My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. Deep Purple, ‘A’ 200
2. Deep Purple, Child In Time (live, from Made In Japan)
3. It’s A Beautiful Day, Bombay Calling
4. Black Sabbath, E5150
5. Black Sabbath, Master Of Insanity
6. UFO, Love To Love
7. AC/DC, Soul Stripper
8. The Rolling Stones, Soul Survivor
9. Grand Funk Railroad, Gimme Shelter
10. Blue Oyster Cult, O.D.’d On Life Itself
11. Flash And The Pan, Searching For A Headline
12. The Kinks, Dear Margaret
13. Jethro Tull, Working John, Working Joe
14. Dire Straits, The Man’s Too Strong
15. Dire Straits, Twisting By The Pool
16. Queen, (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care /Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart) /Tutti Frutti /Gimme Some Lovin’, medley from Live At Wembley ’86
17. Robin Trower/Jack Bruce, The Last Door
My track-by-track tales:
1. Deep Purple, ‘A’ 200 . . . A synthesizer-based instrumental track courtesy keyboardist Jon Lord with a fiery guitar solo from Ritchie Blackmore and pitter-patter drumming from Ian Paice. I’m opening with what closed the 1974 album Burn. It was the first release of the so-called Mark III version of Deep Purple, with the then-unknown David Coverdale (vocals) and Glenn Hughes of Trapeze fame (bass/vocals) replacing, respectively, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover.
2. Deep Purple, Child In Time (live, from Made In Japan) . . . A musical monster from the 1970 album In Rock by the Mark II Purple (with Gillan and Glover) taken to even greater heights on the 1972 classic Made In Japan album. At age 79, Gillan no longer has the vocal range so Deep Purple hasn’t played Child In Time live in a long time and likely never will again, but we’ll always be able to enjoy it on In Rock and Made In Japan. The song itself has interesting ties to my next track.
3. It’s A Beautiful Day, Bombay Calling . . . From whence Deep Purple’s Child In Time came. The opening organ riff in is taken from It’s A Beautiful Day’s song from the San Francisco psychedelic band’s self-titled 1969 debut album, which Purple keyboardist Jon Lord started playing in studio after which it was adapted into what became Child In Time. No lawsuits. Instead, in return It’s A Beautiful Day borrowed Purple’s instrumental Wring That Neck, from the 1968 album The Book of Taliesyn as a basis for their song Don And Dewey that appeared on the 1970 album Marrying Maiden. Furthering the connection in 2004 came a Purple live album release/film, Bombay Calling, which included Child In Time in the set taken from a 1995 show in what’s now known as Mumbai, India. The show – also available on a 4-DVD set Around The World Live released in 2008 – was an early one in guitarist Steve Morse’s time in Deep Purple.
4. Black Sabbath, E5150 . . . Sinister, spooky instrumental from the second album Sabbath did with Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals, the 1981 release Mob Rules. The title E plus the Roman numerals for 5 (V), 1 (I) and 50 (L) spells E-V-I-L. Black Sabbath used it as a setting-the-stage opener on the supporting tour before ripping into Neon Knights from the first album with Dio, 1980’s Heaven And Hell. It’s all captured on the tour document Live Evil album, released in 1983. The title is similar to Eddie Van Halen’s studio 5150, built in 1983 although Van Halen’s source material was the California legal code used for dealing with individuals experiencing a mental health crisis.
5. Black Sabbath, Master Of Insanity . . . From the darkly metallic, industrial-sounding Dehumanizer album that, in 1992, marked the reunion of the Mob Rules-era lineup of Dio, guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Vinny Appice. After another breakup, the foursome reunited yet again to cut three new studio tracks for the 2007 compilation album Black Sabbath: The Dio Years after which the group rebranded as Heaven And Hell and released the 2009 studio work The Devil You Know, sandwiched between two live albums.
6. UFO, Love To Love . . . Heavy – you might call it lights out – riffing from guitarist Michael Schenker on this slow-building ballad turned rocker from the 1977 album Lights Out.
7. AC/DC, Soul Stripper . . . Bon Scott on lead vocals era AC/DC. Hypnotic and sleazy, a raw, pulsating performance from the fiery five-song EP ’74 Jailbreak, released worldwide in 1984 but made up of tracks recorded between 1974 and ’76 but only previously released in Australia.
8. The Rolling Stones, Soul Survivor . . . Love the way this one, the last cut on the seminal 1972 album Exile On Main St., sort of slides in on a ‘backwards’ riff is how I usually describe it – if one can even put music into words. But I’m writing, so I have to try. Murky, raw, ragged and remarkable, the song and the whole album.
9. Grand Funk Railroad, Gimme Shelter . . . Cover of the classic Stones tune, taken at a quicker pace, from the 1971 album Survival. I’ve heard it criticized, I’ve heard it celebrated, I’m a huge Stones fan and I think it’s pretty good besides which I’ve never understood what seem to me to be snooty criticisms of Grand Funk Railroad. Pretty good band if you ask me; certainly in their early days. Frank Zappa liked them, and produced one of their later albums, the 1976 release Good Singin’, Good Playin’. But, to each their own, of course; lots of people don’t like or ‘get’ Zappa, either.
10. Blue Oyster Cult, O.D.’d On Life Itself . . . Relentless rocker from the second BOC studio album, the 1973 release Tyranny And Mutation. BOC is much more than just (Don’t Fear) The Reaper and Burnin’ for You, their highest-charting singles.
11. Flash And The Pan, Searching For A Headline . . . Catchy rocker with an infectious bass line, from the Aussie new wave project’s 1992 album Burning Up The Night, an album many people have likely never heard of. Probably best known for their first two albums, the self-titled 1978 debut and its 1980 followup Lights In The Night and songs like Hey St. Peter and Walking In The Rain (the track that got me into them), Flash And The Pan released six studio records between 1978 and 1992, with Burning Up The Night the final one.
Flash And The Pan may seem an outlier in a largely heavy rock set but I like throwing curveballs, besides which there is a deep connection. Flash And The Pan was the brainchild of Harry Vanda and George Young, former members of the Easybeats who had a worldwide hit in 1966 with Friday On My Mind. Vanda and Young, the older brother of AC/DC guitarists Angus and Malcolm, together produced all the early AC/DC albums until 1979’s Highway To Hell when Robert John “Mutt” Lange took over. Young returned to produce AC/DC’s Stiff Upper Lip album in 2000.
12. The Kinks, Dear Margaret . . . One never had to search hard for Margaret headlines when she was around, Margaret being former British Prime Minister Thatcher, who held the top office from 1979-90. This Dave Davies-penned hard-rocking diatribe of disappointment in the Iron Lady (without specifically naming her) is from another under-the-radar record, 1989’s UK Jive. It didn’t chart, as The Kinks’ commercial fortunes had faded after 1984’s Word Of Mouth album and its hit single Do It Again.
13. Jethro Tull, Working John, Working Joe . . . Among my favorites from A, an album released in 1980 that started life as an Ian Anderson solo work, hence the name A for Anderson which is how the master tapes were marked during recording. Under pressure from Chrysalis Records, however, the album came out as a Jethro Tull album which resulted, aside from guitarist Martin Barre, in a new Tull lineup. Out were 70s’ Tull stalwarts like drummer Barriemore Barlow and keyboardist John Evan. In came drummer Mark Craney and keyboardist Eddie Jobson, who Anderson had recruited for his planned solo album featuring a more synthesizer-based sound while remaining unmistakably Tull.
The solo album becoming a band record scenario has repeated itself in the last few years, albeit deliberately in this case. Anderson had put Tull in mothballs in favor of releasing material under his own name through the 2000s, only to recently rebrand his solo group as Jethro Tull and unleash the studio albums The Zealot Gene (2022), RokFlote (2023) and Curious Ruminant (2025). The ‘casualty’ this time was longtime guitarist Barre after a falling out with Anderson, much to the consternation of many Tull fans. Interestingly, Anderson is quoted in David Rees’s 1998 book Minstrels In The Gallery: A History of Jethro Tull as saying no Barre in the band, no Tull.
“To use another guitarist after all this time would be like getting divorced and then marrying again the next day,” Anderson said.
Cue the wedding bells. As for Barre, he started a solo career during the 1990s while still in Tull, releasing often largely instrumental studio albums. He now tours, playing mostly classic Tull material using assorted vocalists and releasing live albums from those treks.
14. Dire Straits, The Man’s Too Strong . . . From 1985’s Brothers In Arms album, the recording – thanks in large measure to the hit single Money For Nothing – that made Dire Straits and guitarist/singer/leader Mark Knopfler superstars. The album had nine songs. Five were released as singles although The Man’s Too Strong wasn’t one of them. It’s singles-worthy but we’re probably better off as things transpired, not having it overplayed to the point where, with many singles, you get sick of them while acknowledging their greatness. I heard The Man’s Too Strong – a terrific track with the acoustic buildup to the rocking payoff of ‘the man’s too big, the man’s too strong’ – for the first time in the since closed original Sam The Record Man store on Yonge St. in Toronto. Dire Straits was always an automatic buy for me since the 1978 debut album and hit single Sultans Of Swing. But it so happened that Brothers In Arms was released the day I walked into Sam’s. I can’t remember if I went in specifically to buy it but The Man’s Too Strong was playing on the store’s sound system which, not that I needed it, confirmed my purchase of the album.
15. Dire Straits, Twisting By The Pool . . . A total tonal switch from The Man’s Too Strong on this fun rocking romp released on a three- or four-song EP (depending on market) in 1983. It was a top 20 hit in most countries and hit No. 1 in New Zealand and 2 in Australia.
16. Queen, (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care /Hello Mary Lou (Goodbye Heart) /Tutti Frutti /Gimme Some Lovin’, medley from Live At Wembley ’86 . . . More fun, from the Magic Tour in support of Queen’s 1986 album A King Of Magic. It came a year after the band’s triumphant Live Aid appearance, also at Wembley Stadium. The Magic Tour marked the last concert appearances for lead singer Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991.
17. Robin Trower/Jack Bruce, The Last Door . . . And out the door I go, for this show, via this eerily soulful and bluesy collaboration between guitarist Trower and Cream singer/bassist Bruce from the 2007 album Seven Moons. Trower and Bruce had previously worked together on the 1981 album B.L.T. (for Bruce, drummer Bill Lordan and Trower) and 1982’s Truce.
