More than a few songs with ‘house’ or ‘home’ in the title as a tribute to my younger of two sons. He and his fiancee have bought a home and take possession today. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. Humble Pie, I Don’t Need No Doctor (live, from Performance – Rockin’ The Fillmore)
2. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, The House Is Rockin’
3 . Paul McCartney, House Of Wax (live, from Amoeba Gig)
4. AC/DC, House Of Jazz
5. The Kinks, A House In The Country
6. Talking Heads, Houses In Motion
7. Jimi Hendrix, Red House (live, from In The West)
8. Cheap Trick, Gonna Raise Hell
9. Genesis, The Dividing Line
10. The Yardbirds, Drinking Muddy Water
11. Muddy Waters, Mean Disposition
12. The Rolling Stones, Brand New Car (live, from Welcome To Shepherd’s Bush)
13. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Loner/Cinnamon Girl/Down By The River (live, from 4 Way Street)
14. The Mamas & The Papas, Dancing Bear
15. Van Halen, Take Your Whiskey Home
16. Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, Can’t Find My Way Home (from Live From Madison Square Garden)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Humble Pie, I Don’t Need No Doctor (live, from Performance – Rockin’ The Fillmore) . . . Rockin’, indeed. An incendiary nine-minute performance of a song, also famously done by Ray Charles, which was cut to around four minutes for release as a single from Humble Pie’s 1971 live album. The record was Peter Frampton’s last with Humble Pie before he went solo. Singer/guitarist Steve Marriott carried on as the band released the album Smokin’, which featured likely the group’s best-known song, 30 Days In The Hole.

2. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, The House Is Rockin’ . . . A toe-tapper from In Step, the 1989 album that, alas, proved to be the last one released during Vaughan’s lifetime. He died in a helicopter crash, after a concert in Wisconsin, in August, 1990 at age 35.

3 . Paul McCartney, House Of Wax (live, from Amoeba Gig) . . . The California independent chain Amoeba Music is a house of wax given that it sells vinyl records, along with CDs and other entertainment products while continuing to thrive selling physical material in the web streaming age thanks in some measure to its trade-in programs adopted by many such stores. So it’s an appropriate selection for McCartney to play. This track, featuring some nice guitar interplay between longtime McCartney band members Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, is from McCartney’s 2007 studio release Memory Almost Full and was played in a ‘secret show’ at the Amoeba outlet in Hollywood that summer. Selected tracks from the concert were released as a four-song EP, Amoeba’s Secret, in November 2007 before the entire show – featuring Beatles’ and McCartney solo tunes – was released as Amoeba Gig in 2019. House Of Wax is the type of song, from a latter-day album by a legacy act like McCartney whose newer material might otherwise get overlooked, that when you put it on a live album amid the well-known hits, perhaps gets deserved exposure.

4. AC/DC, House Of Jazz . . . The title mentions jazz but it’s actually a slow-burning bluesy cut with a typically catchy AC/DC riff, from the band’s Stiff Upper Lip album, released in 2000.

5. The Kinks, A House In The Country . . . Jaunty pop rocker from the 1966 album Face To Face during a period in which Kinks’ chief songwriter Ray Davies’ fascination with English class and social structure was reflected in the concept albums, replete with often cynical, biting lyrics, the group was releasing at the time.

For instance, the first verse and first line of the second:

“He don’t need no sedatives to ease his troubled mind.
At work he is invariably unpleasant and unkind.
Why should he care if he is hated in his home,
‘Cause he’s got a house in the country,
And a big sports car.

“But he ain’t got a home, oh no . . . ”

Etc.

6. Talking Heads, Houses In Motion . . . A potent brew of stimulating sounds on this song from a terrific album, 1980’s Remain In Light, that is full of such rhythmic adventures. Adrian Belew is a guest guitarist on the album, later to join King Crimson whose trio of albums – Discipline, Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair – released between 1981 and 1984 have, perhaps unsurprisingly, always to me sounded musically similar to Remain In Light.

7. Jimi Hendrix, Red House (live, from In The West) . . . What is widely considered Hendrix’s finest-ever live performance of his signature blues tune. It’s a 13-minute tour de force take, recorded in May 1969 in San Diego, on the four-minute track originally on the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s debut studio album, Are You Experienced, released in 1967.

8. Cheap Trick, Gonna Raise Hell . . . Nice groove on this pulsating nine-minute piece from the band’s 1979 album Dream Police. Cheap Trick was top of mind thanks to a chat with an artist friend of mine the other day. He’s painting portraits of various music legends on the front window of my local independent music store. He hasn’t done Cheap Trick, at least not yet. I don’t expect he will because good as Cheap Trick might be they don’t have the cachet of artists like The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and David Bowie that he’s done so far and he’s following the store owner’s direction in terms of who to draw.

That’s why KISS is on the window, which prompted a conversation about how I am not a big KISS fan but, by accident, really, saw them in concert, with Cheap Trick as their support act, in the summer of 1979. It’s a story I’ve likely told far too often whenever I play Cheap Trick, but this was the first time my artist friend had heard it so bear with me. It resulted from me and a college friend wanting to see Cheap Trick, hot at the time as a result of their blockbuster live album At Budokan. We couldn’t get tickets for the Toronto show but they were playing at the old Silverdome football stadium in Pontiac, Michigan, outside Detroit the next week. So, down to Detroit we drove to learn, while picking up a newspaper over lunch, that Cheap Trick was ‘special guest’ opening for KISS in all their over-the-top glory, painted-face and costumed KISS Army fans, young and old alike, included. I still chuckle at the memory of what was a good show by both bands. My youngest brother, the big KISS fan in our family through which I knew their music, was at least mildly miffed that I saw them while he didn’t.

9. Genesis, The Dividing Line . . . A showcase for session drummer Nir Zidkyahu, aka Nir Z. It’s from Calling All Stations, the ill-fated Genesis album released in 1997 after the departure of drummer and frontman Phil Collins, who was replaced on lead vocals, for the one album and subsequent tour, by Ray Wilson. The album, something of a return to Genesis’ art/prog rock roots as evidenced by this song, and tour were successful in the UK and Europe. North America was a different story, where first an arena tour and then a scaled-down theatre run were both cancelled due to poor ticket sales as fans apparently were unaccepting of a Genesis without Collins. In any case, this fulfills a promise I made last week to soon play something from the I think underappreciated Wilson period, which I discussed while playing Conversations With 2 Stools. That drum duel between Collins and longtime touring drummer Chester Thompson was released on the 2007 album Live Over Europe, a document of the reunion tour with Collins that also welcomed back touring members Thompson and guitarist Daryl Stuermer who were not on board for the Calling All Stations dates. I’m not suggesting Calling All Stations is necessarily prime Genesis at the level of some of the classic Peter Gabriel or Collins-fronted material, but it’s a worthwhile listen, in my opinion.

10. The Yardbirds, Drinking Muddy Water . . . Appropriate that the title namedrops the blues legend as it’s essentially a cover of Rollin’ And Tumblin’ as done by Muddy Waters but a driving, effective one nevertheless. It’s from the 1967 Little Games album during the period Jimmy Page was Yardbirds’ guitarist. Ian Stewart of Rolling Stones fame guests on piano.

11. Muddy Waters (Fathers And Sons), Mean Disposition . . . Soulful deep blues from the aptly-titled Fathers And Sons album from 1969. ‘Sons’ Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield of Butterfield Blues Band fame, along with Donald “Duck” Dunn of Booker T. & The MG’s, help out ‘Fathers’ Muddy Waters and Otis Spann on an excellent album collaboration.

12. The Rolling Stones, Brand New Car (live, from Welcome To Shepherd’s Bush) . . . The wah-wah guitar from the studio version of this song from 1994’s Voodoo Lounge album is taken to greater heights on this live version from the Stones’ latest archival release, which came out a week ago. It’s from a theatre show in London before 1,800 fans in June, 1999 that served as a warmup to the group’s dates a few days later at Wembley Stadium. It’s a deep cuts fan’s delight, featuring rarely if ever played in concert songs like the title track to the Some Girls album, Melody from Black And Blue, I Got The Blues from Sticky Fingers and Moon Is Up, also from Voodoo Lounge. As Mick Jagger states from the stage, ‘If you want to hear the hits, go to the big place down the road’ although the Stones do play the usual suspects like Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Women, Tumbling Dice and It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It).

13. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, The Loner/Cinnamon Girl/Down By The River (live, from 4 Way Street) . . . It’s CSNY but really in this case a Neil Young acoustic solo set medley within the overall show, and it’s awesome.

14. The Mamas & The Papas, Dancing Bear . . . Beautiful balladry, spooky and haunting at times, featuring the vocals of Denny Doherty, Cass Elliott and Michelle Phillips interpreting the words of chief songwriter John Phillips. It’s from the group’s self-titled second album, released in 1966.

15. Van Halen, Take Your Whiskey Home . . . Acoustic finger picking and then into the heavy electric riff on this one from the 1980 album Women And Children First.

16. Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, Can’t Find My Way Home (from Live From Madison Square Garden) … Onetime Blind Faith bandmates Clapton and Winwood (who wrote this Blind Faith tune) teamed up for a short American tour in 2009. The result was a live album and DVD/Blu-Ray nicely combining their solo work with material from Blind Faith and Traffic along with some rock and blues covers. Perhaps surprisingly, no Cream songs like Strange Brew, Crossroads or Badge on which Clapton was lead vocalist.