1. The J. Geils Band, (Ain’t Nothin’ But A) House Party (live) . . . “We are gonna blow your face out!’ is singer Peter Wolf’s intro to this song, giving the live album from whence it came, its name. And they did. As always, J. Geils Band best served live via this album, the earlier Full House and the later, less-renowned but very fine, Showtime! There’s also a great latter day from the archives CD release of a Rockpalast show from Germany, plus of course various songs and gigs available online at YouTube and elsewhere.

2. Bruce Springsteen, Independence Day . . . It’s July 4. Of course I’d play this, for my American friends in what is a sort of Can-Am show, given that Canada Day kicked off the weekend.

3. John Mellencamp, Justice and Independence ’85 . . . And this, re Independence Day, title-wise, anyway.

4. The Tragically Hip, Yawning Or Snarling . . . A brooding track from 1994’s somewhat dark Day For Night album.

5. Rush, Jacob’s Ladder . . . From Permanent Waves, it embodies the progressive side of Rush on an album that to some was a move away from that aspect of the band to tighter, more commercial songs – which ironically is what they started with before drummer Neil Peart joined the band after the first album.

6. Ted Nugent, Writing On The Wall . . . A then relatively unknown Meat Loaf handles lead vocals on this one, from the 1976 album Free-For-All. A year later, Meat Loaf unleashed Bat Out of Hell on the world while Nugent carried on with albums and songs like Cat Scratch Fever.

7. The Beach Boys, Hang On To Your Ego . . . Alternate version and original title of I Know There’s An Answer, from Pet Sounds. Written by Brian Wilson about an acid trip, the lyrics were rewritten after singer Mike Love refused to sing it as originally presented due to his objections to drug use. Space doesn’t permit, but it’s worth reading about the song which, musically, I like in both versions.

8. The Doors, Waiting For The Sun . . . Another of those songs, like Sheer Heart Attack by Queen, or Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin, where an apparent title cut isn’t on the album in question but is placed on a later album. Waiting For The Sun, the song, appeared on Morrison Hotel, two years and two albums after Waiting For The Sun, the album. Houses of the Holy was originally recorded for that album, which was released in 1973, but the song was shelved because at the time it was thought to be too similar to other tracks, like Dancing Days, on that album. Sheer Heart Attack, originally intended for that album in 1974, was unfinished so was delayed until the News of the World album in 1977.

9. Aerosmith, Bone To Bone (Coney Island Whitefish Boy) . . . Coney Island is where the annual US Independence Day hot-dog eating contest is held so, in keeping with my somewhat Can-Am theme today, here’s the Aerosmith tune from the raucous Night In The Ruts album.

10. Led Zeppelin, Hot Dog . . . Speaking of hot dogs, here’s Zep in fun rockabilly mode from In Through The Out Door.

11. The Guess Who, Orly . . . A fairly successful single, it made No. 21 in Canada in 1973 although it’s arguably relatively underplayed, if not at the time certainly by now when all you’ll likely hear on classic rock stations by The Guess Who is Undun, American Woman and No Time. I happened to be listening to it a while ago on a Guess Who personal compilation I made of hits, lesser hits and album tracks, so decided to play it. Good tune and another indication of how Burton Cummings is one of those distinctively great singers whose voice is an instrument in itself, more than that of most vocalists outside of people like, say, Van Morrison.

12. FM, Black Noise . . . Prog/space rock, this 10-minute title cut from the debut album, in 1978 of the Canadian band from whence Nash The Slash came.

13. Eric Clapton, Mean Old Frisco . . . Cover of the Arthur (Big Boy) Crudup blues track that Clapton cut for his 1977 release, Slowhand.

14. Peter Tosh, Legalize It . . . Tosh won, though he didn’t live to see pot being legalized in many countries by now. Title cut from his 1976 album.

     

15. David Wilcox, Blood Money . . . I played What’s The Buzz/Strange Thing Mystifying from the 1970 Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack last week, resulting in me playing this track this week. Why? Because of how my mind works. One of the songs on the JC Superstar record is Damned For All Time/Blood Money, where Judas, performed outstandingly by Murray Head, is tormented by his coming betrayal of Christ. And that track was under my consideration for last week’s show. I didn’t play it, as it’s so difficult for me to choose from that amazing soundtrack. It stuck in my mind, though, hence the Wilcox tune, if that makes sense. It does to me.

16. Steve Miller Band, Baby’s House . . . Miller is deservedly well known for his irresistibly catchy big hits of the 1970s starting with The Joker and proceeding through the Fly Like An Eagle and Book of Dreams albums that made him a fixture on top 40 radio. But his earlier, progressive/psychedelic and bluesy stuff, like this extended piece from 1969’s Your Saving Grace album, is equally compelling in its own way, and it’s as if by a completely different artist.

17. Bobbie Gentry, Apartment 21 . . . I only played this because she references my favorite band, The Rolling Stones, in the lyrics. No, not really. It’s just another cool cut by an artist who is fascinating to me and many. A woman known of course for her amazing 1967 hit song Ode To Billie Joe but she was so much more, such great music but more importantly a woman who took charge of her own career during a time when it wasn’t a woman’s place to, for the most part, write, produce and record her own material. Gentry did so, was a star for a while, then did another cool thing – she essentially disappeared off the face of the earth, having had enough of that life.

18. The Band, Back To Memphis . . . A live cover of the Chuck Berry tune that appeared on the now out of print double-CD To Kingdom Come compilation, although this version of the tune is available on YouTube and other online avenues. I already had this in my show but it’s interesting in that later, after my planning was done, a buddy of mine over the weekend sent me a shot of his day 1 of vacation fun, a glass of of some sort of whiskey, can’t remember what, probably Scotch of some sort after a séance (inside joke) sitting beside his turntable while playing a Chuck Berry album. This friend of mine is often an inspiration as our music chats tweak my brain to things but don’t tell him because then he’ll start or keep offering more and more suggestions to which I then have to put my foot down and say, yeah, thanks but it’s my show, I’ll put it under advisement, I’ve probably already thought of it so shut up and leave me alone to create.

19. The Rolling Stones, Crazy Mama . . . Great Stones ‘belter’ as saying goes, or at least I read from a rock critic once, from Black and Blue. As often mentioned here, it’s a diverse and excellent album trashed upon release now considered a classic, but albums age like fine wine, as Keith Richards has said and he’s right. Many of the critics who originally carved Black and Blue to pieces now rank it as at least a 4 out of 5.

20. Steppenwolf, Renegade . . . Great tune, lyrics about lead singer John Kay’s fleeing, with his mother, his dad having been killed during World War II, from the then East Germany and the Iron Curtain of Soviet oppression in 1949. Previous to that, in 1945, Kay and his mother had fled the advancing Soviet troops, not knowing then that where they wound up would fall under the Iron Curtain. Eventually, of course, he settled in Canada, moved to California and Steppenwolf was born.

21. The Allman Brothers Band, It’s Not My Cross To Bear . . . Gregg Allman-penned blues cut from the debut album that, unless one knew Allman wrote it, could easily be misconstrued as another brilliant cover of the many blues artists the Allmans rightfully worshipped and were inspired by. As Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones has said, perhaps the best thing that an artist can do, or the best that can be said about an artist, is that ‘they passed it on’. Message received, by the Allmans, proven by this track, and then they obviously passed on their own genius.

22. The Doobie Brothers, I Cheat The Hangman . . . Great stuff from the Stampede album, well before the Michael McDonald schlock stuff set in. That said, and I’ve always said, McDonald is a brilliant artist who saved the band in the late 1970s by stepping in on lead vocals as founding member Tom Johnston’s health faltered. And his Takin’ It To The Streets remains one of my favorite Doobies tracks. After that, they went schlock but like Chicago in similar fashion, were more commercially successful but mostly to a new audience as the old guard fans abandoned their new sound. The Doobies have been back together for some time, with both Johnston and McDonald in the band, touring and releasing new studio albums, the most recent in 2021. The music is a sort of hybrid between the earlier, rockier Johnston-led sound and the later soulful stuff with McDonald. Decent, to me. But not worth me buying. Good thing the internet exists.

23. Paice Ashton Lord, Ghost Story . . . Cool track from the one and only album, 1977’s Malice In Wonderland, by this short-lived one-off offshoot of Deep Purple, featuring drummer Ian Paice and keyboard player Jon Lord along with singer/keyboardist Tony Ashton. Although not credited in the band name, soon to be Whitesnake member Bernie Marsden is the album’s guitarist as the family tree of Deep Purple expanded in various ways to include Rainbow, Whitesnake and Gillan/The Ian Gillan band. Nazareth, meantime, later used the same album title for its 1980 release that featured the hit Holiday.

1. Jesus Christ Superstar A Rock Opera (various artists, 1970 version), What’s the Buzz/Strange Thing Mystifying . . . Ian Gillan of Deep Purple fame as Jesus, Murray Head as Judas, Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene, etc including Mike D’Abo – who wrote (and sang) the classic Handbags and Gladrags as brilliantly interpreted by Rod Stewart – as King Herod and the late Spooky Tooth, Grease Band and Paul McCartney and Wings guitarist Henry McCullough. Fantastic, timeless album, one of my all-time favorites by anyone.

2. Max Webster, Battle Scar . . . I wanted to play a Rush song this week, and a Max Webster tune. So in the end, I combine the two – all three members of Rush – singer/bassist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart – helping out on this wonderfully heavy track from Max’s Universal Juveniles album.

3. The J. Geils Band, Sanctuary . . . Take It Back was the single from the Sanctuary album, was hailed by critics but naturally for Geils during their brilliant but pre-hit 1970s days it did nothing on the charts. Perhaps they should have released the title cut, a much better song – tougher, grittier, better groove – in my opinion.

4. Elton John, Tower Of Babel . . . I must subconsciously be into various forms of religious or spiritual imagery today given I’ve delved into Jesus Christ (Superstar) and now the Tower of Babel. I’m actually a-religious or, in the fun phrase I’ve long since stolen from an old friend, a recovering/recovered Catholic but in any event, been meaning to get back to some Elton John the last few weeks but haven’t managed to, until now. From Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirty Cowboy. Next week? Maybe Medley: Yell Help/Wednesday Night/Ugly from Rock of the Westies, which a good friend of mine raved about to me on a text trip down memory lane last week. To which I replied, yeah, thanks bud, all good, played it before, does not preclude of course me playing it again. But, if I do I’ll have to, as is my custom, regale and/or bore readers and listeners with my tales of tough workouts with football teammates in the high school weightlifting gym where Rock of the Westies was one of just three albums we had to play, and endlessly did – the other two being a Stones’ compilation, Through The Past, Darkly (Big Hits, Vol. II) and a Beatles’ US Capitol Records compilation, Something New. Or, I may ignore Elton John altogether next week, just to piss my friend off – the likely scenario.

5. Spooky Tooth, Fantasy Satisfier . . . Rocker from The Mirror album in 1974, after which the band split (only to later reunite, of course, as bands do) with guitarist Mick Jones (not the Clash’s Mick Jones) going on to form Foreigner while Gary Wright went solo to big success with the Dream Weaver album and title cut single, along with Love Is Alive.

6. Eric Burdon & War, Pretty Colors . . . What a combination of talents that gave us the funky, soulful albums Eric Burdon Declares War and The Black Man’s Burdon, this one from the latter record.

7. Billy Joel, Travelin’ Prayer . . . What a great banjo-fueled kick-butt country/bluegrass tune, a single that went relatively nowhere, didn’t crack the top 50 anywhere, from Joel’s 1974 Piano Man album which of course yielded his first big single, the title cut. That said, maybe surprisingly because it’s so well known, but Piano Man made ‘just’ No. 25 but that’s actually true of many hit singles people tend to assume made No. 1 when they didn’t, although they were major hits and naturally the artists who wrote or performed them include them in their concert sets.

8. Chris Whitley, Narcotic Prayer . . . Whitley did a 180 on his second album, Din of Ecstacy. He pivoted from the brilliant acoustic blues rock of his debut, Living With The Law in favor of the grungy guitar attack of the appropriately-titled Din. Critics disparaged it, I like it. But I’m like that with artists I like, appreciate and admire. I’ll travel with their muses, if and until they lose me, which rarely happens.

9. The Guess Who, Friends Of Mine (alternate version) . . . This is the alternate, about a minute longer, darker lyrically version of the 10-minute Doors-inspired cut that appeared on Wheatfield Soul. It’s terrific psychedelic stuff, un-Guess Who like if all one knows of The Guess Who are their brilliant singles. They were brilliant in long-form material, too. This is from the outakes, demos and other early stuff release, The Guess Who? This Time Long Ago compilations that came out in 2001.

10. Budgie, Breaking All The House Rules . . . Typically great extended rocker from the brilliant but, sales wise, underappreciated if influential Welsh wonders.

11. T Bone Burnett, Trap Door . . . Title cut from an EP the noted producer but a great artist in his own right released in 1982. Great lyrics.

12. The Beatles, Savoy Truffle . . . Came upon this one while searching for Savoy Brown songs. The George Harrison-penned Beatles’ track from the White Album, about Eric Clapton’s sweet tooth, came up in the computer system, I listened to it again for first time in long time and, yeah. So, I’m playing it.

13. Joni Mitchell, The Reoccurring Dream . . . About the shallowness of consumerism. Mitchell apparently pieced it together by recording TV commercials for two weeks. The track appeared on her 1988 album Chalk Mark In A Rain Storm and she put it on her “Misses” deep cuts self-selected compilation that accompanied her “Hits’ release in 1996.

14. Saga, Book Of Lies . . . From my hometown of Oakville, Ontario comes Saga, a Canadian band somewhat in the vein of, say, Rush yet not nearly as successful although, given their progressive rock stylings, Saga has been hugely popular in various European countries, Germany in particular. And Puerto Rico, go figure. This track, from their 2007 release 10,000 Days (yes, they’re still at it) is a fine combination of prog and rock elements including great guitar soloing by Ian Crichton.

15. Savoy Brown, Money Can’t Save Your Soul . . . Thought I’d forgotten about Savoy Brown when I mentioned them a while back, during my Beatles’ song commentary, didn’t you? It is to laugh. I have a great memory and creative mind if one permits me some bullshit arrogance, with a twinkle in my eye, of course. Anyway, one of my favorite Savoy songs, with obvious relationship-resonating lyrics for anyone, depending on one’s own circumstances.

16. Marianne Faithfull, The Blue Millionaire (extended version) . . . Eight-plus minute version of the 5-mins and change track that originally appeared on her 1983 album A Child’s Adventure. I’m forever fascinated by the creative process, given I create, in a manner of speaking, myself. It’s just interesting how many song forms there are that are appealing, like this hypnotic song, no real chorus or hook, arguably like some Dylan trips, yet all so compelling for that fact.

17. Concrete Blonde, Walking In London . . . Haven’t played Concrete Blonde in a while but, thankfully, stumbled upon the band in my usual prepping show trip through songs I’ve loaded into the station’s computer system. I can never get enough of Johnette Napolitano’s powerhouse, sexy, sultry and seductive vocals. For evidence, check out the transition at the 1:11 mark of this spooky title cut from the band’s 1992 album, then again at 3:27 – Desire!! Why this band wasn’t bigger than their one brief moment in the sun, 1990’s Bloodletting album and the single Joey, is one of music’s mysteries. Napolitano now apparently lives quietly in California, composing music for films, working as a gallery artist and tending to horses.

18. Family, Between Blue and Me . . . Love the somewhat tortured vocals by guitarist and band leader Roger Chapman. John Wetton, before becoming a longtime member of King Crimson and Asia with pit stops in Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep and Roxy Music, handles bass and background vocals duties. Which reminds me, as I keep trying to remind myself, about time I got back to some Wishbone Ash. We’ll see. As I often say, in just two hours per week, so much music, so little time. But eventually I get to all I want to get to. Usually, given all the myriad show ideas that run through my undisciplined mind.

19. Pete Townshend, Time Is Passing . . . It is indeed, isn’t it, time passing I mean. From Townshend’s first solo album, 1972’s Who Came First. Terrific stuff, but then most Townshend tunes are, Who or otherwise.

20. The Moody Blues, Eternity Road . . . Another band I’ve been trying to fit in over the last few weeks and finally today is their time. Overdue. Sounds crazy, perhaps, in terms of fitting songs into the two-hour slot, ie just put the damn things in but easier said than done. Why? Because you have thoughts in mind, you plug songs in, others come up and it’s like, yeah, haven’t played/heard that in a while either and before you know it, given the flow of the show or even if there’s no deliberate flow, you’re soon at 22-26 songs which typically is the two-hour song length, and it’s on to the next week which I always ‘push ahead’, to be filtered, or not, for the next show. Enough pseudo-creative babble. Ride on to the next track.

21. The Rolling Stones, Ride On, Baby . . . From the Flowers compilation which my older sister owned which, along with Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass) she also owned, is how I got into what became and remains and always will be my favorite band. She was, as all young people were then, major into The Beatles and, slightly less so, the Stones and also The Monkees (whereas big brother was the Zep, Tull, Hendrix, Cream, Purple etc. influence and glad for it). And, beating Billy Idol’s Dancing With Myself by many years, my sister went dancing with herself to the various albums she owned. You should have seen her going, in 1971, to Led Zep’s Misty Mountain Hop which I’ve mentioned before but anyway . . . I’ll always remember her ‘rating’ note scrawled in black magic marker on the back cover of Flowers: “some good dances”. Rubber Soul by The Beatles had “good dances’ written on it, so I discerned from that, that she liked Beatles better. At least for dancing. No competition, I love both bands but was interesting 10 years or so later when, for my 16^th birthday I got The Beatles’ 1967-70 ‘blue album” compilation and the Stones’ ’70s comp Made In The Shade as presents and all sister wanted to play was the Stones. Of course, she had just seen them on their 1975 tour appearance in Toronto so, obviously, she was on a concert high and major into them. Funny thing was, The Beatles’ tunes were more familiar to my younger brothers and I then so we wanted to hear the 67-70 album more than the Stones sbut for my youngest brother and me, that quickly shifted to Made In The Shade, the buying of every pre- and post-Stones actual studio albums and the rest is history.

22. Steve Winwood, Night Train . . . I love Traffic (and have played them a lot although not lately, see ‘so much music, so little time”) but not so much into Winwood’s solo stuff aside from Arc of A Diver album. The rest of it is too overproduced for my taste/ears, and Arc borders dangerously on that overproduced precipice but avoids it enough to make for a great album, great track. I feel I’ve played it too recently but so what, if so? And off into the night, on this train, we go . . . until next week. Cheers and take care, all, and thanks for listening/following.

1. Johnny Winter, Rock and Roll People . . . Written by John Lennon, from Winter’s 1974 album John Dawson Winter III.

2. David Bowie, Let’s Spend The Night Together . . . Faster version of the Stones’ hit, from Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album released in April 1973. I like both versions. Interesting that just six months later, with his record company wanting another album by Christmas 1973 to cash in on Bowie’s commercial success,he released a full-blown covers album, Pin Ups.

3. Blue Oyster Cult, Cities On Flame With Rock and Roll . . . I stole this apropos comment about BOC from a YouTube field: “A versatile band – as heavy metal as Iron Maiden, dark and ominous as Black Sabbath, as progressive as Pink Floyd, as smart as Rush and as pop as any top 40 band.” Great riff to this one, too.

4. Rainbow, Gates Of Babylon . . . a great one, but aren’t they all, from the Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals era of Rainbow.

5. The Rolling Stones, Miss Amanda Jones . . . Down and down she goes. Great tune from Between The Buttons which, over time, has become one of my favorite Stones’ albums. I read it derided once by a critic as being too Kinks-like but so what if it is, and what’s wrong with the Kinks and besides it’s a cool, funky, diverse album, the last of their poppier ones before Satanic Majesties and then the deeper, dirtier blues rock of Beggars Banquet and subsequent albums.

6. The Mamas & The Papas, No Salt On Her Tail . . . Beautiful harmonies on this one.

7. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Stayed Awake All Night (extended version) . . . Eight minutes plus version of a this pulsating, driving rocker from BTO’s debut album. The extended cut was released on the 2-CD BTO Anthology that came out some years back and featured a few unreleased tracks. I usually much prefer BTO songs where C.F. (Fred) Turner takes lead vocals with his gruff, tough style but this is one where Randy Bachman shines. There’s a nice live version of this available on YouTube featuring the Bachman-Turner (sans Overdrive) band that segues into American Woman, from a concert in Rama, Ontario – with Turner howlin’ up a storm. If you’re up for some great Bachman-Turner stuff featuring some Guess Who tracks as well, highly recommended is Bachman & Turner Live at the Roseland Ballroom, NYC, available on DVD and YouTube.

8. Bruce Springsteen, 57 Channels (And Nothin’ On) . . . Told you I was going to play this soon. If you don’t follow the show, you’ve no idea what I’m talking about but a few weeks ago I played Pink Floyd’s Nobody Home from The Wall, which contains the lyric “I’ve got 13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from” and I mentioned Springsteen picked up on that theme years later on his 1992 Human Touch album. And, by now there’s unlimited channels of, often, nothing of substance on the tube and streaming services.

9. Paul Rodgers, Cut Loose . . . Title cut from Rodgers’ first solo album, 1983, after the original version of Bad Company broke up. Sounds like Bad Company, which is good, and why wouldn’t it, since Rodgers was the exquisite voice of that band and, of course, Free before it.

10. Rory Gallagher, A Million Miles Away . . . Heard this playing in a music store the other day so I decided to play it, besides which I love Rory Gallagher’s music. Always loved this tune, the lyric “this hotel bar is full of people, the piano man is really laying it down…even the old bartender is high as a steeple . . . ” Just puts you in a smoky booze joint, late at night, with all that entails and what might ensue from it.

11. Joe Jackson, Zemeo . . . Jazzy, extended (11 minutes) instrumental cut from an album I often return to, JJ’s soundtrack to a movie few people (including me) ever saw, starred Debra Winger, Mike’s Murder, 1983. Essentially a musical followup for Jackson from his chart-topping Night and Day album of the year before. It’s a terrific listen.

12. Bryan Ferry, A Fool For Love . . . What would the word be, luscious, in terms of the sound of this track from Ferry, from his 2002 album Frantic.

13. Jethro Tull, Bends Like A Willow . . . Blow me down. I’m a big Tull fan but didn’t realize until I decided to play this song from the 1999 album J-Tull Dot Com that it was the single (went relatively nowhere) from that album. A ‘dated’ album title now given how ubiquitous the internet has become, but interesting in terms of the context and year of the album’s release. Essentially, the title trying to encourage people to visit the band’s then relatively new website. Also a significant album for me because I saw the tour with my then age 11 son, who quickly became my Tull-concert going partner.

14. Love, A House Is Not A Motel . . . A band I, er, love but one I have not played in a while. Great lyric: “The news today will be the movies for tomorrow” – and of course distorted usually beyond recognition by Hollywood, yet becomes for so many people the actual (often false) narrative of people and events they describe. For instance, there’s a new Elvis Presley biopic coming to theatres soon. I hate biopics. Never watch them. No interest. They’re not real, and yeah it’s ‘just a movie” yet too many people form their opinions of the people they depict from Hollywood’s ‘creative licence” descriptions. Such is life, I guess.

15. Cry Of Love, Peace Pipe . . . Why this 1990s band wasn’t bigger remains a mystery to me. Free-like. But then, besides All Right Now, Free was never a big commercial success, either.

16. Gordon Lightfoot, Cherokee Bend . . . Not as celebrated as, say, Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald but, musically and lyrically (in a different context), just as touching and meaningful. Brilliant artist.

17. Genesis, Ripples . . . From A Trick of the Tail, first album post-Peter Gabriel when people wondered about the future of Genesis. They had one.

18. Steely Dan, Dirty Work . . . One of my favorite Steely Dan tunes. For whatever reason I always think of a bar band/Steely Dan tribute band playing this in a pub when I hear it. Probably because I never saw Steely Dan live.

19. Streetheart, Miss Plaza Suite . . . Three things. 1. This is a great song. 2. Someone on YouTube, in a comments field on this song, said Streetheart was an underrated band. I really wish people would learn the difference between underrated and underappreciated. Streetheart had lots of hits. They weren’t underrated. Underappreciated, maybe. 3. They also had great album covers. Check out Meanwhile Back in Paris, Under Heaven Over Hell and Quicksand Shoes, for starters. The album Miss Plaza Suite comes from, simply called Streetheart, has a good cover, too, but the aforementioned three are my favorites.

20. Santana, Blues Magic . . From the IV album, released in 2016 and a reunion of most of the original Santana band members who made the band’s first three albums, which remain my favorites. IV is right up there and naturally would be, given who made it and how it sounds in a throwback way. Gregg Rolie does his best Peter Green vocal impression on this track to the point where I continue to check the liner notes to see if it actually wasn’t Green singing. And of course Green, via Fleetwood Mac, gave Santana its biggest early hit with Black Magic Woman.

21. Canned Heat, Lookin’ For My Rainbow . . . Gospel artist Clara Mae Ward, beautifully, shares lead vocals with the Heat’s James Shane on this one, from the band’s 1973 album The New Age.

22. Beck Bogert, Appice, Black Cat Moan (live) . . . From the power trio’s live album, issued only on Japan so something of a rarity although that album is available online and this track also is on Jeff Beck’s Beckology box set.

23. Linda Ronstadt, Rescue Me . . . From her self-titled 1972 album which was a landmark in leading to the formation of the Eagles, whose original members – Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon – had backed Ronstadt on a tour and then were among the session musicians on her record.

1. The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Come On In . . . Back to my song-title connection ways, but hey, they’re all good songs. Like this short single from Butterfield and the boys, Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop on guitars. About time I got back to the Butterfield Band. So much music, so relatively little time each week.

2. Trooper, We’re Here For A Good Time (Not A Long Time) . . . A hit single, which I typically am reluctant to play since it’s a deep cuts show, but followers/listeners know every now and then I’ll play a single. And by now they are, er, So Old It’s New, and in this case fits the early set list theme. But you probably picked up on that.

3. Ry Cooder, On A Monday . . . Cooder gives to me what sounds like the Little Feat treatment to this Lead Belly tune. It appeared on Cooder’s 1972 Into The Purple Valley album.

4. Van Halen, Push Comes To Shove . . . Nice bluesy cut, one of my favorites from the somewhat dark, which is why I like it, Fair Warning album. David Lee Roth’s spoken word intro, asking for a cigarette, another swig if anything’s left in the bottle, makes the tune.

5. Bill Wyman, Every Sixty Seconds . . . Former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman is my Rolling Stones, Inc. selection this week. Critics seem to like Wyman’s first solo album, 1974’s Monkey Grip, much more than his second, Stone Alone, which was released in 1976. I imagine because I heard Stone Alone first, I’ve always liked it better, and this is one of my favorite tunes from it. The album is called Stone Alone – which Wyman later used as a book title for one he wrote about the band – but the personnel list to the record is bursting with big-name musical friends. Among the contributors are Van Morrison, Joe Walsh, Dr. John, Bob Welch, Ronnie Wood, Nicky Hopkins, Jim Keltner, on and on. Wyman later re-recorded Every Sixty Seconds for one of his Rhythm Kings albums with R&B/soul singer Beverley Skeete nicely handling lead vocals.

6. Tom Wilson, What A Bummer . . . From Wilson’s 2001 solo album, Planet Love. Typically great stuff from one of my favorite artists and mainstay of such bands as Junkhouse, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings and Lee Harvey Osmond.

7. Jimi Hendrix, Lover Man . . . There are so many different versions of Hendrix songs around given the ongoing re-release program by his estate. This dynamic version of Lover Man was cut live in the studio by the Band of Gypsys (Billy Cox on bass, Buddy Miles on drums) about two weeks before their appearance at New York’s Fillmore East on New Year’s Eve, 1969 that resulted in the Band of Gypsys live album. This version is available on 2018’s Both Sides Of The Sky compilation of previously unreleased material. 
8. The Black Keys, Howlin’ For You . . . However it was I got into the Keys, I’m glad I did. Probably hearing them in a music store and asking the staff who it was on the sound system. Or just reading about them, in search of new music (for me). I don’t have or know all their stuff, being a 60s/70s classic rocker coming relatively late to the party, but what I have I like given the raw, distortion-fueled sound of much of their stuff. This one’s from Brothers, in 2010. They recently released their latest album, Dropout Boogie. I have some catching up to do on my listening. I just gave it a quick listen online, no real impression yet but fans seem to think it’s mediocre. They do seem to have smoothed out their sound, to my ears, since Brothers, though. I like the distortion stuff best.

9. AC/DC, Soul Stripper . . . Pulsating, hypnotic track from the smokin’ hot ’74 Jailbreak EP.

10. Blodwyn Pig, Dear Jill . . . Great blues from the band guitarist Mick Abrahams formed when he left Jethro Tull after their first album, This Was. Abrahams wanted to continue in a blues direction. Ian Anderson had other ideas and obviously has been hugely successful with them. I like both sides of their ‘argument’.

11. Goddo, Drop Dead (That’s Who) . . . The funny intro, ‘take 75’ is almost worth the price of admission from these Canadian rockers.

12. Alice Cooper, Killer . . . Title cut from the 1971 album, by the original band. Dark, epic, eerie, spooky, superb.

13. Blue Cheer, Out Of Focus . . . B-side to the band’s breakout 1968 single, their raucous cover of Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues. Not quite as heavy, perhaps, but heavy. Blue Cheer was an interesting band, maintaining their heaviness throughout but getting more progressive/psychedelic as time passed. I was going to explore some of that side of the band tonight, and will at some point, but being in a more rocking mood, at least as far as Blue Cheer goes . . .

14. Gary Moore, World Of Confusion . . . Moore, who we lost to a heart attack at just 58 in 2011, was so very eclectic. He was in Thin Lizzy for a time, of course, did lots of hard rock and metal and broke big to a wider public during one of his many excursions over time into the blues, with his 1990 hit album and song, Still Got The Blues. This hard rocker is from the self-titled and only album release from the trio, Scars, he formed in 2002. Wicked guitar work.

15. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ramble Tamble . . . I like when CCR did stuff like this seven-minute rant and raver from Cosmo’s Factory.

16. Paris, Black Book . . . After leaving Fleetwood Mac following their 1974 album Heroes Are Hard To Find, Bob Welch formed a power trio with former Jethro Tull bassist Glenn Cornick and Thom Mooney, who had worked with Todd Rundgren. Three guys, made a good noise. Black Book is an example.

17. Grateful Dead, Estimated Prophet . . . One of my favorite Dead tunes. I just like the groove, and the lyrics about false prophets.

18. Stone The Crows, Big Jim Salter . . . And so we go real deep with Stone The Crows, a band whose name – a homage to the Brit/Aussie expression of amazement or disgust – I’d always thought was cool but whose music, before the internet age, I had not taken the time (or money) to explore. I finally did via one of two amazing compilations I picked up, on the recommendation of a friend, a few years ago. This is from I’m A Freak Baby 2, the second of two 3-CD collections exploring the British heavy psychedelic and hard rock underground scene from 1968-73. Scottish belter Maggie Bell, who some see as the UK’s answer to Janis Joplin and I definitely hear it on some tunes, handles lead vocals on this one. She’s also known for ‘vocal abrasives’ as credited on Rod Stewart’s title cut to the Every Picture Tells A Story album. Other noted members of Stone The Crows were Alex Harvey’s brother Les, who was electrocuted on stage and later died after touching a mic that was not grounded while his other hand was on his guitar strings. Others who passed through the band were Jimmy McCulloch, later lead guitarist with Paul McCartney and Wings, and bassist/singer James Dewar, later a member of Robin Trower’s most commercially successful lineup during the 1970s, and one of my favorite rock singers. 
19. Warhorse, Back In Time . . . From the same I’m A Freak Baby compilation, although I do have some Warhorse stuff. Of course I would; Deep Purple is among my favorite bands and Warhorse was a hard rock/psychedelic Deep Purple offshoot group, this track being a perfect example of their work. Warhorse was formed by Nick Simper after the bassist was sacked by Purple along with singer Rod Evans when Roger Glover and Ian Gillan were brought in as the so-called ‘classic’ Mk. II lineup of Purple moved to a heavier rocking sound and went on to greater glories.

20. Bob Seger, Bo Diddley . . . Before The Silver Bullet Band, from Seger’s 1972 Smokin’ O.P.’s album of mostly down and dirty cover tunes, hence the title – Smokin’ Other People’s Songs, derived from ‘smoking other people’s cigarettes’ (hence the album cover) but I wouldn’t know, never having smoked. OK, I did, once, as a kid, age 9, with a gang of my friends. We stole a carton of my parents’ cigarettes but mom caught me, finding a cigarette butt in my pants pocket while doing laundry, and I promised never to do it again – and didn’t as I started getting into physical fitness. Interestingly, mom and dad smoked, as did my older brother and sister of the five kids in the family. Different times.  
21. Cat Stevens, Drywood . . . From Stevens’ 1975 album Numbers, a sci-fi concept album of sorts that the record company didn’t like because it didn’t produce ‘catchy’ hits like Moonshadow, Peace Train, Morning Has Broken etc. As a result, it didn’t sell as well as his previous work. But this is art, dammit! Which is what Stevens argued. Besides, I think Drywood is pretty catchy and the pop charts are often infested with dreck ear candy without substance or lasting value, so I’m with Cat.

22. Maria Muldaur, It Feels Like Rain . . . Bluesy, swampy, sultry version of the John Hiatt song. Muldaur is a great artist, so much more than her lone big pop hit from the 1970s, Midnight At The Oasis. Buddy Guy also covered the song, as the title cut to his 1993 album.

23. Warren Zevon, The Overdraft . . . Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac fame provides backing vocals on this rollicking ride from Zevon’s 1982 The Envoy album. Waddy Wachtel, session man to the stars, provides typically great lead guitar, as he did on so many Zevon albums.

24. The Joe Perry Project, South Station Blues . . . From the Project’s second solo album, 1981’s I’ve Got The Rock & Rolls Again. Catchy intro. As with the debut, Let The Music Do The Talking, it was done during the period when Perry quit Aerosmith as the drug and booze-addled band splintered during the sessions for 1979’s Night In The Ruts album, although Perry still played on most of the tracks. Perry had a singer-rhythm guitarist in his band, Charlie Ferren, but handled lead vocals himself on this up tempo shuffle whose genesis was Shit House Shuffle, a 36-second instrumental Aerosmith used as a warm up before recording sessions. It’s available on the Pandora’s Box boxed set, and online. A slightly revamped Let The Music Do The Talking became an Aerosmith song on 1985’s Done With Mirrors album.

25. Neil Young, For The Turnstiles . . . From Young’s introspective 1974 album On The Beach, prompted by his discomfort with the superstardom his previous studio album, Harvest, brought. Heart of Gold from Harvest was a No. 1 single for Young, as was the album, but in the liner notes to his excellent Decade compilation, he addresses the feelings of wanting to retreat that success fostered in him, and how it led him to produce darker followup albums like On The Beach and Tonight’s The Night. “This song (Heart of Gold) put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore, so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there.”

26. Badfinger, Carry On Til Tomorrow . . . Beautiful track, with some great guitar in its rockier parts, from the band’s 1970 debut album as Badfinger (they released one previous album under the name The Iveys). Magic Christian Music was on Apple Records as the band had an association with The Beatles, much of their early work produced or co-produced mostly by Paul McCartney, some by George Harrison and Beatles associates Geoff Emerick and Mal Evans.

1. Mick Jagger, Too Many Cooks (Spoil The Soup) . . . Funky tune, produced by John Lennon, that Jagger recorded with a host of big-name musician friends that finally saw official release on The Very Best of Mick Jagger compilation in 2007. Jack Bruce of Cream fame lays down a great bass line. Others featured on the recording are Al Kooper and noted session guitar aces Danny Kortchmar and Jesse Ed Davis and drummer Jim Keltner. Singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, one of Lennon’s sidekicks during the 18 months of his ‘lost weekend’ separation from Yoko Ono, sings backing vocals.

2. Steve Earle, Snake Oil . . . Nice one from Copperhead Road, starts slowly but quickly builds into quite the raver.

3. George Thorogood and The Destroyers, One Way Ticket (live) . . . Smokin’ version of the John Lee Hooker tune from Thorogood’s Live in Boston 1982 album that was re-released in 2020, now containing the full show.

4. Bruce Springsteen, Adam Raised A Cain . . . I like most Springsteen but tend to mostly go back to the three outstanding albums of his I grew up on – Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town, from which I pulled this track, and The River, all of which came out in that order. Quite the run.

5. Elvis Costello, Blame It On Cain . . . From his debut, My Aim Is True, in 1977 and an appropriate title for an album that hits the target in every tune. The title is also in the lyrics to the hit Alison.

6. Graham Parker, I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down . . . Written by Memphis songwriter Earl Randle, Parker’s version, and a good one it is, appeared on his 1977 album, Stick To Me.

7. Midnight Oil, Surf’s Up Tonight . . . From the Breathe album, 1996, some see it as a tribute to The Beach Boys but of course surfing is hardly just a California thing.

8. The Clash, The Magnificent Seven . . . Third single from the wildly and wonderfully diverse, and sprawling, Sandinista! Apparently inspired by the New York hip hop and rap scene. I don’t consider that I’m into either of those genres, but I do like when rock bands I like delve into other sounds and approaches.

9. Bob Dylan, The Ballad Of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest . . . From Dylan’s 1967 John Wesley Harding album I remember my older brother bringing home. It’s somewhat unique in that it’s a long story song, without a chorus, but typically interesting Dylan lyrics. And it was the inspiration for the next band in my set’s name.

10. Judas Priest, Exciter . . . Just because you’re hard rock/metal doesn’t mean you don’t listen to or are inspired by artists from other genres. Life would be boring were that the case. The Dylan song inspired Priest’s band name. “Fall to your knees and repent if you please” is such a memorable line in this scorcher that some people have been known to think it’s the actual title.

11. Motorhead, Speedfreak . . . Appropriate title for this cut from the Iron Fist album, the last featuring the so-called classic lineup trio of Lemmy Kilmister (vocals/bass), “Fast” Eddie Clarke (guitar) and Phil “Philthy Animal Taylor (drums).

12. Black Sabbath, Megalomania . . . I wanted to play a Sabbath song tonight but had trouble picking one, since with great bands like this I could easily do – and maybe should – a show consisting of only their material. In any case, I wound up settling on this epic from the Sabotage album.

13. Nazareth, Psycho Skies . . . I mentioned a couple weeks ago, while playing Nazareth’s Red Light Lady from their debut album in 1971, that the band had a new album out, their second with lead singer Carl Sentance. He replaced the retired from touring Dan McCafferty a few years ago. The new album, Surviving The Law, is very good in my opinion, and this song, written by Sentance, is an example of its quality.
    
14. Deep Purple, Child In Time . . . The epic that was the centerpiece of In Rock, with Ian Gillan in all his vocal glory but the whole band is typically on fire.

15. Groundhogs, Strange Town . . .From the English blues-rock band’s 1970 album Thank Christ For The Bomb, engineered by the late Martin Birch, whose extensive and impressive production resume included Deep Purple, mid-period Fleetwood Mac, Wishbone Ash, Rainbow, Whitesnake mostly during their early, more blues-rock oriented period, Black Sabbath during the Ronnie James Dio years, Blue Oyster Cult, Iron Maiden, on and on.

16. Dire Straits, In The Gallery . . . From the sterling debut album, 1978. Of course, what Dire Straits album isn’t sterling? Amazingly consistent band during their time.

17. Led Zeppelin, The Lemon Song . . . Great song but as was typical of Zeppelin, one of the many where they liberally ‘borrowed’ from and ‘adapted’ songs like Howlin’ Wolf’s Killing Floor, took full credit, got sued and wound up having to, on later releases of Zep II and other albums, give the old blues greats they pilfered from due credit. I like Zeppelin’s music, a lot, but why they felt they had to do some of the sleazy things they did in terms of songwriting, and think they could get away with it, and they sometimes did, remains beyond me. And yes, I ‘get’ that credits on many old blues tunes were pretty fluid over time, even the old blues artists borrowed from each other, but Zep usually never even attempted to give credit where it was due, until forced to by lawsuits.

18. Duane Allman, Goin’ Down Slow . . . In addition to his typically brilliant guitar playing, Duane handles lead vocals, a rarity, with fellow future Allman Brother Berry Oakley on bass on this blues cover recorded in 1969 for a proposed solo album that was never completed. I pulled it from one of two Duane Allman anthologies that came out ages ago, are likely out of print but worth searching out if you’re still into physical copies. The two double albums feature Allman’s session work with such artists as Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin, among others, plus his time with the Allman Brothers.

19. Jethro Tull, Hymn 43 . . . Always loved this rocker, and its lyrics, from Aqualung.

20. Spirit, 1984 . . . I read something in a YouTube comment field on this terrific psychedelic rocker I agree with. “Growing up in 70s LA, there were two bands you listened to if you were really in the know: Spirit and Love. Didn’t matter what anyone else thought.” Love was actually more a ’60s band but the writer’s sentiment is accurate I think; two arguably underappreciated but influential bands.

21. UFO, Dance Your Life Away . . . Haven’t played these guys in a while, good rocker, nice Michael Schenker guitar as always, from the Force It album, 1975.

22. Pink Floyd, Nobody Home . . . “I got thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from . . . ” Well, it was 1979 and most of us did have only about that many channels available to us. Things got better, or worse, by the time of Bruce Springsteen’s 1992 song 57 Channels (And Nothin’ On) which I should dig up and play and now it’s unlimited, pretty much, channels available and nothing on. 
23. Headstones, Cut . . . From 1993’s terrific debut album, Picture of Health. Headstones will be at the 2022 Kitchener Blues Festival although scheduling them at about the same time as Drive By Truckers at another stage irks me as bit, since I like both bands.

24. The Rolling Stones, Till The Next Goodbye . . . Beautiful ballad from the It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll album to close the show and deliberately frame it all in between two cuts from Rolling Stones Inc.; started with Mick Jagger, ending with the full unit.

1. Nirvana, Lounge Act . . . Nirvana’s Nevermind is so front-loaded with its hits/well -known songs – Smells Like Teen Spirit, In Bloom and Come As You Are open the album – that great, punkish tunes like Lounge Act are often overlooked. That’s why radio has deep cuts shows.

2. King Crimson, Frame By Frame . . . From Discipline, which in 1981 marked the return of Robert Fripp and friends to recording under the King Crimson banner after being dormant since 1974. And, typical of ever-changing Crimson, this was a different beast with a new-wave type sound, somewhat derivative of Talking Heads of the same period, yet still uniquely Crimson.

3. The Monkees, You Just May Be The One . . . A Mike Nesmith-penned and sung tune, and a good one, from the Headquarters album.

4. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Leave My Girl Alone . . . About time I played some SRV again.

5. The Rolling Stones, Almost Hear You Sigh . . . One of the best, in my opinion, latter-day Stones’ tunes, from 1989’s Steel Wheels album. Co-written by drummer Steve Jordan, now in the Stones touring unit upon the passing of Charlie Watts, it was originally destined for Keith Richards’ first solo album, Talk Is Cheap. It didn’t make the cut, Richards played it for Mick Jagger, who made some lyric adjustments and it wound up being the third single released, after Mixed Emotions and Rock and a Hard Place, from Steel Wheels. Arguably the best song on the album, it nevertheless only made the top 50 in the US. The Netherlands liked it. It made No. 11 there. Whatever, good songs are good songs, the best song in the world is the one you’re listening to now, if you like it. Charts are statistics.

6. Five Man Electrical Band, Hello Melinda, Goodbye . . . Infectious tune, it was originally an A-side single with Signs, the band’s most well-known song, as the B-side but the 45 bombed first time around. Later, with the band on the verge of breaking up, Signs was re-released as an A-side and the rest is history.

7. Eric Clapton, Old Love . . . There’s a lot of overproduced dreck on Clapton’s 1989 album Journeyman what with synthesizers and various forms of instrument programming but this bluesy track is an exception. There are, according to the song credits, synth piano and synth strings on the song but I don’t hear them, or can’t discern them, thankfully.

8. Aerosmith, Shela . . . From Done With Mirrors in 1985, the last album of the old Aerosmith before they brought in outside writers and ascended to greater commercial heights while losing their early raunch and roll grit, for the most part. I still like the later stuff that doesn’t descend into overproduced schlock, but prefer the consistently down and dirty earlier stuff. Mirrors didn’t do so well, at least by Aerosmith standards, charting at No. 72 in Canada and No. 38in the US. Sales weren’t helped by initial pressings, and I remember having it on vinyl when it was released – everything on the album was written backwards so you had to use a mirror, get it, to read the lyrics etc. I’m all for creativity but it was frustrating, it just didn’t work and the misjudgment was soon rectified. Good musically, though.

9. Colin James, Freedom . . . Blues and R & B great Mavis Staples shares vocals on this nice groove tune, from James’ 1995 Bad Habits album, for which he won a Juno Award as Male Vocalist of the Year.
10. Free, Broad Daylight . . . From Free’s second, self-titled album. Was released as a single. Went nowhere. Absurd.

11. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Insider . . . Stevie Nicks provides backing vocals on this one from Hard Promises, 1981. Music is so much place and time, of course, and the album – and its cover – always reminds me of California, as I was spending some time in the San Francisco Bay Area when it came out. The cover, with Petty in a record store, reminds me of one of my younger brothers and I browsing in a record store and hearing the album, which I bought, along with Phil Collins’ Face Value, which was also on the sound system – I Missed Again was the song I remember being played.

12. James Gang, Ashes The Rain & I . . . Beautiful, musically and short and sweet lyrically, from Rides Again, the second album from Joe Walsh and the boys.
13. Fleetwood Mac, I’m So Afraid . . . Rumours gets most of the hype but the self-titled Fleetwood Mac album that preceded it, the first featuring Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, while not approaching the sales figures of Rumours, is just as good and itself was a No. 1 record. This track originally was scheduled for a second Buckingham-Nicks album but became a Fleetwood Mac song when the duo joined the band.

14. Guns N’ Roses, Better . . . Best song on Chinese Democracy, in my opinion, and the reconstituted band, again featuring Slash on guitar, continues to play it in concert.

15. Van Morrison, A Sense Of Wonder . . . Beautiful title cut from Van the Man’s 1985 album, went nowhere as a single but it’s one of those tunes, perhaps because he put it on his personally-selected Best of, Volume 2, that when you hear it, you recognize it.

16. The Byrds, Lover Of The Bayou . . . A live version is the one usually found on Byrds compilations, and it’s good. But so is this longer studio version, originally recorded for the Untitled album in 1970. The studio cut didn’t come out officially until the Untitled/Unissued re-release in 2000.

17. McKenna Mendelson Mainline, Mainline . . . Blues, from an album, Stink, that seems to be in every music-loving Canadian home.

18. The Black Crowes, Thick N’ Thin . . . It’s been a long time since I listened to the Crowes, let alone played them on the show, but as usual was filleting CDs, looking for something new, different or not played in ages, and here we go. Nice one, from the debut album, Shake Your Moneymaker, in 1990. They’ve got a new EP out, featuring covers of songs from 1972 called, wait for it, 1972. Six songs – Rocks Off by the Stones; The Slider (T-Rex); You Wear It Well (Rod Stewart); Easy to Slip (Little Feat); Moonage Daydream (David Bowie) and The Temptations’ Papa Was A Rolling Stone. I’ve heard it, nothing earth-shattering. For me, most covers albums are sort of, ok, that’s interesting, I probably won’t listen to it all that often, how about some new original material, folks? That said, just the Crowes having fun paying homage to their heroes.

19. Frank Zappa, Wonderful Wino . . . Good rocker from one of Zappa’s more accessible releases, the 1976 album Zoot Allures.

20. George Harrison, Awaiting On You All (live, The Concert For Bangladesh) . . . Good live version of one of the best tracks from an album full of great ones, All Things Must Pass.

21. Men At Work, Down By The Sea . . . A somewhat uncharacteristic song, if all one knows of Men At Work is their two big hit singles, Who Can It Be Now and Down Under. It’s longer, a shade under seven minutes, somewhat bluesy and definitely hypnotic, just a great track, for my money.

22. Sea Level, King Grand . . . Funky tune from the Chuck Leavell-led Allman Brothers jazz-rock fusion offshoot, with multi-instrumentalist Randall Bramblett taking lead vocals.

23. Otis Redding, You Don’t Miss Your Water . . . Take the Stax house band Booker T. & The M.G.’s, augmented by studio aces The Mar-Keys, The Memphis Horns and young at the time session pianist Isaac Hayes, record everything but one track in a 24-hour span in May of 1965 and you have the great album Otis Blue/Otis Redding Sings Soul. The woman on the cover of the album has, according to what I’ve read, never been definitively identified but is thought to be German model Dagmar Dreger. Apparently, the record company thought that putting an attractive white woman on the cover would help Redding’s crossover appeal.

24. Stevie Wonder, Race Babbling . . . The Secret Life of Plants had one hit single, No. 4 Send One Your Love but other than that, the concept album that was a soundtrack to a documentary of the same name, threw people. But Race Babbling is one cool, hypnotic, experimental adventure lasting just under nine minutes. Good lyrics, too.

25. Rita Coolidge, Superstar (live, from Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen) . . . From Cocker’s 1970 traveling road show album, co-written by Leon Russell, who was a member of the band, and Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney and Bonnie fame. The Carpenters turned it into a worldwide hit in 1971.
26. Buffalo Springfield, Go And Say Goodbye . . . Country rock pickin’ from the debut album, 1966.

1. AC/DC, That’s The Way I Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll . . . AC/DC had been in commercial decline but 1988’s Blow Up Your Video album, from which this top 30 single comes, signaled a rebirth that was fully realized with the next album, The Razors Edge and such hits at Thunderstruck, Moneytalks and Are You Ready. Not that I listen to commercial rock radio anymore, in fact its predictability – endless repetition of the same songs – is what long ago motivated me to do this for the most part deep cuts show, but I don’t recall hearing this single much at all when it came out.

2. The Beatles, You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) . . . Fun music hall track, typical Beatles’ humor. It was the B-side to Let It Be in 1970 but goes back to initial sessions in 1967 and a final one in 1969. Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones helps out on saxophone.

3. Can, She Brings The Rain . . . Conventional, lovely ballad from an unconventional band.

4. Deep Purple, Our Lady . . . From the critically-panned Who Do We Think We Are album in 1973. One wonders whether rock journalists actually focus on the music or, in this case, on the fact that the band was fraying due to the forever enmity between singer Ian Gillan and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore – in which case, an album of such quality is remarkable. I like the record, as do most Deep Purple fans I know. I mean, c’mon, critics: Woman From Tokyo, this track, Mary Long, every song is good. Certainly not going through the motions, as one critic wrote and besides, how would he know unless he was in studio with the band.

5. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Knife-Edge . . . Terrific B-side to Lucky Man and arguably more indicative of ELP’s progressive rock approach than that more mainstream, albeit excellent, single is.

6. Fairport Convention, She Moves Through The Fair . . . Sandy Denny. One of those singers who, when you hear her, think, that’s the voice of an angel. Just beautiful.

7. Rory Gallagher, Calling Card . . . Title cut from the late great guitarist/songwriter/bandleader’s 1976 album co-produced by Deep Purple bassist Roger Glover, who had met Gallagher when Rory opened for Purple on an American tour.

8. Hawkwind, Space Is Deep . . . A song about space, and humanity, from the space rockers.

9. Iron Maiden, Strange World . . . Uncharacteristic Maiden, a bluesy cut from their first, self-titled album featuring pre-Bruce Dickinson lead singer Paul Di’Anno.

10. Jethro Tull, Nothing To Say . . . I have nothing more to say that I haven’t already, this week anyway, about Jethro Tull, one of my favorite bands. From Benefit, the band’s third album, 1970.

11. Kansas, Paradox . . . Amazing how many time signature changes and other such progressive rock elements Kansas can cram into this four-minute track.

12. Led Zeppelin, Friends . . . Nice acoustic one from Zep III.

13. Metallica, The Struggle Within . . . The Black Album divided people as Metallica went more commercial via singles like Enter Sandman, The Unforgiven and Nothing Else Matters, which introduced them to a massive wider audience. That didn’t sit well with at least some longtime fans who preferred their earlier thrash metal stuff. So this one, from that somewhat controversial album, is for them. And me, although I appreciate all Metallica.

14. Nazareth, Red Light Lady . . . Love this multi-faceted tune from the self-titled debut album in 1971. And they just released a new one in April, Surviving The Law. It’s not groundbreaking, but rocks hard and is the second one featuring new singer Carl Sentance, who replaced original singer Dan McCafferty. McCafferty retired from touring with the band in 2013 due to health reasons although he released a solo album, Last Testament, three years ago although to be honest I only found that out while giving a listen to the new Nazareth record. As for Nazareth overall, there’s just one original member left, Pete Agnew on bass, which like many bands continuing to soldier on leaves them open to criticisms of being essentially a tribute act. I hear it but, besides Sentance, the other guys in the band, including Agnew’s son Lee on drums and guitarist Jimmy Murrison, have been in the group for nearly 30 years and they do continue to release new music and if it’s good, and still has some connection to the original band, I don’t have a huge issue with it.

15. Ozzy Osbourne, S.A.T.O. . . . Kick-butt rocker from Diary Of A Madman, the second solo Ozzy album and the last featuring the late great guitarist Randy Rhodes. The title either stands for Sharon Arden (maiden name of Ozzy’s wife, who is the daughter of music industry mogul Don Arden) and Thelma Osbourne, his first wife, or Sailing Across The Ocean, which is what the lyrics reference. Apparently, it was initially called Strange Voyage but after some battles within the band that resulted in bass player and co-songwriters Bob Daisley and drummer Lee Kerslake being fired, Ozzy and Sharon changed it. Oh, and sato, non-acronym, is also a Thai rice wine.

16. Pink Floyd, Julia Dream . . . From 1968, written by Roger Waters and sung, for the first time on a Floyd track, by new at the time guitarist David Gilmour. This ballad was the B-side to It Would Be So Nice, a song written by keyboardist Richard Wright that was, to be charitable, not very good. “Effing awful, wasn’t it” drummer Nick Mason was quoted as saying. Well, in fairness, the Floyd was in transition after the departure of band co-founder and early chief songwriter Syd Barrett and finding their legs, so to speak, before Waters became the dominant writer.

17. Queen, Drowse . . . I’ve always liked this one, written and sung by drummer Roger Taylor, from A Day At The Races. The title fits the laid-back vibe of the tune.

18. Keith Richards, Heartstopper . . . Up-tempo tune from Crosseyed Heart, Richards’ third, and most recent, solo album that came out in 2015. Seven years ago already.

19. Stephen Stills, Blind Fiddler Medley . . . A beautiful blending of a traditional folks song, Blind Fiddler, with two of Stills’ own tunes from his first and second solo albums, respectively – Do For The Others and Know You Got To Run. The medley was released on his 1991 album, Stills Alone, for the most part just him and his acoustic and electric guitars. It’s a great listen.

20. Thin Lizzy, Opium Trail . . . Bad Reputation, including the title cut which I’ve played before, is such a solid Thin Lizzy album, one of my favorites by the band but then I’m a big fan and of course they’re so much more than The Boys Are Back In Town. Opium Trail is another winner from the album.

21. U2, Acrobat . . . A fellow DJ mentioned he liked this song when we got discussing deep cuts from Achtung Baby a while ago after I played a different song from that album. I do, too. So, here we are.

22. The Velvet Underground, Lonesome Cowboy Bill . . . The Velvets go country on this one from the Loaded album. It was so named because the record company wanted an album ‘loaded’ with hits. The album still didn’t chart but the Velvets were never a commercial hit – it’s been said that few people bought VU albums, but those that did formed bands. Two of their more widely-known songs, Sweet Jane and Rock & Roll, did emerge from Loaded.

23. Tom Waits, Frank’s Wild Years . . . Short and sweet spoken word brilliance, a shade under two minutes, from Swordfishtrombones in 1983. Two albums later came the Franks Wild Years record, no apostrophe but otherwise connected with the original song.

24. XTC, Science Friction . . . Devo-ish punky stuff from 1977 before they broke big, to the masses at least, with their 1979 album Drums and Wires and the Making Plans For Nigel single.

25. Yes, Starship Trooper . . . A bit of a challenge getting a longer tune into what had to be a 26-song set list due to today’s alphabet motif, but we managed. This is from The Yes Album, the first to feature guitarist Steve Howe and where the Yes all who know and love them (or loathe them) truly emerged. Such was the relative commercial failure of their first two albums, Yes and Time and A Word, that the band was at risk of being dropped by Atlantic, their record company. But they survived and thrived.

26. ZZ Top, I Need You Tonight . . . The lone bluesy cut from 1983’s Eliminator, the album where the band fully embraced synthesizers and other technology to great commercial success but to the distaste of some/many of their longtime bluesy raunch and roll supporters. This song could easily have fit on any of the early ZZ albums.

1. Joe Jackson, 1-2-3 Go (This Town’s A Fairground) . . . Uptempo tune from the terrific soundtrack to Mike’s Murder, a movie starring Debra Winger that bombed. The soundtrack album was released in 1983 and is, musically, essentially a sequel to JJ’s 1982 Night and Day record. That is, until JJ actually released a Night and Day II in 2000. Night and Day II is a good album but naturally suffers in comparison to the brilliant original, and Jackson has said he regrets naming it as a sequel for that reason. I’ll play something from it sometime soon.
   
2. Ian Dury & the Blockheads, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick . . . Monster single in the UK, it didn’t chart in the North American colonies but remains one of Dury’s best-known songs. I remember getting Dury’s Do It Yourself album simply because it included a 45 of Rhythm Stick which, in typical (at least up to then, 1979) UK fashion, wasn’t on the album proper.
   
3. Flash and The Pan, Atlantis Calling . . . My fun Aussie friends kick off a three-song set somewhat to do, title-wise anyway, with H2O.

4. Elton John, Crazy Water . . . A relatively unknown single, arguably, released only in the UK where it made the top 30. It’s from the 1976 Blue Moves double album which, aside from the massive single Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word, signaled the beginning of a commercial decline for EJ. It’s maybe my favorite from the album, an uptempo tune with catchy percussion and bass work.
   
5. Blind Faith, Sea Of Joy . . . Dum dum dum dum, dum dum, dum dum dum dum, dum dum … dum … pitter pitter patter pattter (drums). That’s my typewritten interpretation of the intro to this excellent track from the one and only album by the supergroup of Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker and Ric Grech. Heck, every song on the album is excellent.

6. Little Feat, Old Folks’ Boogie (live, Waiting For Columbus version) . . .Well, the show is called So Old It’s New, and I’m getting up there, most so-called classic rock listeners/follower are, so what the heck. And one can never get enough Little Feat, particularly live. Saw them in a small club in Hamilton in 2004.

7. The Band, Across The Great Divide (live, Rock of Ages version) . . . Difficult to choose between this live version and the studio cut that opens ‘The Band’ album. So I flipped a coin. The live version is about a minute longer with more prominent horns via a five-man section augmenting the core group.
   
8. David Bowie, The Supermen . . . I like almost all Bowie but his early stuff is not only great but prime fodder, I find, for a deep cuts show like mine. Like this track from 1970s The Man Who Sold The World. Great vocal performance, cool sort of stair step mantra from a tight band featuring guitarist Mick Ronson in his first of five 70s albums teamed with Bowie as Bowie – and Ronson as a well-known guitarist – ascended to superstardom.

9. Bruce Springsteen, Racing In The Street . . . “I got a ’69 Chevy with a 396 fuelie heads and a Hurst on the floor.” I always remember sitting around my college newspaper’s newsroom shooting the breeze one day and one of the editors, an upperclassman, just impromptu launched into the lyric. A song about so much more than drag racing in the street, of course.
   
10. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Children Of The Wind . . . A David Clayton-Thomas penned number from 1968 that didn’t see the light of day, officially at least, until the 1995 compilation What Goes Up!
    
11. Sniff ‘N’ The Tears, Gold . . . Lovely ballad from the band best known for their great hit Driver’s Seat. The song, about a relationship, perhaps resonates with me due to – although they’re about conquest – the lyrical references to Latin America, having spent part of my youth in Peru.
    
12. Robin Trower, Alethea . . . What a team during the 1970s, Robin Trower on guitar and the late James Dewar, who you rarely hear about when great rock singers are discussed, on bass and vocals. Trower is still going strong, releasing an album every year or two right up to 2022 with his No More Worlds To Conquer release. I admit I have some catching up to do but what can you with these old energetic farts like him, Van Morrison and Neil Young who just keep pumping stuff out?! Thank god for the internet.

13. Humble Pie, Live With Me . . . Not a cover of the Rolling Stones’ song from Let It Bleed but rather an eight-minute slowly-building blues workout with typically great vocals from the late great Steve Marriott, speaking of great singers.
    
14. Peter Frampton, Lines On My Face (live, Frampton Comes Alive version) . . . And here’s Marriott’s old mate, once he went solo, from his blockbuster live album.
    
15. Heart, White Lightning and Wine . . . Love early Heart. Great lyrics about a one-night stand, ending with “in the morning light you didn’t look so nice guess you’d better hitch hike home.” Akin to the Faces’ “Just don’t be here in the morning when I wake up’ in Stay With Me.

16. Coverdale-Page, Absolution Blues . . . For all the catty comments that went back and forth, mostly from Robert Plant, when David Coverdale of Deep Purple and Whitesnake fame got together with Jimmy Page, I say they produced a damn fine album.

     

17. Rare Earth, Child Of Fortune/One World . . . 13-minute bluesy cut that, after an organ break, goes almost progressive.

18. Van Halen, Mine All Mine . . . From the OU812 album, second of the Van (Sammy) Hagar era. They opened with this when I saw them at a Canada Day show in Barrie, Ontario in 1993.

19. The Rolling Stones, All Down The Line (live, El Mocambo 1977 version) . . . Well-known Stones’ track from Exile On Main St. and played often on various tours. I’m playing it today because this is a terrific version from the must-have for Stones fans just-released full El Mocambo set, four blues covers of which first appeared on 1977’s Love You Live. Love the Stones, but especially when they’re stripped down, like here, to basically the core unit, and firing on all cylinders.

20. Genesis, Deep In The Motherlode . . . And Then There Were Three tends to get short shrift in the Genesis catalog, but I’ve always liked the album. It’s not my favorite, I’d say A Trick of The Tail and of the Peter Gabriel era, Selling England By The Pound likely but with music it’s obviously subjective and often depends upon one’s mood and/or time and place memories. I always say the best band/artist or album/song ever is the one you are listening to now, if you like it. But I do have a soft spot for And Then There Were Three, likely due to it being the first Genesis album I really got into, via the single Follow You, Follow Me, before going back, and forward with them from there. And yeah, I even like most of the pop-oriented stuff aside from, yecch, the title cut to Invisible Touch although I do grant that, as a musician friend of mine has said, it’s a very well-constructed song.

21. David Gilmour, So Far Away . . . From the Pink Floyd guitarist’s first, self-titled solo album, 1978. Nice piano (played by Gilmour) dominated ballad, good for a late night with a refreshment.

22. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Comin’ Home . . . Beautiful, haunting, life-lived lyrics to a great tune.

1. Glenn Miller, In The Mood . . . My sentiments exactly, as I was rummaging through some oldies CDs. And who doesn’t like/can’t resist this timeless tune?

2. Warren Zevon, Johnny Strikes Up The Band . . . Lead cut and the first single from the Excitable Boy album that didn’t break big until the third single, Werewolves of London made Zevon a household name. The title track was the second of five singles released from the record which has grown, over time, into essentially a greatest hits release.

3. Paul McCartney & Wings, Spin It On . . . Paulie goes punk on this short rocker from 1979’s Back To The Egg album. The original vinyl LP release sides were labeled Sunny Side Up and Over Easy.

4. April Wine, Crash and Burn . . . April Wine goes almost metallic on this raver from 1981’s The Nature of The Beast, by which time the band had adopted a harder-rocking arguably simplified sound catered to the American market. And it worked, as the album went platinum in the US – although their earlier stuff is better, to my ears. But it’s all worth playing.

5. The Rolling Stones, Parachute Woman . . . Another one of those songs whose only bad point is it’s too short. Great cut from a great album, Beggars Banquet.

6. John Mayall, Possessive Emotions . . . Another from the ‘albums my older brother introduced me to” – Mayall’s 1970 release USA Union. It featured former Canned Heat members Harvey Mandel on guitar and bassist Larry Taylor along with violinist Don “Sugarcane’ Harris. And no drummer, which my brother proudly advised me of and I found fascinating at the time, age 11. Funky tune, yet another example of the interesting sounds Mayall and friends always achieve.

7. Jackson Browne, Fountain Of Sorrow . . . A relationship song. It could be about Joni Mitchell. It could be about Browne’s deceased wife. It could be about any one of his former flames. Depends on what you read, if you read about it on songmeanings.com or other such sites. In any event, lyrics that could apply to anyone and their relationships.

8. Fleetwood Mac, Brown Eyes . . . I came across this one via word searching Jackson Browne for the previous track. It’s a beautiful, relatively unknown Christine McVie-penned gem from the Tusk album. Mac founding guitarist Peter Green was invited to play on the song by Mick Fleetwood although his playing is only included in the fadeout.

9. Mott The Hoople, The Moon Upstairs . . . Raw, raunchy rocker from 1971’s Brain Capers album, the one before the band finally broke big with All The Young Dudes, the album and single, a year later.

10. George Thorogood, New Hawaiian Boogie . . . I’ve never heard definitively that Link Wray was among Thorogood’s influences, but based on his raw playing on this Elmore James tune, I’d say so.

11. Link Wray, Big City After Dark . . . Speaking of Wray . . . I can’t do better than a description of this tune I read in a comments field on YouTube: “It sounds like he’s playing barbed wire strings with a switchblade knife.”

12. Tommy James and The Shondells, Sweet Cherry Wine . . . Psychedelic top 10 hit in Canada and the US in 1969.

13. Roy Buchanan, After Hours . . . Fantastic guitarist who lived a troubled life of addiction, died young at 48, ruled a suicide, hanged himself in jail after being busted for public intoxication although family and friends disputed the finding. His musical tree includes playing with Ronnie Hawkins and, as a result, tutoring Robbie Robertson of The Band fame.

14. Ten Years After, I Woke Up This Morning . . . Haven’t played one of my favorite British blues rock bands in a while. So, here we are. From Ssssh, in 1969. I’ve probably said it before but while TYA leader Alvin Lee was justifiably celebrated for his guitar playing, I’ve always liked his singing, too. Great blues rock voice.

15. Chicago, At The Sunrise . . . I like the contrasting vocals between Peter Cetera and the raunchier Robert Lamm. From the Travel Suite segment of Chicago III, inspired by life on the road for a touring band. Do I have to say I love early jazz-rock fusion Chicago before the schlock shit show they became after Terry Kath died or have I said that too often? Heck, even they recognize it. If you check their set lists, they’re dominated by the early stuff and justifiably so.
    
16. Gregg Allman, Wolf’s A Howlin’ . . . One of the few non-cover tunes from what I think is one of Allman’s finest solo records, 1997’s Searching For Simplicity. And a nice setup for my next two tracks.

17. Gov’t Mule, I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline) . . . I love the original but can’t get enough of this 9-minute, heavy reinvention of Howlin’ Wolf’s tune. It’s from Heavy Load Blues, an album of covers and originals released by the Mule in late 2021.

18. Howlin’ Wolf, Three Hundred Pounds Of Joy . . . Speaking of the Wolf . . .

19. Neil Young, Dirty Old Man . . . Good rocker from Chrome Dreams II, 2007. Funny, or depressing, lyrics depending on one’s perspective. “I like to get hammered on Friday night sometimes I can’t wait so Monday’s alright. It’s a battle with the bottle I win it alright but I lost another round in the bar last night. . . . Yeah I’m gonna get fired for drinkin’ on the job got caught with the boss’s wife in the parkin’ lot.” Etc.

20. Aerosmith, Hangman Jury . . . From the big comeback album, Permanent Vacation, which came out in 1987 and was also, for old time Aerosmithians, the beginning of the descent into commercially-successful schlock what with outside writers and so on. Still, this one’s a keeper, featuring nice harmonica playing and vocals from Steven Tyler.

21. Stray, Yesterday’s Promises . . . Spooky, psychedelic track from the relatively unknown English hard rockers. I discovered them a few years ago via a compilation of obscure songs from the UK hard rock and psychedelic scene of the late 1960s to early 70s. I liked the Stray track on it – It’s All In Your Mind, which I’ve played before on the show – so much I picked up a 2-CD compilation of Stray’s material.

22. Jon Lord with The Hoochie Coochie Men and Jimmy Barnes, Green Onions (live) . . . From a great album of mostly covers, Live At The Basement, a renowned Sydney, Australia blues and jazz club, released in 2003. It featured Lord, the iconic Deep Purple keyboard player, Scottish-born Australian singer/musician Barnes and the Aussie blues band The Hoochie Coochie Men.

23. Deep Purple, When A Blind Man Cries . . . There’s no figuring out the mercurial Ritchie Blackmore. But he is interesting. He didn’t like this great bluesy ballad, recorded during the Machine Head sessions and the B-side of the Never Before single from the album that gave us Smoke On The Water. “Ritchie no like” I remember singer Ian Gillan saying in some documentary. So, Purple never played it live while Blackmore was in the band, although it’s a fixture in most of their set lists since guitarist Steve Morse replaced Ritchie in the mid-1990s. Yet Blackmore plays, typically, brilliantly on it, as he did on Purple albums like Stormbringer he didn’t like because they were too funky for his taste. Which has always made me wonder why, as arguably the key member of Purple, he didn’t pull rank so to speak and steer the band back in the more hard-rock direction he professed to want and did take with Rainbow. That is, before he turned Rainbow into pretty much a pop band (ugh) in search of mostly US commercial success after singer Ronnie James Dio left, which was why Dio left. Creative differences and all that. Guitar geniuses. What are we to do with them? Listen, I suppose.

24. Derek and The Dominos, Roll It Over (live) . . . From the Live At The Fillmore album, released in 1994 as an expanded version of the band’s In Concert album that was recorded in 1970 and released in 1973. This track appears on both records.

25. Savoy Brown, Leavin’ Again . . . As we take our leave, until next week.

1. Max Webster, Here Among The Cats . . . Another selection derived from CD cleanup, up popped a Max Webster disc, realized I hadn’t played them in eons, so here we are.

2. The Stooges, Down On The Street . . . Down and dirty rock from Iggy and the boys.

3. The Stone Roses, Love Spreads . . . A lot of their other material has grown on me over the years but this remains the band’s best song, to me. Great riff/rocker with a sort of dreamy, drowsy hypnotic effect.

4. Janis Joplin, Get It While You Can . . . From her final, posthumously-released studio album, Pearl. It’s another album, and artist, I thank my older siblings, in this case my older sister, for playing a lot and getting me into in my youth. I was 11 when it came out in 1970.

5. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Flat Broke Love . . . One of my favorite BTO tunes and, as you can see, we’re in yet another “Bald Boy song title connectivity” thing.

6. Ohio Players, Love Rollercoaster . . . Many of the songs in tonight’s set result from personal CD cleanup and shelving. Along with the Max Webster CD mentioned earlier, I came across a bunch of personal mix CDs I had burned years ago, from which I pulled this and several others that follow. So, although many of the songs were hits, often one-hit wonders, and this is almost always a deep cuts show, it’s also called So Old It’s New – and many of these tunes are 40, 50 years old now, dating to 70s and 80s and in some cases, the 60s. So, enjoy. I am.

7. Billy Preston, Will It Go Round In Circles . . . One of his big hit singles I most remember from the 1970s, the other being Nothing From Nothing.

8. Supertramp, Another Man’s Woman . . . From Crisis, What Crisis and thanks again to my older brother for getting me into Supertramp – at least for the great run of albums starting with Crime of The Century, then Crisis followed by Even In The Quietest Moments. Then came the monster commercial success of Breakfast in America, whose tour I saw and was great, but the album itself I’ve always ranked below the other three mentioned. Most of the Breakfast songs are overplayed, the album is in many places way too poppy for me (says the guy playing lots of pop tonight from his old burned CDs) and just doesn’t measure up to the previous three more progressive records. And Breakfast, like hugely successful albums can sometimes do (J. Geils Band’s Freeze Frame is an example), led to a split in the band. The next record, Famous Last Words, indeed was just that, the last word for that incarnation of the band. It was total schlock but Rodger Hodgson wanted to continue in that pop direction, Rick Davies didn’t, and Hodgson left. Davies carried on with the Brother Where You Bound album, an excellent record, but after that, while still releasing some more albums, Supertramp sort of just faded away in terms of wide public awareness.

    

9. Eurythmics, Would I Lie To You? . . . First time I’ve ever played a Eurythmics song on the show. Why? Because it’s a deep cuts show and none of their non-singles does anything for me. But, I do have a singles collection, which I like, and Would I Lie To You popped up on one of my mix discs, too, so here you go. Good rocker, one of my favorites by Eurythmics.

10. Thomas Dolby, She Blinded Me With Science . . . Science!! Always liked how he belts out that word at various points in the song.

11. Soft Cell, Tainted Love . . . An old tune, written by Ed Cobb of The Four Preps, who originated in the 1950s. Gloria Jones had a hit with it in 1964, worth checking out in her more R & B/soul version than the synth style Soft Cell used for their big hit. Jones was a keyboardist and vocalist in T. Rex in the 1970s and was in a relationship with Marc Bolan. Which reminds me, I’ve been meaning to get T. Rex into the last few shows, haven’t played them in a while. Perhaps next week.

12. The Human League, Don’t You Want Me . . . Remember when all this sort of stuff was huge in the early 1980s? The Human League is actually still around, blow me down. Probably playing this to open concerts, then in the middle, then as the encore. Just kidding. They did have other hits, like Mirror Man, for instance.

13. Simple Minds, Don’t You Forget About Me . . . Easily my favorite Simple Minds tune but then I don’t know many of them besides this. Aside from this song, not typically my type of music but it’s all a matter of taste, of course and that’s cool. Was in The Breakfast Club movie, which I never saw but I’m not a movie buff.

14. Naked Eyes, Always Something There To Remind Me . . . My mom (RIP) loved this version of the song, a standard by Burt Bacharach/Hal David. A top 10 hit for Naked Eyes, it’s been done by many, including Dionne Warwick and US soul singer Lou Johnson, who took it to No. 49 on Billboard in 1964.

15. Bonnie Raitt, Spit Of Love . . . Great groove on this one, written by Raitt, whose albums are usually covers-heavy which isn’t a criticism, since she’s always put her own unique and appealing stamp on them.

16. Big Sugar, Dear Mr. Fantasy . . . Speaking of covers . . . Big Sugar’s heavier, distortion-fueled version of the Traffic classic.

17. Re-Flex, The Politics Of Dancing (extended mix) . . . Another hit single by a synth pop band used in a few movies, apparently, none of which I’ve seen. Best part of the song, to me: “the politics of . . . ooh, feeling good.” Nice hook.

18. Men Without Hats, The Safety Dance . . . This Canadian band, huge with this song of course, are also still around as are many of these arguable one-hit wonders.

19. The Buggles, Video Killed The Radio Star . . . And then once they killed radio, a couple members of The Buggles – singer and bassist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoff Downes – joined Yes in a move that raised eyebrows but produced an excellent Yes album, the sometimes often almost metallic Drama, in 1980.

20. Gary Numan, Cars . . . Another from college days . . . 1979. One of so many great new wave singles around that time.

21. The Rolling Stones, Sweet Virginia . . . “Got to scrape the shit right off your shoes.” This might be the one track, aside from the hit Tumbling Dice, I’ve never played up to now on the show, from likely my favorite Stones’ album if forced into the impossible task of picking just one: Exile On Main St.

22. Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Jackie Blue . . . Great tune. And they’re still around with, perhaps surprisingly, several members still hanging in from the band’s beginnings in 1972.

23. Kim Carnes, Bette Davis Eyes . . . Always reminds me of being in California in the spring and part of the summer of 1981. San Francisco Bay Area, having helped my dad do the driving from Calgary after he was transferred for work. It was all over the radio along with stuff from The Moody Blues’ Long Distance Voyager album and Blue Oyster Cult’s Fire Of Unknown Origin record.

24. Argent, Hold Your Head Up . . . The big hit from the band formed in 1969 by Rod Argent, keyboardist in The Zombies.

25. The Lemon Pipers, Green Tambourine . . . Two studio albums, one massive single, this one No. 1 for the Ohio band in 1968.

26. Albert Hammond, It Never Rains In Southern California . . . I suppose I should have put this before or after the Kim Carnes tune, since that one reminded me of California. But, I was living in Northern California, not Southern. Good tune, another from one of those pre-recorded mix CDs of hits that I later burned onto one of my own eclectic compilation discs.

27. Santana, Blue Skies . . . From Santana’s 2019 album, Africa Speaks, which features Spanish singer Buika and is very good, sounding to me much like very early Santana including this 9-minute epic. It starts slowly, building into some fiery guitar before settling down again towards the end.

1. Van Halen, Everybody Wants Some!! . . . Well-known Van Halen tune, although it wasn’t a single, from the Women and Children First album, 1980 complete with David Lee Roth’s fun bedroom rap about lines up the backs of stockings, sexy women’s shoes and so on. Hadn’t heard it in ages but happened to have one of my Van Halen personal mix CDs on in the car the other day, it brought me to laughter, so I decided to play it.

2. Jerry Lee Lewis, Breathless . . . Continuing with the sex-type thing, er, theme, as you’ll notice from the next few titles. I just get going on this title/song content/theme connectivity stuff and can’t stop, what can I say?

3. Elvis Presley, Baby, Let’s Play House . . . An Elvis B-side (of I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone) in 1955 that is one of his B-sides to chart, making the No. 5 spot on the US country list.

4. Powder Blues, Nothin’ But A Tease . . . Slow blues from the Vancouver band, led by transplanted Chicago musician/producer Tom Lavin, that broke fairly big in Canada at the start of the 1980s via up-tempo singles like Doin’ It Right, Boppin’ With The Blues and Thirsty Ears. Lavin has also produced records by Canadian bands Prism and April Wine as well as Long John Baldry.

5. Buddy Holly, It Doesn’t Matter Anymore . . . So, if you’re following along the song title connectivity thing, he wanted some, didn’t get it, was left breathless and she, who was nothing but a tease, didn’t want to play house so it just doesn’t matter anymore. Time to move on. In putting together the beginning of this set, what a reminder of how good Elvis, Jerry Lee and Buddy Holly were. Just so much great stuff. And in playing Holly, I got reading about him again and was reminded of the plane crash that took his life and that of Richie Valens and “The Big Bopper’ J.P. Richardson. It was a winter tour package of bands, people were getting sick on the tour buses so Holly decided to charter a plane to the next stop. The Big Bopper, ill with the flu, swapped spots with Holly’s band member Waylon Jennings while Valens won a coin flip with another Holly band member, Tommy Allsup, and took his seat on the ill-fated aircraft. Fate: take this path, or that one?
   
6. Blondie, Accidents Never Happen . . . One of my favorite Blondie songs, nice beat, nice groove. It wasn’t a single from the Eat To The Beat album although a video was done for it so perhaps a video single but I’m not much into videos. Unless they’re straight ‘performance’ videos of the band playing its song, videos to me are like when a book becomes a movie and re-releases of the book come with whoever plays the lead character on the cover. I like to form my own images of what characters look like, or interpret song lyrics for myself, although I have seen the Accidents video and it’s a simple band ‘performance’ thing.

7. R.E.M., The Wake-Up Bomb . . . I prefer R.E.M.’s rockier stuff. Like this one from the New Adventures In Hi-Fi album, 1996. Critics tend to rave over 1992’s Automatic For The People album, and it’s good, but I tend to listen to New Adventures more, there’s more songs on it that I like than is the case with Automatic. Music is all about personal taste, of course, but apparently singer Michael Stipe considers New Adventures as his favorite. So there.

8. Pretenders, Complex Person . . . I had left the Pretenders behind in the early 1980s, after 1983’s terrific Learning To Crawl album as far as new studio releases went. But a few years ago, likely fueled by seeing Pretenders open for The Who and because their stuff was so cheap in a used CD store, I caught up on the discography and am fully up to date, including Chrissie Hynde’s solo albums. And, at least to me, they’re one of those longtime bands/artists that continue to produce worthwhile music up to the present. This now 20 year (!?) old song, from 2002’s excellent Loose Screw album is an example.

9. The Kinks, Complicated Life . . . The Kinks’ Ray Davies and Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde were once a couple, so I put them back-to-back in my set, talking about complicated complexities. This one’s from a Kinks’ masterpiece, 1971’s Muswell Hillbillies which, criminally, didn’t even chart in the UK and made just No. 100 in the US. Ridiculous to me, because the album – like many underappreciated except for Kinks’ fans albums – is brilliant. Country rock, blues, music hall, they could do it all.

10. The Guess Who, Life In The Bloodstream . . . Fairly well-known Guess Who track but it wasn’t a single. It’s from 1971’s So Long Bannatyne album but I pulled it off a personal Guess Who favorites CD of hits and deep cuts, two volumes, I burned years ago. And in going over those tracks as I planned this show, once again obvious was how the depth in quality of The Guess Who’s output is astounding.

11. Murray McLauchlan, Sweeping The Spotlight Away . . . Title cut from the Canadian folk rocker’s 1974 album, which yielded one of his biggest hits, Down By The Henry Moore.

12. George Harrison, It’s What You Value . . . I’ve always liked this pop rocker from Harrison’s 1976 album, 33 1/3. The lyrics are about Harrison paying noted session drummer Jim Keltner with a Mercedes in lieu of money, for playing on Harrison’s 1974 tour. It took some convincing for Harrison to get Keltner to go on tour, but he finally got him by promising Keltner a new car to replace his old van. Or so the story goes. According to Harrison’s liner notes on remastered versions of the album, the rest of his band members then moaned that all they got was money for playing, while Keltner got a Mercedes. If it were me, I’d want money and then spend it on what I want, even maybe a Mercedes. First world problems, as the saying goes.

13. John Lennon, God . . . One of Lennon’s finest, musically and of course lyrically, from the Plastic Ono Band album. I’ve played it before, deliberately played it again to set up . . .

14. U2, God Part II . . . U2’s fine, rockier sequel, which appeared on the Rattle and Hum combination studio-live album.

15. J.J. Cale, Call The Doctor . . . This song is why you buy – or in the modern world, investigate online – studio albums, not just compilations, if you’re deeply interested in an artist. Typical J.J. Cale, as was often the case with him, a short, bluesy shuffle leaving you wanting more. But you’d have to have, or listen to, his 1971 debut album, Naturally, to hear it. One of my personal favorites, I find it amazing it’s not on any of the various J.J. Cale compilations.

16. Dire Straits, Where Do You Think You’re Going? . . . One of my deja vu moments. I feel like I’ve played this too recently but, my research indicates no and in any event, my new thing is, so what if I did? Great tune, from the band’s second album, Communique, but of course Dire Straits was so consistently good throughout their six studio albums.

     

17. Jim Croce, New York’s Not My Home . . . This wasn’t a single, although it appears on Croce’s posthumously-released greatest hits album. Good tune, as is most of this late artist’s work, sadly lost to us in the early 1970s, like Buddy Holly many years before him, in a plane crash flying between tour stops.

18. Eagles, King Of Hollywood . . . I’ve said it before but I like The Long Run album, even though critics, and the band members themselves, have tended to dismiss it. I suppose, when you’re trying to follow up Hotel California, anything will pale in comparison but in some ways I find The Long Run rawer, edgier – like this tune – and better, which can tend to happen when a band is fried, fraying, having a difficult time in recording, etc. Conflict and difficult circumstances often makes for great art. All a matter of taste and opinion, of course.

19. Steve Earle and The Dukes, The Tennessee Kid . . . Second time in 2-3 weeks I dig back into Earle’s 2015 Terraplane album, a terrific record I’ve only recently gotten into – and into it major I am – thanks to a recommendation from a music acquaintance on Twitter. Spoken word opening transitions into a pulsating groove overlaid with not so much singing but more of an ongoing spoken monologue.

20. Bob Dylan, Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again . . . It’s Dylan. Seven minutes, nine verses of typically great lyrics as only Dylan can enunciate them, with that great chorus, love the drumming, the playing, the feel, the song. All a matter of taste of course and some people, still, say Dylan can’t sing. Well, he’s distinctive, certainly not cookie cutter, and simply great – the best Bob Dylan singer there ever was or will be but, sure, not to everyone’s taste. I had always known Dylan, largely via my older brother who was a big fan and as I’ve often mentioned, a huge musical influence. I remember him bringing home the John Wesley Harding album when it came out, 1967. But I had been only a compilations collector of Dylan’s stuff until truly getting into this song, and the Blonde on Blonde album, one afternoon in Peace River, Alberta, 1981. Fresh out of college and having moved west in pursuit of my journalism dream, I was living in a house with several other people. Fun times, one of those life instances where you become friends with people by moving in with them to share rent, instead of becoming enemies by moving in with friends, as can happen.

    Anyway, everyone was out and I happened to be alone, lying on the couch, reading, when I saw one of my roommates’ Blonde on Blonde pre-recorded cassette sitting on a coffee table. I popped it in the player and soon enough, as is the case with me and Dylan, down went the book because I can’t do other things when I listen to Dylan, he pulls me in to full attention. So I just lay back and took the whole album in, and the rest is history. I didn’t have to buy it for a while, because we all shared our music in that house, but soon enough, I was on my own and the album was a regular visitor to my turntable as were Dylan’s other studio works as I collected his entire output.

21. Them, I’m Gonna Dress In Black . . . Early Them fronted, of course, by Van The Man Morrison. It’s largely due to the organ in this bluesy track but it struck me, in picking this tune, how some Them songs sound like early Animals or, I suppose, vice-versa. I pulled it from a wonderful 3-CD (including a rarities/outtakes disc) Them compilation I own – The Complete Them 1964-1967, with liner notes written by Van the Man. Morrison can often be, or come across as, a curmudgeon, but he’s obviously justifiably proud of Them’s work, ending his insightful notes with “I think of Them as good records. The best part was actually doing the tracks: the best part, and the most enjoyable. There’s a lot of good stuff here.” Indeed.

22. Johnny Cash, Man In Black . . . Back to my song connectivity thing: The Them song title sets up this famous call to make things bright, as my set list actually grows darker, if anyone’s following along. I still am, ha. We’ve gone from sex to God to travel and approaching the dark side . . .

23. The Rolling Stones, Dancing With Mr. D . . . via this Stones’ pseudo-sequel to Sympathy For The Devil. It was the opening cut on 1973’s Goats Head Soup album.

24. Mike Oldfield, Tubular Bells, Part One . . . The first part of Oldfield’s masterpiece was used, of course, as the theme music to the horror film The Exorcist, which naturally boosted sales of Oldfield’s album. According to Wikipedia, Exorcist director William Friedkin had decided to scrap the original score for his movie, written by Lalo Schifrin (perhaps best known for the iconic theme music for the original Mission Impossible TV series) and was seeking alternatives. Friedkin decided on Tubular Bells when, on a visit to Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun’s office, Friedkin saw the album lying around and put it on the stereo. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. I figured I’d play all 25 minutes of Part One by the same sort of happenstance. I was going through CDs, Tubular Bells popped up, I hadn’t played it in ages, did so, realized how much I still like it, how others might, too, and decided to go with it. So now I suppose I’m committed to playing the rest of the album, Part Two, at some future point, perhaps in another long song show. We shall see.

1. David Wilcox, That Hypnotizin’ Boogie . . . From Wilcox’s debut album, Out Of The Woods, released in 1980. I was working in a bar, putting myself through college at the time and remember him playing this, before the album was released. As soon as the record was released, I bought it and have been a Wilcox fan since.

2. Foghat, Chateau Lafitte ’59 Boogie . . . Speaking of boogie. . . I saw Foghat at the Kitchener Blues Festival some years back, good show.

3. Paul McCartney & Wings, Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five . . . One of the great deep cuts from Band On The Run but I suppose, given how solid that album is, it’s a fairly well-known track.

4. The Plastic Ono Band, Blue Suede Shoes (live) . . . From Live Peace In Toronto 1969, the Rock ‘n’ Roll revival concert that featured such ’50s fathers of rock as Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley and Little Richard as well as Chicago, Alice Cooper and The Doors. I love the MC’s intro to the song: “Get your matches ready” (nowadays it would be, get your smart phones ready” and then John Lennon’s slightly sheepish “OK we’re just gonna play numbers we know, you know, cuz we’ve never played together before and mumble mumble . . . ” And it was true, that version of The Plastic Ono Band – Lennon, Eric Clapton, bassist Klaus Voorman, drummer Alan White (later of Yes) and singer-in-a-bag Yoko Ono, was put together quickly when Lennon was invited to play the show, rehearsed on the plane and the result is a fine, raw live album and a historic moment in rock and roll history.

5. Traveling Wilburys, Tweeter and the Monkey Man . . . Bob Dylan handles lead vocals on this one, backed by his Wilbury brothers George Harrison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, with session drummer to the stars Jim Keltner on skins. Roy Orbison, the fifth Wilbury, sat the session out. There’s varying opinions on who actually wrote the song – which Canada’s Headstones rocked up to great effect on their debut album Picture Of Health in 1993. The song is registered to Dylan’s publishing company, but Harrison said it was co-written by Petty with some lyrical input from him and Lynne. Who really knows; I’ve always considered it a Dylan song but in any event it’s a great one.

6. Graham Parker and The Rumour, Devil’s Sidewalk . . . It wasn’t a single but it’s always been my favorite song from The Up Escalator album. That opening guitar hook did its job, reeling me in forever from the first time I heard it. It’s a great album, features Bruce Springsteen on backing vocals on the song Endless Night and E-Street Band keyboardist Danny Federici throughout. I’m a huge Parker fan and I’d put the record in a tie with Squeezing Out Sparks as maybe Parker’s best, although The Up Escalator didn’t meet with the widespread positive reviews Sparks did. Of course, then there’s earlier albums like Howlin’ Wind, Heat Treatment and Stick To Me so let’s just say that, early on, Parker was near-perfect. I suppose The Up Escalator resonates best with me, as much music does for anyone, because it was a time-and-place record and the first album of his I actually owned, although I knew his earlier hits like Local Girls from Sparks.

    

7. Moon Martin, Bad News . . . Moon Martin is one of those artists largely known to the masses by one song, his 1979 hit Rolene. But he was great, beyond that. For one thing, he wrote Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor Doctor) that Robert Palmer turned into a hit. Anyway, Martin started his music career as a rockabilly artist and he incorporated the genre into much of his work, including this cut from his 1980 album Street Fever.
   
8. The Rolling Stones, I Got The Blues . . . “At three o’clock in the morning I’m singing my song to you.” I always think of that line when I think of this song, from Sticky Fingers. A slow blues tune maybe best in fact listened to at 3 a.m., half drunk, headphones on, lamenting a lost love.

9. Peter Tosh, No Sympathy . . . Followers of the show have often detected a symmetry, at least sometimes, to my set lists and despite my internal reservations that I risk being contrived, I find I just naturally make certain connections between songs and artists in my shows. That’s whether it be by title, by lyrical content or, as in this case, by artists’ collaborations and song title. Peter Tosh, likely, being the straight shooter he was, would have had no sympathy for someone lamenting a lost love, and he also later collaborated with and opened for The Rolling Stones. So, here you are, from his fine Legalize It album in 1976, the album before he was signed to Rolling Stones Records and opened for the band on their 1978 tour. I saw that tour but alas, Tosh wasn’t on the bill I saw on Buffalo, July 4, 1978. I got April Wine (which we missed due to a traffic jam coming into the stadium), Atlanta Rhythm Section (great show) and Journey (meh, Tosh would have fit well there, instead). A later journalism colleague of mine saw the same tour, in Cleveland three days earlier I found out nearly 40 years later, and he got Tosh as an opener.

10. Aerosmith, Reefer Headed Woman . . . Sometimes listed as Reefer Head Woman – in fact most of the YouTube posts refer to it that way although on Aerosmith’s Night In The Ruts album itself it’s listed as Reefer Headed Woman. Whatever, it’s a great Aerosmith treatment of an old blues cut from an album most critics dismissed but is in fact a kick-butt ‘Smiths album.

11. Van Morrison, Big Time Operators . . . My favorite Van the Man cut many people may not know, a bluesy track from 1993’s Too Long In Exile album. It’s a great lyrical ‘eff you’ to the music industry with great lead guitar from Van himself.

12. Steve Earle and The Dukes, Better Off Alone . . . I like Steve Earle, lots, got into him via the Copperhead Road album and single way back when and went back and forward with him and have most of his stuff. But I didn’t have, and hadn’t heard, his Terraplane album, from 2015, until a Twitter music acquaintance of mine suggested it and so here we be. Fantastic, all-originals bluesy album.
    
13. Billy Joel, The Stranger . . . Title cut from his breakthrough album in 1977, was a single in some countries, notably Japan where it hit No. 2 but in any case just another great song from a great album.

14. Townes Van Zandt, Brand New Companion . . . Playing a Steve Earle tune reminded me of Townes Van Zandt because Earle did a whole album of Townes tunes, called Townes, in 2009. This track was on it and this is the late great, troubled but appealingly warts and all human Van Zandt’s original.

15. Free, Be My Friend . . . Great song from the band’s 1970 album Highway and a long overdue return to playing the band on the show.

16. Bad Company, Heartbeat . . . And playing Free naturally, due to the band connections (Paul Rodgers especially on lead vocals) brought me to Bad Company.

17. U2, Tryin’ To Throw Your Arms Around The World . . . I was trying to figure out a semi-deep cut from the Achtung Baby album to play which is arguably difficult since most of the tracks on the record are, deservedly, so well known. It came down to this one, or Until The End Of The World, whose lyrics I love, but that was a fairly successful single in some countries and this is supposed to be a deep cuts show and I’ve played it before. So, I’m playing this.

18. Steely Dan, Aja . . . Jazzy title cut from the album.

19. Stephen Stills, Treetop Flyer . . . Neil Young, and he’s great, is often more critically acclaimed than the other members of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young but really, each guy has done fine work on his own, particularly, I would submit, Stills as with this one from his excellent 1991 Stills Alone album.

20. Roxy Music, Re-Make/Re-Model . . . Great funky freaky tune from the early, more experimental days of Roxy Music and a deliberate choice because what follows are a couple cover tunes that indeed are remakes/remodels of well-known songs, which as I’ve often said are my favorite types of covers – they become new songs, essentially.

21. Patti Smith, Smells Like Teen Spirit . . . An acoustic reinterpretation of the Nirvana song that broke that band big. It’s from an excellent album I’ve periodically mined, Smith’s 2007 covers album Twelve.

     

22. Jose Feliciano, Light My Fire . . . I remember seeing Feliciano on some variety-type show my parents watched in the late 1960s or early ’70s. I didn’t get into him at the time but never forgot his performance and so, as let’s say a music explorer, eventually found my way back to him. The same thing has happened, maybe a function of age, who knows, for me with various artists my parents listened to – Tom Jones, Glen Campbell, Harry Belafonte, Johnny Cash . . . on and on. It’s a cool thing.

23. Golden Earring, Kill Me (Ce Soir) . . . Said it a zillion times, Golden Earring so much more than the two hits they are best-known for, especially in North America – Radar Love and Twilight Zone.

24. Frank Zappa, Muffin Man . . . “He turns to us and speaks. . . . Some people like cupcakes better. I for one, care less for them.” “Goodnight Austin, Texas, wherever you are.” Great Zappa madness, great tune, amazing guitar, what a fantastic artist and brilliant, thoughtful, no BS man he was.

1. Yes, Awaken . . . Somehow or other, tonight’s set, which was going to begin with Otis Redding’s Satisfaction (which is later in the list) morphed into a prog-rock show, at least for the first several songs. Like this one, the lone epic-length (15 minutes) track from Yes’s 1977 album, Going For The One, which saw the band record mostly shorter tracks.

2. The Alan Parsons Project, In The Lap Of The Gods . . . Spacey stuff from Parson’s 1978 album Pyramid, a concept record centered around Egypt’s pyramids and, apparently, the fact pyramid power was something of a ‘thing’ around that time. In fact I recall then-Toronto Maple Leafs’ hockey coach Red Kelly being into it but ultimately it still didn’t win the Leafs their first Stanley Cup since 1967, and they’re still trying.

3. Jethro Tull, Mine Is The Mountain . . . I’m a big Tull fan anyway so I’ll tend to find value in everything the band releases, and I’m really liking the new album, The Zealot Gene and this to me is one of the stronger tracks on it. My liking of Tull includes even the sythnesizer-heavy 1984 album Under Wraps which I hated at first but has grown on me over time as yet another example of how I like when bands I like try different things. The new album is more let’s say traditional, recognizable Tull and it’s terrific, already after a relative few plays having embedded itself into my brain.

4. King Crimson, Red . . . Heavy, metallic instrumental title cut from Crimson’s 1974 album, after which leader Robert Fripp put the band on hiatus until they returned with an updated, Talking Heads-type new wave sound for the Discipline-Beat-Three Of A Perfect Pair trilogy of albums starting in 1981.
5. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Toccata . . . ELP introduced many rock fans to, or reminded them of, classical music, this track an adaptation of Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera’s piano concerto. It appeared on the Brain Salad Surgery album. It’s also probably the type of mind-bending track, especially the last two minutes, that a friend of mine was fearful of during college days when, stoned together, someone in our group sitting around my apartment suggested I put on some ELP and said friend – who moments earlier had been swimming the crawl stroke on my carpet – shrieked, ‘no, no, please, not that!” Luckily for him, I didn’t have any ELP handy at that point. Instead, I put on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, which was likely worse for my friend’s psyche. If I recall, he then transitioned to swimming the backstroke. Just kidding about that, but he really did do the crawl. Fun times.

6. Emerson, Lake & Powell, Step Aside . . . Drummer Carl Palmer wasn’t available due to contractual obligations to the band Asia when Keith Emerson and Greg Lake wanted to reform ELP in the mid-1980s. So, Emerson’s friend and drummer to the stars Cozy Powell stepped in for a new ELP’s lone, self-titled studio album from which I pulled this jazzy track.

7. Saga, Wind Him Up . . . Second single from the Canadian band’s successful 1981 album, Worlds Apart which also gave us their top-30 Billboard single On The Loose.

8. Rush, The Twilight Zone . . . From 2112 and a tribute to the classic TV show, the Rod Serling-created original one, not the 1980s remake, which I gather was not bad, or the god-awful, mercifully canceled 2020-21 version.

9. Black Sabbath, Air Dance . . . Jazzy, progressive-type tune from Sabbath’s Never Say Die album. If you didn’t know it was Sabbath, you wouldn’t know it was Sabbath, in my opinion. I like it.

10. Queen, Good Company . . . Yet another great Brian May-penned Queen song, this one a Dixieland jazz-type tune from A Night At The Opera.

11. Neil Young, F*!#in’ Up . . . Not much to say aside from the chorus says it all.

12. The Tragically Hip, Opiated . . . From the first full Hip album, 1989’s Up To Here, which followed their earlier self-titled EP. I bought this one, sight unseen, pre-internet, from a magazine review that said it was Stones-like and before songs like Blow At High Dough and New Orleans Is Sinking from it became hits. So it was kinda cool when they did, because I was rewarded by taking a chance on the review of what is, top to bottom, an excellent album.

13. George Harrison, Let It Down . . . I’m having one of those deja vu moments again, feeling like I just played this in a recent show but, searches indicate not the case and in any event, so be it if so. Harrison originally offered this a Beatles’ tune during the Get Back/Let It Be sessions but, like the title cut from what became his All Things Must Pass album, it was rejected by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, which contributed to Harrison leaving those sessions for about a week as detailed in the Get Back documentary. He just up and leaves at one point, telling the rest of the guys “I’ll see you around the clubs.” The next day, when John, Paul and Ringo reassemble, Lennon seems to shrug it all off, musing “if he’s not back by Tuesday, we’ll get (Eric) Clapton in.”

14. John Lennon, Meat City . . . A beautiful noise, I’d call this rocker, which was the B-side to the title cut Mind Games single from Lennon’s 1973 album.

15. Jefferson Airplane, Blues From An Airplane . . . Lead cut from Takes Off, the Airplane’s 1966 debut album, sung by Marty Balin. Spooky sort of psychedelia, only problem with it is, it’s too short at two minutes, 10 seconds. Then again, good to leave people wanting more.

16. Otis Redding, Satisfaction . . . The Otis treatment of the Stones’ classic and apparently, with the horns, the way Keith Richards initially envisioned it. I’m glad the Stones’ version turned out the way it did – although they’ve long incorporated horns on it on various tours – but also great that we have Redding’s interpretation. What an artist he was.

17. The Rolling Stones, Jump On Top Of Me . . . This boogie rocker was the B-side to the 1994 Voodoo Lounge album’s second single, You Got Me Rocking (which has become a Stones’ concert staple). Jump On Top Of Me was also in the soundtrack to the movie Pret-A-Porter (Ready To Wear), a somewhat obscure, critically-carved movie I’ve never seen but it does feature an all-star cast that includes Sophia Loren (who received a supporting actress Golden Globe nomination), Tim Robbins, Julia Roberts and Kim Basinger, among many others.

18. The Flying Burrito Brothers, High Fashion Queen . . . When I think of or play the Stones, the Burritos often come to mind due to Keith Richards’ friendship with the Burritos’ late leader Gram Parsons. So, here’s the country-boogie Burritos.

19. Joe Cocker, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood . . . First recorded by the immortal Nina Simone (I’ll have to play her version sometime) and turned into a big hit by The Animals, this is Cocker’s also terrific interpretation. It’s from his 1969 debut album, With A Little Help From My Friends.

20. Fleetwood Mac, Future Games . . . I’ve said it many times: the mid-period Fleetwood Mac featuring American guitarist/singer/songwriter Bob Welch is terrific, if often relatively underappreciated in between the original blues band led by founder Peter Green and the later Stevie Nicks-Lindsey Buckingham commercial juggernaut. This extended, Welch-penned ethereal title cut from the band’s 1971 album, Welch’s first with the group, is an indication. Welch later re-cut it, at less than half the eight-minute length,for one of his solo albums.

21. The J. Geils Band, Monkey Island . . . A friend of mine texted me last week, excited over his purchase, after all this time (about time, bud, ha) since its 1972 release, of J. Geils’ terrific Full House live album. I’ve mined it for probably all of its eight songs, over time. Great band, and our discussion prompted me to play this spooky title cut from the band’s 1977 album, which didn’t do so well commercially but is for the most part a terrific deep, dark, moody work.

22. Doug and The Slugs, Drifting Away . . . And we drift away into planning for next week’s show via one of my favorite relationship tunes, a time and place one for me as I was going through an, in the end, definitely ‘for the best’ breakup with a college girlfriend – although she was the one who introduced me to the Slugs.

1. Lou Reed, Rock ‘n’ Roll (live, from Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal) . . . From the liner notes of the year 2000 remastered edition of Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal: “Lou Reed sucks, but Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal rules.” – unsolicited customer review on Amazon.com . . . It wasn’t me, honest! For one thing, if and when I do use Amazon, I use Amazon.ca since I’m in Canada although I have been known to go to .com if I can’t find something here. Secondly, I like most of Lou Reed’s stuff and that of the Velvet Underground, most of whose songs he wrote. Like this one. Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal does, indeed, rule. And this live version kicks butt, featuring great twin guitar work by Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, the latter of Alice Cooper fame.

2. The Rolling Stones, My Obsession . . . Staccato-type track featuring terrific drumming by the late great Charlie Watts, from 1967’s Between The Buttons album.

3. Johnny Winter, Silver Train . . . The first of several cover tunes, great artists doing other great artists’ songs, in tonight’s set. This is Winter’s version of the Rolling Stones’ song from 1973’s Goats Head Soup album. The typically Winter-ized version actually preceded the Stones’ release, as the Texas guitar slinger heard a demo of the tune and released it on his Still Alive and Well album that preceded Goats Head Soup by a few months. The song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in 1970 but was shelved before being polished for Goats Head Soup. Winter, who mined the Stones’ and Bob Dylan catalogs for such tunes as Jumping Jack Flash, Highway 61 Revisited and Like A Rolling Stone, also covered Let It Bleed on Still Alive and Well.

4. Marianne Faithfull, Truth, Bitter Truth . . . From 1981’s Dangerous Acquaintances album, which didn’t do as well as the hard-act-to-follow Broken English. Faithfull herself said Dangerous Acquaintances was a difficult recording, everyone concerned with the project – Faithfull, her session players and the producer – weren’t always on the same page. Nevertheless, I think it’s a pretty good record, featuring such songs as the singles Intrigue and Sweetheart plus For Beauty’s Sake, Easy In The City, Tenderness and this one, a seven-minute epic that starts as almost spoken word before transitioning nicely into the main tune 1:15 in.

5. Nazareth, Empty Arms, Empty Heart . . . As someone on YouTube commented, yet another great song (by anyone) that most people will never hear. That’s why Bald Boy is here, to dig into deep cuts like this one from Nazareth’s debut, self-titled album in 1971. It’s almost progressive hard rock, at least in terms of how many time signature changes they cram into a three-minute, 12 second song.

6. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, The Letter . . .A song The Box Tops took to No. 1 on the charts in 1967 and was later covered by Joe Cocker and Al Green, among others. BTO’s rocked up version, whose main riff calls to mind Neil Young’s Southern Man, was recorded in 1971 as Brave Belt morphed into BTO but wasn’t officially released until the 2-CD BTO Anthology came out in 1993.

7. Paul McCartney and Wings, Let Me Roll It (live, from Wings Over America) . . . Originally on the Band On The Run studio album, it was the B-side to Jet but may as well have been a single, as it’s one of Wings’ best-known tracks and one McCartney almost never fails to play in concert to this day – it appears on five Macca live albums.

8. Led Zeppelin, Candy Store Rock . . . A shuddering sort of rockabilly tune, apparently one of Robert Plant’s favorites from 1976’s Presence album. It was a difficult album for Plant, who had suffered serious injuries in a car accident and sang from a wheelchair during the sessions.

9. Budgie, Napoleon Bona Part One & Two . . . Clever, or silly, title, depending on one’s point of view but nevertheless another excellent almost progressive metal offering from the Welsh pioneers who influenced the likes of Iron Maiden and Metallica. Metallica has covered Budgie songs Breadfan, with its hellacious riff, and Crash Course in Brain Surgery. I’ve played Breadfan before but this reminds me to get to Crash Course in Brain Surgery at some point.

10. Red Rider, Napoleon Sheds His Skin . . . Having fun with Napoleonic titles but aside from that, this is one of the many good tracks on Red Rider’s 1983 Neruda album.

11. Patti Smith, Changing Of The Guards . . . Another cover, this one of the Bob Dylan song from his Street Legal album in 1978. Smith did it for her all-covers Twelve (for twelve tunes) album, released in 2007. I’ve played things like the Stones’ Gimme Shelter and Hendrix’s Are You Experienced? from it before but definitely an album worth returning to soon. It’s full of interesting Smith interpretations of such songs as the Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit and Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, among others.

12. Blood, Sweat & Tears, 40,000 Headmen . . . The BS & T jazz-rock fusion treatment, applied to the Traffic tune in a nice version from the ‘3’ album. I remember getting the album when my older sister, brother and I were in the Columbia Record Club in 1970 via which we also got Chicago’s second album and Santana’s Abraxas. Things were different, then, but I suppose a record club is really not much different than ordering online now. Speaking of Abraxas, great album: 1. I need to return to it for some songs soon. 2. I always remember playing charades and our mom hilariously doing pantomime trying to describe the poster of the band members that came with the album. We didn’t ‘get’ what she was trying to describe and were in hysterics, but just more evidence that mom was pretty cool.

13. Traffic, Light Up Or Leave Me Alone . . . Jim Capaldi wrote and sang this one from The Low Spark Of High-Heeled Boys album while usual lead singer/multi-instrumentalist Steve Winwood provides some nice guitar licks. 
14. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Pagan Baby . . . Some might consider it repetitive. Others, hypnotic. Or, hypnotically repetitive, which to me is a good thing on yet another CCR deep cut that shows that while they were an amazing singles band and are well-served by compilations, the full picture – as with many bands – is revealed via the individual studio albums. This one’s from 1970’s Pendulum.

15. Faces, You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything (Even Take The Dog For A Walk, Mend A Fuse, Fold Away The Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings) . . . Not sure what’s better, the song or the fun title, the in-parentheses part of which is not always used, but I like to be thorough. I like the song, a typically fun, shambolic Faces outing, which was their charm. It was the final Faces single, peaking at No. 12 in the UK charts.

16. Gordon Lightfoot, Me and Bobby McGee . . . From Lightfoot’s 1970 album Sit Down Young Stranger, the title later changed to If You Could Read My Mind when that song from the record became a big hit. Lightfoot’s spare version, which was No. 1 on the Canadian country charts and No. 13 on the pop singles list, is one of the first recordings of the Kris Kristofferson song that soon after became a posthumous No. 1 Billboard hit for Janis Joplin. Roger Miller was the first to record it, taking it to No. 12 on the US country charts in 1969. Charley Pride, Jerry Lee Lewis and Kristofferson himself are among the many others who have covered what is simply a great song. Lewis had a No. 1 US country hit with it, a version I played on the show some time ago.

17. The Grateful Dead, Throwing Stones . . . From the Dead’s 1987 album In The Dark which was a big commercial success thanks in large measure to the hit single Touch of Grey. This extended, jaunty piece about humanity, with lyrics like “a peaceful place, or so it looks from space; a closer look reveals the human race” was also a single but didn’t chart to my knowledge.

18. Headstones, Cemetery . . . Hard rocker with upbeat lyrics (kidding) from what is still likely my favorite Headstones album, the debut Picture of Health, from 1993. And I have all of this consistently good Canadian band’s material. So we go, deliberately, from Throwing Stones to the Headstones in a cemetery. Yeah, I know, enough nonsense, Bald Boy. Next! Ha.

19. Steppenwolf, Power Play . . . Little did I know, when at age nine in 1968 a friend played The Pusher from Steppenwolf’s debut album and our group of friends marveled that the lyrics said “god damn”, that I’d become a lifelong fan of the band that originated in Canada as The Sparrows. I’ve just always loved the band’s gritty sound and John Kay’s vocals. Steppenwolf was far more than the endless plays of Born To Be Wild and Magic Carpet Ride one hears on commercial radio. Great songs, but dig a bit, folks.

20. Drive-By Truckers, 3 Dimes Down . . . As mentioned last time I played the Truckers, I quite enjoy their stuff, like this rocker from their 2008 album Brighter Than Creation’s Dark. Or maybe I decided to play it because of the album title, given I had just watched a documentary about the cosmic dawn, the period when light emerged, millions of years after the Big Bang, to illuminate what had to that point been a dark universe. On the other hand, if I played songs inspired by what documentaries I watch, then I would have played McCartney and Wings’ Spirits Of Ancient Egypt today since I had also recently watched a show about how we’d build the pyramids today as opposed to how the ancient Egyptians (or aliens, or helped by aliens) did it. I thought of doing just that, but then decided Let Me Roll it is a better Wings’ song than Spirits Of Ancient Egypt, so I played that instead. To refresh any failing memories, the Wings’ tune is No. 7 in tonight’s set.

21. Uriah Heep, Bird Of Prey . . . A friend of mine occasionally has ribbed me when I play Uriah Heep but, what can I say, we all have guilty pleasures I suppose and I don’t even consider Heep a guilty pleasure. I like their stuff, especially the earlier material like this track from 1971’s Salisbury album. Depending on my mood I can do with or without the late singer David Byron’s operatic oohs and aahs but there’s no doubt bands like Queen and, much later, The Darkness were influenced by it.

22. Rory Gallagher, Ride On Red, Ride On . . . Gallagher’s smokin’ cover of the song from Louisiana Red’s 1963 debut album, The Lowdown Backporch Blues. It appeared on Gallagher’s 1982 album Jinx.

23. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, Get Out Of Denver (from Live Bullet) . . . As we, too, get out of here, for another week, riding the rhythms of Seger’s outstanding first live record.

1. The Beach Boys, Add Some Music To Your Day . . . From 1970, when The Beach Boys were past their surfer-hit prime but still making good music that was often ignored. This was a single, only made No. 64, from the Sunflower album.

2. Chicago, A Hit By Varese . . . Jazz-rock fusion from Chicago V in 1972. Saturday In The Park was the big commercial hit from the album but it’s this kind of funky/jazzy groove tune that made early Chicago so great. Written and sung by Chicago keyboardist Robert Lamm, it’s a tribute to influential composer Edgard Varese, who counted Frank Zappa among his biggest fans.

3. Electric Light Orchestra, So Fine . . . Ooh la ooh la ooh la ooh . . . Up-tempo tune from 1976’s A New World Record album. Wasn’t a single – tough competition from what were singles from the album, Do Ya, Telephone Line and Livin’ Thing – but a pretty well-known track nonetheless, especially the ooh la intro and the African drumming/percussion middle section played by ELO drummer Bev Bevan on a then-cutting edge Moog processor/synthesizer. Quick side note on Bev Bevan in terms of how versatile musicians can be in what may seem disparate associations: he also played drums/percussion for Black Sabbath during the 1980s, the period between Ronnie James Dio’s and Ozzy Osbourne’s stints in the band when Sabbath carried on, led by forever guitarist Tony Iommi and a sometime cast of thousands.

4. The Beatles, Dig It . . . Just thought I’d throw this 50-second snippet, the one that appears on the Let It Be album, in front of I’ve Got A Feeling. It segues into Let It Be on the original album. The Dig It that appears on the original Let It Be album is actually a snippet within the longer, four-minute version of Dig It available via the Get Back documentary and on various expanded re-releases of the original record.

5. The Beatles, I’ve Got A Feeling . . . From Let It Be and the famous rooftop concert. I just (finally) watched Get Back, the current documentary reworking of the original Let It Be movie. It’s excellent and does show that, at least musically, The Beatles (particularly once they repaired to their Apple studio from the cavernous Twickenham) were still an excellent functioning band despite the tensions that tended to be the focus of the original Let It Be movie. The new documentary is broader and, I think, provides a more complete picture. There’s no doubt the band was fractured by this point but musically, when push came to shove, professionalism and shared vision in the fact they knew who they were and what standards they had set, took precedence in producing yet more great music.
   
6. Bruce Cockburn, And We Dance . . . From Cockburn’s typically excellent 1981 album, Inner City Front. No particular reason for playing the song, other than it comes from an album thta happened to be on top of a CD pile and therefore in line with tonight’s ‘floor show: top of the ‘to file’ pile’ theme, but one never needs an excuse or reason to play Cockburn’s music.
   
7. Garland Jeffreys, We The People . . . Reggae tune from Escape Artist, his 1981 album that featured various members of Bruce Springsteen’s band and Graham Parker’s Rumour.

8. Leon Russell, Stranger In A Strange Land . . . It didn’t occur to me before programming this song for this week but, and I haven’t read anything to that effect in reading about Axl Rose, but it strikes me that the Guns N Roses singer seems influenced by Russell’s vocal style, albeit in a different milieu.
   
9. Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane, Street In The City . . . I don’t like repeating myself, or at least not too soon between repeats, not that I suppose anyone is necessarily keeping score, but this might be one of the few tracks from the great 1977 Rough Mix album that I have not yet played on the show.
   
10. Neil Young/Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere . . . Title cut from his 1969 album, a country rocker that seems to indicate that, at that point, apparently disillusioned with his life in California, at least from what I’ve read, Young pondered a return home, to Canada.
    
11. Mick Jagger, Hang On To Me Tonight . . . The type of ballad I think Mick Jagger does so well, from his excellent – and most Stones-like – 1993 Wandering Spirit album. Nice harmonica break, too, from Jagger, late in the song, proving what Keith Richards has said, that the purest Jagger is when he plays harmonica.

12. Buddy Guy with Mick Jagger, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) . . . A bluesy reinvention – with Jagger on backing vocals – of one of my favorite Stones’ tunes, the second single, behind Angie, from 1973’s Goats Head Soup. Guy’s version came out on a wonderful 2018 compilation, Chicago Plays The Stones, that apparently was a tribute response by Chicago blues artists to the Stones’ own 2016 blues tribute/covers album, Blue and Lonesome. Wonderful stuff, all of it.

13. Dusty Springfield, Tupelo Honey . . . Perhaps surprisingly, Dusty’s lovely 1973 cover of one of my favorite Van Morrison tunes didn’t make much of an impact on the charts.

14. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Nightwatchman . . . Funky one, and one of my favorites, from Petty’s 1981 Hard Promises album.

15. Genesis, Watcher Of The Skies . . . Nightwatchman to Watcher, clever, no? From Foxtrot, 1972. The album truly fit my ‘top of the pile’ theme for tonight but it’s also nice to be able to play this because, as it happens, a Genesis tribute band, The Genesis Experience, was in Waterloo last week. By all accounts, including photos from a friend of mine, the group gave a terrific performance – both musically and visually, a key component of that period of Genesis – that included Watcher Of The Skies. I’m not a shill for tribute bands, but the highly professional ones I’ve seen in my time, Beatles and Pink Floyd for instance, tend to be really good.
    
16. Pink Floyd, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun (live, Ummagumma version) . . . Speaking of Floyd . . . Great version from the live, and I maintain best, side of 1969’s Ummagumma album.
    
17. Emerson Lake & Palmer, Bitches Crystal . . . Continuing the prog theme…from Tarkus. I thought of playing the title cut, which I have before and will again, but at 20 minutes, the show would be over now. Maybe one day, particularly if I’m feeling lazy, I’ll do a five-song show – Tarkus, Genesis’ Supper’s Ready, Yes’s Close To The Edge, Pink Floyd’s Echoes and then, just to change things up to southern rock/jam band, the Allman Brothers’ 33-minute live version of Mountain Jam. Come to think of it, I’ve over time played each of those epics, just not all within the same show.
    
18. Arthur Lee with Band-Aid, You Want Change For Your Re-Run . . . Arthur Lee of Love fame had talked with Jimi Hendrix about possibly collaborating, although they never officially did. But, a couple years after Hendrix died, here came Lee with a solo album, Vindicator, backed by a band of session players he branded as Band-Aid in honor of a name that might have been used for a Hendrix-Love union. Vindicator is a very Hendrix-like album, different from the Love sound of, say, Forever Changes, as evidenced by this track.

19. Oasis, The Shock Of The Lightning . . . Pulled it from an Oasis comp that was laying atop one of my CD piles. Apparently the first/only Oasis single, from their final album, that didn’t debut at No. 1 in the UK.
    
20. Gov’t Mule, Game Face . . . Typically great hard, bluesy rock delivered Mule style.

21. Status Quo, Gerdundula . . . Great Celtic boogie. I have no idea what the title means, despite searches. Might be some German connection, apparently.
    
22. The Allman Brothers Band, Come And Go Blues . . . Wasn’t at the top of any pile of CDs in terms of tonight’s theme but came up while I was plugging in other songs and, well, one can never have enough Allman Brothers, I say.
    
23. Deep Purple, Drifter . . . Come Taste The Band album was often derided as being too funky, or soulful, for Deep Purple, when it came out in 1975 after Ritchie Blackmore left to form Rainbow. His replacement, Tommy Bolin, was different, sure, but great in his own way, as was Purple. Great album cover, too, five guys’ faces in a glass of wine and then the glass, empty of course, on the back cover.
    
24. Elton John, Sixty Years On . . .One of those examples from EJ’s 1970s period up until 1975 or so, where his deep cuts were as good, often arguably better, as his big solo singles.

25. AC/DC, Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution . . . I second AC/DC’s motion.

1. Triumph, Blinding Light Show/Moonchild . . . From the Canadian band’s 1976 self-titled debut, later re-released and retitled In the Beginning. Fast, slow, acoustic interlude, progressive hard rock/metal, great stuff.

2. Little Feat, Let It Roll . . . Rollicking title track from the band’s 1988 album, a return to studio recording for the band after a nine-year hiatus following the death of founder member and leader Lowell George.

3. Aerosmith, Round and Round . . . Led Zeppelin-like relentless pounder from Toys in the Attic. As allmusic.com reviewers have said, Aerosmith, sometimes considered an American Rolling Stones, actually is more a Stones/Zep combo, resulting in something that is . . . Aerosmith.

4. Blackfoot, Train, Train . . . Great harmonica intro by Shorty Medlocke, a blues and bluegrass musician who wrote the song and was Blackfoot leader Rickey Medlocke’s grandfather. The younger Medlocke was originally in an early version of Lynyrd Skynyrd, playing drums, before leaving before the band’s first official studio album to become guitarist and frontman for Blackfoot before winding up back on guitar, and the man can really play, in latter-day versions of Skynyrd. Rickey Medlocke’s drumming with Skynyrd eventually appeared on the archival release, Skynyrd’s First . . . and Last, which was itself eventually expanded and re-released as Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album.

    

5. ZZ Top, Goin’ Down To Mexico . . . Late great bassist Dusty Hill handles lead vocals on this typical blues rocker from ZZ’s first album. It’s called, wait for it, ZZ Top’s First Album.

6. Lighthouse, Hats Off To The Stranger . . . From what could be termed Canada’s own jazz-rock answer to early Chicago and Blood, Sweat & Tears. Or, just a great jazz-rock band, a version of which continues to tour to this day while many of its members have gone on to be successful in various aspects of the music industry and beyond.

7. The Guess Who, Sitar Saga . . . Early stuff from the band, a cool instrumental with Randy Bachman on sitar and Burton Cummings, who had apparently just learned how to play the instrument, on flute. The track was inspired by the next one in tonight’s set, by a Liverpool mystic.

8. The Beatles, Within You Without You . . . George Harrison’s song from Sgt. Pepper, reflecting his immersion in Hindu teachings, backed not by his Beatle mates but London-based Indian musicians. It’s interesting how one’s tastes change. I can remember in the original vinyl days, and I wasn’t alone among my friends, picking up the needle to skip this song when playing Pepper. Then I got into Ravi Shankar at least a bit via Harrison’s Concert For Bangladesh and I’ve never skipped Within You Without You since.

9. John Lennon, Steel and Glass . . . Likely my favorite song on Lennon’s Walls and Bridges album. Unless Old Dirt Road is, or the hit single, Whatever Gets You Thru The Night, or . . . Today, it’s Steel and Glass. Great track from a great album.

10. J.J. Cale, Hey Baby . . . Typically cool shuffle by the master. Eric Clapton and Dire Straits send thanks for J.J.’s influence on some of their works.

11. Jeff Beck Group, Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You . . . The second, 1970s version of the Jeff Beck Group, with Bobby Tench instead of Rod Stewart on lead vocals, turns Bob Dylan’s country-ish tune from the Nashville Skyline album into a more bluesy, soulful tune. Both versions are excellent.

12. April Wine, Slow Poke . . . Great bluesy tune. Myles Goodwyn’s lead vocals were actually slowed down in the studio, to better fit the song.

13. Paice Ashton Lord, I’m Gonna Stop Drinking Again . . . From the one and only album from Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice and keyboardist Jon Lord, and a good one it is, 1977’s Malice In Wonderland. The project also featured late English singer/keyboardist Tony Ashton, whose credits included sessions with Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Jerry Lee Lewis before he found his way into the Deep Purple orbit via some collaborations on the various members’ solo projects. Nazareth used the same album title for its 1980 release, the record featuring the hit single Holiday.

14. The Rolling Stones, Do You Think I Really Care . . . Dead Flowers-ish country tune that got official release status on the 2011 expanded re-issue of the Stones’ Some Girls album.

15. The Who, Cry If You Want . . . I confess I don’t listen to The Who’s It’s Hard album, from 1982, all that much. I don’t know anyone who does. It’s not a bad album but arguably not up to previous standards as, by that time, Pete Townshend seemed to be holding back his best material for his own solo albums like 1980’s smash Empty Glass and the good but not quite as, 1982 release, All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. But, all that said, Cry If You Want, featuring nice drumming by Kenney Jones and angry vocals by Roger Daltrey (maybe pissed at Pete for holding his best stuff back), along with the classic Eminence Front, are top-notch tunes from It’s Hard.

16. Thunderclap Newman, Accidents . . . Speaking of The Who and Townshend, he produced and played bass (under the fun pseudonym Bijou Drains) on Hollywood Dream, the only Thunderclap Newman studio album. The band, championed by Townshend and Who manager Kit Lambert and featuring future Paul McCartney and Wings guitarist Jimmy McCulloch, is best known for the hit Something In The Air. This is the 9-plus minute album version of Accidents, a pop/progressive piece that was shaved down to three minutes and change and released as the album’s second single.

     

17. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Framed . . . Title cut, written by the hit factory that was (Jerome) Leiber and (Michael) Stoller, from the Harvey band’s 1972 debut album. It’s amazing how many hit songs – more than 70 chart hits – Lieber and Stoller penned including Hound Dog and Jailhouse Rock. Also amazing is how much like Harvey AC/DC’s Bon Scott sounded, at least to my ears and, at least, based on this track as compared to, say, AC/DC’s Jailbreak.

18. T-Bone Burnett, Shut It Tight . . . From T-Bone’s 1983 release Proof Through The Night which featured a host of all-star friends including guitarists Pete Townshend, Mick Ronson and, on this track, Richard Thompson on guitar and mandolin. Which is probably why, with Thompson, it could easily be, sounds like, a Fairport Convention song.

19. Tom Waits, Whistlin’ Past The Graveyard . . . Jaunty, up-tempo tune from the Blue Valentine album, 1978.

20. Dire Straits, Single Handed Sailor . . . What a great song, about sights and sounds around the Greenwich area of London, England, including the 19^th century ship the Cutty Sark – which I first knew to be a brand of whiskey, from a spy novel whose name I can’t remember, read in my early teens. I never developed a taste for the so-called hard stuff so never did try Cutty Sark but perhaps I should. I’ll ask some friends of mine who are into Scotch but I sampled some stuff with them once and they banished me from the room because I kept spoofing their treatment of the tasting as some sort of seance-like religious experience. I didn’t get it, obviously. We’ll see how it goes. If and when they read this, it probably won’t go well. But hey, if you can’t disagree with and have fun with your friends, what kind of friends could they possibly be?
    
21. Mountain, For Yasgur’s Farm . . . Dedicated to Max Yasgur, who owned the farm where the 1969 Woodstock Festival was held. He died young, just age 53, of a heart attack in 1973.

22. Rainbow, Gates Of Babylon . . . Closing out tonight’s set with some harder rock, this epic from Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll, the last Rainbow album, in 1978, featuring the late great Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals. Aside from the songs All Night Long and Since You’ve Been Gone from 1979’s Down To Earth album with Graham Bonnet on lead vocals, only Dio Rainbow is good Rainbow, in my opinion. Aside from the two tracks I just mentioned, and even they are somewhat dubious, the rest of Rainbow (aside from maybe, maybe, the harder-edged 1995 rebirth Stranger In Us All album with Doogie White on lead vox) is way too poppy and overproduced, blatantly, for the American market at the time, pretty much utter shit. What was Ritchie Blackmore thinking? And then, horrors, he brought his latter-day Rainbow singer Joe Lynn Turner into Deep Purple for one ill-fated album, 1990’s one good song (King Of Dreams) disaster, Slaves and Masters. What in god’s name, Ritchie? People rightly called the album Deep (post-Dio) Rainbow. Sell your soul for rock and roll, I guess.

23. Black Sabbath, Falling Off The Edge Of The World . . . Here’s Ronnie again, fronting the next band he joined, Black Sabbath. I’ve always said that, while I like Dio with his own band, Dio, I’ve always preferred his work with Rainbow and Sabbath. Seems to me he was best working with outstanding guitarists/songwriters like Ritchie Blackmore and Tony Iommi.

24. UFO, Lights Out (live) . . . Notice how we started tonight’s set with a Blinding Light Show and conclude it with Lights Out? Clever, huh? God, I’m good. Or silly. From UFO’s terrific 1979 live album, Strangers In The Night. See ya next week, thanks for listening/following.

1. Alice Cooper, Clones (We’re All) . . . I can’t remember the exact genesis of it now but a few weeks back a friend and I got talking about Alice Cooper’s foray into new wave in 1980 via his Flush The Fashion album, from which this was a fair hit. Lots of ‘classic rockers’ were doing similar things at the time, dabbling in new wave sounds, or reggae, or whatever was in then-current fashion.
   
2. The Who, 905 . . . Sticking with the clone theme, if you don’t like it, blame my friend . . . Interesting lyrics on this John Entwistle tune, a commentary on cloning but also way beyond that, in my interpretation, at least. The ‘beyond cloning’ thought came to mind just the other day when a friend was opining that nothing, in his view, can ever be truly new anymore given how far humanity has come, which I dispute but in any event prompted an interesting discussion.
   
3. Pat Benatar, My Clone Sleeps Alone . . . And so we end the clone segment of songs, from Benatar’s first, and to me still best, album, her debut In The Heat Of The Night, 1979. Not so much on this particular song but on many tunes on the album, there’s that guttural female vocal thing at work that just, well, ‘makes’ the songs. Maybe probably it’s a guy thing to do with possible sexual innuendo, and Linda Ronstadt just a for instance had it, too, especially on a song like You’re No Good.

4. Ramones, Daytime Dilemma (Dangers Of Love) . . . From 1984’s Too Tough To Die album, a return to the straight ahead punk rock of their early work.

5. Elvis Costello, Mystery Dance . . . 90 seconds of solid rock from Elvis’s great debut album, My Aim Is True. His aim was indeed bang on.

6. Joe Jackson, Memphis . . . I turned a female friend on to this tune recently. She wasn’t up on Joe Jackson and had not heard it, arguably few have. Great groove. It’s from 1983’s Mike’s Murder movie soundtrack which followed on the heels and in the same vein as Jackson’s hit 1982 album, Night and Day. I’ve never seen the movie, it’s pretty obscure and I’m not a big movie buff but the soundtrack, all by Jackson, is great and a terrific album on its own.

7. Flash and The Pan, Atlantis Calling . . .Not sure what more to say that I already over time haven’t about Flash and The Pan, who emerged from the ashes of the Aussie group The Easybeats and were piloted by George Young (older brother to AC/DC’S Young brothers and often producer of their albums) and Harry Vanda in a completely different genre of music.

    

8. The Clash, The Right Profile . . . About actor Montgomery Clift. Great lyrics, especially near the end with the “but I prefer alcohol’ and then the “uggooogoobuh” babbling part. It’s Montgomery Clift, honey!! Ah, The Clash. Love ’em.

9. Talking Heads, The Great Curve . . . I stuck this one in here, good funky/new wave tune, because the show is soon to take a curve in a different direction. You’ll see.

10. Robert Plant, Too Loud . . . From Plant’s somewhat controversial 1985 album, Shaken ‘n’ Stirred. Apart from the more conventional (for him) hit single, Little By Little, the album was a step outside the box for Plant, more electronic, Talking Heads-ish as Plant remarked. Good album, though, good song, if one keeps an open mind.

     

11. Pearl Jam, Glorified G . . Anti-guns song, good tune, from the band’s second album, Vs. Was never released as a single yet made the US top 40.

12. The Rolling Stones, Long Long While . . . Rare Stones’ track, from the early days, where Mick Jagger is deferential and apologetic to a woman, although he does say he will ‘try’ to apologize. It was the B-side to Paint It Black.

13. Bob Marley and The Wailers, Baby We’ve Got A Date (Rock It Baby) . . . Friend of mine suggested some reggae a while back so here’s the first of two in the next few songs.

14. Midnight Oil, Say Your Prayers . . . I like when Midnight Oil does metallic/industrial type songs. Here’s an example.

15. Steely Dan, Razor Boy . . . Is there a bad Steely Dan song? I usually don’t go for let’s call it slickly produced music, prefer raunch in my roll. But I make an exception for Steely Dan.

16. Peter Tosh, Stepping Razor . . . Reggae song No. 2 in tonight’s set. See No. 13 for more info.

17. Elton John, Holiday Inn . . . One of those songs I feel like I played too recently because I’ve dug into the Madman Across The Water album but, investigation suggests, no. In any event, who cares? Great song from a great album.

18. Led Zeppelin, Down By The Seaside . . . Always loved this one, from Zep’s Physical Graffiti album. Might be my favorite from the record. Today, anyway.

19. Lee Harvey Osmond, Cuckoo’s Nest . . . From, as anyone who regularly follows the show knows, one of my favorite artists, Tom Wilson of Junkhouse, solo, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings and Lee Harvey Osmond fame. Do you want to, yet again, hear the story of me meeting him in a Kitchener coffee shop after a reunited Junkhouse played our blues festival some years back? Well, for those who haven’t heard, I just happened to run into him as we were both buying coffee, told him how much I admired his work, we chatted a bit, and that was that.

20. Van Halen, The Seventh Seal . . . From the last full studio album Van Hagar did with Sammy Hagar, the Balance record, 1995. Hagar and the Van Halen brothers were apparently at each other’s throats by this time yet to me, they produced a very good album. This is the opener and my favorite tune on the platter.

21. Montrose, Bad Motor Scooter . . . Speaking of Hagar, here’s Sammy singing on arguably Montrose’s best-known tune, and a good one.

22. Fairport Convention, Sloth . . . What a great band. I don’t play them enough. I have, but . . . So much great music, so little time. Epic track from the British folk-rock stalwarts’ 1970 release, Full House.

23. Jethro Tull, Thick As A Brick (live Bursting Out version) . . . As promised but you’d have to follow me on Facebook to know why. I had Bursting Out on in the car to and from the gym and various errands this past week, Brick came on, and so I decided to play it and announced as much on FB to some nice and welcome feedback. This is a 12:25 minute version, not the studio album-length epic many know and love, but terrific nonetheless.

24. Neil Young, No More . . . And that’s it, no more tonight as we close on this one from Young’s 1989 Freedom album. Take care, thanks for listening/following.

1. The Electric Flag, Groovin’ Is Easy . . . From the 1968 debut studio album A Long Time Comin’, which came out after the band had already appeared at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.  It’s the one and only studio record Electric Flag co-founder Mike Bloomfield appeared on, before the mercurial guitarist of Butterfield Blues Band and Bob Dylan session work fame departed. The band, which also featured co-founding drummer Buddy Miles of solo, Santana and Hendrix’ Band of Gypsys fame, went on for a couple more studio albums before calling it quits.

2. Eric Burdon & War, Paint It Black Medley (Black on Black in Black/Paint It Black I/Laurel & Hardy/Pintelo Negro II/P.C./Blackbird/Paint It Black III) . . . How I like my covers, a total reinterpretation of the Rolling Stones’ classic into a 13-minute soul funk rock epic.

3. Keith Richards, Locked Away . . . Soulful ballad from Richards’ great 1988 solo debut album, Talk Is Cheap.

4. Rush, Hope/The Main Monkey Business/Malignant Narcissism (instrumentals) . . . I strung together the three instrumentals from Rush’s 2007 album Snakes and Arrows. They don’t appear consecutively on the album. A different genre but as with, say, The Allman Brothers, Rush’s instrumentals are great songs all on their own. Hope is a wonderful solo acoustic guitar piece by Alex Lifeson followed by the two full-band instrumentals.

5. Gillan and Glover, I Can’t Dance To That . . . One of the rockier tunes from the Deep Purple singer and bass player’s 1988 collaboration, Accidentally On Purpose. Dr. John helps out on piano on the album.

6. David Wilcox, Cactus . . . Will there be cigarettes in heaven? Great opening line to this tune by the Canadian music veteran. And I don’t even smoke.

7. Screaming Trees, Nearly Lost You . . . Well, alas, we did lose former Screaming Trees lead singer Mark Lanegan last week at just 57. To my knowledge he had been clean for some years but had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. Lanegan also had a solo career and appeared on several Queens of The Stone Age albums. I’ve played it before, relatively recently but to me, it’s Screaming Trees’ best song. So here it is again.

8. Procol Harum, Long Gone Geek . .. In tribute to another popular music loss, Procol’s lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Gary Brooker, who also died this past week, age 76.

9. Sass Jordan, Leaving Trunk . . . The Sleepy John Estes blues classic, also covered by the likes of Taj Mahal. Jordan did it for her fine 2020 blues covers album, Rebel Moon Blues.

10. Quicksilver Messenger Service, I Hear You Knockin’ (It’s Too Late) . . . Great bluesy tune that arguably inexplicably didn’t make the cut for the band’s self-titled debut album in 1968.
    
11. John Mellencamp, Another Sunny Day 12/25 . . . From 1994’s Dance Naked album, around the time Mellencamp’s sales started to decline as, arguably, his creativity further blossomed.

12. Duke Robillard, Don’t Bother Trying To Steal Her Love . . . From the Roomful of Blues band founder and former Fabulous Thunderbirds’ guitarist’s 2019 album Ear Worms. I pulled it from a great Stony Plain Records freebie promo compilation I happened upon in my friendly neighborhood record store recently. One of several coming up in the set from that fine collection.

13. Sue Foley, The Ice Queen . . . From that same Stony Plain compilation, the title cut from the Ottawa blues guitarist/singer’s 2018 album.

14. Donovan, Season Of The Witch . . . So many people have covered this, including Vanilla Fudge and the Super Session album boys (Al Kooper, Mike Bloomfield, Stephen Stills). This is the original by Donovan, although his sometime collaborator Shawn Phillips has also claimed authorship.

15. Steve Strongman, Tired Of Talkin’ . . . Title cut from the Canadian guitarist/singer/songwriter’s 2019 album and the last song in tonight’s set pulled from the Stony Plain Records compilation.
    
16. The Beatles, Think For Yourself . . . Kick-butt George Harrison-penned tune from what I increasingly as time goes on have come to think of as arguably The Beatles’ finest album, or certainly way up there, Rubber Soul. Of course, there’s so many good ones it’s impossible to choose, but of late it’s the Beatles’ album I have been spinning the most. It’s one of the first non-compilation albums I ever heard, my older sister bringing it home back when it was released. In any event, interesting reading about the track, what with the two bass guitar parts, including one played by Paul McCartney through a fuzz box, which gives the tune its distinct sound.

17. The Hourglass (precursor to The Allman Brothers Band), B.B. King Medley (Sweet Little Angel/It’s My Own Fault/How Blue Can You Get?) . . . I perhaps cheated a bit for the next few songs. I’ve pulled them all from one of two fine Duane Allman anthologies I have that feature his work with myriad artists including of course the Allmans and their early bands, like The Hourglass, which featured Duane with Gregg on lead vocals.

18. Wilson Pickett, Hey Jude . . . Duane Allman does the lead guitar honors on Pickett’s Beatles’ cover.

19. Aretha Franklin, The Weight . . . Duane Allman again, on Aretha’s soulful interpretation of The Band tune.

20. Duane Allman, Goin’ Down Slow . . . A song that shows that Duane could easily have been a lead singer, too. Allman Brothers late great bassist Berry Oakley also appears on the track.

21. Wishbone Ash, Time Was . . . Perfect prog track, arguably. Starts slow, then the twin guitar attack of Andy Powell and Ted Turner kicks in as the tempo speeds up. Another one of those long songs, nearly 10 minutes, that doesn’t seem so.

22. Supertramp, Better Days . . . From the first album, Brother Where You Bound from 1985, that the band did after the departure of Rodger Hodgson, leaving Rick Davies in full command. It’s a good album musically, albeit dated lyrically in many of its 1980s references to people, places and circumstances of the still-ongoing Cold War. To me, the album is harder edged and harkens back to the glory days of Crime of The Century, Crisis What Crisis and Even In The Quietest Moments that preceded the commercial but to me somewhat overly pop-oriented monster that was Breakfast In America which was tailored for the US market. Things got worse with Breakfast’s followup, . . . Famous Last Words, a bland pop album which signified the split between Hodgson, who wanted to maintain that direction and Davies, who wanted a return to the more progressive rock approach of the pre-Breakfast albums.

    I’ll admit that, while I have it, band loyalty I guess, I don’t really know Famous Last Words, the lead single It’s Raining Again (yecch) having turned me off immediately. Maybe I should try again, and I will. In fact I just pulled it up online but it’s a struggle, folks. And I’m not down on Breakfast In America, either. Decent enough album and I saw that tour, amazing but of course it wasn’t just that album’s songs they played. But when people say it’s Supertramp’s best, to each their own but, er, no. Sales don’t necessarily reflect quality or creativity and I suppose a lot of it is how so many of Breakfast’s songs were played to death on radio. I remember at one point with Breakfast thinking, people are crapping all over the Bee Gees for their falsetto vocals on their disco stuff. Yet the yecch “take a look at my girlfriend’ opening salvo of the title cut to Breakfast In America was OK? Honestly, what a candy-ass song and vocal. I mean, this was the same band that did School, Bloody Well Right and so on? I suppose that was my emergence, at age 20, into critical thinking. The three albums that preceded Breakfast easily eclipse it musically. So there. And on that note, see you next week.

1. Fleetwood Mac, Before The Beginning . . . Then Play On, the 1969 album that was Peter Green’s swan song with the band he founded, is likely my favorite by the group. I love blues which were the foundation of Green’s version of the band, but Then Play On had a broader stylistic scope, dabbling in blues rock, folk rock and psychedelia. This Green-penned and sung track is a good example. Not that I ever need reminding of the album but I was prompted to play it by a review list last week on allmusic.com of Mac releases that people who know the band only from the Buckingham-Nicks commercial monster period might not be aware of. And, it’s also worth checking out the band’s middle period, up until 1974 and also mentioned by allmusic, when guitarist-songwriter Bob Welch was a member. It’s a great period I’ve mined before on the show and will again.

2. Sly and The Family Stone, Family Affair . . . A No. 1 hit single in 1971. I normally don’t play singles on this deep cuts show but figured it fit, in terms of the title at least. The lyrics, not so much.

3. Family, See Through Windows . . . I just had to get a song in by the band Family. So diverse, Family’s blend of various styles – hard rock, jazz rock, psychedelia – into a stirring stew. Among the members was Ric Grech on bass, violin and cello and he appears at the end of tonight’s set, as a member of Blind Faith. This one’s from Family’s 1968 debut album, Music In A Doll’s House, which prompted a name change for a record The Beatles were working on at the time. The fabs had planned to call their record A Doll’s House but when Family’s album came out in July, The Beatles changed their title to simply The Beatles for the album which has long since become better known as the White Album. It wasn’t released until November of 1968.

4. Genesis, The Return Of The Giant Hogweed . . . I’ve been trying to get this in for a while but it didn’t fit the tone of the last few shows. Not sure it really does now, but in terms of title it fits a pattern as you’ll see as we move along. Besides, sometimes I’ll play songs that fit a musical theme, other times I like to mix things up, sometimes drastically, like a ballad followed by a metal tune. Not doing that so much tonight though. Deliberately over the top lyrics about the invasive – and dangerous if you’re not careful with its toxic sap – species giant hogweed presented in typical early Genesis progressive style. From Nursery Cryme, 1971. It was the band’s third album and first to feature drummer/vocalist Phil Collins and guitarist Steve Hackett along with lead singer Peter Gabriel, bassist/guitarist Mike Rutherford and keyboard player Tony Banks – the classic lineup of the group’s full-blown progressive rock period.

5. Bruce Springsteen, Jungleland . . . From hogweed to the jungle, get it? OK, that’s enough of that nonsense with song titles. Maybe. Great tune/lyrics from Born To Run. If a nearly 10-minute song can be too short, this may well be an example.

6. Jethro Tull, Hunt By Numbers . . . Now, if you listen to the lyrics, a cat is going hunting, maybe in the jungle. Remember, I did say ‘maybe’ with the title stuff. Last one, though. Promise. Good riff-rocker, interesting subject matter, from 1999’s j-tull dot com album, which I’ve been revisiting lately. It received lukewarm to poor reviews from critics but isn’t that generally the case with latter-day albums by veteran bands, with rare exceptions – like the mostly positive reviews Tull’s new album, The Zealot Gene, is deservedly getting. I played a track from the new one a few weeks back and will get back to it at some point as that release grows on me with repeated plays. As for j-tull dot com, it’s typically diverse Tull and I’ve always liked it, but I’m a big fan of all the band’s work – even to an extent their 1984 electronic, synth-laden release Under Wraps. The j-tull dot com (that’s how the title was written) record also stirs fond memories of the tour, my elder son’s first exposure, at age 12, to Tull live in July, 2000 at Hamilton Place. It was a great show, including Hunt By Numbers in the set. We saw the next three tours together, the last in 2007 at Massey Hall in Toronto. Just two years before that, we attended a fantastic 27-song Tull performance at Massey but sadly, Ian Anderson’s voice was pretty much totally shot, at least for live purposes, by 2007 at the same venue. It was still a good show, but my son and I agreed that it was over for us as far as live Tull was concerned.

7. Gov’t Mule, Helter Skelter (live) . . . Smokin’ live version of the Beatles’ track, from the Mule’s Bald Boy album. Just kidding and more on that in a bit. Actually, it’s from a sprawling 3-CD live album called Mulennium the group recorded as 1999 became 2000, at the Roxy Theatre in Atlanta, Ga. While I like the Mule’s original material, the Allman Brothers offshoot led by guitarist/vocalist Warren Haynes does terrific covers of classic rock tunes so I burned my own CD of them some years ago. Among the tracks, besides this one – King Crimson’s 21^st Century Schizoid Man, Humble Pie’s 30 Days In The Hole, Steppenwolf’s Don’t Step On The Grass, Sam, Free’s Mr. Big, Deep Purple’s Maybe I’m A Leo. The list is long, so I’ll have to do my own Vol. II, and beyond, at some point. The band has also done two separate live covers albums dedicated, respectively, to Pink Floyd and The Rolling Stones: Dark Side Of The Mule and Stoned Side Of The Mule. The Stones’ covers album was a limited, vinyl-only release, to my knowledge, for a recent Record Store Day although it’s all available online, at least on YouTube.

8. David Bowie, All The Madmen . . . If you’re doing a deep cuts show, Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World album from 1970 (1971 in the UK) is a surefire place to go for material. Brilliant record. No huge commercial hits, not even the title cut which went somewhat unnoticed until Lulu covered it for a No. 3 UK hit in 1974 on a version produced by Bowie and guitarist Mick Ronson. Nirvana covered it and it was released on their acclaimed 1994 MTV Unplugged album.

9. Robin Trower, A Tale Untold . . . Starts out kinda funky, uptempo, with typically great guitar by Trower and vocals by the late great James Dewar before transitioning into a slow blues for the last minute or so of the five and a half minute song.

10. Hawkwind, Magnu . . . Epic space rock from 1975’s Warrior On The Edge Of Time album. It was bassist Lemmy’s last album with Hawkwind. He was fired on the eve of the record’s release after an arrest for drug possession. Then came Motorhead.

11. Glenn Hughes, Into The Void . . . Not the Black Sabbath song, although a then messed-up on drugs and booze Hughes was briefly in Sabbath during a turbulent revolving door lineup period in that band’s history, the mid- to late 1980s after singer Ronnie James Dio departed. This one’s from the former Trapeze and Deep Purple bassist/singer’s 1994 album, From Now On. A touch overproduced for my taste, but a good song, nevertheless.

12. Blackmore’s Night, Village On The Sand . . . Celtic-type tune from former Deep Purple and (when the band is active) Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s now longtime folk rock/medieval rock project with his lead singer/multi-instrumentalist wife Candice Night.

13. Carole King, Way Over Yonder . . . This is a deep cuts show but to me there really isn’t a deep cut on Tapestry, one of the greatest albums ever, by anyone. All the songs are well known but we’ll call this a deep cut since it wasn’t one of the singles from the record.

14. Bobbie Gentry, Okolona River Bottom Band . . . She’s known for the great Ode To Billie Joe. But as I say probably every time I play her, Gentry, who retired at age 40 in 1982 and by choice virtually disappeared from view, is far more than just that one song, a No. 1 hit in 1967. Also a guitarist, she was a trailblazer, among the first female artists, in the United States at least, to write and produce her own material. Like this song, featuring her versatile vocals, in this case taking a sultry, raunchy approach. Gentry, now 79, is living in a gated community in Tennessee. But nobody knows for sure. That makes her forever cool, to me.

15. The Band, The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show . . . Great shared vocals by Rick Danko and Levon Helm on this jaunty tune from Stage Fright.

16. Chicken Shack, I’d Rather Go Blind . . . A song co-written and made famous by Etta James and covered by many including Rod Stewart, this version features Christine Perfect (later McVie) of future Fleetwood Mac fame on lead vocals during her brief period, 1968-69, with the British blues band.

17. The Rolling Stones, Stray Cat Blues (live, from Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out!) . . . A slower, bluesier arrangement than the rocking, raunchy studio version on Beggars Banquet. Equally excellent.

18. Pat Travers Band, Is This Love . . . A buddy of mine suggested I think Jamaica for this week, implying reggae. I said if you want reggae, get your own show and stop trying to influence mine. Then mentioned I had played Peter Tosh recently so, so there. Kidding around, bud! About the ‘get your own show’ part. I love reggae. Actually I do appreciate suggestions, at least of genres, because they trigger the thought process and I did tell him it was a worthy one. Maybe a reggae show soon, or a segment of one. The risk with a full themed show – although my recent blues show went over big – is that you might lose listeners who might not be into a full genre-based show. And the station does have reggae shows. All of which is a roundabout way of saying I did think Jamaica – Canadian rocker Travers covered this Bob Marley tune on his 1980 Crash and Burn album. A nice version, too.

19. Steve Miller Band, Jackson-Kent Blues . . . Amazing song in my opinion, both musically and lyrically, about the Kent State and Jackson State shootings of students by the National Guard (Kent) and state police in 1970. Great wah wah guitar, for one thing. It was released on Miller’s 1970 album, Number 5, still a few years before the band transitioned from their early (and terrific) more psychedelic sound to the more melodic rock and pop that brought big commercial success with songs like The Joker and the Fly Like An Eagle and Book of Dreams albums. For those not up on early Miller, it’s worth checking out.

20. The J. Geils Band, Night Time . . . Cover of a tune by 1960s New York City band The Strangeloves. It appeared on Geils’ 1980 album, Love Stinks. Interesting creation, The Strangeloves, well worth reading about. They were a three-man songwriting and production team comprised of Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer who wrote such hits as My Boyfriend’s Back by American girl group The Angels. They then decided to form a foreign beat group, pretending to be a band of Australian brothers raised on a sheep farm, complete with fictional backstory. Trouble arose when they got successful enough to tour, which they did but were much more comfortable being in the background, writing and doing studio work. So they hired a group of musicians to play on the road while they continued writing. Somewhat the reverse of The Monkees who, at least at first, wrote very little of their own material. Highly recommended reading, about The Strangeloves. All three members are still around, having made a major mark on the music industry including co-founding Sire Records and working with such artists as Blondie, Eric Burdon & War and Marshall Crenshaw.

21. Blind Faith, Do What You Like . . . I love the one and only Blind Faith album, introduced to me by my older, late brother so many years ago. But I hadn’t played this near-16 minute album-closing epic in ages. Silly me. The reason was, while I always liked the groove for the majority of the tune, I recalled a long drum solo by Ginger Baker. And you know how it can be, say, in a concert, with drum solos. Or any solos, the self-indulgent ones where everything comes to a stop as an artist the audience knows can play has to show us that he or she can, indeed, play. I rarely, for instance, listen to the 16-minute live version of Cream’s Toad on the Wheels of Fire album, with of course Baker drumming. Lots of people love it, Baker was a great drummer, but I much prefer the five-minute version on Cream’s debut album, Fresh Cream where it’s more of an actual song.That’s why I like The Allman Brothers; they’re a so-called jam band but their solos are always incorporated nicely into the song, so they don’t come across as interminable and a good excuse for a bathroom or beer break. I like Santana a lot but I remember seeing the band ages ago in Toronto and sheesh, first Santana himself takes a solo, or maybe it was the drummer but then the bass player got into it, too. Three extended odes to excess, back to back to back. I was there with my then-wife but a friend of mine, also a big Santana fan, and I the next day at work compared notes on the show, which was otherwise great. I asked him what he thought of the solos, knowing he’s a guitarist fanatic. “Oh, I went to the bathroom during that,” he said. But maybe he was referring to the bass or drum solos.

    Anyway, off on another tangent I just went. All,in a ridiculously roundabout way, to stress that my memory of this great Blind Faith tune was faulty. Baker’s drum solo is only about four minutes long, from the nine-minute mark to 12:51 and, Allmans-like, it fits perfectly as part of the hypnotic, extended piece. The rest of the band – guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Ric Grech of Family fame and singer Steve Winwood – rejoin the parade at 12:51, making this the epitome of an extended supergroup track. I’ll never stop after track five of the six-song album again.

I wasn’t going to do a Valentine’s Day-themed show – because I abhor cliches/never like doing what anyone might be expecting. But I was going to dip into it a bit, as maybe an admittedly juvenile joke, and start the show with Zappa’s Dinah Moe Humm followed by The Who’s Trick of the Light, about an encounter with a hooker. Then, lo and behold as I was into show prep on Saturday evening, a friend and show supporter texted me and asked what I might be playing specific to Valentine’s Day. He knows my nature but I did mention to him my Zappa and Who plans, after which he requested The Beatles’ Run For Your Life. That set us off on a  tangent after his Beatles’ suggestion prompted me to think of The Rolling Stones’ Stupid Girl. He then mentioned that a work colleague of his has a playlist he calls Psycho Love Songs. Just having fun. In any event, I wound up going on a quite different path for tonight’s show than my original plans. The result is not so much a Valentine’s Day show but a show whose song titles and lyrics reflect the human condition in the ongoing ups and downs of relationships.

1. Goddo, Cock On . . . The title of this tune, featuring great guitar work from Gino Scarpelli, dates to Greg Godovitz’s days in Fludd. That band wanted to title its second album Cock On, with the group dressed as flashers in trenchcoats on the cover, but it didn’t, er, fly with their record company. Subsequent companies that distributed Goddo’s work weren’t as skittish. I would never have seen Goddo live if it weren’t for a wonderful reunion I had about seven years ago with two brothers with whom I grew up as we spent some of our childhood years together in Peru, where our parents were working from the late 1960s to early 1970s. Hadn’t seen the boys in, by that time, nearly 50 years but we had earlier reconnected via social media, discovered a shared love for music, settled on our reunion get-together being a rock show, and Goddo came through for us at a great show in Cambridge, Ontario.

1. 2. Frank Zappa, Dinah Moe Humm . . . Yeah, well. The lyrics tell the tale.

1. 3. The Firm, Satisfaction Guaranteed . . . Nice tune, was a single, from the short-lived Firm featuring Zep’s Jimmy Page and Free/Bad Company’s voice of all rock voices, Paul Rodgers. Chris Slade, best known for drumming on several AC/DC albums including the big seller The Razors Edge (yes, Razors, AC/DC doesn’t believe in much punctuation) that brought us Thunderstruck, was behind the kit for The Firm. Bassist to the stars Tony Franklin held down the bottom end.

1. 4. Electric Light Orchestra, Little Town Flirt . . . ELO leader Jeff Lynne’s tribute to Del Shannon’s hit. It was played around with on the sessions for ELO’s 1979 Discovery album but never finished and released until the 2001 CD re-issue of the album, which featured the hits Don’t Bring Me Down, Shine A Little Love and Confusion.

1. 5. The Who, Trick Of The Light . . . John Entwistle’s adventure with a prostitute or, at least, his thoughts on what that might be like. Killer track, loud, aggressive, one of my favorite Who songs from one of my favorite Who albums, Who Are You, the final one with Keith Moon on drums.

1. 6. The Rolling Stones, Stupid Girl . . . Typical early Stones put down of women. From Aftermath, 1966. Mick Jagger must have just been in an argument with his girl at the time, Chrissie Shrimpton. Shrimpton, a model and actrress, was apparently embarrassed by this song and the similar tone of several tracks on the album, which she figured, with reason, many people associated with her relationship with Jagger. The couple broke up the same year.

1. 7. Bob Dylan, Idiot Wind (The Bootleg Series Vol. 14 version) . . . Spare, acoustic treatment of what, as the song progresses, goes from a diatribe to shared guilt at the breaking up of a relationship. From ‘you’re an idiot, babe’ to ‘we’re idiots, babe”. Originally released on the Blood On The Tracks album with more instrumentation, there are many versions of this on the various Dylan bootleg series albums. This one’s from More Blood, More Tracks, No. 14. Blood On The Tracks is often considered and reviewed as autobiographical in terms of Dylan’s relationship with his then-wife Sara. Yet he has said his life is not the source material. It makes for interesting reading and analysis of the album. In any event, Blood On The Tracks, and to a slightly lesser extent the follow-up, Desire, particularly in the song Sara, are raw treatments of the emotions of relationships that would resonate with anyone, just brilliant stuff. Pain is, maybe sadly, good for art.

1. 8. The Beatles, Run For Your Life . . . John Lennon apparently regretted this song, it might be autobiographical, he wasn’t always the nicest individual. Yet musically, I’ve always liked it, despite many critics dismissing it. It was one of the songs that always stood out to me when my older sister brought Rubber Soul home, and played it to death.

1. 9. Robert Palmer, In Walks Love Again . . . From Secrets, the album that got me into Palmer via the hits Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor Doctor) and, especially for me, Jealous, great riff tune from a great album, top to bottom.

1. 10. Robert Plant, Dance With You Tonight . . . Lovely ballad of love and loss from his most recent studio album, Carry Fire, 2017.

1. 11. King Crimson, Three Of A Perfect Pair . . . Not necessarily about a threesome, I don’t think. Telling lyrics, though, from the third in the set of albums Crimson did upon their return to recording after seven years away, with a new lineup, starting with 1981’s Discipline. Other albums in the threesome are Beat, 1982, and this one, 1984. I’m not alone in calling it the Talking Heads-sound alike version of Crimson although who influenced who, given Crimson’s pedigree, who can say?

1. 12. The Guess Who, Silver Bird . . . Outtake, with typically beautiful vocals by Burton Cummings, from the Canned Wheat sessions but not released, or at least added, to the album until an expanded re-release in 2000. The track also appeared on a bonus disc on an expanded re-release of the American Woman album.

1. 13. The Animals, A Girl Named Sandoz . . . This was going to be in my set tonight regardless of Valentine’s Day or a ‘relationship’ set so, while it fits the theme, it’s a ‘survivor’ of my original plan, which also included some prog like early Genesis. But as I went along with the theme, that stuff (Genesis, etc.) just didn’t fit. Next week, perhaps. In any event, what a brilliant, heavy, psychedelic, whatever you want to call it, track by The Animals.

1. 14. Iron Butterfly, Possession . . . Same with this one, like the Animals track preceding it, was in my original set before ‘the text’ from my buddy set the show off in another direction. Said it before but these guys were so much more than In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. It’s almost menacing stuff, the sound, to me, including Doug Ingle’s vocals. Deep and dark. Short, sweet or not so sweet, and to the point lyrics. One verse, that’s it. “When a man has a woman and he doesn’t really love her, why does he turn inside, when she starts to love another . . . it’s possession (repeated).”

1. 15. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dirty Pool . . . Typical ‘I been done wrong’ lyrics to this great slow blues original from SRV’s debut album, Texas Flood.

1. 16. Parliament, All Your Goodies Are Gone . . . I love Parliament, and Funkadelic, too. George Clinton is a genius. Haven’t played anything from his collective in a while. Here we are.

1. 17. Joe Jackson, We Can’t Live Together . . . JJ”s lyrics, on this cut from his 1986 Big World album arguably accurately sum up lots of relationships.

1. 18. Bobby “Blue” Bland, Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City . . . I feel as if I’ve played this beauty fairly recently, too recently, but it fit the show. Whitesnake did a cover I really like, during their early, bluesier period shortly after Deep Purple broke up in 1976 and final (at the time) leader singer David Coverdale formed Whitesnake, eventually incorporating former Purple mates Ian Paice (drums) and Jon Lord (keyboards) into his new band.

1. 19. Stevie Wonder, Blame It On The Sun . . . Beautiful ballad, touching lyrics of love lost, from Talking Book, which gave us the hit Superstition.

1. 20. Leonard Cohen, The Guests . . . Genius, really, from this late Canadian icon. Great song, great lyrics, great delivery.

1. 21. Paul Butterfield’s Better Days, Take Your Pleasure Where You Find It . . . I realized, after I did my blues show last week, that I had not played any Paul Butterfield, a blues icon I admire. I have before of course and in any event, I played 29 songs which of course left out countless others which is why I intend to revisit the blues show soon. And I do include blues throughout my sets, because that’s of course the roots of the classic rock I play. This one, from Butterfield’s later band, Better Days, isn’t necessarily blues, though. It’s a funky cool workout from the second Better Days album, It All Comes Back.

1. 22. Love, Always See Your Face . . . Despite my natural misgivings about cliches, I could not do a show, on Valentine’s Day, without playing a song by a band named Love, which I planned to do regardless. I love Love, terrific band led by the immortal Arthur Lee. Love never sold a lot but so influential and beyond that, just great to listen to. They, to me, are one of those bands that, when one gets deeper into music, sees an album like Forever Changes which to that point one has not heard, acclaimed as one of the greatest albums in history to which the initial response might be, then why have I not heard it? Well, because it didn’t get played much, for whatever reason. But then you listen to it, and all of the band’s stuff, and you are blown away in fact my favorite Love song if I had to pick one from so many, and which I’ve played on the show before, Signed D.C. , about drug addiction, isn’t even on Forever Changes. It’s on the self-titled debut album. Always See Your Face is from the band’s fourth album, Four Sail, by which time the group was already splintering in terms of membership from the core original band led by Lee that had produced the first three albums.

1. 23. Van Morrison, Warm Love (live, from It’s Too Late To Stop Now) . . . A hit single of some note originally on the Hard Nose The Highway studio album, this is the live version from Van The Man’s terrific 1974 live album It’s Too Late To Stop Now. Either version is terrific, the live one might be, as live versions can be, slightly more up-tempo; I just happened to pick the concert version.

1. 24. Mountain, Back Where I Belong . . . Hard rocker from Mountain’s Avalanche album.

1. 25. The Doors, You Make Me Real . . . Smokin’ track from Morrison Hotel. This one goes out to my old, and renewed acquaintance, high school and college friend 4C (names changed to protect the innocent but it’s his cool nomenclature). A cool guy I’ve known since 1972 (!!) with whom I’ve reconnected via a shared deep love of music. 4C discovered my show at some point and the rest is now not so much history but happening. And through it all I’ve discovered he loves the Doors, likely more than me although I love ’em, and particularly it seems the Morrison Hotel album from which I drew this wonderful track. Only problem with it is it’s too short!

1. 26. Elton John, It Ain’t Gonna Be Easy . . . Long, slow blues, always been my favorite song from 1978’s A Single Man album and another one I feel as if I’ve played too recently but it fits the show theme so . . . A Single Man album was interesting in that EJ had parted ways with lyricist/collaborator Bernie Taupin, entering into a working relationship with lyricist Gary Osborne for several albums, as EJ’s commercial fortunes faded. To my ears, EJ still had this one good album left in him, particularly this track and others like Part Time Love, the single, and Big Dipper. Then, arguably, he went off the rails, at least to my taste.

1. 27. John Mayall (featuring Buddy Guy), I Could Cry . . . Guy shares vocals with Mayall – and is directly referenced in the somewhat adjusted lyrics – on this tune from Mayall’s 1993 album Wake Up Call. The original song was written by longtime Guy collaborator and blues legend Junior Wells. Amazing guitar solo but what else would one expect from Buddy Guy. That said, there’s a terrific live version of this song available on YouTube, with Mayall, featuring Coco Montoya, then in the Bluesbreakers and who later went solo, matching Guy’s brilliance.

1. 28. Ian Hunter, We Gotta Get Out Of Here . . . From Ian Hunter’s 1980 live album, Welcome To The Club. Always credited as a live version, sure sounds like a studio add-on to me and always has. In any case, backup singer/foil Ellen Foley, who was Meat Loaf’s foil on Paradise By The Dashboard Light, just makes the track with her rant near the end.“Oh please I don’t want to go home yet. Come on, can’t you do anything I want to do? . . . What are we gonna do? Go home and watch the (pregnant pause) Super Bowl? (well, yes, actually). Re-runs of the Muhammad Ali, uh, Marlene Dietrich fight?” The uh, plus the pairing of Ali and actress Dietrich, just makes the line. Too funny, worth checking out the whole verse, and the song. And now I’m outta here because as I write this Sunday evening, I actually am going to go watch the Super Bowl.

1. Buddy Guy, Damn Right, I’ve Got The Blues . . . Title cut from the 1991 album that brought Buddy Guy back to mainstream prominence. He had not released a studio album for nine years to that point. Little Feat drummer Richie Hayward was in the core band on the record, which also featured guest spots on assorted tracks by guitarists Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler. The album was the start of a three-album best contemporary blues album Grammy Award streak for Guy, with his next two albums, Feels Like Rain (title cut written by John Hiatt) and Slippin’ In earning Grammy laurels.

2. Albert King, I’ll Play The Blues For You, Parts 1 & 2 . . . Soulful blues brilliance by one of the three Kings of the blues, the others of course B.B. and Freddie. They weren’t related, in fact Albert’s birth surname was Nelson and Freddie’s was Christian, though he later took the King surname of his mother. But, as B.B. was quoted as saying, about Albert and could be applied to Freddie, “he’s not my brother by blood, but he is my brother in blues.” But Albert is the only King I’m playing tonight. Just didn’t fit the others in and besides, I’ve enjoyed putting this blues show together so much there will be more, perhaps as soon as next week.

3. Alvin Lee, The Bluest Blues . . . Most of tonight’s show is comprised of cuts from many of the fathers and mothers of the blues from which the inspiration of so many classic rockers came. But I’ve thrown a few from those classic rockers into the set, including this beautiful slow blues from Lee, the late leader of Ten Years After who by 1994 had – aside from a 1989 reunion album of the original band – long since gone solo. This one features Lee’s good friend George Harrison, from some band you may have heard of, on slide guitar. The two met in a pub in the early 1970s, Harrison offered Lee the song So Sad, which appeared on Harrison’s Dark Horse album, Lee used it on one of his records and so began several collaborations between the two artists.

4. Blind Willie Johnson, Dark Was The Night Cold Was The Ground . . . Speaking of the bluest blues, this is truly deep blues stuff. Spooky gospel blues, written and recorded by Johnson in 1927. I’ve always loved this tune, just the title alone is cool, and somewhat menacing, to me. Throw in vocals that are essentially just humming and moaning, more vocalizations than articulated words, and, well, it’s great. So good that it’s one of 27 samples of music on the Voyager Golden Record, sent into space, as a sort of time capsule, in 1977 on Voyager space probes. The music, sounds and images were selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth to any intelligent extraterrestrial life that might encounter them. Chuck Berry’s Johnny B. Goode represents rock and roll among the classical works by the likes of Bach and Mozart featured on the sounds sent to space.

5. Muddy Waters, Rollin’ Stone . . . The song that gave my favorite band their name, which leads into an original, and recent, blues tune of The Rolling Stones’ own plus a run of originals of blues songs the Stones, among others, covered. And that’s the beauty of music, isn’t it? It’s arguably the greatest gift humanity has given itself, and it keeps on giving. I can say without reservation that my calmest, most carefree moments come while listening to music I love including putting this show together every week. It speaks to a point made by Keith Richards of the Stones; that being that the greatest legacy a musician – and I would add music aficionados – can have is that they ‘passed it on.” Muddy took from his roots, passed it on to the Stones and so many others, and here we are, enriched forever by it.

6. The Rolling Stones, Back Of My Hand . . . Mick Jagger is thought of, generally and obviously, as a singer, but as Keith Richards has said, the pure Mick Jagger comes out when he plays harmonica. And he’s become a decent guitarist, too, including his nice slide work on top of his harp playing on this original blues track from 2005’s A Bigger Bang album. It’s the most recent album of original material by the boys, who did release the excellent blues covers album Blue and Lonesome in 2016. Who knows what will happen in the wake of Charlie Watts’ death; the band has always spoken since A Bigger Bang of having lots of material in the can, being worked on, etc. which was actually the genesis for Blue and Lonesome, where they as usual warmed up for a new release by playing old blues tracks until they realized, heck, this is great, let’s release this. As a big fan, I’d love to see them polish up the various tracks they’ve apparently been working on over the years, with Watts drumming, and finally release the long-promised new studio album of originals. I’d also be up for them continuing with studio work with Steve Jordan on the drum kit. Jordan, of course, is an accomplished musician and songwriter who came to widespread prominence playing in Richards’ X-Pensive Winos solo band both live and on studio record, and filled in admirably for Watts, to great reviews, on the most recent Stones’ tour. So, we’ll see, obviously.

    

7. Rev. Robert Wilkins, Prodigal Son . . . Ten minutes of hypnotic brilliance. The Stones covered it, in truncated form on the Beggars Banquet album. The Stones also played it on their 1969 American tour, just Keith Richards and Mick Jagger would come out, Richards strumming on a stool and Jagger singing, as an acoustic blues interlude. My own great memory of the Stones playing Prodigal Son live was the 1979 Keith Richards benefit for the blind concert in Oshawa, Ontario, his sentence/penance for the 1977 heroin drug bust in Toronto during the time the Stones appeared at the El Mocambo and were recording tracks that eventually appeared on Love You Live. Anyway, Keith and Ron Wood’s New Barbarians band had completed their opening set, the lights went down, except for a spotlight, back out came Richards on an acoustic and then out of the dark came Jagger, all dressed in white, and the dynamic duo broke into Prodigal Son. Great entrance, and then all hell broke loose, on came the rest of the Stones with Chuck Berry’s Let It Rock and on we rocked in the afternoon show. My buddy and I tried to stay for the evening reprise, hid in an arena bathroom, but security found and tossed us.

8. Robert Johnson, Stop Breaking Down Blues . . . Covered by many, Stones rocked it up on Exile On Main St. Back in ’72, just 13, it drew me to Robert Johnson.

9. Mississippi Fred McDowell, You Gotta Move . . . The great thing about bands you like, to me, is digging back into their influences – again, the ‘passed it on’ thing to which Keith Richards refers. It’s how I got into blues, and tracks like this, first heard by me on the Stones’ Sticky Fingers. But as much as I love the Stones, when I listen to the originals, Mick Jagger’s thoughts on Slim Harpo’s I’m A King Bee come to mind, although I have a tough time picking versions, if pressed. “What’s the point of listening to us doing “I’m A King Bee’ when you can hear Slim Harpo do it?” Agreed, Mick. BUT, you guys did it, and tunes like You Gotta Move, and it took many of us back to the originals and hence deeper into the blues greats’ catalogs, to endless reward. It’s actually what often perplexed the Stones and other British Invasion bands like The Beatles, Who and Kinks; that in many respects all they were doing was bringing American music to Americans who already had it, but didn’t apparently appreciate it.

10. Slim Harpo, Shake Your Hips . . . Speaking of Slim Harpo, not I’m A King Bee but another one the Stones covered for Exile On Main Street. Charlie Watts’s drumming is ridiculous. It’s not just the backbeat; to me it’s the little touches now and then that sound like someone hitting an empty pop can, plastic pail or garbage can or whatever, just the occasional single stroke. Pop! Brilliant. Yeah, sorry; I’m talking more about the Stones than Slim Harpo. Well, my excuse is that among my sources for tonight’s show is an excellent double CD compilation, curated by the Stones, from 2018. It’s called Confessin’ The Blues, features artwork by Ron Wood, and is excellent as an overall blues collection.

11. Howlin’ Wolf, Little Baby . . . The Stones covered this one on 1995’s Stripped, their excellent semi-acoustic let’s sort of do an unplugged album which was all the rage in the early to mid-1990s. But, we’re the Stones so we’ll do it our way with studio and live cuts including some plugged-in material.

12. Jimmy Reed, Little Rain . . . Great slow blues from Reed, somewhat uncharacteristic to me from other material I know from him. It’s another I plucked from the CD curated by the Stones and one they covered for the Blue and Lonesome album.

13. Son Seals, Telephone Angel . . . A modern electric blues guitarist/singer, he definitely led the stereotypical life of the blues. Shot in the jaw by his wife, requiring reconstructive surgery, lost part of his left leg due to diabetes complications, lost his belongings in a house fire while away on tour . . . He died in 2004 at age 62 of complications from diabetes. But he left us much enduring work, like this tune from his 1976 release, Midnight Son, acknowledged by many as his best album.

14. Bob Dylan, Blind Willie McTell . . . When this Infidels album outtake from 1983 came out on Dylan’s Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3 in 1991, fans and critics alike were amazed and perplexed all at once. How could he have held this back from release at the time? Well, that’s Dylan. Just a brilliant song, with spiritual overtones, like much of Dylan’s work, both musically and lyrically.

15. Blind Willie McTell, Statesboro Blues . . . And here’s Blind Willie himself, singing those blues as nobody else could or can, on a song The Allman Brothers later took to the masses via their live version on At Fillmore East.

16. Hound Dog Taylor & The Houserockers, Taylor’s Rock . . . Blistering instrumental featuring Taylor’s great guitar playing, from the longtime bluesman’s first studio album, Hound Dog Taylor and The Houserockers, which came out in 1971 after many unrecorded years on the road.

17. John Lee Hooker, It Serves You Right To Suffer . . . Spooky Hooker tune, the title cut from his 1966 album. The J. Geils Band later recorded an extended near-10 minute version on their great Live Full House album.

18. Bo Diddley, Crawdad . . . B-side to Diddley’s Walkin’ and Talkin’ single in 1960; typical of the propulsive Diddley sound. I like it better than the A-side.

19. Robert Nighthawk & His Flames Of Rhythm, Maxwell Street Medley . . . Nighthawk taught Muddy Waters and our next player, Earl Hooker, slide guitar but never achieved the commercial success of, particularly, Waters. And Nighthawk was influential beyond those two greats; B.B. King adapted parts of this tune for his own Sweet Little Angel.

20. Earl Hooker, Wah Wah Blues . . . Speaking of Earl Hooker . . . A great wah wah guitar instrumental from 1968.

21. Koko Taylor, I’m A Woman . . . Taylor’s adapted lyrics answer, from a female perspective, to Bo Diddley’s I’m A Man and Muddy Waters’ Mannish Boy. Terrific stuff, from her appropriately titled 1978 release, The Earthshaker.

22. Willie Mae “Big Mama’ Thornton, Hound Dog . . . Yes, the Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller-penned tune that Elvis Presley made famous. But it was a No. 1 hit for Thornton on the R & B charts for seven of the 14 weeks it spent on that list in 1953. Elvis did his more rocked-up version in 1956. Great versions, both.

23. Zu Zu Bollin, Why Don’t You Eat Where You Slept Last Night . . . Up tempo jazzy blues recorded in 1952 by the somewhat obscure Bollin that I dug up from a great series of blues compilations I own, a multi-volume set called Blues Masters: The Essential Blues Collection. Bollin, a Texas bluesman, worked with such arguably better-known talents as Duke Robillard and Percy Mayfield.

24. Johnny Copeland, Down On Bending Knees . . . Fun relationship-oriented stuff from Copeland, a T-Bone Walker disciple.

25. Dinah Washington, Baby, Get Lost . . . Speaking of relationships, Dinah ain’t taking no shit, here. “I got so many men they’re standing in line’ she sings. No kidding. She was married seven (!) times. Or six, depending on your source. All in 39 years on the planet, a life cut short due to hard living, booze and pills she took to battle insomnia, apparently. Her last husband was 1950s and 60s football great Dick (Night Train) Lane. A sad loss of a wonderful, expressive voice.

26. Lightnin’ Hopkins, Mojo Hand . . . Great up-tempo title cut from the Texas guitarist-songwriter’s 1962 album.

27. Bessie Smith, Me & My Gin . . . You listen to these old blues tracks and so much of it is so mind-blowing; one can hear the obvious influences on the artists, especially the white blues rock/rock and rollers, that followed. Sight unseen, I hear Janis Joplin in Smith’s terrific raw vocals, and Joplin indeed credited Smith as an influence.

28. Little Walter, I Got To Go . . . A giant of blues harmonica, a major influence on so many, including Mick Jagger. The Rolling Stones covered it, one of four Little Walter (born Marion Walter Jacobs)-penned tunes, on their 2016 album Blue and Lonesome.

29. Lead Belly, Good Night, Irene . . . So many versions of this standard, including several by Lead Belly (Huddie William Ledbetter) himself. This is the 2:38-length version I pulled from The Essential Recordings. And on that note, good night until next week.

1. Creedence Clearwater Revival, It Came Out Of The Sky . . . Satirical Chuck Berry-type rock and roller about what happens when a UFO falls on an Illinois farmer’s land. It was a single in some countries but is largely considered a CCR deep cut. It appeared on the band’s third album release – Willy and The Poor Boys – in one year (!!), 1969, just three months after their previous album, Green River, which came out eight months after Bayou Country. CCR lore has it that bandleader John Fogerty pushed the group to continue releasing albums as quickly as possible as he feared the band would be forgotten if they didn’t appear in the charts. This caused friction with the other band members, who chafed at the workload and figured it wiser to spread things out.

2. Gov’t Mule, Revolution Come, Revolution Go . . . Eight-minute title cut, with a nice groove, from the Mule’s most recent studio album, released in 2017. Gov’t Mule is an Allman Brothers Band offshoot that started in 1994, which sounds funny now since the Warren Haynes-led band has become a much-lauded entity in itself, having released 10 studio albums and a long list of live albums.

3. Warren Zevon, Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song) . . . A tune that I’d say accurately sums up the role and perhaps plight of enforcers in hockey, particularly up to the time of the song’s release on Zevon’s 2002 album My Ride’s Here. The lyrics were co-written with former sports journalist turned acclaimed author (Tuesdays With Morrie, etc.) and multi-media talent Mitch Albom. David Letterman, a big Zevon fan who had the late great on his show many times, does the ‘hit somebody!’ backing vocals on the track.

4. Ian Thomas, Painted Ladies . . . Mine is a deep cuts show but I’m not so rigid as to ignore an occasional single, especially one that is now nearly 50 years old! This one came up in the station computer system while, as often happens, I was looking for something else – which often leads to welcome finds. Great song, most of us of a certain vintage know and remember it well. It was a No. 4 Canadian hit for Thomas in 1973. It made No. 34 on the US charts.

5. Bruce Springsteen, Johnny 99 . . . I was discussing Springsteen’s sometimes harrowing Nebraska album with a friend some time back. I thought I had played this. But I think I just thought about playing it, because I didn’t, my searches show. Now I am. Good tune, lyrics, album – an essential Springsteen release.

6. The Guess Who, Of A Dropping Pin . . . Jaunty track was the first single from 1969’s Canned Wheat album but barely scraped into the top 100 (No. 98) in Canada. Laughing/Undun, a two-sided single, the big hits off the album although they preceded the full record. Space does not permit but it makes interesting reading: suffice it to say Canned Wheat has an interesting history. The band and the record company haggled over which studio best served the band’s sound, the result being that the Laughing/Undun release was surreptitiously recorded in The Guess Who’s preferred studio while the rest of the record was done elsewhere. No Time, which appears on Canned Wheat, was later re-recorded for the American Woman album and that version became a hit single.

7. Drive-By Truckers, Zip City . . . I don’t know a lot by the Drive-By Truckers but what I do, I like, like this mid-tempo tune. The band has cool album covers, too.

8. Ronnie Wood & Bo Diddley, Who Do You Love (from Live at The Ritz) . . . Extended blitz through the Diddley classic, from the live album Rolling Stone Wood did with Mr. Elias McDaniel, aka Bo, or maybe it’s Bo aka Elias, in 1987 in New York. The album was released in 1988.

9. The Who, How Can You Do It Alone . . . A song about masturbation. A good one, too, the song I mean. It’s from the first post-Keith Moon Who album, Face Dances, with Kenney Jones on drums, from 1981. Despite what some critics say about the post-Moon work, it’s a good album, perhaps leaning towards being a Pete Townshend solo record, but I’ve always liked it.

10. Metallica, Low Man’s Lyric . . . Bluesy tune from 1997’s Reload album. Metallica took heat from some of their fan base for ‘selling out’ starting arguably with 1991’s Black Album and those criticisms got stronger with the Load (1996) and Reload albums which had a more mainstream sound, certainly for the most part different from the band’s previous thrash leanings. But I agree with a fan’s thoughts on it, via a YouTube comments field. “Metallica took a big chance that would see them look and sound different. Songs such as this were risky but the lyrics to their more accessible songs still had a sharp edge to them and were meaningful. This song is an example.”

11. Rush, The Way The Wind Blows . . . Beautiful latter-day tune featuring Alex Lifeson’s hypnotic guitar riff, and the late great Neil Peart’s typically fine drumming, from 2007’s Snakes & Arrows album. Peart named it as his favorite track on the record, from a drumming, and listening, perspective.

12. Spooky Tooth, The Mirror . . . Gary Wright of Dream Weaver and Love Is Alive fame was in Spooky Tooth. So, later and on this tune, was Mick Jones, of Foreigner fame. Great band, could rock, often with a pinch of blues, go psychedelic and prog-ish, just one of those perhaps somewhat under the radar British bands that, to use a British expression, I’ve always fancied.

13. U2, Silver and Gold . . . Perhaps the best-known version of this pulsating track is the live version from Rattle and Hum. This is the studio version, about a minute shorter and equally good. It was the B-side to the Joshua Tree’s Where The Streets Have No Name single.

14. John Mayall, Got To Find A Better Way . . . The mantra for my show, one of my catch phrases, has long been: So old it’s new – old bands, old tracks, old bands, their new stuff if they’re still around, alive and kicking. As Mayall is, at age 88 currently on what he’s announced will finally be his last tour. In any event, this is a typically fine, self-penned cut from Mayall’s freshly-released new album, The Sun Is Shining Down, which came out this past Friday, Jan. 28.

15. Jethro Tull, Where Did Saturday Go? . . . Another new one, from old friends. Ian Anderson has been releasing albums under his own name for about 20 years now but has revived the Tull moniker for a new album, The Zealot Game, which also came out this past Friday. “At last, the new collection of songs you have not really been waiting for,” Anderson quips in his typically witty album liner notes. In many ways, Anderson’s recent work is interchangeable as Tull because in so many respects he has long BEEN Tull, and his solo work has featured current Tull band members. So, one wonders what the difference is, really. Maybe it’s all done for tax reasons for Anderson’s myriad companies, always listed on his work as The Ian Anderson Group of Companies Ltd. But what do I know? I’m just a huge Tull/Anderson fan, musically, even though his sometimes snotty supercilious arrogance in interviews can rub me the wrong way. But hey, leader types can tend to be that way; they have a vision and they’re going to pursue it how they so choose. Anyway, a typical acoustic-type Tull track, this one, and one listen in, a fine addition to the extensive Tull/Anderson album catalog.

16. The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Gypsy Eyes . . . From Electric Ladyland, an album featuring well-known Hendrix tracks like Crosstown Traffic, Voodoo Child (Slight Return) and of course his immortal reinvention of Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower. Gypsy Eyes is another of the more conventional songs on the album amid some of the interesting experimentation or simple jamming exhibited elsewhere in extended workouts like Voodoo Chile and 1983 . . . (A Merman I Should Turn To Be).

17. Bob Dylan, I and I . . . “Been so long since a strange woman has slept in my bed . . . Look how sweet she sleeps . . . Think I’ll go out and go for a walk. Not much happenin’ here, nothin’ ever does. Besides, if she wakes up now, she’ll just want me to talk; I got nothing to say, especially about whatever was.” Dylan, arguably nailing relationships, or potential ones.

18. Santana, Taboo . . . Said it many times, while I like most Santana, the first three albums remain for me the zenith of the band’s work. As evidence, I offer this intoxicating piece from the third album.

19. Roxy Music, Both Ends Burning . . . A song in the vein of Roxy’s edgier, early work, although the same 1975 Siren album featured their breakthrough, more conventional hit, Love Is The Drug. Oh, and that’s Roxy singer/songwriter Bryan Ferry’s then-girlfriend Jerry Hall, soon to be stolen by Mick Jagger, crawling on the album cover, which also got let’s say somewhat duller as Roxy Music became more mainstream.

20. The Beatles, Happiness Is A Warm Gun . . . One of my all-time favorite Beatles’ tunes. “She’s well-acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane…” then shortly after into that great wahhhaaawaaa guitar in what is about three or four songs in one – the intro, I need a fix, Mother Superior, happiness is a warm gun – all with great lyrics, all in two minutes, 44 seconds. Brilliance.

21. The Allman Brothers Band, Seven Turns . . . Title cut, and a beauty written by guitarist Dickey Betts, from the band’s 1990 album.

22. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tuesday’s Gone . . . Another beauty, from another great southern rock band.

23. The Rolling Stones, Gotta Get Away . . . Short, sweet and terrific early Stones and in some ways a precursor to their later what I call ‘effortlessly and confidently casual’ tunes such as Tumbling Dice, Torn and Frayed and many others. And on that note, getting away until next week.

1. J. Geils Band, First I Look At The Purse (live, from Full House) . . . Probably my favorite J. Geils song and version; they are best served live, terrific band, propulsive track I could listen to 100 times in a row and never tire of.

2. The Rolling Stones, Rocks Off . . . ‘The sunshine bores the daylights out of me.” etc. That lyric ‘makes’ this song, the opening cut to the Exile On Main St. album, for me.

3. Groundhogs, Cherry Red . . . Not sure how I got into the Groundhogs, the British blues-rock powerhouse yet something of an underground act. Probably one of those times, ages ago now, I was in a music store, an independent one like Kitchener’s amazing Encore Records, and the band was playing. In any event, glad I did.

4. AC/DC, Demon Fire . . . Similar riff to Safe In New York City from the band’s 2000 album Stiff Upper Lip but what the heck, it’s 20 years later, this one’s from the most recent record Power Up in 2020 and when has AC/DC not repeated itself – yet remained excellent? And, Angus Young did raid the vaults of unreleased material in putting together the album, which was a tribute to longtime rhythm guitarist and band co-founder Malcolm Young, who died in 2017. He’s since been replaced by Stevie Young, Malcolm’s nephew. The new album was something of a comeback/reunion album for the boys, what with drummer Phil Rudd returning from legal issues, singer Brian Johnson returning from hearing issues and bassist Cliff Williams back in the fold after coming out of retirement. Demonstrating the staying power of classic rock bands, it was a No. 1 album in many countries, including the US, UK and Germany, and was 2020’s sixth-best album, worldwide, in sales counting physical copies, downloads, etc.

5. Judas Priest, Lightning Strike . . . Smokin’ track from the powerhouse 2018 album Firepower, wherein Priest got away from the somewhat progressive concept metal of their previous two albums, Nostradamus and Redeemer of Souls and largely turned the clock back to the 1970s or 80s. The two previous albums are good, but Firepower is a return to more straight-ahead blistering songwriting, with Lightning Strike, one of the singles from the album, a perfect example. Great stuff, if you like Priest and hard rock/metal.

6. Black Sabbath, The Shining . . . From The Eternal Idol, from the underappreciated – aside from dedicated Sabbath fans – Tony Martin on lead vocals version of Sabbath. Very interesting period in the band’s history; guitarist Tony Iommi the only constant, holding it all together and producing some terrific, if relatively unheard, material with typically monstrous riffs.

7. Ozzy Osbourne, Over The Mountain . . . A single and well-known track from Ozzy’s second solo album, 1981’s Diary of A Madman, the second and final Ozzy album featuring the late great guitarist Randy Rhodes. I like the tune, and the album but to me it also marks perhaps the beginning of the overproduced 80s sound that became pervasive in all genres and frankly I don’t like. The sound became the staple of ‘hair metal’ bands, mostly garbage like Poison and Winger and whoever else, Bon Jovi whose success I’ve never understood beyond the song Wanted Dead Or Alive and crap like Motley Crue, which has to be the absolute worst successful band in music history, just shit to my ears . . . OK, stream of consciousness rant over. Ozzy wasn’t shit here, but the sound was getting there. Interestingly, Sabbath, with Dio at the same time doing albums like Heaven and Hell and Mob Rules, avoided the overproduction sound.

8. Thin Lizzy, Bad Reputation . . . So many great Thin Lizzy songs beyond The Boys Are Back In Town, a great song but which, to some, particularly hockey arena programmers, is the only thing the band ever did. There’s so much depth to Lizzy’s catalog it’s ridiculous. This title cut to the band’s 1977 album is a perfect example.

9. Rory Gallagher, Big Guns . . . Title cut to a compilation that years ago truly got me deep into Rory Gallagher. The song was originally on 1982’s Jinx album. I love Gallagher’s music and that of his previous band, Taste, but was somewhat late to the party but have long since made up for lost time. I recall Rory auditioning for the Stones at the Black and Blue sessions (that would have been interesting and likely amazing, Rory in the Stones) but more so I recall a college friend late 1970s raving about Rory, which further turned me on to him and so here I am, again, playing the late great guitarist/songwriter.

10. Pink Floyd, One Of These Days . . . Classic bass line on this one, the well-known instrumental opener from Meddle, the 1971 album preceding the monster The Dark Side Of The Moon.

11. Traffic, Rock and Roll Stew, Parts 1 & 2 . . . Traffic recorded various versions of this one, which appeared as a four-minute plus track on The Low Spark OF High Heeled Boys album and then, as Parts 1 & 2, as a longer single that later appeared on expanded reissues of the album and on the 2-CD Gold compilation. Great tune from a great band, in any version.

12. Pete Townshend/Ronnie Lane, Heart To Hang Onto . . . 1977’s Rough Mix, credited to The Who’s Pete Townshend and Faces’ Ronnie Lane helped out by a host of their musical friends including the likes of Eric Clapton and Charlie Watts, is quite simply one of the greatest albums ever, in my book. This is just one of many terrific songs on it.

13. Jefferson Airplane, She Has Funny Cars . . . Opening track to Surrealistic Pillow, another of those albums handed down to me, so to speak, by my older siblings, in this case my older sister. The hits were the only two top 40 hits the Airplane ever had, Somebody To Love and White Rabbit, eternal classics of course, but the whole album is amazing.

14. Murray McLauchlan, Sixteen Lanes Of Highway . . . From McLauchlan’s 1971 debut album, Songs From The Street. The track also appears on the wonderful 2-CD compilation, issued in 2007, The Best of Murray McLauchlan: Songs From The Street.

15. Junkhouse, Burned Out Car . . . Speaking of McLauchlan, his own version of this song about homelessness is on the Songs from the Street compilation. The Junkhouse version, which came out on the Birthday Boy album in 1995, features duet vocals by Sarah McLauchlan and Junkhouse leader and artiste extraordinaire Tom Wilson.

16. Headstones, Heart Of Darkness . . . From the Picture of Health debut album, 1993. If Headstones did nothing else, and they’ve done lots since, this album alone would cement their legacy and brilliance, in my opinion. Just kick butt rock and roll.

17. Bruce Cockburn, You Get Bigger As You Go . . . Another from Humans, arguably my favorite Cockburn album and one I tend to dig into for the show every now and then.

18. Elton John, Midnight Creeper . . . The last in my Elton John series, for now. It started several weeks ago when I couldn’t decide between this song, Have Mercy On The Criminal and High Flying Bird, all from the Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player album, or Slave, from Honky Chateau. So, over the last while, I’ve now played them all.

19. Ten Years After, If You Should Love Me . . . Still fresh, bluesy and excellent after all these years. From TYA’s 1969 release, Ssssh.

20. Little Feat, All That You Dream . . . Linda Ronstadt helps out Lowell George on vocals on this cut from 1975’s The Last Record Album, which it wasn’t as the band kept going Somehow I feel like I’ve said the exact same thing fairly recently after playing this song. Oh well, if so. Great band, great tune.

21. The Band featuring Van Morrison, Caravan (live from The Last Waltz) . . . Originally on Van the Man’s 1970 Moondance album, this is a terrific live version with The Band.

22. Savoy Brown, Hellbound Train . . . Spooky, hypnotic, nine-minute blues-rock title cut from the band’s 1972 album.

23. Tommy Bolin, Post Toastee . . . Another nine-minute epic as we close the show with some extended stuff. Great riff on this one from the late great Bolin’s second solo album, 1976’s Private Eyes, after his version of Deep Purple broke up following that lineup’s lone, and fine, album Come Taste The Band.

24. Deep Purple, Bird Has Flown . . . Any follower of the show by now knows I’m a huge Deep Purple fan, all eras of the band, and its offshoots like Rainbow, early Whitesnake, Gillan, etc. It wasn’t always this way but in recent years, OK, the last 30, ha, I’ve really come to appreciate the early, progressive/psychedelic material produced by the first incarnation of Purple with Rod Evans on lead vocals and Nick Simper on bass. Like this track, from the third and final album before Evans and Simper left to be replaced by Ian Gillan and Roger Glover for 1970’s In Rock.

1. Nazareth, Morning Dew . . . Written by Canadian singer-songwriter Bonnie Dobson and covered by so many, including the Rod Stewart-fronted Jeff Beck Group on Truth, The Grateful Dead, Lulu, Robert Plant, Long John Baldry, early incarnations of what became The Allman Brothers Band and many others. I could do a whole Morning Dew show, or leave it to you, the listener, to try the various versions, all good, that are readily available online including a stirring duet between Dobson and Plant during a 2000s Plant concert. So hard to choose, but Nazareth’s extended seven-minute version from their self-titled 1971 debut album remains among my favorites, particularly for its pulsating, hypnotic, intro. Most of the well-known covers follow the rocked-up pattern of the Tim Rose version, for which he controversially claimed a writing credit after rearranging Dobson’s more pure folk version. Lots of interesting literature about the song, a post-apocalyptic lament Dobson was inspired to write and sing in her ethereal tone by the 1959 movie On The Beach, starring Gregory Peck. It’s a good movie (spoiler alert) about inhabitants of the earth’s southern hemisphere, specifically Australia, awaiting the inevitable as air currents slowly carry nuclear fallout south from the devastated north.

2. The Beatles, Rain . . . The B-side to Paperback Writer, yet another example of bands as fine as The Beatles having B-sides or album tracks that most bands would sell their souls for. Ringo considers it his best recorded drumming and the song demonstrated the band’s increasing use of the studio as an instrument in itself, what with a backing track recorded at high speed, then slowed down for release, and the opposite being done on John Lennon’s lead vocal. As detailed in a Beatles’ book I own, “the juxtaposition of speed and laziness heightened the unearthly tension of this brilliant record.” Indeed.

3. The Rolling Stones, Child Of The Moon . . . Spacey track with remnants of the sound of 1967’s Satanic Majesties album, this was the B-side to the Stones’ return to kick-butt rock and roll, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, in 1968.

4. Paul McCartney/Wings, Famous Groupies . . . Fun little ditty of the type McCartney has always done so well, in my opinion. It just happened to come up while I was plotting this little Beatles-Stones mini-set, so I decided to play it. From 1978’s London Town album.

5. Ron Wood, Ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll . . . Terrific cut from, for me, Wood’s best solo album (and he’s got many good ones), 1992’s Slide On This.

6. The Monkees, Daily Nightly . . . One of my favorite Monkees’ tunes (and there are many), this somewhat spooky 1967 song about the 1966 Sunset Strip curfew riots in Hollywood, penned by guitarist Mike Nesmith and sung by drummer Mickey Dolenz, is apparently one of the first commercial rock/pop songs to feature the Moog synthesizer, played by Dolenz.

7. Free, Broad Daylight . . . Haven’t played Free in a while. I have played Bad Company, the band which evolved out of the ashes of Free. Bad Co was of course much more successful commercially, but in many ways I (and many others) still prefer the rawer, bluesier, in some cases heavier band that was Free, both groups fronted of course by the incomparably great rock singer Paul Rodgers. Hard to pick between the two bands, though, both great. Nice guitar solo by the late great Paul Kossoff on this one, from the second, self-titled, Free album.

8. Jeff Beck, Blue Wind . . . Written by Jan Hammer, who by the time of 1976’s Wired album was collaborating extensively with Beck. Great jazz/rock/funk fusion, Beck’s fingers are on fire on the fretboard. You actually used to hear stuff like this on commercial FM radio during the 1970s.

9. George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Want Ad Blues . . . Nice bass line to open this extended cover of the John Lee Hooker tune. Thorogood, of course, doesn’t write much, but he built a solid career out of his ability, born of his love for the music that inspired him, for choosing and covering/re-interpreting some fine material. All with gloriously ‘dirty’ guitar, of course.

10. Aerosmith, No Surprize . . . Lead cut telling the story of the band from the kick-ass Night In The Ruts (Right In The Nuts on the back cover) album, 1979. It got critically panned, the band was largely out of it on booze and drugs, guitarist Joe Perry left partway through but many Aerosmith fans, me included, consider it among their best albums. It rocks. The black and white cover of the band, all grimy in a mine shaft, with “Aerosmith” and the album title scrawled on the rocks, is cool and, well, it’s just a great album, critics be damned. One of those examples in rock and roll of a band fraying at the edges yet still producing good music. And the best part, paradoxically, is that because it wasn’t hugely successful, the album has not been overplayed to death over the years so remains fresh. And how can you beat a lyric like “Midnight lady situation fetal vaccinate your ass with a phonograph needle” or the bang-on commentary on the music industry: “Candy store rock and roll corporation jelly roll play the singles it ain’t me it’s programmed insanity” ‘Nuff said.

11. Humble Pie, I Wonder . . . Out goes guitarist Peter Frampton for a successful solo career, in comes Clem Clempson for 1972’s Smokin’ album, which lived up to its title and, thanks to the hit single 30 Days In The Hole, became the Steve Marriott-led band’s best-selling album. Clempson’s guitar work on this extended slow blues cut ain’t bad, either.

12. Rod Stewart, My Way Of Giving . . . The Small Faces originally did this one, written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, before Rod Stewart and Ron Wood came out of The Jeff Beck Group to form what became Faces – many of whom, as was typical of the period, played on Stewart’s solo version of the track, on 1970’s Gasoline Alley album.

13. Led Zeppelin, Over The Hills And Far Away . . . For some unknown reason, this song, and a good one it is, was playing in my head the other night when I got up in the middle of the night to answer nature’s call. So I went back to bed, got up in the morning and was thinking “what’s the name of that Zep song that starts slow, with ‘hey lady’ and then gets gloriously heavy? I should play it.” So, I am.

14. Fleetwood Mac, Although The Sun Is Shining . . . Beautiful song, penned by guitarist Danny Kirwan for the final Peter Green-led Mac album, 1969’s brilliant Then Play On. One of the formative records of my youth, among many brought home to me by my older brother, eight years senior. What a resource and influence he was.

15. John Stewart, Gold . . . Speaking of Fleetwood Mac, remember this hit single by Stewart from 1979? Great tune, nice memories, pulled from a “Fleetwood Mac Family Album” CD I own that features various Mac members and their solo and/or collaborative ventures. Stevie Nicks of Mac is on backing vocals. Apparently Stewart, who also wrote The Monkees’ Daydream Believer, grew to dislike Gold, refusing to perform it live, calling it ‘vapid’ and ’empty’ and having no meaning for him, saying he did it for the money and to please his record company. I can see his view. If you research Stewart he was an accomplished artist and songwriter who then perhaps became associated with one song that to him perhaps became an albatross. But a good tune, nonetheless, and a deserved hit.

16. Eagles, Hollywood Waltz . . . Not much to say about this one. Hadn’t heard it in a while, came up on the computer while programming something else, nice tune from the One Of These Nights album, decided to play it.

17. Queen, Sleeping On The Sidewalk . . . I’ve said it perhaps too many times, and I haven’t actually added them up but I’d say most of my favorite Queen songs are those written by guitarist Brian May; this being yet another. Nice bluesy tune from News Of The World, 1977, a terrific album overshadowed by the good, but by now ridiculously overplayed, particularly in sports arenas, hit singles We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions.

18. Elton John, Slave . . . So, a few weeks back I mentioned I was having difficulty choosing between several Elton John tunes, and would eventually get to them all. Songs on the docket were three from 1973’s Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only The Piano Player (High Flying Bird, Have Mercy On The Criminal and Midnight Creeper) and this one, Slave, a countryish tune from Honky Chateau in 1972. All that’s now left to play from my list, in an upcoming show, perhaps next week, maybe later, is Midnight Creeper.

19. ZZ Top, A Fool For Your Stockings . . . One of my all-time favorite ZZ tunes, from 1979’s Deguello, a few years before synthesizers and huge commercial success came into the equation. I read it described by a rock journalist as ‘a fine fetish blues.”

20. Van Morrison, Tupelo Honey . . . Title cut from Van Morrison’s 1971 album, simply, to me, one of his finest ever songs.

21. Leon Russell, Out In The Woods . . . Such a funky, cool track; the instrumentation and of course the vocals. It’s obvious and self-evident but vocals, the styling, the tone, the pitch, are such an immense instrument in themselves in music.

22. Peter Tosh, Equal Rights/Downpressor Man (live) . . . It didn’t occur to me while I was planning the show but perhaps some sort of thing was going on because today, Monday, January 17 is Martin Luther King Day in the United States. And so, unplanned yet fitting, here’s this combo track from Tosh’s great Captured Live album. “Everyone is crying out for peace, none is crying out for justice. But there will be no peace, ’til man gets equal rights and justice.”

23. Bob Marley & The Wailers, Could You Be Loved . . . Funky reggae from the late great . . . and great lyrics, too, open to interpretation in an individual or collective sense. To each one’s own.

24. The Allman Brothers Band, Old Friend . . . Fantastic acoustic guitar pickin’ by Warren Haynes and Derek Trucks on this blues cut. Not sure they intended it this way because the band kept up with live performance for many years until retiring in 2014, so there was always the possibility of another studio album. But perhaps in retrospect and appropriately, it’s the last song on the last Allmans studio album, 2003’s Hittin’ The Note. The whole album is terrific but I’m a huge fan. In any event, they did hit the note on what became their final studio release.

25. Shirley Bassey, If You Go Away . . . Many versions of this song but I love Shirley Bassey’s vocals and she did several James Bond themes including the immortal version of Goldfinger, which I’ve played before and will again, perhaps in another ‘Bond’ set at some point. In any event, this came up as I was sorting CDs and came across a Bassey singles collection I own. Beautiful, sad song. And on that note, going away until next week.