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

1. Joe Jackson, 1-2-3 Go (This Town’s A Fairground)
2. Tim Curry, I Do The Rock
3. Stray Cats, Rev It Up And Go
4. Madness, One Step Beyond . . .
5. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Born To Move
6. Lighthouse, Broken Guitar Blues
7. Traveling Wilburys, Dirty World
8. Elvis Costello and The Attractions, Goon Squad
9. The Clash, Armagideon Time
10. Yes, The Ancient: Giants Under The Sun
11. Wishbone Ash, The King Will Come
12. Rush, Natural Science
13. John Mellencamp, All Along The Watchtower
14. The Rolling Stones, Congratulations
15. John Lennon, Bony Moronie
16. Deep Purple, Lady Luck
17. Iggy Pop, Sister Midnight
18. Golden Earring, Kill Me (Ce Soir)
19. The Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack, Over At The Frankenstein Place
20. Moby Grape, Murder In My Heart For The Judge
21. Iron Butterfly, Belda-Beast
22. David Bowie, Teenage Wildlife
23. Jethro Tull, No Lullaby

    My track-by-track tales:

    1. Joe Jackson, 1-2-3 Go (This Town’s A Fairground) . . . Yet another slice of infectious, driving pop rock excellence from the Mike’s Murder movie soundtrack, released in 1983 and, musically, something of a companion piece to JJ’s 1982 album Night And Day. It’s terrific stuff, but of course I’m a big Joe Jackson fan as often stated. The soundtrack essentially became another studio album for Jackson because as things developed, little of his music was retained for the film, the bulk of whose score wound up being done by John Barry of James Bond film score fame. The film, starring Debra Winger, was a box-office bomb. Perhaps keeping more of Jackson’s music would have helped, he says with a smile.
       
    2. Tim Curry, I Do The Rock . . . From the Rocky Horror Picture Show star’s 1979 album Fearless, which I heard on the store sound system and impulse bought while browsing through Toronto’s original Sam The Record Man outlet on Yonge St., long since gone but not forgotten. I get to the actual Rocky Horror soundtrack later in the set with Curry, who played Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the zany cult movie, not singing on the track I chose. You’ll see/hear.
       
    3. Stray Cats, Rev It Up And Go . . . Another of one of those “rifling through my CDs and oh, yeah, these guys, haven’t played them in ages” picks. Rockabilly! Great stuff, kicking off with the Chuck Berry guitar lick you’ve heard on just about every one of his songs, then into it. He didn’t produce this one but Dave Edmunds, known to dabble in a little rockabilly himself, has produced much of the Stray Cats’ material over time. And the band, which has tended to alternate between active and dormant periods in and around Brian Seitzer’s solo and Brian Seitzer Orchestra work, is currently active, having released ’40’, their first studio album in nearly 30 years, in 2019.
       
    4. Madness, One Step Beyond . . . Perfect name for an out-there ska song, especially the intro. Infectious stuff. Here I am with my Beatles and my Stones and Zeppelin and Purple and so on and then I remember being immediately hooked watching the video for One Step Beyond on Toronto TV station City’s old ‘The New Music’ show in 1979. All my friends thought I had lost it. I thought they might consider expanding their horizons, but to each their own. Interesting reading about the song. It’s a cover of a tune by Jamaican ska singer Prince Buster and released in 1964, with Madness incorporating elements from other songs by Buster, and others, into the band’s final version.
       
    5. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Born To Move . . . Screeeech as we bank around the corner and off into a totally different direction. CCR. I’ve been in a phase of listening to them lately. ‘Nuff said, really. Obviously great band, including their deeper cuts, like this one from the Pendulum album, released in 1970. The boys were lazy that year, Pendulum being only their second LP release after coming out with three albums in 1969.
       
    6. Lighthouse, Broken Guitar Blues . . . Guy gets on a plane, nowhere good to store his six-string, a song results. From Canada’s answer to early Chicago or Blood, Sweat & Tears, or vice-versa, it’s actually more of a straight ahead rocker, which fits since it’s about a guitar, than Lighthouse’s usual more horn-drenched jazz-rock fusion stuff.
       
    7. Traveling Wilburys, Dirty World . . . Lucky Wilbury (aka Bob Dylan) handles most of the lead vocals on this one from Vol. 1 of the ‘family’ project that also included Wilburys Nelson (George Harrison), Otis (Jeff Lynne), Lefty (Roy Orbison) and Charlie T., Jr. (Tom Petty). What a wonderful project it was. When Lefty died, the boys persevered, or maybe it was a group of entirely different people, or split personalities, who issued the second album, Vol. 3. Just having fun. Lucky became Boo; Nelson became Spike; Otis became Clayton and Charlie T. became Muddy. And now Nelson/Spike and Charlie T./Muddy are also gone. Session players included drummer Buster Sidebury (Jim Keltner) and Ken Milbury (Gary Moore) on lead guitar on one song, She’s My Baby, on Vol. 3. To quote the Robert Shaw character in the classic 1973 movie The Sting, ‘ya falla?” (follow). Don’t worry about it, just enjoy.
       
    8. Elvis Costello and The Attractions, Goon Squad . . . Love the, how is one to describe music in words, best to listen to it of course but that sort of descending beat on this one, from 1979’s Armed Forces album. Serious, deep lyrics perfectly accompanied by the darkish music.
       
    9. The Clash, Armagideon Time . . . Available since then on various Clash compilations, it was originally the B-side to the 1979 album title cut single London Calling. As related by longime Clash associate and sometime manager Kosmo Vinyl in the liner notes to the box set Clash On Broadway, he had a notion that all great singles should be 2 minutes, 58 seconds long. Why 2:58, who knows? Probably to sound cooler than saying ‘three minutes’. So Clash co-founder Joe Strummer tells him “just stop us when we get to 2:58.” In studio later, the band is cooking, recording the track and Vinyl is vexxed as to what to do as 2:58 approaches, so he risks calling from the control room for the band to wind it up only to have, and you can hear it on the song, Strummer sing back “okay, okay, don’t push us when we’re hot!” And the band plays on for another minute, everyone loves what’s on tape and Vinyl, who thought his life was at risk for interrupting, is still with us at 66. Strummer, sadly, died at age 50 in 2002 of a heart attack caused by an undiagnosed congenital heart defect.
       
    10. Yes, The Ancient: Giants Under The Sun . . . Another 180 turn in the set. Speaking of risk, I figured I might risk a backlash from some if I played the entire Tales From Topographic Oceans album, which is four songs, one per vinyl side, on original release in 1973. To many, that represented pure prog rock excess and perhaps it was but all kidding aside it’s a great album and as mentioned earlier about expanded horizons, what is the beauty of music, which is really a mood exercise, other than how you can go from raunch and roll to ska to rockabilly to prog and beyond, and enjoy it all because it’s all creative and has merit. If you have an open mind. Anyway, another Yes epic, 18 minutes and change, at times tribal, almost funky, with beautiful acoustic guitar passages and back again. Sublime, really.
        
    11. Wishbone Ash, The King Will Come . . . I suppose I should have played this when King Charles was crowned last week. But I’m not much into the monarchy and I’ll leave it at that. Good song, though, as I find most Wishbone Ash is.
        
    12. Rush, Natural Science . . . And so ends the prog segment with this classic from 1980’s Permanent Waves album.
        
    13. John Mellencamp, All Along The Watchtower . . . I’ve been in a Mellencamp listening phase of late but this cover of the Bob Dylan song is a very recent, wonderful discovery for me, from the used rack in my local independent store just last Friday. It was one of those buys, $6 as I recall, where I knew I better pick it up because it’s fairly rare to my knowledge, would likely be gone soon and I’d regret it, even though it’s available online but I still like physical product. It’s from Mellencamp’s acoustic live album The Good Samaritan Tour 2000, released on CD in 2021. It’s the soundtrack to a documentary film of about 40 minutes’ length that chronicles a tour in 2000 when Mellencamp performed, unannounced, for free in public parks and common spaces across the United States as a thank you to his fans for their ongoing support. The documentary, with all performance footage filmed by fans thus lending the show its raw appeal, originally appeared on Turner Classic Movie’s YouTube channel and both the album and documentary are still available there. It’s great stuff, more than just the music but, musically, it’s just Mellencamp and his acoustic band, guitars, fiddles, accordion, no drums. Sometimes there’s big crowds, sometimes just a handful of people in a park although as the tour developed things exploded, in a wonderful way. They do a selection of his own material like Small Town and Pink Houses and covers of songs by Woody Guthrie (Oklahoma Hills), Dylan, The Rolling Stones (Street Fighting Man and The Spider and The Fly), Donovan’s Hey Gyp, also done by The Animals, and Cut Across Shorty which was done by Eddie Cochran and, later, Rod Stewart.
        
    14. The Rolling Stones, Congratulations . . . An early Mick Jagger-Keith Richards penned ballad, from 1964 with its typical mocking and sarcastic lyrics about a relationship. It was the B-side to Time Is On My Side in the US and was on the album 12 X 5 in those early days when many British Invasion bands’ releases differed on either side of the pond. It didn’t appear on a UK album until the Decca Records compilation No Stone Unturned in 1973.
        
    15. John Lennon, Bony Moronie . . . From Lennon’s 1975 album of rock ‘n’ roll standards called, wait for it, Rock ‘N’ Roll. Great fun, back to his roots.
        
    16. Deep Purple, Lady Luck . . . Not sure what else to say about the Come Taste The Band album I’ve not already said. It’s the one and only one Purple did with the late guitarist Tommy Bolin, lots of people think it’s too different than what many consider ‘should’ be the sound of Deep Purple because it incorporated some funk elements, but that’s what makes it great and shows the band’s musical diversity. And, despite what some folks seem to think, it does rock. As evidence, I present Lady Luck, among several up-tempo tunes on the album starting with the blistering lead track, Comin’ Home. Other than that, I like the album cover, all the boys in a full glass of red wine on the front and the empty glass on the back and since I was having a glass myself when putting the show together, here we are.
    17. Iggy Pop, Sister Midnight . . . From 1977’s The Idiot which is almost a David Bowie album, or a co-Pop/Bowie album given that Bowie plays keyboards on it, produced it and wrote or co-wrote many of the songs including this one that Bowie wrote with his longtime guitarist Carlos Alomar. Recorded around the time of Bowie’s so-called Berlin period that yielded experimental albums like Low, it’s definitely a departure from the punk inclinations of much of the garage rock type material Pop released as main man in The Stooges. Pop described the more mechanical, electronic sound as “a cross between James Brown and Kraftwerk.” Pop returned to a more Stooges-like sound on his next album, Lust For Life which was also released in 1977 and co-produced by Bowie.
        
    18. Golden Earring, Kill Me (Ce Soir) . . . From Switch, the 1975 album followup to 1973’s Moontan and its hit Radar Love, after which many people, at least in North America, went back to ignoring Golden Earring until 1982’s hit single Twilight Zone. Lots of good music in between and beyond, but who knows what the real recipe for widespread success and acclaim is? I think Motley Crue (and that whole genre of overproduced hair metal) is utter garbage, the worst successful band in the history of popular music, for instance. Yet . . .
    19. The Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack, Over At The Frankenstein Place . . . What a fun movie and forever trigger of memories of college days. What I haven’t mentioned before, not sure how or why I overlooked it, is that John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick, arguably most famous for his keyboard work with The Who, played on the Rocky Horror film soundtrack. Besides The Who, the widely respected and in demand musician has, since the 1970s, played on albums by Free, Johnny Nash of I Can See Clearly Now fame, Donovan, Eric Burdon and Fairport Convention, among others.
        
    20. Moby Grape, Murder In My Heart For The Judge . . . Funky, rocking blues number from the San Francisco band’s second album, Wow, in 1968. Love the psychedelic ‘grapes’ album cover. I mean, what else?
        
    21. Iron Butterfly, Belda-Beast . . . As with Golden Earring, one song – the epic In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida – can overwhelm the rest of a band’s catalog, or even what they actually could be about musically. And it’s interesting that the band was considered heavy when lots of their material, to my ears, is like this song from Ball, the 1969 followup to the Gadda album. It’s eerie, psychedelic and melodic, with nice touches of organ. Relaxing and dreamy, yet still electric. Nice work.
        
    22. David Bowie, Teenage Wildlife . . . To each their own of course but another example of why it pays to listen to full albums, not just hits or compilations of hits. And without that fact, I wouldn’t have my deep cuts show. The longest song on 1980’s Scary Monsters album that featured the hit singles Ashes To Ashes and Fashion, it’s got a similar arrangement to Bowie’s own song Heroes and has been seen, lyrically, as taking aim at what Bowie perceived to be his imitators, like Gary Numan – “one of the new wave boys, same old thing in brand new drag comes sweeping into view as ugly as a teenage millionaire.” King Crimson leader/guitarist Robert Fripp played on most of the album, including Teenage Wildlife, which also featured Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band keyboardist Roy Bittan.
        
    23. Jethro Tull, No Lullaby . . . Great drumming by Barriemore Barlow, especially on the intro, on this killer cut from 1978’s Heavy Horses. Thrust and parry, indeed, as the lyrics suggest.

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

1. Emerson, Lake and Powell, Mars, The Bringer Of War
2. Alannah Myles, Our World Our Times
3. The Rolling Stones, Continental Drift
4. Sniff ‘N’ The Tears, Rodeo Drive
5. James Gang, Driftin’ Dreamer
6. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Lazy Days
7. Blue Rodeo, Girl In Green (live, from Just Like A Vacation)
8. Roxy Music, Beauty Queen
9. Robbie Robertson, Testimony
10. Eric Burdon, The Secret
11. Tom Waits, Jockey Full Of Bourbon
12. Graham Parker and The Rumour, The Heat In Harlem
13. John Mellencamp, Case 795 (The Family)
14. Bruce Cockburn, Silver Wheels
15. Leon Russell and Willie Nelson, Heartbreak Hotel
16. The Mamas & The Papas, Twist And Shout
17. Frank Zappa, Keep It Greasy
18. Billy Gibbons with Larkin Poe, Stackin’ Bones
19. Booker T. and The MGs, Heads Or Tails
20. Peter Gabriel, And Through The Wire
21. Colin James, Freedom
22. David + David, Swimming In The Ocean
23. Queen, It’s LateMy track-by-track tales:
    1. Emerson, Lake and Powell, Mars, The Bringer Of War . . . One of ELP’s calling cards – whether as Emerson, Lake and Palmer or the one-off 1986 Emerson, Lake and Powell when Carl Palmer was unavailable due to contractual obligations to the band Asia – was often its adaptations of classical and/or orchestral pieces. Their eight-minute treatment of a portion of English composer Gustav Holst’s 49-minute suite The Planets, from the lone E, L and Powell album  featuring Keith Emerson, Greg Lake and Cozy Powell, is yet another example.
       
    2. Alannah Myles, Our World Our Times . . . Spooky, hypnotic track I’ve heard suggested would be a cool sci-fi theme, or part of such a soundtrack. Which is maybe why I like it, being a science fiction fan. It’s from Myles’ second album, 1992’s Rockinghorse that followed by three years here self-titled debut. The first album featured the worldwide hit Black Velvet. As a result, that song and album overshadows everything else Myles ever did which is unfair, I think. Rockinghorse, I maintain, is as good an album and for the life of me I don’t get why the title cut, which I’ve played before, wasn’t released as a single. It would have had a chance, at least, of being a hit.
       
    3. The Rolling Stones, Continental Drift . . . In 1968, Stones’ founder/guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones dug into world music, recording the Morocco-based ensemble the Master Musicians of Joujouka (a Moroccan village) for what became a 1971 release, after Jones’ death in 1969, called Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka. The Stones did this one in homage to him, for their 1989 album Steel Wheels and effectively used portions of the chant-like tune as their intro music for the subsequent tour. “For Stones addicts” according to one of my books: Keith Richards achieves a unique sound on the song by trailing the blade of a knife against the spokes of a spinning bicycle wheel. You can hear it, starting at the 5-second mark. Richards is credited with playing acoustic guitar . . . and bicycle, on the track. The inventiveness of musicians in pursuit of sounds . . . Drummer Charlie Watts beat on a garbage can as a ‘mystery drum’ on the song Moon Is Up on the Stones’ next album, Voodoo Lounge.
       
    4. Sniff ‘N’ The Tears, Rodeo Drive . . . From the British band’s second album, 1980’s The Game’s Up. An interesting title, perhaps, given that the game was up, relatively speaking, for the band in terms of widespread success after their 1979 debut album Fickle Heart and hit single Driver’s Seat. A one-hit wonder yet the band, which is still around and releasing albums, has some interesting material like this almost progressive, somewhat ghostly, extended track.
       
    5. James Gang, Driftin’ Dreamer . . . Joe Walsh was gone. Replacement Domenic Triano (of solo and latter-day Guess Who fame) was gone. Triano’s replacement Tommy Bolin (of solo and Deep Purple fame) was gone. So that’s it for the ‘name’ guitarists. But the gang soldiered on for two more albums including Newborn, from which I pulled this track, with a gent I can’t find any info on, Richard Shack, on guitar before Shack was replaced by Bob Webb for the group’s last album, Jesse Come Home, in 1976. I don’t have Newborn, but I do have a fine, comprehensive 2-CD James Gang compilation that includes some songs from it. And despite being critically trashed and not selling, it did feature some quality boogie/country rock tunes, like this one.
       
    6. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Lazy Days . . . Up tempo country tune. I’ve played it too recently, though. How I know that is because when I went searching for the YouTube clip for my Facebook page, there’s a version of it that I recognized from last time I went looking for it, where a guy speaking Spanish introduces the 3-minute track, extending it to 3:14 with his enthusiastic but ultimately irrelevant insights on his posting. Good song, though, so what the heck. Here it is again, without the Spanish speaker.
       
    7. Blue Rodeo, Girl In Green (live, from Just Like A Vacation) . . . I don’t play these Canadians enough. Perhaps that will change. This is from the band’s first live album, released in 1999. Love the guitar work. The song was originally on the 1995 studio album Nowhere To Here with Sarah McLauchlan appearing as a guest vocalist on three songs on that album, including Girl In Green. She isn’t on this live version.
       
    8. Roxy Music, Beauty Queen . . . Early, edgy, noisy Roxy Music, from the band’s second album, For Your Pleasure. Later, on albums like Flesh + Blood and the final studio work, 1982’s Avalon, the sound was slicker, arguably more commercial. All of it I find intoxicatingly good.
       
    9. Robbie Robertson, Testimony . . . Essentially a Robertson with U2 track as all members of that band play on this song from Robertson’s self-titled debut album in 1987. The collaboration came about in part because U2 was recording their album The Joshua Tree around the same time, also with producer Daniel Lanois. Robertson later titled his 2016 memoir Testimony.
       
    10. Eric Burdon, The Secret . . . I mentioned some time back that I had been listening to Burdon’s 2004 album My Secret Life, a terrific, varied album of R & B, soul, blues and jazz tunes. Then I forgot all about it, until I was rifling through my CDs and came across it. The Secret is the type of mesmerizing tune I can never get enough of.
        
    11. Tom Waits, Jockey Full Of Bourbon . . . I’m not a big horse racing fan but always watch the Triple Crown races and Canada’s Queen’s Plate. So, after watching the Kentucky Derby on Saturday, this one likely subconsciously came to mind even though it’s definitely not about horse-racing jockeys. It was the first single from the 1985 album Rain Dogs.
        
    12. Graham Parker and The Rumour, The Heat In Harlem . . . Extended piece from Parker’s third album, Stick To Me. Not sure what else to say about Parker I haven’t already said, other than I’m a big fan of his early material, like this one from 1977. I love the tempo shift from rock to a more bluesy approach, around the two-minute mark of the seven-minute tune.
        
    13. John Mellencamp, Case 795 (The Family) . . . I hadn’t listened to Mellencamp in a long time until this past weekend when I popped a compilation of his into the player and, well, here he is. From 1993’s Human Wheels album. Dark, bloody subject matter, good tune.
        
    14. Bruce Cockburn, Silver Wheels . . . Canadian singer-songwriters were top of mind after playing a full Gordon Lightfoot set on Saturday in tribute to his passing. So, here comes Cockburn, from the 1976 album In The Falling Dark.
        
    15. Leon Russell and Willie Nelson, Heartbreak Hotel . . . Leon and Willie team up on a fun version of the song Elvis Presley made famous. It’s from their 1979 collaboration album of covers, One For The Road.
        
    16. The Mamas & The Papas, Twist And Shout . . . Laid back, much different arrangement than that used by The Beatles on their famous version. Both are terrific.
        
    17. Frank Zappa, Keep It Greasy . . . It’s zany, it’s Zappa, the playing is, as always from Frank and whatever friends he was using at a given time, outstanding. This one’s from the 1979 album Joe’s Garage.
        
    18. Billy Gibbons with Larkin Poe, Stackin’ Bones . . . I had never heard of Larkin Poe until I got the third solo album, Hardware, by ZZ Top’s main man. It came out in 2021 and Larkin Poe, a roots/southern rock band from Georgia now based in Nashville, help Gibbons out on vocals on this track. Larkin Poe, fronted by sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell, has been described as the little sisters of the Allman Brothers. Great stuff, worth checking out.
        
    19. Booker T. and The MGs, Heads Or Tails . . . Flip a coin and regardless what comes up, you won’t lose with Booker T. and the boys. Typically infectious, instrumental brilliance from the band.
        
    20. Peter Gabriel, And Through The Wire . . . From Gabriel’s commercial breakthrough third album, released in 1980. To that point, all his albums were self-titled so tended to be referred to by their cover art, in this case Melt due to Gabriel’s melting face. Great record, full of terrific songs like the singles Games Without Frontiers, No Self Control, Biko, I Don’t Remember and the opening, haunting track Intruder. I remember when it came out, a friend of mine said “I’m now into stuff by solo artists.” About a year later, the Stones’ Tattoo You came out, he was raving about it and I couldn’t resist needling him with “so, you’re back into band albums?”
        
    21. Colin James, Freedom . . . Nice groove on this one from his 1995 blues album Bad Habits. It’s mostly covers but includes a few originals, like this one. Lots of well-known players/singers on the record including Lenny Kravitz, Waddy Wachtel, Sarah Dash and, helping out on vocals on Freedom, Mavis Staples.
        
    22. David + David, Swimming In The Ocean . . . Yet another great one from the one and only album, 1986’s Boomtown, by Davids Baerwaeld and Ricketts. I’ve loved it from the first time I heard its lead single, Welcome To The Boomtown, prompting me to buy it. Not a bad song on it. One of these days I’ll just play the whole thing on one of my periodic ‘album replay’ shows.
        
    23. Queen, It’s Late . . . Brian May-penned tune from the band’s 1977 album News Of The World. Yet another album, by Queen and others, that is solid front to back. It’s Late was actually a single on the record dominated by the success of the excellent but long since, thanks in good measure to sports events, overplayed We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions.

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

1. The Rolling Stones, Hey Negrita
2. Kris Kristofferson, Blame It On The Stones
3. Humble Pie, Hot ‘N’ Nasty
4. AC/DC, Stormy May Day
5. Led Zeppelin, In My Time Of Dying
6. Blue Oyster Cult, Shooting Shark
7. Curtis Mayfield, Pusherman
8. Trooper, The Boys In The Bright White Sports Car
9. The Beatles, Lovely Rita
10. Taj Mahal, The Celebrated Walkin’ Blues
11. John Mayall, Dry Throat (live, from Jazz Blues Fusion)
12. Bruce Springsteen, Jungleland
13. Roy Buchanan, Hey Joe (live)
14. The Byrds, Chestnut Mare
15. Eric Clapton, Stars, Strays and Ashtrays
16. Chilliwack, 148 Heavy
17. David Bowie, Lady Grinning Soul
18. Dire Straits, Lions
19. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Luna
20. The Stills-Young Band, 12/8 Blues (All The Same)
21. Montrose, Dancin’ Feet
22. George Thorogood and The Destroyers, Want Ad Blues 

    My track-by-track tales:

    1. The Rolling Stones, Hey Negrita . . . Terrific groove on this one featuring what is likely Ron Wood’s top contribution to the Black and Blue album, his staccato lead guitar work on this track. “Rehearsing guitar players” is how Keith Richards described the sessions for the album, which was put together in the wake of Mick Taylor’s departure after 1974’s It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll album release. Among those at the sessions were Jeff Beck, Peter Frampton, and Rory Gallagher, all of whose actual contributions, if any, didn’t make it to tape while Wayne Perkins’ terrific solo on Hand Of Fate and former Canned Heat member Harvey Mandel’s playing on Hot Stuff and Memory Motel did make the final cut. While Wood isn’t a virtuoso of the calibre of some of those auditioning, the Stones wound up going with who they considered to be the best fit for the band. Wood once related a story where Eric Clapton apparently told him “I could have had that job’ to which Wood replied, ‘yeah, but Eric, you gotta live with ’em, too.” And it’s true and, in fact, Wood was key to holding the band together during the so-called World War III between Richards and Mick Jagger during much of the 1980s. As a big Stones fan, while having the likes of the various mentioned luminaries in the band sounds amazing on the surface, I don’t think it would have worked or lasted with the likes of Clapton, Frampton, Gallagher or Beck as it would have become or been perceived as “the Stones with . . . ” as those players were also songwriters and major solo artists in their own rights. Could they have fit, even been subjugated, in such a band? Former Stones’ bassist Bill Wyman actually spoke to that very dynamic in an interview that’s available on YouTube and came to the conclusion that Wood was indeed the right choice.
    2. Kris Kristofferson, Blame It On The Stones . . . Lead cut on Kristofferson’s self-titled debut album, released in June, 1970. The song references negative impressions older generations had of The Rolling Stones at that time, especially having come off their 1969 Altamont concert where a man, Meredith Hunter, was stabbed and killed by the Hell’s Angels who were in retrospect ludicrously used as security.
    3. Humble Pie, Hot ‘N’ Nasty . . . “Roll it, baby” indeed, as lead singer Steve Marriott intones at the start of this raunch and roller from the 1972 album Smokin’, the first Humble Pie album without Peter Frampton, who had departed for a solo career. Hot ‘N’ Nasty actually did better on the singles charts, hitting No. 35 in Canada and No. 52 in the US, than 30 Days In The Hole, which remains likely Humble Pie’s best-known song and propelled Smokin’ to the top 10 on album charts.
    4. AC/DC, Stormy May Day . . . From 2008’s Black Ice. The opening reminds me of the song I’m playing next.
    5. Led Zeppelin, In My Time Of Dying . . . A gospel blues song by Blind Willie Johnson, originally released in 1928 but given an 11-minute Zep treatment on their Physical Graffiti album. It was also done by Bob Dylan on his 1962 self-titled debut album with the title In My Time Of Dyin’.
    6. Blue Oyster Cult, Shooting Shark . . . A different sort of track for BOC as they, too, embraced a more processed, synthesizer 1980s sound for at least some of their 1983 album The Revolution By Night. Yet while I’m not usually into that sort of stuff, I don’t mind this extended, somewhat spooky, hypnotic song about a bad on-again, off-again relationship, inspired by a Patti Smith poem. Smith had an association with the band dating to her vocals on their song The Revenge Of Vera Gemini from the 1976 album Agents Of Fortune, which yielded the hit single (Don’t Fear) The Reaper.
       
    7. Curtis Mayfield, Pusherman . . . So funky. From Mayfield’s third solo album, Superfly, after he left The Impressions. It served as the soundtrack for the 1972 film of the same name.
    8. Trooper, The Boys In The Bright White Sports Car . . . A song originally on the band’s 1976 album Two For The Show, it was slightly re-worked and became a successful single when released on 1979’s Hot Shots compilation, an album no doubt in just about every Canadian home, certainly those of baby boomers. At the time, the compilation went quadruple platinum in Canada, platinum in this country being 80,000 copies, breaking records for a recording by a Canadian act.
       
    9. The Beatles, Lovely Rita . . . I could listen to the intro to this Sgt. Pepper tune forever without getting sick of it, just the way Ringo’s drums kick in at the 10-second mark. The rest of it’s pretty good, too, including Paul McCartney’s pronunciation of ‘buuk’ or ‘boook” in “I caught a glimpse of Rita, filling in a ticket in her little white book”. Piano solo by producer George Martin. The song is described in one of my Beatles’ books as “a glorious throwaway”. Agreed.
       
    10. Taj Mahal, The Celebrated Walkin’ Blues . . . From Mahal’s self-titled 1968 debut album, it features guitarists Jesse Ed Davis of solo and session fame and Ry Cooder, with whom Mahal had earlier formed the blues/rock/folk band Rising Sons.
    11. John Mayall, Dry Throat (live, from Jazz Blues Fusion) . . . Exactly what the album title describes, jazz/blues fusion. Great stuff from Mayall and his band, recorded live in New York and Boston in late 1971 and released in 1972. Mayall is another of the many artists I got into via my older brother. He brought home Mayall’s USA Union album in 1970 and off I went with Mayall, to this day. It was perfect, really, having a brother eight years older, because, born in 1951, he was in his teens through the heyday of the British Invasion and other 1960s music. So he sort of passed the baton to me and my sister, who was four years older and had her own favorites and discoveries, all of which I at least investigated and maybe added to my own expanding music universe. A wonderful foundation of great memories.
    12. Bruce Springsteen, Jungleland . . . Epic from Springsteen’s breakthrough album, 1975’s Born To Run, notable for the late ‘big man’ Clarence Clemons’ sax solo.
    13. Roy Buchanan, Hey Joe (live) . . . If you know Hey Joe via the Jimi Hendrix version, Buchanan’s live take on it, this one from The Definitive Collection compilation, is a total reinvention. It’s slow blues, talk singing, accompanied by piano and guitar accents, then an explosion around three minutes in, major soloing/riffing at close to five minutes in and then back to the beginning, so to speak, for the last three minutes of the eight-minute plus excursion. What a trip.
        
    14. The Byrds, Chestnut Mare . . . Full version of a five-minute track from the Untitled album in 1970. It was cut in almost half for single release, at least in the UK and Europe, where the tale of a man’s quest to tame a wild horse, also seen as a commentary on humankind’s attempts to control the environment, did much better on the charts. It went to No. 19 in the UK as opposed to not even making the top 100 in the US.
        
    15. Eric Clapton, Stars, Strays and Ashtrays . . . Beautiful country blues track, a Clapton-penned outtake from the Slowhand album sessions in 1977 that finally saw official release on a deluxe edition of the album that came out in 2012. That reissue includes a bonus disc of a previously unreleased 1977 concert at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. The iconic venue is now called the Eventim Apollo, due to naming rights/sponsorship.
        
    16. Chilliwack, 148 Heavy . . . 1979’s Breakdown In Paradise album is the lone non-compilation Chilliwack album I own. I like the band, saw them in a rousing performance a few years ago at the Kitchener Blues Festival, but for me their hits are all I need. Except that there’s two songs they did that I quite like that aren’t on any compilation. Well, check that. The song Communication Breakdown (not the Led Zeppelin tune) is on a hits album. But it’s a truncated version, more than a minute shorter and, damn it, I want the full version, complete with what I think is a cool partially spoken word intro before the band rips into the song. So because of that, and 148 Heavy which I remember instantly liking when I heard it on FM radio while in college, back when radio dug deeper, I simply had to own Breakdown In Paradise. “Heavy’, by the way, is an aviation term used to describe an aircraft’s wake turbulence, which can be dangerous to other aircraft flying in its wake. Typically, and I’m quoting from an encyclopedia, aircraft create the most wake during takeoff, departure, approach and landing, hence the song’s lyrics “148 heavy, landing in Toronto.” I know it’s obvious in terms of time zones but I’ve always loved the lyric, from this British Columbia band, ‘when you left in the west it was only afternoon, half alive and awake you’re flying into the moon . . . ” To again reference my late older brother, I recall one Christmas, we all got together in our parent’s new home in Calgary where mom and dad had moved for my dad’s work. Rob, my older brother, was the first among we siblings to have to get back east home in his case Nova Scotia where he was serving in the military. He calls back upon arrival to advise he got home safe and he says “I’m wide awake and want to party but everyone else is tired and just wants to go to bed.”
        
    17. David Bowie, Lady Grinning Soul . . . How many rock songs mention the card game canasta? Besides which, what a great tune, jazzy, atmospheric, twinkly piano by Mike Garson who, perhaps amazingly, has contributed in a very cool fashion to YouTube posts of this Aladdin Sane album song by thanking people in comment fields for praising his playing on it. And Garson, who played on 13 Bowie albums – he was Bowie’s longest-serving and most frequently appearing band member – including the studio classics Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs and Young Americans, deserves such praise. His long and varied discography also includes sessions with Mick Ronson, Nine Inch Nails, bass superstar Stanley Clarke and Smashing Pumpkins.
    18. Dire Straits, Lions . . . What can one say about Dire Straits’ self-titled debut from 1978? It’s great, it’s far more than the hit single and a great song it is, Sultans of Swing, but every song is terrific, like this one.
    19. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Luna . . . Not sure if I’ve played this before. I don’t think so because, you know how you maybe know an album yet you sort of don’t know it? Or maybe it’s just me. Anyway, I’m a big Petty fan yet aside from a few albums like, mostly, the early ones like the breakthrough Damn The Torpedoes and then Hard Promises, his non-Heartbreakers stuff like Full Moon Fever, I confess I’ve tended to fall into a compilation of his hits rut even while owning it all, studio albums, compilations, box sets. Breakdown, still to me one of his greatest songs, is obviously on compilations so I rarely listen to it from the first, self-titled studio album. Yet the other day, I did when I put that record on and Luna of course came up. Ridiculously great tune, haunting, hypnotic bluesy excellence with that distinctive Petty voice, an instrument in itself, as with so many great artists.
        
    20. The Stills-Young Band, 12/8 Blues (All The Same) . . . According to one of those track-by-track analysis books I have, this one on Neil Young, the 1976 Stills-Young Band album was originally planned as a sort of return to Buffalo Springfield, at least in terms of creative spirit. Then, David Crosby and Graham Nash were invited to participate and it looked like the sessions would result in a new CSNY album. But internecine warfare ensued and it reverted to a Stills-Young project, this being a Stills-penned tune and a good one it is. Certainly lyrically, in terms of relationships and I’m not talking about the band, it’s about the male-female often flawed communication dynamic. “I got the miserables . . . help me . . . I wanna talk to you . . . .listen too . . . too many times I’ve swallowed my words. Is it a crime to want to be heard?” I’ve always been into Neil Young, always thought he was ‘the’ guy in CSNY and obviously solo, and he still largely is, but as the years go by and I have dug deeper into Stephen Stills, wow.
    21. Montrose, Dancin’ Feet . . . It’s akin to the Deep Purple story, circa 1974 when Purple introduces the previously unknown singer David Coverdale to the world and goes on to further success with the Burn and subsequent albums, Coverdale of course going on to found and front the hugely successful Whitesnake. In this case, Sammy Hagar leaves Montrose and, similarly later to Judas Priest bringing in tribute band singer Ripper Owens when Rob Halford left, Montrose brings in unknown singer Bob James from a Montrose tribute band to take over lead vocals. And it works for two albums including this funky rocker from the band’s 1975 album Warner Bros. Presents Montrose! Cool album cover, too.
        
    22. George Thorogood and The Destroyers, Want Ad Blues . . . Typically raunchy cover, great bass intro, in this case of a John Lee Hooker tune, from arguably the master coverer-turn-em-into rock tracks artist, Thorogood. From his 1993 album Haircut.

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

1. Jethro Tull, Wolf Unchained
2. Little Feat, Juliette
3. Zuffalo, Flowering Rush
4. Grateful Dead, Unbroken Chain
5. The Allman Brothers Band, High Cost Of Low Living
6. J.J. Cale, Artificial Paradise
7. Harry Chapin, Sunday Morning Sunshine
8. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lodi
9. Thin Lizzy, Slow Blues
10. Ten Years After, Slow Blues In ‘C’ (from Recorded Live)
11. The Rolling Stones, You Gotta Move (live, from Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! Deluxe box set)
12. Traffic, (Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired
13. Jack Bruce, How’s Tricks
14. Rod Stewart, Lady Day
15. Bob Dylan, If You See Her, Say Hello
16. Peter Green, Baby When The Sun Goes Down
17. Jon Lord with The Hoochie Coochie Men, Back At The Chicken Shack (from Live At The Basement)
18. Gordon Lightfoot, That Same Old Obsession
19. Steely Dan, Green Earrings
20. The Monkees, No Time
21. Reunion, Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)
22. David Essex, Rock On
23. Edward Bear, Last Song
24. Dire Straits, Fade To Black

    My track-by-track tales:

    1. Jethro Tull, Wolf Unchained . . . From the new Tull album, RokFlote (rock flute), released last week. Originally to be a primarily instrumental album featuring flute, as planning and sessions progressed Tull leader Ian Anderson began writing more lyrics and it became a full band effort, a concept album based around Norse mythology and history prompted by Anderson’s delving into his own possible Scandinavian roots, as he relates in the album’s liner notes. It’s fairly mellow, this track being the hardest rocking, to my ears, after just a listen or two. But it’s good, making it two straight late-career solid albums from Tull after last year’s The Zealot Gene. Anderson’s voice isn’t what it once was, which is why my lone disappointing of many Tull shows, in 2007, marked the last time I’ll see the band live. But Anderson is smart enough to work around his vocal limitations, likely helped by studio wizardry, on new recorded work that best suits his singing.
       
    2. Little Feat, Juliette . . . Speaking of flute, Anderson and Tull are likely the most famous for use of the instrument but it’s not as if it’s unique to that band in rock music. A quick web search suggests bands ranging from Canned Heat to Genesis to John Mayall’s various Bluesbreakers incarnations to The Moody Blues, and others, have used flute, although not as extensively as Tull nor, usually, as a lead instrument. Little Feat tried it on this lovely track from the Dixie Chicken album. Feat leader Lowell George plays it, apparently despite his thinking he wasn’t very good at it. Sounds fine to me.
       
    3. Zuffalo, Flowering Rush . . . This Toronto band will be celebrating the 50^th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon by playing the album, and their own stuff, like this tune from their Birdbrain record, in a 9 p.m. show sponsored by Radio Waterloo tonight (Saturday, April 29) at Rhythm and Blues in Cambridge, Ont. Zuffalo describes its sound as ‘groove-driven, uplifting psychedelic rock with folk- and pop-based melodies and harmonies. . . . with funky beats and monstrous riffs that can enter realms of blues and hard rock.” For musical context, Zuffalo reminds me somewhat of The Allman Brothers Band and Grateful Dead, among others. Which leads me into the next two songs . . .
       
    4. Grateful Dead, Unbroken Chain . . . From The Mars Hotel album, issued in 1974, this tune with a nice, comfortable groove was written and sung by Dead bass player Phil Lesh. I’ve long appreciated them by now but I was somewhat late to the band, knew hit songs like Truckin’ but often smiled at lines about the band like, and I’m paraphrasing, “once Deadheads stopped doing drugs and listened to the band while straight they realized how bad they were.” But such lines aren’t true, as I’ve found out over time while digging deeper.
       
    5. The Allman Brothers Band, High Cost Of Low Living . . . One of my favorite Allmans tunes, all eras. This one’s from the last studio album Hittin’ The Note, released in 2003. The band became exclusively a live act after that before retiring in 2014 after their final concert at New York’s Beacon Theatre, where they for years set up shop for month-long strings of shows.
       
    6. J.J. Cale, Artificial Paradise . . . From Cale’s 1992 album 10, being his tenth album. He also has albums called ‘5’ and #8 and wouldn’t you know, they are his fifth and eighth studio albums, respectively. Clever guy. But not all his album titles are like that, and I’m not knocking him by any stretch. He’s one of my favorite artists. He was just so effortlessly smooth in his bluesy, rootsy, country way, always reliably the same yet different enough in each song and album as to remain compelling, rarely if ever repeating himself.
       
    7. Harry Chapin, Sunday Morning Sunshine . . . Yes, I know it’s a Saturday morning show but I don’t have a Sunday show. At least, not yet, that I know of. Nice tune by Chapin, musically and lyrically, typical of an artist with loads of great stuff yet well known by the masses essentially for two songs – Cat’s In The Cradle and Taxi.
       
    8. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Lodi . . . It’s on all their compilations so it’s an at least somewhat popular, well-known tune that was the B-side to Bad Moon Rising from the Green River album. Yet it’s one of those CCR songs you don’t tend to hear about much given all their big hit singles, although it’s always been one of my favorites. And what’s wrong with being stuck in Lodi, California, anyway? It’s a key hub of the state’s wine industry.
       
    9. Thin Lizzy, Slow Blues . . . One of those songs that I’d bet if you played it to someone, unless they were up on Thin Lizzy and, maybe, Phil Lynott’s voice, they’d not guess that it was Thin Lizzy. Great tune. It’s not exactly slow, more mid-tempo I’d say, and a somewhat spooky lament about yet another relationship gone awry. Typical blues fodder. It’s from 1973’s Vagabonds Of The Western World, Thin Lizzy’s third album, three years before they broke big in North America via the Jailbreak album and The Boys Are Back In Town hit single.
       
    10. Ten Years After, Slow Blues In ‘C’ (from Recorded Live) . . . Thin Lizzy was in the wrong key. So TYA corrected them. Another great bluesy track; I’m in that frame of mind, in large measure, for this show.
        
    11. The Rolling Stones, You Gotta Move (live, from Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out! Deluxe box set) . . . From the expanded version of Ya Ya’s, issued in 2009. Just Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in a mini acoustic set featuring the Fred McDowell blues tune the Stones previewed on their 1969 tour of the United States, recording it, Brown Sugar and Wild Horses at Muscle Shoals studio in Alabama while on tour as shown in the movie Gimme Shelter. The three songs wound up on 1971’s Sticky Fingers album. The expanded Ya Ya’s album release includes five songs – Prodigal Son, You Gotta Move, Under My Thumb, I’m Free and Satisfaction – that were regularly played on the tour but weren’t included on the original 1970 live album.
        
    12. Traffic, (Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired . . . Exactly how I felt the day before yesterday in prepping the show. Just couldn’t seem to get it together to my own satisfaction. But as often happens, took a break, rearranged things, garbage in garbage out so to speak in terms of tracks (and of course none of them are garbage) and, here we are.
        
    13. Jack Bruce, How’s Tricks . . . A reggae groove on this title track from the former Cream man’s 1977 album.
        
    14. Rod Stewart, Lady Day . . . Yet another classic from Rod Stewart’s amazing 1969-74 period when he was maintaining parallel careers, solo and with Faces, most of whom backed him on his solo albums. This one’s from his second solo outing, 1970’s Gasoline Alley. Stewart’s solo success eventually overshadowed and led to the fraying of Faces.
        
    15. Bob Dylan, If You See Her, Say Hello . . . Another lament to lost love from an album lamenting lost love, Blood On The Tracks.
        
    16. Peter Green, Baby When The Sun Goes Down . . . Bluesy excellence from the Fleetwood Mac founder’s 1980 album Little Dreamer.
        
    17. Jon Lord with The Hoochie Coochie Men, Back At The Chicken Shack (from Live At The Basement) . . . The Deep Purple keyboardist having fun with friends in Australia on this great live album, released in 2003. A dip into a bit of Purple’s Lazy to start, then into a blues shuffle showcase of the late great Lord’s skills on this nine-minute excursion.
        
    18. Gordon Lightfoot, That Same Old Obsession . . . Love, lost love, same old story. Beautiful song was the B-side to You Are What I Am from 1972’s Old Dan’s Records album, one which saw Lightfoot starting to introduce country influences into his music.
        
    19. Steely Dan, Green Earrings . . . Jazzy, funky rock from The Royal Scam album featuring great guitar from Denny Dias and Elliott Randall.
        
    20. The Monkees, No Time . . . I had this Monkees’ rocker from the Headquarters album in the hopper and under consideration for today’s show. Then, unrelated to show planning, came a fun chat with friends about The Monkees, so that conversation clinched No Time’s inclusion.
        
    21. Reunion, Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me) . . . I considered doing another one-hit wonder type show, which I’ve done before but decided to go with just a few such tunes. This one, from 1974, name-checks just about every artist popular in music to that point in a fun tune that made the top 10 in North America, No. 8 on Billboard and No. 2 in Canada.
        
    22. David Essex, Rock On . . . He’s known as a one-hit wonder, at least in North America, for this song but David Essex, still active at 75, has 19 top 40 singles and 16 top 40 albums in the UK. He’s also an actor, with credits in various movies and TV shows, mostly UK productions, and the stage musicals Godspell and Evita during the 1970s.
        
    23. Edward Bear, Last Song . . . A No. 1 Canadian and No. 3 US hit in 1973 for the Toronto-based group. Formed in 1966, the band, whose name was derived from Winnie the Pooh, also charted with You, Me and Mexico in 1970.
        
    24. Dire Straits, Fade To Black . . . And you thought “Last Song’ would be the actual last song. C’mon . . . that’s just what you’d be expecting. Instead, out we fade with this boozy, bluesy track from the final Dire Straits album, 1991’s On Every Street. The late Jeff Porcaro of Toto and extensive session fame was the drummer on most of the album’s songs and was invited on tour – an excellent one I took in when the band came to Toronto. But Porcaro declined due to his commitments to Toto and other projects, of which there were many. Porcaro was one of the most recorded session musicians in history including albums/songs with Steely Dan, Jackson Browne, Boz Scaggs, Diana Ross, Warren Zevon, Michael Jackson, Madonna . . . the list is quite varied, and almost endless.