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

1. Elton John, Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding
2. Black Sabbath, When Death Calls
3. Megadeth, Killing Is My Business . . . And Business Is Good!
4. Judas Priest, Beyond The Realms Of Death
5. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Lucretia MacEvil (full album version)
6. Bruce Hornsby, Spider Fingers (live)
7. The Spencer Davis Group, Waltz For Lumumba (instrumental)
8. The Rolling Stones, Moon Is Up
9. Led Zeppelin, Down By The Seaside
10. Robin Trower, Day Of The Eagle
11. Nirvana, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter
12. Joe Jackson, A Slow Song
13. Cry Of Love, Too Cold In The Winter
14. J. Geils Band, Monkey Island
15. The Beatles, What’s The New Mary Jane
16. Slade, Keep On Rocking (live)

My track-by-track tales:

1. Elton John, Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding . . . I was discussing great double albums by great bands when I played Led Zeppelin’s In The Light from Physical Graffiti on Saturday’s show. Elton John’s 1973 double vinyl Goodbye Yellow Brick Road of course is one of those classics along with, as previously mentioned, The Beatles’ White Album, Exile On Main St. by The Rolling Stones, London Calling by The Clash, Bruce Springsteen’s The River, many others. I’ve been meaning to get back to Elton John for a few weeks, so here we go with this epic Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album opener.

2. Black Sabbath, When Death Calls . . . Sticking with the death theme, not that I’m in a morbid mood at all, it just played out that way. I suppose I should have started with When Death Calls, then a funeral song as whoever is put to rest, but the Sabs’ when Death Calls is more a doomy slower piece and I generally like to start with more of a rocker, although Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding does take a bit before it speeds up but when it does . . . In any case, this is another – I played The Shining from 1987’s Eternal Idol a few weeks ago – from the I think underappreciated Tony Martin on lead vocals period of Black Sabbath. It’s from the 1989 album Headless Cross. Brian May of Queen is a guitar guest on When Death Calls, playing the first solo.

3. Megadeth, Killing Is My Business . . . And Business Is Good! . . . Early thrash/speed metal, title cut to the band’s 1985 debut album.

4. Judas Priest, Beyond The Realms Of Death . . . Half ballad, half metallic rocker, back and forth over seven minutes on this slab of guitar soloing from the 1978 album Stained Class.

5. Blood, Sweat & Tears, Lucretia MacEvil (full album version) . . . “Ooh Lucy you just so damn bad. . . ” Love that lyric and David Clayton-Thomas’s vocal delivery. Among my favorite BS & T tunes, this is the full version, three ticks short of six minutes, twice the length of the single extracted from Blood, Sweat & Tears 3, the group’s 1970 album. And it’s better than the truncated single, allowing for full flowering of the instrumental and vocal interplay of, along with Chicago, one of the early 1970s best bands in the jazz-rock genre.

6. Bruce Hornsby, Spider Fingers (live) . . . I watched the 1955 sci-fi monster movie Tarantula the other day as I pared down some accumulated backlog of recordings, perhaps accounting for me playing a song with ‘spider’ in the title. It’s a funky fingers foray by piano man Bruce Hornsby on this live version of a jazzy tune originally on his 1995 studio album Hot House. Hornsby is still likely best known to the masses for his 1980s hits The Way It Is and The Valley Road, both great songs, but he’s much more, a talent who counts among his exploits having been a longtime touring member of the latter-day Grateful Dead, among other projects and his own solo work.

7. The Spencer Davis Group, Waltz For Lumumba (instrumental) . . . I played the band Family last week which got me thinking of Ric Grech who was a member, which got me thinking of Blind Faith of which Grech was also a member, which got me thinking of Steve Winwood of Traffic fame who was also in Blind Faith along with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker. But before that, Winwood was lead singer in The Spencer Davis Group although he doesn’t sing on this instrumental which, given what later followed, could be seen as a precursor to the jam band type material later versions of Traffic embraced.

8. The Rolling Stones, Moon Is Up . . . Charlie Watts on ‘mystery drum’, according to the Voodoo Lounge album liner notes. The drum was an overturned metal garbage can with Watts being recorded while isolated in a stairwell, hammering the can with brushes.

9. Led Zeppelin, Down By The Seaside . . . I played In The Light last Saturday after someone mentioned Down By The Seaside, also from the 1975 Zep albun Physical Graffiti, to me earlier that week. In The Light fit Saturday’s space rock theme and at the time I wrote that I’d play Seaside again soon, perhaps as early as Monday, so here we are. A bluesy acoustic ballad that a third of the way through turns, at points, into a rocker. Overall the song is apparently an homage by Robert Plant to Neil Young’s work around the time of Young’s After The Goldrush album, released in 1970.

10. Robin Trower, Day Of The Eagle . . . Opening track riff rocker to arguably Trower’s finest hour, the 1974 album Bridge Of Sighs featuring the other members of his prime period 1970s power trio of drummer Reg Isidore and bassist/soulful singer James Dewar. Geoff Emerick, longtime engineer at Apple Studios who worked on many Beatles albums as well as Paul McCartney’s Band On The Run, London Town, Tug Of War and Flaming Pie, was sound engineer on Bridge Of Sighs.

11. Nirvana, Radio Friendly Unit Shifter . . . Bleak, nihilistic stuff belying the tongue in cheek song title from the 1993 album In Utero after Nirvana seemingly came out of nowhere to achieve superstardom, propelled by the hit single Smells Like Teen Spirit but many other great songs, and shifting millions of units of their breakthrough 1991 album Nevermind.

12. Joe Jackson, A Slow Song . . . Great long song, seven minutes, slow for the most part but up tempo in spots, from JJ’s 1982 album Night And Day. He is, as often mentioned, one of my favorite artists, been following him since his punk/new wave beginnings with the debut Look Sharp! album in 1979 and he’s never disappointed me through his often daring travels through myriad genres including jazz, jump blues and classical. And in response to his lyric “And I get tired of DJs, why is it always what he plays, I’m gonna push right through, I’m gonna tell him to, tell him to play us, play us a slow song . . . ” Done, Joe.

13. Cry Of Love, Too Cold In The Winter . . . If you didn’t know better, you’d think this was Free or Bad Company but it’s Cry Of Love, a North Carolina band that formed in 1989 and lasted until 1997, releasing two studio albums. And they’re not ripoffs of those aformentioned Paul Rodgers on lead vocals-fronted great bands, more a tribute to them embracing the influences but coming up with Cry Of Love’s own distinctive sound. I remain perplexed as to why they weren’t bigger, particularly via this song from the excellent 1993 debut Brother which I think is the album’s best cut. It was co-written by the group’s guitarist, Audley Freed, who later spent some time in The Black Crowes. The song title fits with the cold weather we’ve had in southern Ontario the last few days after a great run of balmy weather deep into the fall.

14. J. Geils Band, Monkey Island . . . Extended, spooky in spots nine-minute title track to the group’s 1977 album. No hit singles to speak of although I suppose I Do is relatively well known. The album did not chart high, everything about it seemed different from previous J. Geils releases including the black and white cover art of some band members in apparent silhouette not to mention the one-time cover billing of the group as just ‘Geils’, no ‘J’. To me, though, it’s akin to, say, The Kinks’ Muswell Hillbillies, yet another brilliant album that seemed to escape many people or achieve commercial success but is worth investigating.

15. The Beatles, What’s The New Mary Jane . . . Weird and wonderful, depending on one’s mood it’s either crap or creative. A reject from The White Album, I suppose the boys said ‘John (Lennon) we’re giving you Revolution 9 you can’t have this, too, on the album.” According to The Beatles Anthology 3 CD release, of the official Beatles it’s just Lennon and George Harrison on this track along with Yoko Ono and Beatles road manager/personal assistant Mal Evans. Lennon is on vocals and piano, Harrison on guitar and Yoko and Evans on various sound effects.

16. Slade, Keep On Rocking (live) . . . Love the (perhaps, probably drunken?) intro to this one: “this is a, this is a rock and roll, it sounds good (I think that’s what he says it’s relatively unintelligible) heah’s one . . . ” And then they kick in and indeed rock. I’m not even really a Slade fan, a guilty pleasure I guess, I have a compilation just because, plus the live album, Slade Alive! from which this track comes, a CD that, in a purge, I tried to trade in for $$ but no used store wanted it which may tell you something. Anyway . . . that’s not meant as a slag on the UK glam/hard rock group because I’m glad I still own it; Alive! is a good, energetic album which opens with a cover of Hear Me Calling by one of my favorite bands, Ten Years After, and is further evidenced by this track. Slade Alive! came out in 1972, before Slade’s hits like 1973’s Cum On Feel The Noize, a song American band Quiet Riot 10 years later took to the top 10 in North America. Slade’s version was No. 1 in the UK but didn’t chart in North America.