So Old It’s New set list for Monday, June 21, 2021, airing 8-10 pm ET at Radio Waterloo. All selections are from live albums, something I did eons ago on the show and figured would be fun to reprise. Some people like live albums, some don’t, I tend to prefer studio versions in most cases but, that said, live albums are often exciting and interesting in terms of perhaps new and/or extended arrangements of familiar tunes. Which is the same as the concert experience and, as Joe Jackson (and perhaps many others) once said, if you want the note-for-note studio versions, that’s what the studio albums are for.

Amazing how many live albums I have, actually, as I discovered while going through them for tonight’s set. But, then again, I’m the type who owns pretty much everything released by artists I like, accumulated over the years. And look at the famous live albums that were on my original list of sources that I didn’t wind up using – Frampton Comes Alive!, Thin Lizzy’s Live and Dangerous, Unleashed In The East by Judas Priest, Ted Nugent’s Double Live Gonzo!, Allman Brothers At Fillmore East (because I played In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed from that album last week), Genesis Seconds Out, on and on . . All of which means I’ll likely do a volume 2 and 3 and on of this theme in future shows. Next week, though, it’s likely an all-Canadian show in advance of Canada Day. Then maybe back to live stuff or, we’ll see. Anyway, off we go . . .

 

1. Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, Let It Rock (from Live Bullet) …This album, along with Night Moves and that album’s title cut, are what broke Seger big into the wider public consciousness. This Chuck Berry cover actually closed the Cobo Hall show from which Live Bullet is drawn, but I figured it would be a good opener for tonight’s show, which I’m starting with a series of old rock and roll classics covered by some of the big rock acts these tunes originally inspired.

2. The Rolling Stones, Around and Around (from Love You Live) . . . Smokin’ version from the El Mocambo side of what was originally a 2-record vinyl release.

3. Johnny and Edgar Winter, Rock & Roll Medley – Slippin’ and Slidin’; Jailhouse Rock; Tutti-Frutti; Sick and Tired; I’m Ready; Reelin’ and Rockin’; Blue Suede Shoes; Jenny Take A Ride; Good Golly Miss Molly (from Together) . . . Little snippets of each track, put together by the Winter brothers to form a great 6-minute medley.

4. Jimi Hendrix, Johnny B. Goode (from Hendrix In The West) . . . Absolutely blistering version of what George Thorogood once called, on one of his live albums, ‘the rock and roll national anthem’. In The West, which my late older brother had on vinyl (he was my intro to Hendrix), is a selection of live tracks largely pulled from Hendrix shows in San Diego and the San Francisco area between 1968 and 1970. This take on yet another Chuck Berry classic is from a show at the Berkeley Community Center on May 30, 1970.

5. Mountain, Roll Over Beethoven (edit from Dream Sequence, Flowers Of Evil album) . . . Flowers of Evil is split into studio and live sides, with Roll Over Beethoven pulled from within the 25-minute Dream Sequence, recorded in June, 1971 at New York’s Fillmore East.

6. The Who, Shakin’ All Over (from Live At Leeds) . . . Great Who take on the Johnny Kidd & The Pirates classic.

7. Santana, Dance Sister Dance (from Moonflower) . . . Santana’s in full flight on this one, a case in my view where a live version is better than the studio take, which is on the Amigos album.

    

8. Bruce Springsteen, Because The Night (from Live 1975-85 box set) . . . A tune co-written by Springsteen and Patti Smith, whose version, from the Easter album, I’ve previously played on my show. To my knowledge/research, Springsteen has never released a studio version of it as he apparently never thought it was up to snuff, to the consternation of his band mates, who thought otherwise. But, he’s played it live over the years and included this live version, from Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum in 1980, on the live boxed set.

9. The Butterfield Blues Band, The Boxer (from The Butterfield Blues Band Live) . . . Love this up-tempo boogie-type blues from this horn-drenched version of the Butterfield band. Not the Simon and Garfunkel tune.

10. Eric Clapton, Presence Of The Lord (from E.C. Was Here) . . . Yvonne Elliman, who was such a big part of Clapton’s ’70s albums, helps out on vocals on this somewhat rearranged version of the tune that first was heard on the one and only Blind Faith studio album. Different guitar solo than the amazing one on the studio version but great in its own way.

11. Muddy Waters, Deep Down In Florida (from Muddy “Mississippi’ Waters Live) . . . Johnny Winter, who produced and played on a string of Muddy’s albums in the late 1970s, accompanied Waters on the tour for Hard Again, which featured this typical slow blues, my favorite kind.

12. Stephen Stills, Jet Set (Sigh)/Rocky Mountain Way/Jet Set (Sigh) (from Stephen Stills Live) . . . Interesting, perhaps, that I came somewhat late to Stills’ solo work, aside from Love The One You’re With, despite liking Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. But unlike with Neil Young, I never deeply followed Stills’ solo career. That is, until I heard Tree Top Flyer (which I’ve played on the show) from his brilliant Stills Alone album some years ago. That sent me back into his catalog and here we are. Nice combo version of his own Jet Set (Sigh) and Joe Walsh/Barnstorm’s Rocky Mountain Way.

13. Beck, Bogert, Appice, Black Cat Moan (from Live In Japan) . . . Big use of the ‘talk box’ guitar effects unit that was something of a ‘thing’ back in the 1970s and used also by Peter Frampton on the Frampton Comes Alive album. Beck handles lead vocals himself on this Don Nix cover. I don’t own the album, which is available on YouTube but was released only in Japan in 1974. I pulled this one from my copy of the Beckology box set.

14. Grand Funk Railroad, Paranoid (from Live: The 1971 Tour) . . . Not the Black Sabbath tune. This is Grand Funk’s own riff-rocker, and a fine one it is.

15. Roy Buchanan, Down By The River (from Sweet Dreams: The Anthology, previously unreleased live version) . . . Crazy good guitar by the late great Buchanan on this cover of the Neil Young tune. Lead vocals by Billy Price, who collaborated with Buchanan in the mid-1970s.

16. Van Morrison, I’ve Been Working (from It’s Too Late To Stop Now) . . . Well, I really haven’t been. This isn’t working, it’s fun putting together these shows. Often takes me on my own rediscovery trips through my music collection, like this up tempo tune from Van The Man’s 1974 live release. This is from the original album. An expanded, different version, called Volumes II, III and IV and also featuring a DVD of a show from that period, was released in 2016. It’s great, all of it.

17. Roxy Music, Out Of The Blue (from Viva!) . . . This song, originally on the Country Life studio album, seems to bubble up from underground, is how I’d describe it. Or, I could just say, it’s great. Creativity to me is endlessly fascinating in a ‘how did they think of that, where do they find these arrangements?’ kind of way.

     

18. Faces, (I Know) I’m Losing You (Live at the BBC, 1971, from Five Guys Walk Into A Bar box set) . . . Crackling version of such a great song originally taken to No. 1 by The Temptations. Besides his dirty guitar, love Ronnie Wood’s ‘yeah’ just before Rod Stewart kicks in with the lead vocal. Oh, and a nice drum solo by Kenney Jones, too. What a great band Faces were. And they backed Stewart on the studio version he released on Every Picture Tells A Story.

19. Blue Oyster Cult, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place (from Some Enchanted Evening) . . . And we’re outta here for another week with BOC’s cover of a song, written by the husband-wife team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, likely best known via The Animals’ version.