Song clips also available on my Facebook page. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. The Clash, The Magnificent Seven
2. Television, Torn Curtain
3. Little Feat, Texas Twister
4. Steve Miller Band, Serenade From The Stars aka Serenade
5. Deep Purple, Birds Of Prey
6. Lou Reed, Street Hassle
7. Patti Smith, Are You Experienced?
8. Jimi Hendrix, 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)
9. Andrew Stockdale, Meridian
10. John Lennon, Steel And Glass
11. The Rolling Stones with Lady Gaga, Sweet Sounds Of Heaven
12. Boz Scaggs, Harbor Lights
13. Bonnie Raitt, Guilty
14. Steve Winwood, Spanish Dancer
15. Blind Faith, Do What You Like
16. Funkadelic, Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow
My track-by-track tales:
1. The Clash, The Magnificent Seven . . . The Clash were often billed as ‘the only band that matters’ – I recall that being a sticker on my original vinyl copy of the London Calling album – and for the period of time between the release of that worldwide commercial breakthrough album in 1979 through Sandinista! in 1980 and Combat Rock in 1982, for me, they essentially were.
I still was into the Beatles and Stones and so on – in defiance of The Clash’s lyrics for the song 1977 “No Elvis, Beatles, or The Rolling Stones in 1977” to which I enjoyed Mick Jagger’s riposte “Keith Richards is the original punk rocker. You can’t really out-punk keith – it’s a useless gesture.” – but had become major into The Clash and all the new wave and punk rock of that time to the point where one of my younger brothers took a look at my record collection and said ‘what’s happened to you?’ lol, to which I replied, ‘nothing, outside of going to college, among other things, expanding my horizons, try it, you might like it” while he went back to his Stones, Elton John and KISS albums.
I think what really did my brother in was the sight of me owning Haircut 100 and Fabulous Poodles albums and such and when I think and/or listen back on it, he may have been on the right track there. Those infatuations didn’t last long – but The Clash did, for me. Meantime, bands like The Clash later admitted to their admiration for and inspiration taken from groups like the Stones that they criticized, partly at least tongue in cheek, in songs such as 1977.
As for The Magnificent Seven, of course an old movie title not sure the song had anything to do with, the flick featuring Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen that served as the title to the opening cut on Sandinista! It was the sprawling 3-album vinyl set that came out in 1980 and featured The Clash in all their by then rock/reggae/dub/rap/funk/terrifically cynical lyrics glory.
“Ring! Ring! It’s 7:00 A.M.!
Move y’self to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place . . . ”
“Weather man and the crazy chief
One says sun and one says sleet . . . ”
“Gimme Honda, Gimme Sony
So cheap and real phony
Hong Kong dollars and Indian cents
English pounds and Eskimo pence . . . ”
they’d never get away with, or at least would be censured if not outright censored for, such politically incorrect lyrics nowadays.
“So get back to work an’ sweat some more
The sun will sink an’ we’ll get out the door
It’s no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You’re frettin’, you’re sweatin’
But did you notice you ain’t gettin’? . . . ”
“Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi
Went to the park to check on the game
But they was murdered by the other team
Who went on to win fifty-nil
You can be true, you can be false
You be given the same reward
Socrates and Milhous Nixon
Both went the same way – through the kitchen
Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin
Who’s more famous to the billion millions?
News Flash: Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Up Budgie
Oooohh…bub-bye
Magnificence!!”
Truly magnificent. Great band. And maybe/probably that’s enough verbose commentary for one song, enough for my entire set, but there’s 15 more to go!
2. Television, Torn Curtain . . . I thought of playing this, from Television’s Marquee Moon album (and a great song, that title cut, which I’ve played before on the show) because I was going through all the “I’ll get to it, eventually” shows/movies/documentaries I’ve recorded on my PVR and I have an Alfred Hitchcock movie, Torn Curtain, on my list. It’s a spy movie from 1966. It stars the great actor Paul Newman, but it’s considered by critics to be not up to Hitchock’s usual standard and I’ve seen most if not all of Hitchcock’s classics but I have not seen Torn Curtain so I was curious and recorded it but I’ll reserve judgment until viewed. As for Torn Curtain, the song: A haunting, spooky track, starts with a quick drum roll then into melancholic lyrics – “I’m uncertain when beauty meets abuse, torn curtain loves all ridicule” underscored by stirring guitar work on a seven-minute trip. As I’ve mentioned before, Marquee Moon is a critically acclaimed album I tried several times and never ‘got’ until one day some years ago I happened to be in a used CD store, the title track was playing and, suddenly, I was sold. Funny how music can work that way.
3. Little Feat, Texas Twister . . . From the reconstituted Little Feat that, post-leader Lowell George’s death in 1979, re-emerged in 1988 with most of the key members of the original band still on board for the album and title cut hit single Let It Roll. At the time, I’d barely been aware that Little Feat was back but picked up their trail upon hearing on the radio this uptempo boogie rock toe-tapping minor hit single from the 1990 followup album Representing The Mambo. I eventually saw Little Feat live at a club in Hamilton, Ontario during the summer of 2004; great show.
4. Steve Miller Band, Serenade From The Stars aka Serenade . . . Sometimes you see it listed as Serenade, sometimes as Serenade From The Stars. In any event, this spacey song appeared on Miller’s 1976 hit album Fly Like An Eagle and, although not a big hit single, made the cut for his ubiquitous, massively-selling 1978 compilation Greatest Hits 1974-78. I was reminded of it when I threw another Miller compilation, the 2-CD Ultimate Hits, into the car player during some recent runnings around.
5. Deep Purple, Birds Of Prey . . . One of my favorite bands, Deep Purple has been doing some terrific late-career music, particularly since hooking up with producer Bob Ezrin for the 2013 studio album Now What?! and four more albums since including the 2024 release = 1 with new guitarist Simon McBride. He replaced Steve Morse, whose great work is featured on this sort of psychedelic/progressive rocker from the 2017 album Infinite. Morse – with Purple for eight studio sets since the 1996 release Purpendicular – left the group on good terms as he departed to care for his then-ill wife Janine who, sadly, subsequently died, with McBride at first replacing Morse on tour and then permanently. Ezrin, meantime, is well known for his work with Alice Cooper, particularly during Cooper’s 1970s heyday, and Pink Floyd including The Wall album, among many other credits.
6. Lou Reed, Street Hassle . . . Eleven-minute title track to Reed’s 1978 album exploring, arguably, the seedy sides – depending upon one’s point of view – of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
7. Patti Smith, Are You Experienced? . . . Smith is rightly renowned for her albums Horses and Easter, among others, but right up there, for me, is her 2007 covers album Twelve (for the number of songs; thirteen if you count a bonus track on some copies, not mine) from which I pulled this haunting Hendrix cover. Among the other songs on the set, some of which I’ve played on previous shows, are the Stones’ Gimme Shelter, The Beatles’ Within You Without You, Bob Dylan’s Changing Of The Guards, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit.
8. Jimi Hendrix, 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) . . . A sprawling, 13-minute psychedelic masterpiece from the Electric Ladyland album, released in October, 1968. It’s a quite remarkable piece of music incorporating all Hendrix blessed us with in terms of riff rock, psychedelia, funk, soul and so on, as I’ve been reminded while playing it while writing these commentary notes. So much so that I’m now tempted to play the entire Electric Ladyland album on one of my Saturday morning ‘album play’ shows.
9. Andrew Stockdale, Meridian . . . Typical riff rocker from Wolfmother’s leader, aka essentially he who is Wolfmother as the songwriting brains behind the operation, from his 2013 solo album Keep Moving. It was originally to be a Wolfmother album but became a Stockdale set after various personnel changes in the band. Stockdale/Wolfmother are essentially one and the same and if you’re not aware of the artist, I refer you to my eldest musician son’s somewhat dismissive assessment when the first Wolfmother album, and a good one, came out in 2005: “Dad, it’s (Led) Zeppelin”. It was a fun chat during which I recall replying, “yup but so what, I can still enjoy it” which I still do.
10. John Lennon, Steel And Glass . . . Spooky cool brooding stuff from the 1974 album Walls And Bridges, a record that featured the hit single Whatever Gets You Thru The Night.
11. The Rolling Stones with Lady Gaga, Sweet Sounds Of Heaven . . . Great gospel type tune from the 2023 album Hackney Diamonds that many – and I agree – think is akin to songs like Let It Loose or Shine A Light and could have fit on those songs’ parent 1972 album Exile On Main St. It features Lady Gaga’s dueling vocal performance with Mick Jagger. It’s perhaps interesting in that I don’t listen to Lady Gaga’s original music much if at all yet I know about her and, as with, say, Taylor Swift, I respect them both because they actually write and play instruments in addition to performing so to me they have credibility even if their material is not to my taste, though I have sampled it. It’s akin I suppose to Norah Jones, a great artist in her own right who I also don’t listen to much. A female friend gave me an album of hers as a gift years ago, but I prefer Jones in the co-lead vocal she did with Keith Richards on the song Illusion from Richards’ most recent solo release, the 2015 album Crosseyed Heart.
Sweet Sounds Of Heaven, also featuring Stevie Wonder on keyboards and synthesizer, was a single and a hit to some degree, depending on whatever chart one consults in our multi-platform world. The song has a false ending 5:10 in which is when the single edit ends but it goes on for two more minutes of Jagger/Gaga vocal vamping on the album version.
12. Boz Scaggs, Harbor Lights . . . Hauntingly smooth jazzy jam love song from the 1977 Silk Degrees album. That record brought Boz – who had previously been in the early blues rock/psychedelic version of the Steve Miller Band and sessions with Duane Allman on songs like the lengthy blues track Loan Me A Dime I’ve previously played – to solo prominence and widespread recognition via the hit singles Lowdown and Lido Shuffle.
13. Bonnie Raitt, Guilty . . . A tender, heart-wrenching cover of a Randy Newman song about relationships and the human condition, from Raitt’s 1973 album Takin’ My Time, long before she became a major hit artist, and deservedly so, in the late 1980s.
14. Steve Winwood, Spanish Dancer . . . From Winwood’s 1980 release Arc Of A Diver, a true solo work where this brilliant artist of Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith and solo fame played every instrument – guitar, bass, drums, keyboards – in addition to producing the album.
15. Blind Faith, Do What You Like . . . Long, always interesting musically, jam from the supergroup’s – Winwood, lead vocals, guitar, keyboards, Eric Clapton guitar, Ginger Baker drums, Ric Grech bass – one and only studio album, the self-titled release that came out in 1969.
16. Funkadelic, Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow . . . Extended acid rock/psychedelic song featuring the guitar playing of Eddie Hazel on this title cut from the band’s second studio album, released in July, 1970.