A blues-blues rock-oriented show, leading with Colin James in recognition of his headlining slot at the annual Kitchener Blues Festival which began Thursday night here and runs through Sunday.

Included in the set are blues legends/influencers like John Lee Hooker, his cousin Earl Hooker and Muddy Waters, the early, Peter Green-led blues version of Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack with Christine Perfect, later Christine McVie and a future Mac member on lead vocals, Jethro Tull from that band’s first, blues-oriented album This Was and atypical AC/DC with the bluesy Ride On. It’s from the 1976 album (not released in North America until 1981) Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap and later appeared on the 1986 album Who Made Who which is the soundtrack to the movie Maximum Overdrive, loosely based on Stephen King’s short story Trucks.

1. Colin James, Real Stuff
2. Fleetwood Mac, Cold Black Night
3. Ten Years After, I Woke Up This Morning
4. The Butterfield Blues Band, Morning Blues
5. Chicken Shack, I’d Rather Go Blind
6. The Allman Brothers Band, You Don’t Love Me (live, from At Fillmore East)
7. Jethro Tull, It’s Breaking Me Up
8. John Lee Hooker, It Serves You Right To Suffer
9. Earl Hooker, Wah Wah Blues
10. Muddy Waters, The Blues Had A Baby And They Named It Rock & Roll
11. Johnny Winter, Like A Rolling Stone
12. The Rolling Stones, Ventilator Blues
13. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Dirty Pool
14. Rory Gallagher, I Could’ve Had Religion (from Live In Europe)
15. Eric Clapton, Double Trouble (live, from Just One Night)
16. Boz Scaggs, Loan Me A Dime (Duane Allman slide guitar)
17. Led Zeppelin, Tea For One
18. AC/DC, Ride On

Lots of covers (and radical reinventions in some cases, like Oingo Boingo doing The Kinks and XTC doing Bob Dylan) plus a one-hit wonder segment including In The Year 2525 by Sager and Evans, Venus by Shocking Blue and Mason Williams’ Classical Gas. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Jeff Healey, Jambalaya (On the Bayou) (Hank Williams cover)
2. Cat Stevens, Indian Ocean
3. Phil Collins, Tomorrow Never Knows (Beatles cover)
4. Love, August
5. Martha and The Muffins, About Insomnia
6. The Rolling Stones, Love In Vain (Robert Johnson cover, from semi-acoustic live, part studio album Stripped, studio session with false start including laugh-filled discussion over screwup)
7. Zager and Evans, In The Year 2525
8. Mason Williams, Classical Gas
9. Shocking Blue, Venus
10. 999, Homicide
11. XTC, All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover)
12. Oingo Boingo, You Really Got Me (Kinks cover)
13. Slash featuring Demi Lovato, Papa Was A Rolling Stone (Temptations cover)
14. The Doors, The Spy
15. Robert Plant, Embrace Another Fall
16. Mudcrutch, Lover Of The Bayou (Byrds cover)
17. Van Morrison, T.B. Sheets
18. Booker T. & The M.G.’s, Melting Pot
19. Kris Kristofferson, Me and Bobby McGee
20. Robert Palmer, Remember To Remember

My track-by-track tales:

1. Jeff Healey, Jambalaya (On the Bayou) (Hank Williams cover) . . . Rocking version of the Hank Williams classic, released on Healey’s 2008 album Mess Of Blues, a covers album which came out just two weeks after his passing, of cancer, at age 41. Healey had previously released another covers album, Cover To Cover, in 1995.

2. Cat Stevens, Indian Ocean . . . One of my favorite Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam songs, a touching ‘world music’ track first released as a digital download to benefit 2004 Asian/Indian Ocean earthquake/tsunami relief efforts. It saw physical release on the 2005 compilation Cat Stevens Gold.

3. Phil Collins, Tomorrow Never Knows (Beatles cover) . . . From his debut solo release, Face Value, issue in 1981 which featured the big hit In The Air Tonight and another top 10 track in Canada and the USA, I Missed Again. I first heard the album, playing over the store’s sound system, while browsing a record store in the San Francisco Bay Area with one of my younger brothers during some time I spent in California the spring and summer of 1981.

4. Love, August . . . Well, it is August, so I figure I had to get this in before the end of the month. From the fourth Love album, 1969’s Four Sail, a somewhat harder rocking album, of which this song is an example, than the previous psychedelic fare serve up by Arthur Lee and friends, although any Love is good Love, to me. Great band, never sold all that many records but hugely influential particularly via albums like the seminal 1967 release Forever Changes.

5. Martha and The Muffins, About Insomnia . . . A track, actually a single that didn’t chart, from 1980’s Trance and Dance album. It’s about (not really but it fits) my last couple nights of not getting much sleep, just an hour or two here and there but I’m in remarkably fine fettle all things considered. Martha and The Muffins is of course best-known for the 1979 hit single Echo Beach although they had other hits, at least in home country Canada, like Paint By Number Heart, Women Around The World At Work, Danseparc (Every Day It’s Tomorrow) and Black Stations/White Stations (during the 1983-86 period when the band was also known as M + M).

6. The Rolling Stones, Love In Vain (Robert Johnson cover, from semi-acoustic live, part studio 1995 album Stripped) . . . From a studio session in Tokyo with false start including brief laugh-filled discussion between Ron Wood and Keith Richards about guitar arpeggios after Wood messes up (sounded fine to me but I don’t play guitar) and wants to start over. Love In Vain has a long history with the Stones, dating to its first studio release on 1969’s Let It Bleed album, the 1970 live album Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out! and many concert renditions since.

7. Zager and Evans, In The Year 2525 . . . First in my one-hit wonder mini-set. I’ve been planning to play this and the several songs that follow, for a few weeks, finally getting to it for tonight’s show. Not much more to say about these songs except they’re great and, so what if the artists never approached the same commercial heights, they did what they did and their legacy is assured.

8. Mason Williams, Classical Gas . . . From the 1968 album The Mason Williams Phonograph Record. Williams may have been a one-hit wonder but still with us at age 85 he is/was an accomplished writer and comedian, among other artistic pursuits. Among his comedy writing credits are The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour and Saturday Night Live.

9. Shocking Blue, Venus . . . They were a one-hit wonder (but actually maybe not, more on that in a bit) featuring the striking singer Mariska Veres who sadly died young, of cancer, age 59 in 2006. But in putting together the show I explored the Dutch band’s ouevre and in addition to their own stuff, like Venus and Send Me A Postcard (with Veres sounding like Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, or vice-versa) they did fine covers of Hank Williams’ Jambalaya, just a terrific up-tempo reinvention of the tune I played earlier in the show as covered by Canadian Jeff Healey, and the classic John D. Loudermilk tune Tobacco Road.

10. 999, Homicide . . . Not sure why but I scared the shit out of a friend years ago and she told me as much the next day, she was listening to the show, when I played this track from the English punk/new wave band. It’s just a song, as I told her, it’s arguably aggressive for sure but it’s not advocating anything the way I read the lyrics and there’s any number of songs about disturbing subject matter. Like for example Polly, by Nirvana, about the abduction, rape, and torture of a 14-year-old girl returning home from a punk rock concert in Tacoma, Washington in 1987 that I played fairly recently. I like Polly a lot musically but it’s quite disturbing to the point I’m often reluctant to play it and almost feel bad for liking it, musically, but, fortunately, the perpetrator was caught and is behind bars, serving two concurrent 75-year terms. In any event, Homicide by 999 is a propulsive track, hit No. 40 on the charts in 1978, my first year of college which coincided with punk/new wave breaking big and contributing to opening my musical horizons.

11. XTC, All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover) . . . I like lots of XTC, including of course the hit that got me and many people into them, 1979’s Making Plans For Nigel, but I’d never heard their cover of the Dylan tune until I went down the YouTube rabbit hole some time back. XTC reinterpreted the Dylan tune, as Jimi Hendrix also of course did, in a different fashion, on the band’s 1978 debut album White Music.

12. Oingo Boingo, You Really Got Me (Kinks cover) . . . I discovered this major reinterpretation by the California ska/new wave band of The Kinks’ classic while listening to some of the earlier songs in the set, on YouTube, as I prepared tonight’s show. Playing it reminds me and brings a smile to my face, of my equally music-loving younger brother, into classic rock along with me, Stones, etc. with his ‘what’s happened to you?’ when he at some point saw my late 70s early 80s punk/new wave albums, Haircut One Hundred, Fabulous Poodles and the like. He said something like, what next, Oingo Boingo? Not at the time, although I’d heard of them and thought the name was cool, but here I go playing them. Cool version, akin to, say, how Devo reinvented the Stones’ Satisfaction.

13. Slash featuring Demi Lovato, Papa Was A Rolling Stone (Temptations cover) . . . From Orgy of the Damned, a covers album by the Guns N’ Roses, Velvet Revolver, Slash’s Snakepit etc. guitarist, released just a couple months ago, May 2024.

14. The Doors, The Spy . . . Spooky sort of track, musically and lyrically, from 1970’s Morrison Hotel album.

15. Robert Plant, Embrace Another Fall . . . Intoxicating experimental world beat folk rock from Plant’s 2014 album Lullaby . . . and the Ceaseless Roar as Plant continues on his late career amazing musical explorations.

16. Mudcrutch, Lover Of The Bayou (The Byrds cover) . . . Tom Petty’s original, pre-Heartbreakers band which reformed and released two studio albums, in 2008 and 2016 before Petty’s 2017 passing. Here, from the first Mudcrutch album, the band covers one of my favorite Byrds tunes and of course Petty was hugely influenced musically by The Byrds, to whom he and friends pay great tribute on this track.

17. Van Morrison, T.B. Sheets . . . Near 10-minute piece, his voice as always an instrument in itself, from Van the Man’s 1967 debut solo album Blowin’ Your Mind after he left Them.

18. Booker T. & The M.G.’s, Melting Pot . . . Title cut, typical funky R & B fuelled instrumental rock, from the band’s 1971 album.

19. Kris Kristofferson, Me and Bobby McGee . . . Sometimes a song covered by someone else overshadows the original, which is what Janis Joplin’s No. 1 cover of the KK tune did. As did, maybe, Roger Miller’s cover. Or the one by Jerry Lee Lewis. Yet . . . crazy as it maybe sounds, as with Jimi Hendrix’s reinterpretation of Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower which even Dylan himself said became ‘a Jimi Hendrix song’, I still prefer the originals while loving the covers. Honestly. I mean, I absolutely love the Joplin version, particularly the way she sings the “windshield wipers slappin’ ‘taaaam” (time)’ but well, Kristofferson if one checks out his stuff Bobby McGee and beyond is/was just an amazing songwriter. And emotive singer. In any case, his song includes one of the best, and perhaps most true or accurate lines ever, depending obviously upon how one looks at life: But I’d trade all of my tomorrows for a single yesterday. And I don’t live in the past, but sometimes would be interesting to go back.

20. Robert Palmer, Remember To Remember . . . He topped the charts later on with stuff like Addicted To Love and so on but for me, it’s the back-to-back albums, Secrets in 1979 and Clues in 1980. Track-for-track excellent, this one from Secrets whose hit was the cover of the Moon Martin-penned Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor).

A ‘brothers’ set airing for a Saturday morning. I was undecided as to what direction to go for Saturday’s show until something in my brain told me I had not played The Doobie Brothers in a while. So that led to loading a bunch of Doobies songs into the system, which led to loading songs by bands with ‘Brothers’ in their name, which further led to what I finally settled on, a brother act show featuring bands that include actual brothers and bands which may not be so familial but feature the word ‘Brothers’ in their name. Must be something to do with the fact I am one of four brothers (and one sister).

So: We have AC/DC with the Young brothers, Angus and Malcolm, Collective Soul with the Roland brothers Ed and Dean, the Allmans of Duane and Gregg, The Kinks of the forever fractious Ray and Dave Davies, early Dire Straits which featured Mark and David Knopfler for the first few albums, the similarly to The Kinks at odds Everly Brothers Don and Phil, same with the Oasis brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher, the Wilson brothers and cousin Mike Love in The Beach Boys, the brothers Gibb of the Bee Gees, John and Tom Fogerty of CCR, at various points Randy, Tim and Rob Bachman in Bachman-Turner Overdrive, the Van Halen brothers guitarist Eddie and drummer Alex, and Dean and Robert DeLeo of Stone Temple Pilots.

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

1. AC/DC, Let There Be Rock
2. Collective Soul, Disciplined Breakdown
3. The Allman Brothers Band, Heart Of Stone
4. The Doobie Brothers, Toulouse Street
5. The Kinks, Living On A Thin Line
6. Dire Straits, In The Gallery
7. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Wild Horses
8. The Everly Brothers, Crying In The Rain
9. The Beach Boys, Sail On Sailor
10. Bee Gees, Lonely Days
11. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Effigy
12. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Blue Moanin’
13. Van Halen, Cabo Wabo (Sammy Hagar lead vocals)
14. Van Halen, D.O.A. (David Lee Roth lead vocals)
15. Van Halen, Year To The Day (Gary Cherone lead vocals)
16. Oasis, I Am The Walrus (live)
17. The Chambers Brothers, Time Has Come Today
18. Stone Temple Pilots, All In The Suit That You Wear
19. The Allman Brothers Band, Mountain Jam (live, from Eat A Peach, recorded March 13, 1971 at Fillmore East, New York City)

My track-by-track tales:

1. AC/DC, Let There Be Rock . . . Title cut from the band’s 1977 album, Bon Scott still around and on lead vocals, and it does, er, rock as Bon, lyrically, takes us through the history of rock and roll music, to that point.

2. Collective Soul, Disciplined Breakdown . . . Title cut from the band’s 1997 release, typically grungy, tuneful guitar work.

3. The Allman Brothers Band, Heart Of Stone . . . No brothers in The Rolling Stones, my favorite band who I always play, but I’ll always figure a way to get them in my sets. 🙂 This is the Allmans’ fine cover of the early Stones’ tune, released on the final Allmans’ studio album, Hittin’ The Note, a terrific statement released in 2003.

4. The Doobie Brothers, Toulouse Street . . . Hauntingly beautiful, somewhat spooky title cut from the band’s 1972 album.

5. The Kinks, Living On A Thin Line . . . A minor hit, one of my favorite Kinks tracks, written and sung by guitarist Dave Davies, easily one of his best, a passionate vocal performance commentary on England at the time of writing.

“All the stories have been told of kings and days of old but there’s no England now . . . all the wars that were won and lost somehow don’t seem to matter so much anymore . . . all the lies we were told . . . I see change but inside we’re the same as we ever were . . . Now another century nearly gone, what are we gonna leave for the young? . . . ”

It’s from the 1984 album Word Of Mouth and the song was used later in an episode of The Sopranos but I’m not much of a TV series buff outside of Star Trek and a few others, so never heard it there. But if the show gave the song deserved exposure, that’s great. Word Of Mouth was the last in a commercial hot streak, certainly at least in North America, for The Kinks that started with the 1979 album Low Budget and continued through 1981’s Give The People What They Want and 1983’s State Of Confusion which featured the hits Come Dancing and Don’t Forget To Dance.

6. Dire Straits, In The Gallery . . . Yet another fine, bluesy cut from the band’s self-titled debut album, released in 1978.

7. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Wild Horses . . . A cover of The Rolling Stones’ tune, came out on the Burritos’ second album, Burrito Deluxe, released in 1970, a year before the Stones’ own version appeared on their Sticky Fingers album. By that point, Burritos’ leader Gram Parsons and the Stones’ Keith Richards had become friends and sometime collaborators at least in terms of influencing each other’s music. A nice version of an amazing song, one I was revisiting the other day via the version on the Stones’ live semi-acoustic 1995 album Stripped, a very worthwhile listen.

8. The Everly Brothers, Crying In The Rain . . . A No. 6 hit in the USA in 1961, not quite as successful elsewhere but relatively well-known.

9. The Beach Boys, Sail On Sailor . . . One of my favorite Beach Boys songs, released in 1973 via the Holland album. Sail On Sailor was a single, pretty well known I would think although it made little dent in the charts, grazing the top 50, or worse, depending on country. It was an interesting period for the band, thought by many to be a spent force distanced from their hugely hit successful surfer music of the 1960s, some conflict within the group as to whether they should progress musically or rely on past hits at least in terms of live performance, yet they came up with an excellent track like this, sung by new guitarist Blondie Chaplin, later a studio session player and touring musician with The Rolling Stones.

10. Bee Gees, Lonely Days . . . The Bee Gees tend to get pigeonholed by some as a disco band given their contributions to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, late 1970s but they were truly an amazing band well before that, as this earlier multi-part track from the 1970 album 2 Years On demonstrates.

11. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Effigy . . . Extended cut from CCR’s 1969 album Willie and the Poor Boys, remarkably perhaps the prolific band’s third studio album release that year. Obviously known for their well-known hit singles, CCR was, as demonstrated by songs like this jam, far more.

12. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Blue Moanin’ . . . A typical BTO chugger, particularly when C.F. (Fred Turner) is singing.

13. Van Halen, Cabo Wabo (Sammy Hagar lead vocals) . . . First of three from the various configurations of Van Halen, this the Van Hagar version, from the OU812 album, the second of four studio records with Hagar on lead vocals.

14. Van Halen, D.O.A. (David Lee Roth lead vocals) . . . One of my favorites from the Roth version of the band, a kick butt tune from VH II.

15. Van Halen, Year To The Day (Gary Cherone lead vocals) . . . From the ill-fated Van Halen 3 version, which is what that lineup’s lone studio album, released in 1998, was called. It bombed, relatively speaking, although it was a top five charting record, actually but of course many fans would buy it out of brand recongition and curiousity about the new lineup. It took me many listens but I did finally ‘get’ the record although I think it simply wasn’t to most VH fans’ taste. Many never accepted Cherone, the style of music was different, most of the songs, like this near-nine minute track, were longer, less immediate and with fewer obvious hooks, almost progressive rock in spots, than what the band had produced to that point, although Cabo Wabo from OU812 checks in at seven minutes. Still, aside from two short instrumental interludes, every song on Van Halen 3 was at least 5:30 in length, somewhat atypical for the band. Soon enough, Hagar was back to record some new tracks for a double disc compilation. What then followed was what became an ill-fated reunion tour of the Van Hagar lineup, although I saw the first leg of the trek in Toronto and it was a great show. But a big Van Halen fan friend of mine, who had seen the Toronto concert, also saw a later gig, five months later in Hamilton, Ontario and said it was awful, the conflicts within the band evident on stage and affecting the music, as were Eddie Van Halen’s struggles with substance abuse.

16. Oasis, I Am The Walrus (live) . . . The Gallagher brothers pay homage to one of their acknowledged influences, The Beatles. The track was recorded at a concert in Glasgow, Scotland in 1994 and first released in an 8-minute version as the B-side to the hit single Cigarettes and Alcohol. I’m playing the edited 6:25 version that appeared on The Masterplan, a 1998 compilation of B-sides that hadn’t made it to albums at that point.

17. The Chambers Brothers, Time Has Come Today . . . Yeah, it was a hit, No. 11 in the US, No. 9 in Canada, but it’s by a band of real brothers and I occasionally play singles one might not have heard in a while, despite mine being for the very most part a deep cuts show. What’s interesting about Time Has Come Today is the number of versions of it that were done. The original 1966 version, clocking in at 2:37, was rejected by Columbia Records. The band then released the full 11:06 epic version of psychedelic soul as the ostensible title cut of the 1967 album The Time Has Come. Then came two hit single versions, both released in 1968 – one a 3:05 edit and the other 4:45. I’m playing the 4:45 version but all of them are of course excellent.

18. Stone Temple Pilots, All In The Suit That You Wear . . . A to that point unreleased track that came out on the band’s hits compilation, Thank You, in 2003. I like a lot of STP’s stuff, saw them as an opening act for The Rolling Stones on the Voodoo Lounge tour stop in Toronto in 1994, one of the more memorable performances I’ve experienced from Stones’ opening acts I’ve witnessed over many shows over the years. Some of them: AC/DC at the 2003 SARS Toronto Rocks show (also have seen AC/DC on their own) and also at SARS, Rush, The Guess Who including Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings at a time before legal issues over naming rights cropped up, The Isley Brothers, The Tea Party, Sass Jordan, Blue Rodeo, The Flaming Lips . . . at other Stones shows: Atlanta Rhythm Section, Big Sugar (have also seen them separately in a small venue, great band but too bloody loud for my ears, frankly; I wore ear plugs but was seriously worried until the ringing stopped three days later), The White Stripes, No Doubt, Beck. That’s the great thing sometimes, going to concerts by iconic acts like the Stones; the undercard so to speak can be so rewarding which is why I always take in opening acts. Like Pretenders opening for The Who in Toronto in 2006, or Slayer for Judas Priest in 2004, etc.

19. The Allman Brothers Band, Mountain Jam . . . (live, from Eat A Peach, recorded March 13, 1971 at Fillmore East, New York City) . . . 33 minutes the Allmans had the great ability to jam for almost literally hours on end and never be boring. This version was originally split in two on first vinyl pressings of Eat A Peach but has since come out as the one full version on CD reissues of the album and various expanded re-releases of the At Fillmore East album.

Music for a Monday night . . .

1. The Guess Who, Key
2. Steppenwolf, Monster/Suicide/America
3. Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Change Your Mind
4. Neil Young, Scenery (from 1995’s Mirror Ball album, with Pearl Jam as Young’s backing band)
5. Dire Straits, Once Upon A Time In The West (live)
6. Headstones, Hotel Room
7. Saga, Humble Stance
8. Klaatu, Around The Universe In 80 Days
9. Queen, The Prophet’s Song
10. Rainbow, Mistreated (live)
11. Mick Taylor, Twisted Sister
12. The Rolling Stones, Around And Around (live, Love You Live El Mocambo side)