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.

Victoria Day in Canada set. All songs involve queens, kings, royalty, whether by band, song title or mention in lyrics. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

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1. The Beatles, Her Majesty
2. The Kinks, Victoria
3. Sex Pistols, God Save The Queen
4. The Who, The Acid Queen
5. Aerosmith, Kings And Queens
6. The Doors, Queen Of The Highway
7. Van Morrison, Queen Of The Slipstream
8. David Bowie, Queen Bitch
9. T. Rex, Planet Queen
10. Bob Dylan, Queen Jane Approximately
11. The Rolling Stones, Jigsaw Puzzle
12. Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Queenie
13. Bruce Springsteen, Mary Queen Of Arkansas
14. The Flying Burrito Brothers, High Fashion Queen
15. The Byrds, Tiffany Queen
16. Dave Edmunds, Queen Of Hearts
17. Jethro Tull, Queen And Country
18. Stephen Stills, Black Queen
19. Queen, The March Of The Black Queen
20. Queen, Great King Rat
21. Queen, White Queen (As It Began)
22. Black Sabbath, Heaven And Hell
23. Steely Dan, The Royal Scam

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Beatles, Her Majesty . . . One of the first if not ‘the’ original, or at least arguably best known, hidden track on a rock music album, the closing – after a break of silence – 23 seconds to the Abbey Road album. Originally, it wasn’t listed on the original vinyl I still own but subsequent physical releases do show it on the track list. Yes, perhaps played best in context of the full side two medley on the original vinyl album but I’ve played the medley in full before, Her Majesty specifically fits my theme so I deliberately chose this route, an I think perfect short intro to . . .

2. The Kinks, Victoria . . . My traditional show opener each year on Victoria Day. Last year I went with a live version from the 1980 release One For The Road, issued as a document of the tour in support of the 1979 studio album Low Budget. Back to the original studio release I go this time. It was the lead track on the 1969 album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). While it’s a well-known Kinks song, it did only moderate business on the singles charts – anywhere from the top 70 to top 40 depending on country – except for in Canada, where nationally it was No. 33 but No. 9 in Toronto, on AM radio station CHUM‘s top 30 list. A major, influential AM radio station at the time along with its FM counterpart, CHUM-AM is now a sports radio station.

3. Sex Pistols, God Save The Queen . . . It was loved, it was loathed, it was banned by the BBC. Its legacy – and that of its parent album, Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols, is lasting.

4. The Who, The Acid Queen . . . From the rock opera Tommy, released in 1969. Also covered by, among others, Tina Turner, who played the character in the 1975 movie.

5. Aerosmith, Kings And Queens . . . No obvious hook yet a driving, almost doom rock hypnotic piece from the 1977 album Draw The Line, fitting perfectly with the subject matter. To quote lead singer Steven Tyler, from the liner notes to 1991’s Pandora’s Box set:

“I’ve always had a fancy to do songs about anarchy and the church and the government. . . The band comes up with the licks, and then the music talks to me and tells me what it’s about. This one was just about how many people died from holy wars because of their beliefs, or non-beliefs. With that one, my brain was back with the knights of the round table and that shit – I do a lot of fantasizing.”

Kings And Queens was the second single released from Draw The Line, after the title track. It managed only No. 70 on the charts but it’s a popular Aerosmith song, regularly played in concert and has appeared on several compilations albeit in edited single release form, a minute shorter than the album version with many of the guitar parts removed. The album version is ‘the’ one, I’d suggest. A fun – and pretty accurate – take on the track that I read somewhere once: It’s grandiose and medieval — like Queen if they were from Boston and did harder drugs.

6. The Doors, Queen Of The Highway . . . One of those great Doors’ deep cuts, kinda country, jaunty, bluesy, great playing, all apparently about lead singer Jim Morrison’s up and down relationship with longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson. It’s from the 1970 album Morrison Hotel, which I played in full back in February but one should always be open to more Doors, I say, and the song fits this show’s theme.

7. Van Morrison, Queen Of The Slipstream . . . Ethereal and poetic and thus appropriate since it’s drawn from Van The Man’s 1987 album Poetic Champions Compose. It was released as a single in the UK but didn’t chart but then it doesn’t have the immediacy of most singles, beyond which, Van couldn’t care less, he just does what he does, says, writes, sings, thinks and always has, pleases himself – and discerning fans. As he said in 1994, a quote reproduced in the preface to the 2002 oral history biography Van Morrison: Can You Feel The Silence, by Clinton Heylin: “I never, ever said that I was a nice guy.” Maybe not. He’s blunt, direct, often caustic and even seemingly intolerant but geez he’s made lots of nice, beautiful, amazing music but that can be the thing with many creative people: they may not ‘properly’ express themselves interpersonally, may come across as aloof, distant, whatever. But read, listen to or observe their art and you’ll find their unvarnished essence unleashed in often deeply open and emotional ways that they themselves perhaps wish they could more easily impart in social situations.

8. David Bowie, Queen Bitch . . . Propulsive riff from Mick Ronson on this apparent tribute to The Velvet Underground in general and, specifically, that band’s lead singer/songwriter/guitarist Lou Reed. It’s from Bowie’s 1971 album Hunky Dory which also contained tribute tracks to the artist Andy Warhol and Song For Bob Dylan. I like most if not all Bowie, but early Bowie is truly brilliant.

9. T. Rex, Planet Queen . . . T. Rex just had a unique sound. And in many ways a precursor to the ‘industrial’ genre, I’ll posit, looking back and listening to – as I often do – this late 1960s into the 1970s band cut short by the car accident death of leader Marc Bolan in 1977. Whether it’s the production, the arrangements, Bolan’s vocals and guitar, I find it intoxicating. This one’s from the album Electric Warrior, which gave the world the hit single Get It On (retitled Bang a Gong (Get It On) ) in the US. Like, say, the band Free with its big North American hit single All Right Now but little business from elsewhere in the catalogue, like Free, T. Rex was so much more than that one North American hit single.

10. Bob Dylan, Queen Jane Approximately . . . From Dylan’s 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited which featured arguably his signature song (but truly impossible to pick I’d suggest) Like A Rolling Stone. Queen Jane has been compared to Like A Rolling Stone although it’s been suggested Dylan goes easier on the subject of his ire but, frankly, I just enjoy the music, the playing, and Dylan’s forever distinctive vocals. As I’ve repeatedly said to people who suggest he’s a lousy singer: Perhaps, it’s obviously a matter of taste but he’s the best singer of Bob Dylan songs there ever was or could be. It just simply works and even though there’s many great covers of Dylan tunes, nobody can match his delivery to the extent where, sure, you listen to the music but he almost impels you to listen to the always at least interesting lyrics. Dylan’s to me a sort of hand-me-down I didn’t ‘get’ at first when my older brother by eight years introduced me to him. Then I introduced him to my sons who, at first, were like me and didn’t ‘get’ him. I recall my elder son saying “Dad, he’s got one song (Like A Rolling Stone).” Then, later, “OK, Dad, he’s got more songs…”

11. The Rolling Stones, Jigsaw Puzzle . . . Speaking of Dylan, it’s been suggested that this tune from Beggars Banquet, lengthy lyrics and a ‘story’ song of sorts, is influenced by Dylan and that may be true or at least worthy of consideration. For me, it’s just a great Stones’ song and, thanks to the immortal lyric “There’s a regiment of soldiers. standing looking on, and the Queen is bravely shouting, ‘What the HELL is going on?’ ” it fits into the ‘royalty’ set.

12. Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Queenie . . . A, naturally given the instrument he most played and was known for, piano-driven Jerry Lee version of the normally guitar-driven Chuck Berry song done by many including the Rolling Stones in a live version on the 1970 Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out! document of their 1969 tour.

13. Bruce Springsteen, Mary Queen Of Arkansas . . . From his first studio album, 1973’s Greetings From Asbury Park N.J. A slow, acoustic country-ish song, apparently about a drag queen.

14. The Flying Burrito Brothers, High Fashion Queen . . . Short, sweet, fun rockabilly written by Bryds associates and one-album member (Sweetheart Of The Rodeo) Gram Parsons and original Byrd Chris Hillman, from the second Burritos album, Burrito Deluxe, released in 1970.

15. The Byrds, Tiffany Queen . . . Nice mid-tempo rocker from the latter-day Bryds lineup of the perennial Roger McGuinn (guitar, vocals), Clarence White (guitar, mandolin, vocals), Skip Battin (electric bass, piano, vocals) and Gene Parsons (drums, guitar, harmonica, pedal steel guitar, banjo, vocals) on the 1971 release Farther Along. The Byrds’ latter-day stuff tends to get short shrift from critics still perhaps wedded to the early days of Turn! Turn! Turn! and so on including the band’s various covers of Bob Dylan tunes, but lots of quality music and performances throughout the catalogue.

16. Dave Edmunds, Queen Of Hearts . . . From Repeat When Necessary, the 1979 album which got me into Edmunds via songs like his cover of the Elvis Costello tune Girls Talk, Graham Parker’s Crawling From The Wreckage and this one, by American musician/songwriter Hank DeVito that became a top 10 hit for Juice Newton in 1981.

17. Jethro Tull, Queen And Country . . . Uniquely and typically Tull. Offbeat orchestral arrangement, not immediate like the hit single Bungle In The Jungle from the parent album, 1974’s War Child, but as with much Tull it embeds itself upon repeat exposure.

18. Stephen Stills, Black Queen . . . Great finger-pickin’ acoustic folk blues from Still’s 1970 album Stephen Stills which featured his hit single Love The One You’re With.

19. Queen, The March Of The Black Queen . . . First of three from Queen, natch, in such a ‘royalty’ set. This one, from Queen II, 1974, launches a segment featuring the operatic, progressive hard rock of early Queen.

20. Queen, Great King Rat . . . Galloping rocker from the 1973 self-titled debut album.

21. Queen, White Queen (As It Began) . . . And back to Queen II, as it ends for the Queen mini-set.

22. Black Sabbath, Heaven And Hell . . . Monumental title track to the 1980 album, Sabbath’s first with Ronnie James Dio replacing Ozzy Osbourne on lead vocals. It’s an album I couldn’t help but get into as the DJ in a pub I worked in, putting myself through college, played it (and Ted Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo! and British Steel by Judas Priest) to death and thankfully so. Great album with lyrics appropriate to a ‘kings and queens’ show and, perhaps, harkening back, years later, knowingly or not, to Aerosmith’s Kings And Queens I played earlier in the set:

“The world is full of kings and queens
who blind your eyes and steal your dreams
it’s Heaven and Hell . . . ”

23. Steely Dan, The Royal Scam . . . Which royalty may well be, a scam. I tend to think so, accidents of birth providing privileged place in society and all of that while others revel in its reality. That’s fine. The song isn’t even about royalty or the monarchy, it’s about immigration but the title fits tonight’s tale. Besides which, musically it’s one of my favorite Steely Dan tunes, the dark title track to the 1976 album, so here you go.

A two-album play, second of two such Saturday shows after last week playing The Rolling Stones’ Steel Wheels and Neil Young’s Freedom, highlighting ‘comeback’ albums released in 1989 by major artists who had relatively spotty results earlier in the decade. This week, Bob Dylan’s Oh Mercy and Eric Clapton’s Journeyman. My thoughts on each album under the respective records’ song lists.

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Bob Dylan – Oh Mercy

1. Political World
2. Where Teardrops Fall
3. Everything Is Broken
4. Ring Them Bells
5. Man In The Long Black Coat
6. Most Of The Time
7. What Good Am I?
8. Disease Of Conceit
9. What Was It You Wanted
10. Shooting Star

Perhaps fueled by working with the likes of Tom Petty, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne in the Traveling Wilburys, Dylan in 1989 unleashed – with help from producer extraordinaire Daniel Lanois’s atmospheric touch – one of his best-ever albums. Oh Mercy is a sterling listen front to back which includes several of my personal favorite Dylan tunes led by Man In The Long Black Coat amid, really, a perfect 10 tracks. Some critics suggested it was his best since 1975’s Blood On The Tracks. I’d say it’s simply among his best, period.

Eric Clapton – Journeyman

1. Pretending
2. Anything For Your Love
3. Bad Love
4. Running On Faith
5. Hard Times
6. Hound Dog
7. No Alibis
8. Run So Far
9. Old Love
10. Breaking Point
11. Lead Me On
12. Before You Accuse Me

At least something of a return to form after some shoddy, typically alas 1980s overly slick, overproduced albeit commercially successful albums. Journeyman is still relatively slick but, thankfully, the production this time doesn’t overwhelm the music and some truly quality slow blues like Old Love, written with Robert Cray, take priority in the overall mix of music.