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

1. Peter Gabriel, On The Air
2. Elton John, Funeral For A Friend (Love Lies Bleeding)
3. Styx, Miss America
4. Neil Young, Motorcycle Mama
5. The Rolling Stones, If You Really Want To Be My Friend
6. Phil Collins, Thru These Walls
7. Harry Chapin, Taxi
8. Harry Chapin, Sequel
9. Marianne Faithfull, Reason To Believe
10. The White Stripes, One More Cup Of Coffee
11. Bob Dylan, Sara
12. Roxy Music, While My Heart Is Still Beating
13. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, No Man’s Land
14. Fleetwood Mac, Bermuda Triangle
15. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Taxman
16. Ringo Starr, Back Off Boogaloo
17. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Lazy Days
18. Robert Plant/Alison Krauss, Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)
19. The Allman Brothers Band, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed (live, At Fillmore East album version)
20. The Alan Parsons Project, The Turn Of A Friendly Card (The Turn Of A Friendly Card, Pt. 1/Snake Eyes/The Ace of Swords/Nothing Left To Lose/The Turn Of A Friendly Card, Pt. 2) 

    Set list with my track-by-track tales

    1. Peter Gabriel, On The Air . . . Gabriel’s first four solo albums were all simply called ‘Peter Gabriel’ so they came to be known by their album covers. This is from his second album, the ‘scratch’ record. No big hits but it’s arguably one of his most interesting albums, not least due to the presence of guitarist Robert Fripp, of King Crimson fame, on many of the songs.
    2. Elton John, Funeral For A Friend (Love Lies Bleeding) . . . Classic, epic opener from the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album. So why didn’t I open with it today? Well, I did open a show with it a few years ago. And I was going to again, but then decided Gabriel’s tune fit better, by title.
    3. Styx, Miss America . . . Not a big Styx fan, one of my younger brothers was so I couldn’t help but know their stuff, and this rocker is one of their best, in my opinion.
    4. Neil Young, Motorcycle Mama . . . From 1978’s Comes A Time, with the late Nicolette Larson sharing lead vocals with Young.
    5. The Rolling Stones, If You Really Want To Be My Friend . . . Lovely ballad from the It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll album, featuring Philadelphia soul crooners Blue Magic on backing vocals.
    6. Phil Collins, Thru These Walls . . . Phil Collins pretty much lost me after his first two solo albums but I like this spooky track from the second album, Hello, I Must Be Going! It was the first single released, albeit only in the UK, where it only managed to make No. 56 on the charts. Much more successful was the album’s second single, the worldwide smash cover of You Can’t Hurry Love, the song made famous by The Supremes.
    7. Harry Chapin, Taxi . . . The story of Harry the cab driver and Sue, his old flame.
    8. Harry Chapin, Sequel . . . Eight years later, in 1980 for his album Sequel, Chapin picks up the story, as they meet again . . . It’s a beautiful pairing of songs, with the touching ending: “I guess it’s a sequel to our story, from the journey ‘tween Heaven and Hell, with half the time thinking of what might have been and half thinkin’ just as well . . . I guess only time will tell.” Chapin, a noted philanthropist, died in a traffic accident in July of 1981, at age 38, on his way to playing at a benefit concert. I remember hearing the report on the radio.
    9. Marianne Faithfull, Reason To Believe . . . Faithfull’s 1967 cover of the 1965 Tim Hardin classic, done by many artists including The Carpenters and Rod Stewart, to great effect, on his 1971 album, Every Picture Tells A Story. The B-side of Stewart’s single version was Maggie May, which radio stations started playing more than the A-side as Maggie May became a huge hit. As for the Faithfull version, her at this point sweet vocals are a sharp contrast to the later world-weary sound of her voice, changed by drug abuse and cigarettes, as it appeared on her big 1979 comeback album, Broken English. It’s like listening to two different artists, and both sound great, suited to the songs.
    10. The White Stripes, One More Cup Of Coffee . . . Cover of one of my favorite Bob Dylan tunes, from his 1976 album, Desire.
    11. Bob Dylan, Sara . . . Speaking of the Desire album . . . Again, inspiration coming from everywhere and anywhere, a friend of mine mentioned he was listening to the album last week, which prompted me to think of One More Cup Of Coffee and others among my favorites from the record. This is one of them, a touching love song to Dylan’s then-estranged wife Sara, who visited the studio when he recorded it, telling her ‘this is for you.” They later reconciled, but finally divorced in 1977.
    12. Roxy Music, While My Heart Is Still Beating . . . Yet another beautiful song from the wonderful Avalon album, a lovely soundscape from start to finish.
    13. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, No Man’s Land . . . Haven’t played Seger in a while, and a great one this is, musically and lyrically, from the Against The Wind album. The album wound up knocking Pink Floyd’s The Wall from its No. 1 perch atop the charts.
    14. Fleetwood Mac, Bermuda Triangle . . . Haunting track from the fifth and final album, Heroes Are Hard To Find, of the guitarist/songwriter Bob Welch period of Fleetwood Mac. It’s the middle, arguably underappreciated time between the early, Peter Green-led blues band and the later Stevie Nicks-Lindsey Buckingham commercial behemoth.
    15. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Taxman . . . Cover of the Beatles/George Harrison tune, which I played recently, that appeared on Vaughan’s posthumously-released first greatest hits album in 1995. According to the album’s liner notes, the song was done for a never-completed animated film project initiated by Michael Jackson, who owned the publishing rights to The Beatles’ catalog. The record company suggested Vaughan’s band do Taxman, but what band members have described as ‘Howlin’ Wolf Sings The Beatles’ due to the growly vocals, remained unreleased until after Vaughan’s death.
    16. Ringo Starr, Back Off Boogaloo . . . Ringo usually employed outside songwriters, include his fellow Beatles. This is one he wrote himself, inspired by a conversation with Marc Bolan of T-Rex, who used the phrase Ringo wound up taking as inspiration and song title. Among the players on the tune are George Harrison (slide guitar), Gary Wright (keyboards) and longtime Beatles’ associate Klaus Voorman (bass), who appeared on several solo albums by the various members except for Paul McCartney.
    17. The Flying Burrito Brothers, Lazy Days . . . Infectious country/rockabilly toe-tapper written by Gram Parsons.
    18. Robert Plant/Alison Krauss, Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On) . . . While Jimmy Page continues to spend his time re-remastering and re-releasing Led Zeppelin albums for the billionth time, Robert Plant just gets on with interesting things like the wonderful 2007 collaboration with country/bluegrass artist Krauss that resulted in the Raising Sand album. This is their version of the Everly Brothers song. In 2021, the duo released their second album together, Raise The Roof.
    19. The Allman Brothers Band, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed (live, At Fillmore East album version) . . . One of the band’s finest of many instrumentals written by guitarist Dickey Betts, about a woman he was involved with. Betts used the name of a woman he saw on a headstone in a cemetery as a means of cloaking the real person’s identity.
    20. The Alan Parsons Project, The Turn Of A Friendly Card (The Turn Of A Friendly Card, Pt. 1/Snake Eyes/The Ace of Swords/Nothing Left To Lose/The Turn Of A Friendly Card, Pt. 2) . . . Epic 16-minute track broken down into five individual songs, from the prog band’s 1980 album.