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

1. Deep Purple, Flight Of The Rat
2. Golden Earring, Big Tree, Blue Sea
3. Love, She Comes In Colors
4. Robert Plant, Fat Lip
5. Midnight Oil, The Real Thing
6. Bruce Springsteen, Candy’s Room
7. Blue Oyster Cult, Then Came The Last Days Of May
8. Fleetwood Mac, Although The Sun Is Shining
9. The Rolling Stones, Whole Wide World
10. Little Feat, Day Or Night
11. Johnny Winter, It’s My Own Fault (live)
12. Moby Grape, Miller’s Blues (live)
13. Sass Jordan, Do What Ya Want
14. Lee Harvey Osmond, Cuckoo’s Nest
15. Otis Redding, Let Me Come On Home
16. Muddy Waters, Deep Down In Florida (live)
17. Joe Satriani, Clouds Race Across The Sky

My track-by-track tales:

1. Deep Purple, Flight Of The Rat . . . Just a shade under eight minutes of metal mayhem powered by Ritchie Blackmore’s driving guitar riff. Actually, I don’t consider Deep Purple to be metal, I just couldn’t resist the alliteration of ‘metal mayhem.” Purple has always been more just, for the most part, heavy or hard rock to me, if you can even generalize that much; they’ve got some bluesy ballads and other pretty diverse stuff if you dig deep enough. But, metal wasn’t really a widely-used musical term when the band began and I started listening, although they along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath were big influences on bands that did fully adopt the metal motif.

2. Golden Earring, Big Tree, Blue Sea . . . Many, me included, bought Golden Earring’s Moontan album to have their big hit Radar Love when it came out in 1973. That opened the door to discovering other excellent tunes, like this one, on a terrific hard rock/progressive album also featuring such tracks as Candy’s Going Bad, Are You Receiving Me and Vanilla Queen, all of which I’ve played over time.

3. Love, She Comes In Colors . . . A sound shift to softer psychedelia, from the influential Los Angeles band’s second album, Da Capo, released in 1966. It was a single but, like much of Love’s material, didn’t chart. It’s thought to have, and seems logical, inspired The Rolling Stones’ 1967 song She’s A Rainbow, which features ‘she comes in colours everywhere’ in its lyrics and the songs are stylistically similar. Love bandleader and writer Arthur Lee was apparently miffed as he thought the Stones stole the line.

4. Robert Plant, Fat Lip . . . Terrific mid-tempo tune from Pictures At Eleven, Plant’s first solo album, released in 1982, after Led Zeppelin called it quits upon the death of drummer John Bonham in 1980. Led Zeppelin did have a some reunions for live shows, in 1985 at Live Aid and in 2007 at a London concert which resulted in the live album and film Celebration Day.

5. Midnight Oil, The Real Thing . . . A cover of a big 1969 hit in Midnight Oil’s home turf of Australia by Russell Morris, a regular chart presence in that country in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Oils recorded their own studio version and released it as the title track to an otherwise mostly acoustic live album of their songs, issued in 2000.

6. Bruce Springsteen, Candy’s Room . . . Great rocker from the Darkness On The Edge Of Town album, 1978. Besides that, and I’ve always loved the song, it’s a ‘correct an error’ tune for me on this show because last week, when I was doing a box set show and played a live version of Because The Night from Springsteen’s 1975-85 set, for whatever reason, as I later heard when listening to the audio playback, I introduced Because The Night as Candy’s Room. That’s likely because I was looking at the track listing on the Springsteen box, as I was talking, Candy’s Room is also on the live set and, anyway, I never corrected myself although I was accurate in my track-by-track tales written commentary. Never a bad time to play Candy’s Room, though. So, here it is, studio version.

7. Blue Oyster Cult, Then Came The Last Days Of May . . . Another spooky one, of which there are many, on the debut album by BOC that came out in 1972. I’ve had this in mind since the calendar changed to May and, while there’s still a bit more than two weeks left in the month, I figured I’d get it in before I forget. Not that I couldn’t play it at any time, of course.

8. Fleetwood Mac, Although The Sun Is Shining . . . Beautiful song written and sung by guitarist Danny Kirwan on 1969’s Then Play On, the album that introduced me to Fleetwood Mac via my older brother owning it, and was also the last to feature founding guitarist Peter Green. I just found out today that the song is used in the 2023 sci-fi movie Foe. I’m not a huge movie buff but I do like sci-fi, so maybe I’ll check it out. Or, maybe not. I just checked a review site and the movie at best averages a 5/10.

9. The Rolling Stones, Whole Wide World . . . Riff rocker from the 2023 album release Hackney Diamonds, the Stones’ first one of original material since 2005. (they released the blues covers album Blue and Lonesome in 2016). They’re out on tour, five dates into it, playing a fair bit, and rightly so, from the terrific new record. They played Whole Wide World at the New Orleans Jazz Fest, second show of the current tour, on May 2 after having debuted it live on Oct. 19, 2023 at the Racket club in New York, an album release show, with the studio record coming out the next day. That seven-song live set from New York was released in December, 2023 in an expanded issue of Hackney Diamonds.

10. Little Feat, Day Or Night . . . Funky, bluesy, swampy tune, the essence of the melting pot of music that is Little Feat, from 1975’s The Last Record Album, which it wasn’t. The band broke up in 1979 following the death of co-founder Lowell George, reunited in the late 1980s and continues on, mostly on the concert circuit while releasing studio material sporadically. Original member and co-founder and keyboard player Bill Payne is still in the group along with longtime core members, since 1972, Sam Clayton on percussion and Kenny Gradney on bass. Founding member and drummer Richie Hayward died in 2010 while guitarist Paul Barrere, who joined in 1972 and essentially assumed leadership of the reunited group, passed in 2019.

11. Johnny Winter, It’s My Own Fault (live) . . . Lengthy live treatment of a blues piece written by Riley King, aka B.B. King. It was released on the 1971 album Live Johnny Winter And. And who, you ask? Rick Derringer and other members of the McCoys (known for the 1965 hit Hang On Sloopy) teamed with Winter in what was originally to be called Johnny Winter and the McCoys but they decided on just ‘And’. Derringer, of course, had a hit single with Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo in 1974, although it first came out four years earlier on the first, self-titled Johnny Winter And studio album in 1970.

12. Moby Grape, Miller’s Blues (live) . . . Straight ahead beautiful blues, co-written by Grape guitarist Jerry Miller and bass player Bob Mosley. The original studio version came out on the Wow album, paired with another studio record, Grape Jam, in 1968. This live version is a previously-unreleased track taken from The Very Best Of Moby Grape: Vintage, a fine 2-CD compilation.

13. Sass Jordan, Do What Ya Want . . . Typically raunchy Jordan rocker from her 1992 album Racine, which yielded the hit Make You A Believer.

14. Lee Harvey Osmond, Cuckoo’s Nest . . . From one of Canadian artist – and one of my favorites, regardless nationality – Tom Wilson’s various projects. Over time, and sometimes at the same time, those projects have included the Florida Razors, Junkhouse, solo work under his own name, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings with Colin Linden and Stephen Fearing, and Lee Harvey Osmond, with members of Cowboy Junkies and the Skydiggers. Wilson’s work mines blues, blues rock, folk/psychedelic folk, you name it.

15. Otis Redding, Let Me Come On Home . . . From The Dock Of The Bay, an album put together from various Redding recordings between 1965 and his death in a plane crash in December 1967. It was released in February, 1968 including and using the title of Redding’s posthumous No. 1 single.

16. Muddy Waters, Deep Down In Florida (live) . . . Ten minutes of deep blues from one of the masters, taken from the album Muddy “Mississippi” Waters – Live, released in 1979. It features Johnny Winter, who also produced, among the greats like pianist Pinetop Perkins and harmonica player James Cotton who were members of the band that worked with Waters on the trio of studio albums – Hard Again, I’m Ready and King Bee – released between 1977 and 1981. They were the final records of Waters’ career; he died of a heart attack in 1983.

17. Joe Satriani, Clouds Race Across The Sky . . . From Engines Of Creation, the 2000 album released by the instrumental music guitar ace Satriani. It’s an album where he went ‘completely techno’ in his own words, and it works. I always knew of Satriani but never thought a concert featuring an instrumental artist would be compelling, but I was proven very wrong when I saw him open for Deep Purple in 2004. Amazing show, as was Purple’s and of course there’s a connection between the bands as Satriani stepped in to help Purple finish a Japanese tour in late 1993 when guitarist Ritchie Blackmore quit Purple (again and for, so far, the last time). Satriani was apparently asked to join Purple fulltime but declined to concentrate on his solo career, with Steve Morse then filling the guitar slot. Morse left Purple in 2022 to care for his ailing wife, who died of cancer in February of 2024. Morse has since been replaced by Belfast-born guitarist Simon McBride whose first studio record with Deep Purple will be the album = 1 (I’ve also seen reports saying it’s to be called = 1 More Time) is due out July 19. It’ll be my birthday present.