Joe Jackson, Alchemy . . . From J.J.’s most recent album, 2019’s Fool. He opened (and closed, with a short reprise) his shows supporting the album with this track, a perhaps now typical late career jazzy excursion from one of my favorite artists. Jackson just announced another tour, starting in March, 2022.
Deep Purple, Caught In The Act (Going Down/Green Onions/Hot ‘Lanta/Dazed and Confused/Gimme Some Lovin’) . . . From the new Turning To Crime covers album, short excerpts from each song to form a seven-minute medley during which the band, as on the entire album, is clearly having lots of fun. Purple has played Green Onions on various tours since Steve Morse joined on guitar, replacing Ritchie Blackmore, in the mid-1990s so no surprise it’s included in the medley. As I mentioned last week about covers albums, I prefer new original material by bands I like, like Purple, but – as with the Stones’ Blue and Lonesome covers album – it’s clear the boys had great fun putting it together and there are some interesting takes on the various tunes, in Purple’s case, like Bob Dylan’s Watching The River Flow, Love’s 7 and 7 Is and Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac’s Oh Well. Also interesting, given the pandemic, IS how they recorded it as detailed in the album liner notes – mostly from each band members’ home studios aside from singer Ian Gillan who went into an an outside studio.
Ohio Players, Jive Turkey . . . I just wanted to look at sexy Ohio Players album covers, in this case Skin Tight. No, seriously, I love funk, and the Players, and this came up during a station computer search of stuff I’d previously downloaded, hadn’t played the Players in a while, so here we are.
Gov’t Mule, She Said She Said . . . I love it when the Mule does cover tunes in fact I pulled this off a CD I burned for myself long ago that features the Allmans offshoot doing covers of various classic rock tunes over the years. This one, from The Beatles of course, begins a mini-set of covers from the Revolver album, concluding with The Beatles themselves.
Phil Collins, Tomorrow Never Knows . . . From Collins’ debut album, Face Value, in 1981 after which he started concurrent careers while becoming arguably as big, or bigger, solo as was Genesis.
The Beatles, I’m Only Sleeping . . . Always liked this one, from Revolver, to conclude our little mini-set of Beatles’ tunes. Sgt. Pepper gets most of the hype but Revolver and Rubber Soul, when the boys – perhaps taking Dylan’s little dig at Lennon that ‘your songs don’t say anything’ seriously – really went to another level creatively, are easily as good.
John Lennon, Bring On The Lucie (Freda People) . . . “All right boys, this is it, over the hill.” Lennon’s first line is worth the price of the album. Good song, too, from the Mind Games album, 1973.
Groundhogs, Strange Town . . . I love the ascending, hypnotic riff to this tune by these Brit blues-rock boys, from 1970’sThank Christ For The Bomb album.
BTO, Madison Avenue . . . An almost progressive tune, for this band at least, from the first post Randy Bachman album, Street Action, 1978. I remember having it on vinyl, almost out of curiousity at the time, and some years ago got it as a two-fer paired with the 1979 followup Rock ‘n’ Roll Nights. And you pretty much knew Randy had left simply by the album cover, of a woman, on the street, perhaps a hooker, which I doubt the strait-laced Bachman would ever have allowed. The band replaced Bachman with former April Wine member Jim Clench, who took over on bass while bassist C.F. (Fred) Turner moved to rhythm guitar alongside lead guitarist Blair Thornton and drummer Rob Bachman. And Turner handled most of the lead vocals, which suited me because I always liked the BTO songs he sung best and outside of, off top of my head, Takin’ Care of Business and You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet, maybe Looking Out For No. 1, Randy Bachman’s vocals (Rock Is My Life, This Is My Song, anyone, yecch) are pretty much embarrassing in my view.
Robin Trower, A Tale Untold . . . Trower was amazing during his heyday (he’s still going) in the 1970s, especially with the late great James Dewar on bass/lead vocals. This typical tour de force is from the For Earth Below album, which featured the typically cool Trower album covers of the period.
Social Distortion, I Was Wrong . . . My favorite Social Distortion tune and the one that got me into the band, late, 1996 via the White Light, White Heat, White Trash album (cool cover) which by that point was their fifth studio platter but hell, when before this more commercial single was released did anyone ever hear Social Distortion on mainstream radio? Or ever again? They also did a nice cover of Johnny Cash’s Ring Of Fire, too, but I decided to go with this song, this time. Ring Of Fire maybe another week.
Ozzy Osbourne, Diary Of A Madman . . . Almost prog metal, this title cut from Ozzy’s 1981 album. Iron Maiden, at the time just one album into their career, was probably listening, learning and being influenced.
KK’s Priest, Hellfire Thunderbolt . .. Founding member/guitarist K.K. Downing left Judas Priest under acrimonious circumstances in 2011. In the meantime, he wrote a book about the band, and this kick butt metallic rocker is from his first post-Priest album, out just recently this year, featuring former Priest singer Ripper Owens on lead vocals. Owens, of course, famously was found by Priest in a Preist covers band when the group was searching for a replacement for Rob Halford, who left Priest for a few years to go solo during the mid-1990s. Owens did two studio albums with Priest, which I liked, before returning to relative obscurity (until now) once Halford returned for a reunion tour in 2004 (which I saw, good show) and subsequent studio work.
Judas Priest, Blood Red Skies . . . And here’s Priest before all of the drama, a kinetic extended piece from the Ram It Down album, 1988.
Marianne Faithfull, What’s The Hurry . . . Was listening to Faithfull’s terrific Broken English album, for first time in a long time in its entirety, in the gym the other day, had somewhat forgotten this propulsive track from that record.
The Rolling Stones, Salt Of The Earth . . . Keith Richards croaks out the opening line in one of his early forays into singing on Stones’ tunes, then in comes Mick Jagger on this closer to 1968’s Beggars Banquet which marked the beginning of a whole new phase of brilliance from the band.
The Tragically Hip, Born In The Water . . . I wanted to play a Hip song today. Road Apples album is always a good source.
Headstones, Where Does It Go? . . . See the Hip reference above. Love these guys, Headstones, maybe more than I like the Hip, actually. Darker, dirtier, harder, rougher. . . maybe, to employ a cliché, akin to a Beatles-Stones thing although there, too, I love both bands.
Tom Waits, Jockey Full Of Bourbon . . . I don’t even drink bourbon. Nor does Waits, anymore, apparently, having kicked booze. But drinking songs are great, aren’t they?
Rare Earth, Long Time Leavin’ . . . Had my parents not sent we kids off to day camp, a ‘thing’ back in the early 1970s, perhaps still is, who knows how or if I would have gotten into Rare Earth. But, I did, because one of the camp counselors kept playing the shit out of Rare Earth’s live album. So, here we are. Speaking of day camp, mentioning it brought to mind an old Peanuts cartoon where Charlie Brown and Linus are celebrating the last day of school only to have Lucy immediately herd them onto a bus headed for summer camp, to which Linus asks, “whatever happened to going home?”
U2, Last Night On Earth . . . OK, so I do a ‘deep cuts’ show with allowances (my rules) to play the occasional single, which this is, one of six, (SIX) U2 released out of 12 tracks on their 1997 album Pop.
The Doors, When The Music’s Over . . . And off we go, for another week, via this epic Doors’ track from their second album, Strange Days. Akin, somewhat, to The End from the first studio album by the band. Great tunes, both.