longtime Beatles’ associate Klaus Voorman, who designed the cover art for the Revolver album and played on a total of 10 solo albums spread amongst Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison, on bass. It was the first single Lennon ever released under his sole songwriting credit. He had released Give Peace A Chance earlier that year while still, as he was when Cold Turkey came out, with The Beatles but Give Peace A Chance was at first credited as a Lennon-McCartney tune, later changed to just Lennon. According to The Love You Make, one of the 67 million books available on The Beatles, Lennon offered Cold Turkey as a possible Beatles single but Paul McCartney took one listen and said no, to which, according to the book, Lennon replied “well, bugger you” and released it as a Plastic Ono Band song. A great song, regardless.

2. The Marshall Tucker Band, Ramblin’ . . . Five minutes and seven seconds worth of southern fried boogie from the band likely best known for their hit single Can’t You See which, like Ramblin’, was released on the group’s self-titled debut album in 1973.

3. Nazareth, Kentucky Fried Blues . . . Pulsating dirty, bluesy jam from the Expect No Mercy album, 1977.

4. The Monks Bad Habits . . . Title cut from the 1979 album which yielded the hit single, at least in the UK, Nice Legs Shame About Her Face which ascended to No. 19. But that was only one of many catchy songs on an album that achieved its greatest success in Canada where Drugs In My Pocket was a top 20 hit while songs like Johnny B. Rotten, especially, and Love In Stereo and Ain’t Gettin’ Any got significant airplay. One of my college days/daze albums/memories.

5. The Monkees No Time . . . Always liked this short and sweet rocker, Micky Dolenz on lead vocals, from the time my older sister brought home the Headquarters album, released in 1967.

6. Warren Zevon, Boom Boom Mancini . . . I seem to be playing a fair bit of Zevon of late, he came up again because I was watching some old boxing matches over the weekend and Ray (Boom Boom) Mancini was involved in one of the bouts I came across. From Zevon’s 1987 album Sentimental Hygiene, with members of R.E.M. – drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck and bassist Mike Mills – providing instrumental backup on most of the tunes.

7. The Rolling Stones, Long Long While . . . A nice ballad B-side to Paint It Black in the UK. A rare occasion at that time, 1966, when the Stones, who had been writing songs like Under My Thumb as putdowns of women, took the opposite approach with lyrics like “I was so wrong girl and you were right.” Yet in North America, the B-side to Paint It Black was Stupid Girl, which also appeared on both the UK and North American versions of the Aftemath album. Long Long While first came out on an album in 1972 on the More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies) compilation and 1989’s The Singles Collection – The London Years which features every Stones single and accompanying B-side during the band’s time with Decca Records in the UK and its North American cousin London Records.

8. Neil Young, Birds . . . Beautiful ballad from Young’s 1970 album After The Goldrush, a song covered by Linda Ronstadt on her self-titled third solo album, released in 1972.

9. AC/DC Let’s Get It Up . . . A genre switch from the beautiful ballads to AC/DC’s ‘filth’, as described by lead singer Brian Johnson of the track released on the followup to Back In Black, 1981’s For Those About To Rock We Salute You album which I’d been playing in the car, so the CD was handy and here it is. “Filth, pure filth. We’re a filthy band,” Johnson told UK publication Kerrang! Filthy good, I say.

10. Peter Frampton, While My Guitar Gently Weeps . . . As someone on YouTube commented, Frampton honors George Harrison with his take on The Beatles’ classic. Frampton’s seven-minute version of what was originally a shade under five-minute tune appeared on his 2003 album Now.

11. Cat Stevens, Foreigner Suite . . . Imagine, you’re to that point largely known for tight hit singles like Moonshadow, Peace Train, Wild World and Morning Has Broken and then . . . you lead off your next album, 1973’s Foreigner, with an 18-plus minute epic that was the whole of side one of the original vinyl, perhaps risking alienating those who might not cotton to lengthy songs, at least before they listen to it. Once you tune in, it’s a wonderful trip through changing tempos, always interesting, never boring, even leaves you wishing it wouldn’t end. Truly a sweet suite.

12. Steely Dan, Two Against Nature . . . Funky, jazzy title cut from Steely Dan’s 2000 album release that marked Donald Fagen and Walter Becker’s first full album collaboration since 1980’s Gaucho. In between, the duo had reunited for a tour in the early 1990s that resulted in the 1995 live album Alive In America.

13. John Lee Hooker, John L’s House Rent Boogie/One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer . . . Two separate Hooker tunes, House Rent Boogie from 1950 and One Bourbon from 1966 that I’m weaving together, as George Thorogood did, simply calling the combined song One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer on his self-titled 1977 debut album. Hooker wrote House Rent Boogie and is credited as writing One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer on most compilations and its parent studio album, The Real Folk Blues. The song, originally written by American bluesman Rudy Toombs as One Scotch, One Bourbon, One Beer, was recorded and released by R & B singer Amos Milburn in 1953. Hooker revised it, adapted and added some lyrics and dialogue, in short, Hookerized it, in the words of biographer Charles Shaar Murray in his book Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker In The American Twentieth Century. Then Thorogood Thorogoodized it further. Toombs is credited as the writer on the 1991 Hooker compilation The Ultimate Collection 1948-1990.

14. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Lend A Helpin’ Hand . . . Fiery up tempo track recorded in 1971 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in Alabama with an early version of Skynyrd that included Rickey Medlocke, since 1996 one of the reconstituted post-plane crash band’s guitarists, on drums. The song was originally released on the compilation Skynyrd’s First And . . . Last which came out in 1978, a year after the tragedy, by which time Medlocke had long since left to front Blackfoot, which he had helped form in 1969. Skynyrd’s First And . . . Last was expanded and reissued in 1998 as Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album. It’s a nice package that includes original versions of well-known songs like Free Bird, Gimme Three Steps, I Ain’t The One and others that were recorded a year or two before Skynyrd’s 1973 debut album, plus other previously-unreleased songs, some featuring Medlocke on lead vocals instead of Ronnie Van Zant.

15. Funkadelic, Wars Of Armaggedon . . . Extended funk rock guitar workout featuring the late great Eddie Hazel, from 1970’s Maggot Brain, the title cut of which is also a Hazel showcase but I’ve played it before, relatively recently, so decided to go in another direction this time. The whole album is worthwhile listening.

16. Bruce Springsteen, Drive All Night . . . A lengthy lament to lost love with a typically great saxophone solo from The Big Man, Clarence Clemons. From The River album, 1980.

A 3-album replay: The Doors’ 1971 record L.A. Woman, Bad Company’s Desolation Angels from 1979 and The Beatles’ 1964 album A Hard Day’s Night (UK version). My album commentaries are below each record’s track list.

The Doors – L.A. Woman

1. The Changeling
2. Love Her Madly
3. Been Down So Long
4. Cars Hiss By My Window
5. L.A. Woman
6. L’America
7. Hyacinth House
8. Crawling King Snake
9. The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)
10. Riders On The Storm

L.A. Woman is probably my favorite Doors record although the 1967 self-titled debut album, with Break On Through (To The Other Side), Light My Fire, Back Door Man and The End on it, is right up there but while I like all the band’s work, L.A. Woman is one I most consistently listen to straight through. From the opening cut The Changeling, the classic title track placed, intentionally or not, smack in the middle of the 10-song album, anchoring the record, to the closing, brooding Riders On The Storm. I just like the dark, bluesy vibe that is enhanced by, some critics have suggested, Jim Morrison’s worn-out, rough hewn vocals – but that’s what makes them, and the album, great. It was the last Doors album to feature Morrison on lead vocals, during his lifetime, as he died two months after its release. The title track, brilliant vocal and propulsive band performance, always sticks in my mind and often reminds me of an old high school and college friend and football teammate who would, impromptu, often break into song. L.A. Woman, with its evocative opening line “Well I just got into town about an hour ago, took a look around see which way the wind blow. . .” was one of them.

So was The Rolling Stones’ If You Really Want To Be My Friend, from the It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll album, which back then confirmed to me that, ‘this is a guy worth knowing; he actually, like me, knows Stones’ deep cuts’. As for the present day, that memory made me think of playing the Stones’ album but it wouldn’t fit into this 3-album play in my 2-hour slot and I didn’t want to play just two albums and fill the rest with random tracks, as the three albums I’m playing fit the slot perfectly. So, perhaps next time, or soon, for It’s Only Rock ‘N’ Roll, in whole or in part.

Bad Company – Desolation Angels

1. Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy
2. Crazy Circles
3. Gone, Gone, Gone
4. Evil Wind
5. Early In The Morning
6. Lonely For Your Love
7. Oh, Atlanta
8. Take The Time
9. Rhythm Machine
10. She Brings Me Love

Desolation Angels is the fifth of six studio albums by the original Bad Company, with Paul Rodgers on lead vocals. The less said about the later Brian Howe (RIP) lead singer version – aside from, I’ll grant you, the song Holy Water, title cut from Howe-fronted 1990 album – the better. But I’ll say a lot, anyway. The Howe period, from 1986 to 1992, was actually quite commercially successful but there’s no accounting for why and how millions of people apparently like that overproduced post-Terry Kath Chicago, or Foreigner’s sappy period, type schlock. And I like a fair bit of early Foreigner, the rocking stuff. But then, acts like Bon Jovi, with that same annoying (to me) sound, are hugely successful, too. It’s all subjective to personal taste, of course and I mean no harm by it, enjoy what you enjoy, of course, as will I, just having a little fun.

I remember when Bad Company – which still did feature original members Mick Ralphs on guitar and Simon Kirke on drums – reconvened with Howe, who had fronted Ted Nugent’s band for a time, on lead vocals, telling a work colleague who replied “no Paul Rodgers, no Bad Company.” Hey, I agree, was just advising in case you might be interested. In fairness, apparently the record company insisted to Ralphs and Kirke that the new project still be called Bad Company, as it’s arguably easier to sell (or tarnish?) a known brand name. Later on, Bad Company replaced Howe with Rodgers sound-alike Robert Hart for the 1995 album Company Of Strangers which I truly do like – because it sounds like Paul Rodgers singing and also isn’t buried under the Howe-era production murk – and have played on the show on occasion and will again. Rodgers did later rejoin Bad Co. for some tours and live albums, as well as the excellent 1999 2-CD The ‘Original’ Bad Co. Anthology which featured four new studio tracks and led to a reunion tour.
All that self-indulgent verbosity to bring us back to Desolation Angels which, propelled by the hit single Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy, did good business for Bad Co. As it should have, because, while fans and critics, from what I’ve seen, tend to lean to the first two albums as being Bad Company’s best, I think the band, with Rodgers, released consistently solid front-to-back albums and Desolation Angels is another of them. I find merit every song on it, Crazy Circles probably being my second favorite, after Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy.

The Beatles – A Hard Day’s Night

1. A Hard Day’s Night
2. I Should Have Known Better
3. If I Fell
4. I’m Happy Just To Dance With You
5. And I Love Her
6. Tell Me Why
7. Can’t Buy Me Love
8. Any Time At All
9. I’ll Cry Instead
10. Things We Said Today
11. When I Get Home
12. You Can’t Do That
13. I’ll Be Back

A Hard Day’s Night was the third studio album and first that was all band-penned, no cover tunes, all songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It’s the first and only Beatles album that featured songs from that musical partnership and none from their bandmates George Harrison and Ringo Starr. It is, however, a Lennon-dominated album given that he lead-composed and/or sang on 10 of the 13 tracks but that’s not to take away from McCartney’s contributions like And I Love Her and Things We Said Today. A remarkable record, in any event, not only for its excellent songs – essentially it could be a greatest hits album – but particularly given the time pressures under which it was produced by this remarkable band. The Beatles had just returned from their first U.S. appearances, then had to write and record songs for the film, and more to fill out the album, while shooting the movie. As the saying goes, if you want something done, ask a busy person. There are, as often happened in the early days of British Invasion bands, two versions of the record. There’s the UK release, which I’m playing, whose first seven songs – side one of the original vinyl – were used in the film A Hard Day’s Night. And the U.S./North American album – subtitled Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – which spreads the songs used in the film over the original vinyl’s two sides, interspersed with record producer George Martin’s orchestral contributions.