Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Fanfare For The Common Man (single edit) . . . So much of my life has revolved around my love for The Rolling Stones. So while I likely knew Aaron Copeland’s 1942 composition by osmosis, I first cottoned to it via its use as the intro music on the Stones’ 1975-76 Tour of the Americas/Europe, and the Love You Live album commemorating the tour. They were still using it when I saw them for the first time, in 1978 in Buffalo, N.Y. ELP did a 10-minute version on their 1977 Works Vol. 1 album.
Hawkwind, Sonic Attack . . . Crazy nutty fun spoken word stuff from the boys, reflecting my nutty mood as I put together tonight’s show, at least the early tracks. “Do not panic!” etc.
Frank Zappa, The Central Scrutinizer . . . Here comes the narrator of Zappa’s epic 1979 concept album, Joe’s Garage.
Frank Zappa, Joe’s Garage . . . His mama was screamin’ “Turn it down! No. We won’t. This song still never fails to crack me up.
Saga, The Security Of Illusion . . . Nice progressive rock type ballad from the Canadian band, from my hometown of Oakville, Ont. Arguably more popular in Europe than North America, they were also huge in . . . Puerto Rico.
King Crimson, 21st Century Schizoid Man . . . From the brilliant 1969 debut album, In The Court Of The Crimson King and something of an anomaly on the record, easily its hardest-rocking cut.
Queen, Brighton Rock . . . Queen kicking butt in 1974 on the Sheer Heart Attack album. The sort of back-and-forth guitar riff, at least in the early part of the song, makes me think that’s how it feel be to be careening along in a bobsled run at the Olympics.
Alan Parsons Project, (The System Of) Dr. Tarr And Professor Fether . . . Cool track from Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, the Edgar Allan Poe-themed debut album by the Project, in 1976. The personnel on this particular project ran the gamut from Arthur Brown of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown fame to movie maven Orson Welles, doing narration on the 1987 remix of the record.
Electric Light Orchestra, Dreaming Of 4000 . . . I feel like I’ve played this too recently, although I couldn’t find exactly when in my searches. Whatever, I like the killer riff on the song, from the 1973 album On The Third Day.
Genesis, Another Record . . . So we go from a lot of progressive rock-oriented stuff to a song by a prog band that by the time of this release, on 1981’s Abacab album, had almost abandoned the genre. I like the Abacab album and all phases of Genesis, one of those bands I traveled with, so to speak, and they never completely lost me . . . aside from Illegal Alien or the title cut from Invisible Touch which I can see are nicely constructed songs but, yechh.
Todd Rundgren, Hello It’s Me . . . Not super into Rundgren, although I do like his hits, like this one. So, even though it’s a deep cuts show, how often do you hear Rundgren on the radio, especially nowadays?
Robert Palmer, Can We Still Be Friends? . . . And here’s Robert Palmer doing a Rundgren tune, a by-the-book version I’m more familiar with but only because I heard the Palmer version first, via his Secrets album.
Gordon Lightfoot, Songs The Minstrel Sang . . . One of those tracks I threw into our station system some time back and forgot all about until I was searching something else for tonight’s show and saw it. Nice tune and wah wah guitar on this one from the Canadian icon.
The Plastic Ono Band, Yer Blues (live, from Live Peace In Toronto 1969) . . . I thought of being silly and playing some shrieks from Yoko Ono ‘singing’ from her bag on stage, from this concert album but then thought, why waste good minutes in a two-hour show? Nice work on the John Lennon-penned Beatles cut from Lennon, Eric Clapton, bassist Klaus Voormann and drummer Alan White. As you can see in the video, taken from the concert film, Yoko is holding a lyric sheet while she wails along with John. Why she needed it, who knows; I guess to time her shriek spots. I love how she’s credited on the album under personnel: ‘wind, presence, backing (notice it doesn’t say vocals), art.” I don’t mind Yoko, really.
Pete Townshend, Cat’s In The Cupboard . . . Another one I feel like I may have played too recently, or was that I Am An Animal, from Townshend’s terrific Empty Glass album, 1980. No matter. Imagine you were in The Who at the time, coming off the great 1978 Who Are You album, Keith Moon is gone and Pete’s going solo with this, instead of using at least some of the great Empty Glass songs for a Who album instead of what was left for the decent, but weaker, Face Dances Who album that came out in 1981. No wonder they broke up shortly after, for a while at least.
The Rolling Stones, Torn And Frayed . . . One of my favorite cuts from Exile On Main St., just a great groove. Most bands would kill to have something like this as a single.
Ry Cooder, Down In Hollywood . . . Indeed a ‘boppy’ tune from Cooder’s 1979 album Bop Till You Drop album which, aside from this song, was a covers album of early R & B and rock and roll classics. Bop Till You Drop is also significant in that it was, apparently, the first all-digitally recorded major label album in popular music.
Flash And The Pan, California . . . This came up due to the searching for the Cooder track, so stuff to do with California came up in the system. A good thing, because I can never get enough Flash And The Pan.
Buddy Holly, Learning The Game . . . I played Blind Faith’s version of Holly’s Well All Right last week, prompting a discussion with a friend about early rock and rollers and how great they were and in some cases still are. So I thought I’d go with a Holly tune, which in this instance I pulled off a compilation of rock and roll tracks that inspired the Stones. Keith Richards did this one live in Texas (naturally, since Holly was born there) in 2005 during his usual two-song set within a Stones’ concert in Austin.
Jerry Lee Lewis, Me and Bobby McGee . . . Very cool arrangement, by The Killer, of the Kris Kristofferson classic made immortal by Janis Joplin. Lewis’s version came out in 1971 and to me is how covers ought to be done – reinterpret them as to make them almost an entirely new song. Good examples of that are Hendrix’s take on Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower and Devo’s version of the Stones’ Satisfaction.
Bruce Cockburn, How I Spent My Fall Vacation . . . I’ve played so many tunes on the show over time, obviously, that I keep thinking I’m repeating myself. Probably for the most part not, although I have often dug into Cockburn’s magnificent 1980 album Humans. Not a bad track on it. Here’s yet another good one from that platter.
Elton John, Tell Me When The Whistle Blows . . . One of my favorite Elton John songs, period, hit or deep cut. This one’s from the Captain Fantastic album in 1975, coming to the end of a run when everything EJ did was, indeed, fantastic.
Rod Stewart, The Killing Of Georgie (Part I and II) . . . From Stewart’s hit album Tonight’s The Night, 1976. Space does not permit but . . . It’s worth reading up on the song, about a gay friend of the Faces who was killed, and the coda’s resemblance to the Beatles’ Don’t Let Me Down, starting at about the five-minute mark, and John Lennon (‘the lawyers didn’t notice’) and Stewart’s reaction to it. I had never actually thought about the similarity until fairly recently, all these years later.
Savoy Brown, Leavin’ Again . . . It was cool that a Twitter acquaintance I’ve developed over shared love of music mentioned he’d gotten into some Savoy Brown via various discussions, so I thought I’d play some…again. Love the band, including this long bluesy jam.
Steve Earle, Goodbye’s All We Got Left To Say . . . Another from Twitter discussions about various great artists. And that’s indeed all that’s left to say, for this week.