So Old It’s New three-album play, a singer-songwriter set featuring three classic, seminal albums: Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water from 1970, Carole King’s Tapestry from 1971 and John Wesley Harding by Bob Dylan, released in 1967. My thoughts on each album appear under that record’s song list. No show on my usual Monday night; I’m preempted for the station’s coverage of the Canadian federal election.

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Simon and Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water

1. Bridge Over Troubled Water
2. El Condor Pasa (If I Could)
3. Cecilia
4. Keep The Customer Satisfied
5. So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright
6. The Boxer
7. Baby Driver
8. The Only Living Boy In New York
9. Why Don’t You Write Me
10. Bye Bye Love
11. Song For The Asking

Personal memories of this album go back to when I was in Grade 7 in the school year 1970-71 and part of the school choir as per our compulsory music curriculum. If memory serves it was a Christmas assembly but in any case it was a public performance in front of family, friends and anyone who wanted to drop by and we closed the evening with the title track, Bridge Over Troubled Water. I remember our 5-foot nothing, or less, music teacher with her pitch pipe, endlessly – and sometimes annoyingly 🙂 such was her pursuit of perfection – drilling us for what she hoped for and intended to be a peak performance. And it was. We nailed it on the night, complete with all the transitional vocal harmonies amid the various voices – sopranos, altos, tenors (me, then) and basses. She was so proud of us, Miss Lee was her name as I recall and we of her particularly as a lesson in dedication, focus and persistence.

Later that year I remember smiling at a school dance as she slow-danced with her boyfriend, easily a foot and a half taller than she was, while I took the last slow dance with a friend and classmate named Cecilia, the title of one of the tracks, albeit an uptempo and excellent tune on Bridge Over Troubled Water. I was so naive then in relationships I had no idea a ‘last dance’ might represent something of significance. Nothing ever ensued between Cecilia and me, due to streaming of students based on where we lived she went to a different high school, but she does come to mind in a fun way when I hear the song. Part of it might also be that she was of Spanish background and in 1970 my family had just returned from four years living in Peru, a formative, defining time for me, so she perhaps resonated as somewhat representative of that experience.

Further re the album itself there is the classic song The Boxer with that distinctive ‘cheeuuh’ if I can ‘write’ a sound, one achieved by drummer Hal Blaine via a heavily reverbed snare drum. Blaine, according to analyses, I’m no drummer, pounded the snare drum hard while recording, and the reverberation of the sound in a hallway near an elevator shaft created the desired effect. Overall, just a great album musically and lyrically.

Carole King – Tapestry

1. I Feel The Earth Move
2. So Far Away
3. It’s Too Late
4. Home Again
5. Beautiful
6. Way Over Yonder
7. You’ve Got A Friend
8. Where You Lead
9. Will You Love Me Tomorrow?
10. Smackwater Jack
11. Tapestry
12. (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman

Simply one of the greatest albums ever. Not sure what else to say about it or what could be said though much has been written and is easily available. It’s all in the music and lyrics. A greatest hits album, essentially, a must-have/listen. A true telling of Carole King though, I think can be furthered by looking at the 2-CD Essential Carole King. Four of the songs on it – I Feel The Earth Move, So Far Away, It’s Too Late and You’ve Got A Friend – come from Tapestry along with other quality King material. But the compilation is nicely split by the two discs – one of her as ‘The Singer’, the other as ‘The Songwriter’, often with then-husband Gerry Goffin, on such songs as Pleasant Valley Sunday by The Monkees and The Loco-Motion by Little Eva and also done by Grand Funk Railroad. Tied as a companion to Tapestry, it’s terrific stuff.

Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding

1. John Wesley Harding
2. As I Went Out One Morning
3. I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
4. All Along The Watchtower
5. The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest
6. Drifter’s Escape
7. Dear Landlord
8. I Am A Lonesome Hobo
9. I Pity The Poor Immigrant
10. The Wicked Messenger
11. Down Along The Cove
12. I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight

A notable album for among other songs, the one from which the hard rock/metal band Judas Priest took its name, The Ballad Of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest, plus other great tracks like my favorites As I Went Out One Morning and Dylan’s original All Along The Watchtower. Sounds like sacrilege to some, probably, but I truly prefer Dylan’s original – maybe better expressed it’s a tie – to the more famous Jimi Hendrix cover version which Dylan himself later started attempting to do, in concert, in Hendrix style. In my view he needn’t have. Dylan’s version is classic if not by now as well remembered or recognized but to me it’s a matter of lyrics and delivery. As great as the Hendrix version is, the lyrical impact is lost amid the amazing playing relative to how it comes out in Dylan’s original. And it was a mutual admiration society; Hendrix also famously and brilliantly covered Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival including that wonderful interaction with an audience member “yeah I know I missed a verse, don’t worry” as Jimi played on.

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

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1. AC/DC, Let There Be Rock
2. AC/DC, Demon Fire
3. Black Sabbath, Into The Void
4. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Sledgehammer
5. Blackfoot, Gimme Gimme Gimme
6. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Devil In The Bottle
7. Jimi Hendrix, Bold As Love
8. Deep Purple, April
9. Queen, The Hitman
10. Aerosmith, Jailbait
11. Robin Trower, Too Rolling Stoned
12. The Rolling Stones, Tops
13. Joe Jackson, Girl (live)
14. The Beatles, Cry Baby Cry
15. Neil Young, Like An Inca
16. Groundhogs, Split, Parts 1-4

My track-by-track tales:

1. AC/DC, Let There Be Rock . . . Title cut from the 1977 album, Bon Scott still alive and on lead vocals, uncompromising raunch and roll setting the tone for at least the first few songs of the set.

2. AC/DC, Demon Fire . . . One of two tracks – Shot In The Dark the other – AC/DC is playing on its just-begun Power Up tour in support of its 2020 album. A long time between the record release and its supporting tour but lots happened in between: Covid, lead singer Brian Johnson’s hearing issues such that he was replaced by Axl Rose of Guns ‘N Roses on a previous tour – including a period where Rose, with a broken leg, sang from a wheelchair. Kudos to Rose, he did a fine job overall in my view based on available video. Johnson, 77, recovered and alongside lead guitarist Angus Young, 70, AC/DC is still around, alive and kicking by all concert review accounts so far. As for Demon Fire, it’s got a similar funky infectious riff to Safe In New York City from the 2000 album Stiff Upper Lip. That’s a good thing. Are they ripping themselves off? Of course, but that’s AC/DC’s genius – doing variations on a theme for years yet still sounding fresh because discerning listeners know it’s not all the same if one actually investigates the albums, deep cuts and all. Still, Young had fun with that perception years ago:

“I’m sick to death of people saying we’ve made 11 albums (at the time) that sound exactly the same. In fact, we’ve made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.”

3. Black Sabbath, Into The Void . . . Hugely influential metal/doom sludge rock track before there were such categorizations, riding one of guitarist Tony Iommi’s darkest riffs, from Sabbath’s 1971 album Master Of Reality.

4. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Sledgehammer . . . Another band revived and on tour. BTO has been on the road since April 1 in Canada playing all the expected hits plus Guess Who tracks from Randy Bachman’s time in the band plus an encore medley of rock and roll from various artists including BTO: Hey You / All Right Now / Rock’n Me / You Shook Me All Night Long / Honky Tonk Women / Get It On (Bang a Gong) / (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction / Old Time Rock and Roll / Hey You (reprise). No Sledgehammer, though, which is of course cool but a fine deep track with combined lead vocals by Bachman and bassist C.F. (Fred) Turner from 1973’s Not Fragile album which featured the hit single You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet. BTO wraps up the Canadian leg of its tour in early May before starting a series of US dates in mid-July, running through the summer.

5. Blackfoot, Gimme Gimme Gimme . . . Straight ahead southern riff raunch and roll from 1980’s Tomcattin’ album, fuelled by leader Rickey Medlocke’s guitar and lead vocals. Medlocke was an early, pre-released recordings member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, playing drums on demos, some of which eventually surfaced on the post-plane crash compilation Skynyrd’s First and… Last which was later expanded and re-released as Skynyrd’s First: The Complete Muscle Shoals Album. Medlocke rejoined Skynyrd full time, on guitar, for the 1997 album Twenty and has been a core member of the reconstituted band since.

6. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Devil In The Bottle . . . Speaking of Skynyrd (without Medlocke) . . . A touching tale about demon alcohol from the unplugged 1994 album Endangered Species that featured classic pre-plane crash Skynyrd tracks like Sweet Home Alabama, Down South Jukin’, Saturday Night Special and I Ain’t The One as well as material done by the reconstituted band and a cover of Elvis’s Heartbreak Hotel. At the time of Endangered Species, the group still featured several of the plane crash survivors or previous, pre-crash players in the band.

The lineup: Gary Rossington and Ed King on guitars; Leon Wilkeson bass; Billy Powell piano from the classic-era group plus lead singer Johnny Van Zant, the departed singer Ronnie Van Zant’s brother. I like all Skynyrd stuff. I think – and that’s cool – people who criticize the latter-day group as being nothing more than a tribute band may not have sampled and thus are missing lots of good music but that’s ok and understandable. But if people can’t make the full leap from band version to version, I’d recommend Endangered Species as a possible entry point if one is at all curious.

7. Jimi Hendrix, Bold As Love . . . Title cut to Axis: Bold As Love. There’s no real hook to it, yet it’s completely compelling with of course fine playing by Hendrix and band as you float along on the bed of instrumentation they lay down.

8. Deep Purple, April . . . I had to get this classical/progressive/hard rock piece in before the end of April. It’s from the so-called Mark I version of Deep Purple. The lineup featured Nick Simper on bass and Rod Evans on lead vocals although Evans doesn’t come in until almost nine minutes into this 12-minute track from the third and final album done by Mark I, simply titled Deep Purple. It was released in 1969. An underappreciated, inventive period of Purple.

9. Queen, The Hitman . . . A hard rocker from 1991’s excellent Innuendo album, the last record the band released while lead singer Freddie Mercury was alive and a nod to classic 1970s Queen not only on this song but throughout the record.

10. Aerosmith, Jailbait . . . Sleazy start/stop/start rocker from the 1982 album Rock In A Hard Place. It’s an appropriate album title in that guitarists Joe Perry and Brad Whitford had left a band disintegrating amid drug abuse and other issues. They were replaced by Jimmy Crespo (sessions with Rod Stewart, Stevie Nicks and Meat Loaf among others) and Rick Dufay (various sessions). Yet, some quality Aerosmith material was still produced, like this bluesy boozy raunchy rolling track that starts with a wild intro, comes to a stop, then winds up again. Lightning Strikes, which I’ve played before, perhaps too often, remains to me the best track on the album but this rocker isn’t far behind.

11. Robin Trower, Too Rolling Stoned . . . My favorite Trower track from arguably his best album, the 1974 release Bridge Of Sighs. It also serves as an obvious segue to the next band/song.

12. The Rolling Stones, Tops . . . The Stones, wanting a new studio album to tour behind in 1981 but pressed for time, visited their vaults to cobble leftovers into the chart-topping feast that became the Tattoo You album propelled by the hit single Start Me Up. But there’s so much depth to the album including this mid-tempo ballad whose history goes back to 1972 sessions and features great drumming from Charlie Watts and lead guitar from Mick Taylor.

13. Joe Jackson, Girl (from Live Music) . . . No guitars. Piano-driven cover of The Beatles’ cut from Rubber Soul, issued on Jackson’s 2011 live album taken from a 2010 tour of Europe. JJ labeled his band at the time the Joe Jackson Trio, a terrific unit featuring his perennial on bass (Graham Maby) going back to the 1979 debut album Look Sharp! David Houghton, the drummer on Look Sharp! and Jackson’s first few albums and several later ones, is also on board.

14. The Beatles, Cry Baby Cry . . . Haunting yet beautiful track from The White Album, written and sung by John Lennon and punctuated by Paul McCartney’s ‘can you take me back’ coda.

15. Neil Young, Like An Inca . . . How can you not get into, or at least try, a track that starts with the lyric ‘said the condor to the preying mantis’ ? This extended piece from 1982’s off the wall Kraftwerk-like electronic album Trans is actually a curveball within the context of the record, given it’s a ‘traditional’ or conventional-sounding Young song on an otherwise experimental entry. Geffen Records sued Young at the time for not sounding like Neil Young (?!, he obviously should be open to creating as his muse moves him but, understandably perhaps, Geffen would have been expecting Neil Young as folk or grunge Neil Young, not Kraftwerk or whatever). Young countersued in the interests of creative freedom. Both lawsuits were soon dropped and Young received a personal apology from label leader David Geffen for interfering in the creative process. Trans is an interesting album as are all Young’s experiments – albeit not to all tastes – while he was signed to Geffen including Everybody’s Rockin’ (rockabilly) in 1983 and the country album Old Ways in 1985.

16. Groundhogs, Split, Parts 1-4 . . . Time to ‘split’ from the studio via this multi-part title suite from the British blues rock band’s 1971 album. They’re all individual songs, they each ‘end’ on a fadeout and aren’t conventionally connected yet are an overall unified piece.