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

1. Elton John, Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
2. Black Sabbath, When Death Calls
3. Megadeth, Killing Is My Business . . . And Business Is Good!
4. Judas Priest, Beyond The Realms Of Death
5. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Lucretia MacEvil (full album version)
6. Bruce Hornsby, Spider Fingers (live)
7. The Spencer Davis Group, Waltz For Lumumba (instrumental)
8. The Rolling Stones, Moon Is Up
9. Led Zeppelin, Down By The Seaside
10. Robin Trower, Day Of The Eagle
11. Nirvana, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter
12. Joe Jackson, A Slow Song
13. Cry Of Love, Too Cold In The Winter
14. J. Geils Band, Monkey Island
15. The Beatles, What’s The New Mary Jane
16. Slade, Keep On Rocking (live)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Elton John, Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding . . . I was discussing great double albums by great bands when I played Led Zeppelin’s In The Light from Physical Graffiti on Saturday’s show. Elton John’s 1973 double vinyl Goodbye Yellow Brick Road of course is one of those classics along with, as previously mentioned, The Beatles’ White Album, Exile On Main St. by The Rolling Stones, London Calling by The Clash, Bruce Springsteen’s The River, many others. I’ve been meaning to get back to Elton John for a few weeks, so here we go with this epic Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album opener.

2. Black Sabbath, When Death Calls . . . Sticking with the death theme, not that I’m in a morbid mood at all, it just played out that way. I suppose I should have started with When Death Calls, then a funeral song as whoever is put to rest, but the Sabs’ when Death Calls is more a doomy slower piece and I generally like to start with more of a rocker, although Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding does take a bit before it speeds up but when it does . . . In any case, this is another – I played The Shining from 1987’s Eternal Idol a few weeks ago – from the I think underappreciated Tony Martin on lead vocals period of Black Sabbath. It’s from the 1989 album Headless Cross. Brian May of Queen is a guitar guest on When Death Calls, playing the first solo.

3. Megadeth, Killing Is My Business . . . And Business Is Good! . . . Early thrash/speed metal, title cut to the band’s 1985 debut album.

4. Judas Priest, Beyond The Realms Of Death . . . Half ballad, half metallic rocker, back and forth over seven minutes on this slab of guitar soloing from the 1978 album Stained Class.

5. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Lucretia MacEvil (full album version) . . . “Ooh Lucy you just so damn bad. . . ” Love that lyric and David Clayton-Thomas’s vocal delivery. Among my favorite BS & T tunes, this is the full version, three ticks short of six minutes, twice the length of the single extracted from Blood, Sweat & Tears 3, the group’s 1970 album. And it’s better than the truncated single, allowing for full flowering of the instrumental and vocal interplay of, along with Chicago, one of the early 1970s best bands in the jazz-rock genre.

6. Bruce Hornsby, Spider Fingers (live) . . . I watched the 1955 sci-fi monster movie Tarantula the other day as I pared down some accumulated backlog of recordings, perhaps accounting for me playing a song with ‘spider’ in the title. It’s a funky fingers foray by piano man Bruce Hornsby on this live version of a jazzy tune originally on his 1995 studio album Hot House. Hornsby is still likely best known to the masses for his 1980s hits The Way It Is and The Valley Road, both great songs, but he’s much more, a talent who counts among his exploits having been a longtime touring member of the latter-day Grateful Dead, among other projects and his own solo work.

7. The Spencer Davis Group, Waltz For Lumumba (instrumental) . . . I played the band Family last week which got me thinking of Ric Grech who was a member, which got me thinking of Blind Faith of which Grech was also a member, which got me thinking of Steve Winwood of Traffic fame who was also in Blind Faith along with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker. But before that, Winwood was lead singer in The Spencer Davis Group although he doesn’t sing on this instrumental which, given what later followed, could be seen as a precursor to the jam band type material later versions of Traffic embraced.

8. The Rolling Stones, Moon Is Up . . . Charlie Watts on ‘mystery drum’, according to the Voodoo Lounge album liner notes. The drum was an overturned metal garbage can with Watts being recorded while isolated in a stairwell, hammering the can with brushes.

9. Led Zeppelin, Down By The Seaside . . . I played In The Light last Saturday after someone mentioned Down By The Seaside, also from the 1975 Zep albun Physical Graffiti, to me earlier that week. In The Light fit Saturday’s space rock theme and at the time I wrote that I’d play Seaside again soon, perhaps as early as Monday, so here we are. A bluesy acoustic ballad that a third of the way through turns, at points, into a rocker. Overall the song is apparently an homage by Robert Plant to Neil Young’s work around the time of Young’s After The Goldrush album, released in 1970.

10. Robin Trower, Day Of The Eagle . . . Opening track riff rocker to arguably Trower’s finest hour, the 1974 album Bridge Of Sighs featuring the other members of his prime period 1970s power trio of drummer Reg Isidore and bassist/soulful singer James Dewar. Geoff Emerick, longtime engineer at Apple Studios who worked on many Beatles albums as well as Paul McCartney’s Band On The Run, London Town, Tug Of War and Flaming Pie, was sound engineer on Bridge Of Sighs.

11. Nirvana, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter . . . Bleak, nihilistic stuff belying the tongue in cheek song title from the 1993 album In Utero after Nirvana seemingly came out of nowhere to achieve superstardom, propelled by the hit single Smells Like Teen Spirit but many other great songs, and shifting millions of units of their breakthrough 1991 album Nevermind.

12. Joe Jackson, A Slow Song . . . Great long song, seven minutes, slow for the most part but up tempo in spots, from JJ’s 1982 album Night And Day. He is, as often mentioned, one of my favorite artists, been following him since his punk/new wave beginnings with the debut Look Sharp! album in 1979 and he’s never disappointed me through his often daring travels through myriad genres including jazz, jump blues and classical. And in response to his lyric “And I get tired of DJs, why is it always what he plays, I’m gonna push right through, I’m gonna tell him to, tell him to play us, play us a slow song . . . ” Done, Joe.

13. Cry Of Love, Too Cold In The Winter . . . If you didn’t know better, you’d think this was Free or Bad Company but it’s Cry Of Love, a North Carolina band that formed in 1989 and lasted until 1997, releasing two studio albums. And they’re not ripoffs of those aformentioned Paul Rodgers on lead vocals-fronted great bands, more a tribute to them embracing the influences but coming up with Cry Of Love’s own distinctive sound. I remain perplexed as to why they weren’t bigger, particularly via this song from the excellent 1993 debut Brother which I think is the album’s best cut. It was co-written by the group’s guitarist, Audley Freed, who later spent some time in The Black Crowes. The song title fits with the cold weather we’ve had in southern Ontario the last few days after a great run of balmy weather deep into the fall.

14. J. Geils Band, Monkey Island . . . Extended, spooky in spots nine-minute title track to the group’s 1977 album. No hit singles to speak of although I suppose I Do is relatively well known. The album did not chart high, everything about it seemed different from previous J. Geils releases including the black and white cover art of some band members in apparent silhouette not to mention the one-time cover billing of the group as just ‘Geils’, no ‘J’. To me, though, it’s akin to, say, The Kinks’ Muswell Hillbillies, yet another brilliant album that seemed to escape many people or achieve commercial success but is worth investigating.

15. The Beatles, What’s The New Mary Jane . . . Weird and wonderful, depending on one’s mood it’s either crap or creative. A reject from The White Album, I suppose the boys said ‘John (Lennon) we’re giving you Revolution 9 you can’t have this, too, on the album.” According to The Beatles Anthology 3 CD release, of the official Beatles it’s just Lennon and George Harrison on this track along with Yoko Ono and Beatles road manager/personal assistant Mal Evans. Lennon is on vocals and piano, Harrison on guitar and Yoko and Evans on various sound effects.

16. Slade, Keep On Rocking (live) . . . Love the (perhaps, probably drunken?) intro to this one: “this is a, this is a rock and roll, it sounds good (I think that’s what he says it’s relatively unintelligible) heah’s one . . . ” And then they kick in and indeed rock. I’m not even really a Slade fan, a guilty pleasure I guess, I have a compilation just because, plus the live album, Slade Alive! from which this track comes, a CD that, in a purge, I tried to trade in for $$ but no used store wanted it which may tell you something. Anyway . . . that’s not meant as a slag on the UK glam/hard rock group because I’m glad I still own it; Alive! is a good, energetic album which opens with a cover of Hear Me Calling by one of my favorite bands, Ten Years After, and is further evidenced by this track. Slade Alive! came out in 1972, before Slade’s hits like 1973’s Cum On Feel The Noize, a song American band Quiet Riot 10 years later took to the top 10 in North America. Slade’s version was No. 1 in the UK but didn’t chart in North America.

A space rock show, occurred to me for whatever reason when I woke up in the middle of the night around 3 am Wednesday. Some songs started filling my head so I got up and scribbled them down. In the end here we are with lots of extended pieces like the near 20-minute but never boring live version of Space Truckin’ from Deep Purple’s Made In Japan, some bands that are categorized as space rock, like Hawkwind which earns two cuts, and other tunes with either spacey lyrics or song titles that fit the theme. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Flash And The Pan, Welcome To The Universe
2. The Guess Who, Truckin’ Off Across The Sky (from Live At The Paramount)
3. Deep Purple, Space Truckin’ (live, from Made In Japan)
4. Hawkwind, Sputnik Stan
5. Pink Floyd, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun (live, from Ummagumma)
6. Led Zeppelin, In The Light
7. King Crimson, Moonchild
8. Hawkwind, Space Is Deep
8. The Rolling Stones, 2000 Light Years From Home
9. Rush, Cyngnus X-1
10. Yes, Close To The Edge

My track-by-track tales:

1. Flash And The Pan, Welcome To The Universe . . . From the Aussie band’s second album, Lights In The Night. An interesting band, particularly due to the seeming incongruity of a new wave group like Flash And The Pan being comprised of people who produced albums by hard rock band AC/DC, particularly during the Bon Scott on lead vocals period. That would be Harry Vanda and George Young, both members of the 1960s Australian band The Easybeats, George being the older brother of AC/DC guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young. Just another example of how the arts know no boundaries.

2. The Guess Who, Truckin’ Off Across The Sky (live) . . . A long jam about trips into the universe of one’s nind, never released on any studio album, from the band’s 1972 album Live At The Paramount. Verbal pyrotechnics by lead singer Burton Cummings supported by the equally transportive instrumental excursions of guitarists Kurt Winter and Don McDougall, drummer Gary Peterson and bassist Jim Kale.

3. Deep Purple, Space Truckin’ (live) . . . Nearly 20 minutes of instrumental and vocal interplay from one of the classic live albums, Made In Japan. I was initially going to play the 4:31 studio cut from Machine Head but listened to them both and thought, let’s go long.

4. Hawkwind, Sputnik Stan . . . Hawkwind, known as a ‘space rock’ band, has so many tracks that could be applied to a themed show such as this. This hard-driving for the most part cut is from the 1995 album Alien 4.

5. Pink Floyd, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun (live) . . . I played a few tracks from the studio disc of Ummagumma in my ‘weird shit’ show of Saturday, November 16/24 and within my comments I mentioned the live portion of Ummagumma and that I might play the entire Ummagumma album at some point. Not yet, but as mentioned previously the live part of that studio-live album is killer stuff, and here’s another of Floyd’s versions of a song that initially appeared on the 1968 studio album A Saucerful Of Secrets.

6. Led Zeppelin, In The Light . . . Every great band/artist seems to have a great double (at the time, on vinyl) studio album. The Beatles’ White Album officially just titled The Beatles. Exile On Main St. by The Rolling Stones, Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, The Clash’s London Calling, many others. Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album Physical Graffiti easily fits the category and it’s the album from which I drew this track. So, we’re coming from Floyd’s setting controls for the heart of the sun to being in the light of the sun, or something like that, by titles, anyway. In The Light came to mind because someone had in conversation during the week mentioned Zep’s Down By The Seaside, one of my favorite of their songs. It’s from Physical Graffiti so it got me thinking of the album. As for Down By The Seaside, I’ve played it before and will again, perhaps as soon as Monday’s show.

7. King Crimson, Moonchild . . . King Crimson did many amazing records and songs, genre-bending and otherwise but if forced to choose, I will always go back to the 1969 debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King. It’s brilliant, this song one example.

8. Hawkwind, Space Is Deep . . . Endless, actually, to our knowledge; the universe is, so far, ever-expanding. This is from Hawkwind’s cleverly titled 1972 album Doremi Fasol Latido.

8. The Rolling Stones, 2000 Light Years From Home . . . Well-known track for Stones fans, the B-side to the She’s A Rainbow single from the controversial 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request where the Stones were accused of lamely copying The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album. I love both bands but the only thing I’d say the Stones may have copied is their variation, tongue in cheek as always, on the album cover. The music within is entirely different, evidenced by this and many other tracks. Satanic Majesties has its weak moments but The Beatles, with much obvious respect, never did anything like this or many of the terrific tunes on Satanic Majesties, like Citadel or The Lantern. Nor did the Stones do anything like many of the things on Pepper. So what? Different bands, sounds, approaches, you can like them both without endlessly, ridiculously, comparing. The Stones did this cosmic rocker to great effect, light show and otherwise, when they resurrected it for the 1989 Steel Wheels tour I saw in Toronto.

9. Rush, Cyngnus X-1 . . . I’ve probably played this too often when I play Rush but it fits the sci-fi/space rock theme of the show and it’s one of my favorite Rush tracks. It’s from 1977’s A Farewell To Kings, which I was attracted to by the hit single Closer To The Heart but upon buying it back then I was hooked on the band, album by album, although A Farewell To Kings remains my favorite Rush record.

10. Yes, Close To The Edge . . . So, via song titles at least, we’ve come from entering and being welcomed to the universe to flying around it via various means to now, perhaps, via this epic title track to Yes’s 1972 album, being close to the edge . . . maybe falling off it.

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

1. Family, Good News Bad News (live)
2. Chicago, Movin’ In
3. Peter Gabriel, That Voice Again
4. Genesis, Me And Virgil
5. The Guess Who, Those Show Biz Shoes
6. Aerosmith, Hoodoo/Voodoo Medicine Man
7. The Rolling Stones, Keep Up Blues
8. Paul McCartney, Run Devil Run
9. George Harrison, Sue Me, Sue You Blues
10. Trapeze, Jury
11. The Doobie Brothers, I Cheat The Hangman
12. Billy Cobham, Stratus
13. Blackmore’s Night, Storm
14. Queen, Long Away
15. Foghat, Take It Or Leave It
16. Peter Green, Cryin’ Won’t Bring You Back
17. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Keep On Chooglin’ (live)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Family, Good News Bad News (live) . . . High energy progressive rock from the English band, a good example of the quiet-to-loud dynamic that can work so well, and Family could and often did flit from folk rock to near metal. Back and forth we go between light verses and all-out instrumental assault choruses bolstered by the electrifying vocals of Roger Chapman. Chapman’s singing style is said to be drawn from his attempts at emulating Little Richard and Ray Charles, who he particularly idolized, although with Chapman’s more whiskey-and-cigarettes raspy vibe.

Good News Bad News is a live track from Family’s half-live, half studio 1970 album Anyway. Family, formed in 1966, was never a hugely successful commercial act, at least not outside the UK where the band’s albums were usually in the top 30 on the charts, but they did rub shoulders and tour with more commercially successful contemporaries like Jethro Tull, Ten Years After and Emerson, Lake and Palmer and well-known, or relatively well-known names in popular music did pass through Family. I first heard of the band when my older brother brought home the lone studio album by supergroup Blind Faith, which was comprised of former Cream members Eric Clapton (guitar/vocals) and Ginger Baker (drums/percussion), Steve Winwood (lead vocals/keyboards/guitar) of Traffic fame and . . . Family’s Ric Grech, likely the least known of the quartet, on bass and violin. Multi-instrumentalist and singer John Wetton, whose resume included stints in King Crimson, Uriah Heep, Roxy Music and Asia, among others, was a Family member in the band’s early days as was guitarist/bassist Jim Cregan. Cregan was a regular member of Rod Stewart’s band from the 1977 album Footloose & Fancy Free through 1995 and earned co-writing credits on various songs including the hit singles Passion and Forever Young. Keyboardist/singer Tony Ashton, who collaborated with Deep Purple members on several outside projects including the excellent 1977 album Malice In Wonderland – not to be confused with the 1980 Nazareth album by the same name – by Paice Ashton Lord with Purple drummer Ian Paice and keyboardist Jon Lord, was also, early on, a branch of the Family tree.

2. Chicago, Movin’ In . . . All a matter of personal taste, of course, but early Chicago is the best Chicago, particularly for me the first three albums although there’s great progressive jazz-rock throughout most of the first nine studio albums released before the death of guitarist Terry Kath, who sings Movin’ In. It’s the opening track on the second Chicago album, released in January, 1970. The record is now commonly referred to as Chicago II although when it came out it was just “Chicago”, the band having shortened their name from The Chicago Transit Authority, also the title of their debut album, after a threatened lawsuit by the actual mass transit operator.

3. Peter Gabriel, That Voice Again . . . Propulsive percussion from ace session player Manu Katche on this, er, catchy tune from Gabriel’s 1986 blockbuster album So. The record featured hits like worldwide smash Sledgehammer, Big Time, In Your Eyes, Red Rain and Don’t Give Up (with Kate Bush). That Voice Again was issued as a promotional single before the album came out and made No. 14 on the US Billboard charts. The So album was drummer/percussionist Katche’s first collaboration with Gabriel, with whom he’s since worked to the present day while also maintaining a solo career as well as numerous albums with Sting starting around the same time as his association with Gabriel.

4. Genesis, Me And Virgil . . . One of five studio songs on the international edition of Three Sides Live, the original vinyl album released in 1982 as a document of the tour in support of the 1981 studio album Abacab. Two of the songs (Evidence Of Autumn and Open Door) were B-sides from the previous album, 1980’s Duke, while Me And Virgil, You Might Recall and Paperlate, originally pegged for Abacab, didn’t make the final cut and wound up on the EP 3 X 3, released in the UK, where Three Sides Live was an entirely live album.

Paperlate, featuring the Earth, Wind & Fire horn section, became a hit single. Me And Virgil is a poppy folk type song with some aggresssive progressive elements, but the writer, Phil Collins, doesn’t like it, according to Wikipedia calling it a ‘dog’ and suggesting it was a failed attempt by Genesis to do a song similar to The Band’s work. I like it, but it’s interesting, and natural in creative work, how artists can look askance at their own material. Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, for instance, is on record as saying about Get Off Of My Cloud that he “never dug it as a record”, (?!) thinking it was poorly produced and a rushed attempt to follow up the previous single (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.

As mentioned, Three Sides Live was an entirely live album in the UK, reflecting the sometimes different markets, and marketing, of music. Because EPs never became as commercially viable elsewhere as in the UK, the record company, and the band, decided to put the aforementioned studio cuts from the 3 X 3 EP and the Duke sessions on one side of the international release of the live album. One For The Vine (from Wind And Wuthering), The Fountain Of Salmacis (Nursery Cryme) and the pairing of It from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and Watcher Of The Skies from Foxtrot rounded out the UK live album. “Songs like One For The Vine had never been very popular in America and we felt it wasn’t right to put them on the US album,” keyboardist Tony Banks is quoted as saying in the 1995 book The Complete Guide To The Music Of Genesis. “We could also call the British LP Three Sides Live because there were three of us!” (in the band; guitarist/bassist Mike Rutherford rounding out what by then was a trio). Subsequent reissues of Three Sides Live feature the original UK all live track list, with the studio songs – aside from Me And Virgil, which Collins apparently vetoed – appearing on later archival Genesis box sets. I still own the original 1982 international release of Three Sides Live which I bought primarily because I liked Paperlate and to that point, unless you had the UK EP, it was hard to find Paperlate although it’s since appeared on various Genesis compilations.

5. The Guess Who, Those Show Biz Shoes . . . A fun jam from the 1973 album Artificial Paradise. Burton Cummings in full cry with his singing and spoken word vocals of the stream of consciousness lyrics, not to mention his keyboard playing, myriad tempo changes throughout the song, twin guitar attack from Kurt Winter and Don McDougall . . . satisfying stuff.

6. Aerosmith, Hoodoo/Voodoo Medicine Man . . . Aerosmith enjoyed a commercial rebirth with the 1987 album Permanent Vacation by transitioning to outside songwriters like Desmond Child and Jim Vallance to complement the band’s own writers. A good album, I like it, but arguably much of the raunch from 1970s classic albums like Rocks and Toys In The Attic had been smoothed over, maybe too much for aficionados of the ‘old’ Aerosmith. However, the next album, 1989’s Pump, turned the clock back a touch, particularly on tracks like the haunting Hoodoo/Voodoo Medicine Man.

7. The Rolling Stones, Keep Up Blues . . . The backing instrumental track for this bloozy cut was done by the band, including then-bassist Bill Wyman, during the Some Girls album sessions in 1978. Mick Jagger added new lyrics, vocals and a nice harmonica line for the double disc 2011 reissue of Some Girls that featured previously unreleased material from the original sessions.

8. Paul McCartney, Run Devil Run . . . Rip-roaring old time rock ‘n’ roll from McCartney. It’s the title cut to his 1999 release that features classics like All Shook Up, made famous by Elvis Presley, and Chuck Berry’s Brown Eyed Handsome Man, along with McCartney originals like Run Devil Run. “I saw this herbal medicine shop in Atlanta selling Run Devil Run products,” McCartney says in the album’s song-by-song liner notes. “I thought, that is a great rock ‘n’ roll title. So I did a story, Chuck Berry style.” The shop itself is the album cover. Run Devil Run features David Gilmour of Pink Floyd fame on guitar and drummer Ian Paice of Deep Purple. Gilmour plays on all of the album’s 15 tracks, with Paice on board for 13 of the 15 songs.

9. George Harrison, Sue Me, Sue You Blues . . . Terrific tune, musically and lyrically, in which Harrison opines on the various lawsuits that swirled around The Beatles at the time of the band’s breakup, and for some time beyond. It’s from the 1973 album Living In The Material World. Harrison tackled legal issues again three albums later, on the 1976 album 33 1/3 with This Song, a satirical commentary on the copyright infringement suit against him over his 1970 worldwide hit single My Sweet Lord.

10. Trapeze, Jury . . . Like Family’s Good News Bad News which I opened the show with, another example, and I suppose it’s fairly common, of the fast and slow, light and heavy dynamic in this eight-minute piece from the 1970 album Medusa. It’s a solid record, arguably Trapeze’s best, produced by John Lodge of The Moody Blues and issued, along with three other Trapeze albums, on the Moodies’ Threshold label.

11. The Doobie Brothers, I Cheat The Hangman . . . A spooky, ethereal track written by founding and forever Doobie Brothers member Patrick Simmons, from the 1975 album Stampede. It was former Steely Dan ace guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter’s first as a fulltime member of The Doobie Brothers, although he had contributed, as a session player, to previous albums. I Cheat The Hangman features Maria Muldaur of Midnight At The Oasis fame on backing vocals and was inspired by the famous short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, written by American writer and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce.

12. Billy Cobham, Stratus . . . Jazz-rock fusion from drummer Cobham’s first solo album, Spectrum, released in 1973. The album featured Cobham’s former Mahavishnu Orchestra bandmate Jan Hammer on keyboards and synthesizer along with guitarist Tommy Bolin and resulted in Bolin eventually joining Deep Purple. Purple was in a pinch in 1975, with guitarist Ritchie Blackmore having departed to form Rainbow, when then-Purple singer David Coverdale convinced his bandmates that Bolin warranted an audition based on his playing on Spectrum. Bolin got the Purple job, resulting in the 1975 album Come Taste The Band. As for Stratus, it’s a remarkable 10-minute piece of ensemble playing by Cobham, Hammer, Bolin and bassist Lee Sklar, a session player of great renown within the music industry. Still active at age 77, Sklar has appeared on more than 2,000 albums in a wide variety of genres but most notably recording and/or touring with James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King and Phil Collins as well as contributing to numerous film and TV soundtracks and theme songs. Web searches reveal his remarkable resume.

13. Blackmore’s Night, Storm . . . Having come from a hard rock background with Deep Purple and Rainbow, Ritchie Blackmore raised some eyebrows in 1997 when he formed the folk rock/medieval music band Blackmore’s Night together with his then girlfriend now wife Candice Night, who handles lead vocals. The band started off playing mostly acoustic material but, as on Storm from the third album, 2001’s Fires At Midnight, has increasingly incorporated more electric guitar. The material reminds me of some Jethro Tull – Tull’s Ian Anderson contributed flute to one track, Play Minstrel Play on the first Blackmore’s Night album Shadow Of The Moon – and Fairport Convention. It’s terrific stuff.

14. Queen, Long Away . . . Beautiful if melancholic song written and sung by guitarist Brian May, one of my favorites from the 1976 album A Day At The Races and one for which May has said he’d like to be remembered.

15. Foghat, Take It Or Leave It . . . Smooth, mid-tempo tune from the Fool For The City album, released in 1975 and known for the title track and the big hit single Slow Ride.

16. Peter Green, Cryin’ Won’t Bring You Back . . . Typically beautiful guitar playing and emotive singing on this bluesy ballad from the Fleetwood Mac founder’s 1980 album Little Dreamer. The song, along with many during this period of Peter Green’s career when he was re-emerging professionally while dealing with mental health issues and drug abuse, was written by his older brother Mike, a guitarist and singer in his own right who gave a pre-teen Peter his first lessons on guitar. It’s standard fare lyrically, lamenting lost love but also an appropriate title, given Peter Green left us in 2020. But we’ll always have the amazing music he left behind – solo, with Fleetwood Mac and John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers.

17. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Keep On Chooglin’ (live) . . . As we choogle on out of here at show’s end, riding the southern fried groove of an extended track that first appeared in studio form on the 1969 album Bayou Country. This version, recorded in Oakland, California in January of 1970, appeared on The Concert live album, released in 1980, long after CCR packed up. The Concert was originally mistakenly released under the title The Royal Albert Hall Concert, until it was discovered the tapes came from the Oakland show, not a gig at the London, England venue. The actual Royal Albert Hall show was released in 2022 as a companion album to the documentary film, and an excellent one it is, Travelin’ Band: Creedence Clearwater Revival at the Royal Albert Hall. The film is on Netflix and many of the song performances are on YouTube.

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

1. Santana, All Aboard
2. Edgar Winter’s White Trash, Give It Everything You Got
3. Santana, Soul Sacrifice (live at The Fillmore 1968)
4. The Rolling Stones, Gunface
5. Bruce Springsteen, Point Blank
6. Tom Waits, 16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six
7. Stray Cats, 18 Miles From Memphis
8. Cat Stevens, 18th Avenue (Kansas City Nightmare)
9. Spirit, 1984
10. Guns N’ Roses, 14 Years
11. Izzy Stradlin, Shuffle It All
12. Ron Wood, Seven Days
13. Keith Richards, Struggle
14. 54-40, Nice To Luv You
15. The Kinks, Yo-Yo
16. Steely Dan, Babylon Sisters
17. The Police, It’s Alright For You
18. Gordon Lightfoot, I’m Not Sayin’/Ribbon Of Darkness
19. Bob Dylan, Slow Train
20. Humble Pie, Road Hog
21. The Doors, I Can’t See Your Face In My Mind
22. Eric Clapton, Double Trouble (live, from Just One Night)
23. Jethro Tull, Life Is A Long Song
24. U2, Until The End Of The World

My track-by-track tales:

1. Santana, All Aboard . . . A short instrumental to start things off, from the 2016 album Santana IV. It was so named as it represented a reunion of most of the original members of the Santana band which had recorded the group’s first three albums – Santana, Abraxas and Santana (commonly referred to as Santana III to distinguish it from the first album) – between 1969 and 1971.

2. Edgar Winter’s White Trash, Give It Everything You Got . . . Funky, bluesy, soulful song from Winter’s second studio album but first under the moniker of his White Trash group, released in 1971 after 1970’s debut Entrance. White Trash was produced by Rick Derringer, who worked extensively with both Edgar and Johnny Winter, played guitar on the White Trash album and toured with Edgar’s band, resulting in the 1972 live album Roadwork.

3. Santana, Soul Sacrifice (live at The Fillmore 1968) . . . Back to Santana we go, this one a 14.5 minute version of the instrumental that, before the band had ever released a studio album, brought them to prominence thanks to its performance at the 1969 Woodstock festival. The version I’m playing was recorded months earlier, in December, 1968 at Fillmore West in San Francisco but not commercially released until 1997 as part of the album Live At The Fillmore 1968.

4. The Rolling Stones, Gunface . . . Menacing funk rocker, lots of great guitar, from the 1997 album Bridges To Babylon, a latter day Stones’ treat. It’s memorable for me not just for the album itself, which I like as I do all Stones’ material, but because I took my then age 9 older son to his first concert, Stones on their Bridges To Babylon tour at Toronto’s then-named Skydome, now Rogers Centre, April 1998.

Three things from that show stick out to me, beyond the actual concert. Pre-show, outside the stadium we run into a couple work friends of mine who are startled by, when in fun quizzing my son Mark about the Stones, he responds with mentions of deep tracks he’s learned (and my friends may not have known) through my playing of Stones’ albums at home. So, they stood corrected or at least surprised. Second, once we got to our seats, Mark just looking around the massive stadium, marvelling at it all, the stage, etc. and turning to me and saying “this is so cool.” And it was. And third, the Stones come out, blitz through the opener Satisfaction and I turn to my son in jest and say “wow, we can go home now that was so great a performance.” But of course we didn’t. An amazing and memorable night, our first of several Stones trips together.

5. Bruce Springsteen, Point Blank . . . One of my favorites from The River, the third album in the remarkable streak that saw Springsteen issue Born To Run, Darkness On The Edge Of Town and The River between 1975 and 1980 and in many ways those three albums remain the foundation of his art. A brooding lament to lost love and the twists and turns of life.

6. Tom Waits, 16 Shells From A Thirty-Ought Six . . . From 1983’s Swordfishtrombones album, where Waits moved from more traditional song structures to experimental sounds often housed within odd time signatures. In short, unconventional. An acquired taste, perhaps, but Waits puts many fine offerings on the menu.

7. Stray Cats, 18 Miles From Memphis . . . Infectious rockabilly, typical of the band, from their 1983 album Rant N Rave With The Stray Cats, the followup to their 1982 breakthrough Built For Speed which featured such hits as Rock This Town and Stray Cat Strut. Built For Speed, the group’s first North American release, was actually a compilation of their first two albums, the self-titled debut and Gonna Ball, both released in 1981 in the UK where the group first achieved success before returning to the USA.

8. Cat Stevens, 18th Avenue (Kansas City Nightmare) . . . One of those multi-faceted Stevens’ productions, this one from his 1972 album Catch Bull At Four. Slow buildup, then into a relatively heavy rocking orchestral portion as the song plays out over its four minutes and change. I played Stevens’ 18-minute Foreigner Suite in mid-October and commented at the time on what a wonderful trip through assorted tempos that song is; Stevens does similar things here, within a much shorter time frame.

9. Spirit, 1984 . . . Los Angeles psychedelic/progressive rock band Spirit is perhaps best known to some as being involved in a lawsuit with Led Zeppelin – ultimately settled in Zep’s favor – over similarities in the Spirit instrumental Taurus, released in 1968, and the intro to Stairway To Heaven, released in 1971. Much reading available on that and people will form their own views. But there’s far more to Spirit than that one instrumental and the song 1984 is just one example. A haunting, hypnotic bass line is a feature of this 1969 track which fits the lyrics revolving around the warnings within George Orwell’s dystopian novel.

10. Guns N’ Roses, 14 Years . . . A co-write between Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin, who was soon to leave the band after the Use Your Illusion albums. This bluesy track, mainly sung by Stradlin, was on Use Your Illusion II, released simultaneously with Use Your Illusion I on September 17, 1991. The music market was obviously different then but G N’ R was among the biggest bands on the planet at that point and I recall lineups at record stores waiting to purchase the albums.

11. Izzy Stradlin and the Ju Ju Hounds, Shuffle It All . . . From Stradlin’s first solo album after leaving Guns N’ Roses, released in 1992 and sounding very much like a Keith Richards of Rolling Stones fame solo album. So yes, it’s derivative, but so many bands were inspired by the Stones who were in turn inspired by their deep blues predecessors and, as Richards has said, the best tribute a musician can have is that he or she ‘passed it on.” And we’ll get to Keith in a solo song soon but first a track from his Stones’ guitar henchman/ancient art of weaving compadre Ronnie Wood.

12. Ron Wood, Seven Days . . . A Bob Dylan tune Wood covered on his 1979 album Gimme Some Neck after which he and Keith Richards formed the New Barbarians, who toured North America and opened for Led Zeppelin at the Knebworth (UK) Festival. I saw the New Barbarians at the Rolling Stones one-off concert in Oshawa, Ontario that was part of Richards’ penance for an earlier drug bust in Toronto, great show by both bands. Another worthy cover of Seven Days is by Joe Cocker, on his 1982 album Sheffield Steel.

13. Keith Richards, Struggle . . . Instantly recognizable riffology from Richards, from his debut solo album Talk Is Cheap, 1988 during the so-called World War III period where Richards and Rolling Stones partner/frontman Mick Jagger were at odds. Richards’ solo albums were rightfully critically acclaimed as media seemed to take sides in the ‘war’ but Jagger’s solo albums – particularly Wandering Spirit, his 1993 offering that was the most Stones’ like – were solid as well. The difference to me as a fan of the band and both songwriting principals being that Jagger was going for experimentation outside the Stones’ bubble – which can be argued should be the essence of a solo album, be different than what your band is known for – while Richards preferred, and that’s obviously fine, to continue musically to live within that basic Stones framework.

14. 54-40, Nice To Luv You . . . Likely the song that turned me on to 54-40. I’d heard of them, the Canadian band having been around for more than 10 years before their 1992 album Dear Dear came out but this single, which charted in Canada, is what got me into the band along with the second single from the album, She-La. I saw them live in Toronto in the early 2000s; great show.

15. The Kinks, Yo-Yo . . . The Kinks were on a hot streak during the early 1960s – You Really Got Me; All Day And All Of The Night – and then again during the late 1970s into the early 1980s starting maybe with 1977’s Sleepwalker and 1978’s Misfits but truly breaking through with 1979’s Low Budget album and its follow up, 1981’s Give The People What They Want, from which I pulled this track. In between Give The People and Low Budget was the raucously terrific live album One For The Road.

16. Steely Dan, Babylon Sisters . . . Suave and sophisticated in typically jazzy Steely Dan fashion, from the 1980 album Gaucho, which was to be the group’s last studio album until their reunion 20 years later for -after some live reunion tours and a live album – two more studio efforts.

17. The Police, It’s Alright For You . . . Driving rocker from the band’s second album, Reggata de Blanc with its big hit single Message In A Bottle. Could easily have been a single, wasn’t, but likely and rightly so remains a well-known Police track to fans of the band.

18. Gordon Lightfoot, I’m Not Sayin’/Ribbon Of Darkness . . . A combination of two tracks that initially appeared on Lightfoot’s debut album, Lightfoot! released in 1966. It was later put together for the Gord’s Gold compilation. Marty Robbins took Ribbon Of Darkness to No. 1 on the country charts in 1965.

19. Bob Dylan, Slow Train . . . Dylan threw critics and some fans for a loop when he came out with the Slow Train Coming album in 1979, the artist having embraced Christianity. But to me what seemed to have been somewhat lost over his three ‘Christian’ albums – Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot Of Love – was not only the great players Dylan had backing him, people like Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits fame, session drummer to the stars Jim Keltner to name two, but more so the typically great and often prescient Dylan lyrics throughout the trilogy. Slow Train has, to my reading of the lyrics, nothing much if anything to do with religion, it’s cutting social/political commentary. As for the playing, I recommend not just the studio albums but The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Trouble No More 1979–1981 which features Dylan’s crack band in live settings.

20. Humble Pie, Road Hog . . . Nice blues rocker from the 1975 Street Rats album, the band falling apart, critically panned but what do critics know, constantly comparing to what was or what they think should be.

21. The Doors, I Can’t See Your Face In My Mind . . . One of those spooky, immersive Doors tracks you can only find by investigating the actual studio albums; this one from the band’s second release, 1967’s Strange Days.

22. Eric Clapton, Double Trouble (live, from Just One Night album) . . . Eric does justice to the Otis Rush tune on his, Clapton’s, 1980 live album. I well knew, from college days, but never actually owned this album until recently, some tracks from it are on the Clapton Crossroads box set but there I was earlier this year, flipping through the used CD rack in my friendly neighborhood and still thankfully surviving local record store and lo and behold there it was, cheap, too . . . I thrust my arms in the air in victory, to knowing smiles from the staff, and bought the sucker.

23. Jethro Tull, Life Is A Long Song . . . A nice one from one of my alltime favorite groups, Tull. It was first released on an EP in the United Kingdom, later placed on the 1972 compilation album Living In The Past which was, for many in North America at least, something of an intro to Tull and as such almost standing alone, albeit being a compilation, as a studio album in its own right, while not actually being one. Tull opened with this when my eldest son and I saw them for the fourth of five shows, over time together as we saw them, this time in 2005 at Toronto’s Massey Hall.

24. U2, Until The End Of The World . . . Another of those probably well-known songs by a great band where one thinks, this was a hit single yet it wasn’t. It’s an album track on Achtung Baby which may be my favorite U2 record although I’m also partial to War, Boy and I guess the great but overplayed Joshua Tree whose best track, to me, is the non-single Bullet The Blue Sky. Back to Until The End Of The World: Great lyrics to a pulsating riffing beat: “Everybody having a good time, except you, you were talking about the end of the world . . . you miss too much these days if you stop to think . . . I was drowning in sorrows but my sorrows they learned to swim…”

What was also impressive to me is how U2 played the Achtung Baby album live. They knew they had a good one; on the tour they came out and the first six songs and seven of the first nine were from the new album they risked the audience not knowing yet, but on they went to great acclaim. It to me was akin, and even more daring since U2 opened with entirely new stuff, to when I saw The Rolling Stones in 1978 on the Some Girls album tour and they confidently played eight of 10 songs from the album in the middle of the set, knowing they were promoting a winner that would come to be known as such.