An album replay show: on the menu are Warren Zevon’s Excitable Boy, Elton John’s Honky Chateau and Naturally, J.J. Cale’s debut album, from 1971.

Playing Zevon was inspired by a friend mentioning him during the week and I haven’t played him in a while, so I figured I’d go with likely his best-known album, largely due to its hit single Werewolves of London. But while that song drew many to Zevon and the 1978 album, his third studio release, there’s depth to the record – and Zevon’s entire catalog, which I do dig into fairly often on the show. Still, perhaps a case for many listeners where a song drives purchase of an album or, nowadays, an online listen at least, one is rewarded with a classic and an entry point into an artist’s work.

The hit singles from 1972’s Honky Chateau were Honky Cat and Rocket Man, but Elton John’s work had such depth in the early to mid-1970s that, like Zevon’s Excitable Boy, every album was a solid song-for-song listen. Examples on Honky Chateau are Amy, one of my favorite EJ deep cuts, Slave, Salvation, Mellow and Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters which is pretty well known and was a single in the UK. Ah, just listen to the whole thing; I’ve already listed seven of the 10 tracks. Depth, as mentioned.

J.J. Cale’s Naturally, a typical laid back effort, features two songs covered by other artists. Lynyrd Skynyrd did Call Me The Breeze on their 1974 album Second Helping while Eric Clapton (who also later had a hit with Cale’s Cocaine) had a hit single with a speeded up version of After Midnight in 1970, a year before Cale’s album was released. Cale had cut a fast version of After Midnight in 1966 as the B-side to an unsuccessful single, Slow Motion and it was Cale’s fast version that Clapton heard and covered in the same style. Cale was then encouraged to put After Midnight on his album to capitalize on the success of Clapton’s version but decided he’d done his own uptempo take already, so he slowed it down for Naturally. I’ve included all three versions, after the bare-bones song list, below.

Warren Zevon – Excitable Boy

1. Johnny Strikes Up The Band
2. Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner
3. Excitable Boy
4. Werewolves Of London
5. Accidentally Like A Martyr
6. Nighttime In The Switching Yard
7. Veracruz
8. Tenderness On The Block
9. Lawyers, Guns And Money

Elton John – Honky Chateau

1. Honky Cat
2. Mellow
3. I Think I’m Going To Kill Myself
4. Susie (Dramas)
5. Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going To Be A Long, Long Time)
6. Salvation
7. Slave
8. Amy
9. Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters
10. Hercules

J.J. Cale – Naturally

1. Call Me The Breeze
2. Call The Doctor
3. Don’t Go To Strangers
4. Woman I Love
5. Magnolia
6. Clyde
7. Crazy Mama
8. Nowhere To Run
9. After Midnight
10. River Runs Deep
11. Bringing It Back
12. Crying Eyes

A set comprised of mostly early rock and roll, done by the original artists and/or those who were inspired by them, before veering off into other musical territory near the end of the 24-piece program. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Johnny and Edgar Winter, Rock & Roll Medley (live: Slippin’ And Slidin’, Jailhouse Rock, Tutti-Frutti, Sick And Tired, I’m Ready, Reelin’ And Rockin’, Blue Suede Shoes, Jenny Take A Ride, Good Golly Miss Molly)
2. The Rolling Stones, Mona (I Need You Baby)
3. Bo Diddley, She’s Fine, She’s Mine
4. Ronnie Wood & Bo Diddley, Crackin’ Up (from Live At The Ritz)
5. The Plastic Ono Band, Money (from Live Peace In Toronto 1969)
6. Paul McCartney, Hi-Heel Sneakers (from Unplugged – The Official Bootleg)
7. The Beatles, A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues (from Live At The BBC)
8. Jerry Lee Lewis, Crazy Arms
9. The Ventures, Walk – Don’t Run
10. Chuck Berry, Guitar Boogie
11. The Champs, Tequila
12. Buddy Holly/The Crickets, Fool’s Paradise
13. Roy Orbison, Go Go Go (Down The Line)
14. Charlie Rich, Lonely Weekends
15. Eddie Cochran, Nervous Breakdown
16. Carl Perkins, (The Right String, Baby, But The) Wrong Yo-Yo
17. Rufus Thomas, Bear Cat
18. Danny & The Juniors, Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay
19. Django Reinhardt, Djangology
20. Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group Live, Scatterbrain
21. Peter Green, White Sky (Love That Evil Woman)
22. Van Morrison, Listen To The Lion
23. Steve Winwood, Night Train
24. Tony Banks, Siren

My track-by-track tales:

1. Johnny Winter and Edgar Winter, Rock & Roll Medley (live: Slippin’ And Slidin’, Jailhouse Rock, Tutti-Frutti, Sick And Tired, I’m Ready, Reelin’ And Rockin’, Blue Suede Shoes, Jenny Take A Ride, Good Golly Miss Molly) . . . Nine rock ‘n roll classics, or at least snippets of them, some longer than others but it works, whipped up in a torrid six minute package. From the Winter brothers’ 1976 live album Together.

2. The Rolling Stones, Mona (I Need You Baby) . . . From their early days, the Stones doing the Bo Diddley beat. The song was first released on the band’s UK debut album, simply titled The Rolling Stones but, with a different track listing that didn’t include Mona, subtitled England’s Newest Hitmakers in North America. The colonies had to wait for 1965’s The Rolling Stones, Now! album to get Mona on an LP, back in the days when British bands like the Stones, Beatles and others, thanks in part to the practice of singles in the UK not usually also being released on albums outside of compilations, often saw their records repackaged and/or bastardized, depending how one looks at it.

For instance: The cover art for the Stones’ 1965 US release December’s Children (And Everybody’s), a photo of the band, was the same photo used for the UK album Out Of Our Heads while the US Out Of Our Heads cover used a different photo (and track listing) of the group. The Beatles, for one, hated the practice and what Capitol Records in the US did to their albums, understandable in terms of artistic integrity, album titles (Beatles ’65, Beatles VI etc. which didn’t exist in the UK) song sequencing, sound mixes and such. But on the flip side, those were the records many North American fans grew up with and were accustomed to, hence things like the 2014 box set CD release The U.S. Albums and, previous to that, the respective 2004 and 2006 boxes The Capitol Albums Volume 1 and 2. As a Stones and Beatles completist, I have all of it and while I grew up in Canada and first heard and had the North American ones, I do prefer the UK versions of the early albums, in at least some measure as a way of honoring the artists’ intentions.

3. Bo Diddley, She’s Fine, She’s Mine . . . And here’s Bo himself, from 1955 with the B-side to Diddley Daddy, the A-side hitting No. 11 on the R & B charts. Diddley’s She’s Fine, She’s Mine was in 1960 adapted by American blues singer/songwriter/harmonica player Willie Cobbs and became his You Don’t Love Me, later to be given an epic 19-minute treatment on The Allman Brothers Band’s classic 1971 live album At Fillmore East.

4. Ronnie Wood & Bo Diddley, Crackin’ Up (from Live At The Ritz) . . . And Bo again, this time with Stones’ guitarist Wood on a rollicking live album recorded in New York City in 1987 and released in 1988. A 10-song trip through mostly Bo’s catalog including Crackin’ Up but also showcasing Plynth (Water Down the Drain) from the Jeff Beck Group’s Beck-Ola album, Ooh La La by another of Wood’s former groups, Faces, and the Stones’ Honky Tonk Women, the album hit No. 40 on the Japanese charts.

5. The Plastic Ono Band, Money (from Live Peace In Toronto 1969) . . . Heavy, gritty version of the rock and roll standard, as performed by the hastily put together band of John Lennon (vocals, guitar), Eric Clapton (guitar), longtime Beatles’ associate Klaus Voorman on bass and future Yes drummer Alan White … and Yoko Ono, literally in the bag for at least part of the performance at the Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival festival at Varsity Stadium. The festival featured, among others, rock and roll pioneers Bo Diddley (him yet again, not obsessed with him he just keeps popping up; it’s that type of interconnected song set), Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry and Little Richard along with Chicago, The Doors and Alice Cooper, whose band also served as the backing group for Gene Vincent of Be-Bop-a-Lula fame.

6. Paul McCartney, Hi-Heel Sneakers (from Unplugged -The Official Bootleg) . . . From McCartney’s terrific 1991 release, part of the then-popular MTV Unplugged series that eventually became too much of a good thing. The album, which includes Gene Vincent’s Be-Bop-a-Lula but I decided to play Hi-Heel Sneakers instead, is a nice combination of early rock and roll standards and some Beatles’ material like I’ve Just Seen A Face, Here, There and Everywhere, We Can Work It Out plus McCartney solo stuff like Junk and That Would Be Something. It also includes a great version of Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine, sung by one of McCartney’s guitarists at the time, Hamish Stuart. Stuart, an original member of the Average White Band, is currently in Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band.

7. The Beatles, A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues (from Live At The BBC) . . . The many connections within the set continue with the Fab Four’s cover of Alabama songwriter/guitarist Terry Thompson’s tune, which was the B-side to American soul singer Arthur Alexander’s hit single You Better Move on, which in 1964 was covered by The Rolling Stones. The Beatles either recorded or performed live on the BBC countless times between 1962 and 1965, many of the results of which appeared on Live At The BBC, a 2-disc set first released in 1994 and then re-released in expanded form along with On Air – Live At The BBC Volume 2 in 2013. A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues, sung by John Lennon, was recorded in early August, 1963 and aired on the BBC later that month.

8. Jerry Lee Lewis, Crazy Arms . . . A No. 1 country hit and top 30 overall chart placing for Ray Price in 1956, it was the first single recorded by Lewis, also in 1956 although it didn’t chart. The song was later released on Lewis’s self-titled debut album in 1958. That record is sometimes referred to as High School Confidential due to that single’s presence on the record, by which time The Killer was a star via hits like Whole Lot of Shakin’ Goin’ On, Great Balls Of Fire and Breathless.

9. The Ventures, Walk – Don’t Run . . . The first of three consecutive instrumentals. Written by American jazz guitarist Johnny Smith, The Ventures took it to the top of the charts in 1960 and yes, this is a deep cuts show but as I often mention, I do play the occasional singles that either didn’t chart, ones by relatively obscure artists or songs that may not have been heard, at least by me, in ages. I pulled this one, along with some others in the set, from my trusty 3-CD Totally Essential Rock ‘N’ Roll collection. Not sure how to describe it in words but it’s one of those tunes that one recognizes immediately upon it starting to play.

10. Chuck Berry, Guitar Boogie . . . Perfectly descriptive title for this instrumental from Berry’s 1958 album One Dozen Berrys. It’s got Berry’s signature intro to the point one almost expects him to start singing Johnny B. Goode or something but it works perfectly well without vocals. There’s way more than a dozen strawberries on the cool cover, but the album is called One Dozen Berrys due to its 12 tracks including the hits Sweet Little Sixteen and its B-side Reelin’ and Rockin’ (later an A-side hit) and Rock and Roll Music.

11. The Champs, Tequila . . . Last one in the mini-instrumental set although I suppose it’s technically a semi-instrumental with this one because the word ‘tequila’ is spoken, in a fun and effective way, three times during the two minute, 13-second track. A No. 1 hit in 1958, it’s one of those cool cases where an A-side, in this case Train To Nowhere, a fine song in its own right but unsuccessful, was flipped over by a DJ who played the B-side Tequila at a Cleveland radio station, and the rest is history. The song has been covered countless times by artists from every genre of music one could name and has a big popular culture presence. It’s appeared in movies like Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie and the TV series Happy Days.

12. Buddy Holly/The Crickets, Fool’s Paradise . . . It sounds instantly familiar which I suppose most if not all Holly tunes do, similar to, say, Chuck Berry, which some might consider repeating themselves but I find a testament to the effective hooks and melodies inherent in their work. This was the B-side to the top-30 charting A-side Think It Over which also made No. 9 on the R & B list. Fool’s Paradise made No. 58 on the main charts.

13. Roy Orbison, Go Go Go (Down The Line) . . . B-side to the 1956 single Ooby Dooby and the first song written by Orbison although, according to Wikipedia, Sun Records owner and founder Sam Phillips later bought out out Orbison’s songs and put his own name on the credits. It was later covered and released as Down The Line by both Jerry Lee Lewis and Ricky Nelson, among others including Orbison himself, who reworked it for his 1970 album The Big O.

14. Charlie Rich, Lonely Weekends . . . Does the great country singer ever sound like Elvis Presley on this 1960 rockabilly release, but I suppose lots of these types of songs sound like Elvis, or vice-versa. In any event, it’s all such quality, infectious stuff – short, sweet, effective.

15. Eddie Cochran, Nervous Breakdown . . . As I was saying, about the Charlie Rich tune – short, sweet, infectious, effective. Best known for hit singles like Summertime Blues, Twenty Flight Rock, C’mon Everybody, Somethin’ Else and Cut Across Shorty, Cochran – like his friends Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens – died young in an accident. In Cochran’s case it was in a car crash in 1960 at age 21, just over a year after Holly, 22 and Valens, 17, along with The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), 28, perished along with pilot Roger Peterson in the February, 1959 plane crash immortalized as The Day The Music Died in Don MacLean’s 1971 hit American Pie. Chillingly, apparently Cochran was spooked by the death of his friends and developed a premonition that he, too, would die young and wanted to cut down on touring to reduce chances of an accident. The single car crash came while he was riding in a taxi on tour in England.

16. Carl Perkins, (The Right String, Baby, But The) Wrong Yo-Yo . . . Terrific toe-tapper by the man likely best known for Blue Suede Shoes, famously covered by Elvis Presley among countless renditions by various artists. Perkins also is responsible for Honey Don’t, Matchbox and Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby, all covered by The Beatles to the point Paul McCartney was once quoted as saying “if there were no Carl Perkins, there would be no Beatles.” I think there would have been, talent of that level tends to emerge regardless but no doubt Perkins was influential and provided at least some degree of push towards prominence.

17. Rufus Thomas, Bear Cat . . . A fun response to the song Hound Dog, by the man who gave the rock and roll world the 1963 hit single Walking The Dog which has been covered by artists like The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Roger Daltrey, Johnny Rivers, Mitch Ryder, Jason & The Scorchers, Green Day and many others.

18. Danny & The Juniors, Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay . . . Best known for their 1957 chart-topping At The Hop, this similar-sounding (especially the intro with the doo-wop vocal harmonies) 1958 followup made No. 19 on the hit parade.

19. Django Reinhardt, Djangology . . . Genre change as we bridge into some more modern, longer material via this 1935 recording by the renowned and influential Belgian jazz/gypsy jazz guitarist.

20. Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group Live, Scatterbrain . . . Beck, hardly a slouch himself, once described Django Reinhardt, in an interview with Guitar World Legends magazine, as “by far the most astonishing guitar player ever” so I figured let’s see what Beck himself has to play in the jazz fusion idiom as on this collaboration with the Czech-born composer/musician/producer Hammer, released on their 1977 album. Hammer, who was in the original lineup of John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra starting in 1971, also played on Beck’s studio albums Wired (1976), There & Back (1980) and Flash (1985). Hammer is well known for various movie and TV scores including the Miami Vice Theme which was a top 20 worldwide hit, including No. 1 on some lists, in 1985.

21. Peter Green, White Sky (Love That Evil Woman) . . . Propulsive near-nine minute title track to the Fleetwood Mac founder member’s 1982 album. Among the personnel on the album was drummer Reg Isidore, best known for his work in Robin Trower’s band on albums between 1973 and 1981 including Trower’s first two solo releases after leaving Procol Harum, the excellent Twice Removed From Yesterday and its followup a year later, the 1974 classic Bridge Of Sighs. Isidore died of a heart attack in 2009 at age 59.

22. Van Morrison, Listen To The Lion . . . An 11-minute voyage into Van The Man’s vocal style from his 1972 album Saint Dominic’s Preview. His voice as I often suggest and marvel at is an instrument in itself. Of course that is true of all singers, and it’s obviously subjective but Morrison’s voice in this regard is exceptional, as demonstrated on this epic as he sings, chants, moans . . . in short, vocalizes. In the words of noted music journalist/critic Robert Christgau in his review of the album and this song, vocals are sometimes more important than words. Also of note on the song is Ronnie Montrose, best known for hard rocking guitar in his band Montrose (from whence singer Sammy Hagar emerged), showing his versatility with some beautiful acoustic playing in tandem with Morrison.

23. Steve Winwood, Night Train . . . Funky, extended closing cut on Winwood’s hit album (No. 1 in Canada, No. 3 in the US) Arc of a Diver, released on the third-last day of 1980. While You See A Chance was the big hit, the title track also made the charts from a true solo album as Winwood sang and played every instrument – guitar, bass, various keyboards and synthesizers, and drums.

24. Tony Banks, Siren . . . And why not a little classical music from the Genesis keyboardist to conclude a set that went down some avenues that – after I intentionally started with lots of early rock and roll – I didn’t expect or necessarily intend. But in the end that’s a lot of the fun of it for me and the results come from having assembled the song list over a period of a few days, meaning I put things down, so to speak, then picked them up the next day and the day after that, in different musical moods each time. Composed by Banks and performed by the City Of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, this piece is from Banks’ second of now three classical albums, the 2012 release Six Pieces For Orchestra. The others are Seven: A Suite For Orchestra (2004) and Five, depicted as ‘5’ on the album cover, released in 2018. I don’t own any of them but I clued in to Sirens via the 3-CD Genesis compilation R-Kive, a 2014 set that features Genesis band material from all periods of the group plus solo work by Banks, Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett.

An album replay show featuring releases, in descending order, from 1974, 1973 and 1972: Stormbringer by Deep Purple, Goats Head Soup from The Rolling Stones and Lou Reed’s Transformer. Track listing after my long preamble.

I’ve been revisiting full albums from my formative musical years of late so I expect I’ll be doing album replays for a few weeks at least, on Saturdays. Such an approach works well for my Saturday show because, unlike Mondays when I’m actually live in studio, the Saturday morning set, which I volunteered long ago to do to help the station fill an empty time slot, is one I program via the station computer system. So the songs/albums play straight through, no DJ talk to interrupt anyone should they be recording the record off the radio, and yes I’m dating myself 🙂 from the days we did those sorts of things when a new album was released and an FM station would play the whole thing and you got your blank cassettte tapes ready. And then, me at least, if I liked the album wound up buying it, anyway. Not that such is necessary these days given streaming and such but that’s, for instance, how I got into Joe Jackson, via a Toronto station playing his first album, Look Sharp! in its entirety.

I always remember such a taping circumstance with AC/DC’s Back In Black album where, at the time, shortly after college, I had moved to northern Alberta to start my journalism career and the house I was sharing with a bunch of people was beside a construction zone so every now and then a dump truck would drive by, cross the railroad tracks and shake the foundations of the building. Yes, a deliberate nod to a later AC/DC song Shake Your Foundations from the Fly On The Wall album. So, my cassette tape of Back In Black, recorded off radio, had a brief ‘rumble’ in it because the tape deck shook. As I recall, it was during Shoot To Thrill, so the truck driver’s timing (or mine) was off as obviously the rumble should have come during You Shook Me All Night Long but you can’t have everything. In any event, when I actually bought Back In Black, I kinda missed that dump truck-induced distortion I had grown used to hearing on playback.

Back to Saturday’s set . . .

Stormbringer is from the Mark III version of Deep Purple featuring David Coverdale on lead vocals supported by bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes. The lineup’s first outing was the critically acclaimed and commercially successful Burn album but by the next record, Stormbringer, Hughes in particular was pushing Purple towards a more funky, soulful sound which – while the album was still successful on the charts – guitarist Ritchie Blackmore found distasteful, leading to his eventual departure from the band.

As a forever Purple fan, all personnel versions of the band and they’re up to Mark IX now, I’ve always found Blackmore’s stance interesting given that, while Purple always purported to be a democracy, if the band did have a leader it was Blackmore, so if he didn’t like the direction one wonders why he didn’t put his foot down. But, the ever-mercurial Blackmore was also at the time looking to explore other hard rock musical avenues and had become enamoured of the band Elf, which supported Purple on tour and was led by singer Ronnie James Dio, with whom Blackmore eventually partnered to form the first (and best, to me) versions of Rainbow. Yet despite his misgivings, Blackmore still contributed his usual excellent guitar playing to the Mark III albums and Stormbringer features some of my favorite Deep Purple songs, any era and personnel configuration. Things like the beautiful Holy Man and Soldier of Fortune, featuring the vocals of Hughes and Coverdale, respectively, plus the opening rocker of a title cut.

The Stones’ Goats Head Soup received mixed critical reviews at the time of release and was considered as not measuring up to the so-called ‘big four’ studio albums that preceded it: Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St. (likely my favorite album by anyone). That four-album run is one of the greatest in rock music history, but to dismiss, or sell short an album like Goats Head Soup that features songs like Angie, Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker), Winter, 100 Years Ago and the infamous Star Star (aka Starfucker, the original title, rejected by the record company) is, well, I’m a big Stones fan so wrong guy to ask I suppose.

And in listening to Transformer again for the first time in ages, in preparing the show, wow, what an album, co-produced by David Bowie and Mick Ronson. The record of course features Reed’s most commercially successful song, Walk On The Wild Side, but is full of great stuff like Vicious, Andy’s Chest, Satellite Of Love, Perfect Day and others.

Here’s the set list:

Deep Purple – Stormbringer

1. Stormbringer
2. Love Don’t Mean A Thing
3. Holy Man
4. Hold On
5. Lady Double Dealer
6. You Can’t Do It Right
7. High Ball Shooter
8. The Gypsy
9. Soldier Of Fortune

The Rolling Stones – Goats Head Soup

1. Dancing With Mr. D
2. 100 Years Ago
3. Coming Down Again
4. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)
5. Angie
6. Silver Train
7. Hide Your Love
8. Winter
9. Can You Hear The Music
10. Star Star

Lou Reed – Transformer

1. Vicious
2. Andy’s Chest
3. Perfect Day
4. Hangin’ Round
5. Walk On The Wild Side
6. Make Up
7. Satellite Of Love
8. Wagon Wheel
9. New York Telephone Conversation
10. I’m So Free
11. Goodnight Ladies

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

1. Meat Loaf, Everything Louder Than Everything Else
2. Bruce Springsteen, Jungleland
3. Argent, Thunder And Lightning
4. Rod Stewart, The Balltrap
5. Long John Baldry, Intro: Conditional Discharge/Don’t Try To Lay No Boogie Woogie On The King Of Rock & Roll
6. Stephen Stills/Manassas, Johnny’s Garden
7. Steve Miller Band, Space Cowboy
8. ZZ Top, Groovy Little Hippie Pad
9. Elvis Presley, The Girl Next Door Went A ‘Walking
10. Blackfoot, Highway Song
11. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, The Faith Healer
12. Beck Bogert Appice, Lady
13. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Woncha Take Me For A While
14. The Rolling Stones, I Just Want To See His Face
15. Groundhogs, Thank Christ For The Bomb
16. Howlin’ Wolf, Poor Boy (from The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions)
17. David Bowie, Stay
18. Little Feat, Dixie Chicken (live, from Waiting For Columbus)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Meat Loaf, Everything Louder Than Everything Else . . . Typically bombastic Meat Loaf, but that’s the point with him. It’s from Bat Out Hell II: Back Into Hell, released in 1993. It’s unclear whether they were inspired by the Meat Loaf song title but Motorhead released a live album in 1999 called Everything Louder Than Everyone Else.

2. Bruce Springsteen, Jungleland . . . Epic track from the Born To Run album, 1975. Violin intro by Suki Lahav, who worked with Springsteen on Born To Run and the preceding album The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle before returning to Israel where she continued her varied career as an actress, lyricist, singer, screenwriter and novelist. And, of course, Jungleland features the memorable saxophone solo by The Big Man, longtime E Street Band member Clarence Clemons until his death at age 69 in 2011, to be replaced by his nephew Jake Clemons.

3. Argent, Thunder And Lightning . . . Propulsive rocker, released in 1974, from the band best known for the hit single Hold Your Head Up. Argent leader Rod Argent was also a founding member of The Zombies and co-wrote such Zombies’ hits as She’s Not There and Time Of The Season.

4. Rod Stewart, The Balltrap . . . Chugging rocker that opened the ‘Fast Side”, side two (side one of course being the ‘Slow Side’) of the original vinyl release of Stewart’s chart-topping 1976 album A Night On The Town.

5. Long John Baldry, Intro: Conditional Discharge/Don’t Try To Lay No Boogie Woogie On The King Of Rock & Roll . . . Speaking of Rod Stewart, he produced six songs on one of his heroes’ albums, Baldry’s 1971 release It Ain’t Easy. Among the other ‘name’ helpers on the record: Elton John (who produced four songs), Ron Wood and Caleb Quaye, Quaye at various times during the 1970s in and out of Elton John’s band.

6. Stephen Stills/Manassas, Johnny’s Garden . . . I got to discussing how great Stephen Still is, with a buddy of mine this past week. So, here he is, a relatively well-known song, from the Manassas album (also the name of the band) although it perhaps surprisingly wasn’t one of the singles released from that renowned 1972 record.

7. Steve Miller Band, Space Cowboy . . . That’s what he truly was early in his career, Miller starting his career as a psychedelic blues rocker. Space Cowboy, from 1969’s Brave New World album, references two Miller tunes – Living In The U.S.A. and Gangster Of Love – from his 1968 album Sailor and Space Cowboy and Gangster Of Love are referenced in the opening lines – ‘some people call me the space cowboy, yeah, some call me the gangster of love’ – of Miller’s breakthrough hit The Joker. That was the title cut from the 1973 album that presaged the hit singles machine period of Miller’s career that included tracks like Fly Like An Eagle, Take The Money And Run and many others.

8. ZZ Top, Heaven, Groovy Little Hippie Pad . . . At the time, a sign of things to come for ZZ Top, the use of synthesizer played by an uncredited Linden Hudson, a longtime friend and confidant of the band members and one of the group’s sound engineers, on this infectious little ditty from the 1981 album El Loco. ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons was apparently inspired to go in the synthesizer direction in part by witnessing a Devo soundcheck. The ZZ Top book Sharp-Dressed Men, by former band crew member David Blayney, includes a section detailing Hudson’s extensive contributions to the shift in sound that reached full-blown status on the next album after El Loco, 1983’s Eliminator which featured such hits as Legs, Sharp Dressed Man and Gimme All Your Lovin’. Hudson, according to the book, later sued over credits that were denied him and the case was reportedly settled out of court for $600,000. Aside from the legal machinations, what’s fascinating, as related in the book, is how Hudson studied song tempos and beats per minute in hit songs, something ZZ Top, and Gibbons in particular, then used to help write songs whose beats and hooks would prove irresistible to listeners. Calculated, yes. Successful, yes.

9. Elvis Presley, The Girl Next Door Went A ‘Walking . . . Rockabilly type tune from Elvis’s 1960 album Elvis Is Back! The album was his first stereo album and first one of fresh material, outside of compilations, issued after his 1958-60 stint in the U.S. Army. Elvis served in West Germany as a regular soldier despite offers to enlist in Special Services, the entertainment branch of the U.S. military where he, like many who did serve in that branch, would have entertained the troops and lived in priority housing. There’s lots of interesting reading about Presley’s military stint available including how Presley’s manager Colonel Tom Parker kept the machine going, so to speak, in terms of releasing music while Elvis was overseas.

As for the Elvis Is Back! album, as I was telling a friend the other day, while I’m a big fan, I suppose not big enough of one because, like perhaps many people, I’ve always owned various Elvis hits compilations but never any of his actual studio records which of course go deeper. That is, until last week when I was in my neighborhood independent music shop and for $15 there sat a used, great condition, 4-CD, 8-individual albums remastered with a plethora of bonus track singles box set of Elvis’s early stuff. It runs from his 1956 debut “Elvis Presley” (the one with ‘Elvis’ printed vertically down the left hand side with ‘Presley’ horizontally on the bottom and the man himself pictured playing his guitar, a cover later copied by The Clash on their London Calling album) through to the 1960 gospel album His Hand In Mine. So I quickly checked the web, confirmed this was a legit release, saw that the same set was available online for a minimum of $50 and a maximum of the sky’s the limit, and now it’s mine. Sounds great, is great, it’s Elvis, what more can one want? Especially for $15, plus tax, $18.07 total. I am pleased.

10. Blackfoot, Highway Song . . . I say this every time I play one of them, which I have, so at risk of and in fact repeating myself I’ll say it again: Every so-called southern rock band seems to have a lengthy, signature tune. Think Lynyrd Skynyrd with Freebird, the Outlaws with Green Grass and High Tides and Molly Hatchet with Fall Of The Peacemakers, all amazing tunes. This is Blackfoot’s such song, from the band’s 1979 album Strikes with a cool cover of a cobra about to, er, strike. There are so many connections between the various successful southern rock bands. Blackfoot leader, guitarist, singer and frontman Rickey Medlocke was in early versions of Lynyrd Skynyrd, as a drummer and sometime singer before that band released an official album although his work is all over the 1978 original band post-plane crash compilation of early material called Skynyrd’s First . . . And Last which was later expanded and re-released in 1998 as Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album. By then, Medlocke had become a permanent member of the reconstituted Skynyrd, in which he remains to this day. And the late Hughie Thomasson, a founding member of the Outlaws, was Medlocke’s guitar sparring partner with Skynyrd from 1996 to 2005 before he left to reform the Outlaws, dying of a heart attack at age 55 in 2007.

11. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, The Faith Healer . . . A relentless groove to this one from the Scottish band’s second studio album, the 1973 release Next.

12. Beck Bogert Appice, Lady . . . I’ll just repeat what I said/wrote about the previous track by The Sensational Alex Harvey Band. Different song of course, but same effect. From the lone studio album, the self-titled 1973 record, issued by the supergroup of guitarist Jeff Beck, bass player Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, the latter two having previously played together in Vanilla Fudge and Cactus. Appice later was a member of Rod Stewart’s band for the albums Footloose and Fancy Free, Blondes Have More Fun, Foolish Behaviour and Tonight I’m Yours, issued from 1977 to 1981. Appice’s drummer brother Vinny is best known for his work in the Ronnie James Dio lead singer version of Black Sabbath as well as Dio the band.

13. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Woncha Take Me For A While . . . Typically gritty C.F. (Fred) Turner vocal on this part ballad, part rocker, a power ballad in today’s parlance, from the 1975 album Head On, perhaps best known for the hits Take It Like A Man, Lookin’ Out For #1 and the original packaging where the album cover expanded into a poster featuring head shots of the four band members at the time – bass player Turner, guitarist Randy Bachman, drummer Rob Bachman and guitarist Blair Thornton. Little Richard played piano on two songs on the album – Take It Like A Man and Stay Alive.

14. The Rolling Stones, I Just Want To See His Face aka Just Wanna See His Face . . . I mentioned gospel music earlier while discussing Elvis’s 1960 album His Hand In Mine and I also had a discussion about gospel music in general over the weekend with a friend who mentioned an album of gospel tunes he had recently purchased. One doesn’t have to be religious, or spiritual, to enjoy what is simply a great genre of music. Here’s the Stones’ successful stab at it, from Exile On Main St.

15. Groundhogs, Thank Christ For The Bomb . . . A multipart piece about war. Initially acoustic with vocals followed by a low-key instrumental passage that develops into a heavy rock coda ending in, of course, explosions. It’s the title track to the English blues rock band’s 1970 album.

16. Howlin’ Wolf, Poor Boy (from The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions) . . . This one came to mind to play thanks to having attended the annual Kitchener Blues Festival over the weekend. One of the artists, the noted Canadian musician and producer Colin Linden, not only played a fine set on Saturday afternoon but, earlier that day, held one of the festival’s ‘workshops’, where artists interact with an interviewer, and the audience, telling tales of their careers. It’s fascinating stuff, and I got to thinking of The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions album because Linden mentioned it while relating a story – both at the workshop and later at his actual show – about how as a youngster his musical life was changed when he discovered the blues great, then later met him when the Wolf, real name Chester Burnett, was playing at a Toronto club. The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions album was originally released in 1971 and was re-released in an expanded deluxe edition in 2002. Receiving top billing with Wolf on the album cover are Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood and The Rolling Stones’ rhythm section of drummer Charlie Watts and bassist Bill Wyman. Clapton and the two Rolling Stones play on the entire album, Winwood contributes piano or organ to five songs while among others contributing are Beatles’ drummer Ringo Starr, Beatles associate Klaus Voorman on bass and Stones’ pianist Ian Stewart.

17. David Bowie, Stay . . . Great funk/soul rocking number from the 1976 album Station To Station. It was released as a single but didn’t chart. Golden Years was the big hit from the album.

18. Little Feat, Dixie Chicken (live, from Waiting For Columbus) . . . Little Feat was backed by the Tower Of Power horn section on the shows from which Waiting For Columbus was drawn. This is an extended 9-minute workout of the title track from the band’s 1973 album.

A blues-blues rock-oriented show, leading with Colin James in recognition of his headlining slot at the annual Kitchener Blues Festival which began Thursday night here and runs through Sunday.

Included in the set are blues legends/influencers like John Lee Hooker, his cousin Earl Hooker and Muddy Waters, the early, Peter Green-led blues version of Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack with Christine Perfect, later Christine McVie and a future Mac member on lead vocals, Jethro Tull from that band’s first, blues-oriented album This Was and atypical AC/DC with the bluesy Ride On. It’s from the 1976 album (not released in North America until 1981) Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap and later appeared on the 1986 album Who Made Who which is the soundtrack to the movie Maximum Overdrive, loosely based on Stephen King’s short story Trucks.

1. Colin James, Real Stuff
2. Fleetwood Mac, Cold Black Night
3. Ten Years After, I Woke Up This Morning
4. The Butterfield Blues Band, Morning Blues
5. Chicken Shack, I’d Rather Go Blind
6. The Allman Brothers Band, You Don’t Love Me (live, from At Fillmore East)
7. Jethro Tull, It’s Breaking Me Up
8. John Lee Hooker, It Serves You Right To Suffer
9. Earl Hooker, Wah Wah Blues
10. Muddy Waters, The Blues Had A Baby And They Named It Rock & Roll
11. Johnny Winter, Like A Rolling Stone
12. The Rolling Stones, Ventilator Blues
13. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dirty Pool
14. Rory Gallagher, I Could’ve Had Religion (from Live In Europe)
15. Eric Clapton, Double Trouble (live, from Just One Night)
16. Boz Scaggs, Loan Me A Dime (Duane Allman slide guitar)
17. Led Zeppelin, Tea For One
18. AC/DC, Ride On

Lots of covers (and radical reinventions in some cases, like Oingo Boingo doing The Kinks and XTC doing Bob Dylan) plus a one-hit wonder segment including In The Year 2525 by Sager and Evans, Venus by Shocking Blue and Mason Williams’ Classical Gas. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Jeff Healey, Jambalaya (On the Bayou) (Hank Williams cover)
2. Cat Stevens, Indian Ocean
3. Phil Collins, Tomorrow Never Knows (Beatles cover)
4. Love, August
5. Martha and The Muffins, About Insomnia
6. The Rolling Stones, Love In Vain (Robert Johnson cover, from semi-acoustic live, part studio album Stripped, studio session with false start including laugh-filled discussion over screwup)
7. Zager and Evans, In The Year 2525
8. Mason Williams, Classical Gas
9. Shocking Blue, Venus
10. 999, Homicide
11. XTC, All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover)
12. Oingo Boingo, You Really Got Me (Kinks cover)
13. Slash featuring Demi Lovato, Papa Was A Rolling Stone (Temptations cover)
14. The Doors, The Spy
15. Robert Plant, Embrace Another Fall
16. Mudcrutch, Lover Of The Bayou (Byrds cover)
17. Van Morrison, T.B. Sheets
18. Booker T. & The M.G.’s, Melting Pot
19. Kris Kristofferson, Me and Bobby McGee
20. Robert Palmer, Remember To Remember

My track-by-track tales:

1. Jeff Healey, Jambalaya (On the Bayou) (Hank Williams cover) . . . Rocking version of the Hank Williams classic, released on Healey’s 2008 album Mess Of Blues, a covers album which came out just two weeks after his passing, of cancer, at age 41. Healey had previously released another covers album, Cover To Cover, in 1995.

2. Cat Stevens, Indian Ocean . . . One of my favorite Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam songs, a touching ‘world music’ track first released as a digital download to benefit 2004 Asian/Indian Ocean earthquake/tsunami relief efforts. It saw physical release on the 2005 compilation Cat Stevens Gold.

3. Phil Collins, Tomorrow Never Knows (Beatles cover) . . . From his debut solo release, Face Value, issue in 1981 which featured the big hit In The Air Tonight and another top 10 track in Canada and the USA, I Missed Again. I first heard the album, playing over the store’s sound system, while browsing a record store in the San Francisco Bay Area with one of my younger brothers during some time I spent in California the spring and summer of 1981.

4. Love, August . . . Well, it is August, so I figure I had to get this in before the end of the month. From the fourth Love album, 1969’s Four Sail, a somewhat harder rocking album, of which this song is an example, than the previous psychedelic fare serve up by Arthur Lee and friends, although any Love is good Love, to me. Great band, never sold all that many records but hugely influential particularly via albums like the seminal 1967 release Forever Changes.

5. Martha and The Muffins, About Insomnia . . . A track, actually a single that didn’t chart, from 1980’s Trance and Dance album. It’s about (not really but it fits) my last couple nights of not getting much sleep, just an hour or two here and there but I’m in remarkably fine fettle all things considered. Martha and The Muffins is of course best-known for the 1979 hit single Echo Beach although they had other hits, at least in home country Canada, like Paint By Number Heart, Women Around The World At Work, Danseparc (Every Day It’s Tomorrow) and Black Stations/White Stations (during the 1983-86 period when the band was also known as M + M).

6. The Rolling Stones, Love In Vain (Robert Johnson cover, from semi-acoustic live, part studio 1995 album Stripped) . . . From a studio session in Tokyo with false start including brief laugh-filled discussion between Ron Wood and Keith Richards about guitar arpeggios after Wood messes up (sounded fine to me but I don’t play guitar) and wants to start over. Love In Vain has a long history with the Stones, dating to its first studio release on 1969’s Let It Bleed album, the 1970 live album Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out! and many concert renditions since.

7. Zager and Evans, In The Year 2525 . . . First in my one-hit wonder mini-set. I’ve been planning to play this and the several songs that follow, for a few weeks, finally getting to it for tonight’s show. Not much more to say about these songs except they’re great and, so what if the artists never approached the same commercial heights, they did what they did and their legacy is assured.

8. Mason Williams, Classical Gas . . . From the 1968 album The Mason Williams Phonograph Record. Williams may have been a one-hit wonder but still with us at age 85 he is/was an accomplished writer and comedian, among other artistic pursuits. Among his comedy writing credits are The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour and Saturday Night Live.

9. Shocking Blue, Venus . . . They were a one-hit wonder (but actually maybe not, more on that in a bit) featuring the striking singer Mariska Veres who sadly died young, of cancer, age 59 in 2006. But in putting together the show I explored the Dutch band’s ouevre and in addition to their own stuff, like Venus and Send Me A Postcard (with Veres sounding like Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, or vice-versa) they did fine covers of Hank Williams’ Jambalaya, just a terrific up-tempo reinvention of the tune I played earlier in the show as covered by Canadian Jeff Healey, and the classic John D. Loudermilk tune Tobacco Road.

10. 999, Homicide . . . Not sure why but I scared the shit out of a friend years ago and she told me as much the next day, she was listening to the show, when I played this track from the English punk/new wave band. It’s just a song, as I told her, it’s arguably aggressive for sure but it’s not advocating anything the way I read the lyrics and there’s any number of songs about disturbing subject matter. Like for example Polly, by Nirvana, about the abduction, rape, and torture of a 14-year-old girl returning home from a punk rock concert in Tacoma, Washington in 1987 that I played fairly recently. I like Polly a lot musically but it’s quite disturbing to the point I’m often reluctant to play it and almost feel bad for liking it, musically, but, fortunately, the perpetrator was caught and is behind bars, serving two concurrent 75-year terms. In any event, Homicide by 999 is a propulsive track, hit No. 40 on the charts in 1978, my first year of college which coincided with punk/new wave breaking big and contributing to opening my musical horizons.

11. XTC, All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover) . . . I like lots of XTC, including of course the hit that got me and many people into them, 1979’s Making Plans For Nigel, but I’d never heard their cover of the Dylan tune until I went down the YouTube rabbit hole some time back. XTC reinterpreted the Dylan tune, as Jimi Hendrix also of course did, in a different fashion, on the band’s 1978 debut album White Music.

12. Oingo Boingo, You Really Got Me (Kinks cover) . . . I discovered this major reinterpretation by the California ska/new wave band of The Kinks’ classic while listening to some of the earlier songs in the set, on YouTube, as I prepared tonight’s show. Playing it reminds me and brings a smile to my face, of my equally music-loving younger brother, into classic rock along with me, Stones, etc. with his ‘what’s happened to you?’ when he at some point saw my late 70s early 80s punk/new wave albums, Haircut One Hundred, Fabulous Poodles and the like. He said something like, what next, Oingo Boingo? Not at the time, although I’d heard of them and thought the name was cool, but here I go playing them. Cool version, akin to, say, how Devo reinvented the Stones’ Satisfaction.

13. Slash featuring Demi Lovato, Papa Was A Rolling Stone (Temptations cover) . . . From Orgy of the Damned, a covers album by the Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver, Slash’s Snakepit etc. guitarist, released just a couple months ago, May 2024.

14. The Doors, The Spy . . . Spooky sort of track, musically and lyrically, from 1970’s Morrison Hotel album.

15. Robert Plant, Embrace Another Fall . . . Intoxicating experimental world beat folk rock from Plant’s 2014 album Lullaby . . . and the Ceaseless Roar as Plant continues on his late career amazing musical explorations.

16. Mudcrutch, Lover Of The Bayou (The Byrds cover) . . . Tom Petty’s original, pre-Heartbreakers band which reformed and released two studio albums, in 2008 and 2016 before Petty’s 2017 passing. Here, from the first Mudcrutch album, the band covers one of my favorite Byrds tunes and of course Petty was hugely influenced musically by The Byrds, to whom he and friends pay great tribute on this track.

17. Van Morrison, T.B. Sheets . . . Near 10-minute piece, his voice as always an instrument in itself, from Van the Man’s 1967 debut solo album Blowin’ Your Mind after he left Them.

18. Booker T. & The M.G.’s, Melting Pot . . . Title cut, typical funky R & B fuelled instrumental rock, from the band’s 1971 album.

19. Kris Kristofferson, Me and Bobby McGee . . . Sometimes a song covered by someone else overshadows the original, which is what Janis Joplin’s No. 1 cover of the KK tune did. As did, maybe, Roger Miller’s cover. Or the one by Jerry Lee Lewis. Yet . . . crazy as it maybe sounds, as with Jimi Hendrix’s reinterpretation of Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower which even Dylan himself said became ‘a Jimi Hendrix song’, I still prefer the originals while loving the covers. Honestly. I mean, I absolutely love the Joplin version, particularly the way she sings the “windshield wipers slappin’ ‘taaaam” (time)’ but well, Kristofferson if one checks out his stuff Bobby McGee and beyond is/was just an amazing songwriter. And emotive singer. In any case, his song includes one of the best, and perhaps most true or accurate lines ever, depending obviously upon how one looks at life: But I’d trade all of my tomorrows for a single yesterday. And I don’t live in the past, but sometimes would be interesting to go back.

20. Robert Palmer, Remember To Remember . . . He topped the charts later on with stuff like Addicted To Love and so on but for me, it’s the back-to-back albums, Secrets in 1979 and Clues in 1980. Track-for-track excellent, this one from Secrets whose hit was the cover of the Moon Martin-penned Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor).