My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list. Song clips also available on my Facebook page.

1. Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 5
2. Electric Light Orchestra, Roll Over Beethoven
3. John Mellencamp, Play Guitar
4. John Mellencamp, Serious Business
5. Otis Redding, Satisfaction
6. Ray Charles, Let’s Go Get Stoned
7. Warren Zevon, Bo Diddley’s A Gunslinger/Bo Diddley (live, from Stand In The Fire)
8. Ron Wood & Bo Diddley, Who Do You Love (from Live At The Ritz)
9. The Rolling Stones, Too Tough
10. Pink Floyd, Empty Spaces
11. Pink Floyd, Young Lust
12. Aerosmith, One Way Street
13. ZZ Top, Lowdown In The Street
14. Procol Harum, Long Gone Geek
15. Mountain, Solution
16. Rush, Chemistry
17. Pretenders, Mystery Achievement
18. Van Halen, Up For Breakfast
19. The Black Crowes, Been A Long Time (Waiting On Love)
20. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Ain’t No Sunshine (from Live At The Fillmore 1997)
21. Fleetwood Mac, That’s All For Everyone

My track-by-track tales:

1. Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony No. 5 . . . Everyone knows those first, dramatic notes . . . da na na na! Etc. Depending on version, or excerpt, the piece can go on for half an hour or more, or less. In this case, it’s about six minutes of me having fun throwing a curveball, perhaps, into an otherwise usual rock and roll show but I’ve done it before. As always, it depends on my mood, my thought process at a given time, what I may have been conversing about, reading, watching, listening to, or whatever. Ideas come from everywhere and anywhere. In this case, I was thinking of playing Electric Light Orchestra so then I thought about Roll Over Beethoven, ELO’s cover of Chuck Berry so it then followed that, what the heck, play Beethoven himself. So here we are.

2. Electric Light Orchestra, Roll Over Beethoven . . . The original 8-minutes and change version as it appeared on the ELO 2 album in 1973 when the band was still in its early phases finding its way and experimenting with psychedelic and progressive rock forms, always with an ear to catchy tunes. So, a Chuck Berry cover like Roll Over Beethoven was perhaps an obvious ‘easy’ thing to do, quite successfully; a great hard rocking/prog version.

3. John Mellencamp, Play Guitar . . . “Forget all about that macho shit and learn how to play guitar” the signature line from a great tune from his 1983 album Uh Huh, still in naming transition between early stage name John Cougar then to his actual surname Mellencamp. The album was released under the name John Cougar Mellencamp but in any event nothing truly matters but the music and it’s one of those albums easily listened to, straight through, with not a dud track in the list.

4. John Mellencamp, Serious Business . . . Another from Uh Huh; I couldn’t decide between this and Play Guitar so, I’m playing both.

5. Otis Redding, Satisfaction . . . Otis’s version of The Rolling Stones’ classic, released on his Otis Blue album that came out three months after the Stones’ 1965 hit single. It is, based on available literature, at least somewhat how Keith Richards of the Stones initially envisioned the song as being, complete with horns. Which, interestingly, with the Stones being augmented in concert by various horn sections over the years since, the song has at least somewhat become a hybrid of the original and Redding versions when the Stones play it live. That often depends on where it is in the set. I’ve seen them open with it, playing it ‘straight’ without horns, and seen them close with it in extended almost orchestra versions.

6. Ray Charles, Let’s Go Get Stoned . . . I’ve been in something of a Ray Charles phase of late, likely started when I played Humble Pie’s live version of I Don’t Need No Doctor fairly recently but in any case, always a good time to play something by one of the masters of music.

7. Warren Zevon, Bo Diddley’s A Gunslinger/Bo Diddley (live, from Stand In The Fire) . . . Incendiary stuff, in line with the album title.

8. Ron Wood & Bo Diddley, Who Do You Love (from Live At The Ritz) . . . I hadn’t planned on playing this but when I decided to play Zevon doing Diddley it just seemed to follow that I would or should play Diddley and this version of arguably his signature song, accompanied by the Stones’ guitarist, from the collaborative 1988 album Live At The Ritz.

9. The Rolling Stones, Too Tough . . . Nice riff rocker from the 1983 album Undercover. It’s something of a ‘lost’ album in the Stones’ extensive catalog. The band didn’t tour behind it as the so-called “World War III’ between songwriting principals Mick Jagger and Keith Richards was heating up as Jagger was in process of launching a solo career, splitting his musical focus. That battle went to greater extremes on the subsequent 1986 album Dirty Work which has been savaged by critics and some fans but which I love due to its naked aggression, reflecting band dynamics at the time. More on that, next time I play a song from the Dirty Work album. Suffice it to say that eventually, by the 1990s, all concerned seem to come to the understanding that they could – and did – pursue solo projects without sabotaging the mother ship.

On that score, it’s interesting in The Beatles’ documentary Get Back, there’s a scene where John Lennon and George Harrison are in studio, musing about doing solo albums in parallel with The Beatles. Paul McCartney wasn’t in the room but apparently later said that, had he known of the conversation, he would have been supportive of the idea. It didn’t happen – outside of some members doing experimental music while the band was still together, things like Harrison’s Wonderwall Music in 1968 and Electronic Sound in 1969 or Lennon’s avant-garde experiments with Yoko Ono – so it’s one of those interesting ‘what ifs’ of history. Lennon, Harrison and Ringo Starr did work together on some of each other’s post-breakup solo albums and McCartney joined the others – although not in studio at the same time – on Starr’s 1973 album Ringo.

As for the Stones’ Undercover album, it actually had its share of hits including the top 10 in most countries funk rock title cut plus She Was Hot and the funk rock/rap Too Much Blood. And Too Tough, to me a ‘shoulda /coulda been’ hit that wasn’t released as a single although it did get some radio play.

10. Pink Floyd, Empty Spaces . . . From The Wall, a lead-in into Young Lust, best listened to as a unified piece, as I’m presenting it.

11. Pink Floyd, Young Lust . . . Featuring the immortal line “I need a dirty woman, I need a dirty girl . . . ” Always reminds me of college days in my off-campus apartment when I got home one night to hear my neighbor, apparently impromptu but maybe he was listening to Pink Floyd, cry out “I want a woman!” Apparently, he didn’t have or get one, at least that night.

12. Aerosmith, One Way Street . . . A seven-minute bluesy cut from the band’s self-titled 1973 debut album that featured the hit single Dream On.

13. ZZ Top, Lowdown In The Street . . . Music is, or can be, very much a time and place thing and that’s what ZZ Top’s 1979 album Deguello, from which this track comes, is for me. I had of course known of the band, their various hits to that point like Tush and Le Grange, owned their first compilation featuring those tunes but during college here came Deguello, with hits like I Thank You and Cheap Sunglasses and I was totally sold, prompting me to go back to the individual albums preceding Deguello, with obvious rewards.

14. Procol Harum, Long Gone Geek . . . Heavy rocker was the B-side to the title cut single from the 1969 album A Salty Dog.

15. Mountain, Solution . . . A new track at the time of its release, 1994, on the excellent/comprehensive Mountain compilation Over The Top which has now, according to a magazine I was perusing in my neighborhood record store last Friday, been re-released after going out of print. It’s a worthwhile compilation to pick up or listen to online, showing how Mountain was excellent beyond their best-known hit Mississippi Queen. Solution, the 1994 track in all its heavy guitar glory, is up to Mountain’s established standards.

16. Rush, Chemistry . . . From the 1982 album Signals which featured the hit single Subdivisions. Typical Rush, the song Chemistry, but upon deeper investigation there are musical signs, (maybe that’s why they called the album Signals) in the song of Rush’s impending move into the controversial and divisive to the fan base synthesizer rock phase over the next three albums – Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows and Hold Your Fire.

17. Pretenders, Mystery Achievement . . . Irresistible rocker, great bass line, from the band’s self-titled debut album, 1979. The hits/best known tracks were Brass In Pocket and Precious but it’s one of those albums where every song is superb.

18. Van Halen, Up For Breakfast . . . Perhaps an indication of what may have been but never happened/continued. Up For Breakfast, hard yet melodic stuff from the Van (Sammy) Hagar version of the band was a new track recorded in 2004 along with two others for the 2-disc compilation The Best Of Both Worlds (the David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar on lead vocals versions of the band, totally ignoring the ill-fated Gary Cherone-fronted Van Halen III album). The compilation came out in support of a reunion tour with Hagar. I saw the show in July, 2004 in Toronto and it was terrific but it apparently was an illusion of sorts as relationships within the band were fraying thanks to musical differences compounded by guitarist Eddie Van Halen’s assorted drug and personal demons. There’s many interviews available on YouTube with, at least, Hagar’s views on what transpired.

19. The Black Crowes, Been A Long Time (Waiting On Love) . . . Unapologetically derivative of their heroes like Faces, Aerosmith and The Rolling Stones, among others, with the added influence of ‘jam bands’ that the Crowes – originally a hit singles band via songs like Jealous Again and Otis Redding’s Hard To Handle – have long since become in the vein of The Allman Brothers Band and others. It’s terrific music, regardless, that I haven’t played on the show in ages and thus is long overdue, so here we come with this track from the 2009 album Before The Frost . . . Until The Freeze. It was recorded before a live audience at Levon Helm of The Band fame’s Woodstock, New York studio, The Barn.

20. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Ain’t No Sunshine (from Live At The Fillmore 1997) . . . The Bill Withers classic done by Petty and The Heartbreakers on a terrific live album that came out in physical copies in 2022. It’s a great listen as Petty and pals go through their own material but also covers like Ain’t No Sunshine, J.J. Cale’s Call Me The Breeze, the Stones’ Time Is On My Side and Satisfaction, The Byrds’ Eight Miles High and Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, among others.

21. Fleetwood Mac, That’s All For Everyone . . . And that is indeed all, for this show at least, as we part, until next time, via this cool cut I’ve always enjoyed, from the 1979 album Tusk.

I hadn’t played anything from The Band recently, then this week the group came to mind with the passing, at age 87, of multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson. All of the original members – Hudson, Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel – are now sadly gone but the music of course lives on. Here they are in all their live glory on the 1972 album Rock Of Ages, followed by some studio tracks by the group to fill out my two-hour slot.

The live album is notable for The Band being augmented by – as Robertson advises in the introduction – something different than the group to that point had tried in the live arena, a horn section arranged by the renowned Allen Toussaint. The result is indeed an album for the ages.

The Band – Rock Of Ages

1. Introduction
2. Don’t Do It
3. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)
4. Caledonia Mission
5. Get Up Jake
6. The W.S. Walcott Medicine Show
7. Stage Fright
8. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
9. Across The Great Divide
10. This Wheel’s On Fire
11. Rag Mama Rag
12. The Weight
13. The Shape I’m In
14. Unfaithful Servant
15. Life Is A Carnival
16. The Genetic Method
17. Chest Fever
18. (I Don’t Want To) Hang Up My Rock And Roll Shoes

Studio tracks:

19. Acadian Driftwood
20. Up On Cripple Creek
21. The Saga Of Pepote Rouge
22. Endless Highway
23. It Makes No Difference
24. Knockin’ Lost John
25. Mystery Train

Song clips also available on my Facebook page. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. The Clash, The Magnificent Seven
2. Television, Torn Curtain
3. Little Feat, Texas Twister
4. Steve Miller Band, Serenade From The Stars aka Serenade
5. Deep Purple, Birds Of Prey
6. Lou Reed, Street Hassle
7. Patti Smith, Are You Experienced?
8. Jimi Hendrix, 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)
9. Andrew Stockdale, Meridian
10. John Lennon, Steel And Glass
11. The Rolling Stones with Lady Gaga, Sweet Sounds Of Heaven
12. Boz Scaggs, Harbor Lights
13. Bonnie Raitt, Guilty
14. Steve Winwood, Spanish Dancer
15. Blind Faith, Do What You Like
16. Funkadelic, Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Clash, The Magnificent Seven . . . The Clash were often billed as ‘the only band that matters’ – I recall that being a sticker on my original vinyl copy of the London Calling album – and for the period of time between the release of that worldwide commercial breakthrough album in 1979 through Sandinista! in 1980 and Combat Rock in 1982, for me, they essentially were.

I still was into the Beatles and Stones and so on – in defiance of The Clash’s lyrics for the song 1977 “No Elvis, Beatles, or The Rolling Stones in 1977” to which I enjoyed Mick Jagger’s riposte “Keith Richards is the original punk rocker. You can’t really out-punk keith – it’s a useless gesture.” – but had become major into The Clash and all the new wave and punk rock of that time to the point where one of my younger brothers took a look at my record collection and said ‘what’s happened to you?’ lol, to which I replied, ‘nothing, outside of going to college, among other things, expanding my horizons, try it, you might like it” while he went back to his Stones, Elton John and KISS albums.

I think what really did my brother in was the sight of me owning Haircut 100 and Fabulous Poodles albums and such and when I think and/or listen back on it, he may have been on the right track there. Those infatuations didn’t last long – but The Clash did, for me. Meantime, bands like The Clash later admitted to their admiration for and inspiration taken from groups like the Stones that they criticized, partly at least tongue in cheek, in songs such as 1977.

As for The Magnificent Seven, of course an old movie title not sure the song had anything to do with, the flick featuring Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen that served as the title to the opening cut on Sandinista! It was the sprawling 3-album vinyl set that came out in 1980 and featured The Clash in all their by then rock/reggae/dub/rap/funk/terrifically cynical lyrics glory.

“Ring! Ring! It’s 7:00 A.M.!
Move y’self to go again
Cold water in the face
Brings you back to this awful place . . . ”

“Gimme Honda, Gimme Sony
So cheap and real phony
Hong Kong dollars and Indian cents
English pounds and Eskimo pence . . . ”

they’d never get away with, or at least would be censured if not outright censored for, such politically incorrect lyrics nowadays.

“So get back to work an’ sweat some more
The sun will sink an’ we’ll get out the door
It’s no good for man to work in cages
Hits the town, he drinks his wages
You’re frettin’, you’re sweatin’
But did you notice you ain’t gettin’? . . . ”

“Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi
Went to the park to check on the game
But they was murdered by the other team
Who went on to win fifty-nil
You can be true, you can be false
You be given the same reward
Socrates and Milhous Nixon
Both went the same way – through the kitchen
Plato the Greek or Rin Tin Tin
Who’s more famous to the billion millions?
News Flash: Vacuum Cleaner Sucks Up Budgie
Oooohh…bub-bye
Magnificence!!”

Truly magnificent. Great band. And maybe/probably that’s enough verbose commentary for one song, enough for my entire set, but there’s 15 more to go!

2. Television, Torn Curtain . . . I thought of playing this, from Television’s Marquee Moon album (and a great song, that title cut, which I’ve played before on the show) because I was going through all the “I’ll get to it, eventually” shows/movies/documentaries I’ve recorded on my PVR and I have an Alfred Hitchcock movie, Torn Curtain, on my list. It’s a spy movie from 1966. It stars the great actor Paul Newman, but it’s considered by critics to be not up to Hitchock’s usual standard and I’ve seen most if not all of Hitchcock’s classics but I have not seen Torn Curtain so I was curious and recorded it but I’ll reserve judgment until viewed. As for Torn Curtain, the song: A haunting, spooky track, starts with a quick drum roll then into melancholic lyrics – “I’m uncertain when beauty meets abuse, torn curtain loves all ridicule” underscored by stirring guitar work on a seven-minute trip. As I’ve mentioned before, Marquee Moon is a critically acclaimed album I tried several times and never ‘got’ until one day some years ago I happened to be in a used CD store, the title track was playing and, suddenly, I was sold. Funny how music can work that way.

3. Little Feat, Texas Twister . . . From the reconstituted Little Feat that, post-leader Lowell George’s death in 1979, re-emerged in 1988 with most of the key members of the original band still on board for the album and title cut hit single Let It Roll. At the time, I’d barely been aware that Little Feat was back but picked up their trail upon hearing on the radio this uptempo boogie rock toe-tapping minor hit single from the 1990 followup album Representing The Mambo. I eventually saw Little Feat live at a club in Hamilton, Ontario during the summer of 2004; great show.

4. Steve Miller Band, Serenade From The Stars aka Serenade . . . Sometimes you see it listed as Serenade, sometimes as Serenade From The Stars. In any event, this spacey song appeared on Miller’s 1976 hit album Fly Like An Eagle and, although not a big hit single, made the cut for his ubiquitous, massively-selling 1978 compilation Greatest Hits 1974-78. I was reminded of it when I threw another Miller compilation, the 2-CD Ultimate Hits, into the car player during some recent runnings around.

5. Deep Purple, Birds Of Prey . . . One of my favorite bands, Deep Purple has been doing some terrific late-career music, particularly since hooking up with producer Bob Ezrin for the 2013 studio album Now What?! and four more albums since including the 2024 release = 1 with new guitarist Simon McBride. He replaced Steve Morse, whose great work is featured on this sort of psychedelic/progressive rocker from the 2017 album Infinite. Morse – with Purple for eight studio sets since the 1996 release Purpendicular – left the group on good terms as he departed to care for his then-ill wife Janine who, sadly, subsequently died, with McBride at first replacing Morse on tour and then permanently. Ezrin, meantime, is well known for his work with Alice Cooper, particularly during Cooper’s 1970s heyday, and Pink Floyd including The Wall album, among many other credits.

6. Lou Reed, Street Hassle . . . Eleven-minute title track to Reed’s 1978 album exploring, arguably, the seedy sides – depending upon one’s point of view – of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

7. Patti Smith, Are You Experienced? . . . Smith is rightly renowned for her albums Horses and Easter, among others, but right up there, for me, is her 2007 covers album Twelve (for the number of songs; thirteen if you count a bonus track on some copies, not mine) from which I pulled this haunting Hendrix cover. Among the other songs on the set, some of which I’ve played on previous shows, are the Stones’ Gimme Shelter, The Beatles’ Within You Without You, Bob Dylan’s Changing Of The Guards, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit.

8. Jimi Hendrix, 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn to Be) . . . A sprawling, 13-minute psychedelic masterpiece from the Electric Ladyland album, released in October, 1968. It’s a quite remarkable piece of music incorporating all Hendrix blessed us with in terms of riff rock, psychedelia, funk, soul and so on, as I’ve been reminded while playing it while writing these commentary notes. So much so that I’m now tempted to play the entire Electric Ladyland album on one of my Saturday morning ‘album play’ shows.

9. Andrew Stockdale, Meridian . . . Typical riff rocker from Wolfmother’s leader, aka essentially he who is Wolfmother as the songwriting brains behind the operation, from his 2013 solo album Keep Moving. It was originally to be a Wolfmother album but became a Stockdale set after various personnel changes in the band. Stockdale/Wolfmother are essentially one and the same and if you’re not aware of the artist, I refer you to my eldest musician son’s somewhat dismissive assessment when the first Wolfmother album, and a good one, came out in 2005: “Dad, it’s (Led) Zeppelin”. It was a fun chat during which I recall replying, “yup but so what, I can still enjoy it” which I still do.

10. John Lennon, Steel And Glass . . . Spooky cool brooding stuff from the 1974 album Walls And Bridges, a record that featured the hit single Whatever Gets You Thru The Night.

11. The Rolling Stones with Lady Gaga, Sweet Sounds Of Heaven . . . Great gospel type tune from the 2023 album Hackney Diamonds that many – and I agree – think is akin to songs like Let It Loose or Shine A Light and could have fit on those songs’ parent 1972 album Exile On Main St. It features Lady Gaga’s dueling vocal performance with Mick Jagger. It’s perhaps interesting in that I don’t listen to Lady Gaga’s original music much if at all yet I know about her and, as with, say, Taylor Swift, I respect them both because they actually write and play instruments in addition to performing so to me they have credibility even if their material is not to my taste, though I have sampled it. It’s akin I suppose to Norah Jones, a great artist in her own right who I also don’t listen to much. A female friend gave me an album of hers as a gift years ago, but I prefer Jones in the co-lead vocal she did with Keith Richards on the song Illusion from Richards’ most recent solo release, the 2015 album Crosseyed Heart.

Sweet Sounds Of Heaven, also featuring Stevie Wonder on keyboards and synthesizer, was a single and a hit to some degree, depending on whatever chart one consults in our multi-platform world. The song has a false ending 5:10 in which is when the single edit ends but it goes on for two more minutes of Jagger/Gaga vocal vamping on the album version.

12. Boz Scaggs, Harbor Lights . . . Hauntingly smooth jazzy jam love song from the 1977 Silk Degrees album. That record brought Boz – who had previously been in the early blues rock/psychedelic version of the Steve Miller Band and sessions with Duane Allman on songs like the lengthy blues track Loan Me A Dime I’ve previously played – to solo prominence and widespread recognition via the hit singles Lowdown and Lido Shuffle.

13. Bonnie Raitt, Guilty . . . A tender, heart-wrenching cover of a Randy Newman song about relationships and the human condition, from Raitt’s 1973 album Takin’ My Time, long before she became a major hit artist, and deservedly so, in the late 1980s.

14. Steve Winwood, Spanish Dancer . . . From Winwood’s 1980 release Arc Of A Diver, a true solo work where this brilliant artist of Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Blind Faith and solo fame played every instrument – guitar, bass, drums, keyboards – in addition to producing the album.

15. Blind Faith, Do What You Like . . . Long, always interesting musically, jam from the supergroup’s – Winwood, lead vocals, guitar, keyboards, Eric Clapton guitar, Ginger Baker drums, Ric Grech bass – one and only studio album, the self-titled release that came out in 1969.

16. Funkadelic, Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow . . . Extended acid rock/psychedelic song featuring the guitar playing of Eddie Hazel on this title cut from the band’s second studio album, released in July, 1970.

So Old It’s New blues and blues/rock set of influencers and those influenced by them and on down the line, generation by generation.

I initially was planning a straight blues/rock show and was going to leave it at individual, random songs. But it evolved into direct connections between artists – from a precursor Allman Brothers band playing B.B. King to B.B. King himself to another King, Albert, to Muddy Waters working with Johnny Winter to Johnny Winter on his own to John Lee Hooker to Hooker with Canned Heat, etc. So it’s all of a piece, of sorts, as the sets, to me often wonderfully, can take on lives of their own.

So we have, in some cases, various versions of the same song, like Blind Willie McTell’s original Statesboro Blues as later done by Taj Mahal which then inspired The Allman Brothers Band. Then, things like Leadbelly’s Gallis Pole and Led Zeppelin’s Gallows Pole – both derived from a centuries-old folk song The Maid Freed From The Gallows. And some songs, in a bluesy vein, like Jethro Tull’s It’s Breaking Me Up, just on their own. All of it bracketed by The Rolling Stones’ take on the Little Walter tune Blue And Lonesome, from the Stones’ 2016 blues covers album of the same name, and ending the show with Little Walter’s original version of that song. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list. Song clips on my Facebook page.

1. The Rolling Stones, Blue And Lonesome
2. The Hourglass, B.B. King Medley (Sweet Little Angel/It’s My Own Fault/How Blue Can You Get?)
3. B.B. King with Ruth Brown, Ain’t Nobody’s Business (live at B.B. King’s Blues Club, Memphis 1993)
4. Albert King, Cadillac Assembly Line
5. Muddy Waters, Bus Driver
6. Johnny Winter, Lone Wolf
7. John Lee Hooker, I’m Bad Like Jesse James
8. John Lee Hooker with Canned Heat, Burning Hell
9. Canned Heat, Election Blues
10. Jethro Tull, It’s Breaking Me Up
11. Bob Dylan, Blind Willie McTell
12. Blind Willie McTell, Statesboro Blues
13. Taj Mahal, Statesboro Blues
14. The Allman Brothers Band, Statesboro Blues (live, from At Fillmore East)
15. Leadbelly, The Gallis Pole
16. Led Zeppelin, Gallows Pole
17. Robert Johnson, Ramblin’ On My Mind
18. Eric Clapton, Ramblin’ On My Mind (live, from E.C. Was Here)
19. Ten Years After, Help Me
20. Buddy Guy, Baby Please Don’t Leave Me
21. Little Walter, Blue And Lonesome

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Rolling Stones, Blue and Lonesome . . . A cover that not only pays homage to the Chicago blues but also mirrors the Stones’ beginnings as a blues band. Mick Jagger’s harmonica playing echoes Little Walter’s original, but the Stones inject their distinct rock edge, bridging the gap between traditional blues and modern rock.

2. The Hourglass, B.B. King Medley ((Sweet Little Angel/It’s My Own Fault/How Blue Can You Get?) . . . From 1968. The Hourglass was a precursor to the eventual full blown Allman Brothers Band. At first it was Duane Allman on guitar and brother Gregg on vocals and keyboards accompanied by various other musicians, within two years morphing into the initial lineups of the legendary Allman Brothers Band. I first cottoned to this tribute via the first of two Duane Allman compilations – An Anthology and An Anthology Volume II – I investigated once I became, beyond hits compilations, fully invested in the Allmans, who have come to be one of my alltime favorite bands. The Duane Allman anthologies feature Allmans Brothers tracks but more arguably interesting – since one can listen to the Allmans on their own – are the various sessions Duane played on outside of the parent band.

3. B.B. King with Ruth Brown, Ain’t Nobody’s Business (Live At B.B. King’s Blues Club, Memphis 1993) . . . B.B. largely gives the actual singing vocals over to Ruth, adding spoken word ‘accents’ to lead her on in this near 10-minute ribald, flirtatious classic featuring, as always, King’s smooth, tasteful and emotive guitar work that is a language in itself.

4. Albert King, Cadillac Assembly Line . . . A funky, bluesy working-class story set to King’s cutting guitar tone and silky smooth vocals.

5. Muddy Waters, Bus Driver . . . From Muddy’s first of three ‘comeback’ albums produced and played on by Johnny Winter, this extended blues rock tune from Hard Again, released in 1977. The other two albums in the trilogy were I’m Ready and King Bee, King Bee being Muddy’s last studio statement, all released between 1977 and 1981 and all more than worthy listens.

6. Johnny Winter, Lone Wolf . . Up-tempo blues rocker from Winter’s 2004 studio album I’m A Bluesman. I saw him at the Kitchener Blues Festival in 2011, three years before his death by which time Winter’s health was failing. He was playing concerts sitting in a chair up front, helped to the stage, but even so his guitar playing and the overall vibe was smokin’ hot and of course even when standing up during healthier days, Winter “just stood there’ out front, little movement, wailing away, wonderfully.

7. John Lee Hooker, I’m Bad Like Jesse James . . . I was listening to this the other night while prepping the show and, as often happens with great music, I think “why listen to anything else but John Lee Hooker?” But that merely fits my mantra of ‘the best song/band/artist ever is the one you are listening to, now, if you like it.’ Typically haunting if not menacing spoken-word Hooker singing style minimalist mood piece. This version is from the 1967 album Live at Cafe Au Go Go, recorded in New York City in 1966 with Hooker backed by members of Muddy Waters’ band.

8. John Lee Hooker with Canned Heat, Burning Hell . . . Hooker teamed with Heat for the 1971 album Hooker ‘n Heat. . . After about a minute of in-studio chat about record company machinations, various musicians, cooking food, yes they talk about cooking food . . . eventually in comes the music, 90 seconds in, unannounced as the banter just stops, with Hooker’s hypnotic boogie style taking over and blending seamlessly with Canned Heat’s rock and blues energy.

9. Canned Heat, Election Blues . . . Written and released in 1973 as a lament about Richard Nixon having won a landslide victory in the 1972 US election which of course later led to Watergate and Nixon’s resignation in August, 1974. While written back then, the thoughts expressed in the lyrics, about voter turnout or lack of same, about being informed if and before one votes, however one votes, forever resonate. Beyond that, it’s just a great slow blues tune.

10. Jethro Tull, It’s Breaking Me Up . . . Tull leader/singer/songwriter/flautist/myriad instrumentalist Ian Anderson has always said that the title of Tull’s first album, This Was, was appropriate in that ‘this was’ Jethro Tull because by the time the album was released in 1968, original guitarist and blues aficionado Mick Abrahams was already on his way out as Anderson wanted to embrace a different direction (while still sometimes returning to bluesy tracks like It’s Breaking Me Up) as the two men didn’t see eye-to-eye in terms of musical vision. Abrahams went on to form the blues-rock band Blodwyn Pig, great name with some great tunes I’ve played before on the show and must return to at some point.

11. Bob Dylan, Blind Willie McTell . . . It’s among the biggest ‘WTF?’ songs in Dylan’s catalogue in terms of, why did it take so long to officially release? A brilliant tribute to the legendary bluesman I’ll get to in about six minutes of song time but before that, more on Dylan. Mercurial as ever, his tribute to McTell was shelved, inexplicably to most Dylan fans once they knew of it, during the sessions for the otherwise excellent 1983 album Infidels. The song Blind Willie McTell first saw widespread commercial release – emphasis on the plaintive, emotional lyric “And I know no one can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell” that ends most of the verses – on the first of the now 17-volume and counting Booleg Series, Volumes 1-3 1961-1991 released in the spring of 1991. It’s essential Dylan that by now has appeared on various compilations. It’s a worthy introduction to McTell’s own work, including signature tune Statesboro Blues, and some of those who covered that classic.

12. Blind Willie McTell, Statesboro Blues . . . Intricate and influential fingerpicking and lyrical wit. McTell’s relaxed delivery belies the complexity of his technique, making it a blueprint for later interpretations.

13. Taj Mahal, Statesboro Blues . . . A revitilization of McTell’s original via a modern, roots-oriented approach from the multi-faceted Taj, who first recorded the tune in the band Rising Sons, with guitarist Ry Cooder, during the mid-1960s. Mahal reworked it for this version, released on his self-titled debut solo album in 1968.

14. The Allman Brothers Band, Statesboro Blues (live, from At Fillmore East) . . . Blind Willie McTell originally recorded the song in 1928. So it’s now nearly 100 years old! A tribute to the power of excellence and permanence because it doesn’t really age; it just evolves through the ages. Taj Mahal took it further in 1968 and then the Allmans, influenced by Taj’s arrangement, made it their own, transforming an acoustic blues into a rock anthem, upon release of the live album At Fillmore East in 1971 that established the band as a force in blues/rock music.

15. Leadbelly, The Gallis Pole . . . People accuse Led Zeppelin of ripping stuff off from influential blues artists and I’ve been a critic, too, while maintaining enjoyment of Zep’s music although I’ve tempered my tirades over time with the realization that lots of borrowing goes on in music, to varying degrees. And if it’s proven to be plagiarism, then a price is usually paid. The Gallis Pole is another example but at least when Zep covered it and released it on Led Zeppelin III in 1970 it was credited as ‘traditional arranged by’ unlike how they often credited songs they didn’t actually write to themselves – and in some cases later, rightly, paid for it via copyright infringement lawsuits. In any event, Leadbelly’s version wasn’t original, either. It’s all derived from a centuries-old folk song, specific origin unknown, called The Maid Freed from the Gallows, about someone facing the hangman. Great song in all its incarnations including this one featuring Leadbelly’s amazing guitar strumming.

16. Led Zeppelin, Gallows Pole . . . And here’s the Zeppelin version, which arguably many people heard first but the beauty of it all is then you can go back to the original source material. It’s as Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones has said is among the highest compliments that can be paid a musician: They passed it on.

17. Robert Johnson, Ramblin’ On My Mind . . . Amazing the emotional pull one can evoke via just an acoustic guitar and haunting, personal, deeply felt vocals. He inspired so many, of course.

18. Eric Clapton, Ramblin’ On My Mind (live, from EC Was Here) . . . Speaking of those Robert Johnson inspired, Clapton pays tribute to one of his heroes and influences on this extended, guitar solos extraordinaire, live cut from an album released in 1975. Clapton originally sang and played it on the 1966 John Mayall album Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton. It was, with Mayall’s encouragement, an at the time reluctant to sing Clapton’s first solo vocal recording.

19. Ten Years After, Help Me . . . Slow, intoxicating extended blues treatment of a song made famous by Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller), taken from the self-titled debut TYA album, released late in 1967. Williamson’s 1963 version, particularly the bass riff played by Willie Dixon, is based on the Booker T. & the M.G.’s 1962 smash instrumental hit Green Onions and it’s evident in the TYA version as well.

20. Buddy Guy, Baby Please Don’t Leave Me . . . A mesmerizing display of vocal and guitar intensity on this hypnotic cut from Guy’s 2001 album Sweet Tea, named for the Oxford, Mississippi studio in which it was recorded.

21. Little Walter, Blue and Lonesome . . . We finish as we started, sort of, in this case with the original Little Walter tune The Rolling Stones covered to start the set.