A Christmas show with selected songs from various artists bracketing The Jethro Tull Christmas Album, a terrific 2003 studio release by one of my favorite bands. As Tull leader Ian Anderson says in the liner notes: “If you liked (the song) Bouree and the Songs From The Wood record, you will love this Jethro Tull Christmas Album. The aim was to find some uplifting traditional Christmas carols, some new songs and to re-record some old Tull pieces on the Christmas topic.”

Tull’s aim was true, as the album hits the bull’s-eye. It’s a Christmas album but an atypical one – indeed harkening back to the 1977 album Songs From The Wood – thanks to the group’s typically outstanding musicianship that results in what is a great folk-rock record, regardless its theme. It stands on its own considerable merits in the band’s catalogue.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Song clips on my Facebook page And listen to the show in the audio logs posted above.

1. Elton John, Step Into Christmas
2. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, I Believe In Father Christmas
3. The Kinks, Father Christmas
————————————————————————-
The Jethro Tull Christmas Album

1. Birthday Card At Christmas
2. Holly Herald
3. A Christmas Song
4. Another Christmas Song
5. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
6. Jack Frost And The Hooded Crow
7. Last Man At The Party
8. Weathercock
9. Pavane
10. First Snow On Brooklyn
11. Greensleeved
12. Fire At Midnight
13. We Five Kings
14. Ring Out Solstice Bells
15. Bouree
16. A Winter Snowscape
—————————————————————–
4. Roy Orbison, Pretty Paper
5. Elvis Presley, Blue Christmas
6. Bob Dylan, Here Comes Santa Claus
7. AC/DC, Mistress For Christmas
8. Paul McCartney/Wings, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reggae
9. Chuck Berry, Run Rudolph Run
10. Chuck Berry, Merry Christmas Baby
11. Eagles, Please Come Home For Christmas
12. John Lennon/Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band with The Harlem Community Choir, Happy Xmas (War Is Over)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Elton John, Step Into Christmas . . . Up-tempo pop tune, upbeat lyrics celebrating the season, a happy song EJ released as a single in late November, 1973. It made No. 8 on the UK regular charts and No. 1 on US Billboard’s Christmas singles chart. Starting in 2007 it’s been released in the UK most Christmas seasons and continues to chart, ranging anywhere from the top 10 to the top 100. Just this past week it was re-released as a parody video starring actor and model Cara Delevingne, who plays a young Elton in a new take incorporating the new video with the original. The song itself was added, as a bonus track, to the 1995 reissue of the 1974 album Caribou and has also appeared on various compilations.

2. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, I Believe In Father Christmas . . . The beautiful voice of Greg Lake on a track that appeared on ELP’s Works Volume 2 album, 1977.

3. The Kinks, Father Christmas . . . A non-album single rocker from 1977 and not your typical happy Christmas song. Rather, it’s trademark Ray Davies’ ascerbic social commentary. To wit:

When I was small I believed in Santa Claus
Though I knew it was my dad
And I would hang up my stocking at Christmas
Open my presents and I’d be glad
But the last time I played Father Christmas
I stood outside a department store
A gang of kids came over and mugged me
And knocked my reindeer to the floor
They said
Father Christmas, give us some money
Don’t mess around with those silly toys
We’ll beat you up if you don’t hand it over
We want your bread so don’t make us annoyed
Give all the toys to the little rich boys
But give my daddy a job ’cause he needs one
He’s got lots of mouths to feed

Have yourself a merry merry Christmas
Have yourself a good time
But remember the kids who got nothin’
While you’re drinkin’ down your wine

Dave Davies, Ray’s brother and Kinks’ lead guitarist, on the song, in the liner notes to a compilation it appears on: “I love the humor of it, and the aggression and bitternesss of it. People do think like that at Christmas, especially people who grew up in an environment where . . . not that we were poor or anything, we were just a regular working-class house.”

————————————————————————-

The Jethro Tull Christmas Album

1. Birthday Card At Christmas . . . A new track, at least it was in 2003, written by Ian Anderson. Fine flute playing throughout on one of the heavier numbers on the album. Anderson said he was inspired to write it due to his daughter’s birthday being close to and, as can be the case, overshadowed by Christmas.

People have showered me with presents
While their minds were fixed on other things
Sleigh bells, bearded red suit uncles, pointy trees and angel wings
I am the shadow in your Christmas. I am the corner of your smile
Perfunctory in celebration. You offer content but no style

2. Holly Herald . . . An instrumental medley, arranged by Anderson, comprised of the traditional British folk Christmas carol The Holly and the Ivy and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

3. A Christmas Song . . . A single from 1968, redone but retaining (how could they not?) the classic spoken word ending “Hey! Santa! Pass us that bottle, will you?” by Tull’s 2003 lineup – Anderson (flute, vocals, acoustic guitars, mandolin, piccolo), guitarist Martin Barre, drummer Doane Perry, bassist Jonathan Noyce and keyboardist Andrew Giddings. A tight and cohesive unit from 1995-2006, it was one of the longest serving of the many Tull lineups over the years. It’s the version of Tull I saw most often live in my many concert experiences with the band.

4. Another Christmas Song . . . Another redo of a previous release. Another Christmas Song, a mid-tempo tune with lyrics, in part, about an old man thinking of his children, first appeared on the 1989 album Rock Island.

5. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen . . . Arranged by Anderson as an instrumental.

6. Jack Frost And The Hooded Crow . . . A redo of a 1986 single, about helping those in need at Christmas, that also appeared on the 1988 box set 20 Years Of Jethro Tull.

7. Last Man At The Party . . . A new song written for the Christmas album, a lively tune about celebrating the season.

Sister Bridget by the stair… a glass of wine and she’s almost there.
Cousin Jimmy at the door… another beer and he’s on the floor.
Friends and neighbours come around,
waste no time we’re heaven-bound.
But not before we raise a glass to good camaraderie. . .

So make yourselves jolly under mistletoe, holly and ivy.
Get to it – and be in good cheer.
And when it’s all over… pigs gone to clover –
Will the last man at the party wish me a happy New Year.

8. Weathercock . . . Beautiful song, originally released on the 1978 album Heavy Horses, the middle record in the so-called rustic trio of mostly folk rock Tull records that began with Songs From The Wood in 1977 and ended with Stormwatch in 1979. That said, I’ve never felt Stormwatch – which was arguably ahead of its time with some of its focus on environmental among other societal concerns – quite fits with the other two. It’s darker, still folk in spots but heavier overall. I didn’t warm to it at first but Stormwatch, as albums can tend to do, has grown on me over repeat listens.

9. Pavane . . . Written by French composer Gabriel Faure in 1887 and titled after a Spanish processional dance common in Europe during the Renaissance. It features flute among the instruments played, perfect for Tull in this arrangement by Ian Anderson.

10. First Snow On Brooklyn . . . Thought-provoking lyrical imagery tied to the title. You can visualize the light snow falling en route to becoming a blizzard as the protagonist of the piece returns to the New York City borough, questioning his decision to do so, apparently in a lament for the might have beens of a relationship.

I flew in on the evening plane
Is it such a good idea that I’m here again?
And I could cut my cold breath with a knife
and taste the winter of another life

. . . And the snow covers my footprints, deep regrets and heavy heartbeats; when you wake you’ll never see the spot that I was standing on . . . some things are best forgotten; some are better half-remembered. I just thought that I might be there, on your Christmas night.

The song epitomizes to me the quality and depth of the album and why I termed it an atypical Christmas album. It’s not simply a rock band doing Christmas carols, though they are part of the song lineup in various forms arranged by the group. It goes beyond that, songs that are set in the snow of the season but using Christmas as a vehicle to comment on the human condition.

11. Greensleeved . . . The classic traditional English folk song Greensleeves, done in so many ways by so many over the years, here retitled slightly, and arranged in instrumental form by Ian Anderson.

12. Fire At Midnight . . . The closing track on the original release of the Songs From The Wood album, redone by the 2003 version of Tull. Nothing really to do with Christmas but it fits the folk rock, traditional tune theme and to reiterate what Ian Anderson says in his liner notes to the Christmas album, if you liked Songs From The Wood, you’ll feel the same way about the Christmas album.

13. We Five Kings . . . We Three Kings, arranged by Anderson in instrumental form and cheekily retitled because there were five guys in the Tull band at the time. As for We Three Kings, I always remember the version my late father had on his reel-to-reel Sony tape deck through the late 1960s into the 1970s. I often talk about my older brother as a huge influence on me in terms of the rock and roll I listen to and embraced, and he was, but so was dad in the sense that music in all its forms was always playing thanks to his love of opera, classical and . . . American country music from the likes of Johnny Cash and Glen Campbell.

Anyway, back to We Three Kings and my dad’s version: Each of the wise men sings his verse, speaking of the gift he brings to baby Jesus in Bethlehem and then comes a big, booming voice . . . “And Gaspar spoke . . . ” It’s just so powerful, not just that specific part but the whole thing and has stuck with me since those childhood days whenever I hear or think of We Three Kings.

14. Ring Out Solstice Bells . . . Another one redone by the 2003 Tull lineup of a track originally on Songs From The Wood. It mentions mistletoe but again, one of those Tull ‘Christmas’ songs that isn’t a carol but fits the context of the album perfectly.

15. Bouree . . . One of the perpetually popular Jethro Tull instrumental pieces, by Johann Sebastian Bach and originally adapted and released on Tull’s second studio album, Stand Up, from 1969. It’s redone for the Christmas album by the 2003 version of Tull.

16. A Winter Snowscape . . . A rare composition, this one an instrumental by guitarist Martin Barre, on a Tull album that is not written by leader/chief songwriter/focal point Ian Anderson. Together in Tull since the second album, Stand Up, the longtime collaborators had something of an acrimonious split in 2011. That’s when Anderson decided to put Tull on apparently permanent hold and proceed as a solo artist, which he had done previously while pursuing parallel careers. In the end what resulted in 2017 was Anderson essentially rebranding his solo band as a new version of Tull which has since released two studio albums without Barre, who unlike Anderson is not a songwriter of note but has been touring Tull’s catalogue as a live solo act.

An interesting and compelling album, Tull’s Christmas offering. It was done at the behest of a record company executive who, according to Ian Anderson’s liner notes, emailed him two days before Christmas 2002, suggesting a Tull Christmas album for the following year. Anderson, who says he had considered the idea over time, got down to it and we have the results. The original 2003 release was reissued earlier this month as a five-disc box set including two concerts on CD and a blu-ray disc of the shows.

—————————————————————–

4. Roy Orbison, Pretty Paper . . . Written by Willie Nelson, it became a hit for Orbison in 1963. A tale of a lonely street vendor selling pencils and paper on the streets as busy Christmas shoppers swirl around him, oblivious, uncaring, it could easily have been titled Pretty Pauper.

5. Elvis Presley, Blue Christmas . . . From Elvis’ Christmas Album, released in 1957 and considered a classic of such seasonal songs. “I’ll have a blue Christmas, without you . . . ”

6. Bob Dylan, Here Comes Santa Claus . . . From his 2009 album Christmas In The Heart. Like anything/everything with the enigmatic Dylan, there’s a WTF? aspect to it all but every artist seems to do a Christmas album, in one form or other, so why not Mr. Zimmerman, by this point, croaky voice and all? It’s good, bad, fun, funny, ridiculous and he’s obviously in on the joke, so what the hell?

7. AC/DC, Mistress For Christmas . . . So, you see, Dylan sings of Santa Claus coming and AC/DC has a request of the jolly ol’ elf. Typical tongue in cheek lewd and yeah maybe dumb or crass but so what, it’s AC/DC, from the 1990 album The Razors Edge.

“I just can’t wait ’til Christmastime when I can grope you in the hay” and “I want the woman in red at the bottom of my bed . . . Mistress for Christmas I can hear you coming down my smoke stack, yeah I want to ride on your reindeer, honey, and ring my bells, yeah” As lead singer Brian Johnson was once quoted as saying, “We’re a filthy band.”

8. Paul McCartney/Wings, Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reggae . . . Instrumental cover of the perennial Christmas song by noted American holiday standards writer Johnny Marks (look him up, extensive catalog of such tunes) with a slight title twist. McCartney recorded it in 1975, it appeared as a 1979 single and was a bonus track on expanded editions of the 1979 Wings album Back To The Egg.

9. Chuck Berry, Run Rudolph Run . . . Typical Chuck Berry rocker, themed to Christmas.

10. Chuck Berry, Merry Christmas Baby . . . I couldn’t decide between two Chuck Berry tunes so I’m playing them both, provided I can squeeze them into the time slot. This one’s a deep blues of the sort for which Berry isn’t usually widely recognized. Check out the 2003 compilation of his early blues material, Chuck Berry Blues, for further evidence of his bona fides.

11. Eagles, Please Come Home For Christmas . . . Holiday single from 1978 of the song made famous by blues great Charles Brown, who, along with “the Queen of R & B” Ruth Brown (unrelated) I saw open for Bonnie Raitt in 1995 in Toronto as part of Raitt’s North American tour.

12. John Lennon/Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band with The Harlem Community Choir, Happy Xmas (War Is Over) . . .

So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young
A very Merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear

And on that note . . .

The original intent was an album play show and Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion albums came to mind and if I played one, I should play the other since they’re of a piece. But playing both of them – released on the same day in 1991 when the band was so big that I remember lineups waiting for record stores to open on release day back pre-streaming when everyone bought physical product – came out half an hour longer than my 2-hour slot. So, I made my own compilation – and in doing so was reminded of how raunch and roll good G N’ R were and are – of some favorites from each album. So we have eight songs from Use Your Illusion I and seven from II, and I filled in the remaining time in the slot with The Doors’ second album, the 1967 release Strange Days.

Guns N’ Roses Use Your Illusion I/II compilation

1. Dust N’ Bones
2. Live And Let Die
3. Don’t Cry
4. You Ain’t The First
5. Bad Obsession
6. Double Talkin’ Jive
7. November Rain
8. The Garden
9. Civil War
10. 14 Years
11. Yesterdays
12. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
13. Locomotive
14. Estranged
15. You Could Be Mine

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

More than a few songs with ‘house’ or ‘home’ in the title as a tribute to my younger of two sons. He and his fiancee have bought a home and take possession today. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Humble Pie, I Don’t Need No Doctor (live, from Performance – Rockin’ The Fillmore)
2. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, The House Is Rockin’
3 . Paul McCartney, House Of Wax (live, from Amoeba Gig)
4. AC/DC, House Of Jazz
5. The Kinks, A House In The Country
6. Talking Heads, Houses In Motion
7. Jimi Hendrix, Red House (live, from In The West)
8. Cheap Trick, Gonna Raise Hell
9. Genesis, The Dividing Line
10. The Yardbirds, Drinking Muddy Water
11. Muddy Waters, Mean Disposition
12. The Rolling Stones, Brand New Car (live, from Welcome To Shepherd’s Bush)
13. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Loner/Cinnamon Girl/Down By The River (live, from 4 Way Street)
14. The Mamas & The Papas, Dancing Bear
15. Van Halen, Take Your Whiskey Home
16. Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, Can’t Find My Way Home (from Live From Madison Square Garden)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Humble Pie, I Don’t Need No Doctor (live, from Performance – Rockin’ The Fillmore) . . . Rockin’, indeed. An incendiary nine-minute performance of a song, also famously done by Ray Charles, which was cut to around four minutes for release as a single from Humble Pie’s 1971 live album. The record was Peter Frampton’s last with Humble Pie before he went solo. Singer/guitarist Steve Marriott carried on as the band released the album Smokin’, which featured likely the group’s best-known song, 30 Days In The Hole.

2. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, The House Is Rockin’ . . . A toe-tapper from In Step, the 1989 album that, alas, proved to be the last one released during Vaughan’s lifetime. He died in a helicopter crash, after a concert in Wisconsin, in August, 1990 at age 35.

3 . Paul McCartney, House Of Wax (live, from Amoeba Gig) . . . The California independent chain Amoeba Music is a house of wax given that it sells vinyl records, along with CDs and other entertainment products while continuing to thrive selling physical material in the web streaming age thanks in some measure to its trade-in programs adopted by many such stores. So it’s an appropriate selection for McCartney to play. This track, featuring some nice guitar interplay between longtime McCartney band members Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, is from McCartney’s 2007 studio release Memory Almost Full and was played in a ‘secret show’ at the Amoeba outlet in Hollywood that summer. Selected tracks from the concert were released as a four-song EP, Amoeba’s Secret, in November 2007 before the entire show – featuring Beatles’ and McCartney solo tunes – was released as Amoeba Gig in 2019. House Of Wax is the type of song, from a latter-day album by a legacy act like McCartney whose newer material might otherwise get overlooked, that when you put it on a live album amid the well-known hits, perhaps gets deserved exposure.

4. AC/DC, House Of Jazz . . . The title mentions jazz but it’s actually a slow-burning bluesy cut with a typically catchy AC/DC riff, from the band’s Stiff Upper Lip album, released in 2000.

5. The Kinks, A House In The Country . . . Jaunty pop rocker from the 1966 album Face To Face during a period in which Kinks’ chief songwriter Ray Davies’ fascination with English class and social structure was reflected in the concept albums, replete with often cynical, biting lyrics, the group was releasing at the time.

For instance, the first verse and first line of the second:

“He don’t need no sedatives to ease his troubled mind.
At work he is invariably unpleasant and unkind.
Why should he care if he is hated in his home,
‘Cause he’s got a house in the country,
And a big sports car.

“But he ain’t got a home, oh no . . . ”

Etc.

6. Talking Heads, Houses In Motion . . . A potent brew of stimulating sounds on this song from a terrific album, 1980’s Remain In Light, that is full of such rhythmic adventures. Adrian Belew is a guest guitarist on the album, later to join King Crimson whose trio of albums – Discipline, Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair – released between 1981 and 1984 have, perhaps unsurprisingly, always to me sounded musically similar to Remain In Light.

7. Jimi Hendrix, Red House (live, from In The West) . . . What is widely considered Hendrix’s finest-ever live performance of his signature blues tune. It’s a 13-minute tour de force take, recorded in May 1969 in San Diego, on the four-minute track originally on the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut studio album, Are You Experienced, released in 1967.

8. Cheap Trick, Gonna Raise Hell . . . Nice groove on this pulsating nine-minute piece from the band’s 1979 album Dream Police. Cheap Trick was top of mind thanks to a chat with an artist friend of mine the other day. He’s painting portraits of various music legends on the front window of my local independent music store. He hasn’t done Cheap Trick, at least not yet. I don’t expect he will because good as Cheap Trick might be they don’t have the cachet of artists like The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and David Bowie that he’s done so far and he’s following the store owner’s direction in terms of who to draw.

That’s why KISS is on the window, which prompted a conversation about how I am not a big KISS fan but, by accident, really, saw them in concert, with Cheap Trick as their support act, in the summer of 1979. It’s a story I’ve likely told far too often whenever I play Cheap Trick, but this was the first time my artist friend had heard it so bear with me. It resulted from me and a college friend wanting to see Cheap Trick, hot at the time as a result of their blockbuster live album At Budokan. We couldn’t get tickets for the Toronto show but they were playing at the old Silverdome football stadium in Pontiac, Michigan, outside Detroit the next week. So, down to Detroit we drove to learn, while picking up a newspaper over lunch, that Cheap Trick was ‘special guest’ opening for KISS in all their over-the-top glory, painted-face and costumed KISS Army fans, young and old alike, included. I still chuckle at the memory of what was a good show by both bands. My youngest brother, the big KISS fan in our family through which I knew their music, was at least mildly miffed that I saw them while he didn’t.

9. Genesis, The Dividing Line . . . A showcase for session drummer Nir Zidkyahu, aka Nir Z. It’s from Calling All Stations, the ill-fated Genesis album released in 1997 after the departure of drummer and frontman Phil Collins, who was replaced on lead vocals, for the one album and subsequent tour, by Ray Wilson. The album, something of a return to Genesis’ art/prog rock roots as evidenced by this song, and tour were successful in the UK and Europe. North America was a different story, where first an arena tour and then a scaled-down theatre run were both cancelled due to poor ticket sales as fans apparently were unaccepting of a Genesis without Collins. In any case, this fulfills a promise I made last week to soon play something from the I think underappreciated Wilson period, which I discussed while playing Conversations With 2 Stools. That drum duel between Collins and longtime touring drummer Chester Thompson was released on the 2007 album Live Over Europe, a document of the reunion tour with Collins that also welcomed back touring members Thompson and guitarist Daryl Stuermer who were not on board for the Calling All Stations dates. I’m not suggesting Calling All Stations is necessarily prime Genesis at the level of some of the classic Peter Gabriel or Collins-fronted material, but it’s a worthwhile listen, in my opinion.

10. The Yardbirds, Drinking Muddy Water . . . Appropriate that the title namedrops the blues legend as it’s essentially a cover of Rollin’ And Tumblin’ as done by Muddy Waters but a driving, effective one nevertheless. It’s from the 1967 Little Games album during the period Jimmy Page was Yardbirds’ guitarist. Ian Stewart of Rolling Stones fame guests on piano.

11. Muddy Waters (Fathers And Sons), Mean Disposition . . . Soulful deep blues from the aptly-titled Fathers And Sons album from 1969. ‘Sons’ Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield of Butterfield Blues Band fame, along with Donald “Duck” Dunn of Booker T. & The MG’s, help out ‘Fathers’ Muddy Waters and Otis Spann on an excellent album collaboration.

12. The Rolling Stones, Brand New Car (live, from Welcome To Shepherd’s Bush) . . . The wah-wah guitar from the studio version of this song from 1994’s Voodoo Lounge album is taken to greater heights on this live version from the Stones’ latest archival release, which came out a week ago. It’s from a theatre show in London before 1,800 fans in June, 1999 that served as a warmup to the group’s dates a few days later at Wembley Stadium. It’s a deep cuts fan’s delight, featuring rarely if ever played in concert songs like the title track to the Some Girls album, Melody from Black And Blue, I Got The Blues from Sticky Fingers and Moon Is Up, also from Voodoo Lounge. As Mick Jagger states from the stage, ‘If you want to hear the hits, go to the big place down the road’ although the Stones do play the usual suspects like Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Women, Tumbling Dice and It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It).

13. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Loner/Cinnamon Girl/Down By The River (live, from 4 Way Street) . . . It’s CSNY but really in this case a Neil Young acoustic solo set medley within the overall show, and it’s awesome.

14. The Mamas & The Papas, Dancing Bear . . . Beautiful balladry, spooky and haunting at times, featuring the vocals of Denny Doherty, Cass Elliott and Michelle Phillips interpreting the words of chief songwriter John Phillips. It’s from the group’s self-titled second album, released in 1966.

15. Van Halen, Take Your Whiskey Home . . . Acoustic finger picking and then into the heavy electric riff on this one from the 1980 album Women And Children First.

16. Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, Can’t Find My Way Home (from Live From Madison Square Garden) … Onetime Blind Faith bandmates Clapton and Winwood (who wrote this Blind Faith tune) teamed up for a short American tour in 2009. The result was a live album and DVD/Blu-Ray nicely combining their solo work with material from Blind Faith and Traffic along with some rock and blues covers. Perhaps surprisingly, no Cream songs like Strange Brew, Crossroads or Badge on which Clapton was lead vocalist.

A three-album play, with my commentary beneath each album’s song list.

Black Sabbath – Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

1. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
2. A National Acrobat
3. Fluff
4. Sabbra Cadabra
5. Killing Yourself To Live
6. Who Are You
7. Looking For Today
8. Spiral Architect

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, crazy good album as are all in this album set, in my opinion but of course it’s my set. The Sabs’ record often reminds me of my Grade 10 English class in high school. It was a segment where the teacher asked us to present poetry that had been impactful, perhaps to that point, on our lives. If memory serves, I chose Rudyard Kipling’s “If” which, a few years earlier, I had been chosen to deliver to an elementary school assembly.

The outlier in Grade 10 English, though, came from a classmate of mine who brought in Sabbath Bloody Sabbath with the lyrics to every song on Black Sabbath’s 1973 record. There were some raised eyebrows from teacher and class members but I admired his gumption in terms of pushing the envelope and maybe breaking whatever rules may have existed. His presentation was convincing and in the end it turned me on to the album, full of great tracks starting with the killer title track, and I’m a forever fan of the band.

Van Halen – Fair Warning

1. Mean Street
2. Dirty Movies
3. Sinner’s Swing!
4. Hear About It Later
5. Unchained
6. Push Comes To Shove
7. So This Is Love?
8. Sunday Afternoon In The Park
9. One Foot Out The Door

In all respects and reviews, Fair Warning is acknowledged as being Van Halen’s darkest album. And that’s why it’s so good albeit not as commercially successful but just canvas listeners on various online platforms and the consensus as to quality is universally positive.

No hit singles to speak of, really, although Unchained is well known but even it, perhaps surprisingly, barely dented the charts. The key forever to me has been the deep dark opener, Mean Street, one of my alltime favorite VH songs which contains the lyric “fair warning’ from which the album is named. Who knows why they didn’t release it as a single or put it on any compilations. And, amid the heavy rock is the cool bluesy boozy Push Comes To Shove with David Lee Roth’s cooly expressed “anything left in that bottle?’ talk/sing line amid an apparent conversation among friends partying the night away to which I can well relate from my errant youth.

Rainbow – Rising

1. Tarot Woman
2. Run With The Wolf
3. Starstruck
4. Do You Close Your Eyes
5. Stargazer
6. A Light In The Black

Widely acknowledged as one of the best and most influential hard rock albums of all time, Rainbow’s Rising. It was the second release by the former Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore’s band formed in 1975 and featuring the one and only vocals of the late great Ronnie James Dio. Dio came to Blackmore’s attention when Dio’s band Elf opened for Deep Purple on early 1970s tours. By 1975, Blackmore had left Deep Purple and formed Rainbow with elements of Dio’s previous band Elf but by the time of Rising, outside of Dio, former Elf members were gone in favour of aces like drummer Cozy Powell.

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

1. Led Zeppelin, Moby Dick/Bonzo’s Montreux
2. Genesis, Conversations With 2 Stools (from Live Over Europe 2007)
3. Mick Jagger, War Baby
4. The Steve Miller Band, Kow Kow Calqulator
5. Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Rock That Boogie
6. Moon Martin, Hot Nite In Dallas
7. Link Wray, Studio Blues
8. Steve Earle, Continental Trailways Blues
9. Dave Edmunds, Singin’ The Blues
10. Elmore James, Look On Yonder Wall
11. Maria Muldaur, It’s A Blessing
12. Harry Chapin, Dance Band On The Titanic
13. Arlo Guthrie, Alice’s Restaurant Massacree
14. Ian Dury, Clevor Trever
15. David Baerwald, A Secret Silken World
16. Bob Dylan, What Was It You Wanted
17. Murray Head, One Night In Bangkok
18. Dishwalla, Charlie Brown’s Parents
19. Mountain, The Great Train Robbery

My track-by-track tales:

1. Led Zeppelin, Moby Dick/Bonzo’s Montreux . . . A couple of drum showcases to start the set, the first a combination track featuring the late John Bonham put together by Zep guitarist/producer Jimmy Page for the band’s 1990 box set, simply titled Led Zeppelin. “Previously unreleased in this form” as the liner notes on the box set state, as Page merged Moby Dick, which also featured his guitar riff, from Led Zeppelin II in 1969, with Bonzo’s Montreux which was recorded in 1976 but not officially released until the 1982 compilation Coda which consisted of previously unreleased and/or live tracks.

2. Genesis, Conversations With 2 Stools (from Live Over Europe) . . . In which Phil Collins goes back behind the kit to musically converse with longtime Genesis touring drummer Chester Thompson in a six-minute duel. This version is from the band’s 2007 Turn It On Again tour that saw the return of Collins to the Genesis fold after he had left in 1996 to fully concentrate on his solo career. He was replaced by singer Ray Wilson for the ill-fated 1997 studio album Calling All Stations. The ‘conversation’ is something Collins and Thompson started doing beginning with Genesis’ 1977 tour, although Collins – who took over lead vocals in the mid-1970s after Peter Gabriel left the band – continued to do the drumming on studio albums and some live songs over the years.

The Ray Wilson period of Genesis I don’t think is as bad as many critics would suggest. I think the album – which I intend to play again on the show sometime – has good songs and it made No. 2 in the UK charts and was successful in Europe. It’s just that the fan base, particularly in North America where a planned tour was cancelled due to poor ticket sales, wasn’t apparently accepting of anyone replacing what had by then become the iconic Collins. That’s interesting given how Collins was easily accepted as the replacement for the thought-to-be irreplaceable Peter Gabriel in the mid-1970s. Interviews with band members about the Wilson period are available on YouTube and some of the opinion, including from Wilson himself, is that, had the Wilson-Tony Banks-Mike Rutherford lineup done a second album, starting from scratch as a unit (Wilson came in with Calling All Stations already mostly written by Banks and Rutherford) things might have turned out differently, perhaps a more successful third version of the band. Who knows, it didn’t happen. Collins himself suggests in one of the interviews that it was easier for him to take over and the band adjust to the departure of Gabriel, given that the group had been around for less than a decade at that point, than it was for Wilson, who came in after Collins had fronted and written with the band for 30 years.

As for Chester Thompson, he was also in Phil Collins’ solo touring band but the two had a falling out during a 2010 tour; apparently Collins was dissatisified with Thompson’s playing. And that’s the last association Thompson – a veteran who lists on his resume time with Frank Zappa and Weather Report – had with any Genesis member. He was replaced by Collins’ son Nic Collins on the band’s final tour, the 2021 trek The Last Domino? Tour. Thompson was originally hurt by the split with Collins but apparently things have been smoothed out to the point where he was supportive of Collins’ son joining the touring band. Nic Collins had travelled with the group on the 2007 tour and Thompson said it was evident he had great potential.

“I was pretty upset. But I’m over it now,” Thompson is quoted in a Wikipedia entry about his relationship with Phil Collins. “I wish him nothing but the best.”

And as for Nic Collins, now age 23: “We knew at five or six years old that this kid was going to be a monster. I think it’s fantastic that he got to play with his dad,” Thompson said.
But Nic couldn’t play directly with his father on shared drum stool conversation, alas. Phil, due to various health issues including spinal injuries, at last report can no longer play the drums and he sat in a chair at the front of the stage, doing lead vocals, on the most recent Genesis tour.

3. Mick Jagger, War Baby . . . Primitive Cool, Jagger’s second solo album, released in 1987, gets trashed and I’d trash it, too, if all I’d ever heard from it was the first single, Let’s Work. It’s actually in retrospect not a bad dance type track as Jagger, as he usually does when doing solo albums and kudos to him for that, tries to separate himself from the Rolling Stones sound and in this case is helped along by the production gloss of Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame. But there’s the ridiculous video of fit Mick doing aerobics and running and such and lecturing people to get off their butts and to work, etc. and I remember thinking, WTF, Mick? Yet another case where sometimes an artist, or the record company, picks the wrong single and/or video. And then the whole album is judged by it because not all listeners dig deeper.

There’s much better songs on Primitive Cool than Let’s Work. Like Party Doll, the type of hurtin’ country ballad Jagger does so well and I’ve played on the show before and this one, War Baby. It came to mind because I’m currently reading a biography of Who bassist John Entwistle and the first line of the first chapter talks about how Entwistle, born in 1944 was, like Jagger (born 1943) a ‘war baby’ raised amid the rubble wrought by Nazi bombing of the UK. And Jagger speaks to that in an anti-war song too easily overlooked by random, quick assessments of the album. I will always think Jagger’s next solo album, the 1993 record Wandering Spirit, is easily his best solo effort in large measure because it’s the solo album of his that sounds most like The Rolling Stones. But Primitive Cool, for those who haven’t dug in, is worthy of deeper investigation; you arguably need to approach it from the point of view that it’s a Jagger album, not a Stones’ record. Jeff Beck is lead guitarist on the album.

4. The Steve Miller Band, Kow Kow Calqulator . . . From the 1969 album Brave New World and it would be a new world of bluesy and psychedelic rock for any fans of Miller who only know him for his many 1970s hits like Take The Money And Run, Fly Like An Eagle, The Joker, etc. that make up the bulk of one of the best-selling compilations ever, Greatest Hits 1974-78. There was a Steve Miller Band before all of that, with albums released starting in 1968. A different sort of band. Boz Scaggs of later fame via solo hit singles like Lido Shuffle and Lowdown was in the group, although Boz left before Brave New World, having played on the first two Miller band albums. Miller continued on in the same vein until achieving commercial success starting with The Joker in 1973 and then the back-to-back full of hits albums Fly Like An Eagle and Book Of Dreams in 1976 and ’77.

5. Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Rock That Boogie . . . I never would have thought so but I must have some rockabilly, or rockabilly boogie, in my soul because I seem to play a fair bit of it. Maybe it goes back to me getting blitzed on Purple Jesus with friends going into a bluegrass festival while in college during the summer of 1980. We weren’t at all into bluegrass, although I’ve come to like it over the years but back then we just went for the party. We realized we’d forgotten or not bothered to get any mix – no purple, just Jesus! – so we just drank the straight booze, passing a bottle of grain alcohol between us, essentially three drunks walking down the street into the festival, little of which, predictably, we saw or heard but again, we weren’t really there for the music. We survived the occasion, such as it was. I crashed out early in a tent we were sharing with other friends we met up with, dirt was the floor such that when I returned home the next day, in relatively fine fettle but white sweat shirt caked with mud, my older and one of my younger brothers asked “what the eff happened to you?”

6. Moon Martin, Hot Nite In Dallas . . . Pulsating production, this straight ahead rock and roller from the guy who gave us two hits, his own Rolene and Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor) covered by Robert Palmer on his Secrets album. The songs were released within a month of each other in the summer months of 1979.

7. Link Wray, Studio Blues . . . I just felt like hearing more instrumental guitar wank from the father of feedback/doctor of distortion, so here we are. With some horns, to boot.

8. Steve Earle, Continental Trailways Blues . . . According to the liner notes on Essential Steve Earle, a 1993 retrospective, this slow burn country rockabilly-ish tune appeared during the 1987 Steve Martin-John Candy movie Planes Trains and Automobiles which I’ve never seen in full, caught bits and pieces while channel surfing whenever it shows up on TV so I’ve gotten the gist of the picture, all well and good. This tune was also released on a 1988 country compilation titled Country And Eastern. Earle, a buddy of mine once said, could sing the phone book (if any still exist but you get the gist) and he’d listen. I agree.

9. Dave Edmunds, Singin’ The Blues . . . Twangin’ is a great album title for Edmunds’ 1981 release in terms of suiting what’s within. I remember initially being disappointed by the album, having come to Edmunds largely via his previous hit record Repeat When Necessary, issued in 1979 and featuring songs like Crawling From The Wreckage by Graham Parker and Girls Talk via Elvis Costello. So I was expecting more instantly immersive songs. Twangin’ ? No real hits, great music. Sometimes, as Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones has said, you have to let things marinate, then you ‘get’ it.

10. Elmore James, Look On Yonder Wall . . . This one’s from 1961. Listening to the great underproduced (or more likely perfectly produced) blues including the vocals and spare yet effective instrumentation, it’s no wonder so many rock artists were inspired by this sort of thing.

11. Maria Muldaur, It’s A Blessing . . . Bonnie Raitt is a backing vocalist on this deep acoustic blues track from Muldaur’s 2001 album Richland Woman Blues. Muldaur is best known for her 1970s hit Midnight At The Oasis but much of her material is bluesy brilliance.

12. Harry Chapin, Dance Band On The Titanic . . . Uptempo tune on yet another of Chapin’s typically great story songs, in this case about that ‘unsinkable’ ship and also a commentary on how diversions can be created to distract from real problems.

Nothing to do with the music but often when I think of the Titanic – and like many I’m endlessly fascinated by the story, the what ifs, etc. – as a sports fan and retired sportswriter I also think of a hockey player, Morris Titanic. He was a hotshot junior scorer drafted in the first round, 12th overall, by the Buffalo Sabres in 1973 but never scored a goal nor earned an assist in the National Hockey League. He had a clean sheet of 0-0-0, not even any penalty minutes, in 19 games over two seasons. I remember various newspaper headlines when he was sent down to the minor leagues:

“Titanic goes down” How could they resist?

Titanic wound up having a six-season minor league career before going into coaching. Others in his draft class fared better in the NHL, among them Hockey Hall of Famers Denis Potvin, Lanny McDonald and Bob Gainey.

13. Arlo Guthrie, Alice’s Restaurant Massacree . . . I first heard this in my high school gym, mid-1970s, a talent show where a classmate of mine played it. He seemed to get mixed reviews despite his excellent performance, perhaps because the song is long, nearly 19 minutes but it’s worthwhile of course, lyrically and musically.

14. Ian Dury, Clevor Trever . . . Yes, it’s spelled that way. Clevor Trever, not the Clever Trevor you might expect. Creativity, you know. A funky groove tune from the New Boots and Panties!! album released in 1977. I got to it in 1978 via a first-year college friend who introduced me to it via the single Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll which was on the North American album but not, at the time given industry practice, on UK releases.

15. David Baerwald, A Secret Silken World . . . Spooky track, harrowing lyrics, it opens with “I took a ride with a sadist on a Saturday night’ and devolves from there. It’s from one half of the perhaps cult figure Davids, Baerwald and Ricketts, who in 1986 under the banner David + David released one of my favorite albums, Boomtown, which I’ve often delved into. Baerwald now does music scores for film and TV with occasional music releases including this one from the 1992 album Triage, while Ricketts has done session work and production.

16. Bob Dylan, What Was It You Wanted . . . “Who are you, anyway’ great line in the context of a full song of brilliant lines, maybe about him, maybe us, maybe someone in particular. One never truly knows with Dylan, which is his lyrical magic. This is from his 1989 album Oh Mercy.

17. Murray Head, One Night In Bangkok . . . Murray Head, as Judas, was a prominent performer on the Jesus Christ Superstar, soundtrack, the 1970 version that is, to me, the best soundtrack of that production. Also starring with Head were Ian Gillan of Deep Purple as Jesus and Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene. Head is in a different musical milieu on this compelling rap/disco/spoken word highlight of the mid-1980s musical Chess, which revolves around a Cold War-era tournament of the best game ever invented.

18. Dishwalla, Charlie Brown’s Parents . . . Heavy riffing from a band that is still around and they rock but turned out to be, perhaps unfairly, a one-hit wonder group – the terrific 1990s hit single Counting Blue Cars that they never managed to follow up to any extent.

19. Mountain, The Great Train Robbery . . . Another story song to finish the set, this one about the famous 1963 robbery in England. It’s from Mountain’s 1971 album Nantucket Sleighride.

Lots of guitar pyrotechnics, often lengthy but always compelling, from various virtuosos and assorted raunch and rollers. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. AC/DC, Bad Boy Boogie (live, from If You Want Blood You’ve Got It)
2. Ted Nugent, Hibernation (Amboy Dukes track on Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo! album)
3. The Amboy Dukes, Migration
4. Chicago, Free Form Guitar
5. Jimi Hendrix, The Star-Spangled Banner (live at Woodstock)
6. The Rolling Stones, Fingerprint File (from Love You Live)
7. Queen, The Prophet’s Song
8. Jeff Beck, My Tiled White Floor
9. Ian Hunter, Wild East
10. Vanilla Fudge, Street Walking Woman
11. Gov’t Mule, I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline)
12. Deep Purple, Mistreated (live, from Made In Europe)
13. The Who, My Generation (extended version of the hit single, interpolating various Tommy and other tracks, from Live At Leeds)
14. Johnny Winter, It’s All Over Now (from Captured Live!)

My track-by-track tales:

1. AC/DC, Bad Boy Boogie (live, from If You Want Blood You’ve Got It) . . . Three minutes longer, and the better for it, than the four minutes and change studio version which is terrific, too, originally released on the 1977 studio album Let There Be Rock. AC/DC came to mind to play because the band this past week announced a North American tour for 2025 in support of the 2020 album Power Up.

It seems like a long time between an album coming out and a tour promoting it as a followup but the album was released during the pandemic lockdowns and beyond that, AC/DC has been touring in support of the record in Europe and elsewhere. The band is finally coming back to North America with the first show of the tour scheduled for Minneapolis, Minnesota on April 10, 2025 with the lone Canadian date, so far anyway, scheduled for Vancouver, April 22.

I’ve seen AC/DC live twice, but I won’t be going to, say, close to me locations the band is hitting like Detroit or Cleveland, although I’m sure it will be a great show. Probably. I’m to the point where my big concert days are likely if not certainly done. I’ve missed some, but in general seen all the classic bands/artists I want to see, like AC/DC, the Stones, etc., multiple times and I suppose part of it for me is that, as I and they age, I don’t want to risk seeing them in a bad performance that can happen due to advancing years. I saw AC/DC on their own tour in support of the Ballbreaker album in Toronto in 1996, fantastic show, and then again at the Toronto Rocks SARS show in 2003 in support of The Rolling Stones on a bill that also featured Rush and The Guess Who among many others. I saw the Stones for the millionth time (actually about 20 counting multiple concerts on a given tour; I saw every tour from 1978 on) in 2013, amazing show, and I thought, that’s it for me: I don’t want to risk seeing them not deliver live – as they yet continue to deliver to this day based on reports and fan feedback. But I’m satisfied with the shows I’ve experienced with my alltime favorite band.

I’d never want it to get to where it did with another favorite, Jethro Tull where I’d seen the band numerous times yet when I saw them in 2007 it was clear Ian Anderson’s voice was shot and the show, while competent, made too many allowances via long instrumental incursions and arrangements into well-known tracks that weren’t so much creative as it seemed obvious they were covering for Anderson’s vocal challenges. It was disappointing and sad and many Tull fans have remarked on the decline of his singing over the years yet he’s still out there, albeit with now from what I’ve read a backing vocalist. So that was it for me and Tull. I get it, people age, things change, challenges arise, I don’t begrudge them for continuing, it’s what artists do, but in any case I have all the music to continually enjoy . . . best wishes to AC/DC I’m sure they will continue to rock.

2. Ted Nugent, Hibernation (live, Amboy Dukes track on Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo! album) . . . A lenghty (16 compelling minutes) instrumental from Nugent’s days with The Amboy Dukes which he released as a by then solo artist in a live version on 1978’s Double Live Gonzo! album. Nugent’s address to the audience introducing the song is worth the price of admission alone: “This guitar was born in the motor city, Detroit, murder capital, such a healthy place for all the boys and girls the murder capital of the world (editor’s note: hey, that rhymes) . . . This guitar I been told was one time out on safari, this guitar right here is guaranteed to blow the balls off a charging rhino at 60 paces. . . . You see, this guitar definitely refuses to play sweet shit.”

Good for Detroit that, at my last look, had dropped to No. 12 in the US in terms of murders but back then, Nugent was pretty much bang on. And then he rocked the house. Some despise him for his politics, I’m of the ‘I don’t give a shit I can separate things, I just enjoy much of his music’ persuasion and that applies for me to any artist, when they’re actually playing their music.

3. The Amboy Dukes, Migration . . . Another instrumental, a driving at times spooky title cut to the band’s 1969 album, Nugent out front on propulsive lead guitar.

4. Chicago, Free Form Guitar . . . Utterly out of character cut, this is, for anyone thinking of Chicago as the syrupy ballad band via tracks like If You Leave Me Now (albit a good song) that presaged the group’s subsequent somewhat record company pressured but nevertheless move to in my mind overproduced ballad and power-ballad success of schlock during the 1980s and beyond.

But before that, sublime success certainly creatively and the only Chicago I listen to. Free Form Guitar is a 1969 recording that is the kind of performance where, during a concert – whether it be an extended (and boring to some, sometimes me included although I generally appreciate them) drum or guitar solo – some in the stands go for a bathroom break or a beverage and such experimental avant-garde excursions are usually confined to the live experience. But, not in this case. This almost seven-minute solo slab of the great Chicago guitarist Terry Kath was a studio cut on the band’s debut album, Chicago Transit Authority. But that’s how it was, back then, on radio and album; you’d hear such things and it was a good thing but I’m biased, I grew up back then. In any case, Kath’s perhaps not to all taste’s track apparently inspired what comes next, from a guy, Hendrix, who was on record as suggesting that Kath was better than he was. Who can say? Music isn’t or shouldn’t be a competition, there are so many greats bringing so much to their art, through the decades, we all have our favorites, best to just enjoy what they bring, in my book.

5. Jimi Hendrix, The Star-Spangled Banner (live at Woodstock) . . . By now, from my sports follower’s view of ongoing events, there’s been many guitarists playing the US national anthem. But Hendrix’s performance at Woodstock remains arguably the most well-known. Epic and influential.

6. The Rolling Stones, Fingerprint File (from Love You Live) . . . Raunchy live version (as are all versions of the songs on Love You Live) of this track from 1974’s It’s Only Rock ‘N Roll album, released on the Stones’ 1977 live album. I recall the record – aside from the bluesy El Mocambo side – getting trashed by some media critics yet fans, clearly evidenced now in online comments but back then in general conversation, loved it. As do I.

7. Queen, The Prophet’s Song . . . A lengthy, progish track from the 1975 album A Night At The Opera which featured the hit Bohemian Rhapsody but was, other than that single, an album of great depth as Queen, successful to that point, ascended to a higher level.

8. Jeff Beck, My Tiled White Floor . . . One of two studio tracks on the 2015 live album Jeff Beck Live + . Electronic, hypnotic rock propelled along by the drumming and lead vocals of Veronica Bellino, a noted California session player by way of New York.

9. Ian Hunter, Wild East . . . A lesser known, perhaps, but by no means less quality offering than the rest of Hunter’s 1979 album You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic which featured at well known songs like Cleveland Rocks, Just Another Night, When The Daylight comes, I could go on because the whole album is a quality front-to-back listen. I remember linguists suggesting the album title should have been You’re Never Alone As A Schizophrenic which I can see makes sense but whatever.

10. Vanilla Fudge, Street Walking Woman . . . Hard rock psychedelic offering from the band that was, well, hard rock/psychedelic. From the 1969 album Rock & Roll. Drummer Carmine Appice and bassist Tim Bogert went on to form the band Cactus while, later, Appice played in Rod Stewart’s post-Faces bands and both were members of the short-lived group (Jeff) Beck, Bogert Appice.

11. Gov’t Mule, I Asked For Water (She Gave Me Gasoline) . . . Lengthy treatment in the typical harder-rocking manner Gov’t Mule tends to give its blues covers, in this case of the Howlin’ Wolf tune. From the 2021 album Heavy Load Blues.

12. Deep Purple, Mistreated (live, from Made In Europe) . . . Made In Japan tends to get most of the accolades and deservedly so but among the now countless Deep Purple live albums via various formations of the group, Made In Europe, released in 1976, was to my teenage mind equally great and remains so to this day. It was from the so-called Mk. III version of the band: David Coverdale (vocals with a particularly impassioned performance here) and Glenn Hughes (bass/vocals) having replaced singer Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover for the albums Burn and Stormbringer, from which Made In Europe was drawn.

13. The Who, My Generation (extended version of the hit single, interpolating various Tommy and other tracks, from Live At Leeds) . . . A hit, yes, and this is a deep cuts show for the most part but the depth is in the extension of the original three-minute single into an epic 15-minute excursion.

14. Johnny Winter, It’s All Over Now (from Captured Live!) . . . And we’re outta here, another show over, on Winter’s typically smokin’ version of a tune, in this case the Bobby and Shirley Womack-penned song famously covered by The Rolling Stones and Rod Stewart, among others.