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

1. The John Barry Orchestra, James Bond Theme
2. Johnny Rivers, Secret Agent Man
3. Shirley Bassey, Goldfinger
4. Pink Floyd, What Do You Want From Me
5. Can, Mushroom
6. Traffic, Tragic Magic (live, from On The Road)
7. Junkhouse, The Sky Is Falling
8. Fleetwood Mac, Worried Dream
9. George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Howlin’ For My Baby
10. Johnny Cash, Ragged Old Flag
11. Jefferson Airplane, Rock Me Baby, (live, from Bless Its Pointed Little Head)
12. T. Rex, The King Of The Mountain Cometh
13. Rory Gallagher, Cradle Rock (from The Best of Rory Gallagher At The BBC)
14. Thin Lizzy, Angel Of Death (live, from Life/Live)
15. Motorhead, Stone Dead Forever
16. Flash And The Pan, Up Against The Wall
17. Roxy Music, Like A Hurricane (live)
18. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Black Moon
19. Elvis Presley, Paralyzed
20. The Birds, No Good Without You Baby (early Ron Wood band, not to be confused with The Byrds)
21. The Rolling Stones, Gotta Get Away

My track-by-track tales:

1. The John Barry Orchestra, James Bond theme . . . I was filing CDs as part of my ongoing and not quite yet successful attempts at tidying my place and atop one pile – so let’s call this the top of the pile show because honestly that’s from where most of the songs I’m playing come – was a disc of Bond movie songs. So here we go, setting the tone for the early part of the show.

2. Johnny Rivers, Secret Agent Man . . . A hit for master of covers Rivers and I don’t often play hits but it fits the Bond theme of my first few songs.

3. Shirley Bassey, Goldfinger . . . My favorite Bond song, or maybe tied with Paul McCartney’s Live And Let Die, those are the two that really stick out to me, but I love Bassey’s passionate, expressive vocals. Bassey also sang the theme song to the Bond films Diamonds Are Forever and Moonraker – she is the only artist to do more than one Bond movie song – and covered The Beatles’ Something and The Fool On The Hill as well as other songs like If You Go Away. Hugely successful in the UK, the Welsh singer is still active at 87 and released a studio album as recently as 2020 in celebration of her 70 years in the industry.

4. Pink Floyd, What Do You Want From Me . . . Perhaps my favorite Floyd song from the post-Roger Waters era, from the 1994 album The Division Bell. Written by David Gilmour, keyboardist Richard Wright and Gilmour’s wife Polly Samson, an English writer who has contributed lyrics to the post-Waters Floyd albums and Gilmour’s solo work. It’s similar, to my ears, to the Gilmour track There’s No Way Out Of Here. That song, written by UK songwriter Ken Baker, appeared on Gilmour’s first, self-titled solo album in 1978.

5. Can, Mushroom . . . Hypnotic stuff from a band that often went out on various flights of sometimes impenetrable fancy yet on the flip side has a wealth of tighter, single-worthy (and this song was a single) tracks that in a that context still manage to convey the progressive elements of the band.

6. Traffic, Tragic Magic (live, from On The Road) . . . Intoxicating near nine-minute musical excursion from one of my favorite bands, flutes and sax and guitars and percussion all cooked up in that typical Traffic stew.

7. Junkhouse, The Sky Is Falling . . . From the debut Junkhouse album, Strays, released in 1993 and through which I quickly became a fan of all things Tom Wilson, a Canadian artist whose credits include the Florida Razors, Junkhouse, solo work, Blackie And The Rodeo Kings and Lee Harvey Osmond.

8. Fleetwood Mac, Worried Dream . . . An old work colleague and I were discussing early, Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac the other day so here we are. Worried Dream is a cover of a B.B. King-penned tune that appeared on King’s 1968 album Blues On Top Of Blues. The Fleetwood Mac version was released on the Green-era compilation The Original Fleetwood Mac which covers songs recorded in 1967 and 1968. The compilation came out in 1971, a year after Green left the group after the 1969 Then Play On album and a 1970 tour.

9. George Thorogood & The Destroyers, Howlin’ For My Baby . . . From the slow blues of early Fleetwood Mac to typical Thorogood raunch on a track written by Willie Dixon and Howlin’ Wolf. It’s from Thorogood’s 1993 album Haircut which featured his hit Get A Haircut.

10. Johnny Cash, Ragged Old Flag . . . Title cut from Cash’s 1974 album, a spoken word tribute to patriotism and the American flag that was criticized and celebrated, depending on viewpoint. It was written by Cash during the time of the Watergate scandal which led to the resignation of America president Richard Nixon, who Cash had initially supported but apparently soured on due to the Vietnam War quagmire. Cash said he wrote it to “reaffirm faith in the country and the goodness of the American people.”

11. Jefferson Airplane, Rock Me Baby, (live, recorded October 1968 at Fillmore West, San Francisco, released on Bless Its Pointed Little Head, 1969) . . . The Airplane takes, er, flight on this eight-minute version of the blues standard popularized by B.B. King and Muddy Waters (as Rock Me) and covered by many. Both the King and Waters’ versions were based on the 1950 song Rockin’ and Rollin’ by Lil’ Son Jackson which itself was inspired by earlier blues songs, as is the case with many standards. The roots and branches of songs, well-known and otherwise, make for interesting reading.

12. T. Rex, The King Of The Mountain Cometh . . . That distinctive bouncy boogie, maybe repetitive but still compelling and unmistakenly the sound of T. Rex. It’s from the time of the hit album Electric Warrior, which was released in 1971 and was propelled to prominence by the hit single Get It On (Bang A Gong). The King Of The Mountain Cometh didn’t cometh into wide release until various compilations and expanded re-releases of Electric Warrior.

13. Rory Gallagher, Cradle Rock (from The Best of Rory Gallagher At The BBC) . . . A new release from the vaults, came out in October, with Gallagher on absolute fire on recordings done in studio for the 1970s BBC program Sounds Of The Seventies. That’s one disc of the 2-CD set, with the other featuring a BBC concert from 1979. It’s a terrific package and, if you really want to get serious, it’s also available as The BBC Collection – a 20 disc set that includes 18 CDs containing radio concerts and sessions from 1971 to 1986 and two Blu Ray discs of BBC TV concerts and studio performances from 1973 to 1984. I’m a big Gallagher fan and the spirit is willing but the wallet is weak as far as that comprehensive package goes although perhaps at some point and it may all wind up online; the 2-CD highlights package already is.

14. Thin Lizzy, Angel Of Death (live, from Life/Live) . . . Smokin’ version of the lead single from 1981’s Renegade album that was released on 1983’s live album which was criticized for not measuring up to Lizzy’s previous live epic, 1978’s Live And Dangerous, but what could? It’s still a great song and a great version featuring good riffing and soloing from perennial Lizzy guitarist Scott Gorham and hired gun John Sykes, later of the hair metal mid- to late 1980s version of Whitesnake.

15. Motorhead, Stone Dead Forever . . . Typically propulsive Motorhead yet at the same time strangely, maybe, for such a tune, melodic. It’s from the 1979 album Bomber, produced by former Traffic and Rolling Stones collaborator Jimmy Miller.

16. Flash And The Pan, Up Against The Wall . . . This one wasn’t originally on the planning radar for this show but I was in the car on Saturday evening, going out to get some grub; usually I play music but I turned the radio on to the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game. The Leafs were in St. Louis, down late in a game they’d lose 4-2 and the play-by-play guy says “they’re up against the wall.” My thoughts immediately turned to this Flash And The Pan track from their 1982 album Headlines. Inspiration comes from anywhere, everywhere.

17. Roxy Music, Like A Hurricane (live) . . . I first heard this terrific cover of the Neil Young song on The High Road 4-song vinyl EP with its Roxy “Musique’ cover which I bought in early 1983. It later came out – along with the other three songs from the EP – on the Heart Still Beating live album released in 1990. The other three songs were Can’t Let Go, My Only Love and Roxy’s cover of John Lennon’s Jealous Guy.

18. Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Black Moon . . . Almost industrial metallic, latter/later day ELP, somewhat uncharacteristic; maybe they were reaching, bereft of ideas so trying to get on a musical train, that’s essentially what the critics said. Whatever. A good song is a good song, no matter by whom and it’s all of course subjective. I dig this title cut from ELP’s 1992 release.

19. Elvis Presley, Paralyzed . . . Great boogie rockabilly, relatively unknown to those understandably owning, listening to or being familiar only with Elvis’s well-known hits. This one’s from his 1956 studio album simply titled Elvis, his second studio album, released in October 1956. I’ve always been one to, like many, being an Elvis compilation guy but in recent months, yes I’ve told this tale before, I was in my friendly neighborhood music store and lo and behold they had on CD a 4-disc, 8-album box set of Elvis’s early studio albums, and it cost me maybe $15. It’s about $50 at least on Amazon. I had to have it, got it, never a regret.

Presley was truly great and further to that, during Elvis’s time it was the practice that artists generally performed but didn’t write their own material; people like Bob Dylan and The Beatles and The Rolling Stones and Kinks later changed that. So, I’ll admit that in my younger days I somewhat dismissed Elvis, while enjoying his hit songs, due to his not writing songs but I came to realize and understand the circumstances under which he and others of his time operated. Yet even so, for all that, he could and did write albeit not extensively and beyond even that, any viewing on available video of him in studio sessions with his band reveals just how in charge musically he always was: he knew what he wanted musically, how to achieve it, and he did. Amazing artist.

20. The Birds, No Good Without You Baby . . . Not The Byrds but The Birds, an early band Ron Wood later of the Jeff Beck Group, Faces and The Rolling Stones, was a member of. A gritty, wonderfully dirty, raunchy version of a Marvin Gaye track from his 1965 album How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You which of course features that hit single title cut. The Birds version of No Good Without You Baby, depending on source including the 2-CD Wood anthology The Essential Crossexion, adds the word ‘baby’ to the song title and it’s in the lyrics although Gaye’s album lists it as simply No Good Without You. But that happens a lot, witness my earlier playing of Rock Me Baby by Jefferson Airplane, which B.B. King listed as Rock Me Baby while Muddy Waters did the same song, but titled it Rock Me. The Birds/Marvin Gaye song was written by William Stevenson, still around at age 87 and his name might not spring immediately to mind but he wrote or co-wrote many hits including Hitch Hike (covered in their early days by The Rolling Stones, among others) and most notably Dancing In The Street and Devil With The Blue Dress aka Devil With The Blue Dress On.

21. The Rolling Stones, Gotta Get Away . . . I gotta, gotta, gotta get away, to quote the song lyrics . . . time’s up for this show. I exit via this I think underappreciated Stones song, recorded in 1965. It was the B-side in the USA to As Tears Go By.