Track-by-track tales after the bare-bones list.

1. Fleetwood Mac, Coming Your Way
2. The Rolling Stones, Bye Bye Johnny (live, 1972)
3. Arthur Lee, One And One
4. James Cotton, Cotton Crop Blues
5. Howlin’ Wolf, Mr. Highway Man (Cadillac Daddy)
6. Roy Orbison, Go Go Go
7. Bruce Cockburn, Blind Willie
8. Blind Willie Johnson, Dark Was The Night
9. Dixie Dregs, Refried Funky Chicken
10. Elvin Bishop, Travelin’ Shoes
11. The Charlie Daniels Band, The South’s Gonna Do It Again
12. Wet Willie, Street Corner Serenade
13. Hank Williams, There’s A Tear In My Beer
14. Link Wray, Run Chicken Run
15. Roy Buchanan, Five String Blues
16. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Mary Had A Little Lamb (live)
17. Jerry Lee Lewis, End Of The Road
18. Grateful Dead, Dark Star (live, from Live/Dead)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Fleetwood Mac, Coming Your Way . . . Opening track to likely my favorite Fleetwood Mac album, the last of the Peter Green era, 1969’s Then Play On. I played Although The Sun Is Shining from the album a few weeks ago, it stuck in my head and this is another Danny Kirwan composition from that record. Amazing percussive power courtesy drummer Mick Fleetwood on this one, a gem from an album that, like so many of the albums I cherish, and I probably mention too much, stems from my older brother (RIP) by eight years bringing them home and opening my eyes and ears beyond, at the time, during the 1960s, The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Monkees. I suppose I’d have eventually embraced them but were it not for my brother it may have taken me longer to get into such bands and artists as the bluesy Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Jethro Tull, Jimi Hendrix, Cream and Bob Dylan, to name just a few.

2. The Rolling Stones, Bye Bye Johnny (live, 1972) . . . From the Stones’ 1972 show at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Raucous cover of the Chuck Berry tune, including Mick Jagger’ shambolic intro of the band, who’s playing what, followed by Keith Richards ripping into the opening riff. I own this on at least two bootlegs from back in the days when you couldn’t get this stuff, officially, although most of the songs from that 1972 tour later came out on Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones which was also the name of an earlier bootleg, although the Bye Bye Johnny on that album was from a Houston, Texas performance, not from New York. In any event, I was in my friendly neighborhood independent record store some time back and lo and behold there’s an album, The Rolling Stones Madison Square Garden 1972 from a heretofore unknown to me at least label London Calling released in 2023 so, natch, I buy it and here you go, the sort of unofficial official release.

3. Arthur Lee, One And One . . . Reggae tune from the Love (band) leader’s self-titled 1981 album.

4. James Cotton, Cotton Crop Blues . . . First of a few in the set from an amazing compilation I dug up in my collection, while doing some long overdue spring cleaning (from last spring, 2023, not 2024 lol). The 2-CD set is called Sam Phillips: The Man Who Invented Rock ‘N’ Roll and features sides recorded for Phillips’ Sun Records label. There’s also an accompanying book with the same title although when I purchased the CD some time back now, the book wasn’t part of the package – but the CD liner notes are quite extensive.

5. Howlin’ Wolf, Mr. Highway Man (Cadillac Daddy). . . Boogie tune featuring those unique Howlin’ Wolf guttural vocals propelled by the driving piano of a gent named L.C. Hubert, taken from the Sam Phillips tribute disc I mentioned with the previous track.

6. Roy Orbison, Go Go Go . . . Here’s another driving boogie rocker from that tribute to Phillips collection, featuring that remarkable voice of Roy Orbison.

7. Bruce Cockburn, Blind Willie . . . A tribute to Blind Willie Johnson, from Cockburn’s 2019 instrumental album Crowing Ignites.

8. Blind Willie Johnson, Dark Was The Night . . . Cold was the ground. Here’s the gospel blues legend himself, with those amazing ‘moaning’ vocals which might not directly express themselves with words but are nevertheless immensely compelling in their pure soulfulness. This is deep, emotional music recorded in 1927, nearly 100 years ago still to be cherished and appreciated for not only its quality but its influence on subsequent musical statements.

9. Dixie Dregs, Refried Funky Chicken . . . So I’m plowing through my CD collection and up comes a ‘country gold’ compilation which leads not only to this funky instrumental track by the Steve Morse (later of Deep Purple fame) led Dregs but some more which follows in this set.

10. Elvin Bishop, Travelin’ Shoes . . . Extended country blues funky rocking piece by Bishop, who was once of course a core member of the Butterfield Blues Band. Helping him out on the 1974 Let It Flow album, from whence this track comes, were musical mates like Charlie Daniels, Toy Caldwell of The Marshall Tucker Band, Dickey Betts of The Allman Brothers Band and, maybe surprisingly, Sly Stone of Sly and The Family Stone.

11. The Charlie Daniels Band, The South’s Gonna Do It Again . . . Speaking of Charlie Daniels, he came up on that “country gold’ album I mentioned a couple songs ago. Daniels is best known, in a more widespread sense, for his 1979 crossover hit The Devil Went Down To Georgia but like all great artists, such hits can be an entry point for discovery and if you do go down that discovery road, you’ll usually be rewarded. Like with this tune, for me, anyway.

12. Wet Willie, Street Corner Serenade . . . Another from the ‘country gold’ compilation I’ve been digging into for this show. I’m loving the experience, such great music from a genre, country/country rock/pop I don’t always delve into but when I do, am glad I did.

13. Hank Williams, There’s A Tear In My Beer . . . All that said, re country music, Hank Williams is someone I’ll always delve into in my own private listening even if I don’t always or often play him on the show, limited time, space, that sort of thing. The guy was absolutely brilliant and that goes beyond his obvious hits. Here’s an example. Here’s to you, Hank. Salut!

14. Link Wray, Run Chicken Run . . . Crazy how this guitar master can actually make his instrument sound like a chicken. Wray sometimes sang but for the most part was an instrumental artist but, like Joe Satriani, is/was amazingly compelling.

15. Roy Buchanan, Five String Blues . . . Even before the vocals begin the tone is set by the soulful guitar playing. Buchanan was a sometimes troubled soul and it’s sad but in many ways that’s why his music was so great. A brilliant artist lost to us, the temptation is to say ‘gone too soon’, but you go when you go, by however means.

16. Stevie Ray Vaughan, Mary Had A Little Lamb (live) . . . High energy version taken from Martin Scorsese’s collection of blues compilations.

17. Jerry Lee Lewis, End Of The Road . . . Back to that Sam Phillips Sun compilation I drew from earlier in the set we go for this typical Jerry Lee tune, that driving beat, the piano, all of it. So good.

18. Grateful Dead, Dark Star (live, from Live/Dead) . . . As I’ve previously stated, this was originally a shade under three-minute studio track, first released as single that didn’t chart, in 1968. It was then expanded to 23 minutes live on this perhaps best-known version from the ‘how could they not name an album Live/Dead?’ displaying the psychedelia, jazz and jam elements that constituted the Dead’s improvisational approach.

An album replay show for my Saturday morning set: Led Zeppelin II and Exile On Main St. by The Rolling Stones.

Led Zeppelin II

1. Whole Lotta Love
2. What Is And What Should Never Be
3. The Lemon Song
4. Thank You
5. Heartbreaker
6. Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman)
7. Ramble On
8. Moby Dick
9. Bring It On Home

The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main St.

1. Rocks Off
2. Rip This Joint
3. Shake Your Hips
4. Casino Boogie
5. Tumbling Dice
6. Sweet Virginia
7. Torn And Frayed
8. Sweet Black Angel
9. Loving Cup
10. Happy
11. Turd On The Run
12. Ventilator Blues
13. I Just Want To See His Face
14. Let It Loose
15. All Down The Line
16. Stop Breaking Down
17. Shine A Light
18. Soul Survivor

The set is tied to Victoria Day here in Canada and features songs which, either by title or lyrics, reference royalty. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. The Kinks, Victoria
2. Aerosmith, Kings and Queens
3. The Rolling Stones, Jigsaw Puzzle (contains the lyric ‘and the queen is bravely shouting ‘what the hell is going on?’)
4. Wishbone Ash, The King Will Come
5. Elton John, The King Must Die
6. Bruce Springsteen, Mary Queen Of Arkansas
7. Queen, Great King Rat
8. David Bowie, Queen Bitch
9. Metallica, King Nothing
10. Van Morrison, Queen Of The Slipstream
11. Guns N’ Roses, Rocket Queen
12. Bob Dylan, Queen Jane Approximately
13. King Crimson, The Court Of The Crimson King
14. Chuck Berry, Little Queenie
15. Rainbow, The Temple Of The King
16. Steely Dan, King Of The World
17. Jefferson Airplane, Crown Of Creation
18. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, King’s Highway (live)
19. Rush, A Farewell To Kings

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Kinks, Victoria . . . A tradition for me the last few years; last year I used a live version of the song for the show which happens to fall on Victoria Day weekend here in Canada. Victoria is a well-known Kinks song and was a single taken from 1969’s Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) album. And while this is a deep cuts show I’ve always employed the caveat that I’ll play occasional singles that didn’t do well on the charts, or that you may no longer hear very often. Victoria fits that bill. Except in the Toronto market where, according to Wikipedia, it reached No. 9 on one of the big charts of the day, CHUM radio’s top 30 list. It did less well in home country UK, hitting No. 33, and No. 62 in the US.

2. Aerosmith, Kings and Queens . . . The band obviously liked this one from the Draw The Line album, released in 1977, because they included it on their first greatest hits package even though it wasn’t really a hit, making No. 76 in Canada and No. 70 in the US. A good one, though, reminds me a bit in song structure of one of my favorite Aerosmith deep cuts or songs of theirs in general, Nobody’s Fault from 1976’s Rocks album, the one preceding Draw The Line. To quote lead singer Steven Tyler: “This one was just about how many people died from holy wars because of their beliefs or non-beliefs.”

3. The Rolling Stones, Jigsaw Puzzle . . . What’s this got to do with kings, queens or royalty? It’s the only song in my set that doesn’t, title wise, mention kings, queens, crowns or royalty BUT 1. it’s a Rolling Stones track and I always play the Stones, my favorite band and 2. the song contains one of my favorite lines in rock music – “and the queen is bravely shouting what the hell is going on?”

Oh there’s 20,000 grandmas
Wave their hankies in the air
All burning up their pensions
And shouting ‘it’s not fair!’

There’s a regiment of soldiers
Standing looking on
And the queen is bravely shouting
‘What the hell is going on?’

With a blood-curdling ‘tally-ho’
She charged into the ranks
And blessed all those grandmas
Who with their dying breaths screamed ‘Thanks!’

and hell, in Mick Jagger’s voice, is heard with heavy emphasis, as ‘what the HELL is going on?”
I can just envision a scene out of Monty Python.
So, that’s why it’s in the set. 🙂 But one of my alltime favorite Stones’ tunes, regardless.

4. Wishbone Ash, The King Will Come . . . From the Brit hard rock progressive band’s most successful album, 1972’s Argus. Truly gratifiying is the fact that, since I play Wishbone Ash periodically, an old (and renewed) high school and college friend of mine, tells me he’s gotten into the band a bit via my playing them on occasion. It’s not why I’m here, necessarily; I just play what I like and what moves me and all great if others like it or are turned on to it, which has happened in this case and isn’t that the beauty of the shared experience of music?

5. Elton John, The King Must Die . . . From Elton’s second album, the self-titled 1970 release that followed 1969’s Empty Sky, which I need to get back to, amazing title cut on that one, among other songs. As for the 1970 album, it’s arguably the one that announced Elton John to the world via the hit single Your Song but the depth of the album is apparent in the deep cuts, like this one, as would be the case throughout his amazing run of great albums through the mid-1970s.

6. Bruce Springsteen, Mary Queen Of Arkansas . . . Acoustic Dylan-like ballad (and Springsteen at least early on was talked about as the next Dylan) from his debut album, Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. Based on research, it was played by Springsteen in an audition to record company execs and earned him his first album contract with CBS Records in 1972. His first album was released in the first week of January, 1973.

7. Queen, Great King Rat . . . Hard rock, progressive, whatever you might want to call it, it’s all of it, suffice to say it’s early Queen and it’s great. From the first, self-titled album, 1973.

8. David Bowie, Queen Bitch . . . Very Lou Reed-ish or, more likely, Reed was very Bowie-ish and of course Bowie, along with his bandmate Mick Ronson, produced Reed’s breakthrough solo album Transformer in 1972. Queen Bitch is from Bowie’s 1971 album Hunky Dory.

9. Metallica, King Nothing . . . Depending which chart you consult, this was either a hit or it wasn’t. It made No. 90 on some charts, No. 6 on others, as the fourth single released from the 1996 album Load which represented a further departure from Metallica’s thrash metal past and caused untold angst within some of their fanbase because the band, egads, cut their hair and went even more mainstream than the previous album monster hit Metallica (aka the Black Album). All of their stuff is worthwhile listening, if you ask me.

10. Van Morrison, Queen Of The Slipstream . . . Beautiful romantic ballad from Van The Man’s 1987 album Poetic Champions Compose, released as a single but it didn’t chart, perhaps because the song really has no easy hooks to draw those who need that sort of stuff in, but whatever. It’s Van Morrison, it’s great.

11. Guns N’ Roses, Rocket Queen . . . Sexual intercourse moans incorporated into the song (really, listen) from, as the story goes, a groupie screwing lead singer Axl Rose, and maybe other members of the band, during the recording. In any event, a good rocker from the Apetite For Destruction album that broke the band big via such songs as Welcome To The Jungle, Sweet Child 0′ Mine and Paradise City.

12. Bob Dylan, Queen Jane Approximately . . . Folk/garage rock from Dylan’s 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited which not only included the title track, later covered by Johnny Winter, but arguably Dylan’s signature tune, Like A Rolling Stone.

13. King Crimson, The Court Of The Crimson King . . . King Crimson in all their prog-rock glory, title cut from the amazing debut album, 1969.

14. Chuck Berry, Little Queenie . . . The father of The Rolling Stones, arguably, certainly their early stuff and of course the Stones covered it on early studio albums and later on one of the best live albums ever, 1970’s document of the 1969 American tour, Get Yer Ya Ya’s Out! which is when I really got into the Stones doing it.

15. Rainbow, The Temple Of The King . . . Mid-tempo ballad, one of my favorite Rainbow tunes, Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals. It’s from the first Rainbow album, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, released in 1975 after the guitarist left Deep Purple, for the first time, later to reunite, break up, reunite, then break up with Purple for good. At least so far.

16. Steely Dan, King Of The World . . . Funky, galloping type tune from 1973’s Countdown To Ecstasy album.

17. Jefferson Airplane, Crown Of Creation . . Title cut from the Airplane’s 1968 album; typical of their psychedelic rock fare.

18. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, King’s Highway (live) . . . Nice acoustic live version from the Playback box set released in 1995, taken from a Florida show in 1993. The original studio version appeared on the 1991 album Into The Great Wide Open.

19. Rush, A Farewell To Kings . . . As we say farewell, for this show, this week with the title cut to likely still my favorite Rush album and the one I most grew up with, 1977. Bought it for the single, Closer To The Heart, wound up listening to everything else on it, even more.

An album replay show with a little twist. I’m using Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells (the 1973 original, he’s done several sequels) as wrapping paper around Pink Floyd’s 1971 album Meddle, with the full Shine On You Crazy Diamond suite from Floyd’s 1975 release Wish You Were Here tacked on to the end of Meddle to fill in the two-hour slot. Parts I-V of Shine On You Crazy Diamond opened Wish You Were Here, with Parts VI-IX closing that album.

1. Mike Oldfield, Tubular Bells, Part One

– Pink Floyd – Meddle album –

2. One Of These Days
3. A Pillow Of Winds
4. Fearless
5. San Tropez
6. Seamus
7. Echoes

– Pink Floyd from Wish You Were Here album –

8. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-IX)
9. Mike Oldfield, Tubular Bells, Part Two