A ‘27 Club‘ album set featuring artists from the so-called 27 Club of those who died at age 27: Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and Jim Morrison of The Doors. On the menu: Hendrix’s incendiary performance at the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, Nirvana’s 1991 grunge breakthrough Nevermind and The Doors’ Strange Days, the second of two albums, including the debut, the band released in 1967. My thoughts on the albums follow the track listings.

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The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey (2007 Experience Hendrix family trust release)

1. Introduction by Brian Jones (also a member of the 27 Club) of The Rolling Stones
2. Killing Floor
3. Foxey Lady
4. Like A Rolling Stone
5. Rock Me Baby
6. Hey Joe
7. Can You See Me
8. The Wind Cries Mary
9. Purple Haze
10. Wild Thing

Nirvana – Nevermind

1. Smells Like Teen Spirit
2. In Bloom
3. Come As You Are
4. Breed
5. Lithium
6. Polly
7. Territorial Pissings
8. Drain You
9. Lounge Act
10. Stay Away
11. On A Plain
12. Something In The Way

The Doors – Strange Days

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

My track tales/album analyses:

The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey (2007 Experience Hendrix family trust release)
I first heard songs from this album, which has come out in various forms in whole or in part, when my older brother, who introduced me to so much great music, brought home Historic Performances Recorded at the Monterey International Pop Festival.

Side one of that original vinyl, released in 1970, had four songs by Hendrix; side two was five by Otis Redding. I was immediately struck by Hendrix’s performance of Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone and Redding’s reworking of The Rolling Stones’ Satisfaction plus his own Respect – including Redding’s playful intro about how Aretha Franklin had taken the song from him. Otis’s 1965 single reached No. 4 on the R & B charts and No. 35 on the overall Hot 100 while in 1967 Aretha’s version went to No. 1 on both lists.

“This is another one of mine, a song we’d like to do for everybody . . . a song that a girl took away from me, a good friend of mine, this girl she just took this song, but I’m still gonna do it anyway.”
Sadly, six months out from the Monterey festival, held June 16-18, 1967, Redding died in a plane crash between tour stops, two months after turning 26. But we still have his immortal music including the Monterey performance. It was issued as part of a terrific 4-CD box set package of the festival, released by Union Square Music’s classic album reissue label Salvo in 2013. Among the artists: The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother And The Holding Company (Janis Joplin) and The Byrds.

In addition to the four songs on ‘Historic Performances’, Hendrix’s Monterey set was released on its own in 1986 as Jimi Plays Monterey before the Hendrix family trust took over and re-issued it as The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey in 2007.

Nirvana’s Nevermind was the album – fueled by its biggest hit single Smells Like Teen Spirit – that broke the Seattle grunge sound big and opened the commercial success door to such bands as Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains and any other act from that city that record companies, for a brief time at least, figured they could milk profit from. Most who have heard the album know its singles like Teen Spirit, Come As You Are, Lithium, In Bloom . . . yet among my favorites, certainly my favorite deep cut from the album, is Polly. It’s a compellingly catchy acoustic song I liked from the first time I heard it, without at first knowing its background.

Upon learning what inspired it – an arguably perversely beautiful song about a horrible, life-damaging event, which I suppose was writer Kurt Cobain’s intent – I’ve since been somewhat conflicted about liking it. It’s harrowing listening once you know the subject matter. On the flip side, what is great art if not to inform and perhaps force us to think and feel? Polly is about the abduction, rape, and torture of a 14-year-old girl returning home from a punk rock concert in Tacoma, Washington in 1987. Thankfully, the girl escaped and the perpetrator, Gerald Friend, was captured and is currently serving two consecutive 75-year prison terms. And, hopefully, his victim is alive and as well as one could be, if that’s even possible, after the trauma of such an event. She’d be age 52 now.

I am missing one track in my play of the Nevermind album, that being the experimental ‘noise rock’ ‘song’ Endless, Nameless that was a hidden track after Something In The Way, the last listed song on the record. It took 10 minutes of silence to get there. Was it worth the wait? I don’t think so and I’m all for, uh, creativity. I listened to it once, when I first got the album and noticed the CD player time still ticking, interminably. Never listened to it again until I checked it out on YouTube, where it’s available as an isolated track, while prepping the show. It’s an OK track, I guess, but all these years later it’s confirmed that I haven’t missed much, if anything. And the fact it’s not included on vinyl re-releases of the album – although it was included as a separate song on expanded CD reissues – says something.

According to various sources, the hidden track was inspired by Her Majesty from The Beatles’ Abbey Road, arguably the most famous if not the first hidden track in rock music history. If so, geez, Nirvana, gimme a break. The Beatles didn’t make you wait through 10 minutes of dead air, in the Fab Four’s case it was a few seconds, as was the case 10 years later with The Clash on London Calling and Train in Vain (Stand by Me), a last minute addition to that album. I suppose one could fast forward Something In The Way, the last listed Nirvana track on Nevermind, to get to the hidden song which occupies the same track as Something In The Way. Not worth the effort. And then other bands started doing similar long waits until a hidden track, something of a short-lived fad. Sorry, I don’t have the patience for that BS. If your song is any good, put it within easily accessible reach on the album or as a separate single. But at least we have good citizens out there who extract such songs and put them on platforms like YouTube, so they’re there if anyone is interested.

We conclude with The Doors and the ‘just what you’d be expecting’ set closer, When The Music’s Over from Strange Days. No sophomore slump for these guys on their second album, their second of 1967, released in September after the self-titled debut came out eight months earlier. A great selection of songs, Strange Days, from its opening Moog synthesizer-driven title track through familiar fare like People Are Strange (No. 1 in Canada, No. 10 in the USA), You’re Lost Little Girl, Love Me Two Times and Moonlight Drive. Just another of those classic albums that’s a compelling front-to-back listen.

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

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1. Triumph, Blinding Light Show/Moonchild
2. Argent, The Coming Of Kohoutek/Once Around The Sun/Infinite Wanderer
3. Supertramp, A Soapbox Opera
4. Ian Hunter, Noises
5. Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure (live, from 2003 reunion tour)
6. U2, God Part II
7. Arc Angels, Sent By Angels
8. Headstones, Tweeter And The Monkey Man (acoustic version)
9. Dire Straits, Millionaire Blues
10. The Allman Brothers Band, Loaded Dice
11. The Allman Brothers Band, Gambler’s Roll
12. Jose Feliciano, You’re No Good
13. Linda Ronstadt, You’re No Good
14. Van Halen, You’re No Good
15. Nazareth, Alcatraz
16. Mike Bloomfield/Al Kooper/Steve Stills, Season Of The Witch
17. The Rolling Stones, How Can I Stop

My track-by-track tales:

1. Triumph, Blinding Light Show/Moonchild . . . Progressive hard rocker from the Canadian trio to open the show, from the band’s self-titled debut album released in 1976, later retitled In The Beginning on a 1995 CD re-release.

2. Argent, The Coming Of Kohoutek/Once Around The Sun/Infinite Wanderer . . . An all instrumental cosmic journey making one song out of three from the first three tracks of Argent’s 1974 album Nexus. Best known for the 1971 single Hold Your Head Up, Rod Argent of Zombies fame’s later band was often much more. As for Kohoutek, those of a certain age, like me at closing in on 66, well remember the hype about that comet in 1973 which by all accounts was spectacular viewing in space but for we earthlings wedded to our planet, not so much. But songs came out of it, including The Coming Of Kohoutek as the first of three consecutive instrumental tracks from the Nexus album that flow like a mini-symphony.

3. Supertramp, A Soapbox Opera . . .Speaking of symphonies, somewhat symphonic rock from the 1975 album Crisis? What Crisis? with that familiar infectious refrain of ‘I said, Father Washington, you’re all mixed up collecting sinners in an old tin cup’ . . . A deep cut but a familiar one as were most of the songs on the sterling series of albums – Crime Of The Century, Crisis, Even In The Quietest Moments and Breakfast In America – Supertramp released between 1974 and 1979.

4. Ian Hunter, Noises . . . Beautifully metallic and industrial, er, noise indeed, from Hunter’s 1981 album Short Back n’ Sides from which this track is drawn. Funky electronica of sorts, played on and co-produced, along with guitarist Mick Ronson, by The Clash members Mick Jones and Topper Headon.

5. Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure (live) . . . Quirky, hypnotic title cut to Roxy’s 1973 album given the live treatment on the band’s 2001 reunion tour that was given live release in 2003 as Roxy Music Live.

6. U2, God Part II . . I played John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band album last Saturday, a record that contained the classic song God which inspired U2 to this terrific rocked up recital of U2’s own beliefs, or not, as with Lennon’s original tune. It came out on the live/studio hybrid album Rattle And Hum in 1988.

7. Arc Angels, Sent By Angels . . . Blues rock from the one and only album, self-titled, released in 1992 featuring friends – guitarists Doyle Bramhall II and Charlie Sexton – and former members – drummer Chris Layton and bassist Tommy Shannon – of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s band Double Trouble. The group formed after Vaughan’s death and is still around, doing live gigs although no new studio material has ever been released. No singles were issued from the album although Sent By Angels and Living In A Dream got a fair bit of FM radio play. Bramhall went on to work extensively with Eric Clapton and also was a fixture on tours by Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, his guitar prominent on Waters’ 2000 CD/DVD release In the Flesh – Live.

8. Headstones, Tweeter And The Monkey Man (acoustic version) . . . Headstones covered this Bob Dylan-penned Traveling Wilburys track in rocked up raucous style on their debut 1993 album Picture Of Health. They re-did it, unplugged and more in line with the original Wilburys version, on the 2014 release One In The Chamber Music which featured acoustic versions of well-known Headstones songs such as When Something Stands For Nothing and Smile And Wave.

9. Dire Straits, Millionaire Blues . . . A nice groove on this blues shuffle. I was prompted to play it thanks to a Dire Straits discussion I had with a friend and show follower after I recently played The Man’s Too Strong from the 1985 album Brothers In Arms. Millionaire Blues was a B-side to the single Calling Elvis from what turned out to be Dire Straits’ last studio album, the 1991 release On Every Street.

10. The Allman Brothers Band, Loaded Dice . . . From Seven Turns, the 1990 reunion album that followed a successful tour the Allmans undertook after the 1989 release of the Dreams box set, a great collection which renewed interest in the band. Lead vocals on this one by guitarist Warren Haynes in his first outing with the Allmans, joining them after having been in guitarist Dickey Betts’s solo band. Haynes went on to form Gov’t Mule while remaining a key cog in the Allmans, also appearing on their final three studio albums – Shades Of Two Worlds (1991), Where It All Begins (1994) and Hittin’ The Note (2003) – and multiple live releases.

11. The Allman Brothers Band, Gambler’s Roll . . . Gregg Allman back on lead vocals with his typical soulful delivery on this slow blues, also from the Seven Turns album.

12. Jose Feliciano, You’re No Good . . . I got stuck in a rut but it’s a good one as here come three different versions of You’re No Good, which goes back to 1963 and was arguably most notably done by Linda Ronstadt, whose No. 1 hit version from 1974’s Heart Like A Wheel album I’m playing in about three minutes. But first, Feliciano, the Puerto Rican musician who puts his typical Latin stamp on the song, as he did with countless covers including the Doors’ Light My Fire and California Dreamin’ by The Mamas & The Papas. But he could write, too, notably Feliz Navidad and the theme music to the 1970s sitcom Chico and the Man.

13. Linda Ronstadt, You’re No Good . . . Every time I play or think of Linda Ronstadt three things come to mind. 1. Her great music. 2. The excellent 2019 documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice which I highly recommend. 3. The fact that beautiful singing voice has been taken from her, and us, as a result of her having progressive supranuclear palsy, often misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s disease, all of which is touched upon in the documentary.

14. Van Halen, You’re No Good . . . Heavy stuff, which is what one would expect from Van Halen, from Van Halen II, released in 1979 with David Lee Roth on lead vocals. Another in a long line of Van Halen-ized covers that includes The Kinks’ You Really Got Me and Where Have All The Good Times Gone, Roy Orbison’s Oh, Pretty Woman and Dancing in the Street made famous by Martha and the Vandellas.

15. Nazareth, Alcatraz . . . Raunchy stuff written by Leon Russell and further rocked up by Nazareth on 1973’s Razamanaz album. It’ll probably send me back for another round of ‘did they make it?’ escape from Alcatraz documentaries as well as Clint Eastwood’s 1979 movie Escape From Alcatraz.

16. Mike Bloomfield/Al Kooper/Steve Stills, Season Of The Witch . . . A Donovan Leitch song covered by, among others, Vanilla Fudge. This version, from 1968’s Super Session album and sung by Kooper, features Stills on guitar. He was a hastily-recruited replacement for Bloomfield, who abruptly left after the first day of the scheduled two-day session citing fatigue due to insomnia. Bloomfield played on the five tracks that became side one of the original vinyl album, with Stills on board for the four songs on side two.

17. The Rolling Stones, How Can I Stop . . . A Keith Richards song that closes the Stones’ 1997 album Bridges To Babylon. He’s considered a raunchy rock and roller, which he is. Yet many of his songs, like this slow, soulful burner featuring jazz great Wayne Shorter on saxophone, are beautiful ballads.

A solo Beatles triple play: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band from 1970 which featured drummer Ringo Starr on seven of the 11 original release tracks followed by George Harrison’s 33 & 1/3 from 1976 and Paul McCartney & Wings’ 1973 blockbuster Band On The Run. My thoughts on each album follow the track listings.

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John Lennon – Plastic Ono Band

1. Mother
2. Hold On
3. I Found Out
4. Working Class Hero
5. Isolation
6. Remember
7. Love
8. Well Well Well
9. Look At Me
10. God
11. My Mummy’s Dead

George Harrison – 33 & 1/3

1. Woman Don’t You Cry For Me
2. Dear One
3. Beautiful Girl
4. This Song
5. See Yourself
6. It’s What You Value
7. True Love
8. Pure Smokey
9. Crackerbox Palace
10. Learning How To Love You

Paul McCartney & Wings – Band On The Run

1. Band On The Run
2. Jet
3. Bluebird
4. Mrs Vandebilt
5. Let Me Roll It
6. Mamunia
7. No Words
8. Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)
9. Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five

Leading off with the track-for-track cathartic album for Lennon as has been analyzed at length over time. I like the whole album but for me, it has always come down to two songs which were influential on my impressionable young mind, especially as I grew into teen years after the 1970 album release.

Working Class Hero and God. But before I delve more deeply I’ll preface my thoughts by saying I’ll likely go on longer about Lennon’s album but that doesn’t mean I necessarily rate it higher than Harrison’s or McCartney’s. For one thing, I’ll be honest; these three albums – all of which I enjoy – perfectly fit my two-hour slot. That said, each of the albums are different, all have their merits, good to great songs and particularly in McCartney’s case with a largely worldwide No. 1, high chart placings although all three albums did well. Lennon’s was top 10 in most countries with Harrison’s in the top 20. I love and grew up with The Beatles and enjoy much if not all of their material both band and solo, and for all three albums I’m playing it really comes down to just a few songs on each, if forced to choose. But the Lennon album is different in that it’s primal, personal, unvarnished, brutally honest and most shaped my thinking, particularly via Working Class Hero and God.

Working Class Hero: I remember being stunned – albeit in a ‘right on’ kind of way – on first listen that Lennon used the F word, twice. Few would bat an eye at what’s become relatively common usage on recorded works now, but in 1970, it was startling. And the line that got me thinking: ‘Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV’ which sends me off on a perhaps self-indulgent tangent. Years later, at 26, I had a similar reaction after reading what became something of a bible to me: Neil Postman‘s 1985 book Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse In The Age Of Show Business.

It’s a short book, just 163 pages, within which Postman posits that it was more Aldous Huxley in his 1932 book Brave New World than George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four who pinpointed humanity’s potential problems. He wasn’t critical of or questioning Orwell by any stretch but an excerpt from the short forward to Postman’s book boils things down to his point.

“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held . . . But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another – slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally opposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. . . . This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”

At the time of writing, Postman, who died at age 72 in 2003, put forth the premise that TV, including the news as presented on TV, was the drug Soma from Brave New World. Forty years later, one could say the same about social media and the internet. Postman – and Huxley – was prescient.

Back to Lennon, and God, the other influential song on me with its opening line ‘God is a concept by which we measure our pain’ and on into the list of all the things Lennon, in the wake of The Beatles’ breakup, didn’t believe in, culminating in the dramatic ‘I don’t believe in Beatles’ and ‘the dream is over . . . and so, dear friends, you’ll just have to carry on.’

And all The Beatles did, albeit individually although Lennon, Harrison and Ringo did work on some of each other’s albums with McCartney joinng the fray for Starr’s 1973 album Ringo.

Three years later, 33 & 1/3, released in November 1976, if nothing else afforded Harrison the opportunity to write and release This Song, making sport of the long and drawn out My Sweet Lord copyright infringement case which ruled in September of 1976 that he had plagiarized The Chiffons’ 1963 hit He’s So Fine. The first verse:

This song has nothing tricky about it
This song ain’t black or white and as far as I know
Don’t infringe on anyone’s copyright

This Song made the top 30 while the infectious Crackerbox Palace slipped inside the top 20. But the funky It’s What You Value is arguably my favorite. It opens with the line ‘Someone’s driving a 450’, a reference to Harrison paying session drummer to the stars Jim Keltner with a Mercedes 450 SL, apparently at Keltner’s request, for playing on Harrison’s 1974 Dark Horse Tour.

And back to 1973 we go for the wall-to-wall classic Band On The Run where, after a few good if inconsistent albums to start his post-Beatles career, McCartney put it all together. The opening one-two punch of the title track and Jet, Let Me Roll It, Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five, etc. People know it, most at least like it, I could go on but . . . the music speaks for itself.

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

1. Deep Purple, ‘A’ 200
2. Deep Purple, Child In Time (live, from Made In Japan)
3. It’s A Beautiful Day, Bombay Calling
4. Black Sabbath, E5150
5. Black Sabbath, Master Of Insanity
6. UFO, Love To Love
7. AC/DC, Soul Stripper
8. The Rolling Stones, Soul Survivor
9. Grand Funk Railroad, Gimme Shelter
10. Blue Oyster Cult, O.D.’d On Life Itself
11. Flash And The Pan, Searching For A Headline
12. The Kinks, Dear Margaret
13. Jethro Tull, Working John, Working Joe
14. Dire Straits, The Man’s Too Strong
15. Dire Straits, Twisting By The Pool
16. Queen, (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care /Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart) /Tutti Frutti /Gimme Some Lovin’, medley from Live At Wembley ’86
17. Robin Trower/Jack Bruce, The Last Door

My track-by-track tales:

1. Deep Purple, ‘A’ 200 . . . A synthesizer-based instrumental track courtesy keyboardist Jon Lord with a fiery guitar solo from Ritchie Blackmore and pitter-patter drumming from Ian Paice. I’m opening with what closed the 1974 album Burn. It was the first release of the so-called Mark III version of Deep Purple, with the then-unknown David Coverdale (vocals) and Glenn Hughes of Trapeze fame (bass/vocals) replacing, respectively, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover.

2. Deep Purple, Child In Time (live, from Made In Japan) . . . A musical monster from the 1970 album In Rock by the Mark II Purple (with Gillan and Glover) taken to even greater heights on the 1972 classic Made In Japan album. At age 79, Gillan no longer has the vocal range so Deep Purple hasn’t played Child In Time live in a long time and likely never will again, but we’ll always be able to enjoy it on In Rock and Made In Japan. The song itself has interesting ties to my next track.

3. It’s A Beautiful Day, Bombay Calling . . . From whence Deep Purple’s Child In Time came. The opening organ riff in is taken from It’s A Beautiful Day’s song from the San Francisco psychedelic band’s self-titled 1969 debut album, which Purple keyboardist Jon Lord started playing in studio after which it was adapted into what became Child In Time. No lawsuits. Instead, in return It’s A Beautiful Day borrowed Purple’s instrumental Wring That Neck, from the 1968 album The Book of Taliesyn as a basis for their song Don And Dewey that appeared on the 1970 album Marrying Maiden. Furthering the connection in 2004 came a Purple live album release/film, Bombay Calling, which included Child In Time in the set taken from a 1995 show in what’s now known as Mumbai, India. The show – also available on a 4-DVD set Around The World Live released in 2008 – was an early one in guitarist Steve Morse’s time in Deep Purple.

4. Black Sabbath, E5150 . . . Sinister, spooky instrumental from the second album Sabbath did with Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals, the 1981 release Mob Rules. The title E plus the Roman numerals for 5 (V), 1 (I) and 50 (L) spells E-V-I-L. Black Sabbath used it as a setting-the-stage opener on the supporting tour before ripping into Neon Knights from the first album with Dio, 1980’s Heaven And Hell. It’s all captured on the tour document Live Evil album, released in 1983. The title is similar to Eddie Van Halen’s studio 5150, built in 1983 although Van Halen’s source material was the California legal code used for dealing with individuals experiencing a mental health crisis.

5. Black Sabbath, Master Of Insanity . . . From the darkly metallic, industrial-sounding Dehumanizer album that, in 1992, marked the reunion of the Mob Rules-era lineup of Dio, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Vinny Appice. After another breakup, the foursome reunited yet again to cut three new studio tracks for the 2007 compilation album Black Sabbath: The Dio Years after which the group rebranded as Heaven And Hell and released the 2009 studio work The Devil You Know, sandwiched between two live albums.

6. UFO, Love To Love . . . Heavy – you might call it lights out – riffing from guitarist Michael Schenker on this slow-building ballad turned rocker from the 1977 album Lights Out.

7. AC/DC, Soul Stripper . . . Bon Scott on lead vocals era AC/DC. Hypnotic and sleazy, a raw, pulsating performance from the fiery five-song EP ’74 Jailbreak, released worldwide in 1984 but made up of tracks recorded between 1974 and ’76 but only previously released in Australia.

8. The Rolling Stones, Soul Survivor . . . Love the way this one, the last cut on the seminal 1972 album Exile On Main St., sort of slides in on a ‘backwards’ riff is how I usually describe it – if one can even put music into words. But I’m writing, so I have to try. Murky, raw, ragged and remarkable, the song and the whole album.

9. Grand Funk Railroad, Gimme Shelter . . . Cover of the classic Stones tune, taken at a quicker pace, from the 1971 album Survival. I’ve heard it criticized, I’ve heard it celebrated, I’m a huge Stones fan and I think it’s pretty good besides which I’ve never understood what seem to me to be snooty criticisms of Grand Funk Railroad. Pretty good band if you ask me; certainly in their early days. Frank Zappa liked them, and produced one of their later albums, the 1976 release Good Singin’, Good Playin’. But, to each their own, of course; lots of people don’t like or ‘get’ Zappa, either.

10. Blue Oyster Cult, O.D.’d On Life Itself . . . Relentless rocker from the second BOC studio album, the 1973 release Tyranny And Mutation. BOC is much more than just (Don’t Fear) The Reaper and Burnin’ for You, their highest-charting singles.

11. Flash And The Pan, Searching For A Headline . . . Catchy rocker with an infectious bass line, from the Aussie new wave project’s 1992 album Burning Up The Night, an album many people have likely never heard of. Probably best known for their first two albums, the self-titled 1978 debut and its 1980 followup Lights In The Night and songs like Hey St. Peter and Walking In The Rain (the track that got me into them), Flash And The Pan released six studio records between 1978 and 1992, with Burning Up The Night the final one.

Flash And The Pan may seem an outlier in a largely heavy rock set but I like throwing curveballs, besides which there is a deep connection. Flash And The Pan was the brainchild of Harry Vanda and George Young, former members of the Easybeats who had a worldwide hit in 1966 with Friday On My Mind. Vanda and Young, the older brother of AC/DC guitarists Angus and Malcolm, together produced all the early AC/DC albums until 1979’s Highway To Hell when Robert John “Mutt” Lange took over. Young returned to produce AC/DC’s Stiff Upper Lip album in 2000.

12. The Kinks, Dear Margaret . . . One never had to search hard for Margaret headlines when she was around, Margaret being former British Prime Minister Thatcher, who held the top office from 1979-90. This Dave Davies-penned hard-rocking diatribe of disappointment in the Iron Lady (without specifically naming her) is from another under-the-radar record, 1989’s UK Jive. It didn’t chart, as The Kinks’ commercial fortunes had faded after 1984’s Word Of Mouth album and its hit single Do It Again.

13. Jethro Tull, Working John, Working Joe . . . Among my favorites from A, an album released in 1980 that started life as an Ian Anderson solo work, hence the name A for Anderson which is how the master tapes were marked during recording. Under pressure from Chrysalis Records, however, the album came out as a Jethro Tull album which resulted, aside from guitarist Martin Barre, in a new Tull lineup. Out were 70s’ Tull stalwarts like drummer Barriemore Barlow and keyboardist John Evan. In came drummer Mark Craney and keyboardist Eddie Jobson, who Anderson had recruited for his planned solo album featuring a more synthesizer-based sound while remaining unmistakably Tull.

The solo album becoming a band record scenario has repeated itself in the last few years, albeit deliberately in this case. Anderson had put Tull in mothballs in favor of releasing material under his own name through the 2000s, only to recently rebrand his solo group as Jethro Tull and unleash the studio albums The Zealot Gene (2022), RokFlote (2023) and Curious Ruminant (2025). The ‘casualty’ this time was longtime guitarist Barre after a falling out with Anderson, much to the consternation of many Tull fans. Interestingly, Anderson is quoted in David Rees’s 1998 book Minstrels In The Gallery: A History of Jethro Tull as saying no Barre in the band, no Tull.

“To use another guitarist after all this time would be like getting divorced and then marrying again the next day,” Anderson said.

Cue the wedding bells. As for Barre, he started a solo career during the 1990s while still in Tull, releasing often largely instrumental studio albums. He now tours, playing mostly classic Tull material using assorted vocalists and releasing live albums from those treks.

14. Dire Straits, The Man’s Too Strong . . . From 1985’s Brothers In Arms album, the recording – thanks in large measure to the hit single Money For Nothing – that made Dire Straits and guitarist/singer/leader Mark Knopfler superstars. The album had nine songs. Five were released as singles although The Man’s Too Strong wasn’t one of them. It’s singles-worthy but we’re probably better off as things transpired, not having it overplayed to the point where, with many singles, you get sick of them while acknowledging their greatness. I heard The Man’s Too Strong – a terrific track with the acoustic buildup to the rocking payoff of ‘the man’s too big, the man’s too strong’ – for the first time in the since closed original Sam The Record Man store on Yonge St. in Toronto. Dire Straits was always an automatic buy for me since the 1978 debut album and hit single Sultans Of Swing. But it so happened that Brothers In Arms was released the day I walked into Sam’s. I can’t remember if I went in specifically to buy it but The Man’s Too Strong was playing on the store’s sound system which, not that I needed it, confirmed my purchase of the album.

15. Dire Straits, Twisting By The Pool . . . A total tonal switch from The Man’s Too Strong on this fun rocking romp released on a three- or four-song EP (depending on market) in 1983. It was a top 20 hit in most countries and hit No. 1 in New Zealand and 2 in Australia.

16. Queen, (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care /Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart) /Tutti Frutti /Gimme Some Lovin’, medley from Live At Wembley ’86 . . . More fun, from the Magic Tour in support of Queen’s 1986 album A King Of Magic. It came a year after the band’s triumphant Live Aid appearance, also at Wembley Stadium. The Magic Tour marked the last concert appearances for lead singer Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991.

17. Robin Trower/Jack Bruce, The Last Door . . . And out the door I go, for this show, via this eerily soulful and bluesy collaboration between guitarist Trower and Cream singer/bassist Bruce from the 2007 album Seven Moons. Trower and Bruce had previously worked together on the 1981 album B.L.T. (for Bruce, drummer Bill Lordan and Trower) and 1982’s Truce.

Two perhaps tied together forever 1967 albums – The Beatles’ groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Rolling Stones’ supposed attempted copy of it, Their Satanic Majesties Request. And, to fill in the 2-hour primarily psychedelic playlist, the live side of Pink Floyd’s 1969 studio/live album Ummagumma. My thoughts on the albums appear after the track lists.

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The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

1. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. With A Little Help From My Friends
3. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
4. Getting Better
5. Fixing A Hole
6. She’s Leaving Home
7. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!
8. Within You Without You
9. When I’m Sixty-Four
10. Lovely Rita
11. Good Morning Good Morning
12. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
13. A Day In The Life

The Rolling Stones – Their Satanic Majesties Request

1. Sing This All Together
2. Citadel
3. In Another Land
4. 2000 Man
5. Sing This All Together (See What Happens)
6. She’s A Rainbow
7. The Lantern
8. Gomper
9. 2000 Light Years From Home
10. On With The Show

Pink Floyd – Ummagumma (live album)

1. Astronomy Domine
2. Careful With That Axe, Eugene
3. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
4. A Saucerful Of Secrets

The easy established narrative about Pepper and Satanic Majesties is that The Rolling Stones were attempting – and failed – to copy The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album. That may well be but I’ve always quite honestly thought the two records, musically – and for what it’s worth this view is supported by some music critics – are quite different. And if either one was truly ‘psychedelic’ as was the thing at the time, 1967, an argument can be made that it was the Stones’ album rather than Pepper, if you really give each album a deep listen.

The Stones are doing some ‘weird shit’, certainly for them, in terms of their blues/rock/pop output to that point. It’s perhaps why Keith Richards later dismissed the album as ‘a load of crap’. I think he’s wrong about a record that came out December 8, 1967 and was originally to be called Cosmic Christmas which I think may have been a title opportunity missed, given the release date and content.

Granted, I’m a huge Rolling Stones fan but I never was into the notion that one had to like one band – Beatles or Stones – over the other. Why choose? They were/are both amazing.
Still, even as a Stones fan, I think Pepper is the better album. It’s consistent throughout as were most Beatles albums, although it’s interesting how perspective changes. I remember in my youth, I was 8 when Pepper was released, not very much liking She’s Leaving Home or George Harrison’s raga rock song Within You Without You. A friend of mine in high school said he lifted the needle on the vinyl record to move to the next track when Within You Without You came on and even by then a teenager, I could relate. Yet nearly 60 (!) years later I’ve long since embraced those tunes. Lovely Rita was dismissed by some critics as Paul McCartney lightweight stuff along with When I’m Sixty-Four but that intro to Lovely Rita just makes the song for me and the whole thing is good as is When I’m Sixty-Four. Good Morning Good Morning is another one, a John Lennon-penned tune. Album tracks most bands would kill for to have as singles. The whole record is remarkable.

Majesties is less consistent, often messy. I regularly listen to just six of its 10 tracks (which I suppose is not bad for any album) but when it’s good, it’s great. Great riff intro and ongoing throughout Citadel. Had it been released as a single people may have thought, hmm, another great Stones’ riff rocker, certainly the intro, and not even noticed they’d gone or tried to go ‘psychedelic’ on the parent album. 2000 Man (which KISS later covered), the spookily great in my opinion The Lantern, the hit single She’s A Rainbow, the Bill Wyman-penned and sung In Another Land with Mick Jagger on chorus “was this some kind of joke?” some suggested as being a dig at Wyman writing a song but it’s a good one . . . And the brilliant 2000 Light Years From Home (later covered by sludge/stoner/space rock/metal band Monster Magnet) which the Stones pulled out of mothballs and did live, with cool lighting effects, on the 1989-90 Steel Wheels/Urban Jungle North America/Europe tours.

It’s likely true that Satanic Majesties wouldn’t exist without Pepper. The Stones took cues from the Beatles, but it’s not a clone. Majesties is darker, murkier, and more unstable — a bizarro-world Pepper. And retrospective reviews, for whatever that is worth, continue to grow more positive. Some critics, in various books I own, have suggested Satanic Majesties is a path the Stones might have further pursued. We’ll never know but we do know they were always experimenting while retaining their unique stamp, witness later albums like Black And Blue with its funk/disco/salsa elements, then the hit disco single Miss You from the otherwise largely out and out rocking album Some Girls in 1978.

That leaves us with Pink Floyd and the live side of Ummagumma, which I remember my older brother by eight years bringing home when it came out. I liked the front cover of the band members changing positions in the ‘picture within a picture’ Droste effect and the back cover photo of the band’s instruments laid out, to look like a jet fighter, on an airport runway. Appropriate, since the band often headed into air/head space. Ummagumma, particularly the live album, is prime early Floyd perhaps lesser known to those who joined the Pink party with 1973’s The Dark Side Of The Moon blockbuster.