Creedence Clearwater Revival, It Came Out Of The Sky . . . Satirical Chuck Berry-type rock and roller about what happens when a UFO falls on an Illinois farmer’s land. It was a single in some countries but is largely considered a CCR deep cut. It appeared on the band’s third album release – Willy and The Poor Boys – in one year (!!), 1969, just three months after their previous album, Green River, which came out eight months after Bayou Country. CCR lore has it that bandleader John Fogerty pushed the group to continue releasing albums as quickly as possible as he feared the band would be forgotten if they didn’t appear in the charts. This caused friction with the other band members, who chafed at the workload and figured it wiser to spread things out.
Gov’t Mule, Revolution Come, Revolution Go . . . Eight-minute title cut, with a nice groove, from the Mule’s most recent studio album, released in 2017. Gov’t Mule is an Allman Brothers Band offshoot that started in 1994, which sounds funny now since the Warren Haynes-led band has become a much-lauded entity in itself, having released 10 studio albums and a long list of live albums.
Warren Zevon, Hit Somebody (The Hockey Song) . . . A tune that I’d say accurately sums up the role and perhaps plight of enforcers in hockey, particularly up to the time of the song’s release on Zevon’s 2002 album My Ride’s Here. The lyrics were co-written with former sports journalist turned acclaimed author (Tuesdays With Morrie, etc.) and multi-media talent Mitch Albom. David Letterman, a big Zevon fan who had the late great on his show many times, does the ‘hit somebody!’ backing vocals on the track.
Ian Thomas, Painted Ladies . . . Mine is a deep cuts show but I’m not so rigid as to ignore an occasional single, especially one that is now nearly 50 years old! This one came up in the station computer system while, as often happens, I was looking for something else – which often leads to welcome finds. Great song, most of us of a certain vintage know and remember it well. It was a No. 4 Canadian hit for Thomas in 1973. It made No. 34 on the US charts.
Bruce Springsteen, Johnny 99 . . . I was discussing Springsteen’s sometimes harrowing Nebraska album with a friend some time back. I thought I had played this. But I think I just thought about playing it, because I didn’t, my searches show. Now I am. Good tune, lyrics, album – an essential Springsteen release.
The Guess Who, Of A Dropping Pin . . . Jaunty track was the first single from 1969’s Canned Wheat album but barely scraped into the top 100 (No. 98) in Canada. Laughing/Undun, a two-sided single, the big hits off the album although they preceded the full record. Space does not permit but it makes interesting reading: suffice it to say Canned Wheat has an interesting history. The band and the record company haggled over which studio best served the band’s sound, the result being that the Laughing/Undun release was surreptitiously recorded in The Guess Who’s preferred studio while the rest of the record was done elsewhere. No Time, which appears on Canned Wheat, was later re-recorded for the American Woman album and that version became a hit single.
Drive-By Truckers, Zip City . . . I don’t know a lot by the Drive-By Truckers but what I do, I like, like this mid-tempo tune. The band has cool album covers, too.
Ronnie Wood & Bo Diddley, Who Do You Love (from Live at The Ritz) . . . Extended blitz through the Diddley classic, from the live album Rolling Stone Wood did with Mr. Elias McDaniel, aka Bo, or maybe it’s Bo aka Elias, in 1987 in New York. The album was released in 1988.
The Who, How Can You Do It Alone . . . A song about masturbation. A good one, too, the song I mean. It’s from the first post-Keith Moon Who album, Face Dances, with Kenney Jones on drums, from 1981. Despite what some critics say about the post-Moon work, it’s a good album, perhaps leaning towards being a Pete Townshend solo record, but I’ve always liked it.
Metallica, Low Man’s Lyric . . . Bluesy tune from 1997’s Reload album. Metallica took heat from some of their fan base for ‘selling out’ starting arguably with 1991’s Black Album and those criticisms got stronger with the Load (1996) and Reload albums which had a more mainstream sound, certainly for the most part different from the band’s previous thrash leanings. But I agree with a fan’s thoughts on it, via a YouTube comments field. “Metallica took a big chance that would see them look and sound different. Songs such as this were risky but the lyrics to their more accessible songs still had a sharp edge to them and were meaningful. This song is an example.”
Rush, The Way The Wind Blows . . . Beautiful latter-day tune featuring Alex Lifeson’s hypnotic guitar riff, and the late great Neil Peart’s typically fine drumming, from 2007’s Snakes & Arrows album. Peart named it as his favorite track on the record, from a drumming, and listening, perspective.
Spooky Tooth, The Mirror . . . Gary Wright of Dream Weaver and Love Is Alive fame was in Spooky Tooth. So, later and on this tune, was Mick Jones, of Foreigner fame. Great band, could rock, often with a pinch of blues, go psychedelic and prog-ish, just one of those perhaps somewhat under the radar British bands that, to use a British expression, I’ve always fancied.
U2, Silver and Gold . . . Perhaps the best-known version of this pulsating track is the live version from Rattle and Hum. This is the studio version, about a minute shorter and equally good. It was the B-side to the Joshua Tree’s Where The Streets Have No Name single.
John Mayall, Got To Find A Better Way . . . The mantra for my show, one of my catch phrases, has long been: So old it’s new – old bands, old tracks, old bands, their new stuff if they’re still around, alive and kicking. As Mayall is, at age 88 currently on what he’s announced will finally be his last tour. In any event, this is a typically fine, self-penned cut from Mayall’s freshly-released new album, The Sun Is Shining Down, which came out this past Friday, Jan. 28.
Jethro Tull, Where Did Saturday Go? . . . Another new one, from old friends. Ian Anderson has been releasing albums under his own name for about 20 years now but has revived the Tull moniker for a new album, The Zealot Game, which also came out this past Friday. “At last, the new collection of songs you have not really been waiting for,” Anderson quips in his typically witty album liner notes. In many ways, Anderson’s recent work is interchangeable as Tull because in so many respects he has long BEEN Tull, and his solo work has featured current Tull band members. So, one wonders what the difference is, really. Maybe it’s all done for tax reasons for Anderson’s myriad companies, always listed on his work as The Ian Anderson Group of Companies Ltd. But what do I know? I’m just a huge Tull/Anderson fan, musically, even though his sometimes snotty supercilious arrogance in interviews can rub me the wrong way. But hey, leader types can tend to be that way; they have a vision and they’re going to pursue it how they so choose. Anyway, a typical acoustic-type Tull track, this one, and one listen in, a fine addition to the extensive Tull/Anderson album catalog.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Gypsy Eyes . . . From Electric Ladyland, an album featuring well-known Hendrix tracks like Crosstown Traffic, Voodoo Child (Slight Return) and of course his immortal reinvention of Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower. Gypsy Eyes is another of the more conventional songs on the album amid some of the interesting experimentation or simple jamming exhibited elsewhere in extended workouts like Voodoo Chile and 1983 . . . (A Merman I Should Turn To Be).
Bob Dylan, I and I . . . “Been so long since a strange woman has slept in my bed . . . Look how sweet she sleeps . . . Think I’ll go out and go for a walk. Not much happenin’ here, nothin’ ever does. Besides, if she wakes up now, she’ll just want me to talk; I got nothing to say, especially about whatever was.” Dylan, arguably nailing relationships, or potential ones.
Santana, Taboo . . . Said it many times, while I like most Santana, the first three albums remain for me the zenith of the band’s work. As evidence, I offer this intoxicating piece from the third album.
Roxy Music, Both Ends Burning . . . A song in the vein of Roxy’s edgier, early work, although the same 1975 Siren album featured their breakthrough, more conventional hit, Love Is The Drug. Oh, and that’s Roxy singer/songwriter Bryan Ferry’s then-girlfriend Jerry Hall, soon to be stolen by Mick Jagger, crawling on the album cover, which also got let’s say somewhat duller as Roxy Music became more mainstream.
The Beatles, Happiness Is A Warm Gun . . . One of my all-time favorite Beatles’ tunes. “She’s well-acquainted with the touch of a velvet hand like a lizard on a window pane…” then shortly after into that great wahhhaaawaaa guitar in what is about three or four songs in one – the intro, I need a fix, Mother Superior, happiness is a warm gun – all with great lyrics, all in two minutes, 44 seconds. Brilliance.
The Allman Brothers Band, Seven Turns . . . Title cut, and a beauty written by guitarist Dickey Betts, from the band’s 1990 album.
Lynyrd Skynyrd, Tuesday’s Gone . . . Another beauty, from another great southern rock band.
The Rolling Stones, Gotta Get Away . . . Short, sweet and terrific early Stones and in some ways a precursor to their later what I call ‘effortlessly and confidently casual’ tunes such as Tumbling Dice, Torn and Frayed and many others. And on that note, getting away until next week.