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

1. Lou Reed, Hangin’ ‘Round
2. Eric Burdon & The Animals, St. James Infirmary
3. Simon and Garfunkel, Fakin’ It
4. David Bowie, After All
5. Jeff Beck Group, I’ve Been Used
6. Nina Simone, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
7. Elton John, I’ve Seen That Movie Too
8. Solomon Burke, Cry To Me
9. The Butterfield Blues Band, I Got A Mind To Give Up Living
10. Iron Butterfly, In The Time Of Our Lives
11. Faces, Wicked Messenger
12. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Penthouse Pauper
13. Free, Walk In My Shadow
14. Humble Pie, Beckton Dumps
15. Aerosmith, Combination
16. The Byrds, Medley: Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)/Mr. Tambourine Man/Eight Miles High (live)
17. R.E.M., Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter
18. Mountain, Bardot Damage
19. ZZ Top, 2000 Blues
20. Jimi Hendrix, Cherokee Mist
21. Eric Clapton, Mean Old Frisco
22. Moby Grape, Hoochie
23. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Circles
24. Rare Earth, In Bed
25. Jethro Tull, Cold Wind To Valhalla
26. T Bone Burnett, Shut It Tight
27. Boogaloo & His Gallant Crew, Cops and Robbers
28. The Rolling Stones, Gotta Get Away

    My track-by-track tales:

    1. Lou Reed, Hangin’ ‘Round . . . Rocker from Reed’s breakthrough solo album Transformer, released in 1972 and produced by admirers of Reed’s Velvet Underground David Bowie and guitarist Mick Ronson, then a member of Bowie’s band. Bowie and Ronson were among the musicians on the record, along with longtime Beatles’ associate and former Manfred Mann bassist Klaus Voormann.
       
    2. Eric Burdon & The Animals, St. James Infirmary . . . Psychedelic blues on this traditional tune arranged by Burdon. It appeared on 1968’s Every One Of Us album. Burdon is forever involved in great music, whether it be the early British Invasion days of The Animals, the psychedelic phase under the moniker Eric Burdon & The Animals, his funk rock explorations with War and his solo work. He put on a great show when I saw him at the 2016 Kitchener Blues Festival, which he also played in 2007. I admittedly have some catching up to do on his solo stuff. His most recent studio work came in 2013 but I can say that his 2004 album, My Secret Life, which I found for about a buck at a flea market years ago, is excellent. I’ve played some stuff from it before and ought to get back to it for the show.
       
    3. Simon and Garfunkel, Fakin’ It . . . From the Bookends album, which was recorded gradually, starting in 1966 until its release in April of 1968 although many of the songs came out earlier as singles, as Fakin’ It did in August of 1967. It gets somewhat confusing as, for instance, the hit single Mrs. Robinson is on Bookends but also, in different form, on the soundtrack album to the movie The Graduate, which came out in 1967 when Mrs. Robinson, the song, was still a work in progress. I direct you to the internet for further reading. As for Fakin’ It, it’s a well-known tune, the early part of it sounds a bit like The Mamas and The Papas to me, or they sounded like Simon and Garfunkel.
       
    4. David Bowie, After All . . . Psychedelic folk rock from The Man Who Sold The World album, the 1970 record (1971 release in the UK) that marked the first appearance of guitarist Mick Ronson on a Bowie record. Lots of Bowie and Ronson in what’s turning into something of a family tree set. See song No. 1.
       
    5. Jeff Beck Group, I’ve Been Used . . . Stomper from 1971’s Rough and Ready, the first album released by the second Jeff Beck Group. Rod Stewart and Ron Wood were now in the Faces while Beck’s new lineup featured drummer Cozy Powell, later of Rainbow, various incarnations of Black Sabbath, Emerson, Lake and Powell and other projects, and singer Bobby Tench. Alex Ligertwood, later lead vocalist in various stints with Santana between 1979 and 1994, was to be the Beck group’s singer but apparently the record company didn’t like his vocals. I think the right choice was made. I prefer Tench’s raunchier approach but then I preferred Gregg Rolie’s singing on the first few Santana records, still my favorites, to Ligertwood’s poppier, to my ears, vocals although of course Santana has had various singers over time.
       
    6. Nina Simone, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood . . . What an emotive vocal performance on this original 1964 version. But that was Simone, what a singer. The Animals had a big hit with the song a year later. It’s been covered by many artists including Joe Cocker on his 1969 debut album With A Little Help From My Friends and Elvis Costello on King Of America in 1986.
    7. Elton John, I’ve Seen That Movie Too . . . Another of the many terrific deep cuts on the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album.
       
    8. Solomon Burke, Cry To Me . . . From the late great R & B/soul singer. It’s the first of two tracks I’m pulling from a CD of songs covered by The Rolling Stones that came with a MOJO Magazine issue I bought years ago. I’ve got some Solomon Burke on his own, including Cry To Me, but such compilation CDs on many of the excellent UK magazines, like MOJO, Uncut, Classic Rock etc. are often revelatory, usually tied to articles in the publication. Cry To Me was included on the 1965 Stones album Out Of Our Heads, one of the few songs that appeared on both the UK and US versions of that record, which had a different cover on either side of the pond. Those were the days when track listings, album covers and even album names of British Invasion bands were often different due in part to the UK practice of singles not usually appearing on albums, leading to repackaging for the North American market done by the record companies. So you wound up with early period US/North American albums like the Stones’ 12 X 5 and December’s Children (And Everybody’s), Beatles ’65, Beatles VI, etc.
       
    9. The Butterfield Blues Band, I Got A Mind To Give Up Living . . . “I’ve got a mind to give up living and go shopping instead . . . ” Nice opening line to this traditional blues tune from the band’s second album, East-West. It was the last of the group’s records to feature the twin guitar attack of Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop. Bloomfield left after East-West to form The Electric Flag.
       
    10. Iron Butterfly, In The Time Of Our Lives . . . Spooky psychedelic rock from the Ball album, 1969.
        
    11. Faces, Wicked Messenger . . . Typically raunchy Faces treatment of the Bob Dylan tune from his 1967 John Wesley Harding album, although it’s titled The
        Wicked Messenger on the Dylan record. It appeared on 1970’s First Step album, the first to feature Rod Stewart and Rod Wood from the original Jeff Beck Group. They joined the remnants of the Small Faces (Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan) after Steve Marriott left Small Faces to form Humble Pie.
        
    12. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Penthouse Pauper . . . Down and dirty raunch from Bayou Country, CCR’s second album overall and first of three (!) equally consistent records the band released in 1969. The others were Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys, all stuffed with classic singles like Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising, Green River, Down On The Corner, Fortunate Son . . . and fine deep cuts like Penthouse Pauper. Amazing band, CCR, amazing songwriter, John Fogerty.
        
    13. Free, Walk In My Shadow . . . Blues rock from 1969’s debut album Tons Of Sobs. All the band members – Paul Rodgers (vocals), Paul Kossoff (guitar), Andy Fraser (bass) and Simon Kirke (drums) were still in their late teens while recording the record.
        
    14. Humble Pie, Beckton Dumps . . . I didn’t really realize it until getting into my track tales, but as touched on earlier, there’s a lot of connective tissue in today’s set. Accidentally on purpose, perhaps, or something like that, since I was really just randomly picking songs although my mind does tend to naturally work that way with music, and writing. So we have Lou Reed to Bowie and Mick Ronson, Nina Simone to The Animals, Jeff Beck to the Faces to . . . Humble Pie with this one from the Eat It album, released in 1973. Beckton, part of Greater London, is where Humble Pie guitarist/singer Steve Marriott grew up.

    15. Aerosmith, Combination . . . Everything on the Rocks album er, rocks. Great record. Lead guitarist Joe Perry shares vocals with Steven Tyler.
        
    16. The Byrds, Medley: Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is A Season)/Mr. Tambourine Man/Eight Miles High (live) . . . Aerosmith’s Combination leads into . . . a combination of songs. I don’t usually play hits, this being a deep cuts show. But this near 10-minute medley, recorded in 1969 but not released commercially until the Live At The Fillmore February 1969 album came out in 2000, is something of a deep cut. It’s a later Byrds lineup and worth the price of admission for the playing of lead guitarist Clarence White alone. White had joined the group for the Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde studio album the same year.
        
    17. R.E.M., Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter . . . Blistering rocker in the vein of What’s The Frequency, Kenneth? from what turned out to be the band’s last studio album, 2011’s Collapse Into Now. Could easily have been a single, but wasn’t.
        
    18. Mountain, Bardot Damage . . . Mountain had been dormant, studio recording-wise, since 1974 until the Go For Your Life album came out in 1985 although Leslie West had been doing solo material. The album was pretty much ignored, making it to No. 166 on the charts. I don’t own it, but I do own a comprehensive 2CD Mountain compilation, Over The Top, on which the song appears. It’s what you’d expect of a project involving guitarist/singer West, hard-rocking pyrotechnics that thankfully largely avoids the overproduction of so much 1980s material.
        
    19. ZZ Top, 2000 Blues . . . Even at the height of their synthesizer period, ZZ Top still featured the occasional bluesy rock track on their albums, harkening back to their earlier days. I Need You Tonight, from the 1983 commercial monster Eliminator album featuring such hits as Legs comes to mind. By 1990’s Recyler, the band was heading back, at least to some degree, in their original direction, evidenced by 2000 Blues. Like I Need You Tonight, it made the grade for the group’s 1994 compilation One Foot In The Blues alongside such early material as Brown Sugar (not the Stones’ song) from their first album and Sure Got Cold After The Rain Fell, from Rio Grande Mud.
        
    20. Jimi Hendrix, Cherokee Mist . . . Just Hendrix on guitar and sitar along with drummer Mitch Mitchell on this brooding seven-minute instrumental recorded in May, 1968. It remained officially unreleased until the Both Sides Of The Sky album, yet another posthumous but worthwhile batch of archival material, came out in 2018.
        
    21. Eric Clapton, Mean Old Frisco . . . Cover of a blues tune written by Arthur Cruddup, whose That’s All Right became Elvis Presley’s first single, released in 1954. Mean Old Frisco appeared on Clapton’s 1977 album Slowhand, well known for Lay Down Sally, Wonderful Tonight and a cover of J.J. Cale’s Cocaine.
        
    22. Moby Grape, Hoochie . . . Toe-tapping rocker from the San Francisco band’s ’69 album, issued in, wait for it, 1969. A good driving down the highway tune.
        
    23. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Circles . . . Progressive sort of rocker from the band’s Watch album, released in 1978. It wasn’t a single, but later wound up on some compilations. Watch was original drummer Chris Slade’s last album with the Earth Band, which formed in 1971 and was a different entity than the earlier Manfred Mann of such hits as Do Wah Diddy Diddy and Mighty Quinn, their retitled cover of Bob Dylan’s The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo). Slade, in a massive missed opportunity by both parties, was never in the band Slade. Both Slades are still around, so there’s always hope. Chris Slade did go on to stints with AC/DC, notably on the Razors Edge album, and The Firm with Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers.
        
    24. Rare Earth, In Bed . . . Nice groove on this one from the second Rare Earth album, Get Ready, released in 1969. Only an edited version of the epic, 21-minute title cut was given a single release although In Bed is on various compilations and I seem to recall hearing it a fair bit on radio.
        
    25. Jethro Tull, Cold Wind To Valhalla . . . From 1975’s Minstrel In The Gallery album. It’s one of those songs, among many of course but perhaps more than most, that demonstrate all of what Tull at its best brings to the table. Progressive rock, folk rock, heavy rock, all in one four-minutes and change trip.
        
    26. T Bone Burnett, Shut It Tight . . . Countryish folk rock tune from T Bone’s 1983 album Proof Through The Night. The record featured contributions from a host of noted guitarists including Ry Cooder, Pete Townshend and, there he is again with a mention in this set, Mick Ronson. The guy was everywhere, but not on this track. It’s Richard Thompson of Fairport Convention fame doing the honors.
        
    27. Boogaloo & His Gallant Crew, Cops and Robbers . . . Second cut, covered by The Rolling Stones in the early days and a hit for Bo Diddley, from that MOJO mag CD I mentioned earlier. Boogaloo was the stage name for American songwriter and record producer Kent Harris, who died in 2019 at age 88.
        
    28. The Rolling Stones, Gotta Get Away . . . Critics often dismiss this early mid-tempo number by the Jagger-Richards songwriting team. Appreciation of the arts is subjective, of course, and I’ve always liked it although as a huge fan of the band, I’m likely the wrong person to ask to differentiate between great and not so great Stones songs. OK, I will say I’m not too big on Summer Romance and Where The Boys Go, both on the Emotional Rescue album, two that immediately come to mind. Good playing, as always, listenable enough but they seem to me to be formulaic throwaways. Back to Gotta Get Away: It was the B-side to As Tears Go By in the US and was on the UK version of the Out Of Our Heads album. In the US, it was on the aformentioned (see my take on song No. 8 in my list) December’s Children (And Everybody’s) record, which used the same cover photo of the band that was used for Out Of Our Heads in the UK. Whole book chapters have been written on this title/album configuration/cover art thing. Well, as the song says, gotta get away. Until Monday’s show . . . Happy Easter, everyone.

A 26-song trip from A to Z, using band/artist names, for tonight’s set. My track-by-track tales follow this bare-bones list.

1. The Allman Brothers Band, Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More
2. The Beatles, Because
3. Johnny Cash, I Won’t Back Down
4. Donovan, Season Of The Witch
5. Eagles, Visions
6. Fairport Convention, Reno, Nevada
7. Golden Earring, Instant Poetry
8. Hawkwind, Black Elk Speaks
9. It’s A Beautiful Day, White Bird
10. Jefferson Airplane, Comin’ Back To Me
11. The Kinks, Muswell Hillbilly
12. Led Zeppelin, Black Country Woman
13. John Mellencamp, Country Gentleman
14. Nazareth, All Nite Radio
15. Ohio Players, Time Slips Away
16. Pink Floyd, If
17. Queen, The Hitman
18. The Rolling Stones, Rain Fall Down
19. Santana, Africa Speaks
20. Ten Years After, Don’t Want You Woman
21. U2, Walk To The Water
22. The Velvet Underground, Rock & Roll
23. Wolfmother, 10,000 Feet
24. XTC, Ten Feet Tall
25. Neil Young, For The Turnstiles
26. Warren Zevon, My Ride’s HereMy track-by-track tales:

     

    1. The Allman Brothers Band, Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More . . . From Eat A Peach, written and sung by Gregg Allman in the wake of his brother Duane’s death in a motorcycle crash. An upbeat tune musically albeit touching, lyrically, on grief, the fleeting nature of time, and our use of it.
    2. The Beatles, Because . . . Stories about recording sessions are interesting and often unintentionally funny. There’s so much literature about the Beatles’ recording sessions, for all their albums, that I won’t get into it too deeply except for the two stories coming out of the Abbey Road sessions that have always made me smile. 1. Things were so acrimonious by then (even though Abbey Road is often romanticized as the group truly pulling together for one last, great gasp of creativity) that John Lennon for a time wanted all his songs on one side of the original vinyl release and Paul McCartney’s on the other. 2. Recording engineer Geoff Emerick favored Everest brand cigarettes. And boy, these guys smoked a lot, evidenced by the Get Back documentary. So anyway, due to Emerick the working title for the album was Everest. But when it was suggested the group fly to the Himalayas for a cover shoot – and I can just imagine scene, ‘ah, screw that idea’ – nobody could be bothered so they just went outside the studio for the iconic crosswalk photo we all know, love and many have imitated on trips to London. Beautiful three-part harmonies by Lennon, McCartney and George Harrison on the song, apparently inspired by Yoko Ono playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata to Lennon. Who says Yoko didn’t contribute to Beatles’ music beyond clinging to Lennon in the studio and being grudgingly tolerated by everyone else?
    3. Johnny Cash, I Won’t Back Down . . . I watched a documentary on Johnny Cash recently. A few minutes into the 90-minute show, I realized I’d seen it, or at least parts of it, long ago. But the repeat viewing was worth it and inspired me to play Cash’s cover of this Tom Petty tune. It appeared on American III: Solitary Man, one of the series of excellent albums Cash did with producer Rick Rubin late in The Man In Black’s career. 
    4. Donovan, Season Of The Witch . . . I’ve played cover versions of Donovan’s tune, by Vanilla Fudge, and Al Kooper and Stephen Stills from the Super Sessions album. Not sure I’ve ever played the original, so here goes.
       
    5. Eagles, Visions . . . Co-written by guitarist Don Felder, who contributes the fine work that earned him the nickname ‘Fingers’. It’s the only Eagles song on which Felder handled lead vocals despite his stated desire to do more. But the band was in the controlling hands of main songwriters/singers Glenn Frey and Don Henley and it truly was a case of three’s a crowd. It eventually led to Felder’s dismissal, a tell-all book he wrote, a lawsuit he filed against what he termed “The Gods”, Frey and Henley, and an eventual undisclosed settlement.
       
    6. Fairport Convention, Reno, Nevada . . . Great jam that was included on an expanded 2003 re-release of  the band’s 1968 self-titled debut. It was the lone Fairport album to feature singer Judy Dyble, before Sandy Denny joined the group. I stopped in Reno once, spring of 1981 while helping my dad do the driving to California, from Calgary, to set up shop in the San Francisco Bay Area for his new job. I never got into the casino scene or gambling at all, but it was my first experience playing a casino slot machine, just to try it, back before casinos (and now TV commercials for betting sites) sprung up everywhere outside of Nevada and I guess Atlantic City. As I recall I won a few pennies, then lost them, coming out even before we hit the road again. As for Reno, Johnny Cash also shot a man there once, just to watch him die. Just lyrically, of course, in Folsom Prison Blues.
       
    7. Golden Earring, Instant Poetry . . . A stand-alone hard rocking single released in 1974, a year after Golden Earring’s worldwide success with the Moontan album and its big hit, Radar Love.
       
    8. Hawkwind, Black Elk Speaks . . . From 1990’s Space Bandits album. The hypnotic track is a tribute to indigenous icon Black Elk, who fought at the Battle of Little Bighorn and later toured with and performed in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.
       
    9. It’s A Beautiful Day, White Bird . . . Signature, beautiful song from the aptly named San Francisco psychedelic band, from its 1969 self-titled debut album.
       
    10. Jefferson Airplane, Comin’ Back To Me . . . Another beauty, written and sung by Marty Balin, from 1967’s Surrealistic Pillow. It was the first Airplane album to feature Grace Slick, who sang Somebody To Love and White Rabbit, the band’s biggest hits. Balin said he created the song while indulging in some ‘primo’ marijuana given him by blues singer/harmonica player Paul Butterfield. Richie Havens and, much later, Rickie Lee Jones on her 1991 covers album Pop Pop, did notable versions.
        
    11. The Kinks, Muswell Hillbilly . . . I’m forever heaping praise on The Kinks and, in particular, their 1971 album Muswell Hillbillies. Yet it bombed commercially. This title cut country rocker, full of social commentary typical of Ray Davies’ writing, is one of the few remaining songs from the album I’ve not yet played on the show. And how can you not be pulled in by an opening line like “Well, I said goodbye to Rosie Rooke this morning. I’m gonna miss her bloodshot alcoholic eyes . . . ‘
        
    12. Led Zeppelin, Black Country Woman . . . Acoustic rocker that builds to something of a stomper. Not on the order of, say, Trampled Underfoot, but it moves. It’s from Physical Graffiti, complete with the plane flying overhead at the start (they were recording outside, in a garden) and the wise decision to ‘yeah, leave it”.
        
    13. John Mellencamp, Country Gentleman . . . From 1989’s Big Daddy album, a diatribe against then-US President Ronald Reagan. Terrific album, spare, lyrically deep, Mellencamp once said he considers it his best, or one of them, as he was maturing lyrically. I agree, even though commercially it didn’t reach the heights or widespread listenership of some of his previous work like The Lonesome Jubilee, Scarecrow, Uh-Huh and his 1982 breakthrough American Fool. To me it’s perhaps akin to Bruce Springsteen going from the maybe calculated, over the top success of the Born In The USA album in 1984 to the more introspective, personal Tunnel Of Love record three years later.
        
    14. Nazareth, All Nite Radio . . . I love the guitar picking on this one from 1983’s Sound Elixir album. It’s country-ish, almost, but ever-changing into maybe a metallic soul, a genre and phrase I just now made up. And maybe a bit too polished for Nazareth fans of, say, Hair Of The Dog but as I said the other day while playing and discussing Nazareth (playing them again so soon, I needed an ‘N’ band for the alphabet): They are known as a hard rock band but deeper investigation reveals some interesting and diverse directions.
        
    15. Ohio Players, Time Slips Away . . . Soul/funk/jazz/rock fusion. Intoxicating.
        
    16. Pink Floyd, If . . . Floyd’s 1970 album Atom Heart Mother album, two releases before the monster commercial breakthrough that was The Dark Side Of The Moon, is an interesting listen. Side one of the original vinyl is the near 24-minute orchestral Atom Heart Mother Suite, complete with choir. Side two ends with the off the wall Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast, kitchen sounds, someone eating cereal, frying bacon etc. I’ve played both before. In between those are three musically beautiful, more conventional pieces: Roger Waters’ If, keyboardist Richard Wright’s Summer ’68 and David Gilmour’s Fat Old Sun. I simply randomly picked the Waters-penned track.
        
    17. Queen, The Hitman . . . Heavy riff rock from 1991’s Innuendo, the last Queen album released during lead singer Freddie Mercury’s lifetime. It’s one of my favorite albums by the band in part because it marked a return to the Queen I most liked: bombastic, sometimes operatic hard rock with Brian May’s guitar prominenly featured. A terrific return to form for fans of earlier Queen.
        
    18. The Rolling Stones, Rain Fall Down . . . A funky tune Mick Jagger has said he wrote about London and his feelings about the city, and living in it, at the time of its release on the A Bigger Bang album in 2005.
        
    19. Santana, Africa Speaks . . . Title cut from Santana’s 2019 album, to my ears a Latin rock classic on par with the early 1970s Santana of which I am so fond.
        
    20. Ten Years After, Don’t Want You Woman . . . Acoustic boogie blues from the band’s self-title debut album in 1967.
        
    21. U2, Walk To The Water . . . Beautiful, moody B-side to The Joshua Tree’s first, and a No. 1, single With Or Without You. Walk To The Water was later included on the compilation The Best Of 1980-1990 which featured hit singles, some live stuff and B-sides. They followed it up with the equally interesting – depending on which version you purchased, the one CD version or the one that included the rarities disc two – The Best Of 1990-2000.
        
    22. The Velvet Underground, Rock & Roll . . . The Velvets can be an acquired taste, probably why in 1970 their record company asked for an album “loaded with hits’. Hence the album title, also a double entendre for being stoned or drunk. But despite this single and Sweet Jane, two of the band’s/Lou Reed’s best known songs, the album still failed to chart. But, as the saying about the Velvets goes, few people bought their albums but everyone who did, formed a band due to their influence. It just occurred to me, maybe strangely so ‘duh’ on me, after all these years of listening to it, that Reed by accident or design sounds like Bob Dylan on the track. Perhaps he always did, it just never occurred to me previously.
        
    23. Wolfmother, 10,000 Feet . . . Wolfmother comes out with its first, self-titled album in 2005 and my older son, then age 17 and playing music in his own bands, says to me when I mention how I like this then new band Wolfmother: “Dad, it’s Zep”. Yeah, so? It was a fun little moment. I haven’t asked my now nearly age 35 son what he thinks of the truly Zeppelin-like Greta Van Fleet. This one’s from Cosmic Egg, Wolfmother’s second album. They’re since up to six albums, although nobody seems to talk about them anymore. I’ve got three of them, my last one being their 2015 release, plus a solo album by bandleader Andrew Stockdale, who essentially IS Wolfmother. I have some catching up to do on the catalog, online or otherwise.
        
    24. XTC, Ten Feet Tall . . . From Drums and Wires, the 1979 album that, via the big hit single Making Plans For Nigel, brought XTC wide acclaim. Ten Feet Tall wasn’t a single, but I recall hearing it a lot on radio back then, my college days. But that’s when commercial rock radio actually played deep, or near deep, cuts.
        
    25. Neil Young, For The Turnstiles . . . Nice banjo guitar pickin’, Neil. From On The Beach.
        
    26. Warren Zevon, My Ride’s Here . . . He was so great. “I was staying at the Marriott with Jesus and John Wayne” . . . “I was staying at the Westin, I was playing to a draw when in walked Charlton Heston with the Tablets of the Law . . . ‘ And I haven’t even mentioned his references to Keats, Shelley and Lord Byron. Title cut from the late great’s second-last album, released in 2002. He died just over a year later. 

     

     

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

1. Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane, April Fool
2. Deep Purple, You Fool No One
3. Steely Dan, Only A Fool Would Say That
4. The Rolling Stones, Just Your Fool
5. Shirley Bassey, The Fool On The Hill
6. Robin Trower, The Fool And Me
7. Buddy Holly, Fool’s Paradise
8. Joe Jackson, Fool
9. Johnny Winter, Be Careful With A Fool
10. Jerry Lee Lewis, Fools Like Me
11. Van Halen, Fools
12. Aretha Franklin, Chain Of Fools
13. UFO, You Don’t Fool Me
14. Elvis Costello & The Attractions, You Little Fool
15. Bobbie Gentry, Find ‘Em, Fool ‘Em And Forget About ‘Em
16. Thin Lizzy, Fools Gold
17. Little Village, Fool Who Knows
18. Nazareth, Fool About You
19. Rod Stewart, Fool For You
20. Gene Clark, Life’s Greatest Fool
21. Gary Moore, Only Fool In Town
22. Family, No Mule’s Fool
23. Gov’t Mule, Towering Fool
24. Groundhogs, Still A Fool
25. Buddy Guy, Who’s Been Foolin’ You
26. Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Fool
27. Pretenders, Fools Must Die
28. Peter Green, A Fool No More

    My track-by-track tales:

    1. Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane, April Fool . . . Beautiful song, written and sung by Lane, of Faces fame, on the amazing album he and Townshend collaborated on, released in September 1977 and featuring such musical luminaries as Charlie Watts, Eric Clapton and John Entwistle on various tracks. Instant buy for me back then, being a Who and Faces fan. Endlessly rewarding.
       
    2. Deep Purple, You Fool No One . . . Boogie rock tune with typically great drumming from Ian Paice. It’s from 1974’s Burn, the first album with David Coverdale (lead vocals) and Glenn Hughes (bass/vocals) replacing Ian Gillan and Roger Glover, respectively. Well, Hughes replaced Glover on bass. Glover never sang.
       
    3. Steely Dan, Only A Fool Would Say That . . . I just played Steely Dan (King Of The World) on Monday in my ‘songs from 1973’ show but unless it’s my favorites the Stones, I try to mix things up and don’t often play the same artist again so quickly. But, believe it or not, I hadn’t thought of an April Fool’s-themed show, likely because I usually don’t like doing the obvious, until maybe Tuesday of this past week. That’s when I thought, I wonder if I can come up with enough songs, particularly deep cuts, with ‘fool’ or ‘foolish’ etc. in the title to fill my two-hour slot. Silly me. It turned out it was far easier than I envisioned; I had about four hours worth of songs in the system before I called a halt to the exercise and started shaving things down to fit the show. Anyway, the first song that came to mind in all of this was this one, from Steely Dan’s debut, Can’t Buy A Thrill, the first in a long line of consistently top-notch songs and albums from Messrs. Walter Becker (RIP) and Donald Fagen and their cast of collaborators over the years.
       
    4. The Rolling Stones, Just Your Fool . . . Little Walter tune, with Mick Jagger proving Keith Richards’ contention that when Jagger plays harmonica, he’s at his best. It’s from Blue & Lonesome, the Stones’ 2016 blues covers album that remains their last full studio release since 2005’s A Bigger Bang. There’s long been talk of a new album of original material and the band was apparently working on one when the sessions took the blues direction that resulted in Blue & Lonesome. But nothing new and original has been heard from the Stones since A Bigger Bang other than occasional new songs/singles like Doom and Gloom and One More Shot, on the 2012 compilation Grrr! or more recently, the pandemic-themed single Living In A Ghost Town, in 2020.
       
    5. Shirley Bassey, The Fool On The Hill . . . I first became aware of Welsh singer Bassey’s powerful voice via Goldfinger, to me the best of her three James Bond movie theme credits. The others are Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker. Her cover of this Beatles song made No. 48 on the UK charts in 1971. The Fool On The Hill was also nicely done by American artist Bobbie Gentry, who I’m playing, albeit a different song, later in the set.
       
    6. Robin Trower, The Fool And Me . . . From 1974’s Bridge Of Sighs, Trower’s second solo album after he left Procol Harum to team with singer/bassist James Dewar and drummers Reg Isidore and later Bill Lordan for a fine run of albums into the early 1980s.
       
    7. Buddy Holly, Fool’s Paradise . . . Rockabilly-type tune I pulled from a 50-song, double disc compilation of Holly’s I own. It’s all quality stuff, too, his big hits and the deeper cuts. All of that highly influential output and he was just 22 when he died in a 1959 plane crash along with Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper” J.P. Richardson, the tragedy later immortalized in Don MacLean’s song American Pie as ‘the day the music died’.
       
    8. Joe Jackson, Fool . . . I suppose the obvious thing to do would be to play Jackson’s well-known Fools In Love from his 1979 debut album Look Sharp! And I did consider it. But . . . that’s just what you’d be expecting. So I went with Fool, the title cut to the eclectic JJ’s most recent studio album, released in 2019. It’s rock, it’s jazz, it’s funk, it’s great. No matter where Jackson’s travelled musically – new wave, rock, reggae/ska, big band, jazz, classical – I’ve always followed, never been disappointed.
       
    9. Johnny Winter, Be Careful With A Fool . . . A typical guitar on fire cover of a blues tune, this one a B.B. King-penned number that appeared on Winter’s self-titled second album, released in 1969.
       
    10. Jerry Lee Lewis, Fools Like Me . . . Known for his wild rock and roll playing and shows, The Killer could also deliver aching tunes like this one, apparently a favorite of John Lennon’s.
        
    11. Van Halen, Fools . . . David Lee Roth does his best Janis Joplin vocalization impersonation before all hell breaks loose on this one from 1980’s Women And Children First album. A commenter on YouTube describes it as ‘tribal boogie.” Well put.
        
    12. Aretha Franklin, Chain Of Fools . . . Interesting, perhaps, when you haven’t listened to something in a long time. Sounds crazy, I realize but, somehow, the title and the tune didn’t connect for me at first when I was looking at the track list to an Aretha album I own. Then, hmm, it has Fools in the title, that might work, so I put it on and, bingo, immediately, oh, right, THAT one. Idiot (me). What a song, what a voice, what a performer the Queen of Soul was. A deserved No. 1 R & B and No. 2 pop hit for her in 1967.
        
    13. UFO, You Don’t Fool Me . . . Terrific rhythmic track featuring the usual guitar fireworks from Michael Schenker. It’s from the band’s Obsession album, released in 1978.
        
    14. Elvis Costello & The Attractions, You Little Fool . . . The first single from Costello’s 1982 critically acclaimed album Imperial Bedroom. I didn’t ‘get’ the record at first but as with some if not many good albums, sometimes it takes a while. It’s full of good songs – Beyond Belief, Shabby Doll I’ve always liked, Almost Blue and the second single and to me the album’s best cut, Man Out Of Time. However neither Man Out Of Time or You Little Fool cracked the top 50 in the UK, Costello’s home turf. Geoff Emerick, known for his sound engineer work with The Beatles on Revolver, Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road, produced the album.
        
    15. Bobbie Gentry, Find ‘Em, Fool ‘Em And Forget About ‘Em . . . Soul country, I suppose one would describe this one from the Ode To Billie Joe singer, one of the first American women to compose and produce her own material. She had 11 chart hits, including Billie Joe, the 1967 No. 1 that propelled her to stardom. Some years ago I was listening to Ode To Billie Joe, amazing song of course, and decided to dig deeper into Gentry’s work. I’ve been reaping the rewards ever since. One of those music mysteries, too. She was active until April, 1982 when she left the industry and essentially disappeared off the face of the earth after appearing at a country music awards show. She’d just had enough, apparently, which I find kinda cool. I’m done, see ya. She’d be 80 now, with various reports having her living in a gated community near Memphis, Tennessee. Or Los Angeles, depending on one’s source. She was once briefly married to casino magnate Bill Harrah and later to Jim Stafford, known for the 1970s hits Spiders & Snakes and the double entendre My Girl Bill.
        
    16. Thin Lizzy, Fools Gold . . . Do a show using the word ‘fool’ in the song titles and you realize how may songs, unsurprisingly I suppose, titled Fool’s Gold are out there, using apostrophes or, in Thin Lizzy’s case, not. Lizzy is, apparently, like AC/DC: off the top of my head AC/DC’s Razors Edge album and song, no punctuation, come to mind. Also up for consideration in the final analysis were Graham Parker’s Fool’s Gold (apostrophe) and the full near 10-minute version of Fools Gold (no apostrophe) by The Stone Roses. I rolled dice in a three-band round-robin tournament and Thin Lizzy won with its tale of the Irish Famine from the 1976 album Johnny The Fox. A final point on punctuation: Next show might be a grammar gig where I’ll play Frank Zappa’s album and song Apostrophe (‘). Actually, no. Not yet, anyway. I have another idea in mind for Monday’s set.
        
    17. Little Village, Fool Who Knows . . . From the one and only album, released in 1992, by the supergroup of Ry Cooder, John Hiatt, Nick Lowe and everyone’s session drummer Jim Keltner. The foursome had originally worked together on Hiatt’s 1987 album Bring The Family. Hiatt did most of the singing on Little Village but Fool Who Knows was written and sung by Lowe.
        
    18. Nazareth, Fool About You . . . Country-ish tune from the band’s second album, 1972’s Exercises. I’ve heard the song, and the album in general, referred to as uncharacteristic of Nazareth and I suppose that’s true, given that, besides the ballad Love Hurts, the band is arguably best known as a hard rock outfit. But deeper investigation of the discography reveals Nazareth as a diverse band that tried various styles, with often mixed results. But at least they didn’t sit still.
        
    19. Rod Stewart, Fool For You . . . Terrific ballad, written by Stewart, from his blockbuster 1976 album A Night On The Town that yielded the No. 1 hit Tonight’s The Night. Fool For You wasn’t a single, but easily could have been.
        
    20. Gene Clark, Life’s Greatest Fool . . . From the former Byrds-man’s fourth solo album, No Other, released in 1974. My favorite song on the album is the title cut, which I’ve played before, but the record, despite being front-to-back solid, was a critical and commercial failure upon release. Yet many of the same critics who at first derided it now refer to it as a lost masterpiece, which it is. But, I get it. Sometimes, as I mentioned earlier in my blurb about Elvis Costello’s Imperial Bedroom, albums take a few listens to sink in. Often, those wind up becoming your favorites – Exile On Main St. by The Rolling Stones is one of those, for me and if push came to shove it would be my desert island disc. But music journalists don’t always have that luxury, deadline for the review is tomorrow, or in our web world, right now, so instant and often flawed judgments can result.
        
    21. Gary Moore, Only Fool In Town . . . Guitar shredding from sometime metallic man Moore on this one from After Hours, his 1992 blues rock followup to his hit album and single Still Got The Blues two years earlier.
        
    22. Family, No Mule’s Fool . . . A folk rocker from a band that dabbled in progressive rock, psychedelia and jazz. It was released in the UK as a standalone single and later wound up on North American pressings of the 1970 album A Song For Me.
        
    23. Gov’t Mule, Towering Fool . . . Dark, bluesy tune from the band’s second album, Dose, released in 1998.
        
    24. Groundhogs, Still A Fool . . . Cover of the Muddy Waters song, from the British blues/rock band’s 1968 debut album, Scratching The Surface.
        
    25. Buddy Guy, Who’s Been Foolin’ You . . . Speaking of Muddy Waters, Buddy sounds just like Muddy, to my ears, on this cut from Guy’s excellent 2001 album Sweet Tea. The record is named for the Oxford, Mississippi studio in which it was recorded.
        
    26. Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Fool . . . Extended (12-minute) spooky, psychedelic piece from the San Francisco band’s self-titled 1968 debut album. I love the sort of barking, or ripping, guitar sound around the five-minute mark, but the whole thing is a trip.
        
    27. Pretenders, Fools Must Die . . . Kick butt, short but oh so sweet tune from 2002’s Loose Screw album. Few people seem to talk about it much, but it’s a terrific record I’ve mined before. Full of good songs – this one, Lie To Me, Complex Person, Kinda Nice, I Like It, Walk Like A Panther . . . worth checking out.
        
    28. Peter Green, A Fool No More . . . Long, slow, beautiful blues from the Fleetwood Mac founder’s 1979 album In The Skies.

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

1. David Bowie, Let’s Spend The Night Together
2. Bruce Springsteen, Spirit In The Night
3. Dr. John, Such A Night
4. Can, Moonshake
5. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Give It Time
6. The Who, Doctor Jimmy
7. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Poison Whiskey
8. Led Zeppelin, The Ocean
9. Alice Cooper, Raped And Freezin’
10. Thin Lizzy, The Hero And The Madman
11. Steely Dan, King Of The World
12. Queen, Great King Rat
13. Black Sabbath, Sabbra Cadabra
14. King Crimson, Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part 1
15. Genesis, Firth Of Fifth
16. Tom Waits, Ol’ 55
17. Stevie Wonder, Too High
18. The Doobie Brothers, Clear As The Driven Snow
19. Frank Zappa, Montana
20. Little Feat, Roll Um Easy
21. Roxy Music, Editions Of You
22. Elton John, High Flying Bird
23. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Still . . . You Turn Me On
24. The Allman Brothers Band, Come And Go Blues 

    My track-by-track tales:

1. David Bowie, Let’s Spend The Night Together . . . One show can lead into another. I was going to play Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album last Saturday when I played Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon and The Rolling Stones’ Goats Head Soup. The original premise was 50-year-old albums, ie released in 1973 but then came the tie-in with Toronto band Zuffalo, which is playing Dark Side, and their own stuff, on April 29 at Rhythm and Brews in Cambridge so out went Aladdin Sane, in came some Zuffalo. 

   Speaking of Zuffalo, they are having a ticket giveaway for their upcoming show which is sponsored by Radio Waterloo. For details, email gary@radiowaterloo.caAfter last Saturday’s album replay show, I still had 1973 on the brain so the result is tonight’s full slate of songs from that year including Bowie’s manic cover of this Stones’ tune. It appeared on Aladdin Sane, presaging Bowie’s full-blown covers album, Pin-Ups, that he hastily did to satisfy his record company’s demand for another album in 1973, to further cash in on Bowie’s commercial ascendance. Perhaps because he had already covered the Stones on Aladdin Sane, there were no Stones covers on the Pin-Ups album which included songs written or made famous by, among others, Them (Here Comes The Night), The Who (I Can’t Explain and Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere), The Kinks (Where Have All The Good Times Gone), Pink Floyd (See Emily Play) and Bruce Springsteen (Growin’ Up).

2. Bruce Springsteen, Spirit In The Night . . . Speaking of Springsteen, and cover tunes . . . I played Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s version of this Springsteen tune, from his 1973 debut album Greetings From Asbury Park NJ a few weeks ago so I figured I’d go with the original today. The Earth Band had even greater success with another song from Springsteen’s debut, Blinded By The Light. It’s interesting how prolific artists were back then, just a different time. Generally it was an album a year but sometimes two and in 1969, Creedence Clearwater Revival released three LPs, all of them – Bayou Country, Green River and Willy and the Poor Boys – among the band’s best. But back to 1973. Bowie released the two I’ve mentioned, one albeit a covers album. Springsteen’s debut was his first of two that year with The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle coming out in November after his debut in January. Later in the set I’m playing Elton John, who was on a 2-albums per year schedule for the first half of the 1970s.

3. Dr. John, Such A Night . . . The hit single Right Place Wrong Time took the doctor’s In The Right Place album to his highest-ever placing, No. 24 on Billboard. Such A Night got its own share of exposure when Dr. John performed it at The Band’s The Last Waltz concert, which became a film and live album, and the song appears on various Dr. John compilations.

4. Can, Moonshake . . . A somewhat rare, short but definitely catchy, propulsive track by the Krautrock progressive/experimetal band. From The Future Days album. It was released as a single and if you’re not into some of Can’s ‘weirder’ stuff, I’d recommend the more palatable The Singles compilation. The 1990s British experimental rock band Moonshake took its name from Can’s song. 
5. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Give It Time . . . I was going to play Welcome Home from BTO II, which is a terrific musical voyage into hard rock combined with jazz and perhaps I should have, regardless. But maybe it should have been an instrumental because, while he’s a great songwriter and guitarist, I find Randy Bachman’s vocals wimpy and somewhat embarrassing. He should scream more, as he does, at least he’s credited as lead vocalist, in the chorus to Welcome Home although it sounds to me like C.F. (Fred) Turner does that part. Yes, I know, Bachman sang the hits Takin’ Care Of Business and You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, and they work, but still. He’s not a good singer. So, here’s bass player Turner, clearly the best vocalist in the group, growling his way through this down and dirty ditty. 
6. The Who, Doctor Jimmy . . . A tour de force from Quadrophenia, eight and one-half minutes of classic, angry, full-force Who.

7. Lynyrd Skynyrd, Poison Whiskey . . . From the wall-to-wall great debut, Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-erd, which contained such well-known songs among the band’s output as Free Bird, Gimme Three Steps, Simple Man and Tuesday’s Gone, but also excellent deeper cuts like Poison Whiskey. While their first album wasn’t released until 1973, Skynyrd, under different names, had been around in various forms since 1964 including as My Backyard, featuring future stalwarts Ronnie Van Zant on lead vocals and guitarists Gary Rossington and Allen Collins. There’s really no such thing as overnight success, as most band histories show. 
8. Led Zeppelin, The Ocean . . . My biggest concern with playing something from Zep’s Houses Of The Holy album is having YouTube or Facebook, when I put the song clip on my page, remove it due to the album cover featuring children. It’s happened before but usually takes some time before it does. And I do understand it to some degree, given some of Zeppelin’s history or alleged history with youth. We’ll see how it goes. I’ve had The Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers ‘zipper’ cover removed before. Interestingly, Hipgnosis was nominated for a Grammy Award for Houses Of The Holy in the best album package category, now known as the best recording package, for ‘quality visual look’ of an album.

9. Alice Cooper, Raped And Freezin’ . . . From Billion Dollar Babies, an album that is essentially a greatest hits record. Even the deeper cuts, like this one, are familiar to most people who grew up with the record. As often mentioned, it was seemingly on permanent play in my early high school days on our cafeteria juke box.

10. Thin Lizzy, The Hero And The Madman . . . A spoken word, hard rock, prog rock, tempo changing guitar showcase, all in six minutes from the early Lizzy album Vagabonds Of The Western World. 
11. Steely Dan, King Of The World . . . Pop/rock/jazz with a funky hook, from Countdown To Ecstasy, Steely Dan’s second album. A masterpiece, really, but such is the case with so much of Steely Dan’s material. Steely Dan has been described as slick and, being a raunch and roller at heart, I don’t usually like slick. To me, it tends to mean overdone production, like a lot of 1980s stuff where some decent songs are probably hiding somewhere in the synthetic syrup. Yet I like Steely Dan a lot. Perhaps noted music critic Robert Christgau put it best in Christgau’s Record Guide: Rock Albums Of The Seventies. Steely Dan, he wrote about Countdown To Ecstasy but it could apply to all their stuff, has achieved a ‘deceptively agreeable studio slickness.” 
12. Queen, Great King Rat . . . Queen, in all their prog/operatic/hard rock glory, from the self-titled debut. Eleven years later they were going Radio Ga Ga on The Works album. Catchy, yes, evolution of an artist, yes, more commercially successful, yes, tongue in cheek, probably, but, er, hmm. 
13. Black Sabbath, Sabbra Cadabra . . . A hard rock proggish piece from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, with Yes virtuoso Rick Wakeman making a guest appearance on piano and synthesizers.

14. King Crimson, Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part I . . . Epic up and down, back and forth between mellow and aggressive title track from the Larks’ album. That first slow buildup to the heavy crescendo around the 4:45 mark of the 13-minute-plus instrumental gets me every time, just waiting for it to go over the cliff you know you can’t avoid if you keep listening. And who wants to stop listening to this brilliance? Guitarist/leader Robert Fripp has been the lone constant Crimson force in the band’s long history and Larks’ Tongues In Aspic is actually a multi-album suite amid ever-changing lineups, which is a feat in itself in terms of maintaining a vision. It started with Parts I and II on the original album. Then came Part III, 11 years later on 1984’s Three Of A Perfect Pair, followed by Part IV on the 2000 album The Construkction of Light and Part V, known as Level Five and/or Larks’ Tongues In Aspic Part V, on The Power To Believe record in 2003. Space doesn’t permit, but lots of interesting reading – and listening – on it. 
15. Genesis, Firth Of Fifth . . . Tony Banks with the beautiful piano intro to a song he masterminded but was originally rejected by the band when he submitted it for consideration for the Foxtrot album. He reworked it and it made the grade for the subsequent album, Selling England By The Pound. One of the classic tracks of Genesis’s truly progressive rock period, it also features singer Peter Gabriel on flute and a sterling guitar solo from Steve Hackett. 
16. Tom Waits, Ol’ 55 . . . From Waits’s first album, Closing Time. The Eagles covered it on their On The Border album in 1974 and it was the B-side to that record’s third single, Best Of My Love. Waits disliked the Eagles’ version, at least according to a quote reproduced by Wikipedia from a 1975 interview where Waits called the Eagles’ take on his song ‘a little antiseptic.” Apparently, about a year later, Waits went further, slamming the Eagles in general. “I don’t like the Eagles. They’re about as exciting as watching paint dry. Their albums are good for keeping the dust off your turntable and that’s about it.” 

    Ouch. I like the Eagles well enough, actually have all their albums, but I also understand Waits’s view. Live, for instance, at least while Glenn Frey was still with us, from what I’ve heard – evidenced by their 1980 live album and I’m not sure how much ‘fixing’ or overdubbing might have been done in production – the Eagles were almost too true to their studio albums. They didn’t stretch out, so to speak, as many if not most bands do when playing live. But from what I’ve read, that’s what Frey, a commanding force within the band along with Don Henley, wanted and presumably so do the fans attending the shows. That’s another discussion, of course. The artists that sometimes extend, even maybe rearrange their songs live can argue, as Joe Jackson, for one, has argued, that if you want the studio versions, listen to the studio albums. But it’s understandable if some if not many fans are disappointed after paying good money for a show, only to hear a favorite song they came to hear, drastically rearranged. But you also have to know your artist and how they tend to do things, and I think most fans do understand – or learn to appreciate – what to expect. As for Waits, I imagine he made at least decent royalties from the Eagles’ version of Ol’ 55, as he no doubt has from any number of covers of his songs that became bigger hits for others, Rod Stewart’s version of Downtown Train coming to mind.

1. 17. Stevie Wonder, Too High . . . Funky tune from the Innervisions album, could easily have been a single but Wonder was like Elton John at the time – his deep cuts were as compelling. And Wonder already had four hit singles from Innervisions, the chart placing depending on country: Higher Ground, Living For The City, Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing and He’s Misstra Know-It-All. 
   18. The Doobie Brothers, Clear As The Driven Snow . . . Wonderful, mostly acoustic track written and sung by guitarist Patrick Simmons, a founding and lone, constant member of the band throughout its long history. This one’s from The Captain and Me, the album that gave us Long Train Runnin’ and China Grove. 
   19. Frank Zappa, Montana . . . Wherein our man Frank moves to Montana to grow a crop of dental floss and become a tycoon of that industry. Tina Turner and The Ikettes, the backing singers for Ike & Tina Turner, help out on vocals. 
   20. Little Feat, Roll Um Easy . . . Next time I do a 1973-themed show I think I’ll just play the entire Dixie Chicken album. It’s that good. Linda Ronstadt covered Roll Um Easy on her Prisoner In Disguise album in 1975, with Little Feat’s Lowell George, the song’s author, playing slide guitar. I’m a big Ronstadt fan and she was a great interpreter, but I prefer Little Feat’s spare, acoustic original version. But it’s nice to have them both. 
   21. Roxy Music, Editions Of You . . . Early, brilliant, edgy Roxy, from the second album, For Your Pleasure. It is that, indeed. 
   22. Elton John, High Flying Bird . . . One of my favorite Elton John songs and a lovely way to close his Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player album. I played it years ago on the show to good reaction, and why not? It’s a terrific tune, apparently one of EJ’s favorites as well. So, while I don’t like to repeat myself or, at least, try to wait a long time between replays, now’s the time. 
   23. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Still . . . You Turn Me On . . . Beautiful piece and one of ELP’s most well-known. Yet the Greg Lake-penned tune wasn’t a single from Brain Salad Surgery as the band didn’t think it was representative of the album or the band’s manic dynamic sound. Somewhat strange, considering ELP albums are peppered with similar songs like Lucky Man, From The Beginning, C’Est La Vie and Lend Your Love To Me Tonight – all Lake compositions. “We’ve had success with Greg’s ballads,” drummer Carl Palmer says in the liner notes to the 1996 reissue of Brain Salad Surgery. “Without those, we probably wouldn’t have sold the amount of records that we have. The problem was, when we had something which was a commercial hit, it wasn’t dark. We had love songs that were hits, so it was a rather diverse situation. People were always waiting for the next (such ballad).”

       Not sure what the concern was. Dedicated ELP fans knew the band was about both the ‘dark’ and Lake’s ‘light’ ballads and such songs were hardly his only contribution. Casual listeners would likely buy a compilation featuring those ballads, anyway – and maybe get turned on to whatever extended, ‘dark’ pieces were also included.

        

   24. The Allman Brothers Band, Come And Go Blues . . . From Brothers and Sisters, the band’s biggest commercial success thanks to the No. 2 single Ramblin’ Man, written and sung by guitarist Dickey Betts. Come and Go Blues, written by Gregg Allman, was the B-side to the album’s second single, a 4-minute version of Betts’s seven-plus minute instrumental piece Jessica. 

       Looking up at the play list, what an amazing year 1973 was for music and obviously there’s lots I couldn’ fit in my 2-hour slot. But that could easily be said for any of the so-called classic rock years that started in the 1960s with the British Invasion, Bob Dylan and so on, through the 1970s which is generally the source period and/or artists, for my show. Old bands/artists, old tracks, old bands/artists, their new stuff, if they’re still alive, kicking and releasing new material has always been my mantra for So Old It’s New. Some years back, I started into a year-by-year series of shows, or segments within my shows, starting in 1964. But I only got to 1966, as I recall, before losing focus and straying into whatever else moved me at the time. So, a year-by-year series is worth revisiting, even sporadically, but at least somewhat consistently, particularly since I now have two shows per week, Mondays and Saturdays. We’ll see how it goes. So many ideas, so much great music, so little time.

My bare-bones set list follows this intro to Saturday’s album replay show that includes Toronto  band Zuffalo, which will be performing in Cambridge, ON on Saturday, April 29.

Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon was released on March 1, 1973 and I’ve been planning to play the full album in honor of that milestone. I’m doing so, along with another 50th anniversary album, Goats Head Soup by The Rolling Stones, on So Old It’s New airing 7-9 am ET tomorrow, Saturday, March 25.

In a serendipitous confluence of events, CKMS 102.7 FM Radio Waterloo is sponsoring a concert by Toronto band Zuffalo at Rhythm and Brews Brewing Company in Cambridge at 9 pm on Saturday April 29. Zuffalo will, in addition to their fine original work, be playing The Dark Side Of The Moon album in its entirety. So, the station asked me if I might point to the Zuffalo show which I will be doing in addition to playing some of the excellent to my ears songs from their most recent album, Birdbrain. Birdbrain was recorded in 2021 in Waterloo Region, at ‘The Barn’ in Baden, outside Kitchener. Full details on Zuffalo at the band’s website, zuffalo.ca . . . Tickets for the show are $20 in advance until Monday, March 27 after which they go up to $30 advance and more at the door.

Zuffalo will also be holding a ticket giveaway via Radio Waterloo. For details, email gary@radiowaterloo.ca

While Zuffalo is covering Pink Floyd, they’re anything but a covers band. They describe their sound as “groovy psychedelic rock with folk and pop-based melodies”. To my classic rock upbringing ears I also hear elements of The Allman Brothers Band, Bob Welch-era Fleetwood Mac of the Future Games album period and some Jefferson Airplane in extended pieces like the eight-minute track Open Eyes. Yet for all those influences Zuffalo remains unique to themselves with an infectious groove to all their tunes that prompted me to listen to their album straight through, several times, upon receipt.

Besides Birdbrain, the band has an earlier album and an EP, all available online and/or in physical copies, via the website.

Saturday’s bare-bones set list, followed by my track-by-track tales:

Pink Floyd: The Dark Side Of The Moon

1. Speak To Me/Breathe In The Air
2. On The Run
3. Time
4. The Great Gig In The Sky
5. Money
6. Us And Them
7. Any Colour You Like
8. Brain Damage
9. Eclipse

Zuffalo: BirdBrain (6 of the 9 songs on the album)

10. Open Eyes
11. Birdman
12. On A Windmill
13. In Another Time
14. Can You Run Out?
15. Big Man

The Rolling Stones: Goats Head Soup

16. Dancing With Mr. D

17. 100 Years Ago

18. Coming Down Again

19. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker)

20. Angie

21. Silver Train

22. Hide Your Love

23. Winter

24. Can You Hear The Music

25. Star Star (aka Starf***er)

My thoughts and track-by-track tales:

Pink Floyd: The Dark Side Of The Moon

As I mentioned last week when I played the Faces’ live version of I’d Rather Go Blind, made famous by Etta James, I’ve been going through albums I own that I haven’t played in ages, so songs from them, or in today’s case the full albums, will likely wind up in my set lists for some time to come. That’s typically somewhat the case anyway, because I play what I like and if the audience does, wonderful. But sometimes I find that, and perhaps it’s common, for my show or just listening pleasure, that one becomes so familiar with classic albums that we of a certain age have been listening to for decades that we don’t play them all that much anymore because we know them so well and can ‘hear’ them in our heads without actually putting them on a turntable, in a CD player or calling them up online. And that’s good in many ways because it may mean we’re exploring new music, or, at least, new music by our longtime favorite bands, if they’re still around and releasing material.

All of which is probably a too long-winded way of saying that I hadn’t listened to The Dark Side Of The Moon from start to finish in a long time, until this week when the idea for this show developed. Yet 50 years on, the album has lost none of its power, perhaps in different ways, because obviously I experience the music and hear the lyrics with a different sensibility born of life experience at age 63 soon to be 64 than I did when I first heard it, upon initial release, at soon to be age 14.

And of course there are fun memories – like my older brother startling me one morning in our shared bedroom by cranking the song Time’s chiming clocks to 11 to ruin my Saturday morning sleep-in. Or, years later, living on my own while attending college, having a ‘recreational drug experimentation’ session with friends and having one of them – who had been doing the crawl stroke on my carpet – plead “no, no, please, not THAT!’ when I suggested putting Dark Side on the stereo. We took a vote, on went Dark Side, the ‘swimmer’ survived the lunatic then in his head.

I listened to the album front to back this week in two versions, the original studio work from 1973 and a 1974 concert version where Pink Floyd played the album in its entirety live at The Empire Pool, Wembley, London. That show was previously unreleased but came out on a 2011 bonus CD, part of an expanded re-release. I’m not going to go into my usual track-by-tales for Dark Side. Most people know the album and besides, like many if not most Pink Floyd albums, while the individual songs are fine to be heard in isolation, it’s best to take it in one, near-45 minute experience.

1. Speak To Me/Breathe In The Air
2. On The Run
3. Time
4. The Great Gig In The Sky . . .
5. Money
6. Us And Them
7. Any Colour You Like
8. Brain Damage
9. Eclipse

Zuffalo: BirdBrain (I’m playing six of the nine tunes on the album)

10. Open Eyes . . . A heavy guitar riff starts things off before the song settles into a nice groove that reminded me, on first listen, of some Jefferson Airplane.
    
11. Birdman . . . A funky, psychedelic tune with some nice wah-wah guitar from Sean Steele.
    
12. On A Windmill . . . This one reminds me a bit of Bob Welch-era Fleetwood Mac, circa 1971’s Future Games album, and also The Allman Brothers Band. But, while influenced by various sources and genres, Zuffalo definitely has its own sound.
    
13. In Another Time . . . Singer/keyboardist Kim Manning doesn’t sing every song for the band, sharing vocals with bass player Mikey Vukovich, but she shines on this short up-tempo pop-rock ditty.
    
14. Can You Run Out?. . . Infectious single from the album. This band is tight.
    
15. Big Man . . . Another song that, on first listen, reminded me of some Fleetwood Mac, mostly the middle, and often overlooked, period with Bob Welch on lead guitar. Manning is a strong singer and when I saw her listed among the band personnel, and viewed and heard some live stuff from the group on YouTube, I immediately could ‘hear’ her doing the immortal ‘wordless vocals’ of Clare Torry on The Dark Side Of The Moon song The Great Gig In The Sky when Zuffalo plays the Pink Floyd album on April 29 in Cambridge.

The Rolling Stones: Goats Head Soup

Goats Head Soup was and maybe still is considered a disappointment after 1972’s Exile On Main St. although people, including the critics who initally trashed it, seem to forget that the double vinyl LP Exile was considered a bloated mess when it was released. Repeat listens, of course, long ago revealed Exile to be among the best, if not THE best Stones album of all and I’d say it’s my favorite although as always I defer to my mantra of the best song/artist/album ever is the one you’re listening to right now, if you like it. And whenever I listen to Goats Head Soup, I like it. Always have.

16. Dancing With Mr. D . . . I played this recently on the show, independent of an album replay. A sort of poor cousin sequel to Sympathy For The Devil, it’s also an interesting album opener in that usually, the Stones start things off with a rocker as opposed to this somewhat slow yet compelling tune.

17. 100 Years Ago . . . One of my favorite Stones’ songs, great wah-wah guitar from Mick Taylor, could easily have been a hit single in my opinion but the album was overwhelmed by Angie. 100 Years Ago is the first song I ever played on my show, many years ago now. I figured it fit my So Old It’s New show title and theme.

18. Coming Down Again . . . One of those Keith Richards on lead vocals ballads that goes contrary to the widespread perception of him as the ultimate riff rocker (which he may be) and presages the ballads and other interesting slower songs he would write and sing on later Stones’ albums. Things like All About You from 1980’s Emotional Rescue and, in particular, late 1980s and beyond material like Sleep Tonight from the Dirty Work album, Slipping Away from Steel Wheels, Thru and Thru from Voodoo Lounge and Thief In The Night and How Can I Stop from Bridges To Babylon.

19. Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker) . . . I could never understand how this made only No. 14 on the charts. Not a bad chart placing, of course, top 20, but, well, what a riff and song. But it was the second single after . . .

20. Angie . . . This massive hit ballad. Typically great, subtle drumming from Charlie Watts, without whom the song wouldn’t be the same. I’ve always loved his cymbals throughout and that little tap-tap-tap at the 3:45 mark of the 4:32-length song. Nicely done. Keith Richards’ assessment of the song in a book I have but couldn’t find, so you’ll have to trust my good memory: “People bought that (song) who normally wouldn’t go near us with a barge pole.” True, perhaps, but that’s also forgetting such previous great Stones’ ballads as Lady Jane and Wild Horses, among others.

21. Silver Train . . . A song the Stones gave to Johnny Winter, who released it first. Some people suggest Winter’s version is better. I love Johnny Winter and his version but, please.

22. Hide Your Love . . . From another book on the Stones I have: “Had Bill Wyman written it, the song probably wouldn’t have got a look-in”. Funny, but dunno about that. I kinda like it, “fumbling staccato piano-playing ‘n all,” as the book’s author goes on to say. But hey, I’m a Stones freak so my judgments may be somewhat flawed.

23. Winter . . . A beautiful Mick Taylor-Mick Jagger collaboration, Keith Richards doesn’t play on the song but it nevertheless went into the books as a Jagger-Richards song credit, likely adding to Taylor’s frustration within the band and leading, depending on what one reads or believes, to his eventual departure. On the other hand, Taylor, while obviously an amazing guitarist and I loved his period in the band, subsequently proved that’s all he was, not a songwriter. So, did he thrive because of the Stones company he was keeping, or did they thrive because of him, or was it, likely, just a great version of a band which, after all, had many hits during the 1960s before Taylor came on board?

24. Can You Hear The Music . . . A psychedelic sort of atmospheric piece, to me it’s always been a twin with Hide Your Love.

25. Star Star (aka Starf***er) . . . Keith Richards, with help from Mick Taylor, goes full Chuck Berry on this controversial rocker about groupies, retitled to Star Star to satisfy the record company’s concerns.