So Old It’s New three-album play, a singer-songwriter set featuring three classic, seminal albums: Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water from 1970, Carole King’s Tapestry from 1971 and John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan, released in 1967. My thoughts on each album appear under that record’s song list. No show on my usual Monday night; I’m preempted for the station’s coverage of the Canadian federal election.
1. Bridge Over Troubled Water
2. El Condor Pasa (If I Could)
3. Cecilia
4. Keep The Customer Satisfied
5. So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright
6. The Boxer
7. Baby Driver
8. The Only Living Boy In New York
9. Why Don’t You Write Me
10. Bye Bye Love
11. Song For The Asking
Personal memories of this album go back to when I was in Grade 7 in the school year 1970-71 and part of the school choir as per our compulsory music curriculum. If memory serves it was a Christmas assembly but in any case it was a public performance in front of family, friends and anyone who wanted to drop by and we closed the evening with the title track, Bridge Over Troubled Water. I remember our 5-foot nothing, or less, music teacher with her pitch pipe, endlessly – and sometimes annoyingly 🙂 such was her pursuit of perfection – drilling us for what she hoped for and intended to be a peak performance. And it was. We nailed it on the night, complete with all the transitional vocal harmonies amid the various voices – sopranos, altos, tenors (me, then) and basses. She was so proud of us, Miss Lee was her name as I recall and we of her particularly as a lesson in dedication, focus and persistence.
Later that year I remember smiling at a school dance as she slow-danced with her boyfriend, easily a foot and a half taller than she was, while I took the last slow dance with a friend and classmate named Cecilia, the title of one of the tracks, albeit an uptempo and excellent tune on Bridge Over Troubled Water. I was so naive then in relationships I had no idea a ‘last dance’ might represent something of significance. Nothing ever ensued between Cecilia and me, due to streaming of students based on where we lived she went to a different high school, but she does come to mind in a fun way when I hear the song. Part of it might also be that she was of Spanish background and in 1970 my family had just returned from four years living in Peru, a formative, defining time for me, so she perhaps resonated as somewhat representative of that experience.
Further re the album itself there is the classic song The Boxer with that distinctive ‘cheeuuh’ if I can ‘write’ a sound, one achieved by drummer Hal Blaine via a heavily reverbed snare drum. Blaine, according to analyses, I’m no drummer, pounded the snare drum hard while recording, and the reverberation of the sound in a hallway near an elevator shaft created the desired effect. Overall, just a great album musically and lyrically.
1. I Feel The Earth Move
2. So Far Away
3. It’s Too Late
4. Home Again
5. Beautiful
6. Way Over Yonder
7. You’ve Got A Friend
8. Where You Lead
9. Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
10. Smackwater Jack
11. Tapestry
12. (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman
Simply one of the greatest albums ever. Not sure what else to say about it or what could be said though much has been written and is easily available. It’s all in the music and lyrics. A greatest hits album, essentially, a must-have/listen. A true telling of Carole King though, I think can be furthered by looking at the 2-CD Essential Carole King. Four of the songs on it – I Feel The Earth Move, So Far Away, It’s Too Late and You’ve Got A Friend – come from Tapestry along with other quality King material. But the compilation is nicely split by the two discs – one of her as ‘The Singer’, the other as ‘The Songwriter’, often with then-husband Gerry Goffin, on such songs as Pleasant Valley Sunday by The Monkees and The Loco-Motion by Little Eva and also done by Grand Funk Railroad. Tied as a companion to Tapestry, it’s terrific stuff.
1. John Wesley Harding
2. As I Went Out One Morning
3. I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
4. All Along The Watchtower
5. The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest
6. Drifter’s Escape
7. Dear Landlord
8. I Am A Lonesome Hobo
9. I Pity The Poor Immigrant
10. The Wicked Messenger
11. Down Along The Cove
12. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight
A notable album for among other songs, the one from which the hard rock/metal band Judas Priest took its name, The Ballad Of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest, plus other great tracks like my favorites As I Went Out One Morning and Dylan’s original All Along The Watchtower. Sounds like sacrilege to some, probably, but I truly prefer Dylan’s original – maybe better expressed it’s a tie – to the more famous Jimi Hendrix cover version which Dylan himself later started attempting to do, in concert, in Hendrix style. In my view he needn’t have. Dylan’s version is classic if not by now as well remembered or recognized but to me it’s a matter of lyrics and delivery. As great as the Hendrix version is, the lyrical impact is lost amid the amazing playing relative to how it comes out in Dylan’s original. And it was a mutual admiration society; Hendrix also famously and brilliantly covered Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival including that wonderful interaction with an audience member “yeah I know I missed a verse, don’t worry” as Jimi played on.
1. AC/DC, Let There Be Rock
2. AC/DC, Demon Fire
3. Black Sabbath, Into The Void
4. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Sledgehammer
5. Blackfoot, Gimme Gimme Gimme
6. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Devil In The Bottle
7. Jimi Hendrix, Bold As Love
8. Deep Purple, April
9. Queen, The Hitman
10. Aerosmith, Jailbait
11. Robin Trower, Too Rolling Stoned
12. The Rolling Stones, Tops
13. Joe Jackson, Girl (live)
14. The Beatles, Cry Baby Cry
15. Neil Young, Like An Inca
16. Groundhogs, Split, Parts 1-4
My track-by-track tales:
1. AC/DC, Let There Be Rock . . . Title cut from the 1977 album, Bon Scott still alive and on lead vocals, uncompromising raunch and roll setting the tone for at least the first few songs of the set.
2. AC/DC, Demon Fire . . . One of two tracks – Shot In The Dark the other – AC/DC is playing on its just-begun Power Up tour in support of its 2020 album. A long time between the record release and its supporting tour but lots happened in between: Covid, lead singer Brian Johnson’s hearing issues such that he was replaced by Axl Rose of Guns ‘N Roses on a previous tour – including a period where Rose, with a broken leg, sang from a wheelchair. Kudos to Rose, he did a fine job overall in my view based on available video. Johnson, 77, recovered and alongside lead guitarist Angus Young, 70, AC/DC is still around, alive and kicking by all concert review accounts so far. As for Demon Fire, it’s got a similar funky infectious riff to Safe In New York City from the 2000 album Stiff Upper Lip. That’s a good thing. Are they ripping themselves off? Of course, but that’s AC/DC’s genius – doing variations on a theme for years yet still sounding fresh because discerning listeners know it’s not all the same if one actually investigates the albums, deep cuts and all. Still, Young had fun with that perception years ago:
“I’m sick to death of people saying we’ve made 11 albums (at the time) that sound exactly the same. In fact, we’ve made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.”
3. Black Sabbath, Into The Void . . . Hugely influential metal/doom sludge rock track before there were such categorizations, riding one of guitarist Tony Iommi’s darkest riffs, from Sabbath’s 1971 album Master Of Reality.
4. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Sledgehammer . . . Another band revived and on tour. BTO has been on the road since April 1 in Canada playing all the expected hits plus Guess Who tracks from Randy Bachman’s time in the band plus an encore medley of rock and roll from various artists including BTO: Hey You / All Right Now / Rock’n Me / You Shook Me All Night Long / Honky Tonk Women / Get It On (Bang a Gong) / (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction / Old Time Rock and Roll / Hey You (reprise). No Sledgehammer, though, which is of course cool but a fine deep track with combined lead vocals by Bachman and bassist C.F. (Fred) Turner from 1973’s Not Fragile album which featured the hit single You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet. BTO wraps up the Canadian leg of its tour in early May before starting a series of US dates in mid-July, running through the summer.
5. Blackfoot, Gimme Gimme Gimme . . . Straight ahead southern riff raunch and roll from 1980’s Tomcattin’ album, fuelled by leader Rickey Medlocke’s guitar and lead vocals. Medlocke was an early, pre-released recordings member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, playing drums on demos, some of which eventually surfaced on the post-plane crash compilation Skynyrd’s First and… Last which was later expanded and re-released as Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album. Medlocke rejoined Skynyrd full time, on guitar, for the 1997 album Twenty and has been a core member of the reconstituted band since.
6. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Devil In The Bottle . . . Speaking of Skynyrd (without Medlocke) . . . A touching tale about demon alcohol from the unplugged 1994 album Endangered Species that featured classic pre-plane crash Skynyrd tracks like Sweet Home Alabama, Down South Jukin’, Saturday Night Special and I Ain’t The One as well as material done by the reconstituted band and a cover of Elvis’s Heartbreak Hotel. At the time of Endangered Species, the group still featured several of the plane crash survivors or previous, pre-crash players in the band.
The lineup: Gary Rossington and Ed King on guitars; Leon Wilkeson bass; Billy Powell piano from the classic-era group plus lead singer Johnny Van Zant, the departed singer Ronnie Van Zant’s brother. I like all Skynyrd stuff. I think – and that’s cool – people who criticize the latter-day group as being nothing more than a tribute band may not have sampled and thus are missing lots of good music but that’s ok and understandable. But if people can’t make the full leap from band version to version, I’d recommend Endangered Species as a possible entry point if one is at all curious.
7. Jimi Hendrix, Bold As Love . . . Title cut to Axis: Bold As Love. There’s no real hook to it, yet it’s completely compelling with of course fine playing by Hendrix and band as you float along on the bed of instrumentation they lay down.
8. Deep Purple, April . . . I had to get this classical/progressive/hard rock piece in before the end of April. It’s from the so-called Mark I version of Deep Purple. The lineup featured Nick Simper on bass and Rod Evans on lead vocals although Evans doesn’t come in until almost nine minutes into this 12-minute track from the third and final album done by Mark I, simply titled Deep Purple. It was released in 1969. An underappreciated, inventive period of Purple.
9. Queen, The Hitman . . . A hard rocker from 1991’s excellent Innuendo album, the last record the band released while lead singer Freddie Mercury was alive and a nod to classic 1970s Queen not only on this song but throughout the record.
10. Aerosmith, Jailbait . . . Sleazy start/stop/start rocker from the 1982 album Rock In A Hard Place. It’s an appropriate album title in that guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford had left a band disintegrating amid drug abuse and other issues. They were replaced by Jimmy Crespo (sessions with Rod Stewart, Stevie Nicks and Meat Loaf among others) and Rick Dufay (various sessions). Yet, some quality Aerosmith material was still produced, like this bluesy boozy raunchy rolling track that starts with a wild intro, comes to a stop, then winds up again. Lightning Strikes, which I’ve played before, perhaps too often, remains to me the best track on the album but this rocker isn’t far behind.
11. Robin Trower, Too Rolling Stoned . . . My favorite Trower track from arguably his best album, the 1974 release Bridge Of Sighs. It also serves as an obvious segue to the next band/song.
12. The Rolling Stones, Tops . . . The Stones, wanting a new studio album to tour behind in 1981 but pressed for time, visited their vaults to cobble leftovers into the chart-topping feast that became the Tattoo You album propelled by the hit single Start Me Up. But there’s so much depth to the album including this mid-tempo ballad whose history goes back to 1972 sessions and features great drumming from Charlie Watts and lead guitar from Mick Taylor.
13. Joe Jackson, Girl (from Live Music) . . . No guitars. Piano-driven cover of The Beatles’ cut from Rubber Soul, issued on Jackson’s 2011 live album taken from a 2010 tour of Europe. JJ labeled his band at the time the Joe Jackson Trio, a terrific unit featuring his perennial on bass (Graham Maby) going back to the 1979 debut album Look Sharp! David Houghton, the drummer on Look Sharp! and Jackson’s first few albums and several later ones, is also on board.
14. The Beatles, Cry Baby Cry . . . Haunting yet beautiful track from The White Album, written and sung by John Lennon and punctuated by Paul McCartney’s ‘can you take me back’ coda.
15. Neil Young, Like An Inca . . . How can you not get into, or at least try, a track that starts with the lyric ‘said the condor to the preying mantis’ ? This extended piece from 1982’s off the wall Kraftwerk-like electronic album Trans is actually a curveball within the context of the record, given it’s a ‘traditional’ or conventional-sounding Young song on an otherwise experimental entry. Geffen Records sued Young at the time for not sounding like Neil Young (?!, he obviously should be open to creating as his muse moves him but, understandably perhaps, Geffen would have been expecting Neil Young as folk or grunge Neil Young, not Kraftwerk or whatever). Young countersued in the interests of creative freedom. Both lawsuits were soon dropped and Young received a personal apology from label leader David Geffen for interfering in the creative process. Trans is an interesting album as are all Young’s experiments – albeit not to all tastes – while he was signed to Geffen including Everybody’s Rockin’ (rockabilly) in 1983 and the country album Old Ways in 1985.
16. Groundhogs, Split, Parts 1-4 . . . Time to ‘split’ from the studio via this multi-part title suite from the British blues rock band’s 1971 album. They’re all individual songs, they each ‘end’ on a fadeout and aren’t conventionally connected yet are an overall unified piece.
A mishmash ‘throw stuff at the wall see what sticks’ set, including some leftovers I couldn’t fit into previous shows. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. Muddy Waters, All Aboard
2. Buddy Holly, Early In The Morning
3. Mott The Hoople, All The Way From Memphis
4. Eric Burdon and War, Blues For Memphis Slim
5. The Band, Back To Memphis
6. Stray Cats, 18 Miles To Memphis
7. Roy Buchanan, Down By The River (live)
8. Alan Parsons Project, In The Lap Of The Gods
9. Alan Parsons Project, Lucifer
10. James Gang, Alexis
11. MC5, Come Together
12. Colin James, I’m Losing You
13. Pearl Jam, Glorified G
14. Peter Tosh, Bush Doctor (from Captured Live)
15. Alannah Myles, Tumbleweed
16. Talking Heads, Gangster Of Love
17. Elton John, You’re So Static
18. Jason and The Scorchers, 19th Nervous Breakdown
19. The Rolling Stones, Baby Break It Down
20. Little Feat, Day At The Dog Races (live, from Waiting For Columbus)
21. Patti Smith Group, Easter
My track-by-track tales:
1. Muddy Waters, All Aboard (from Fathers and Sons featuring Otis Spann, Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn, Sam Lay and Buddy Miles) . . . You feel like you’re on a train on this one about love lost and maybe regained with someone new, chugging along complete with opening train whistle. Not much more to say beyond my list of who plays on Muddy’s 1969 album, other than it’s great. It was wonderful how, as an elder statesman of the blues by then, Muddy’s ‘sons’ flocked to help him out on albums, including as the decade of the 1970s progressed, Johnny Winter who played on and produced three late period Muddy albums plus the excellent Muddy ‘Mississippi’ Waters live record.
2. Buddy Holly, Early In The Morning . . . One of those ‘what might have been’ tracks in terms of directions Holly might have taken had he lived. The shuffling rock and roll tune co-written by Bobby Darin of Splish Splash fame and his somewhat regular writing partner Woody Harris was recorded by Holly in 1958 including gospel-tinged background vocals by The Helen Way Singers. Darin did his own version of the song around the same time.
North America album cover
UK album cover
3. Mott The Hoople, All The Way From Memphis . . . We start a mini-Memphis-themed set with this rousing lead cut from the 1973 album Mott, driven by Mick Ralphs’ guitar riff and a sizzling saxophone solo from Andy Mackay of Roxy Music. The song went top 10 in the UK but didn’t chart in North America, although it did get considerable FM radio airplay and is one of the band’s best-known tracks.
4. Eric Burdon and War, Blues For Memphis Slim . . . Extended, 13-minute piece of jazzy funk blues from the April 1970 release Eric Burdon Declares ‘War’. A great meeting of musical minds between the Animals’ singer and the progressive soul and R & B band that resulted in the great single Spill The Wine, from the same album. Eight months later, December, 1970, came The Black-Man’s Burdon album after which the pairing parted ways.
5. The Band, Back To Memphis . . . A Chuck Berry tune that first appeared in a live version on the comprehensive 2-CD compilation To Kingdom Come: The Definitive Collection released in 1989 and now out of print. I’ve long had my copy so I’m good. The track, in studio form and recorded at the time, was later added to expanded releases of The Band’s 1973 covers album Moondog Matinee, where it’s titled Going Back To Memphis.
6. Stray Cats, 18 Miles To Memphis . . . Typically terrific rockabilly boogie by the band, channeling the 1950s, as was their wont, on the 1983 album Rant N’ Rave With The Stray Cats.
7. Roy Buchanan, Down By The River (live) . . . A previously – until 1992’s Sweet Dreams: The Anthology and 2006’s Definitive Collection – unreleased live version by the great blues/rock guitarist of the Neil Young classic originally on Young’s second solo album, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, recorded with Crazy Horse.
8. Alan Parsons Project, In The Lap Of The Gods . . . A moody, orchestral prog-rock piece from 1978’s Pyramid with that great album cover, the first of two straight instrumentals, from consecutive albums by the Project.
9. Alan Parsons Project, Lucifer . . . An eerie yet funky and, once you hear the hook, instantly familiar lead track from the 1979 album Eve.
10. James Gang, Alexis . . . What starts as a mellow ballad builds into a guitar showcase for future Deep Purple member Tommy Bolin, who also sings the song, during his period with the James Gang. It’s from the 1973 album Bang, Bolin’s first of two with the group after founding guitarist Joe Walsh and his replacement, Domenic Triano left. After 1974’s Miami album off, too, went Bolin to a solo career and Deep Purple for one album, the 1975 release Come Taste The Band.
11. MC5, Come Together . . . Not The Beatles tune but rather manic Motor City-area mayhem from the punk rock pioneers’ debut album, the live Kick Out The Jams, released in 1969. It was recorded at a late 1968 concert in Detroit.
12. Colin James, I’m Losing You . . . Faithful cover, great guitar, of the John Lennon tune from 1980’s Double Fantasy album. Canadian blues singer/guitarist James’s version came out on his 2003 album Traveler.
13. Pearl Jam, Glorified G . . . This funky and sarcastic diatribe against gun culture wasn’t a single but for my money is one of the best songs on the band’s second album, 1993’s Vs. Many apparently agree since it got enough airplay to make No. 39 on the US Billboard chart.
14. Peter Tosh, Bush Doctor (from Captured Live) . . . Fiery live version of the title cut from Tosh’s 1978 studio album which featured Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards on the track and Mick Jagger with co-lead vocals on the single (You Gotta Walk And) Don’t Look Back, a cover of The Temptations’ 1965 hit they titled Don’t Look Back. The Bush Doctor album came during a period when Tosh, signed to Rolling Stones Records at the time, was often an opening act at Stones concerts. As for Bush Doctor the song, it’s something of a companion piece to the title track from Tosh’s 1976 studio album Legalize It, celebrating in Tosh’s view the health benefits of and calling for the legalization of marijuana.
15. Alannah Myles, Tumbleweed . . . Country-tinged pop-rock tune with Myles’ sultry voice floating over the bluesy guitar riffs. Myles’ self-titled debut album in 1989 gets most of the hype in large measure due to its worldwide hit single Black Velvet. But I find 1992’s Rockinghorse, her second album from which Tumbleweed is taken, equally good.
16. Talking Heads, Gangster Of Love . . . Not Steve Miller’s cover of the Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson song but a rhythmic, worldbeat type track from sessions that produced the albums Remain In Light (1980) and Naked (1988). The band eventually polished and released the song in 1992 on the 2-disc compilation Popular Favorites 1976–1992: Sand in the Vaseline.
17. Elton John, You’re So Static . . . Funky pop rock tune fueled by the Tower Of Power horn section. Catchy stuff, from the 1974 album Caribou.
18. Jason and The Scorchers, 19th Nervous Breakdown . . . An, er, scorching version of the Stones’ hit single from 1966. It was released on The Scorchers’ 1986 album Still Standing. It also appears on the 1998 album Cover You: A Tribute To The Rolling Stones which contains covers of Stones’ songs by artists like Otis Redding (Satisfaction), Linda Ronstadt (Tumbling Dice), Johnny Cash (No Expectations) and Johnny Winter (Jumpin’ Jack Flash) among others.
19. The Rolling Stones, Baby Break It Down . . . Mid-tempo track from 1994’s Voodoo Lounge album featuring a great pedal steel guitar solo from Ron Wood. Another one of those largely unknown – other than to Stones freaks like me – gems that pepper their studio albums, particularly their latter-day releases.
20. Little Feat, Day At The Dog Races (live, from Waiting For Columbus) . . . Twice the length of the six-minute studio track from the 1977 album Time Loves A Hero, this instrumental Weather Report-like jazz fusion jam didn’t appear on the original 1978 release of the classic live album Waiting For Columbus although it was recorded on the 1977 tour from which Columbus came. Day At The Dog Races was one of several bonus tracks from that tour added to a 2002 re-release of the live album.
21. Patti Smith Group, Easter . . . Well, it is Easter weekend – Happy Easter, everyone – so how could I resist playing this haunting, evocative title track to the 1978 album?
A blues rock set, albeit alas limited within the confines of my two-hour slot, to just some of the myriad masters of the genre and only scratching the surface of artists they inspired. The set wound up, as it often does, going in different directions once into it by just letting it flow, resulting in some duplicate tracks – originals and covers – as things evolved but the great thing in a way is, many of the artists ‘left out’ so to speak and not in this set stay in mind for future such shows. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. Alvin Lee, The Bluest Blues
2. Robert Johnson, Preachin’ Blues (Up Jumped The Devil)
3. Mississippi Fred McDowell, You Gotta Move
4. The Rolling Stones, You Gotta Move (from Love You Live)
5. The Rolling Stones, Down In The Hole
6. Keith Richards, Blues In The Morning
7. John Lee Hooker, I Don’t Wanna Go To Vietnam
8. Canned Heat & John Lee Hooker, The World Today (from Hooker ‘N Heat)
9. Van Morrison with John Lee Hooker, Gloria . . . (from Van Morrison’s Too Long In Exile)
10. Blind Willie Johnson, It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine
11. Led Zeppelin, Nobody’s Fault But Mine
12. John Mayall, Broken Wings
13. Buddy Guy, Stone Crazy
14. Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, When The Levee Breaks
15. Led Zeppelin, When The Levee Breaks
16. Eric Clapton with Santana, Eyesight To The Blind / Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? (from Crossroads 2 live in the seventies box set)
My track-by-track tales:
1. Alvin Lee, The Bluest Blues . . . Beatle George Harrison on slide guitar on this slow-burner from the Ten Years After frontman/guitarist’s 1994 solo album named, what else, Nineteen Ninety-Four although in the USA it was called I Hear You Rockin’. To quote Lee about Harrison’s contribution, from the liner notes to a Lee compilation released in 2003:
“It’s one of the best slide guitar solos I’ve ever heard. I did a version of it, before George came down, and played my usual mad guitar solo. Then I said ‘George, how about putting some slide on there?’ He did the first solo and he did this beautiful slow, laid back and lifting solo and it made me change my whole attitude. I had to take off more gently from there, rather than blowing at the speed of light. It turned the song into something special for me. George lived down the road, and he was always up for coming over to make music. I loved his slide playing. George had perfect pitch. He was a lovely man and he is sorely missed.” As is Lee, who died in 2013. Harrison passed away in 2001.
2. Robert Johnson, Preachin’ Blues (Up Jumped The Devil) . . . Not as often covered by rock greats as his songs like Crossroad Blues, Ramblin’ On My Mind, Traveling Riverside Blues, Stop Breaking Down Blues and Love In Vain, among others. But this boogie yet haunting tune embodies the crossroads mythology surrounding Johnson having made a deal with the devil, trading his soul for musical mastery.
3. Mississippi Fred McDowell, You Gotta Move . . . A song I, and perhaps many of my age, first heard on The Rolling Stones’ 1971 album Sticky Fingers although they’d previously played it during their 1969 American tour and it’s appeared on subsequent expanded re-releases of Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out! , the classic 1970 live album document of that trip. I have McDowell’s earthy, hypnotic version on a few compilations including 2018’s Confessin’ The Blues which was curated by members of the Stones – including cover art by guitarist Ron Wood. The comp features McDowell and many other blues greats from whom the Stones drew inspiration.
4. The Rolling Stones, You Gotta Move, (from Love You Live) . . . I thought I’d go not with the studio version from Sticky Fingers, nor the live version from 1969 but this jam-type sing-along rendition from the Stones’ 1975-76 tour of North America and Europe that appeared on their 1977 live release.
5. The Rolling Stones, Down In The Hole . . . A great original blues from 1980’s Emotional Rescue, almost out of place on an album otherwise infused with disco, reggae and straight-ahead pop-rock songs plus the off the wall but addictive multi-part title track. Down In The Hole, featuring fabulous harmonica from Sugar Blue, was the B-side to the Emotional Rescue single and appeared directly before it in the album track order – jarring, cleverly effective juxtapositions in my book.
6. Keith Richards, Blues In The Morning . . . I suppose I should be playing this up-tempo rootsy rocker featuring that distinctive Richards’ riffing on my Saturday morning show. But . . . that’s just what you’d be expecting. An almost casually tossed off yet compelling piece from Keef’s most recent solo album, the 2015 release Crosseyed Heart.
7. John Lee Hooker, I Don’t Wanna Go To Vietnam . . . The first of three straight songs featuring Hooker on his own or in collaboration with others. A typically hypnotic Hooker groove on this anti-war excursion that still resonates, aside from the specific war it’s discussing, released on his 1969 album Simply The Truth.
We got so much trouble at home
We don’t need to go to Vietnam
Yeah, yeah, there’s a whole lot of trouble right here at home
Don’t need to go to Vietnam
We oughta stay at home, stay out of trouble
I don’t wanna go
I don’t wanna go
Vietnam
8. Canned Heat & John Lee Hooker, The World Today (from Hooker ‘N Heat) . . . An extended conversation about conflict, written by Hooker. Minimalist, strikingly almost spoken-word blues from the respective artists’ 1971 collaboration.
9. Van Morrison with John Lee Hooker, Gloria . . . From Van The Man’s 1993 album Too Long In Exile, a terrific, extended version of Them’s Morrison-penned 1965 hit. Two vocal virtuosos in tandem amid intoxicating instrumentation.
10. Blind Willie Johnson, It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine . . . Another one of those, like Mississippi Fred McDowell and The Rolling Stones covering You Gotta Move, where a rock band introduces you to the brilliance of those who inspired them. As Keith Richards of the Stones has said, arguably the greatest compliment one can grant a musician is that they passed it on. In this case, Led Zeppelin took the baton from Blind Willie and transformed his acoustic, spiritual version recorded in 1927 into a powerhouse, rocked up production on the 1976 album Presence, while retaining the essence of the original.
11. Led Zeppelin, Nobody’s Fault But Mine . . . See my thoughts on Blind Willie Johnson.
12. John Mayall, Broken Wings . . . A beautiful if sad ballad, one of my favorite songs by Mayall from one of my favorite of his albums, the 1967 release The Blues Alone. The album title is somewhat misleading, as the album does feature contributions from drummer Keith “Keef” Hartley but it is mostly Mayall – on vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano, organ and . . . drums on two tracks although it’s Hartley on this one.
13. Buddy Guy, Stone Crazy . . . Straight slow blues from 1961, drenched in Guy’s great guitar and soulful vocals to the extent that B.B. King anointed Guy, then 25, his heir apparent. It was released on the 1970 compilation I Was Walking Through The Woods, part of the Chess Records Vintage Series and comprised of Guy’s material recorded between 1960 and 1964.
14. Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie, When The Levee Breaks. . . Recorded by blues artists and then-married couple McCoy and Minnie (birth name Lizzie Douglas) in 1929, a haunting historical snapshot of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.
15. Led Zeppelin, When The Levee Breaks . . . Another one reimagined and transformed by Led Zep, featuring that defining drumbeat by John Bonham.
16. Eric Clapton with Santana, Eyesight To The Blind / Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad ? (from Crossroads 2 live in the seventies box set) . . . A sprawling, fiery finale to the show blending a Sonny Boy Williamson song with a soulful Derek And The Dominos number, from Clapton’s 1975 tour. Santana served as the opening act, joining Clapton on stage for an epic 24-minute encore.
A three-Pete performance of my favorite Townshend albums, including a nice collaboration with Ronnie Lane of Faces fame.
The show features Rough Mix (1977), Empty Glass (1980) and All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982). It was inspired by me having recently read various biographies of Who members but also thanks to finding, while doing some filing, my long apparently lost copy of Pete Townshend Gold. It’s a 2-CD compilation I own because, after the three studio albums I’m playing, and his 1972 debut Who Came First featuring the great song Sheraton Gibson, I found Townshend was increasingly losing me full album wise, aside from occasional quality tracks (that rightly made the compilation) like Give Blood, Face The Face and Secondhand Love from White City: A Novel. White City, released in 1985, was the first of three consecutive concept albums that included The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend (1989) and Psychoderelict (1993). OK stuff I probably should revisit as full listens but . . . the market maybe told the tale as the latter two didn’t chart and Townshend hasn’t released a solo album since amid various Who tours and two latter-day Who studio albums – Endless Wire in 2006 and WHO in 2019.
So here, to me, is prime Pete, helped along by Rough Mix with Faces bassist/singer Lane that also includes appearances by musical friends including Rolling Stones’ drummer Charlie Watts, Eric Clapton, Bad Company bassist Boz Burrell and Townshend’s Who partner in crime, bassist John Entwistle. Further thoughts on each album, under each record’s track list.
1. My Baby Gives It Away
2. Nowhere To Run
3. Rough Mix
4. Annie
5. Keep Me Turning
6. Catmelody
7. Misunderstood
8. April Fool
9. Street In The City
10. Heart To Hang Onto
11. Till The Rivers All Run Dry
An album full of great tracks like Keep Me Turning, Misunderstood, Street In The City and perhaps my favorite, the emotive Heart To Hang Onto with shared vocals by Lane and Townshend. I was always into The Who but I remember exploring a Toronto record store, I would have been 18 in 1977 and I came across Rough Mix in The Who rack, shortly after it came out. I’d been unaware of it to that point but, trusting the names on the album sleeve, bought it sight unseen and I’ve been immensely and repeatedly rewarded ever since.
1. Rough Boys
2. I Am An Animal
3. And I Moved
4. Let My Love Open The Door
5. Jools And Jim
6. Keep On Working
7. Cat’s In The Cupboard
8. A Little Is Enough
9. Empty Glass
10. Gonna Get Ya
Empty Glass is simply one of those albums where every track is excellent. An album so good that at the time, Who singer Roger Daltrey said he felt Townshend was maybe holding back his best work for solo albums. I respect and understand Roger’s view but at the same time, Daltrey was often reluctant – as on 1975’s The Who By Numbers – to sing very personal, ‘confessional’ Townshend tunes like However Much I Booze which Townshend wound up singing himself. So, given that many of the tracks on Empty Glass are indeed personal, despite Daltrey’s concerns, it’s likely best how it came out – a Townshend solo record. I’d rate it his best.
1. Stop Hurting People
2. The Sea Refuses No River
3. Prelude
4. Face Dances Part Two
5. Exquisitely Bored
6. Communication
7. Stardom In Action
8. Uniforms (Corp d’esprit)
9. North Country Girl
10. Somebody Saved Me
11. Slit Skirts
Inconsistent, to my ears, certainly as compared to the sustained brilliance of Empty Glass albeit a very good album, beyond which I think the choice of singles (Face Dances Part 2 and Uniforms) was questionable. Ever heard them much? Didn’t think so. The fact the excellent Exquisitely Bored, to me the best song on the album with The Sea Refuses No River a close second (and also not a single), wasn’t chosen as a single release is mind boggling. Townshend, or his record company, addressed this obvious error by putting both songs on the 2-CD Gold compilation, released in 2005. Uniforms made the comp, but Face Dances Part 2 didn’t, which tells you something.
“We all came out to . . . make records with a mobile”, to quote Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water lyric as a description of this set made up of tunes by various artists recorded using The Rolling Stones Mobile Studio aka the mobile ‘unit’ or ‘the Rolling truck Stones thing’ as further described in the lyrics to Smoke On The Water. Here’s a couple videos about the mobile, total time about 15 minutes.
My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. Dire Straits, Telegraph Road (from Alchemy – Dire Straits Live)
2. Bob Marley and The Wailers, No Woman No Cry (from Live!)
3. Santana, Dance Sister Dance (live, from Moonflower)
4. Ten Years After, Help Me (from Recorded Live)
5. Led Zeppelin, The Rover
6. Fleetwood Mac, Hypnotized
7. Nazareth, Silver Dollar Forger (Parts 1 & 2)
8. Deep Purple, When A Blind Man Cries
9. Iron Maiden, Tailgunner
10. The Rolling Stones, Let It Rock (live, Leeds University 1971)
11. Bad Company, Silver, Blue & Gold
12. The Who, Water (live, 1971 appeared on Who’s Next deluxe expanded release)
13. Wishbone Ash, Baby What You Want Me To Do (from Live Dates)
14. Dire Straits, Solid Rock/Going Home – Theme From ‘Local Hero’ (from Alchemy – Dire Straits Live)
1. Dire Straits, Telegraph Road (from Alchemy – Dire Straits Live) . . . Epic storytelling track released on the band’s 1984 live album, originally on the studio record Love Over Gold from 1982.
2. Bob Marley and The Wailers, No Woman No Cry (from Live!) . . . Originally on the 1974 studio album Natty Dread, this soulful version from 1975’s Live! has become, to many, the definitive one, evidenced by its appearance on various Marley compilations.
3. Santana, Dance Sister Dance (live, from Moonflower) . . . From the 1977 release, a part studio, part live album, the live album recorded using the Stones’ mobile unit. A blend of Latin rhythms, fusion, and extended jamming; intoxicating, as much of Santana’s best work tends to be.
4. Ten Years After, Help Me (from Recorded Live) . . . A driving riff by guitarist/singer Alvin Lee on the Willie Dixon tune as interpreted not only by TYA but by blues great Sonny Boy Williamson II aka Rice Miller, from whom TYA drew inspiration. A raw, gritty, blues-rock odyssey from TYA’s 1973 album.
5. Led Zeppelin, The Rover . . . I love the sort of, how would I describe it, ‘backwards entry’ of the killer riff off the initial drumbeat on this one from 1975’s Physical Graffiti. To my ears, it’s like it comes in from where one might not expect yet when it comes, there it is as if that’s where it obviously should have been. It all works and tends to conjure up in me an image of a plane coming in for a landing for some reason, not sure why but I feel like I’m flying when I listen to it.
6. Fleetwood Mac, Hypnotized . . . Trippy, dreamy laid back groove, a mesmerizing and, er, hypnotizing track that is one of my favorites from the middle period of Fleetwood Mac featuring Bob Welch on guitar, often lead vocals and songwriting duties. This one’s from the 1973 album Mystery To Me. Two years and one album later, out was Welch, in came guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and singer Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac became a pop-rock phenomenon. I like that version of the band but am still partial to the initial Peter Green-fronted early blues years and the, I think, underappreciated Welch lineup.
7. Nazareth, Silver Dollar Forger (Parts 1 & 2) . . . A heavy riff rocker from the 1974 album Rampant, produced by Roger Glover of Deep Purple bass-playing fame. He was at the helm of several Nazareth albums, others being the previous releases to Rampant and among the band’s most successful – Razamanaz and Loud ‘n’ Proud.
8. Deep Purple, When A Blind Man Cries . . . B-side to the single Never Before, issued from 1972’s Machine Head album that yielded Purple’s signature song, Smoke On The Water which, perhaps strangely, none of the band members apparently thought would be a hit although it obviously became an iconic rock track. Never Before made No. 4 in Switzerland and No. 35 in the UK while Smoke On The Water made the top five in most countries, No. 3 in the US and No. 2 in Canada although never No. 1. As for When A Blind Man Cries, it’s a beautiful blues ballad. It was recorded for Machine Head but according to singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Ritchie Blackmore ”no like” (despite his typically fine playing) so it didn’t make the album until subsequent remastered re-releases. The song has, since Blackmore’s departure from Purple in the mid-1990s, being replaced by Steve Morse and then Simon McBride, been regularly played in concert.
9. Iron Maiden, Tailgunner . . . Pulsating war-themed lead cut from the 1990 album No Prayer For The Dying, recorded in bass player Steve Harris’s barn using the Stones mobile. Maiden was attempting – and succeeding at, via mobile studio methods or otherwise – to achieve a more earthy, stripped down production sound within the typical Maiden metal method.
10. The Rolling Stones, Let It Rock (live, Leeds University 1971) . . . Great version of the Chuck Berry classic from the Stones’ 1971 so-called Goodbye Britain tour where they were escaping the onerous UK taxman, eventually resulting in them being at a villa in southern France, using their mobile truck again, to come up with 1972’s classic Exile On Main St. album. I first heard this version of a song the Stones have done various times on the terrific Get Your Leeds Lungs Out! bootleg I still own. The album has subsequently been officially released, with Let It Rock also included on the Rarities 1971-2003 compilation.
11. Bad Company, Silver, Blue & Gold . . . Not a single but could have been and a Bad Co. fan favorite by all accounts, and definitely one of mine by the band. It’s from the 1976 album Run With The Pack.
12. The Who, Water (live, 1971 appeared on Who’s Next deluxe expanded release, 2003) . . . Stirring, gritty vocals by Roger Daltrey on a relatively obscure track The Who did in typically raw fashion during a London gig. It appeared on later, expanded versions of the Who’s Next album. Explosive stuff, Daltrey rising above but also enveloped in that all-encompassing volcanic Who sound.
13. Wishbone Ash, Baby What You Want Me To Do (from Live Dates) . . . Wishbone Ash was a for the most part progressive hard rock band but they had roots in the British blues and here they are on their 1973 album Live Dates with an extended, more electrified version of the Jimmy Reed tune – Ash-ified as it were while retaining key elements of the original.
14. Dire Straits, Solid Rock/Going Home – Theme From ‘Local Hero’ (from Alchemy – Dire Straits Live) . . . Coming full circle to close the set with Dire Straits live, putting the songs together as they appeared in order on Alchemy. Solid Rock, taken from the studio album Making Movies, is paired with the majestic instrumental Going Home from the soundtrack to the 1983 movie Local Hero, composed by Straits’ leader Mark Knopfler.
A three-headed monster mash featuring 1980 albums by Teenage Head and Talking Heads plus Headstones’ 2022 release Flight Risk. To quote the opening line from Teenage Head’s Disgusteen: Nice day for a party, isn’t it? Which I did a fair bit of with Frantic City by Teenage Head and Talking Heads’ Remain In Light as a soundtrack during college daze, including seeing Teenage Head live when they played at my school.
1. Wild One
2. Somethin’ On My Mind
3. Total Love
4. Let’s Shake
5. Infected
6. Those Things You Do
7. Somethin’ Else
8. Take It
9. Brand New Cadillac
10. Disgusteen – notable not only for “Nice day for a party, isn’t it?” but the conversation with the dark side, adapted from The Exorcist:
Come on in, Father Karras.
Regan’s inside here with me, she’s going nowhere.
But please, it’s so cold, you must let her go.
She’s not going anywhere.
Not till I’m finished with her, you understand.
Just untie my hands,
Let me free, I’ll show you the power
The power of Christ doesn’t compel anyone, not today, understand.
1. Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)
2. Crosseyed And Painless
3. The Great Curve
4. Once In A Lifetime
5. Houses In Motion
6. Seen And Not Seen
7. Listening Wind
8. The Overload
1. Headlight Holds A Deer
2. Everything Or Nothing At All
3. Flight Risk
4. When It Goes Badly
5. Tangled
6. Hotel Room
7. Neon Rome
8. Ashes
9. Psychotropic
10. Pilot Light
11. Rink
A program split between ‘fool’ songs, including several from the Deep Purple family, in advance of April Fool’s Day tomorrow, and some random fare. Some of the ‘fool’ songs are repeats from a Saturday morning show I did on April 1, 2023. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Fool
2. Deep Purple, Fools
3. Deep Purple, You Fool No One, live from Made In Europe
4. Whitesnake, Fool For Your Loving (original 1980 version from Ready An’ Willing album)
5. Peter Green, A Fool No More
6. Joe Jackson, Fool
7. Bobbie Gentry, Find Em, Fool Em, Forget About Em
8. ZZ Top, Made Into A Movie
9. Rod Stewart, Alright For An Hour
10. Jethro Tull, Black Sunday
11. Robert Plant, Wreckless Love
12. Warren Zevon, Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School
13. Moby Grape, Miller’s Blues (live)
14. Nazareth, Telegram (Part 1: On Your Way/Part 2: So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star/Part 3: Sound Check/Part 4: Here We Are Again)
15. Charlie Watts Quintet . . . Going, Going, Going, Gone
My track-by-track tales:
1. Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Fool . . . My opener this week, a spooky, psychedelic piece that swerves into folk, blues and acid rock, from the San Francisco band’s self-titled 1968 debut that I played late in what became a 28-song set two years ago on April 1. At the time, I marvelled at how many songs have ‘fool’ in their title, particularly deep cuts which are the foundation of my show. Especially when, as I wrote then, I had initially thought I might struggle to fill a set only to find I had four hours’ worth of songs I had to shave down for my two-hour slot.
But it’s not actually April 1 yet so I’m not doing an entire ‘fools’ show this time, as mentioned in my preamble and due to some lengthy songs like this 12-minute voyage, the set is about half the number of tunes, at 15. As for Quicksilver’s The Fool, according to Wikipedia “the multi-sectional, quasi-symphonic psych epic The Fool had begun with lyrics typed on a typewriter during an LSD trip.” And, as I mentioned two years ago, quite the trip it is, in line with what Quicksilver Messenger Service, at least on their various such lengthy tracks like the Who Do You Love suite on the 1969 album Happy Trails, were all about.
2. Deep Purple, Fools . . . A Purple classic in my opinion but, granted, I’m a huge fan of the band, all phases during its long existence. I love the slow, almost sinister buildup until things explode into a hard rocker with progressive accents including the power of Ian Gillan’s vocals, adaptable to any situation, as they were in his prime at the time of the 1971 album Fireball from which Fools comes. Perhaps that’s at least part of why Gillan has said it’s his favorite Purple album although critics tend to find it wanting relatively speaking, coming as it did between the explosive first album of the Mark II Purple unit, In Rock and the Smoke On The Water, Highway Star and other Purple perfections of Machine Head. All I can say is that an album with songs like the title cut, No No No, Strange Kind Of Woman and No One Came along with Fools is equally worthy.
3. Deep Purple, You Fool No One, live from Made In Europe . . . I played this boogie rock tune from the 1974 album Burn the last time I did an April Fool’s show, a four-minutes and change song in its original studio form. I’m going the epic route this time, 16 minutes and 42 seconds from the Made In Europe album, which highlighted the so-called Mark III version of Purple (David Coverdale lead vocals; Glenn Hughes on bass and vocals). Tracks were drawn from the two studio albums done by that lineup – Burn and Stormbringer – during a time when guitarist Ritchie Blackmore was already planning his exit to form Rainbow although he performed remarkably as evidenced on the live material from that Purple period.
Aside from Blackmore’s brilliance and the ever-reliable Ian Paice on drums and Jon Lord on keyboards, it can be risky going with an extended live piece from that era of Purple. Hughes’ vocal histrionics and, particularly, stage patter seemingly trying to upstage Coverdale (although they apparently were and have been great pals) can get annoying. But in fairness, Hughes had come to Purple after being the frontman in Trapeze although from what I’ve read he occasionally had to be reminded that it was Coverdale who was hired as lead singer. That said, I do like his and Coverdale’s tandem vocal work and Hughes’ lead singing efforts in Purple, with Holy Man from Stormbringer a particular standout. Much of Hughes’ solo stuff is worthy as well as are his contributions to hard blues-rocking Black Country Communion alongside guitarist Joe Bonamassa and drummer Jason Bonham.
This live treatment of You Fool No One starts with Blackmore playfully fiddling around with Hava Nagila before he rips into the song proper, then into some Hendrixian pyrotechnics followed by a bluesy interlude before returning to the familiar tune. Along the way is a short drum solo on what became Paice’s showcase in the Mark III version, replacing The Mule from the Ian Gillan-Roger Glover Mark II lineup as heard on the live classic Made In Japan. Made In Europe doesn’t get the accolades of Made In Japan, but as a high school teen at the time, I embraced both albums equally.
4. Whitesnake, Fool For Your Loving (original 1980 version from Ready An’ Willing album) . . . From the bluesy and my favorite phase of Whitesnake, immediately after David Coverdale left Deep Purple after that band’s first and thought at the time to be final breakup. The later ‘hair metal’ version of Whitesnake redid the song in 1989 after the band became big worldwide, particularly in a United States/North America that had, relatively speaking, ignored them to that point. Here I Go Again, originally released in 1982, was also similarly reworked into a ‘hair metal’ hit. I like all the versions but much prefer the less dressed up with studio gunk originals, which in addition to Coverdale also featured original Purple players Ian Paice on drums and Jon Lord on keyboards who by that point had joined Whitesnake. Interestingly, perhaps, the original Fool For Your Loving charted higher (No. 13) in the UK than did the ‘Americanized’ version that hit No. 2 in the US but only No. 43 in the UK. I’m with the UK listeners.
5. Peter Green, A Fool No More . . . Long and slow and intoxicatingly so, a haunting track from the Fleetwood Mac founder’s 1979 album In The Skies.
6. Joe Jackson, Fool . . . It’s rock, it’s jazz, it’s funk, it’s great. It’s the title cut to JJ’s 2019 album Fool as I continue to travel with him wherever he’s gone since his 1979 punk rock/new wave debut album Look Sharp! New wave, rock, reggae/ska, big band, jazz, classical – I’ve always followed, seen him live twice, never been disappointed.
7. Bobbie Gentry, Find Em, Fool Em, Forget About Em . . . From Gentry’s 1970 studio album Fancy. To quote from my April 1, 2023 track tales: Soul country, I suppose one would describe this one from the Ode To Billie Joe singer, one of the first American women to compose and produce her own material. She had 11 chart hits, including Billie Joe, the 1967 No. 1 that propelled her to stardom. Some years ago I was listening to Ode To Billie Joe, amazing song of course, and decided to dig deeper into Gentry’s work. I’ve been reaping the rewards ever since. One of those music mysteries, too. She was active until April, 1982 when she left the industry and essentially disappeared off the face of the earth after appearing at a country music awards show. She’d just had enough, apparently, which I find kinda cool. I’m done, see ya. She’d be 82 now, with various reports having her living in a gated community near Memphis, Tennessee. Or Los Angeles, depending on one’s source. She was once briefly married to casino magnate Bill Harrah and later to Jim Stafford, known for the 1970s hits Spiders & Snakes and the double entendre My Girl Bill.
8. ZZ Top, Made Into A Movie . . . Slow, hard, swampy almost metallic blues from the 1999 album XXX so named to mark the band’s 30th anniversary during a time when ZZ Top was slowly but surely returning to the blues and blues rock from which the band originated. The shift started with the Antenna album in 1994, a departure or at least the beginning of one from the synthesizer phase of massive hit singles/videos like Legs during the 1980s. In terms of sales, the return to their original foundation didn’t help ZZ Top much through albums like XXX, its predecessor Rhythmeen and later efforts like Mescalaro and La Futura, but there’s loads of quality music within.
9. Rod Stewart, Alright For An Hour . . . From Atlantic Crossing, Stewart’s appropriately-titled 1975 album as he’d crossed the ocean – as shown on the cool album cover – in reality and musically. No longer were members of former band Faces backing him, no longer was he maintaining concurrent careers; now it was Stewart and studio musicians, some of whom eventually morphed into what briefly became known as The Rod Stewart Group at least in terms of studio credits. A great funky, swaggering tune on an album that proved to be the launching point for subsequent hit releases A Night On The Town, Footloose And Fancy Free and Blondes Have More Fun.
10. Jethro Tull, Black Sunday . . . Ian Anderson goes into the studio in 1980 intending to record a solo album but, under record company pressure which he’s since been quoted as saying he regrets succumbing to, the album comes out as ‘A’ – ostensibly for Anderson solo as the tapes were apparently marked as such – but as a Jethro Tull release. There are myriad tales about what transpired but in short, the musicians Anderson was using for what he initially planned as a solo album became Jethro Tull, in some ways similar to what’s transpired with Tull in the 2020s since Anderson revived the Tull brand. In 1980, it resulted in the dismissal/departure of such 1970s Tull stalwarts as drummer Barriemore Barlow and keyboardist John Evan, among others. As well, Tull, or Anderson, were moving in a more synthesizer and electronic sounds direction, a precursor to the next few albums: Tull’s The Broadsword And The Beast in 1982, Anderson’s first actual solo album Walk Into Light in 1983 and the full-blown, uncharacteristically sounding synth-pop albeit interesting 1984 Tull album Under Wraps which threw me (and many Tull fans) for a loop at first but I’ve come to appreciate.
All of that said, Black Sunday is an, er, A-list track featuring changing time signatures typical of Tull with an ominous, almost progressive-metal feel in places.
11. Robert Plant, Wreckless Love . . . . Speaking of Tull and Barriemore Barlow, the drummer slaps the skins on this funky cool one from Plant’s 1983 album The Principle Of Moments.
12. Warren Zevon, Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School . . . Rollicking title track to Zevon’s 1980 followup album to 1978’s breakthrough Excitable Boy with its hit single Werewolves Of London and other well-known songs from that record. Zevon managed a minor hit with his cover on Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School of the Yardbirds’ song A Certain Girl, written by Allen Toussaint, both versions of which I’ve previously played. Bad Luck Streak may not have sold as much, nor done as well on the charts but it’s Zevon, which means it’s full of typical witty storytelling and acerbic lyrics.
13. Moby Grape, Miller’s Blues (live) . . . . A live version of a blues track, in spots slow and emotionally stirring and in others rousing and raunchy, by the San Francisco psychedelic band, written by Grape guitarist Jerry Miller. It originally appeared in studio form on the Wow album in April of 1968. This version didn’t see official release until the comprehensive 2-CD compilation Vintage: The Very Best of Moby Grape came out in 1993.
14. Nazareth, Telegram (Part 1: On Your Way/Part 2: So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star/Part 3: Sound Check/Part 4: Here We Are Again) . . . A multi-part ‘life on the road’ suite from Nazareth’s 1976 album Close Enough for Rock ‘n’ Roll, effectively incorporating The Byrds’ So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star.
15. Charlie Watts Quintet . . . Going, Going, Going, Gone . . . Beautiful, mellow music from the live album A Tribute to Charlie Parker With Strings, released in 1992 in honor of the iconic jazz saxophonist, and jazz in general, including narration and some singing by Rolling Stones’ backup vocalist Bernard Fowler. It was done during the 1992-93 period when the various individual Stones were releasing excellent, worthwhile and satisfying solo projects in between the 1989 studio album Steel Wheels and 1994’s Voodoo Lounge. The so-called World War III of the Dirty Work album era of the mid- to late 1980s had ended in a truce when it seemed to become understood by all parties that solo work didn’t have to detract from the Stones but could in fact fuel the members’ collective creativity. Out of it came excellent albums by Keith Richards (1992’s Main Offender), Ron Wood’s 1992 effort Slide On This and arguably Mick Jagger’s best solo work, 1993’s Wandering Spirit. All of which led to, when the mother ship again sailed, the strong album Voodoo Lounge.
A soul/funk/R & B album set, something of a progression within those genres starting with a classic James Brown live album followed by Otis Redding and ending with, via the Funkadelic album Maggot Brain and the amazing guitar of the late great Eddie Hazel, an off ramp into heavy acid rock and psychedelic soul. Each album is explosive in its own way—Brown’s live intensity, Otis’s aching soul, Funkadelic’s mind-melting funk-rock.
1. Introduction
2. I’ll Go Crazy
3. Try Me
4. Think
5. I Don’t Mind
6. Lost Someone
7. Medley: Please Please Please/You’ve Got The Power/I Found Someone/Why Do You Do Me/I Want You So Bad/I Love You, Yes I Do/Strange Things Happen/Bewildered/Please Please Please
8. Night Train
1. Ole Man Trouble
2. Respect
3. Change Gonna Come
4. Down In The Valley
5. I’ve Been Loving You Too Long
6. Shake
7. My Girl
8. Wonderful World
9. Rock Me Baby
10. Satisfaction
11. You Don’t Miss Your Water
1. Maggot Brain
2. Can You Get To That
3. Hit It And Quit It
4. You And Your Folks, Me And My Folks
5. Super Stupid
6. Back In Our Minds
7. Wars Of Armageddon
1. Rush, The Main Monkey Business
2. Rush, The Seeker
3. The Rolling Stones, Stop Breaking Down
4. The Rolling Stones, No Spare Parts
5. Deep Purple, Anthem
6. Chicago, Prelude To Aire/Aire
7. The Moody Blues, The Actor
8. The Silkie, You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away
9. Billy Joel, Until The Night
10. The Kinks, Supersonic Rocket Ship
11. Montrose, Space Station #5
12. Pink Floyd, Is There Anybody Out There?
13. Heart, Soul Of The Sea
14. John Mayall, Possessive Emotions
15. Headstones, Pretty Little Death Song
16. Bruce Springsteen, Johnny 99
17. John Mellencamp, The Full Catastrophe
18. Tom Wilson, What A Bummer
19. Bob Dylan, Man Of Constant Sorrow
20. The Specials, Maggie’s Farm
21. Gerry Groom, Mick Taylor And Friends, Long Distance Call
My track-by-track tales:
1. Rush, The Main Monkey Business . . . Hard-driving and heavy in spots yet melodic throughout, this six-minute instrumental highlights Rush’s technical prowess. Described by drummer Neil Peart as “a tour-de-force to write, arrange, and perform” it’s one of three instrumentals – the most ever on a Rush album – from the 2007 release Snakes & Arrows.
2. Rush, The Seeker . . . One of my favorite Who tracks faithfully done by Rush on the covers EP Feedback, released in 2004 to mark the 30th anniversary of the band’s self-titled debut album. That record featured original drummer John Rutsey, replaced by Neil Peart the same year, 1974.
Covering songs like The Seeker and others on the EP like Summertime Blues (in the Blue Cheer arrangement of the Eddie Cochran song) and Cream’s fiery take on Robert Johnson’s Crossroads might seem at first glance a departure given Rush’s progressive (albeit often hard rock) leanings. But as Peart points out in the Feedback liner notes, the songs Rush covered were ones he, bassist/lead singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson grew up learning and playing in their pre-Rush formative years/bands. And musically, the 1974 debut album was influenced by bands like The Who, Cream and Led Zeppelin, although Rush soon ventured down trails blazed by such British prog rock bands as Yes, Genesis and Pink Floyd.
Members of Rush have suggested in various interviews that they were recharged by the simpler approach taken for the type of songs on Feedback. It inspired them as a working template for their next full studio album, Snakes & Arrows, from which I drew for The Main Monkey Business set opener. Snakes & Arrows is still a typical Rush album in the sense of it having progressive rock elements but I’m forever fascinated by the creative process. For Rush, that included Lifeson meeting Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour during a Gilmour tour stop in Toronto. Gilmour recommended writing songs on an acoustic guitar to best test a song’s strength. The suggestion earned Gilmour a ‘thank you’ from Lifeson in the Snakes & Arrows liner notes.
3. The Rolling Stones, Stop Breaking Down . . . The greatest gift my favorite band gave me besides their own original music is the fact they were rooted in the blues. That sent me down paths in pursuit of the amazing artists who had inspired – and been covered by – the Stones as on Robert Johnson’s renowned piece as interpreted to typically raunchy electrified effect on Exile On Main St.
4. The Rolling Stones, No Spare Parts . . . A country rock road-trip tune done during the sessions for 1978’s Some Girls album. It was dressed up with some new lyrics and vocals by Mick Jagger and came out in 2011 on the bonus disc of previously unreleased material on an expanded reissue of Some Girls.
“The idea for the song began at the Some Girls sessions,” Jagger is quoted in the book The Rolling Stones All The Songs – The Story Behind Every Track. “but I finished the idea and turned it into a complete piece. It’s all about driving from San Antonio to Los Angeles to meet a woman, which I did once, so it’s based on my own experience.”
5. Deep Purple, Anthem . . . Psychedelic, progressive, orchestral, classical, rock. This track from 1968’s The Book Of Taliesyn, the second of the three albums released by the first incarnation of Deep Purple, is all of those things. But aside from the hit single Hush, the lineup featuring Rod Evans on lead vocals and Nick Simper on bass along with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, drummer Ian Paice and keyboardist Jon Lord is largely underappreciated by if not unknown to casual listeners and none of the three albums made much, if any, dent in the charts. To many, Deep Purple really began in 1970 when singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover joined the group for the so-called Mark II unit that debuted with the In Rock album, later went on to record Smoke On The Water and is widely considered the classic lineup. I’m not disputing that but the other ‘Marks’ in the band’s long career – including the various periods with singer David Coverdale, singer/bassist Glenn Hughes and guitarists Tommy Bolin, Steve Morse and new axeman Simon McBride – are worthy of investigation as most, er, deeply invested fans appreciate.
6. Chicago, Prelude To Aire/Aire . . . It was February 24th, interestingly enough given today is March 24th, when I played the 10-minute instrumental jazz-rock fusion piece Devil’s Sweet from 1974’s Chicago VII album that featured the hit singles (I’ve Been) Searchin’ So Long, Wishing You Were Here and Call On Me. At the time, I couldn’t decide between Devil’s Sweet and Prelude To Aire/Aire. So here’s that other option, two pieces totalling nearly 10 minutes and best heard, via direct segue, as one. It opened the album and, with Devil’s Sweet, formed an all-instrumental jazz/progressive rock fusion side one on the original vinyl of the double LP. Like Devil’s Sweet, Prelude To Aire is driven by Danny Seraphine’s drumming before the band more fully joins him nearly three minutes later on Aire, featuring Chicago’s typical for that period intricate horn arrangements and the late great Terry Kath’s guitar. As I wrote a month ago about Devil’s Sweet, it’s a universe away from the schlock show, albeit a commercially successful schlock show, Chicago later became.
7. The Moody Blues, The Actor . . . Beautiful, introspective ballad from In Search of the Lost Chord, released in 1968. A typically lush Moody Blues arrangement featuring the interesting instruments in the band’s arsenal including Mellotron and flute supporting Justin Hayward’s delicate, almost plaintive vocals as he either waits for, or just thinks about, his absent – or former – lover on a rainy day. But who knows? Beyond the obvious, lyrically, songs can be interpreted in as many ways as they have listeners. Which is as it should be, arguably, and also why for me it’s usually music first, or at least at first, lyrics second because if the music isn’t enough to draw you in, you’ll never listen to the lyrics.
8. The Silkie, You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away . . . Here’s one that randomly found a spot in the set after I picked up a “British Invasion” compilation while putting CDs back on my shelves. A Beatles’ cover, faithful if softer than the original, released around the same time as the Fab Four’s version on their 1965 album Help! John Lennon and Paul McCartney produced what became the only chart hit – unsurprisingly given the Beatles’ popularity – for The Silkie, an English folk group along the lines of American act Peter, Paul and Mary.
9. Billy Joel, Until The Night . . . From 1978’s 52nd Street, the almost equally-successful in sales followup to Joel’s blockbuster breakthrough 1977 album The Stranger. Apparently written as a tribute to The Righteous Brothers of You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ fame. It does have the feel of a Brothers’ song as written and/or produced by Phil Spector, who did the honors, using his famous Wall of Sound technique, on You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ and others by the duo. According to Wikipedia, one reviewer called Joel’s song “a schlock masterpiece.” Until The Night made No. 50 in the UK but wasn’t released as a single across the Atlantic, although it’s a fairly well-known track as is most of 52nd Street.
10. The Kinks, Supersonic Rocket Ship . . . As we lift off into the ‘spacey’ section of the set via this reggae/calypso tune from the 1972 album Everybody’s In Show-Biz. It was a top-20 hit in the UK but didn’t crack the top 100 elsewhere, sadly par for the course for songs from an album that also featured the brilliant single Celluloid Heroes which, ridiculously, didn’t chart anywhere. I’ll have to play ‘Heroes’ again sometime soon.
11. Montrose, Space Station #5 . . . Fifty seconds of floating in space via the atmospheric intro then you’re jolted from your reverie by the riff rock of guitarist Ronnie Montrose coupled with Sammy Hagar’s vocals. It’s from Montrose’s self-titled debut album, released in 1973. The platter was produced by Ted Templeman, which leads into one of those musical family tree tales. Templeman was later at the helm of many Van Halen albums including the 1978 debut where, the story goes, the band asked him to help achieve a sound akin to the first album by Montrose, some of whose songs an embyronic Van Halen had covered. Still later, of course, Sammy Hagar wound up fronting Van Halen after the first departure of lead singer David Lee Roth.
12. Pink Floyd, Is There Anybody Out There? . . . Eerie, minimalist piece from 1979’s The Wall, just the title repeated a few times – after an initial excerpt of dialogue from the old Gunsmoke TV western – followed by an acoustic/classical guitar solo. It’s often paired with the next song on the album, Nobody Home, but in this instance I was looking for the sparse, spooky effect of just the one song, hauntingly reinforcing the album’s concept of isolation.
13. Heart, Soul Of The Sea . . . An ethereal, mystical ballad that gets funky in spots, spoken-word in others, no real chorus or hook but that’s what makes it compelling over its six minutes, complete with sounds of the sea. It’s from Heart’s debut album, Dreamboat Annie, released in 1975 and featuring the singles Magic Man, Crazy On You and the title track.
14. John Mayall, Possessive Emotions . . . Funky blues from the 1970 album USA Union which always reminds me of my late older brother by eight years who I often cite because he introduced me in my pre-teen years to so much music – Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull . . . and John Mayall via USA Union. The album features former Canned Heat members Harvey Mandel (guitar) and Larry Taylor (bass) along with violinist Don “Sugarcane” Harris with Mayall on lead vocals, guitar, harmonica and keyboards. And no drums, as my brother pointed out to my initial disbelief. The album came during a period when the ever-experimenting if not innovative Mayall had, as he wrote in the liner notes to the 1969 live album The Turning Point, “decided to dispense with heavy lead guitar and drums, usually a ‘must’ for blues groups today” in an effort to “explore seldom-used areas within the framework of low-volume music.”
15. Headstones, Pretty Little Death Song . . . Into a dark period of the set, either by song title, lyrics or mood, opening with the Canadian band Headstones. Among my favorite artists, they work within the framework of high volume intensity, evidenced by this catchy riff rocker from the 1996 album Smile & Wave. I was prompted to play them when a friend advised me this week that he’d picked up a cheap used copy of The High Co$t Of Low Living, a 2005 album by Headstones’ lead singer (and actor) Hugh Dillon and his band The Redemption Choir.
16. Bruce Springsteen, Johnny 99 . . . A dark tale of a laid-off worker turning to violence, from Springsteen’s influential, stripped down, lo-fi album Nebraska, released in 1982. It’s just Springsteen, recorded at home on what initially were demos to be worked on by the E Street Band only to be released as a pure solo album when the band sessions failed to capture what Springsteen felt was the spirit of most of what he’d put on tape. It’s one of those creative accidents that can result in highly-acclaimed and lasting art. That said, several demos – Born In The U.S.A, Working On The Highway and Downbound Train – did work in full band treatment, emerging on Springsteen’s blockbuster 1984 album Born In The U.S.A.
17. John Mellencamp, The Full Catastrophe . . . A shufflling jazz/blues song with interesting instrumentation including violins and assorted horns, from the 1996 album Mr. Happy Go Lucky. Lyrically, it’s a reflection on the ups and downs of life inspired by a line by actor Anthony Quinn in the 1964 movie Zorba The Greek. Asked if he is married, Quinn (Zorba) replies: “Am I not a man? And is not a man stupid? I’m a man, so I’m married. Wife, children, house—everything. The full catastrophe.”
18. Tom Wilson, What A Bummer . . . Second song in the set inspired by the same friend who reminded me of the Headstones, in this case advising me he’d also purchased, used, Wilson’s album Planet Love, a 2001 release from which I pulled this hypnotic groove track. As often stated, I’m a big Wilson fan via his work with The Florida Razors, Junkhouse, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings, Lee Harvey Osmond and solo.
19. Bob Dylan, Man Of Constant Sorrow . . . My computer screen saver gives me time, date, weather, and current and historical news items and told me last week that it was 63 years ago, March 19, 1962, that Dylan’s self-titled debut album was released. So, I thought I’d play something from it. Dylan became one of the greatest-ever writers of original songs but his first album was comprised mainly of traditional folk and blues standards like Man Of Constant Sorrow. It’s been covered and reinterpreted by many artists including Rod Stewart, whose version was the first I heard. It was released on Stewart’s 1969 debut solo album An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down, retitled The Rod Stewart Album in North America.
20. The Specials, Maggie’s Farm . . . A ska reinvention, great rhythmic percussion/drumming, of the Bob Dylan classic from his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home. Another of those choices that came to mind, like The Silkie cover of The Beatles’ You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away earlier in the set, while tidying CDs. In this case I was putting The Specials: The Singles Collection back on the shelf although now, along with the British Invasion compilation, it’s coming with me to the Radio Waterloo studio.
21. Gerry Groom, Mick Taylor And Friends, Long Distance Call . . . . Lengthy, soulful, acoustic blues treatment of the Muddy Waters classic by Groom and former Rolling Stone guitarist Taylor released on the 1991 album Once In A Blue Moon that, Stones’ completist that I am, I picked up somewhere along the way in my musical travels. The album also features drummer Matt Abts, who worked with Dickey Betts of The Allman Brothers Band during the 1980s and in 1994 was, along with guitarist Warren Haynes and bassist Allen Woody, a founding member of the Allmans’ offshoot Gov’t Mule and is, with Haynes, still a Mule member. Woody died, apparently of a heroin overdose, at age 44 in 2000. Groom, who according to the album liner notes died in a scuba diving accident in 1992, was a singer/guitarist from Florida about whom not much information is available other than he was a protege of Duane Allman’s and widely respected and admired within the blues community, having rubbed shoulders with the likes of Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, James Cotton and Willie Dixon.
Three classic albums: Who’s Next along with Pearl, Janis Joplin’s posthumously released last recorded statement, and Led Zeppelin’s fourth album. All came out in the amazing year for popular music that was 1971. More thoughts on 1971 below the show’s track list.
1. Baba O’Riley
2. Bargain
3. Love Ain’t For Keeping
4. My Wife
5. The Song Is Over
6. Getting In Tune
7. Going Mobile
8. Behind Blue Eyes
9. Won’t Get Fooled Again
1. Move Over
2. Cry Baby
3. A Woman Left Lonely
4. Half Moon
5. Buried Alive In The Blues
6. My Baby
7. Me And Bobby McGee
8. Mercedes Benz
9. Trust Me
10. Get It While You Can
1. Black Dog
2. Rock And Roll
3. The Battle Of Evermore
4. Stairway To Heaven
5. Misty Mountain Hop
6. Four Sticks
7. Going To California
8. When The Levee Breaks
I went with the three albums I’m playing in part because, to be honest, they’re the ones that best fit my two-hour slot in a three-album play but of course all three are worthy of appearance, among many contenders from that year. And at some point I’ll perhaps do a show filled with songs from 1971, or any other year. It’s the sort of project I started once, beginning in 1964, but only got a couple years into before, well, not continuing. Definitely an idea worth revisiting.
As for 1971 albums there’s almost too many to list but among the other notable records released that year: The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers, Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, Carole King’s Tapestry, John Lennon’s Imagine, Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells A Story along with him fronting Faces’ A Nod Is As Good As A Wink . . . To A Blind Horse and before that, Faces’ Long Player in a busy year for Rod; The Doors’ L.A. Woman (which I played recently), Joni Mitchell’s Blue (played last Saturday), Fragile by Yes, Pink Floyd’s Meddle, which I played in full a year ago, Elton John’s Madman Across The Water, The Kinks’ Muswell Hillbillies, Traffic’s The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys, Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On . . . and I could go on, and on. So many great years for music, obviously, but an argument can be made that 1971 was among the best. A recent book, Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded, makes that point and is the basis of a documentary series 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything, available on Apple TV+.
A St. Patrick’s Day set featuring Irish bands/artists and/or songs about Ireland. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. The Boomtown Rats, Up All Night
2. Taste, On The Boards
3. Rory Gallagher, Walk On Hot Coals (from Check Shirt Wizard Live In ’77)
4. Van Morrison, Cyprus Avenue
5. Gary Moore & Phil Lynott, Out In The Fields
6. U2, Bullet The Blue Sky
7. Paul McCartney/Wings, Give Ireland Back To The Irish
8. John Lennon, The Luck Of The Irish
9. The Chieftains with The Rolling Stones, The Rocky Road To Dublin
10. Rory Gallagher, Too Much Alcohol (live, Irish Tour ’74)
11. Van Morrison, It’s All In The Game/You Know What They’re Writing About (from Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast)
12. Rory Gallagher, A Million Miles Away (from Check Shirt Wizard Live In ’77)
13. The Chieftains with Mick Jagger, The Long Black Veil
14. Van Morrison, Rave On John Donne/Rave On Part Two (from Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast)
15. Rory Gallagher, Bad Penny
16. Van Morrison, And The Healing Has Begun
17. U2, Exit
My track-by-track tales:
1. The Boomtown Rats, Up All Night . . . While I was still – to paraphrase the lyrics to the song All The Young Dudes – for the most part at home with my Beatles and my Stones, there was a period during my college days and for a brief time after when I was sampling most of the punk and new wave stuff coming to North America from across the Atlantic. Not too many of those bands seemed to have staying power, though, or at least were more singles sellers than full album artists, which is fine. So my ride with the Rats was shortlived – three albums or, I should probably say, three songs – I Don’t Like Mondays from 1979’s The Fine Art Of Surfacing, Banana Republic from Mondo Bongo in 1981 and Up All Night, a catchy tune/ode to insomnia from V Deep in 1982. “Up all night ooh za za ooh staying up all night.” V Deep, by the way, is pronounced ‘five’ Deep as in the Roman numeral V, representing the group’s fifth album and the fact they had gone from a six- to five-piece band. Their commercial performance was falling, however, and soon enough frontman/chief songwriter Bob Geldof was making a bigger name for himself as an activist and organizer of benefit concerts like Live Aid and Live 8. The band broke up in 1986, two years after their to that point last studio album, 1984’s In the Long Grass. They reformed in 2013 for live gigs and released a studio album, Citizens Of Boomtown, in 2020.
2. Taste, On The Boards . . . Beautiful jazz-blues title track to Taste’s second album, with bandleader Rory Gallagher adding saxophone passages to the piece. On The Boards was Taste’s final studio album, coming out in 1970 although two live albums, Live Taste and Live At The Isle Of Wight, both recorded at 1970 concerts, were released in 1971 after the band broke up with Gallagher going solo. Live At The Isle Of Wight was reissued in expanded form in 2015 and retitled What’s Going On – Live At The Isle Of Wight.
3. Rory Gallagher, Walk On Hot Coals (from Check Shirt Wizard Live In ’77) . . . Speaking of Gallagher’s solo career . . . Live fireworks from the late great guitarist on this blistering version of a track originally on his 1973 studio album Blueprint. It’s one of two songs I’ve selected for the show from the 2020 archival release Check Shirt Wizard, put together from four concerts in early 1977.
4. Van Morrison, Cyprus Avenue . . . Slowing the pace down with this evocative jazz/folk rock piece from Van The Man’s 1968 masterpiece Astral Weeks. It’s one of those critically-acclaimed records that can admittedly take some time to appreciate but once immersed in its grooves, once you ‘get it’, you’re forever in its embrace. The song is a wistful reflection on Morrison’s adolescence including, depending upon interpretation, apparent frustration regarding an unattainable love interest that he can only observe but not reach, one living outside his own economic station. Morrison described Cyprus Avenue as “a street in Belfast, a place where there’s a lot of wealth. It wasn’t far from where I was brought up and it was a very different scene. To me it was a very mystical place. It was a whole avenue lined with trees and I found it a place where I could think.”
5. Gary Moore & Phil Lynott, Out In The Fields . . . Piercing guitar playing from Moore on this rocker, an anti-war anthem about ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, issued as a single in 1985 in a singing and playing collaboration with Lynott, Thin Lizzy’s frontman and Moore’s one-time bandmate in that group. The track also appeared on Moore’s 1985 hard rock/metal studio album Run For Cover which features Deep Purple family tree members Glenn Hughes (bass, vocals) and Don Airey (keyboards) among other of Moore’s musical friends.
6. U2, Bullet The Blue Sky . . . Nothing to do with Ireland, but it is from an Irish band and happens to be among my favorite U2 songs. From the 1987 blockbuster album The Joshua Tree, it’s a musically and lyrically powerful, politically-charged track inspired by U.S. involvement in Central America though its themes apply anywhere. U2 of course often wrote about their home country and in particular ‘The Troubles’ in the band’s hit single from 1983’s War album, Sunday Bloody Sunday.
7. Paul McCartney/Wings, Give Ireland Back To The Irish . . . Speaking of Bloody Sunday . . . an uncharacteristically overtly political song by McCartney, released as Wings’ first single in February 1972 in response to Bloody Sunday, an incident during ‘The Troubles’ when British soldiers shot and killed 13 civilians, injuring others, during a protest march in Derry, Northern Ireland. The song was banned from broadcast in the UK by the BBC and others, and McCartney was condemned by British media for his seemingly pro-IRA stance. The single, a mid-tempo rocker which topped the Irish charts, still made No. 16 in the UK and the top 40 elsewhere. It later appeared on CD reissues of Wild Life, the 1971 debut album by McCartney’s Wings band.
8. John Lennon, The Luck Of The Irish . . . A few months after the McCartney single, out came his old Beatles’ bandmate Lennon (with wife Yoko Ono) and his similar take on ‘The Troubles’ on this folk/waltz piece from the 1972 album Some Time In New York City, released in June. By that time, the former songwriting partners had resolved to stop taking shots at each other through song and, apparently, albeit briefly, separately took aim at the UK. The Luck Of The Irish was written in late 1971 and had already been performed live before its studio release. It was one of two such Irish situation-themed diatribes on Some Time In New York City, the other being the pulsating rocker Sunday Bloody Sunday, a title U2 later used for their musically and lyrically unrelated hit single.
9. The Chieftains with The Rolling Stones, The Rocky Road To Dublin . . . A mischievous momentary lick of the riff from (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction spices up this treatment of a fast-paced Irish folk tune done by world-renowned Dubliners The Chieftains teamed with the obviously delightfully engaged Rolling Stones. The track is from the 1995 release The Long Black Veil. The album, credited to The Chieftains, featured an all-star aggregation of artists including Van Morrison, Sting, Sinead O’Connor, Mark Knopfler, Ry Cooder, Tom Jones, Colin James, Marianne Faithfull and Mick Jagger – who I’ll get to in a bit, singing the title cut. Morrison also worked with The Chieftains on Irish Heartbeat, a 1983 album of mostly traditional tunes.
10. Rory Gallagher, Too Much Alcohol (from Irish Tour ’74) . . . More live magic from Mr. Gallagher on this extended blues workout, a cover of a tune written by American bluesman J.B. Hutto.
11. Van Morrison, It’s All In The Game/You Know What They’re Writing About (from Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast) . . . Morrison combines the standard It’s All In The Game with an original piece in a meditative, emotional performance during a March, 1983 show released on his 1984 live album. The two songs first appeared back to back as the closing tracks on Morrison’s 1979 studio album Into The Music.
12. Rory Gallagher, A Million Miles Away (from Check Shirt Wizard Live In ’77) . . . Originally on the 1973 studio album Tattoo, beautiful mid-tempo blues rock propelled by Gallagher’s graceful guitar and lyrical imagery.
This hotel bar is full of people,
The piano man is really laying it down,
The old bartender is as high as a steeple,
So why tonight should I wear a frown? . . .
There’s a song on the lips of everybody,
There’s a smile all around the room,
There’s conversation overflowing,
But I sit here with the blues.
This hotel bar has lost all its people,
The piano man has caught the last bus home,
The old bartender just collapsed in the corner,
Why I’m still here, I just don’t know, I don’t know.
13. The Chieftains with Mick Jagger, The Long Black Veil . . . Spooky treatment, particularly the instrumental opening followed by Jagger’s haunting vocals on a traditional tune covered by countless artists, notably Johnny Cash and The Band. Colin James plays guitar and mandolin with Darryl Jones, bassist on most Stones’ studio albums and all tours since the departure of Bill Wyman in 1993, also contributing.
14. Van Morrison, Rave On John Donne/Rave On Part Two (from Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast) . . . A tribute to poets and visionaries in one of Morrison’s spiritual and mystical pieces. He name-checks John Donne and other literary figures (William Butler Yeats, Walt Whitman among others) in a typically passionate vocal and instrumental performance blending blues, jazz, and Irish folk influences. And as of this show, off into a Van The Man phase I go. Again.
15. Rory Gallagher, Bad Penny . . . Or a Rory Gallagher phase, or one with any of these excellent artists. I always say that the best song/artist/album is the one you are listening to right now, in the moment, if you like it. That said, if I had to pick just one Gallagher tune, pretty sure it would be Bad Penny, a gritty blues-rocker from his 1979 album Top Priority. Great riff, searing solo, biting lyrics. I never tire of it, as soon as it ends, off I often go with it again.
16. Van Morrison, And The Healing Has Begun . . . Soulful song from 1979’s Into The Music, a terrific tune featuring the best of all instruments on his albums, Morrison’s voice.
“And we’ll walk down the avenue again, and we’ll sing all the songs from way back when, yeah, and we’ll walk down the avenue again and the healing has begun. . . . I want you to put on your pretty summer dress. You can wear your Easter bonnet and all the rest and I wanna make love to you yes, yes, yes.”
It occurred to me while prepping the show, just popped into my head after all these years and only he would know for sure, but the tapestry of threads that is a life had me wondering whether Morrison in 1979 was, at least figuratively, referring to that girl back on Cyprus Avenue from the Astral Weeks album in 1968?
17. U2, Exit . . . Dark, intense, atmospheric track from The Joshua Tree that ebbs and flows, slowly building to a climax then receding only to speed up again before the final fade.
A folk rock-oriented set from Canadian-born artists Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Bruce Cockburn. I’m playing Young’s 1978 album Comes A Time, Mitchell’s Blue from 1971 and Cockburn’s Humans, released in 1980.
My individual album thoughts appear under each record’s song list.
Neil Young – Comes A Time
1. Goin’ Back
2. Comes A Time
3. Look Out For My Love
4. Lotta Love
5. Peace Of Mind
6. Human Highway
7. Already One
8. Field Of Opportunity
9. Motorcycle Mama
10. Four Strong Winds
An album that balances folk and country influences and is also a showcase for Nicolette Larson, Young’s harmony vocals accomplice throughout most of the album including a great performance on the lone rocker on the record, the duet Motorcycle Mama. Interestingly, Larson didn’t sing on Young’s Lotta Love, which later became one of her solo hits.
Joni Mitchell – Blue
1. All I Want
2. My Old Man
3. Little Green
4. Carey
5. Blue
6. California
7. This Flight Tonight
8. River
9. A Case Of You
10. The Last Time I Saw Richard
Likely Mitchell’s most acclaimed album, a great fusion of folk, jazz and storytelling, said by some to be arguably the most confessional singer-songwriter album ever made as she laid bare her soul during and after relationships with Graham Nash and James Taylor, among others. Hard rock band Nazareth transformed This Flight Tonight into a hit single in 1973 to the point that Mitchell, who liked their version (and, no doubt, the royalty cheques), took to introducing it in her own concerts as “a Nazareth song.”
Bruce Cockburn – Humans
1. Grim Travellers
2. Rumours Of Glory
3. More Not More
4. You Get Bigger As You Go
5. What About The Bond
6. How I Spent My Fall Vacation
7. Guerilla Betrayed
8. Tokyo
9. Fascist Architecture
10. The Rose Above The Sky
In late 2022, the American website allmusic.com did an article on Cockburn headlined ‘Canada’s Forgotten Singer-Songwriter”. Outside of Canada, at least. He’s legendary here and rightly so but in fairness, the article was positive about his work; it was merely discussing his US success, or relative lack thereof, as compared to that of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.
Years before that article, I experienced that sentiment firsthand. I was living in Peace River, northern Alberta, went out west 1981-83 for my first journalism job and wound up sharing a house with several people including a woman from Washington state who was getting into Cockburn and one day approached me, marvelling at how good he was but surprised at his relative anonymity in the United States. That’s not unique to Cockburn; many artists are popular in some countries but not in others, for various reasons including the distribution and/or marketing of their albums, or have particularly passionate fan bases in one country, like Cheap Trick in Japan. In any case, she’d never heard Cockburn, or of him, nor had any of her American circle of friends, until her entry point since moving north, the Humans album. By then, I was a big fan, having gotten into Cockburn myself not much earlier, during my second-last year of college back in Ontario via his previous album, the 1979 release Dancing In The Dragon’s Jaws and its hit single Wondering Where The Lions Are.
A great artist throughout his discography with by now many perhaps universally or at least relatively well-known tunes like The Trouble With Normal, Lovers In A Dangerous Time, If I Had A Rocket Launcher and Call It Democracy , among others. But Humans, which featured the hit single Tokyo (at least in Canada) remains probably his favorite of mine, a superbly consistent release.
My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. The Rolling Stones, Look What The Cat Dragged In
2. The Monkees, Take A Giant Step
3. The Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows
4. John Lennon, Meat City
5. Paul McCartney/Wings, Rockestra Theme
6. Paul McCartney/Wings, Old Siam, Sir
7. The Who, The Good’s Gone
8. Jethro Tull, Drink From The Same Well
9. Frank Zappa, Cosmik Debris
10. The Stooges, Dirt
11. Three Dog Night, Play Something Sweet (Brickyard Blues)
12. Joe Cocker, Blue Medley (I’ll Drown In My Own Tears/When Something Is Wrong With My Baby/I’ve Been Loving You Too Long) live, from Mad Dogs & Englishmen)
13. The Guess Who, Love And A Yellow Rose
14. Them, The Story of Them Parts 1 and 2
15. Detroit (featuring Mitch Ryder), Rock ‘N Roll
16. Peter Gabriel, The Family And The Fishing Net (from Peter Gabriel/Plays Live)
17. R.E.M., Living Well Is the Best Revenge
18. Queen, It’s Late
My track-by-track tales:
1. The Rolling Stones, Look What The Cat Dragged In . . . Garage riff rocker featuring some particularly fine soloing from guitarist Ron Wood, from 2005’s A Bigger Bang album. The song is described as ‘an absolute rocket’ in the album-by-album, track-by-track book The Rolling Stones: All The Songs. The riff bears a resemblance and is perhaps an homage to the 1987 INXS hit Need You Tonight although taken at a much faster tempo by the Stones.
2. The Monkees, Take A Giant Step . . . Terrific proto-psychedelic track from the self-titled 1966 debut album, written by the powerhouse songwriting team and onetime partners in love Carole King and Gerry Goffin. The pitter-patter percussion hook at various points just ‘makes’ the song for me. It was the B-side to the single Last Train To Clarksville and was later covered by bluesman/genre bending artist Taj Mahal in a rearranged version that was the title track to his 1969 double album Giant Step/De Ole Folks At Home, comprised of electric (Giant Step) and acoustic (De Ole Folks At Home) albums.
3. The Beatles, Tomorrow Never Knows . . . Speaking of taking a giant step outside your mind, to quote the Monkees’ lyric . . . A mesmerizing, drug-influenced masterpiece from the 1966 album Revolver, a great leap forward in studio sophistication for The Beatles, beyond even the advances they’d made on the previous record, 1965’s Rubber Soul. The entire period is nicely summed up in the 1994 book The Complete Guide To The Music Of The Beatles as a time when John Lennon and Paul McCartney, still at the time the band’s prime songwriters, began “creating mind movies, extending webs of noise that were based around tape loops and ‘found sounds’.”
4. John Lennon, Meat City . . . Jagged, distortion-fueled funky boogie rocker that was the compellingly chaotic B-side to the single Mind Games, the title cut to that 1973 album.
5. Paul McCartney/Wings, Rockestra Theme . . . From the last album by Wings, Back To The Egg, released in 1979 before McCartney returned to releasing material solely under his own name. I distinctly recall the hype around not so much the album as this track due to it featuring a who’s who of rock stars of the day who formed the ‘rockestra’. Among the biggest names: David Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Pete Townshend (The Who), John Paul Jones and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin and Ronnie Lane and Kenney Jones of Faces fame. Jones by then was a member of The Who, having replaced Keith Moon, who had been scheduled to appear on the song but died a month before the recording sessions. Released as a single in France, the guitar-driven track won the 1980 Grammy Award for best rock instrumental performance.
6. Paul McCartney/Wings, Old Siam, Sir . . . Always loved this tune, also from Back To The Egg. A gritty rocker with a relatively slow tempo that just sort of marches along, to great effect. It was the B-side to Rockestra Theme in France, an A-side in the UK where it made No. 35 on the charts and a B-side to the US/North American single Arrow Through Me.
7. The Who, The Good’s Gone . . . From the band’s 1965 debut album, My Generation, a dark, droning song about a relationship breakup, apparently inspired by The Kinks’ song See My Friends that came out earlier the same year. Roger Daltrey’s vocals, sung in a deeper register than usual, fuels the brooding atmosphere.
8. Jethro Tull, Drink From The Same Well . . . Near 17-minute epic from the new Jethro Tull album, Curious Ruminant, released last Friday, March 7. After a listen or two, I’d describe the album as a placid overall performance and that’s meant in a positive way. It rocks in spots but overall is a very much flute-driven, meditative release. That’s particularly true of this song, an instrumental until halfway through. It was finally polished from a demo which, Tull leader Ian Anderson advises in his liner notes, had been lying around unfinished for several years.
9. Frank Zappa, Cosmik Debris . . . Funky, jazz-bluesy strut featuring Zappa’s typically great guitar and biting talk-singing delivery, from the 1974 album Apostrophe (‘)
10. The Stooges, Dirt . . . Primal, slow-burning blues, masterfully, menacingly ‘dirty’ indeed, from 1970’s Fun House album.
11. Three Dog Night, Play Something Sweet (Brickyard Blues) . . . Soulful number, written by Allen Toussaint, which naturally lends the song its New Orleans rhythm to go with Three Dog Night’s rock renderings. From the 1974 album Hard Labor whose cover art depicting the birth of a vinyl record was controversial. It was then re-released with a band-aid covering the birth but the original album art has since been restored on subsequent physical releases.
12. Joe Cocker, Blue Medley (I’ll Drown In My Own Tears/When Something Is Wrong With My Baby/I’ve Been Loving You Too Long) live, from Mad Dogs & Englishmen) . . . A typical vocal tour de force from Cocker backed by his traveling road show of singers/musicians that included Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge, session drummer supreme Jim Keltner, saxophone specialist Bobby Keys of Rolling Stones touring and session fame and various members of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends and Eric Clapton’s Derek and The Dominos.
13. The Guess Who, Love And A Yellow Rose . . . A great deep cut from the 1969 album Wheatfield Soul. I’d wager that if you played this atypical psychedelic raga-rock in spots piece for someone who’s only ever heard the band’s hits, they’d never guess – unless they recognized Burton Cumming’s voice but even then – that it was The Guess Who. And that’s a cool thing, the essence of an album track.
14. Them, The Story of Them Parts 1 and 2 . . . Early, bluesy brilliance from Them featuring the incomparable vocals of Van The Man Morrison, all of that and hypnotic harmonica playing, too.
15. Detroit (featuring Mitch Ryder), Rock ‘N Roll . . From the one and only album Ryder, of Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels fame, released under the band name Detroit. It came out in 1971 and Lou Reed liked this cover of his Velvet Underground song so much he was quoted as saying the Detroit version was how the song was supposed to sound. Reed then recruited Detroit guitarist Steve Hunter for his own band, with Hunter appearing on the 1973 Reed studio album Berlin and subsequent live albums Rock ‘n Roll Animal and Lou Reed Live.
16. Peter Gabriel, The Family And The Fishing Net (from Peter Gabriel/Plays Live) . . . A typically percussive soundscape of a song about wedding rituals that is even more pronounced in the live environment. It was originally released on Gabriel’s fourth solo album, released in 1982 and featuring the hit single Shock The Monkey. Each of Gabriel’s first four albums were titled simply ‘Peter Gabriel’ although, to Gabriel’s chagrin, a sticker with the word ‘Security’ was slapped on the album wrapping in North America, which is what it became known as for many.
17. R.E.M., Living Well Is the Best Revenge . . . Fiery, fast-paced rocker that, appropriately enough, kicks off Accelerate, the band’s 2008 studio album of largely up-tempo tunes.
18. Queen, It’s Late . . . A terrific track written by guitarist Brian May in the form of a three-scene play alternating between power balladry and hard rock, from 1977’s News Of The World, the album that gave us the ubiquitous We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions.
A progressive rock show – ending with a Gov’t Mule blues/rock/jam band twist given the Mule’s take on a King Crimson song. Nothing to do with music, perhaps, but March 8 also happens to be the 54th anniversary of the so-called Fight Of The Century, the first Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier boxing match between then-unbeaten heavyweights at New York’s Madison Square Garden, March 8, 1971. And, to digress further, 54 was my football number in high school and college. OK, enough of that; on with the show.
As for the artwork, it’s a progression of rocks, in acknowledgement of the progressive rock theme.
1. King Crimson, Book Of Saturday
2. Genesis, The Musical Box
3. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Knife-Edge
4. Yes, The Gates Of Delirium
5. Soft Machine, Chloe And The Pirates
6. Kansas, The Pinnacle
7. Jethro Tull, Baker St. Muse
8. Supertramp, Rudy (live, from Paris)
9. Pink Floyd, Echoes
10. Gov’t Mule, 21st Century Schizoid Man (King Crimson cover, live, from Mulennium)
My track-by-track tales:
1. King Crimson, Book Of Saturday . . . A natural for a Saturday show, from Crimson’s 1973 album Larks’ Tongues In Aspic. A pastoral song with typically interesting instrumental accents courtesy Robert Fripp’s guitar and David Cross’s violin, all propelled by John Wetton’s warm vocals. Wetton was later part of the first lineup of prog/pop rock band Asia that also featured drummer Carl Palmer of Atomic Rooster and Emerson, Lake & Palmer fame, plus Yes-men Steve Howe on guitar and keyboardist Geoff Downes. Downes, back in Yes since 2011, played on the one-off Yes album Drama, released in 1980 featuring former Buggles members Downes and vocalist/bassistTrevor Horn of Video Killed The Radio Star fame. It was a controversial albeit I think excellent Yes release featuring my favorite track from that period, the metallic Machine Messiah.
2. Genesis, The Musical Box . . . A powerful performance of shifting elements of light and heavy music from 1971’s Nursery Cryme album, the first to feature drummer Phil Collins and guitarist Steve Hackett in what fans of truly prog-period Genesis consider the classic lineup of Collins, Hackett, singer Peter Gabriel, bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks.
3. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Knife-Edge . . . A hard-edged, dark track from ELP’s self-titled 1970 debut album, adapting classical pieces – as ELP often did – in this case by Czech composer Leoš Janáček and Germany’s Johann Sebastian Bach. The classical-meets-rock approach is, to use a term music critics love to employ, accurate but overused so I write it with tongue planted firmly in cheek, “quintessential” ELP.
4. Yes, The Gates Of Delirium . . . Music is is an experience often fueled by one’s mood, so while obviously I’m primed for progressive rock for this show, it’s still fun to suggest that Yes represents the ultimate in prog-rock excess. Between 1972 and 1974 the band released three studio albums – Close To The Edge, double vinyl album Tales From Topographic Oceans and Relayer, from which The Gates Of Delirium comes. Total song count over the three albums: 10 – three on Close To The Edge (albeit two of them featuring multi-part suites, essentially songs in themselves), four (one per vinyl album side) on Topographic Oceans and three on Relayer. Relayer is the only Yes studio album to feature keyboardist Patrick Moraz, who brought jazz fusion elements to the party. The 22-minute Gates Of Delirium is loosely based on the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and includes heavy rock portions depicting battle, with the soothing final section, Soon, extracted as a single.
5. Soft Machine, Chloe And The Pirates . . . Hauntingly beautiful, dreamlike jazz fusion from Six, the 1973 release split between live and studio albums, by which time the band and its ever-changing roster of musicians had long since abandoned vocals and become a purely instrumental unit.
6. Kansas, The Pinnacle . . . Perhaps the, er, pinnacle of Kansas’s progressive rock achievements? Difficult to say, lots to choose from although this symphonic epic from the 1975 album Masque is up there with the band’s best such statements. It took me a while to embrace Kansas as a prog act. Like perhaps many people, I discovered them via their 1970s hit singles Carry On Wayward Son and Dust In The Wind and aside from, in high school, owning Dust In The Wind’s parent album Point Of Know Return and thus discovering excellent songs like Portrait (He Knew), I really wasn’t much aware of their output beyond those singles and compilation albums. Until, that is, I got into other progressive rock acts, almost exclusively British bands like Genesis, Yes, ELP and King Crimson and finally decided to take a full crack at this American act that was travelling some of the same territory. It’s been a rewarding experience.
7. Jethro Tull, Baker St. Muse . . . I’m a big Jethro Tull fan and about to go out and purchase the new album Curious Ruminant, released today, once I finish writing these track tales on Friday, March 7, in advance of Saturday’s show. Curious Ruminant is the suddenly wildly productive band’s third album in four years after a long hiatus of formal Jethro Tull releases during which leader/singer/flautist/multi-instrumentalist Ian Anderson was releasing albums under his own name, eventually essentially stamping his solo band with the Tull label.
The new album has been getting mostly good to excellent reviews, despite the challenges faced by Anderson’s ‘shot’ voice which is too painful even for me, fan that I am, to consider ever seeing the band live again since the disappointment of a less-than stellar 2007 gig in Toronto. The show was still decent enough, but not up to previous standards I had experienced. But the studio setting, particularly on new material, can be tailored to adapt to those vocal limitations, as has been the case on recent Anderson and Tull releases. We shall see and hear of course. I’ve heard a couple earlier-released tracks online, they’re fine, harken somewhat back to the period of the album Songs From The Wood in 1977, and I plan to play at least one cut from the new record on Monday night’s show.
All of which is a long, roundabout way of saying that the new album features a long song – Drink From The Same Well – of exactly the same length, 16 minutes, 42 seconds, as Baker St. Muse from 1975’s Minstrel In The Gallery album. Perhaps that’s why the new track is titled, with a twinkle in Anderson’s eye, what it is. As for Baker St. Muse, the lyrics muse, with a typical Tull mixture of wit and introspective social commentary, about city life amid a musical menu of acoustic passages and full-band bombast.
8. Supertramp, Rudy (live, from Paris album) . . . A song from 1974’s studio album Crime Of The Century, taken from the live document of 1979’s Breakfast In America tour, when Supertramp was among the biggest bands on the planet. I saw the tour in Toronto, the last of three summer stadium shows before a combined audience of more than 150,000. I hadn’t planned on going but, on a whim one Saturday afternoon, a college friend and I decided to head to the show, ticketless but aiming to purchase entry from scalpers. We got tickets, at not much higher than list price, perhaps an hour before the gates opened only to soon discover that our tickets were forged, good forgeries but lacking the grocery store chain logo of legitimate tickets. Thankfully, they were general admission tickets, not assigned seats, we got in, unlikely these days with scanners and such, ran like hell in the stampede to the front of the stage, and enjoyed the show. But I remember thinking ‘there but for the grace of god go I’ might-have-been of that risky race to the Supertramp stage when, sadly, five months later dozens of people were trampled and 11 died in similar general admission circumstances at a Who show in Cincinnati, at least temporarily putting a pause on what’s known as festival seating.
9. Pink Floyd, Echoes . . . Mind-blowing music that closes 1971’s Meddle. It’s the album that arguably broke Pink Floyd more into the mainstream after the band’s earlier more experimental phase often guided in large measure by the creative vision of co-founder Syd Barrett. Thanks in part to drug use, Barrett sadly became increasingly erratic and was ousted from the band in 1968, leaving one to wonder sometimes in what direction Pink Floyd might have headed, would they have been as commercially successful, had he stayed. At 23 minutes and change, Echoes is an immersive experience in various musical forms from spacey atmospherics to blues-based improvisation, not to mention those ‘pings’ that start the song and always make me think of submarine warfare books and movies. And then, after Meddle, came The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall during a dynamically creative period through the 1970s.
10. Gov’t Mule, 21st Century Schizoid Man (King Crimson cover, live, from Mulennium) . . . A twist in the prog tale, a progressive rock group’s song covered by a blues rock jam band. That said, 21st Century Schizoid Man, from King Crimson’s 1969 debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King is more hard rock, even metal, than it is progressive rock but then again, there are myriad heavy musical moments throughout the influential King Crimson catalogue. This live version by the Mule appeared on the band’s 2010 release Mulennium, documenting a show at the Roxy Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia as 1999 became 2000. Gov’t Mule, a band led by guitarist/singer/songwriter Warren Haynes that formed in 1994 as a side project of The Allman Brothers Band, shines on its own material but has proved so proficient on covers of classic rock tunes that, long ago, I burned my own mix CD of that material.
The list is a long one, including The Beatles’ She Said She Said and Helter Skelter, Steppenwolf’s Don’t Step On The Grass, Sam, Free’s Mr. Big, War Pigs by Black Sabbath, Humble Pie’s 30 Days In The Hole, Deep Purple’s Maybe I’m A Leo and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man. The Mule has also pulled off excellent full covers albums like Dark Side Of The Mule (Pink Floyd), Stoned Side Of The Mule (The Rolling Stones) and Dub Side Of The Mule, a largely reggae-tinged release of Mule songs, classic rock covers and a set fronted by the late Toots Hibbert of the Maytals fame, featuring tracks like Pressure Drop and Reggae Got Soul.
1. Spirit, Fresh Garbage
2. Led Zeppelin, In My Time Of Dying
3. Bob Dylan, Ain’t Gonna Go To Hell For Anybody (previously unreleased track recorded live in 1980 in Montreal, taken from The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 Trouble No More 1979-1981, Dylan’s ‘Christian’ period
4. Bob Dylan, Murder Most Foul
5. Slim Harpo, Folsom Prison Blues
6. Gary Moore, The Prophet
7. The Rolling Stones, Parachute Woman
8. Neil Young, Ordinary People
9. Little Feat, Rock & Roll Everynight (from Live From Neon Park)
10. J.J. Cale, Money Talks
11. T. Rex, Mambo Sun
12. Graham Parker, Howlin’ Wind
13. Parliament, Chocolate City
14. James Brown, It’s Too Funky In Here
15. Wilson Pickett, In The Midnight Hour (live extended version)
My track-by-track tales:
1. Spirit, Fresh Garbage . . . Jazzy psychedelic rock from Spirit’s self-titled debut album, 1968, featuring Randy California’s sharp guitar work. An impressive trip in various musical directions, all in just a shade over three minutes.
2. Led Zeppelin, In My Time Of Dying . . . From the 1975 double vinyl album Physical Graffiti. One of the things I think of when I think of Physical Graffiti, it being a double studio album, is how so many great groups/artists seem to have at least one classic double vinyl studio album in their catalogue. I’m not talking albums like Cream’s Wheels Of Fire which featured sides of live tracks; great as they were but I’m speaking of original studio material spread over four sides of vinyl. That’s a lot of work, lots of songs, yet in all cases, consistent quality which is a testament to these great artists’ abilities and creativity.
Albums like, and it’s quite a list, just off the top of my head while I’m sure I’ve left more than a few out: The Beatles White Album, Exile On Main St. from The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde, The Who’s Tommy and Quadrophenia, Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway from Genesis and yes, even the overblown and not to all tastes four-song, one per vinyl side, Yes album Tales From Topographic Oceans, arguably the ultimate in prog rock excess . . . Bruce Springsteen’s The River, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, London Calling from The Clash followed up by their triple-vinyl studio release Sandinista! . . .
As for Zep’s Physical Graffiti and the song In My Time Of Dying . . . it’s a traditional, composer actually unknown – as far as is, uh, known 🙂 – but originally known to be first recorded if not perhaps written by bluesman Blind Willie Johnson in 1927. Bob Dylan recorded it on his debut album in 1962. Zep, as was their often disturbing plaigiaristic wont, ‘adapted’ it and took full songwriting credit although later releases of Graffiti do add Johnson to the credits. All that aside, I love that initial drum break – and John Bonham’s drums throughout – off the slow intro and then into Jimmy Page’s guitar riff, the full band comes in followed by Robert Plant’s bluesy vocal. A raw and apocalyptic adventure, nicely done.
3. Bob Dylan, Ain’t Gonna Go To Hell For Anybody (previously unreleased track recorded live in 1980 in Montreal, taken from The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 Trouble No More 1979-1981) . . . A fiery track including effective female gospel backup singers, from Dylan’s controversial ‘Christian’ period. It was a time during which he released the albums Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot Of Love although by Shot Of Love in 1981 it was evident he, mercurial and ‘do whatever I feel like, whenever’ as always, was already moving on from that period. He was soon to release the great 1983 album Infidels featuring Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame and former Rolling Stone Mick Taylor on guitar.
While the ‘Christian’ period is a controversial time in Dylan’s career given his then-new religious leanings, musically it was a brilliant slice in time during which he employed, as always, crack bands. Knopfler guested on guitar on Slow Train Coming while aces like latter-day Little Feat guitarist Fred Tackett, keyboardist/producer/man for all seasons musically Al Kooper and session drumming ace Jim Keltner were in Dylan’s touring band. Over time, I think, the ‘religious’ controversy around that period of Dylan’s career has rightly faded such that one can simply enjoy the great music on the individual albums and in the live environment on Vol. 13 of his ongoing Bootleg Series, released in 2017. It’s really good.
4. Bob Dylan, Murder Most Foul . . . The Dylan of today, or at least his talk-singing voice of recent times. It’s still very effective as he adapts to his aging vocal limitations. This 17-minute epic from the 2020 album Rough And Rowdy Ways takes us through the assassination of JFK in 1963 fused with all manner of cultural and musical references – The Rolling Stones’ ill-fated 1969 Altamont concert, John Lee Hooker, Guitar Slim, Etta James, members of The Beach Boys, Wolfman Jack, Billy Joel referenced not in name but by the title of his song Only The Good Die Young, the Eagles, Oscar Peterson, Houdini gets a mention, on and on . . . it’s Dylan at his best both in the spare musical treatment and lyrically in this tapestry of pop culture, history, and mysticism. Dylan has many great long songs. Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands, Brownsville Girl, Highlands just to name three that immediately come to mind for me. Murder Most Foul takes its place among them.
5. Slim Harpo, Folsom Prison Blues . . . Harpo gives Johnny Cash’s signature song a swamp-blues groove makeover with classic, understated but effective harmonica playing on a track recorded in 1969. Another example of what to me makes a great cover – it’s a reinvention.
6. Gary Moore, The Prophet . . . Expressive slow blues via Moore’s guitar on this track from his 2001 album Back To The Blues as he continued to go back and forth between always interesting and compelling rock, hard rock/metal and blues albums. Sadly long lost to us in 2011 to a heart attack at age 58, Moore was marvelous as he continually straddled myriad genres – rock (including with Thin Lizzy for a time), hard rock/metal, and blues including not only his big hit Still Got The Blues (For You) but albums like Blues For Greeny, his 1995 covers tribute to Fleetwood Mac founder/guitarist Peter Green.
7. The Rolling Stones, Parachute Woman . . . A friend of mine has ‘Beggars Banquet’ nights, whether his mood is good, bad, or indifferent it seems to be his go-to album, drink(s) in hand, just letting one of the Stones’ classic albums envelop him. I like it, too. Including, from Beggars, this dirty, swampy blues track, full of murky guitar and Mick Jagger’s slurred, suggestive vocals as the Stones embrace their roots while adding their own sleazy edge.
The production is raw and unpolished, giving it an almost demo-like feel that works in its favor. It’s one of their deep cuts that perfectly captures the band’s bluesy swagger. And for me, major Stones fan, it’s amazing how, within a year, 1967 to 1968, and I like all their albums, the Stones progressed or changed from the pop/psychedelia of releases like Their Satanic Majesties Request and Between The Buttons to the down and dirty nature of Beggars Banquet and songs like Parachute Woman. It’s as if they were an entirely new and different band. However it transpired creatively, it signalled a new phase of The Rolling Stones, soon to be fortified by the addition of virtuoso guitarist Mick Taylor starting with the next album, Let It Bleed. It was a period that yielded the so-called in Stones’ lore ‘Big Four’ albums Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St. and I’ll always add a fifth album, the live Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out smack in the middle of the studio releases. All in all a widely acknowledged brilliant period for a band who I submit, despite some critics’ and fans’ views, has continued to issue quality music to the present day. The eclecticism of their output over 60-plus years of recording is remarkable.
8. Neil Young, Ordinary People . . . Dylan-like, albeit with grungier guitar accents, a lengthy ‘story’ track of 18 minutes that is so compelling it flies by. It’s from the Chrome Dreams II album released in 2007. There was a Chrome Dreams I, held back but eventually released in 2023 and it’s more a compilation – with some previously unreleased tracks – of reworked or remixed or otherwise redone songs like Like A Hurricane, Pocahontas, Sedan Delivery and Powderfinger that had appeared on previous Neil Young albums.
9. Little Feat, Rock & Roll Everynight (from Live From Neon Park) . . . Shaun Murphy on lead vocals during her time with the latter day configuration of Little Feat on this up-tempo boogie number from Live From Neon Park that first appeared on the band’s 1995 studio album Ain’t Had Enough Fun. Nice boogie-woogie piano by the perennial Bill Payne, co-founder of the band in 1969 along with (RIP) Lowell George. Payne is the last original member of Little Feat, which continues to record and tour to this day. And yes, ‘Everynight’ is written that way, one word, on both the studio and live albums.
10. J.J. Cale, Money Talks . . . Typical signature shuffle, detached delivery from J.J. and another example of his huge influence on people like Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler. It’s from his eighth studio album, issued in 1983 and titled, wait for it, #8, in line with his fifth album (5) and 10th (Number 10) although J.J. for the most part used more creative/conventional titles like Naturally, his 1972 debut, Really, Shades, Grasshopper, Guitar Man, etc.
11. T. Rex, Mambo Sun . . . From 1971’s Electric Warrior, the album that featured the band’s big hit – at least in North America; the UK had long since embraced the group where it was consistently high on the charts – Get It On, which was retitled Bang a Gong (Get It On) for the US market. But, like, say, a band like Free known by some, particularly in North America, only for the hit single All Right Now, T. Rex was so much more. Earlier known as full dinosaur Tyrannosaurus Rex, they’d already seen success on home shores in the UK before the worldwide breakthrough as T. Rex via Get It On. Some things are just a matter of time and place. As for Mambo Sun, it’s the lead track on Electric Warrior and could easily have been a single; a funky, slinky song driven by Marc Bolan’s hypnotic guitar riff and signature boogie swagger.
12. Graham Parker, Howlin’ Wind . . . We’ve had some windy weather of late where I live in southern Ontario, so I’ve been planning to play this and finally getting around to doing so, naturally enough now that the wind, for the most part, has waned. It’s the title track from Parker’s debut album in 1976.
13. Parliament, Chocolate City . . . Typical funk excursion by Parliament in a tribute to Washington, D.C. and its black cultural influence, the title cut to an album released in April, 1975. The lyrics assign various political positions to black icons including Muhammad Ali as president, James Brown as VP, Stevie Wonder as Secretary of Fine Arts and Aretha Franklin as First Lady.
14. James Brown, It’s Too Funky In Here . . . Every time I listen to James Brown I find myself singing along, out loud or in my mind, engaging along with him in various vocalizations like ‘ugh, agh, humph, hump, yeah, yeh, oooww” . . . etc. You don’t even need any musical instruments, just groove to his voice. He’s another of those artists – Bob Dylan, Van Morrison come to my mind – whose voices are intrinsic to their sound. A song by any of them, great as covers can be, is simply not the same if it’s not them singing. And Brown kept that going through this cut from his 1979 album The Original Disco Man, and beyond.
15. Wilson Pickett, In The Midnight Hour (live extended version) . . . From the excellent, arguably all you really need 2-CD compilation A Man And A Half. It’s a previously unreleased version where Pickett, backed by Booker T. & The MGs, transforms one of his signature songs into an eight-minute, still recognizable soul workout.
I’m featuring The Concert For Bangladesh from George Harrison and musical friends released in December 1971 after the actual concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden on August 1 of that year. The show was a triumph for Harrison – whose 82nd birthday would have been this past Tuesday, February 25 – and set a precedent for benefit concerts, inspiring Live Aid and other major charity events. I’ve filled in the remainder of my 2-hour slot with a couple instrumental tracks from the “Apple Jam” portion of the former Beatle’s 1970 triple album All Things Must Pass.
1. George Harrison/Ravi Shankar Introduction
2. Ravi Shankar, Bangla Dhun
3. George Harrison, Wah-Wah
4. George Harrison, My Sweet Lord
5. George Harrison, Awaiting On You All
6. Billy Preston, That’s The Way God Planned It
7. Ringo Starr, It Don’t Come Easy
8. George Harrison and Leon Russell, Beware Of Darkness
9. George Harrison with Eric Clapton, While My Guitar Gently Weeps
10. Leon Russell, Jumpin’ Jack Flash/Youngblood
11. George Harrison, Here Comes The Sun
12. Bob Dylan, A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall
13. Bob Dylan, It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry
14. Bob Dylan, Blowin’ In The Wind
15. Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine Man
16. Bob Dylan, Just Like A Woman
17. George Harrison, Something
18. George Harrison, Bangla Desh
1. Elton John, Have Mercy On The Criminal
2. Black Sabbath, Falling Off The Edge Of The World
3. Steppenwolf, Renegade
4. Bad Company, Painted Face
5. Warren Zevon, Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner (live, from Learning To Flinch)
6. The Tragically Hip, Fight
7. Roxy Music, My Only Love (from Roxy Music Live, a document of the band’s 2001 reunion tour, released in 2003)
8. The Beach Boys, I Know There’s An Answer
9. Frank Zappa, Dumb All Over (previously unreleased live version of the You Are What You Is studio track from 1981, issued on the 1997 compilation Have I Offended Someone?)
10. John Lennon, Well Well Well
11. Pete Townshend, I Am An Animal
12. The Rolling Stones, Too Tight
13. Chicago, Devil’s Sweet
14. Tom Waits, Shore Leave
15. The Butterfield Blues Band, Driftin’ And Driftin’ (from The Butterfield Blues Band Live)
My track-by-track tales:
1. Elton John, Have Mercy On The Criminal . . . Yet another deep cut from EJ’s 1970s heyday that essentially made all or most of his studio albums hits compilations. It’s from 1973’s Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player which yielded the hit singles Daniel and Crocodile Rock but is filled with great songs, like this one. Noted arranger, composer, conductor and longtime Elton John collaborator Paul Buckmaster handled the orchestration on a song that starts with a dramatic, fast flourish before settling in to a ballad painting, via Bernie Taupin’s lyrics, a picture of an outlaw on the run.
2. Black Sabbath, Falling Off The Edge Of The World . . . I went down the internet rabbit hole the other day when an article popped up in my feed listing what the author thought were the best Sabbath songs from the Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals era. This song, from 1981’s Mob Rules album, Dio’s second with Sabbath after 1980’s Heaven And Hell, was on the list and I agree. A moody, atmospheric opening builds the tension that you know is going to soon explode, as it does, into a full-throttle hard rock/metal assault.
3. Steppenwolf, Renegade . . . A brooding, bluesy autobiographical track about Steppenwolf leader/singer John Kay, then age 4, and his mother’s 1948 escape to the West from the Soviet occupation zone in Germany, where Kay was born. It’s from the album Steppenwolf 7, released in 1970.
4. Bad Company, Painted Face . . . Funky boogie from 1982’s Rough Diamonds album. It was the last studio album from the original Paul Rodgers-fronted Bad Company lineup that also included guitarist Mick Ralphs, drummer Simon Kirke and bassist Boz Burrell. Rodgers later returned, off and on, in various later configurations of the band for tours and to record four then-new songs for the 1999 original lineup reunion compilation The ‘Original’ Bad Co. Anthology.
5. Warren Zevon, Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner (live, from Learning To Flinch) . . . Live albums aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and while I generally prefer studio versions of songs, I do like concert albums because they can obviously go down entirely new avenues as artists may rearrange or otherwise adjust and adapt their tunes. This version of the track originally on Zevon’s 1978 breakthrough album Excitable Boy (which featured the hit single Werwolves Of London) is a perfect example. Learning To Flinch, released in 1993, is from a solo acoustic world tour Zevon did in 1992, just him on guitar, keyboards, harmonica and vocals. On Roland, he takes what was a shade under four-minute studio track and reworks it into an 11-minute haunting epic. It starts with “Roland Chorale”, an instrumental intro that merges into a familiar yet, in Zevon’s voice and piano playing, transformed yet still-recognizable song about his fictional mercenary.
6. The Tragically Hip, Fight . . . I had the Hip on my list of artists I hadn’t played in a while so here they are, finally, again prompted in some measure by a discussion about the band I had with a friend last week. Fight is from the classic 1991 album Road Apples. It’s a bluesy groove tune with lyrics to which anyone who’s been in a relationship can relate.
“We wake up different, rifle through our dreams
Another placid day ripples at the seams
Do you think I bow out ’cause I think you’re right
Or ’cause I don’t want to fight?
Do you think I bow out ’cause I think you’re right
“We lay down seething, smell our pillows burn
And drift off to the place where you’d think we’d learn
Do you think I bow out ’cause I think you’re right
Or ’cause I don’t want to fight?
“Do you think I bow out ’cause I think you’re right
Or ’cause I don’t want to fight?
Oh, go ahead and fight
I give, oh, I give, I said, I give”
7. Roxy Music, My Only Love (from Roxy Music Live, a document of the band’s 2001 reunion tour, released in 2003) . . . Extended version of a song originally on 1980’s Flesh And Blood studio album. It’s a terrific live album with, on this track, Phil Manzanera’s expressive guitar solo near the end leading into a showcase, as lead singer Bryan Ferry cedes the stage, for the vocalizations of backing singers Sarah Brown, Yanick Etienne, Michelle John and Sharon White. It’s reminiscent to me of Clare Torry’s performance on Pink Floyd’s The Great Gig In The Sky.
8. The Beach Boys, I Know There’s An Answer . . . From Pet Sounds, the 1966 album that, by most accounts, inspired The Beatles to produce their Sgt. Pepper album, released in 1967. I Know There’s An Answer was originally titled Hang On To Your Ego but objections arose within the band as to lyrics referring to drug culture, so it was rewritten although Hang On To Your Ego has appeared as a bonus track on various reissues of Pet Sounds. Musically, the song features an unorthodox structure driven by myriad instruments including guitars, tambourine, piano, banjo, clarinets, flutes, electric keyboards, timpani and harmonica.
9. Frank Zappa, Dumb All Over (previously unreleased live version of the You Are What You Is studio track from 1981, issued on the 1997 compilation Have I Offended Someone?) . . . A typically scathing Zappa social commentary punctuated by an incendiary guitar solo.
10. John Lennon, Well Well Well . . . Grungy guitars from well before ‘grunge’ was a musical genre, spare production, raw, primal scream therapy vocals, all from the harrowing, personal, Plastic Ono Band album, released in 1970. Hugely influential album on my impressionable young mind, musically but particularly lyrically in the songs God and Working Class Hero, both of which I’ve played before on the show and inevitably will return to.
11. Pete Townshend, I Am An Animal . . . . An introspective song from 1980’s Empty Glass, featuring the immortal line “I will be immersed, Queen of the fucking universe.” A terrific hit album full of great songs that prompted Who singer Roger Daltrey to suggest that Townshend was by that point saving his best stuff for himself or, at least, spreading himself too thin in terms of providing material for the mother ship band. The counter to Daltrey’s argument would be that Townshend’s songs can be intensely personal and even as far back as 1975’s album The Who By Numbers, Daltrey was reluctant to sing songs like However Much I Booze – lead vocals by Townshend – since they were so clearly tales of Townshend’s travails.
12. The Rolling Stones, Too Tight . . . The kind of energetic riff rocker the Stones seem to be able to toss off in their sleep, which isn’t a criticism by any stretch. It’s another indication of their innate songwriting abilities resulting in deep cuts like this, from 1997’s Bridges To Babylon album, that many bands would love to have as a single.
13. Chicago, Devil’s Sweet . . . Some have compared this 10-minute instrumental jazz-rock fusion piece from Chicago VII in 1974 to Weather Report with slices of Miles Davis, Santana and Soft Machine. It’s all of those things in at least some measure but really, it’s simply Chicago in their early glory days of inventive, experimental energy, this time propelled by shifting time signatures and Danny Seraphine’s great drumming. A universe away from the schlock show, albeit a commercially successful schlock show, they later became.
14. Tom Waits, Shore Leave . . . Surreal, percussive, almost industrial sounds on this noir-like track from 1983’s Swordfishtrombones album. And that’s just the music. Lyrically, we follow . . . No, check that, we ‘see’, through Waits’ words, a sailor on shore leave through various encounters in, apparently, Hong Kong while “trying to make it all last, squeezing all the life out of a lousy two day pass.”
Someone on YouTube summed it up nicely: “A movie in 4:16” (the song time).
15. The Butterfield Blues Band, Driftin’ And Driftin’ (from The Butterfield Blues Band Live) . . . Live version of a track originally on the third Butterfield Band studio album, The Resurrection Of Pigboy Crabshaw, released in 1967. By the time of The Butterfield Blues Band Live’s recording at The Troubador in Los Angeles in early 1970, Pigboy (guitarist Elvin Bishop’s nickname) had left the band which now featured a four-man horn section with Ralph Wash on guitar. The group had evolved into a blues outfit with jazz and R & B chops ranging all over the musical map. It’s compelling stuff, led always by Butterfield’s singing and harmonica playing which is well described in liner notes.
“His mix of amplified and acoustic work on Driftin’ and Driftin’ show how he could capture and enthrall an audience with his emotive style; his instrumental is a mini-history of the blues harp, not only calling to mind Butterfield’s mentor Little Walter but Sonny Boy Williamson, Rice Miller (aka Sonny Boy Williamson II) and others. However it is never the work of a copyist. It is always the immediately recognizable sound and style of Paul Butterfield.”
Three albums released in 1976 on the menu: The Rolling Stones’ Black And Blue, Rod Stewart’s A Night On The Town and The Royal Scam, by Steely Dan. My album commentaries follow each record’s track list.
The Rolling Stones – Black And Blue
1. Hot Stuff
2. Hand Of Fate
3. Cherry Oh Baby
4. Memory Motel
5. Hey Negrita
6. Melody
7. Fool To Cry
8. Crazy Mama
One thing you can say for Black And Blue: it prompted perhaps the best, arguably funniest and most memorable rock album review ever, up there with Greil Marcus’s “what is this shit?” opening line to his Rolling Stone magazine review of Bob Dylan’s 1970 album Self Portrait.
“The heat’s off,” Lester Bangs, the noted American writer/critic who was actually a big fan of the band, wrote of Black And Blue in Creem magazine. “because it’s all over. They really don’t matter anymore or stand for anything, which is certainly lucky for both them and us. I mean, it was a heavy weight to carry for all concerned. This is the first meaningless Stones album, and thank God.”
I still chuckle every time I read it. As for the actual album, I’ve liked it since day one because it does what I love the Stones for doing – putting their own rock and roll stamp on things while they explore myriad musical styles. And Black And Blue, a largely funky, groove-based record with dashes of reggae (the Eric Donaldson cover Cherry Oh Baby) plus typical ballads like the hit single Fool To Cry and travelogue Memory Motel, collectively was unlike anything they’d done before. That was in at least some measure because the band was auditioning guitarists to replace Mick Taylor, who left after 1974’s It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll album. Among the axemen in studio during the sessions, not all of whose work wound up on the album, were Jeff Beck, Rory Gallagher, Harvey Mandel, formerly of Canned Heat – who played lead guitar on disco-funk album opener Hot Stuff – and session ace Wayne Perkins, who was once asked to join Lynyrd Skynyrd and who delivered a searing, Taylor-like solo on one of my favorites from the album, Hand Of Fate. That’s one of two ‘traditional’ or typical type Stones’ tunes on the platter, the hard rocker Crazy Mama that closes the record being the other.
Ron Wood of Jeff Beck Group and Faces fame wound up landing the guitar gig – his staccato riffing on Hey Negrita was a highlight – which in itself has been controversial among some Stones fans who are not enamoured of his playing and prefer the Taylor years. Still, ‘the new boy’ has been in the band ever since. He’s served as a buffer between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ periodic conflicts and his ‘Englishness’ and playing compatibility that Richards says he prefers – their much-ballyhooed ‘ancient art of weaving’ where two guitars work in unison as one rather than a distinct lead/rhythm split – won him the job.
I read somewhere once that Eric Clapton, who the Stones had considered, said to Wood “I could have had that job.” To which Wood replied “Yeah, but Eric, you gotta live with ’em.” The chemistry has worked as the Stones roll on.
Rod Stewart – A Night On The Town
Slow Side (side one of original vinyl)
1. Tonight’s The Night (Gonna Be Alright)
2. The First Cut Is The Deepest
3. Fool For You
4. The Killing Of Georgie (Part I and II)
Fast Side (side two)
5. The Ball Trap
6. Pretty Flamingo
7. Big Bayou
8. The Wild Side Of Life
9. Trade Winds
Stewart split the original vinyl album into two halves: a rock-and-roll side – aside from the album closing track Trade Winds – and a more reflective, folk-tinged side. He did the same thing for his previous album, 1975’s Atlantic Crossing. It was apparently at the suggestion of his then-girlfriend Britt Ekland, a Swedish actress, model and singer who was a Bond girl in 1974’s The Man With The Golden Gun which featured Christopher Lee of Dracula fame as the titular villain. Only difference was, on Atlantic Crossing, side one was the ‘fast side’ and side two the ‘slow side’, with Stewart flipping that script for A Night On The Town. Atlantic Crossing had marked a new chapter in Stewart’s solo career, the end of the brilliant 1969-74 period when he had concurrent careers with Faces and as a solo artist, with Faces members, particularly guitarist Ron Wood and keyboardist Ian McLagan, serving among his backing musicians.
Stewart then used session players like the members of Booker T. & The MGs to great effect as he continued a run of chart-topping albums through Atlantic Crossing and the even better-selling A Night On The Town, propelled by singles like Tonight’s The Night, The First Cut Is The Deepest and The Killing Of Georgie. My favorite Stewart is his Faces-era period. But he continued releasing quality material/stuff I like through A Night On The Town and its followup, Footloose And Fancy Free but started losing steam for me with Blondes Have More Fun in 1978, although I’ll admit the disco hit single from that album, Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? is a guilty pleasure. By 1981’s Tonight I’m Yours album, though, Stewart had pretty much lost me although I do like the single Passion from his 1980 album Foolish Behaviour.
Steely Dan – The Royal Scam
1. Kid Charlemagne
2. The Caves Of Altamira
3. Don’t Take Me Alive
4. Sign In Stranger
5. The Fez
6. Green Earrings
7. Haitian Divorce
8. Everything You Did
9. The Royal Scam
I find Steely Dan to be so consistently excellent that if I had to pick a favorite album, I couldn’t. Instead, I’d employ my musical mantra: The best artist, album or song is the one you are listening to right now, in the moment, if you like it. So, today for me as far as Steely Dan goes, it’s The Royal Scam and it happens to fit with the other two albums I’m playing for this show, also released in 1976. It’s your usual Steely Dan amalgam of styles – funk, fusion, jazz rock and sophisticated grooves coupled with biting lyrics and great guitar work, particularly on songs like Don’t Take Me Alive by session man to the stars Larry Carlton, who played on three other Steely Dan albums – Katy Lied (1975), Aja (1977) and Gaucho (1980). Journalist Michael Watts, writing for British magazine Melody Maker, summed it up pretty well upon the album’s release.
“I wouldn’t wish to say whether it’s better than the other four Steely Dan records; they don’t compete with each other, they co-exist. But I will say that I’m playing it to death. And of course, the listener doesn’t have to delve into the lyrics. You can just tap your foot.”
One thing I’ve never understood, though. And it really doesn’t matter, because I own all the Steely Dan albums and nowadays, you can listen to anything you want online. But why the dark, brooding, title cut, The Royal Scam, is on no Steely Dan compilation I know of, is beyond me. It’s my favorite song on the album but, same as another personal favorite, Midnite Cruiser from the Dan’s 1972 debut Can’t Buy A Thrill, it didn’t make a compilation cut. One would think the band, or record company, would have wanted the wider exposure compilations often bring, reeling in casual consumers, at least in pre-internet times.
A show loosely tied – via song titles, band names and a couple compilations I’ve drawn from – to the Family Day holiday in most Canadian provinces. Also, a ‘winter’ portion as a nod to the relentless snow we’ve been getting in southern Ontario and much of Canada of late. In between, a week late, a celebration of the 55th anniversary release of a classic Doors album – Morrison Hotel – I was reminded of by a friend which was timely, since I was thinking of playing The Doors in any event. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list. Audio log will be posted after the show airs. Song clips also available on my Facebook page.
1. Family, The Weaver’s Answer
2. Jethro Tull, Back To The Family
3. John Mellencamp, Case 795 (The Family)
4. The Rolling Stones, Family
5. Danny Kirwan, Ram Jam City (from his solo album Second Chapter via The Fleetwood Mac Family Album compilation)
6. Rossington Collins Band, Tashauna (from the 1981 album This Is The Way via the Lynyrd Skynyrd: Family compilation)
——– The Doors – Morrison Hotel
Original vinyl
Side One – Hard Rock Cafe (original name for the album)
1. Roadhouse Blues
2. Waiting For The Sun
3. You Make Me Real
4. Peace Frog
5. Blue Sunday
6. Ship Of Fools
Side Two – Morrison Hotel
7. Land Ho!
8. The Spy
9. Queen Of The Highway
10. Indian Summer
11. Maggie M’Gill
——
7. Judas Priest, Winter/Deep Freeze/Winter Retreat
8. Genesis, Snowbound
9. Black Sabbath, Snowblind
10. Joe Jackson, Heart Of Ice
11. J. Geils Band, The Lady Makes Demands
12. Santana, Savor/Toussaint L’Overture (live, from Moonflower)
My track-by-track tales:
1. Family, The Weaver’s Answer . . . From the English progressive rock band’s 1969 album Family Entertainment, their second studio release. Arguably the band’s signature song, it tells the tale of a man looking back on his life as he nears death. Roger Chapman’s vibrato vocals add an urgent, theatrical quality to the shifting time signatures arrangement.
2. Jethro Tull, Back To The Family . . . A track that blends rock and folk, with often sarcastic lyrics contrasting the comforts of family life with its realities and one’s desire for independence from it. The song is from Stand Up, Tull’s 1969 album. It was the band’s second studio release and marked a change in direction – and introduced new guitarist Martin Barre – from the blues-based sound of the 1968 debut This Was that featured guitarist Mick Abrahams. Abrahams and lead singer/songwriter/flautist/multi-instrumentalist Ian Anderson then clashed over musical direction, with Abrahams leaving to continue his blues approach with Blodwyn Pig, a great if short-lived band in its own right I’ve played recently. Anderson has forever referred to This Was as being an appropriate album title, given that it ‘was’ Jethro Tull, at the time, before his creative vision prevailed although Tull has often still delved into the blues, just not in as singularly pronounced a manner as on the debut album.
I remember my musically influential on me older brother, by eight years, bringing Stand Up – and Led Zeppelin II – home upon release. We were living in Peru at the time, where my father was working. My older brother and sister were attending high school in Canada and in those days, the late 1960s, things weren’t as immediate as they are now. So, when the older siblings attending school in North America came home for holidays, it was not only a reunion celebration for all the American and Canadian families in town but a window, via what they brought back with them, through which we could see what was fresh and happening, particularly in entertainment. Hence albums like Stand Up and Zep II, which shook us out of our early Beatles and Stones listening habits, great as they obviously were, and further expanded our musical horizons.
3. John Mellencamp, Case 795 (The Family) . . . A gritty, grisly, bluesy song from Mellencamp’s 1993 album Human Wheels. The lyrics reveal a definitely dysfunctional family where things are rationalized as ‘everything’s all right’ despite various instances of violence amid family struggles, economic hardship and personal conflict. Not exactly Family Day fare, perhaps, but the title fits. Great tune, regardless, nice swampy groove.
4. The Rolling Stones, Family . . . An obscure Stones track, darkly cynical in a spare, mostly acoustic arrangement with unsettling lyrics about dysfunction and decay within a family in which, among other things, a daughter aspires to be a prostitute having her father as a customer and other such upbeat ideas. It’s from the 1968 Beggars Banquet album sessions, finally appearing in 1975 on Metamorphosis, a pseudo-official compilation of outtakes and alternate versions. It was issued by the Stones’ former manager Allen Klein, who at that point still retained rights to the band’s pre-1971 material, coming out on the same day as the Stones’ first authorized 1970s hits compilation, Made In The Shade.
5. Danny Kirwan, Ram Jam City . . . From the former Fleetwood Mac guitarist’s debut solo album, Second Chapter, issued in 1975. It ties into Family Day because I pulled it from a compilation – The Fleetwood Mac Family album – I own that features solo and offshoot band material from Fleetwood Mac members past and present. A melodic track with a folk-rock feel, it’s described in the compilation liner notes, accurately enough, as having a Celtic feel within a bluegrass – and I’d suggest almost rockabilly – context. Engaging stuff.
6. Rossington Collins Band, Tashauna . . . Beautiful, Lynyrd Skynyrd-like track but then that’s to be expected from a band formed from the surviving post-1977 plane crash members of Skynyrd, issued on the Rossington Collins band’s second release, 1981’s This Is The Way. Among the Skynyrd alumni on the album were guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins, bassist Leon Wilkeson and pianist Billy Powell backing the terrifically atmospheric and emotional lead vocals of Dale Krantz-Rossington, Gary’s wife. I pulled it from another ‘family’ album, the 2006 compilation Lynyrd Skynyrd: Family that features various Skynyrd tracks as well as those by offshoot bands.
——–
The Doors – Morrison Hotel
Original vinyl Side One Hard Rock Cafe (original name for the album)
1. Roadhouse Blues . . . Likely the best-known track on the album, a blues-rock anthem driven by a gritty riff and Jim Morrison’s commanding vocal delivery. “Keep your eyes on the road, your hands upon the wheel . . . let it roll, baby, roll . . . ”
2. Waiting For The Sun . . . It could have been the title cut to the band’s 1968 album but one of those cases – like Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack just one example – where a song done for one album wound up being held back for a future release. Sheer Heart Attack was left unfinished during the sessions for Queen’s 1974 album of that name and didn’t appear on record until three releases later, 1977’s News Of The World. Similar happened with The Doors on this hazy, dreamlike, spooky track with an anthemic chorus, finally released on Morrison Hotel in 1970.
3. You Make Me Real . . . A fast-paced, piano-driven energetic toe-tapping rocker that showcases Ray Manzarek’s rollicking keyboard work combined with Jim Morrison’s wild and playful vocals.
4. Peace Frog . . . Funky rocker with striking lyrical imagery, referencing police violence and blood on the streets, mentioning various American cities including Chicago, a reference to the violence-plagued 1968 Democratic Party convention. Then the song abruptly stops and we’re into . . .
5. Blue Sunday . . . A slow, crooning love song contrasting sharply with Peace Frog. The pacing on the album is exemplary. It’s why, while hits compilations are great, often it pays to immerse oneself in a full album as a statement designed by an artist.
6. Ship Of Fools . . . A mid-tempo track lyrically playing on the metaphor of a world heading toward destruction. Musically compelling to draw you in, social commentary lyrics to make you think.
Side Two Morrison Hotel
7. Land Ho! . . . A lighthearted sea shanty-style rocker with a catchy chorus. Propulsive.
8. The Spy . . . A slow, sultry blues number I played, independent of the album, some time ago. Dark, mysterious and at once seductive and almost menacing, but such could be the quality of Jim Morrison’s vocals coupled with the band’s music.
9. Queen Of The Highway . . . Hypnotic groove with a driving rhythm fueled by the bassline and percussion.
10. Indian Summer . . . A quiet, meditative piece, sparse instrumentation and gentle delivery. Personal preference of course but it’s one of those songs that is another argument for listening to individual albums over just hits compilations, as good as those usually are.
11. Maggie M’Gill . . . A gritty album closer with a swampy feel arguably presaging the bluesy brilliance of the band’s next album, L.A. Woman. The opening part of this one could easily fit on something like ZZ Top’s Deguello album – nine years before the ZZ record was released. Perhaps the Texas trio was listening.
——
7. Judas Priest, Winter/Deep Freeze/Winter Retreat . . . We start the ‘winter’ portion of the overall set with this trilogy from the first Priest album, 1974’s Rocka Rolla. It was a time before the band fully embraced metal and was more a hard rocking yet bluesy band with progressive rock elements. It’s dark, eerie and atmospheric across the near seven minutes of the combined songs, best heard as a single piece.
8. Genesis, Snowbound . . . A delicate, haunting track from the 1978 album And Then There Were Three which, via its hit single Follow You Follow Me introduced many people to Genesis – which to that point was rarely if ever played on AM radio. It broadened the band’s horizons and fan base while causing many who were more fond of the fully progressive rock epics of the Peter Gabriel era to abandon ship. Still, after Gabriel left, the group was able to strike a balance between prog and mass popularity on albums like 1976’s A Trick Of The Tail, And Then There Were Three and Duke in 1980 before 1981’s Abacab, which I really like, brought a new, even more commercial sound including horns.
9. Black Sabbath, Snowblind . . . A heavy, sludgy slab from 1972’s Vol. 4 album. The musical heaviness is trademark Sabbath of course but what often strikes me about early Sabbath is Ozzy Osbourne’s detached vocals. Perhaps it’s a function of production, or how I hear things, but however it comes about, his voice seems to enter each song from sideways somehow, from parts unknown if that description makes sense. It’s a potent mix of musical talent, both vocal and instrumental.
10. Joe Jackson, Heart Of Ice . . . A moody, jazz-infused track that starts and continues for the longest time in its seven-minute duration as an instrumental but finally incorporates sparse, haunting vocals in an intoxicating arrangement featuring saxophone and keyboards. It’s from JJ’s 1984 album Body And Soul which featured the hit single You Can’t Get What You Want (Until You Know What You Want).
11. J. Geils Band, The Lady Makes Demands . . . Typical J. Geils R & B/rock fusion energy on a track from the band’s 1973 album Ladies Invited. Lyrically, it pretty much sums up the push-and-pull of at least some relationships. From a man’s perspective, at least.
12. Santana, Savor/Toussaint L’Overture (live, from Moonflower) . . . An extended 13-minute jam highlighting Santana’s blend of Latin rock, jazz fusion and typically great playing, from the 1977 album that combined live with studio cuts.
Two classic albums. One of them – Electric Ladyland by The Jimi Hendrix Experience – is widely celebrated with at least three songs on it – Crosstown Traffic, All Along The Watchtower and Voodoo Child (Slight Return) – known by even casual rock music fans. The other – Love’s Forever Changes – is arguably relatively obscure to many but an influential album incorporating myriad genres from psychedelia to pop to folk rock.
The artists are connected, as Hendrix and Love leader Arthur Lee had a friendly relationship with Hendrix – then working with The Isley Brothers – playing on some pre-Love sessions of Lee’s as early as 1964. And at one point they discussed forming a band together. Later on, Lee’s 1972 solo album Vindicator, which I’ve delved into on the show and eventually will again, was a guitar-fueled hard rock record reflecting Hendrix’s influence.
I’m starting the set with Love, as a nod to Valentine’s Day. More of my commentary on the albums, under each record’s track list.
Love – Forever Changes
1. Alone Again Or
2. A House Is Not A Motel
3. Andmoreagain
4. The Daily Planet
5. Old Man
6. The Red Telephone
7. Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale
8. Live And Let Live
9. The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This
10. Bummer In The Summer
11. You Set The Scene
It’s been said of The Velvet Underground that the group, noted for its creative force Lou Reed, sold few records, but everyone who bought one started a band. The same could arguably be applied to Love, a brilliant band I was initially drawn to long ago by the critical hype over an album that I’d never heard. Or even heard of. So, I bought it. And soon enough, I ‘got it’, realized why it was so well-regarded, loved the music and by extension the band to the point I over time have accumulated every studio album, all of now late leader Arthur Lee’s solo stuff, and assorted compilations that include previously unreleased tracks.
I agree with most music writer critics that 1967’s Forever Changes is likely Love’s masterpiece but perhaps interestingly, probably my favorite song of Love’s is Signed D.C., a harrowing yet musically beautiful song, a bluesy acoustic ballad about heroin addiction I’ve played before on the show. It’s from the group’s self-titled debut album, released in 1966. As for Forever Changes, it’s a terrific full listen – much as Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland is – but favorite tracks for me are the jaunty pop-rocker Bummer In The Summer, the uptempo, slightly wonderfully off-kilter album opener Alone Again Or followed immediately on the album by A House Is Not A Motel. Highly recommended, all of it, as is the rest of Love/Arthur Lee.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Electric Ladyland
1. . . . And The Gods Made Love
2. Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)
3. Crosstown Traffic
4. Voodoo Chile
5. Little Miss Strange
6. Long Hot Summer Night
7. Come On (Let The Good Times Roll)
8. Gypsy Eyes
9. Burning Of The Midnight Lamp
10. Rainy Day, Dream Away
11. 1983 . . . (A Merman I Should Turn To Be)
12. Moon, Turn The Tides . . . gently gently away
13. Still Raining, Still Dreaming
14. House Burning Down
15. All Along The Watchtower
16. Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
A few weeks ago I played 1983 . . . (A Merman I Should Turn To Be) and said on air how, by playing the extended psychedelic track, I was reminded how great an album Electric Ladyland is and that I may play it in full on one of my album shows. Here it is. A terrific sonic experience, mind-blowing, really, Hendrix arguably at his creative peak in terms of myriad musical directions and production all on one double vinyl album. It was the final studio release, unleashed upon us in October 1968, by the Experience lineup of Hendrix, drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Noel Redding, who sings lead vocals on the track Little Miss Strange.
Among those contributing to the album as session players were Traffic members Chris Wood (flute on 1983 . . . ) and Steve Winwood, organ on the lengthy, psychedelic Voodoo Chile, a companion piece to its shorter, better-known cousin Voodoo Child (Slight Return) which features that immortal opening guitar riff, a song that closes the record and is on most Hendrix compilations. Winwood’s presence is interesting in that at one point there was talk of Hendrix forming a band with Winwood and Love’s Arthur Lee, though it never happened. According to Lee, it was to be called Band Aid, suggested by Hendrix. Lee liked the name and wound up using it on the album I mentioned in my overall preamble, Lee’s 1972 Hendrix-like solo album Vindicator, subtitled “With the group Band-Aid.”
My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list. Song clips also available on my Facebook page.
1. Wishbone Ash, The King Will Come
2. Bill Wyman, Every Sixty Seconds
3. Mick Taylor, Late At Night
4. Mick Taylor, Blind Willie McTell (Bob Dylan cover)
5. The Rolling Stones, Watching The River Flow (Bob Dylan cover)
6. Mark Knopfler, Boom, Like That
7. John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Bare Wires Suite
8. Spooky Tooth, Weird
9. Ian Hunter, Rain
10. Phil Collins, The Roof Is Leaking
11. Robert Palmer, Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley
12. Bruce Springsteen, Missing
13. Johnny and Edgar Winter, Baby, Watcha Want Me To Do (live)
14. Van Morrison, Take Me Back
My track-by-track tales:
1. Wishbone Ash, The King Will Come . . . Progressive rock from arguably the definitive Ash album, 1972’s Argus. Famous for the twin guitar attack of Andy Powell and Ted Turner that proved a big influence on Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden, and others. The song has a mythic, medieval feel, common to at least some British bands of the time and beyond, with lyrics that could be interpreted in a biblical or fantasy context.
2. Bill Wyman, Every Sixty Seconds . . . From the former/longtime Rolling Stones bassist’s second solo album, the 1976 release Stone Alone, a title he later used for his 1990 book about the band. It’s a lazy in a great way tune featuring Wyman on bass and guitar, Joe Walsh on slide guitar, Van the Man Morrison on harmonica and session drummer to the stars Jim Keltner. The album overall features a long list of musical luminaries of the time, and forever, like Dr. John, Bob Welch, Nicky Hopkins, Al Kooper and Ron Wood, among others.
3. Mick Taylor, Late At Night . . . Nice groove on this one from the former Rolling Stones’ guitarist’s 2000 release A Stone’s Throw. Some have suggested it could be a Steely Dan track in terms of sound and production, which I can see/hear. It’s an excellent jazz rock tune, written and sung by Taylor, that also features longtime Who collaborator John “Rabbit’ Bundrick on keyboards.
4. Mick Taylor, Blind Willie McTell (Bob Dylan cover) . . . This reinterpretation of the Dylan classic – it starts slow and bluesy before shifting into a harder-edged blues rocker two minutes into its near nine-minutes duration – is also from Taylor’s A Stone’s Throw album. Blind Willie McTell, recorded during the sessions for Dylan’s 1983 album Infidels that Taylor played on, wasn’t released until 1991 when it came out on Dylan’s The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. That was the first installment of what is now a 17-volume series. When it was revealed that Blind Willie McTell was an outtake from Infidels, the music world was perplexed as to why Dylan had decided to not include such a great track on the album. He later told interviewers that he didn’t think he “recorded it right” but in any event it was finally released and has since been placed on various Dylan compilations. I played it a few weeks ago as part of a blue/blues rock show.
5. The Rolling Stones, Watching The River Flow (Bob Dylan cover) . . . A Dylan tune that appeared on the Boogie 4 Stu tribute album to the late “sixth Stone” pianist Ian Stewart, who was originally in the band but then deemed not to have the right ‘look’ by management although Stewart continued to play on the group’s albums and most tours. Watching The River Flow is not an ‘official’ Stones’ release technically but the various band members past and present at the time were easily convinced to come together in studio or online in tribute to their cherished friend, who died of a heart attack at age 47 in 1985. The Boogie 4 Stu album, released in 2011 and featuring a variety of musicians, was assembled and coordinated by English pianist Ben Waters. He’s worked with the Stones including solo excursions by Ron Wood and Mick Taylor as well as Rod Stewart, Jeff Beck and The Kinks’ Ray Davies.
6. Mark Knopfler, Boom, Like That . . . Up-tempo tune from the former Dire Straits leader’s 2004 album Shangri-La, inspired by Knopfler’s reading of a book about McDonald’s entrepreneur Ray Kroc.
7. John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Bare Wires Suite (Bare Wires/Where Did I Belong/I Started Walking/Open Up A New Door/Fire/I Know Now/Look In The Mirror. . . Intoxicating extended trip from Mayall’s 1968 album Bare Wires which featured future Rolling Stone Mick Taylor on guitar. The various parts of the piece feature a host of approaches, mellow to heavy, over the 23 minutes.
8. Spooky Tooth, Weird . . . Non-album B-side to a 1968 single, Sunshine Help Me, which did not chart at least in North America. Weird is, apropos to its title, a moody, atmospheric, psychedelic piece featuring the eerie, hypnotic keyboard work of Gary Wright who later successfully went solo, achieving hit status via his 1975 Dream Weaver album which featured the title cut single along with Love Is Alive. Not on this track but two notables who later passed through Spooky Tooth lineups were Henry McCullough, guitarist/drummer with Paul McCartney’s Wings, and Mick Jones who went on to form Foreigner.
9. Ian Hunter, Rain . . . From 1981’s Short Back N’ Sides album from the former frontman for Mott The Hoople. Hunter was coming off a solo commercial sales rebirth via his excellent 1979 album You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic and followup live disc Welcome To The Club. He then released this equally excellent but somewhat different in sound album co-produced by The Clash’s Mick Jones (not the Foreigner guy) and Hunter’s perennial guitarist Mick Ronson. Topper Headon of The Clash is on drums with Ellen Foley of Meat Loaf, Clash and solo fame on backing vocals. It’s a somber and reflective tune with a touch of reggae influence, perhaps a nod, given who was producing, to various Clash tracks from the London Calling and Sandinista! albums of that period.
10. Phil Collins, The Roof Is Leaking . . . One of those deep cuts, this from Collins’ 1981 debut solo album, Face Value, that when I play it, as I did the other day as a possible show candidate, it immediately comes to mind as an ‘oh yeah, I remember this’ tune beyond the hits from that album – In The Air Tonight and I Missed Again. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, playing albums I have not played in eons, revisiting them, listening to them straight through and being rewarded by their enduring quality at least some of which I intend to keep passing on, via my show, as songs occur.
11. Robert Palmer, Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley . . . I got into Robert Palmer while in college through his 1979 album Secrets which featured hits/great songs like Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor) and riff-rocker Jealous, among many others. I followed him from then on but also went back to things like this earlier relative hit, the title cut from his 1974 debut album. It’s a great funky tune, written by Allen Toussaint of myriad musical genres fame, with Lowell George of Little Feat on guitar and in fact Palmer opens the album with Feat’s Sailin’ Shoes, written by George.
12. Bruce Springsteen, Missing . . . . Sparse, dark, haunting track written during the 1990s but finally officially released on a Springteeen album on the excellent 2003 compilation The Essential Bruce Springsteen. It’s on the limited edition 3-CD bonus disc on that album and also long available on the web. According to Springsteen’s own liner notes on the compilation, after writing it he played it for Sean Penn, who liked and used it in the 1995 movie The Crossing Guard which Penn wrote, directed and co-produced, starring Jack Nicholson.
13. Johnny and Edgar Winter, Baby, Watcha Want Me To Do (live) . . . A rousing 11-minute cover of the Jimmy Reed tune. Johnny’s typically great guitar teamed with Edgar’s sax and keyboard accents is compelling as the Winter brothers’ bands of the time combine forces on the ‘Together’ live album, released in 1976.
14. Van Morrison, Take Me Back . . . A typical Van The Man epic, this one from the Hymns To The Silence album, released in 1991. It’s another of those tracks where his vocalizations are so stirring and compelling. Nobody can repeat lines ‘take me back take me back take me back’ and not bore you but instead draw you further into the song, as Van can as on this musical trip through R & B, folk, pop, Celtic, rock and gospel. It’s a satisfying journey through the mystic, to paraphrase one of his song titles, that Morrison has always travelled.
At risk of being insensitive or seeming to make light of it, no renowned music artist died this past week, that I’m aware of, at least as of Thursday night and Friday morning as I prep the show. So, unlike the past two Saturdays when I played songs from The Band (RIP Garth Hudson) and Marianne Faithfull, no tribute set for this Saturday. That is, unless one looks at this three-album play, delayed for three weeks, as tribute to the following artists’ 1970s excellence. We have Elton John’s Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy from 1975, Pink Floyd’s 1977 album Animals and Who Do We Think We Are by Deep Purple, released in 1973. A commentary on each album appears below each record’s track list. Song clips also available on my Facebook page.
Elton John – Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy
1. Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy
2. Tower Of Babel
3. Bitter Fingers
4. Tell Me When The Whistle Blows
5. Someone Saved My Life Tonight
6. (Gotta Get A) Meal Ticket
7. Better Off Dead
8. Writing
9. We All Fall In Love Sometimes
10. Curtains
A concept album that traces the early careers of Elton John (Captain Fantastic) and lyricist Bernie Taupin (the Brown Dirt Cowboy) as they struggled to establish themselves in the music industry in late 1960s London. There’s loads of available literature on the album, which also works as a collection of individual songs, continuing the duo’s early to mid-1970s hot streak. And, like most EJ albums of that period – and many 1960s and ’70s albums – the so-called deep cuts are as strong as the singles. There was just one single released from the album, Someone Saved My Life Tonight. Two essential songs for me: Tell Me When The Whistle Blows and the title track.
Pink Floyd – Animals
1. Pigs On The Wing 1
2. Dogs
3. Pigs (Three Different Ones)
4. Sheep
5. Pigs On The Wing 2
A concept album about sociopolitical conditions in mid-1970s Great Britain, it doesn’t seem to get the universal critical acclaim of Pink Floyd albums like The Dark Side Of The Moon, Wish You Were Here or The Wall but it’s always been one of my favorites, and that of many fans, amid that run of albums that was predated by another winner, 1971’s Meddle. The album nicely brackets the three extended pieces with the opening and closing acoustic entries. The centrepiece for me is Pigs (Three Different Ones). It’s in part a diatribe against British morality crusader Mary Whitehouse, with aggressive musical accompaniment adding to the impact of the repeated refrain “ha ha, charade you are.”
Deep Purple – Who Do We Think We Are
1. Woman From Tokyo
2. Mary Long
3. Super Trouper
4. Smooth Dancer
5. Rat Bat Blue
6. Place In Line
7. Our Lady
The last album in the first go-around of the so-called Mark II version of Deep Purple that featured Ian Gillan (vocals), Ritchie Blackmore (guitar), Roger Glover (bass), Ian Paice (drums) and Jon Lord (keyboards). The guys who did Smoke On The Water, on Machine Head. That lineup reunited for two albums – Perfect Strangers and The House Of Blue Light – and, after another breakup, another album in the 1990s – The Battle Rages On – before Blackmore took permanent leave. Music critics seem to denigrate it, but most Purple fans I know like Who Do We Think We Are and if the band was in tatters in interpersonal terms and supposedly in musical terms, more bands should use that creative formula. And, of course, there are instances where such push and pull in a group setting results in compelling art.
How can an album with songs like opener Woman From Tokyo, Mary Long – another assault on Mary Whitehouse and fellow morality campaigner Lord Longford, four years before Roger Waters/Pink Floyd had at her – and others be deemed so flawed and not rate with Mark II’s other ’70s stuff? I don’t get it, but everyone hears things differently. Another great track, certainly lyrically, is Smooth Dancer. Gillan and Blackmore never got along, at least for very long, which often fueled Mark II’s breakups. However, they did make musical magic together and Smooth Dancer stands out as lyrically, Gillan takes shots at his rival, called ‘black suede’ in a reference to Blackmore’s clothing preferences. Interesting how Blackmore could play so well – or even not apparently raise a stink over such a song being on the album – given the subject matter. Granted, they didn’t necessarily have to be in studio at the same time but Blackmore would have seen/heard the lyrics, so he probably just didn’t care, which would fit his mercurial nature.
My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list. Song clips also available on my Facebook page.
1. The Rolling Stones, If You Can’t Rock Me
2. Uriah Heep, The Magician’s Birthday
3. Scorpions, Top Of The Bill (live, from Tokyo Tapes)
4. Iron Maiden, When The Wild Wind Blows
5. Judas Priest, Burn In Hell
6. Judas Priest, Invincible Shield
7. Arthur Lee, Stay Away From Evil
8. Jethro Tull, With You There To Help Me
9. Blodwyn Pig, San Francisco Sketches (Beach Scape/Fisherman’s Wharf/Telegraph Hill/I’m Falling Out Of The Room)
10. Tame Impala, Elephant
11. April Wine, Slow Poke
12. Savoy Brown, All I Can Do
13. Simon McBride (Deep Purple guitarist), One More Try
14. U2, Surrender
15. Free, Soon I Will Be Gone
16. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Maiden Voyage
My track-by-track tales:
1. The Rolling Stones, If You Can’t Rock Me . . . Energetic rocker with a great mid-song bass break, it’s the opening track on 1974’s It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll album, guitarist Mick Taylor’s last with the band after five fruitful years. He was replaced by Ronnie Wood, who was at least the inspiration if not an uncredited co-writer of the album’s title track, while still in the Faces but inexorably moving into the Stones’ orbit in large measure via his friendship with Keith Richards. The Stones effectively paired this with a rearranged Get Off Of My Cloud during their 1975-76 tours of North America and Europe – available on the 1977 live album Love You Live plus subsequent archival releases – but to my knowledge and research didn’t get back to If You Can’t Rock Me, on its own and well done, until the 2002 Licks tour celebrating the band’s 40th anniversary. They’ve since gone 20-plus years beyond that milestone.
2. Uriah Heep, The Magician’s Birthday . . . We begin a hard rock/metal segment of the set with this progressive 10-minutes and change title cut to the band’s 1973 album. The track shifts between mellow verses and powerful, heavy, what I term ‘galloping’ choruses including rat-a-tat drumming and great guitar soloing. The future members of Iron Maiden were obviously listening. We’ll get to Maiden in about seven minutes but first we’ll sting you with Scorpions.
3. Scorpions, Top Of The Bill (live, from Tokyo Tapes) . . . Originally a three and one half minute track on the 1975 studio album In Trance, this is the pile-driving live version, or at least more pile-driving than the studio song, at double the length, from Tokyo Tapes. The live set was released in 1978 featuring early Scorpions slabs of heavy rock/metal before they became more a pop-metal and power ballad hitmaking machine. A 2015 expanded re-release of the live album includes an 11-minute version of Top Of The Bill, recorded on the same tour that yielded Tokyo Tapes. That version is also available on YouTube if not various streaming services.
4. Iron Maiden, When The Wild Wind Blows . . . Eleven-minute epic from 2010’s The Final Frontier album. It’s one of Iron Maiden’s lengthy prog-metal excursions, something the band has always done but increasingly so later in its career. This track is loosely based on the 1982 nuclear war-themed graphic novel I’ve not read, titled When The Wind Blows.
5. Judas Priest, Burn In Hell . . . Dun, dun, dun, dun dun nun . . . hypnotic, ever-building opening guitar riff preceding all, er, hell breaking loose on this, my favorite track from the Tim (Ripper) Owens on lead vocals version of Priest. It’s from the 1997 album Jugulator, the first of two, Demolition in 2001 the other, released during the period singer Rob Halford left to pursue other projects including the short-lived thrash-metal outfit Fight.
6. Judas Priest, Invincible Shield . . . Smokin’, immediate, heavy riff rocking metal title cut from the 2024 album. It’s the fifth Priest studio platter, as Priest continues to pack a powerful punch, no treading water or resting on laurels, since Halford returned to the fold for the 2005 album Angel Of Retribution. I saw the reunion tour with Halford in 2004, before any new album was out, Slayer opened, great show by both bands.
7. Arthur Lee, Stay Away From Evil . . . Total change of direction into this toe-tapping bouncy funky wah wah guitar-laced groove tune from the band Love leader’s 1981 self-titled solo album. “I wrote the song about myself,” Love says in the album’s song-by-song liner notes. “It means just what it says, but then how can you?”
8. Jethro Tull, With You There To Help Me . . . Progressive folk-rock fusion might be how best to describe this track, and most of Tull’s material in general, aside from the first, blues-oriented album This Was. That album was so named because it ‘was’ Tull before the split between Ian Anderson and Tull’s first guitarist, blues-oriented Mick Abrahams, over musical direction. This is from the 1970 album Benefit which I’ve always thought of as a two-fer musical piece, stylistically flowing together with 1969’s Stand Up which introduced guitarist Martin Barre to the Tull team.
9. Blodwyn Pig, San Francisco Sketches (Beach Scape/Fisherman’s Wharf/Telegraph Hill/I’m Falling Out Of The Room) . . . . A multi-part suite, each offering a different mood while blending jazz, blues, and rock elements, from the band Mick Abrahams formed after leaving Jethro Tull. The song even features some flute, a seemingly obvious tip of the cap to Tull. San Francisco Sketches is from Getting To This, Blodwyn Pig’s 1970 release and second album, after debut Ahead Rings Out in 1969. Terrific name, Blodwyn Pig, Blodwyn being a Welsh name meaning fair, or white, flower. The band name was apparently coined by a stoned friend of the band.
10. Tame Impala, Elephant . . . Retro-psychedelic rock, great riff, could have come out in the 1960s but it’s actually from 2012 by the one-person (at least in studio) project Tame Impala, aka Australian singer and multi-instrumentalist Kevin Parker. I remember my older son mentioning Tame Impala some years ago and I got into the music for a while but, while I like it, it sort of just faded from my playlists until the other day when, rummaging around, I picked up a compilation CD from a 2012 issue of Classic Rock Magazine and, voila. Tame Impala has become worthy of reinvestigation, for me.
11. April Wine, Slow Poke . . . Bluesy ribald subject matter groove tune from the 1975 album Stand Back which featured the hit single Tonite Is A Wonderful Time To Fall In Love. I was generally more an April Wine compilation collector until the 1977 album Live At The El Mocambo, taken from the famous (or infamous) Toronto club shows April Wine opened for The Rolling Stones, and that April Wine live album is actually where I first heard Slow Poke.
12. Savoy Brown, All I Can Do . . . Lengthy, soulful blues rock track, nearly 11 minutes, from the band’s 1971 Street Corner Talking album. As always, it features the sterling guitar playing of the late Kim Simmonds, who I saw live with Savoy Brown at the 2013 Kitchener Blues Festival.
13. Simon McBride, One More Try . . . Gary Moore-like blues rock ballad, when Moore did blues rock as opposed to his forays into hard rock and metal, and another one I pulled from that Classic Rock Magazine compilation CD I found lying around via which I rediscovered Tame Impala. This is from McBride’s 2012 solo album Crossing The Line. As of 2022, he’s Deep Purple’s new permanent guitarist, having replaced Steve Morse. Morse temporarily left Deep Purple to tend to his ailing wife, who has sadly since passed, with McBride taking over on tour until Morse decided to leave permanently, saying he was ‘handing over the keys to the vault” to McBride who, the always classy Morse added, had ‘nailed’ the Purple gig. That was confirmed by a friend of mine who saw Purple last summer and was impressed by McBride’s playing which had its first studio outing with Purple on the band’s 2024 release = 1.
14. U2, Surrender . . . Great song with a terrific rhythmic groove, from the 1983 album War, U2’s third studio release and one that arguably truly broke them big, featuring such hits as New Year’s Day and Sunday Bloody Sunday. Playing it for the show is a classic case, for me, anyway, of rediscovering a song after not having played an album in ages. As soon as it started I was “oh, yeah, I remember this.” Someone on YouTube put it this way and it would be difficult for me to provide a better analysis, so here’s his: “Every great album has at least one or two songs that weren’t a commercial hit, but add to the feel, acts as connective tissue, and gives an album substance and style. This is one of those songs.” Well put.
15. Free, Soon I Will Be Gone . . . And soon this show will be over, one song to go after this one, a beautiful ballad from the 1970 album Highway as I prepare to hit the road home.
16. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Maiden Voyage . . . A cover of the 1965 Herbie Hancock tune that’s become a jazz standard, blending BS & T’s typical jazz and rock elements and recorded for the band’s 1972 studio release New Blood. The album indeed represented new blood for the band, with lead singer David Clayton Thomas having gone solo although he later returned for a few more 1970s BS & T albums. Clayton Thomas was replaced by R & B singer Jerry Fisher on New Blood and other albums, although Maiden Voyage is an instrumental.
I had a show ready to go, then on Thursday came news that Marianne Faithfull had died. So, my show instead is a tribute to Rolling Stones’ frontman Mick Jagger’s 1960s girlfriend Faithfull who was a great artist in her own right, particularly long after leaving the Stones’ orbit.
That was evident on her return to prominence brilliant 1979 album Broken English which fit with the punk/new wave ethos of that time and was the first in a hot streak trilogy of the albums Broken English, Dangerous Acquaintances and A Child’s Adventure into the mid-1980s. The Broken English album in particular and subsequent releases featured her, well, broken english by booze, cigarettes and substance abuse voice. It was a far cry from the sweet sounds of her 1960s material like the Stones’ As Tears Go By, such that she came across as an entirely new artist, possessed by the passage of time and life experience as one of character and authenticity.
So, I’m playing the entire Broken English album plus assorted tracks, covers and otherwise, from throughout Faithfull’s career. Additional commentary after the bare-bones list. Song clips also available on my Facebook page.
Marianne Faithfull – Broken English
1. Broken English
2. Witches’ Song
3. Brain Drain
4. Guilt
5. The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
6. What’s The Hurry?
7. Working Class Hero . . . John Lennon cover, brilliantly done.
8. Why D’Ya Do It . . . last but not least, the essential centerpiece of the album, a vitriolic rant over a lover’s infidelity.
——————
9. House Of The Rising Sun
10. The Blue Millionaire (extended 8:23 minute version)
11. A Stranger On Earth
12. Strange Weather
13. Falling From Grace
14. I’m A Loser (Beatles cover)
15. As Tears Go By
16. Intrigue
17. Reason To Believe (Tim Hardin cover)
18. For Beauty’s Sake
19. Sister Morphine (1969 version)
20. Sister Morphine (1979 version)
21. Running For Our Lives
22. Sweetheart
23. Bored By Dreams
24. Truth Bitter Truth
25. Monday Monday (The Mamas And The Papas cover)
——————
My track tales, outside of the Broken English album already covered:
9. House Of The Rising Sun . . . From 1964, Marianne Faithfull’s take on the traditional song done by so many but arguably most notably by The Animals.
10. The Blue Millionaire (extended 8:23 minute version) . . . A shorter version was released on the 1983 album A Child’s Adventure. This is the extended 12-inch vinyl single later also released on the excellent 2-CD compilation Marianne Faithfull A Perfect Stranger: The Island Anthology released on Island Records in 1998.
11. A Stranger On Earth . . . A heartfelt, hurtin’ torch song from her 1987 album Strange Weather.
12. Strange Weather . . . And the title cut from that album, similar vein. Among the luminaries on the album: Dr. John and the recently departed Garth Hudson of The Band fame – who I honored last week via a Band song set – on piano and accordion, respectively.
13. Falling From Grace . . . From that hot streak trio of albums I mentioned once Faithfull returned to prominence late 1970s – Broken English, Dangerous Acquaintances and A Child’s Adventure. This one’s from 1983’s A Child’s Adventure.
14. I’m A Loser . . . Her 1965 cover of The Beatles’ tune, with Faithfull’s then-pristine, beautiful voice carrying it to great effect.
15. As Tears Go By . . . Not her original cover of the song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, which became (to them) an unexpected hit, No. 9 on the UK charts, such that they then quickly recorded it as a Rolling Stones track and made No. 6. What I’m playing, though, is Faithfull’s more haunting version from her Strange Weather album, released in 1987.
16. Intrigue . . . From Dangerous Acquaintances, the 1981 followup to 1979’s Broken English and critically panned, relatively speaking, even by Faithfull herself at the time as it apparently was a difficult recording due to conflicts among the various musicians yet . . . How can an album featuring a compelling ‘lost love’ song like this plus others like Sweetheart, For Beauty’s Sake and Truth Bitter Truth be anything but terrific?
17. Reason To Believe . . . Back to 1967 we go for this Tim Hardin classic also memorably done by Rod Stewart on his 1971 album Every Picture Tells A Story.
18. For Beauty’s Sake . . . Up tempo number from the Dangerous Acquaintances album, a track co-written by Faithfull and Steve Winwood of Traffic/Blind Faith and solo fame.
19. Sister Morphine . . . Faithfull’s original 1969 version, co-written with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, later to appear as a Stones’ track on their 1971 album Sticky Fingers.
20. Sister Morphine . . . And her 1979 version, recorded during the sessions for the Broken English album and later reworked and released in this studio version on the 1998 compilation A Perfect Stranger: The Island Anthology.
21. Running For Our Lives . . . From the 1983 album A Child’s Adventure, it’s always been one of my favorite Faithfull tracks.
22. Sweetheart . . . Back to Dangerous Acquaintances we go.
23. Bored By Dreams . . . A pulsating rock tune, great drumming by various session players, from Faithfull’s 1995 album A Secret Life.
24. Truth Bitter Truth . . . Another of my favorite Faithfull tracks, from Dangerous Acquaintances.
25. Monday Monday . . . Marianne’s 1967 cover of The Mamas & the Papas’ hit as I look ahead to my Monday show, coming up on February 3, 8-10 pm ET.
