My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.
1. The Allman Brothers Band, Instrumental Illness
2. Paul McCartney/Wings, Big Barn Red
3. Paul McCartney/Wings, Medley (Hold Me Tight/Lazy Dynamite/Hands Of Love/Power Cut)
4. Alvin Lee, I Want You (She’s So Heavy)
5. Elton John, Where To Now, St. Peter?
6. Tom Jones, The Young New Mexican Puppeteer
7. Bob Dylan, Ballad Of A Thin Man
8. The Dirty Mac, Yer Blues (from The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus)
9. The Rolling Stones, Prodigal Son
10. Rev. Robert Wilkins, That’s No Way To Get Along (1928 version, re-recorded by Wilkins during the 1960s as The Prodigal Son)
11. Atomic Rooster, Broken Wings
12. Faces (I Know) I’m Losing You (live at the BBC 1971, taken from Five Guys Walk Into A Bar box set)
13. Rush, Cygnus X-1
14. Rush, Cyngus X-1 Book II
1. The Allman Brothers Band, Instrumental Illness . . . From the 2003 studio album Hittin’ The Note. It’s the last original recorded work by the band and the first and only Allmans’ album to not include original guitarist Dickey Betts. He was dismissed in 2000 in what became a difficult divorce, including lawsuits, stemming from other band members’ concerns over Betts’ alcohol and substance abuse. Betts and Gregg Allman did reconcile before Allman’s death in 2017, with Betts passing away in 2024 at age 80.
Replacing Betts on Hittin’ The Note, including on this extended jazz-rock fusion instrumental featuring terrific guitar interplay, was Derek Trucks, nephew of Allmans’ drummer Butch Trucks and also a member of the Tedeschi Trucks Band with his wife Susan Tedeschi. Derek Trucks continued the tradition of the Allmans’ two-guitar attack dating to the original duo of Betts and Duane Allman. Trucks teamed with Warren Haynes, who was originally brought into the Allmans in the late 1980s from Betts’ solo band in yet another example of the various branches of musical family trees. It’s a terrific song, and album, leaving the Allmans, who continued touring until 2014, to exit studio work hittin’ a high note.
2. Paul McCartney/Wings, Big Barn Red . . . The first of two tracks from McCartney and Wings’ 1973 album Red Rose Speedway. I was inspired to play it via a text last week from a friend out of the blue, as he and I tend to in a fun way via random thoughts do. He simply said “isn’t Red Rose Speedway a terrifically underrated album?” to which I admitted that while I own the album and have pretty much all of McCartney’s material, I’ve never – beyond the hit single My Love – got into it much. The album is overshadowed by McCartney’s next two, Band On The Run and Venus And Mars. So, his text prompted me to play the song he suggested I listen to and here is, Big Barn Red. It’s a, I would say, quirky, bouncy kind of tune, great playing, kinda loose, kinda tight, kinda inconsequential on the surface yet consequential if that makes sense.
3. Paul McCartney/Wings, Medley (Hold Me Tight/Lazy Dynamite/Hands Of Love/Power Cut) . . . Another one from Red Rose Speedway which I mentioned to my friend during our text conversation as one from the album I definitely was familiar with. Some have likened it to the Abbey Road medley and while I don’t think it’s on that level – what could be, or maybe I just haven’t listened to it enough – it’s still pretty good. Of particular note to me is the Hands Of Love part, a jaunty juxtaposition within the overall offering and featuring some stinging guitar work by, presumably, Henry McCulloch who is listed as lead guitarist on the album although Macca can and does play pretty much every instrument. Power Cut, it’s been suggested by some, should have been extracted as a single and it, along with the three other parts of the medley, are available separately on YouTube. Red Rose Speedway was originally intended as a double album and in 2018 was re-issued in that form as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection.
4. Alvin Lee, I Want You (She’s So Heavy) . . . I often speak of the interconnected threads in music, as earlier in the set with The Allman Brothers Band, Dickey Betts, Derek and Butch Trucks, Warren Haynes (who also formed the formidable entity in itself Gov’t Mule). Probably I go overboard with it while understanding that in any field of endeavour there will be cross-pollination and collaboration of creativity. Still, I find it fascinating while also recognizing that many of the threads connecting bands and/or artists who might admire/respect each other from afar, were you to put them together in an attempt to form a band, it might not work for long. Which is why ‘supergroups’ like Cream, Blind Faith etc. didn’t last long although others like, say, Bad Company which is often categorized as a supergroup, did. So, it obviously depends on whatever chemistry may or may not exist.
In any case, on my April 14/25 show I played Alvin Lee’s slow blues The Bluest Blues, a terrific cut featuring his Beatle friend George Harrison on slide guitar, from Lee’s Nineteen Ninety-Four album released that year. Lee, the former Ten Years After frontman/guitarist, and Harrison were great pals, lived in the same neighborhood for at least some time and as Lee related in various album liner notes, he’d encourage Harrison to drop by and make music. The Bluest Blues was one result and another was their pairing on Lee’s cover of the John Lennon-penned Beatles tune I Want You (She’s So Heavy). It’s also from Nineteen Ninety-Four and is a terrific reinterpretation while holding true to the original on Abbey Road. Lennon deliberately and brilliantly abruptly chopped off the ending on the Abbey Road album where Lee lets it fade albeit after a descending crescendo of sound, each effective in their own way.
Also interesting to me is how Harrison’s playing, juxtaposed against that of an acknowledged virtuoso like Lee, becomes somehow more compelling in that environment vis-a-vis his great work within The Beatles who, amazing as they were, didn’t feature a Lee or a Hendrix etc. type individual player because they were always about the song, which is what ultimately resonates. And as Lee said in those various liner notes, he wanted Harrison’s slide, not just anyone’s slide, but George’s. He loved Harrison’s sound, he got it, and we, thankfully, have it to listen to on some of Lee’s solo tracks.
5. Elton John, Where To Now, St. Peter? . . . Another track, my favorite probably on the 1970 album Tumbleweed Connection, that was actually on my list of possible plays for this show but I settled on something from that album again via the text talk with my friend. He had just picked up Tumbleweed Connection (expanded re-released version no less) for bargain-basement prices at a thrift store. He’s as much a music fan as me so I was surprised he had to pick it up, me presuming he must have owned it already (which turns out he did, on vinyl but he went for the cheapie expanded CD, too). As I said to him, no huge hits but a great album as Elton – and lyrics collaborator Bernie Taupin – was starting to truly bloom both creatively and commercially.
After the lovely piano intro in comes guitar and we’re off. An interesting and compelling arrangement that builds upon itself.
6. Tom Jones, The Young New Mexican Puppeteer . . . A total outlier, perhaps as here we have Tom Jones. I’ve never played him before and faithful show followers may be thinking WTF although I do very much like his biggest hits like It’s Not Unusual and She’s A Lady. Good songs are good songs, regardless. Anyway, playing this one came about while shelving CDs and up came Tom Jones Gold, a two-disc compilation containing this track. It always reminds me of my (RIP) parents therefore I will never get rid of it although I can always easily call it up online. They loved the song, danced to it and so it conjures up fond memories. And it leads into a bunch of ‘Jones’-related material. Me and my music ‘threads’ thing again.
7. Bob Dylan, Ballad Of A Thin Man . . . Tom Jones to Mr. Jones to, you’ll see, Lennon referencing Dylan mentioning Mr. Jones. What a devastating rip job, a lacerating track, so many interpretations of it including a takedown of clueless bourgeois types trying to decode the then counterculture. ‘Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones? From Dylan’s 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited.
8. The Dirty Mac, Yer Blues (from The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus) . . . After finally seeing the film and listening to the album upon their initial official release in 1996, I’ve never understood why the Stones held back, or supposedly did, release of The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus based on their view that they had been upstaged by The Who with its version of A Quick One While He’s Away. A good song, I guess, I’ve never gotten into and that’s not due to me comparing The Who to the Stones. I just don’t see what’s so great about A Quick One, studio version or the live Rock And Roll Circus take. The Who, one of my favorite bands, have countless other better songs.
Anyway granted I’m a big fan and if they were ‘off’ on the show I’d say so but I thought the Stones were excellent so, whatever. As for Yer Blues and The Dirty Mac, this is The Beatles track from The White Album as done by John Lennon and Eric Clapton on guitars, drummer Mitch Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix Experience and Keith Richards of the Stones on bass. Interestingly, perhaps, my elder son, a musician himself, is a huge Beatles (and Stones) fan; he told me once he preferred this arguably rawer, heavier, unpolished yet compellingly unvarnished version to The Beatles’ White Album version. I like them both.
9. The Rolling Stones, Prodigal Son . . . A Stones’ involvement on the previous tune (Richards) brings me to this skeletal, reverential blues cover from around the same time as the Circus show. It appeared on the Beggars Banquet album, released in 1968.
10. Rev. Robert Wilkins, That’s No Way To Get Along ((1928 version, re-recorded by Wilkins during the 1960s as The Prodigal Son) . . . And here’s the original, in a slow, spoken-sung style. Almost more sermon than song that gave the Stones something to build on and also revealed the depth of their blues knowledge and appreciation, which then fueled my own. Again, as Keith Richards has said, the best thing an artist can do is ‘pass it on’.
11. Atomic Rooster, Broken Wings . . . A few weeks ago on the show I played John Mayall’s beautiful original from his 1967 album The Blues Alone and mentioned that Atomic Rooster had, maybe uncharacteristically, covered it and promised to play it at some point soon. Here it is, from the band’s self-titled 1970 debut album. More operatic and ‘prog’ even ‘doomy’ in Rooster’s style perhaps but a great homage to the original. A worthwhile listen.
12. Faces, (I Know) I’m Losing You (live at the BBC 1971, taken from the box set Five Guys Walk Into A Bar . . . ) . . . Absolutely killer version of this tune made famous by The Temptations that Faces forntman Rod Stewart also did, with Faces backing during his dual career period, on his 1971 studio album Every Picture Tells A Story.
13. Rush, Cygnus X-1 . . .Total genre change but I’ve been meaning to get the epic 2-fer of Cygnus X-1 and Cygnus X-1 Book II in. It’s all of a piece, part I from A Farewell To Kings, the 1977 album that truly got me into Rush and arguably my favorite to this day, and Part II from the next album, 1978’s Hemispheres. Part I closed A Farewell To Kings and Part II, lead cut on Hemispheres, continued the cerebral/philosophical story.
14. Rush, Cyngus X-1, Book II . . . And that’s the end of the story, for this set.