A two-album show starting with the amazing journey, to quote one of the song titles, that is the rock opera Tommy, released by The Who in 1969, followed by Between The Buttons (UK version), released by The Rolling Stones in 1967.

In between, a one-song bridge, Blame It On The Stones, leading into the Stones album, from the late great Kris Kristofferson, who died at age 88 last week. I’ll play a few more Kristofferson tunes on Monday night’s show, 8-10 pm ET, Oct. 7.

My album commentaries are below each record’s track list and the Kristofferson tune.

The Who – Tommy

1. Overture
2. It’s A Boy
3. 1921
4. Amazing Journey
5. Sparks
6. Eyesight To The Blind (The Hawker)
7. Christmas
8. Cousin Kevin
9. The Acid Queen
10. Underture
11. Do You Think It’s Alright?
12. Fiddle About
13. Pinball Wizard
14. There’s A Doctor
15. Go To The Mirror!
16. Tommy Can You Hear Me?
17. Smash The Mirror
18. Sensation
19. Miracle Cure
20. Sally Simpson
21. I’m Free
22. Welcome
23. Tommy’s Holiday Camp
24. We’re Not Gonna Take It/See Me Feel Me/Listening To You

Tommy is arguably best digested in one go, which is natural in that it was designed as an opera/concept album. But – as in the case of, say, Money being pulled as a single from Pink Floyd’s concept The Dark Side Of The Moon – singles like Pinball Wizard and I’m Free were released from Tommy and, in Pinball Wizard’s case at least, landed on various Who compilations. So the album’s songs – The Acid Queen for me is another – can be appreciated outside the context of the larger work. It might just be me but in listening to the full piece for the first time in a while, I was reminded how many of the songs – 1921, Christmas, Cousin Kevin, Go To The Mirror!, Sally Simpson, Welcome among them – are perhaps not immediately recognizable by title but are instantly familiar, to anyone knowing the album, once the first notes of the tunes are heard. And of course there’s the interconnectivity of offerings like Overture, Underture and Sparks, although they are separated by other songs, with segments of them also sprinkled elsewhere within the album, all culminating in the epic We’re Not Gonna Take It/See Me, Feel Me/Listening To You suite that closes the album and The Who took to epic proportions live, particularly in the perhaps definitive version performed by the band at Woodstock. A remarkable record.

Kris Kristofferson, Blame It On The Stones

Lead track, from his 1970 debut album Kristofferson, a song written in defence of The Rolling Stones, who had just come out of the late 1969 chaos of the infamous Altamont concert, it references their 1966 drug-themed single Mother’s Little Helper and adult angst at the supposed antics and or ‘threat’ of younger generations. “Kids today’, in other words, when adults saying such things obviously forget they were once ‘kids today’. As Keith Richards once opined about what he considered the absurdity of the then to the Stones ‘elder’ establishment, particularly in home country of England, being worried about whatever damage a rock band could do, specifically discussing when he and Mick Jagger were briefly jailed after a 1967 drug bust:

“A country that’s been running a thousand years worried about two herberts running around? Do me a favor. That’s when you realize how fragile our little society is.” Herbert: (from The Lexicon of British slang) UK slang for a foolish person or used as a mild form of abuse. Normally prefixed by “spotty,” e.g. “Will ya look at that spotty Herbert!”

That and more such pearls of Keef wisdom are available in two books I recommend: Stone Me: The Wit and Wisdom of Keith Richards, compiled by Mark Blake and What Would Keith Richards Do? Daily Affirmations From A Rock ‘n’ Roll Survivor, by Jessica Pallington West.

As for Kristofferson, his debut album, beyond the Stones-related song, also included many of his perennials – Help Me Make It Through The Night, Casey’s Last Ride, Sunday Mornin’ Coming Down and of course his own version of his Me And Bobby McGee, which Janis Joplin took, posthumously, to No. 1 on her 1971 album Pearl, released in January of ’71, three months after her death. Kristofferson’s debut album, under its original title, was a commercial failure but after the success of the Joplin cover, was retitled Me And Bobby McGee in 1971 and – showing the power and name recognition of a hit single, cover version or otherwise – reached No. 10 on the country music charts and No. 43 on Billboard’s top 100.

The Rolling Stones – Between The Buttons (UK album track listing)

1. Yesterday’s Papers
2. My Obsession
3. Back Street Girl
4. Connection
5. She Smiled Sweetly
6. Cool, Calm & Collected
7. All Sold Out
8. Please Go Home
9. Who’s Been Sleeping Here?
10. Complicated
11. Miss Amanda Jones
12. Something Happened To Me Yesterday

I’ve never understood the noted English music journalist Roy Carr’s dismissal of this album. I respect Carr, who passed away in 2018, and music is of course subjective to everyone’s ears and tastes but when he – in his 1976 book The Rolling Stones: An Illustrated Record dismissed it as “a bunch of vaudevillian Kinks’ outtakes” I can only say:

1. Why criticize The Kinks, one of the greatest-ever bands?
2. Carr, you’re full of crap. Between The Buttons is a great, creative, inventive album. Amazing stuff like the beautiful She Smiled Sweetly and Backstreet Girl, the latter of which, along with the Bo Diddley-influenced rocker Please Go Home I first cottoned to via my older sister’s Flowers compilation. I’m fully on board with the so-called Big Four studio albums of Rolling Stones lore, those being, in order, the run from Beggars Banquet (1968) to Let It Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile On Main St. (1972) but the band released loads of amazing material, not just hit singles like Satisfaction but deeper cuts as on Between The Buttons, throughout the earlier 1960s Brian Jones era. To each one’s own, obviously, in terms of liking or appreciating, but when one considers that all of it is part of the Stones’ output, throughout the now 60-plus years they’ve been around, the breadth and depth of what they’ve released is mind-boggling.

As mentioned atop the set list program, I’m playing the UK version of Between The Buttons. As was the practice, at least back then, in the UK singles were usually not placed on albums. There wasn’t conformity on track listings on UK and US album releases until 1968 for bands like the Stones and The Beatles. The US/North American version of Between The Buttons thus featured the hit singles Let’s Spend The Night Together and Ruby Tuesday.

I had my show set up before I learned of the passing of singer/songwriter/actor Kris Kristofferson, so I’ll pay tribute to him either on my Saturday morning show Oct. 5 and/or next Monday night, Oct. 7/24. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Frank Zappa, The Torture Never Stops
2. Genesis, Squonk
3. Yes, Awaken
4. Rush, The Camera Eye
5. Santana, Blue Skies
6. Queen, Brighton Rock
7. Spirit, Mechanical World
8. Peter Frampton, The Lodger
9. Spooky Tooth, Lost In My Dream
10. U2, Volcano
11. Love, Stay Away
12. Tony Joe White, They Caught The Devil And Put Him In Jail In Eudora, Arkansas
13. Social Distortion, I Was Wrong
14. The Rolling Stones, I Don’t Know Why aka Don’t Know Why I Love You
15. Stevie Wonder, Heaven Is 10 Zillion Light Years Away
16. The Doors, When The Music’s Over

My track-by-track tales:

1. Frank Zappa, The Torture Never Stops . . . Near 10-minute piece from Zappa’s 1976 record Zoot Allures. As described by the allmusic review site, the album is a masterpiece of mostly dark, slow, sleazy rock exemplified by this track’s “suggestive lyrics, crawling riffs, searing solos, and female screams of pain”. It also is my tongue-in-cheek warning, for anyone who isn’t into extended, in particular prog-ish pieces, that you face ‘torture’ for the first hour of my set. Five songs to start including 15-plus minutes of Yes, 11 of Rush before we get to nine minutes of not prog but typically intoxicating Santana rhythmic adventures from the excellent 2019 release Africa Speaks.

2. Genesis, Squonk . . . One of my favorite Genesis tracks, from A Trick Of The Tail, the 1976 album that was the first for the band after the departure of lead singer Peter Gabriel. As often happens in such situations with such a key departure, people wondered whether the band would survive. But, as happened with similar occurences with AC/DC (the death of Bon Scott, replaced by Brian Johnson) and Van Halen (the departure of David Lee Roth, replaced by Sammy Hagar), the band persevered and went on to more triumphs although in all cases, probably least so with AC/DC, the music inevitably changed but while perhaps losing some fans, the band gained others.

In the case of Genesis, the music stayed largely progressive for a few albums: Wind and Wuthering, And Then There Were Three and Duke which, in order, followed A Trick Of The Tail – before going full-blown commercial with the 1981 album Abacab, which I quite like. But by then even Gabriel himself, in his solo career, had also and in fact even earlier than Genesis adapted his music to the changing nature of the market where, arguably, full-blown prog rock was relegated to the relative margins. As Phil Collins, who took over lead vocals from Gabriel in Genesis once remarked, Genesis likely would not have survived had the band not embraced a more commercial approach. It’s just the degree to which they did that arguably alienated some of the fan base, like me, for instance. I mean, Invisible Touch, the song? Ugh. Yet, loads of people liked it, massive hit, as was the parent album.

While I always knew of Genesis, it wasn’t until they had the commercial single hit Follow You, Follow Me from And Then There Were Three that I started to fully embrace them, then went back to the Gabriel period and forward with them. My first year of college, journalism school, 1978, playing football, I go to a post-game party with teammates and first song that greets us as we walk into the house that was the site of the gathering is Good Times Roll by The Cars, then someone changes the album on the stereo to A Trick Of The Tail and I’m having a beer with a senior teammate and I, the freshman to college, the team and to Genesis, mention to him that I’d just truly discovered Genesis via Follow You, Follow Me and the album And Then There Were Three. He shakes his head, the knowing vet schooling the rookie, tells me And Then There Were Three is ok, but holds up the album cover of A Trick Of The Tail he had grabbed from near the turntable and says “this is the one.” Thank you, Greg Colbeck, great defensive end, great guy, cool Fu Manchu mustache, heavy machinery equipment school, wherever you may now be.

3. Yes, Awaken . . . Fifteen-plus (15:28 to be exact) minutes of epic, prog-rock excellent excess. Enjoy, or not. I do. All the elements are there, heavy rock in spots, quiet introspection in others, all brilliantly played by master musicians. From the 1977 album Going For The One.

4. Rush, The Camera Eye . . . Instrumental intro builds into a driving, 11-minute excursion from 1981’s Moving Pictures album which yielded the hit single Tom Sawyer and well-known tracks such as Red Barchetta, Limelight and YYZ (the code for Toronto’s Pearson International Airport).

5. Santana, Blue Skies . . . A brew of beautiful sound in that typical Santana smorgasbord, harkening back to the early days on this late career triumph from 2019’s Africa Speaks album. Rivetting vocals from Carlos Santana’s song co-writers Buika, a Spanish singer, and English a capella, jazz, soul and gospel singer Laura Mvula in an extended piece that starts slow until Santana goes off on a guitar shredding trip 4:42 in before the song settles back in to the denouement.

6. Queen, Brighton Rock . . . Hard rock opener to 1974’s Sheer Heart Attack album, which featured the hit Killer Queen but did not include the song Sheer Heart Attack, a furious fast one which was originally intended as the obvious title track but was unfinished and didn’t appear until three albums later, on 1977’s News Of The World. A similar situation happened with the Led Zeppelin song Houses Of The Holy. It was recorded as the title track to the 1973 album but was held back to the next album, 1975’s Physical Graffiti, as the band decided it didn’t with with the rest of the material on Houses Of The Holy.

7. Spirit, Mechanical World . . . Dark, brooding, stop-start hypnotic psychedelic stuff from Spirit’s self-titled debut album in 1968. The album also featured the instrumental Taurus, which became the subject of a lawsuit as, to many ears, Led Zeppelin, often embroiled in plagiarism problems and who had opened for Spirit on Zep’s first North American tour, ripped off the intro to Taurus for the intro to Stairway To Heaven. However, Zeppelin won the case. Suffice it to say there’s lots of interesting reading about it, easily available online.

8. Peter Frampton, The Lodger . . . Many people know, and were introduced to, Frampton’s solo stuff via the former Humble Pie guitarist/singer/songwriter’s 1976 live album Frampton Comes Alive! Count me among those people. But the great songs on that album, in almost all cases, obviously came from previously recorded studio versions from Frampton’s solo career, and they’re worth investigating. Most of them – material from the massively successful live album like It’s A Plain Shame, Lines On My Face, I’ll Give You Money, Baby (Somethin’s Happening) and All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side) – were on his earlier studio albums Wind Of Change, Frampton’s Camel, Somethin’s Happening and Frampton. The Lodger, however, a nice track from Frampton’s 1972 solo debut Wind Of Change, was not on Frampton Comes Alive! Also available on the Frampton compilation Shine On, it featured Ringo Starr on drums and early 1970s Rolling Stones’ horn-playing sideman both in studio and on tour, Jim Price.

9. Spooky Tooth, Lost In My Dream . . . Haunting, atmospheric track from Spooky Two. People sometimes talk about the so-called sophomore slump in terms of albums and there are such cases, The Cars’ Candy-O comes to mind, among many. Candy-O actually outsold the Cars’ self-titled debut, obviously largely because the first album established the band and interest was high in what the band would do next. But while it’s very good, let’s be honest, Candy-O is not as good and if forced to pick one Cars album I’d suggest the pick would be the debut album which, like Elvis Costello’s My Aim Is True, for instance, is essentially a greatest hits album. Back to Spooky Tooth: A great track, Lost In My Dream also served as the title to an excellent 2-CD anthology of Spooky Tooth’s work. The band featured Gary Wright, later of Dream Weaver album and song, and Love Is Alive (the song, from the Dream Weaver album) solo fame and also, in later versions of Spooky Tooth, Mick Jones who went on to form Foreigner.

10. U2, Volcano . . . I have loads of CDs, yeah I’m old fashioned, to quote The Who, talkin’ ’bout my generation . . . but I also do a radio show and you can’t always rely on online sources because uploads come and go, or artists or record companies don’t permit them. So, it’s good to have the physical copies in hand. Anyway, I was going to purge some of my U2, particularly the big hit albums like The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby which I realized I had years ago burned onto CDs, with my own bonus cuts. So I’m thinking, why am I keeping the actual studio CDs, I mean, the liner notes and lyrics are nice to have but . . . I want money, that’s what I want! to quote that famous song.

But, surprisingly to me, no place that gives money for used physical music wants anything to do with these hit U2 albums. Not right now, anyway. Why? Well, as was explained to me, so many copies of those records were sold, so as they’ve been returned as formats and listening habits changed, most stores as a result have a glut of them. Fair enough, and understandable. At any rate, the whole ‘let’s see if I can get cash for these” scenario re U2 also involved their later stuff but I figured, give those albums another listen, maybe there’s something actually worth keeping there. And, blow me down, there is! Like this track, propulsive, addictive bass line for one thing, from U2’s 2014 Songs Of Innocence album. It’s the album that U2 had just sort of appear on iTunes downloads to people’s phones and other devices, which ticked lots of people off, including many musicians who thought, why are you just giving music away, you are enabling that practice. Lots of available reading on that topic, I won’t further indulge it here.

Bottom line, I went back and re-listened to latter day U2, and I’m keeping all of it. Great bands, think what one might want to think of them, but they are great for a reason: Most are incapable of doing bad work, no matter at what stage they’re at in their careers. Volcano, and its parent album, yet another example.

11. Love, Stay Away . . . A diatribe about and lament to lost love, from a Love album that could be seen as an Arthur Lee, Love’s leader and creative force, solo album, originally recorded in 1973. It featured a new version of Love, an all-black band, where the original Love had been integrated but Lee wanted to try different musicians and explore a funky direction also by that point influenced by the music of his by then late friend Jimi Hendrix. What became the album Black Beauty was issued on a label, Buffalo Records, that went out of business so, aside from bootlegs, the album didn’t see widespread light of day until 2014 via the reissue label High Moon. An album worth investigating, as is all of Arthur Lee and Love’s work.

12. Tony Joe White, They Caught The Devil And Put Him In Jail In Eudora, Arkansas . . . Irresistible title, irresistible swamp rock song by the late Louisiana-born artist best known for Polk Salad Annie, which was covered by Elvis Presley. Eudora is located in the southeastern tip of Arkansas, right by the border with Mississippi. Population, as of last reported, 2010 census, 2,269. That’s down 550 from 2000. Maybe the devil escaped and has something to do with the drop off.

13. Social Distortion, I Was Wrong . . . Arguably the California punk band’s lone mainstream hit, my favorite Social Distortion song, from the 1996 album White Light, White Heat, White Trash by which I was introduced to them. Lots of great stuff from the band, including a cover of Ring Of Fire, made famous by Johnny Cash.

14. The Rolling Stones, I Don’t Know Why aka Don’t Know Why I Love You . . . A Stevie Wonder cover from the Let It Bleed sessions with new guitarist Mick Taylor in place of Brian Jones, who had been in serious decline due to substance abuse and was fired by the band. This song was, apparently, recorded the night news came that Jones had died. It has appeared on the ridiculously rich musically Singles Collection: The London Years and on the 1975 Metamorphosis compilation released by former Stones’ manager Allen Klein on his ABKCO Records. Klein’s company – which had gained the rights to the Stones’ Decca/London Records catalog while the Stones had by then launched their own label, Rolling Stones Records featuring the iconic lips and tongue logo – was dredging the vaults for various unauthorized by the Stones yet successful compilation releases like Hot Rocks 1964-71 and its followup, More Hot Rocks (Big Hits and Fazed Cookies) which features deeper cuts.

15. Stevie Wonder, Heaven Is 10 Zillion Light Years Away . . . Here’s Wonder himself, from his 1974 album Fulfillingness’ First Finale. Always relevant if sadly not always followed lyrics – essentially summarizing live and let live, walk a mile and the golden rule.

16. The Doors, When The Music’s Over . . . And so it is, for another show. From the Strange Days album, the band’s second, a 1967 release and their that year. The self-titled first album came out in January, Strange Days in September.

Three albums from what at the time was often described as a group of angry young men – that being Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson and Graham Parker in their early, breakthrough years of the late 1970s when new wave and punk rock broke big.

First up is Elvis Costello’s debut My Aim Is True from 1977 followed by Joe Jackson’s first album, 1979’s Look Sharp! and Graham Parker’s 1979 album Squeezing Out Sparks. Rounding out the two-hour slot are three of my favorite songs from Parker’s 1980 album The Up Escalator.

Elvis Costello – My Aim Is True

1. Welcome To The Working Week
2. Miracle Man
3. No Dancing
4. Blame It On Cain
5. Alison
6. Sneaky Feelings
7. (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes
8. Less Than Zero
9. Mystery Dance
10. Pay It Back
11. I’m Not Angry
12. Waiting For The End Of The World
13. Watching The Detectives

Joe Jackson – Look Sharp!

1. One More Time
2. Sunday Papers
3. Is She Really Going Out With Him?
4. Happy Loving Couples
5. Throw It Away
6. Baby Stick Around
7. Look Sharp!
8. Fools In Love
9. (Do The) Instant Mash
10. Pretty Girls
11. Got The Time

Graham Parker and The Rumour – Squeezing Out Sparks

1. Discovering Japan
2. Local Girls
3. Nobody Hurts You
4. You Can’t Be Too Strong
5. Passion Is No Ordinary Word
6. Saturday Nite Is Dead
7. Love Gets You Twisted
8. Protection
9. Waiting For The UFOs
10. Don’t Get Excited

Graham Parker extras, a few favorites from The Up Escalator album

1. Devil’s Sidewalk
2. Stupefaction
3. Endless Night

A tribute to the songs of JD Souther, the songwriter well known particularly for his collaborations with the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt. Souther died at age 78 on Sept. 17.

So, a lot of Eagles/Don Henley and Ronstadt tracks, one by Warren Zevon, another by Bonnie Raitt and some stuff performed by Souther himself. Included is his biggest hit, You’re Only Lonely plus an early song with Glenn Frey of Eagles fame in Longbranch Pennywhistle plus work with former members of The Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers and Poco in the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band. My track-by-track tales follow the song list.

Souther was also an actor, with roles in Thirtysomething in 1989 and Nashville in 2012, with his other parts including small roles in the films Postcards From the Edge, Always, Purgatory, Deadline and My Girl 2. A thorough article on him in Variety: JD Souther

The set list:

1. Eagles, The Sad Cafe
2. Eagles, Victim Of Love
3. Bonnie Raitt, Run Like A Thief
4. Linda Ronstadt, White Rhythm And Blues
5. JD Souther, You’re Only Lonely
6. Linda Ronstadt, Prisoner In Disguise
7. Longbranch Pennywhistle, Kite Woman
8. Don Henley, Nobody’s Business
9. Eagles, You Never Cry Like A Lover
10. Linda Ronstadt, Silver Blue
11. The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, The Heartbreaker
12. Eagles, How Long
13. Don Henley, If Dirt Were Dollars
14. Linda Ronstadt, Simple Man, Simple Dream
15. Eagles, Doolin’ Dalton/Doolin’ Dalton instrumental/Doolin’ Dalton/Desperado (Reprise)
16. Don Henley, Man With A Mission
17. Eagles, James Dean
18. Warren Zevon, Trouble Waiting To Happen
19. Eagles, Last Good Time In Town

My track-by-track tales:

1. Eagles, The Sad Cafe . . . A JD Souther co-write along with Eagles members Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh from The Long Run album. Doing a deep cuts show using Eagles songs can be a challenge, since so many of their songs are widely known, like this one, and appeared on ‘hits’ compilations, as The Sad Cafe did on Eagles Greatest Hits Vol. 2 which came out in 1982, after the first breakup of the band. It was also was part of the double-disc 2003 The Very Best Of compilation. Featured is the saxophone playing of David Sanborn, who played on, besides his own, more albums, by myriad artists across the musical spectrum, than one could count. Look him up for the evidence.

2. Eagles, Victim Of Love . . . The B-side to New Kid In Town, also co-written by JD Souther, from the Hotel California album, and renowned in its own right. Nice guitar work by Don Felder, who c0-wrote the tune along with the usual Eagles songwriting suspects Glenn Frey and Don Henley.

3. Bonnie Raitt, Run Like A Thief . . . Nice ballad from before Raitt achieved widespread commercial success, from her 1975 album Home Plate, cover photo showing Bonnie sliding into, well, home plate. Souther recorded it for his 1972 debut solo album John David Souther and this is the first instance in the set of something that is common – Souther’s songs being done by him, and by other artists; sometimes Souther recorded his versions on his own albums first, other times he followed up previous releases of his songs that were done by others.

4. Linda Ronstadt, White Rhythm And Blues . . . From Ronstadt’s 1978 Living In The USA album, the one with her on roller skates on the cover, somewhat of a reminder for males of a certain age, like me, of Raquel Welch in the 1972 roller derby movie Kansas City Bomber. Both Welch and later Ronstadt were wearing old-time roller skates, not the inline skates of today. Anyway, back to the music. A lovely ballad featuring Ronstadt’s amazing voice. Souther, who was Ronstadt’s romantic partner for a time, did his own version, with Phil Everly of Everly Brothers fame, on harmony/backing vocals on Souther’s 1979 album You’re Only Lonely which yielded JD’s lone big individual chart hit, the title cut.

5. JD Souther, You’re Only Lonely . . . Speaking of which, here’s JD’s big solo hit, Roy Orbison-esque to the point I almost wrote it down as Orbison’s hit Only The Lonely. Both great tunes. You’re Only Lonely hit No. 7 on Billboard and No. 1, for several weeks, on the adult contemporary charts. Among those on the session were David Sanborn on saxophone, studio ace guitarist Danny Kortchmar and Eagles Glenn Frey, Don Felder and Don Henley.

6. Linda Ronstadt, Prisoner In Disguise . . . A beautiful duet with JD and the title cut from Ronstadt’s 1975 album. Souther had previously recorded it for the second Souther-Hillman-Furay Band album (more on them in a bit) and later on Natural History, Souther’s 2011 album of new recordings of his songs that achieved greater success when recorded by many of the artists in this set.

7. Longbranch Pennywhistle, Kite Woman . . . Easily identifiable as a precursor to Eagles music, from the duo of Souther and future Eagle Glenn Frey, 1969.

About Longbranch Pennywhistle, from Wikipedia:
“Longbranch Pennywhistle was a country rock/folk music group featuring Glenn Frey and John David Souther. They originally performed as “John David & Glenn,” but when they added bass player David Jackson, they were encouraged to come up with a new name. Frey suggested “Longbranch,” Souther came up with “Pennywhistle,” and the names were merged at the suggestion of manager Doug Weston. They released a self-titled album in 1969 under Jimmy Bowen’s Amos Records label. Frey had made the migration from Detroit to California and Souther from Amarillo, Texas and were adapting to what would become the California sound. When the Amos Records label dissolved in 1971 the group had already disbanded the year prior.

Frey went on to co-found the Eagles and Souther wrote or co-wrote several of the Eagles’ most popular songs, along with hits for Linda Ronstadt. He also was a third of the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band.”

8. Don Henley, Nobody’s Business . . . Uptempo tune that gallops along, from Henley’s 1982 debut solo album I Can’t Stand Still which featured the hit Dirty Laundry. Co-written, along with Henley, by Souther and Bob Seger, the three of whom combined, with Glenn Frey, to write the earlier Eagles hit Heartache Tonight from The Long Run album.

9. Eagles, You Never Cry Like A Lover . . . Ballad from 1974’s On The Border, which introduced guitarist Don Felder to the Eagles’ lineup.

10. Linda Ronstadt, Silver Blue . . . From Ronstadt’s 1975 album Prisoner in Disguise and another one of those instances where Souther later did his own version of a song he wrote. JD’s Silver Blue came out on his Black Rose album in 1976.

11. The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, The Heartbreaker . . . Funky country rocker from the trio’s 1974 debut album. Group members: JD Souther, Chris Hillman of Byrds, Flying Burrito Brothers and Stephen Stills’ Manassas’ fame and Richie Furay of Buffalo Springfield and Poco – which later included future Eagle Timothy B. Schmit.

12. Eagles, How Long . . . Jaunty number from Souther’s 1972 debut album John David Souther. The Eagles covered it on their 2007 album Long Road Out Of Eden, which was their first full album of new material since 1979’s The Long Run.

13. Don Henley, If Dirt Were Dollars . . . From Henley’s biggest hit album, 1989’s The End Of The Innocence. Could easily have been a hit and I think is pretty well known. Great tune, great lyrics, often caustic or world-weary and realistic which is the case any time Henley and Souther are involved. The line “I was flyin’ back from Lubbock I saw Jesus on the plane . . . or maybe it was Elvis, you know, they kinda look the same’ from the first verse is worth the price of admission alone, to me, anyway. Henley had three top 40 singles off the record – The End Of The Innocence, The Heart Of The Matter and The Last Worthless Evening, plus a No. 48, New York Minute.

14. Linda Ronstadt, Simple Man, Simple Dream . . . From JD Souther’s Black Rose album in 1976, this version cut by Ronstadt for her Simple Dreams album in 1977 which also featured her hit covers of The Rolling Stones’ Tumbling Dice, Buddy Holly’s It’s So Easy, Roy Orbison’s Blue Bayou and Warren Zevon’s Poor Poor Pitiful Me. Souther’s Black Rose also includes his own version of his Faithless Love, which Ronstadt covered in 1974 and I played last Saturday morning in my teaser to tonight’s show featuring Souther’s songs.

15. Eagles, Doolin’ Dalton/Doolin’ Dalton instrumental/Doolin’ Dalton/Desperado (Reprise) . . . Nine minutes or so I’ve pieced together from the Desperado album, where all three songs, including the short instrumental part, appear at different stages of the 1973 release. Doolin’ Dalton leads the album off, then halfway through comes the 48-second banjo pickin’ instrumental featuring Bernie Leadon, before the album wraps up with the reprise including elements of the song Desperado.

16. Don Henley, Man With A Mission . . . From Henley’s second solo album, 1984’s Building The Perfect Beast which gave us the hits The Boys Of Summer, Sunset Grill, All She Wants To Do Is Dance and Not Enough Love In The World. I hadn’t listened to Man With A Mission in a long time but in revisiting it, I hear in it elements, in terms of the arrangement, to the later Eagles’ song Get Over It which was one of the studio cuts on the 1994 reunion live album Hell Freezes Over.

17. Eagles, James Dean . . . A tribute to the actor who died at age 24 in an auto accident. Toe-tapping rocker was the second single, after Already Gone, released from the 1974 album On The Border, but made just No. 77 in the US, No. 56 in Canada. The B-side was Good Day In Hell, the first song on which then-new Eagles guitarist Don Felder announced his musical presence after joining the album sessions midway through.

18. Warren Zevon, Trouble Waiting To Happen . . . Back to Zevon’s 1987 album Sentimental Hygiene I go, was there last Monday, Sept. 16 with The Factory, before JD Souther died and I thought of doing a tribute to him via his songs. Co-written by Zevon and Souther, who also did backing vocals on various Zevon albums.

19. Eagles, Last Good Time In Town . . . Santana-esque hypnotic groove on this one Souther co-wrote with Joe Walsh, from the 2007 Eagles album Long Road Out Of Eden. It rivals the title cut as my favorite from that record.

I’m leading off with three ‘morning’ songs, for my morning show, by Bad Company, early Chicago and The Beatles. I conclude with a couple songs, by the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt, written or co-written by JD (John David) Souther, who died at age 78 this past week. It’s a teaser to a set featuring his songs I’m planning for my next Monday night show, 8-10 pm ET on Sept. 23.

In between, on Saturday’s menu are a pair of one-off studio albums: David + David’s Boomtown, from 1986, and the self-titled album by Arc Angels featuring bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton from the late Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble band, released in 1992. While Arc Angels, also comprised of singers/guitarists Charlie Sexton and Doyle Bramhall II, did later release a live album, neither of these artists, at least collectively, have so far issued any other studio work.

I had already planned to play some Arc Angels, hadn’t done so in a while. I was then inspired to play the David + David record, which I’ve often drawn from, by a conversation I had on X/Twitter the other day when someone asked which great albums one might consider to be underrated or underappreciated. I replied with Boomtown, thus launching a spirited, fun chat about the merits of that album. I then realized that Arc Angels was also a great one-off studio project, and here we are.

Of the two Davids, both of whom helped out Sheryl Crow on her 1993 debut album Tuesday Night Music Club, Baerwald, a singer/guitarist/keyboard player, has released sporadic solo albums I’ve drawn from on the show while delving into film and TV soundtracks, also writing an espionage novel, The Fire Agent. Ricketts, also a singer/guitarist/keyboardist, has done some session work but mostly concentrated on production.

Concluding the set are Eagles and Ronstadt songs written and/or co-written by Souther, who died on Sept. 17 at age 78. Souther is one of those artists whose songwriting is pervasive, particularly with the Eagles and Ronstadt, yet it was others, like those artists, who had more commercial success with Souther’s songs than he did. That said, Souther related, in a chat with The Creative Independent, how he was sometimes asked whether it disturbed him that the Eagles had so many hits – New Kid In Town, Best Of My Love, Heartache Tonight among them – with songs he’d written or co-written. His reply was, ‘Would you like to see the (royalty) checks? Pissed off? How could I be pissed off?”

I’m planning to dig deeper into Souther and his songs, both performed by him and others, on Monday night’s show (8-10 pm ET, Sept. 23).

Saturday’s set:

1. Bad Company, Early In The Morning
2. Chicago, Wake Up Sunshine
3. The Beatles, Good Morning Good Morning

David + David – Boomtown

1. Welcome To The Boomtown
2. Swallowed By The Cracks
3. Ain’t So Easy
4. Being Alone Together
5. A Rock For The Forgotten
6. River’s Gonna Rise
7. Swimming In The Ocean
8. All Alone In The Big City
9. Heroes

Arc Angels – Arc Angels

1. Living In A Dream
2. Paradise Cafe
3. Sent By Angels
4. Sweet Nadine
5. Good Time
6. See What Tomorrow Brings
7. Always Believed In You
8. The Famous Jane
9. Spanish Moon
10. Carry Me On
11. Shape I’m In
12. Too Many Ways To Fall

And a two-song teaser for a tribute show to singer/songwriter/musician/actor JD Souther coming 8-10 pm ET Monday, Sept. 23. Souther died at age 78 on Tuesday, Sept. 17.

1. Eagles, Teenage Jail (co-written by Souther, Don Henley and Glenn Frey)
2. Linda Ronstadt, Faithless Love (written by Souther)