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

1. Teenage Head, Disgusteen
2. Ian Dury, Wake Up And Make Love With Me
3. Graham Parker & The Rumour, Saturday Nite Is Dead
4. Elvis Costello, I’m Not Angry
5. The Clash, Brand New Cadillac
6. Blondie, Accidents Never Happen
7. The Cars, You Can’t Hold On Too Long
8. Joe Jackson, Throw It Away
9. Jefferson Airplane, She Has Funny Cars
10. Neil Young, Crime In The City (Sixty To Zero Part 1)
11. Motorhead, Ain’t My Crime
12. Billy Joel, Ain’t No Crime
13. Elton John, It Ain’t Gonna Be Easy
14. Leon Russell, Jumpin’ Jack Flash/Youngblood (live, from the Concert for Bangladesh)
15. The Rolling Stones, Child Of The Moon
16. Iron Maiden, Sign Of The Cross
17. Black Sabbath, Computer God
18. King Crimson, 21st Century Schizoid Man
19. Judas Priest, Beyond The Realms Of Death
20. KK’s Priest, Return Of The Sentinel
21. Bob Dylan, The Ballad Of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest
22. Van Halen, Mine All Mine

My track-by-track tales:

1. Teenage Head, Disgusteen . . . “Nice day for a party . . . isn’t it?” I can never get enough of that intro line and then of course the later playing off The Exorcist movie amid the incessant riff of the song . . . “Come on in, Father Karras. Regan’s inside here with me, she’s going nowhere. ‘But please, it’s so cold you must let her go.’ “She’s not going anywhere. Not till I’m finished with her, you understand.”

2. Ian Dury, Wake Up And Make Love With Me . . . Dury, one of those artists I got into via a college friend who, en route to a party, played me Dury’s Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll on his car tape deck (yeah, I’m aging) which prompted me to investigate New Boots and Panties!! album from which Wake Up And Make Love With Me comes. Loved the album, still do, easily to me Dury’s best, most consistent work and I became a disciple of Dury, for a time, anyway, because aside from the slightly later hit, Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick, the stuff he was releasing post-New Boots and Panties!! didn’t make it with me anymore. But, that does not take away from whatever it is he did and I’ve named just a few songs here and the point is, he did them.

3. Graham Parker & The Rumour, Saturday Nite Is Dead . . . From the ‘angry young man’ period of Parker’s career, from the album, Squeezing Out Sparks, arguably his best album, terrific front to back and featuring such songs as the single Local Girls and Protection. But, I must confess that I got into Parker via his next album, The Up Escalator, issued in 1980 which met with lukewarm reviews I’ve never understood I mean, Devil’s Sidewalk, Stupefaction, Endless Night, Empty Lives . . . anyway so I got into Parker via The Up Escalator, then I went back, and forward until he found marital bliss, lost the angry young man persona, got boring, to me anyway, and that was that. He’s still out there, though. Maybe I should see what he’s up to; we’ve both aged, maybe I’ll find some commonality.

4. Elvis Costello, I’m Not Angry . . . Speaking of ‘angry young men’, Costello, around the same time as Parker was considered part of that unofficial, media-created trio that also included Joe Jackson, who I’ll get to in a bit because if I play one of the ‘angry young men’ I feel compelled to play the other two, at least if I’m playing something from their late 1970s period. So here’s I’m Not Angry, from Costello’s 1977 debut release My Aim Is True which arguably could be categorized as a greatest hits album, it’s so full of great songs.

5. The Clash, Brand New Cadillac . . . The Clash’s explosive take on Vince Taylor’s 1959 rockabilly tune, released by The Clash on London Calling in 1979 and prompting music completists like me to take a trip back to Taylor, which is what a great cover tune can do and thankfully so. Taylor’s tune is terrific. And you can’t beat a lyric the Clash inserted, Baby, baby, drove up in a Cadillac I said, “Jesus Christ, where’d you get that Cadillac?” She said, “Balls to you, daddy, she ain’t never coming back.” Now, Vince Taylor may have wanted to write and sing such a lyric but allowable things were different in 1958 when he released his song, as a B-side (?!) but anyway 21 years later The Clash said it and all is well and good.

6. Blondie, Accidents Never Happen . . . My favorite song – and maybe my favorite Blondie song overall, hits and otherwise – from the Eat To The Beat album, the 1979 followup to the smash hit 1978 album Parallel Lines which featured the hits or at least well-known tracks Hanging On The Telephone, Heart Of Glass and One Way Or Another. Accidents Never Happen wasn’t released as a single, though. Killer track, to my ears.

7. The Cars, You Can’t Hold On Too Long . . . David Bowie-esque track from the second Cars album, Candy-O, released in 1979. Sung by bass player Benjamin Orr, who also handled vocals on such well-known Cars tunes as Just What I Needed, Drive, Let’s Go and Moving In Stereo.

8. Joe Jackson, Throw It Away . . . a rocker from JJ’s debut album, Look Sharp! in 1979 ends the opening salvo of songs and bands I got into during my college days.

9. Jefferson Airplane, She Has Funny Cars . . . Bo Diddley-esque beat on this one from Surrealistic Pillow, overshadowed by that album’s two hits and the songs – Somebody To Love and White Rabbit – for which the Airplane is best known to casual listeners. There’s so much more, if you dig.

10. Neil Young, Crime In The City (Sixty To Zero Part 1) . . . Rockin’ In The Free World, electric version (it also appeared in acoustic form on the record) was the hit single from Young’s 1989 album Freedom. But this epic ‘story’ song is arguably the heart of the album, a tune Young had road tested at varying lengths, up to 20 minutes, with the final album track coming in at just under nine minutes, prior to official studio album release. Lots of interesting reading about the song available online, although was an instant favorite of mine when I bought the album on CD when it was released, without knowing further to that point.

11. Motorhead, Ain’t My Crime . . . It just came up in the computer system when I was digging for the previous Neil Young song, also featuring the word ‘crime’ in the title. Same as the song after this one. Anyway, as for Motorhead, this is from the band’s 1986 album Orgasmatron, back during a time I wasn’t much into metal although I soon gave the genre more of a chance and embraced it, evidenced by some songs later in the set. Well, check that, re metal. I was into it, I liked Judas Priest, Black Sabbath (who I continue to categorize as hard rock but anyway) and similar bands but I had always thought Motorhead was just shit noise, based on a few listens, but I decided to keep listening, and I was rewarded as I finally ‘got it’.

12. Billy Joel, Ain’t No Crime . . . A song about hangovers, at least that’s how I read the lyrics, good tune, too, from Joel’s Piano Man album. Just get up, get out and move on, to quote a song by the band Fludd which I should play again sometime.
“You got to open your eyes in the morning
Nine o’clock comin’ without any warnin’
And you gotta get ready to go
You say you went out late last evenin’
Did a lot of drinkin’, come home stinkin’
And you went and fell asleep on the floor
And then your lady comes and finds you a-sleepin’
Starts into weepin’ ’bout the hours you been keepin’
And you better get your ass out the door
Ain’t no crime
Yeah, it’s good to get it on to get a load off your mind
It ain’t no crime,
Well, ev’rybody gets that way sometime
It ain’t no crime”

Agreed.

13. Elton John, It Ain’t Gonna Be Easy . . . Lengthy, bluesy piece, one of my favorites from EJ, from 1978’s A Single Man album during a period when he and songwriting partner Bernie Taupin had parted ways and Elton’s commercial fortunes – at least compared to his massive success earlier in the 1970s – were on the downslope. Great stuff, nevertheless.

14. Leon Russell, Jumpin’ Jack Flash/Youngblood (live, from the Concert for Bangladesh) . . . Third in a row in the set from an artist best known for piano/keyboard playing, from Russell’s appearance at the George Harrison-Ravi Shankar-organized benefit concert at New York City’s Madison Square Garden in 1971.

15. The Rolling Stones, Child Of The Moon . . . And here are the Stones, who weren’t at the Bangladesh concert, with the psychedelic sounding B-side to their hit single Jumpin’ Jack Flash. JJ Flash is an amazing song but the fact Child Of The Moon was relegated to B-side status shows how great the Stones are but for the zillionth time, don’t take my word for it, I’m a huge fan so there exists an inherent bias for me, towards them. We all like what we like, we hear things and are moved by them as we hear them, or not, and that’s the beauty of it.

16. Iron Maiden, Sign Of The Cross . . . Spooky, heavy, lengthy progressive metal from The X Factor album, released in 1995 and the first of two records with Blaze Bayley on lead vocals replacing Bruce Dickinson, who had left to pursue a solo career. Bayley never seemed to be fully accepted by the band’s fan base, or arguably the band itself as sales suffered and they asked him to leave at a band meeting as talks of a reunion with Dickinson percolated, although I like the albums Bayley performed on.
Bayley remains something of a footnote and soon enough, Dickinson was back in the band. Maiden has still performed some Bayley-era songs in concert, including Sign Of The Cross which has appeared on some subsequent compilations albeit in live versions with Dickinson singing which seems to me a cheap dig at Bayley but whatever. Frankly, while I truly like Iron Maiden I can only take Dickinson’s vocals in small doses and I’m not saying Bayley is or was better, but Dickinson’s sort of to me operatic whatever one might call it style I find grating after a few songs. And live? Bruce, spare us the ‘scream for me (insert city you’re playing in)” shit, OK? It’s as bad as Ozzy Osbourne’s “clap your hands” BS during his concerts. Uh, the music should make us clap our hands, no? If we need you to exhort us, then maybe the music ain’t quite making it? And I like Maiden, Sabbath, Ozzy solo. Just saying.

17. Black Sabbath, Computer God . . . Prescience from Sabbath’s 1992 album Dehumanizer, Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals and songwriting? “Virtual existence with a superhuman mind, the ultimate creation, destroyer of mankind” Da dum, as AI takes us over which of course has long been addressed in sci-fi, and we’re getting there if not already although so far, we humans appear to still be in charge.

18. King Crimson, 21st Century Schizoid Man . . . More in the same vein as Dehumanizer, in the song title, anyway. And maybe some of the lyrics: “Nothing he’s got he really needs. Twenty first century schizoid man.” It’s so very true about the ‘nothing’ I mean in the end what does one need but a roof over one’s head, food and…music. 🙂 Or maybe I’m overanalzying. In any case, progressive jazz rock metal, this one, from Crimson’s classic debut album, 1969’s In The Court Of The Crimson King.

19. Judas Priest, Beyond The Realms Of Death . . . Acoustic to metal and back again, repeat . . . guitar solos by Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing. Classic stuff from Priest’s 1978 album Stained Class.

20. KK’s Priest, Return Of The Sentinel . . . Speaking of K.K. (Kenneth Keith) Downing . . . He’s dropped the periods in the title initials of his new project since parting with Priest. Not for his name, just the band name. Anyway, KK’s Priest has released two albums, 2021’s Sermons Of The Sinner, from which I pulled this lengthy obviously Priest-type piece what else would one expect and we now have essentially two Judas Priest bands to enjoy, and 2023’s The Sinner Rides Again. Both discs feature Tim ‘Ripper’ Owens on lead vocals. Owens replaced Rob Halford for two Priest albums, I liked them, in the late 1990s/early 2000s before Halford returned to JP.

21. Bob Dylan, The Ballad Of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest . . . Something completely different from the recent metallic nature of the set, from Dylan’s 1967 folk rock album John Wesley Harding. But . . . it is actually related, in that Judas Priest was inspired by the Dylan song in naming the band. And, later, Priest rocked up Diamonds and Rust, written by Joan Baez, who had been in a relationship with Dylan both musically and personally. It’s interesting how artists mining different genres within music can come together, in a fashion but that should be obvious as most people I would think open their ears to anything and everything. Baez loved Priest’s version of her song (and no doubt the royalties) which in a flip of things, Priest later did live in an acoustic setting, available on YouTube.

22. Van Halen, Mine All Mine . . . I saw/heard Van Halen, the Van (Sammy) Hagar incarnation of the band, open with this on Canada Day 1993 when Van Halen headlined a festival show in Barrie, Ontario. I remember some people bitched about why an American band was headlining a Canada Day show but whatever. We’ve long since had rock acts headlining supposed blues festivals (like in my town, Kitchener, Ontario) that really ought to be rebranded as music festivals with a blues element, so what’s the difference? You want to sell tickets, no?
Anyway, it’s a driving kinda funky track I immediatly liked upon purchase of the second Van Hagar album, OU812 incorporating thoughtful lyrics on life/humanity. Another case where a song could easily have been a single along with those released from the record: Black and Blue, Finish What You Started, When It’s Love and Feels So Good. Quality, all of them. And hey, with 10 tracks on the album you have to leave some for deep cuts DJs to play. 🙂

A box set show selected from some of the many such collections I own. Song clips follow my full track-by-track tales, after the list below.

1. Aerosmith, Rattlesnake Shake (live radio broadcast WKRQ Cincinnati, 1971) . . . from Pandora’s Box.

2. Whitford/St. Holmes, Sharpshooter . . . from Pandora’s Box/Whitford St. Holmes album, 1981.

3. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Two Men Talking . . . From An American Treasure box set, outtake from the Hypnotic Eye (2012 release) album sessions.

4. The Rolling Stones, Strictly Memphis . . . driving, funky outtake from Dirty Work album sessions, Mick Jagger/Bobby Womack lead vocal duet issued on Great Dane Records bootleg box set Hot Stuff Volume 2, In Studio 1962-1989.

5. Led Zeppelin, Baby Come On Home . . . previously unreleased track until Boxed Set 2, 1993.

6. Faces, Dishevelment Blues . . . from Five Guys Walk Into A Bar . . .

7. Taste, Railway and Gun . . . from I’ll Remember box, Take 2 remix of On The Boards album track.

8. AC/DC, Down On The Borderline . . . from Backtracks, B-side of 1990 single Moneytalks from The Razors Edge album.

9. The Kinks, Afternoon Tea . . from 2014 release The Anthology 1964-1971; slightly longer remix of song originally released on Something Else album, 1967.

10. Jimi Hendrix, Shame Shame Shame . . . from West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology

11. Little Feat, Wait Till The Shit Hits The Fan . . . from Hotcakes and Outtakes: 30 Years of Little Feat, outtake from Little Feat (first album) sessions.

12. The Police, Fall Out . . . from Message In A Box: The Complete Recordings, first Police single, 1977.

13. Bruce Springsteen, Because The Night (live) . . . from Live 1975–85, co-written with Patti Smith. Originally recorded in 1977 and targeted for Springsteen’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town album, it was given to Smith and first appeared in studio version and became a hit from her 1978 album Easter.

14. Bob Dylan, Catfish . . . A salute to then star baseball pitcher Jim (Catfish) Hunter, an outtake from the Desire album sessions first appeared on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.

15. Janis Joplin/Big Brother and the Holding Company, Road Block (live at 1967 Monterey Pop Festival) . . . from Janis boxed set, 1993, previously unreleased to that point.

16. Jethro Tull, The Chateau D’Isaster Tapes (a. Scenario b. Audition c. No Rehearsal) . . . from 20 Years of Jethro Tull The Definitive Collection, 1988, from the original scrapped A Passion Play album sessions.

17. Eric Clapton with Santana, Eyesight To The Blind/Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? (live) . . . From Crossroads 2 (live in the seventies).

My full track-by-track tales:

1. Aerosmith, Rattlesnake Shake (live radio broadcast WKRQ Cincinnati, 1971) . . . from Pandora’s Box. A Fleetwood Mac track written by Peter Green for his last album with the Mac, 1969’s Then Play On. I think it’s improperly credited to Nanci Griffith and Jimmie Dale Gilmore; it says Griffith/Gilmore in the box set booklet but it’s the Mac song, unless Green stole it and credited it to himself but I can’t find any crediting other than Green. In any event, it was done before a live radio studio audience before Aerosmith had an album out. That came two years later with the band’s debut record in 1973. Aerosmith’s roots go back to 1964 when the eventual unit was playing in different outfits before singer Steven Tyler discovered guitarist Joe Perry and bass player Tom Hamilton playing in the Jam Band in the Boston area, sought them out and the rest is history.

2. Whitford/St. Holmes, Sharpshooter . . . Aside from a couple Joe Perry Project albums I bought on a 2-fer compilation years ago, while I like and have forever been into Aerosmith, not enough to have followed all their various offshoot or solo projects. So I only discovered this hard rocking boogie tune from 1981’s Whitford/St. Holmes album via Pandora’s Box when I bought the box upon its release in 1991. The Whitford/St. Holmes album, Aerosmith guitarist Whitford working with Ted Nugent collaborator Derek St. Holmes, came during a period where Aerosmith was in tatters with both Perry and Whitford having quit the band. Singer Steven Tyler held the mother ship together with replacement players Jimmy Crespo and Rick Dufay for the I think creditable though critically-panned Rock In A Hard Place album in 1982 – the killer song Lightning Strikes alone makes that record worthwhile. And soon enough, the original boys were back together.

3. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Two Men Talking . . . An outtake from the Hypnotic Eye (2012 release) album sessions that was released on the An American Treasure box set in 2018. Nice guitar groove with perfectly placed spices of piano. According to the American Treasure liner notes, The Heartbreakers had played the song live but never could get it to work, to their satisfaction, in studio. Then, one day, they did and Petty fans are appreciative.

4. The Rolling Stones, Strictly Memphis . . . a driving, funky outtake from the Dirty Work album sessions, arguably worthy of making the album but it didn’t. It’s a Mick Jagger/Bobby Womack of soul/funk/R & B/rock fame lead vocal duet issued on the Great Dane Records 4-CD bootleg box set Hot Stuff Volume 2, In Studio 1962-1989 that I picked up somewhere along the line. Good sound, too, which is always a risk with bootlegs but I’ve been fortunate for the very most part with such releases over time. I love bootleg label names like Great Dane Records and another, The Swingin’ Pig Records, which did lots of Stones, Led Zeppelin and Beatles bootlegs, among others.

5. Led Zeppelin, Baby Come On Home . . . from Boxed Set 2, a blues/soul track co-written (and actually, un-Zep like because it was actually co-credited to) by Bert Berns, whose name might not ring a bell but whose songwriting/co-songwriting credits on songs made famous by other artists should: Twist and Shout, Here Comes The Night, Hang On Sloopy, Piece of My Heart, Cry To Me, Everybody Needs Somebody To Love, Baby Let Me Take You Home, Cry Baby . . . As for the Zep set, the track was arguably the selling point of the band’s second box set back before one could access pretty much anything on the web; the box was issued in 1993, three years after the first such compilation issued by the band. Any Zep fan worth their salt already had all the individual studio albums but may have bought the box sets anyway, for tracks like this, and for the different sequencing of songs which I recall, and I agree, a reviewer saying somehow made it appear as if one were hearing stuff you knew and had heard before, yet in a different enough way as to make it sound fresh.

6. Faces, Dishevelment Blues . . . from Five Guys Walk Into A Bar . . . A box set title, Five Guys . . . and yes, the ellipsis (three dots) is part of the title, one that perfectly sums up the Faces’ ramshackle, rowdy, booze-soaked approach to music and life and what endeared the band to so many. Not to mention, they were damn good musically in their raunch and roll way. This is a Led Zeppelin-like blues track that, apparently, was a throwaway Faces had no intention of releasing. According to one Faces-related website: “When asked for material for a promo-flexi-disc by the New Musical Express, the Faces couldn’t be bothered to write a new song, instead tossing the magazine this one-off atrocity of a languid, idle, drunk, badly recorded blues rock track, thinking ‘they wouldn’t have the balls to use it’, as keykboardist Ian McLagan puts it.”

Atrocity, languid, idle, hell, I like it! Perfect title, too. It is disheveled. That’s why it’s good.

7. Taste, Railway and Gun . . . from the I’ll Remember box, Take 2 remix of On The Boards album track. Not all that much different from the album, about a minute longer, typically fine guitar from Rory Gallagher. What more could you ask for?

8. AC/DC, Down On The Borderline . . . from Backtracks, it’s the B-side of 1990 single Moneytalks from The Razors Edge album.

9. The Kinks, Afternoon Tea . . from 2014’s 5 -CD release The Anthology 1964-1971. This is a slightly longer remix of a song originally released on the Something Else album, 1967. A typically appealing ‘very British’ type Kinks song of that period of their existence.

10. Jimi Hendrix, Shame Shame Shame . . . from West Coast Seattle Boy: The Jimi Hendrix Anthology. Something of a funky jam session while Hendrix was trying to refine the song Room Full Of Mirrors to his exacting specifications, resulting in a sort of jam/combination track although I’m just playing the specific Shame Shame Shame portion which is a stand-alone song in itself. Not exacting, not perfect, but sometimes it can be best to just let ‘er rip as one finds the right feel for a song. No, er, shame in that.

11. Little Feat, Wait Till The Shit Hits The Fan . . . from Hotcakes and Outtakes: 30 Years of Little Feat, a box set that by all accounts is out of print, and absurdly expensive online, so I’m glad I got it ages ago. This is an outtake from the Little Feat (first album) sessions. Recorded in 1970, the band’s debut record came out in 1971.

12. The Police, Fall Out . . . from Message In A Box: The Complete Recordings. The first Police single, 1977. Punk rock aggressive track, short (2 minutes) and sweet, notable because it featured guitarist Henry Padovani, a short-term member of The Police who later became part of Wayne County and The Electric Chairs. Padovani was replaced in The Police by Andy Summers who for a brief time was second guitarist in the band, alongside Padovani, before The Police settled on their trio lineup.

13. Bruce Springsteen, Because The Night (live) . . . from Live 1975–85, co-written with Patti Smith. Originally recorded in 1977 and targeted for Springsteen’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town album, it was given to Smith and first appeared in studio version and became a hit from her 1978 album Easter. I first cottoned to the song – which prompted me to investigate Patti Smith’s music and glad for it – when a bar band played it, during my college days.

14. Bob Dylan, Catfish . . . A salute to then star baseball pitcher Jim (Catfish) Hunter. It’s a bluesy, acoustic outtake from the Desire album sessions that first appeared on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991. That amazing series, to Dylan fans like me at least, is now at Volume 17 covering the various stages of his career, both in studio and live, although a 2023 article in Rolling Stone magazine suggested the series might be petering out. That said, a multi-disc expanded version of the Bob Dylan at Budokan live album from 1978 recently came out, although it wasn’t labelled as a “bootleg series’ release.

15. Janis Joplin/Big Brother and the Holding Company, Road Block (live at 1967 Monterey Pop Festival) . . . from the ‘Janis’ boxed set, 1993, previously unreleased to that point. Funky sort of jam essentially just repeating the song title and yet . . . it works.

16. Jethro Tull, The Chateau D’Isaster Tapes (a. Scenario b. Audition c. No Rehearsal) . . . from 20 Years of Jethro Tull The Definitive Collection, 1988, the song is from the original scrapped A Passion Play album sessions. The A Passion Play sessions at first did not go well but are an interesting insight into the creative process. It was 1972 and Tull went into the studio to record the followup to Thick As A Brick but after a time, realized it wasn’t working. So they ditched what they were doing and eventually started again, and out came the official A Passion Play album, released in 1973. But those initial tapes were left behind, eventually surfacing on this track on the 1988 boxed set 20 Years Of Jethro Tull and then in full bloom in 1993 on the fine 2-CD compilation Nightcap: The Unreleased Masters 1973-1991. The Nightcap release included, on CD 1, the Chateau d’Isaster Tapes, the entire originally planned album of songs that morphed into A Passion Play. As with Dylan’s Bootleg series, and those of others, you could include Tull (which has a second boxed set I didn’t touch on today) among those bands with an amazing amount of obscure/previously unreleased/relatively unheard gems.

17. Eric Clapton with Santana, Eyesight To The Blind/Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad? (live) . . . From Crossroads 2 (live in the seventies). Clapton enjoyed success with his then (1988 release) careeer-spanning box set Crossroads. It wasn’t the first such release. To my knowledge and research, Bob Dylan’s 1985 release Biograph started the box set trend at least among musicians of 60s and 70s vintage but Clapton’s was the one that really set things afire. In any event, in 1996 Clapton went back to the box, so to speak, issuing Crossroads 2, this time entirely live tracks. And what a collection, including this 24-minute but never remotely boring combination Sonny Boy Williamson/Clapton track performed with the Santana band – it could easily be seen as a Santana song – which was opening for Clapton and invited onstage for encores like this, on Clapton’s 1975 American tour.

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

1. R.E.M., The Wake-Up Bomb
2. ZZ Top, Bedroom Thang
3. Talking Heads, Popsicle
4. Midnight Oil, No Time For Games
5. Roxy Music, Beauty Queen
6. Judas Priest, Never Satisfied
7. Joe Jackson, We Can’t Live Together
8. The Stone Roses, Love Spreads
9. The Rolling Stones, Dirty Work
10. Jason and The Scorchers, 19th Nervous Breakdown
11. Stray, All In Your Mind
12. Steve Earle, Snake Oil
13. AC/DC, Spoilin’ For A Fight
14. Paul McCartney/Wings, Soily (live, from Wings Over America)
15. Leslie West, Blind Man
16. Queen, The Hitman
17. Guns N’ Roses, Locomotive (Complicity)
18. Grateful Dead, Terrapin Station
19. Alvin Lee, Can’t Stop
20. Black Sabbath, Into The Void

My track-by-track tales:

1. R.E.M., The Wake-Up Bomb . . . 8 a.m. on a Saturday, the show’s starting, rise and shine, here’s your alarm clock. From the band’s New Adventures In Hi-Fi album, released in 1996. It was the last with the band’s founding drummer Bill Berry, who retired in 1997, became a farmer, then returned to the music industry in 2022 by forming the band The Bad Ends with various musicians from Atlanta and R.E.M.’s original home base in Athens, Georgia. The Bad Ends’ debut album, The Power and the Glory, was released in early 2023.

2. ZZ Top, Bedroom Thang . . . Sticking with the bedroom and what might happen there. From ZZ’s first album, called – wait for it – ZZ Top’s First Album.

3. Talking Heads, Popsicle . . . More bedroom activity. Listen to/read the lyrics. As for the music, it’s a funky piece recorded during sessions for 1983’s Speaking In Tongues album but not officially released until the 1992 compilation Popular Favorites 1976–1992: Sand in the Vaseline.

4. Midnight Oil, No Time For Games . . . “Let’s rock!” is how lead singer Peter Garrett introduces the song, shortly after the opening guitar riff. Then, they rock. Early Oils, from their 1980 EP, Bird Noises.

5. Roxy Music, Beauty Queen . . . A somewhat spooky ballad with touches of progressive and art rock. But that’s Roxy Music for you, an often intoxicating listen. This one’s from the band’s second album, 1973’s For Your Pleasure. It’s the second and final one to feature synthesizer and sound effects specialist Brian Eno – who went on to work with and/or produce such artists as David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, U2 and Talking Heads among many others – as a member of the band.

6. Judas Priest, Never Satisfied . . . Early Priest, from the first album, Rock A Rolla, released in 1974. It’s heavy, but more blues-rock heavy than the fully metallic direction the band later took.

7. Joe Jackson, We Can’t Live Together . . . “We can’t live together, but we can’t stay apart.” Which might sum up some if not many relationships. This one’s from Big World, an atypical, perhaps, live album JJ released in 1986. What differentiates the record from most live albums is you don’t hear much if any applause or crowd reaction. Jackson’s band had road-tested the material in rehearsals and club gigs but as stated in the album’s liner notes, once recording day came, the audience at the Roundabout Theatre in New York City was asked to keep as quiet as possible, with the band recorded directly, no mixing or overdubbing possible as is the usual case in how most albums are put together.

8. The Stone Roses, Love Spreads . . . I don’t listen to The Stone Roses much. When I do, it’s this song, one of those cases when a good song is a good song is a good song no matter who it’s by or whether you’re a particular fan of a band or artist. Infectious guitar riff. Yet while it was a big hit in some places, like home base the UK where it was the band’s highest-charting single at No. 2, it didn’t do huge business in many other places, like Canada, where it topped out at No. 67, No. 55 in the US.

9. The Rolling Stones, Dirty Work . . . Rocking title cut, biting lyrics, from the band’s 1986 album. It was critically panned, the band was on the verge of breaking up during the so-called “World War III” period when chief songwriters Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were at odds, even some fans (I think overly influenced by critics’ reviews) dismiss it without perhaps really listening to it. It is an ‘angry’ album, as I recall at least one critic, Peter Goddard of the Toronto Star, terming it when it came out, but he was talking about the music, not band relationships, in his positive review. He was right. It is ‘angry.’ And aggressive. That’s also why it’s good, critics be damned. But to each their own, of course, in a subjective situation like rating music.

10. Jason and The Scorchers, 19th Nervous Breakdown . . . Scorching, er, cover of the Rolling Stones’ 1966 hit single. The Scorchers’ version was released on their 1986 album Still Standing.

11. Stray, All In Your Mind . . . I’ve told this story before, but was long ago so I’m going to repeat myself. Years back, a friend sends me a message on Facebook. “You have to get this!” “This’ being a CD compilation called I’m A Freak Baby: A Journey Through The British Heavy Psych & Hard Rock Underground Scene 1968-72. So I got it, and the two subsequent releases in the series that started with the debut compilation in 2016, and I’ve done shows using those compilations and will again. The first compilation is how I got into Stray, to the extent that I quickly bought a 2-CD compilation of theirs. Initially active from 1966-77, Stray had a couple reunions during the 1980s and 1990s and at last look, reunited again in 2023 – with all the original members, which is maybe surprising these days – with a new album, About Time. They’ve picked up where they left off with their hard rocking psychedelic and sometimes progressive sound. Iron Maiden covered All In Your Mind as the B-side of its 1990 single Holy Smoke from Maiden’s No Prayer For The Dying album.

12. Steve Earle, Snake Oil . . .From Copperhead Road, the 1988 album (and title cut hit single) that brought Earle’s music to a wider audience. Earle called the album the first blend of heavy metal and bluegrass. A good rocker, Snake Oil, with a fun part coming at the very end: “I knew there was a first-taker on this album somewhere!’ Earle exclaims.

13. AC/DC, Spoilin’ For A Fight . . . Typical AC/DC, nice guitar licks, great opening riff, the usual formula which, as I’ve said before, AC/DC does so well so, why change? That’s the magic, at least if you like the band. If you don’t, then it’s the same old thing, and I can see it, but the band’s in on the joke. “I’m sick to death of people saying we’ve made 11 albums that sound exactly the same,” guitarist Angus Young said some years ago. “In fact, we’ve made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.” Which is not really true, of course, if you listen. This one’s from the 2008 album Black Ice, which topped charts worldwide.

14. Paul McCartney/Wings, Soily (live, from Wings Over America) . . . The band is on fire on this rocker. In fact, it’s prompted me to pull the full album out and listen to it. Again.

15. Leslie West, Blind Man . . . Heavy, bluesy rock from West’s 1969 album, titled Mountain, after which West and bassist/producer Felix Pappalardi formed the band Mountain, of Mississippi Queen, etc. fame.

16. Queen, The Hitman . . . A rocker from Innuendo, the 1991 album that harkened back to the band’s 1970s sound and was the last recorded by Queen while singer Freddie Mercury was still alive.

17. Guns N’ Roses, Locomotive (Complicity) . . . Epic near-nine-minute track from the Use Your Illusion II album, released with its companion piece Illusion I on Sept. 17, 1991. A riff rocker, fine guitar solos by Slash eventually settling into a piano-led coda.

18. Grateful Dead, Terrapin Station . . . Multi-part, 16-minute plus suite and title track from the Dead’s 1977 album. Usually, they’d take a three-minute studio cut like Dark Star and extend it in concert to 23 minutes, as the band did on 1969’s Live/Dead, which turned that song into one of their signatures after the 1968 studio single stiffed. For Terrapin Station, they figured, why wait for the concert, let’s extend it in studio.

19. Alvin Lee, Can’t Stop . . . Nice groove tune from the late great Ten Years After axeman, issued on his 1981 album RX5 under the moniker of The Alvin Lee Band.

20. Black Sabbath, Into The Void . . . There’s the Tony Iommi guitar riffs, Geezer Butler bass lines and Bill Ward drumming that hit you on, especially, the early Black Sabbath stuff like this one from 1971’s Master Of Reality album. Then on some songs in particular, like Into The Void, there’s Ozzy Osbourne’s vocals, often coming in seemingly sideways from parts unknown is how I’d describe it. Creepily effective.

A tribute set to guitarist/singer/songwriter Dickey Betts of The Allmans Brothers Band fame, who died last Thursday, April 18, at age 80. All songs written and/or sung by Betts, credited as Richard Betts on his first solo album, 1974’s Highway Call. My track-by-track tales follow the bare-bones list.

1. The Dickey Betts Band, Rock Bottom
2. The Allman Brothers Band, Nobody Knows
3. The Allman Brothers Band, Blue Sky
4. The Allman Brothers Band, Revival
5. Dickey Betts & Great Southern, Bougainvillea
6. The Allman Brothers Band, Pony Boy
7. The Allman Brothers Band, Louisiana Lou and Three Card Monty John
8. The Allman Brothers Band, Les Brers In A Minor
9. The Allman Brothers Band, Pegasus
10. The Allman Brothers Band, Seven Turns
11. Richard Betts, Hand Picked
12. The Allman Brothers Band, No One To Run With
13. The Allman Brothers Band, Southbound
14. The Allman Brothers Band, High Falls
15. Richard Betts, Long Time Gone
16. The Allman Brothers Band, Can’t Take It With You
17. The Allman Brothers Band, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed (from Play All Night: Live at the Beacon Theatre 1992)

My track-by-track tales:

1. The Dickey Betts Band, Rock Bottom . . . Appropriately titled rocker from Betts’ 1988 album Pattern Disruptive which brought Warren Haynes, Betts’ guitar foil on the record, into The Allman Brothers Band family. Haynes later joined the Allmans, with Betts quoted in a book on the band, One Way Out, as saying that with Haynes, he achieved a level of guitar interplay he had once shared with Duane Allman in the early days of the Brothers. Speaking of Duane Allman, the ace axeman was once quoted as saying about Betts: “I’m the famous guitarist, but Dickey’s the good one.” They were both amazing, of course. Drummer Matt Abts, part of the Betts band on Pattern Disruptive, later co-founded Gov’t Mule with Haynes and that Allmans offshoot continues to this day.

2. The Allman Brothers Band, Nobody Knows . . . From the latter-day version of the Allmans, featuring Haynes. A 10-minute piece from 1991’s Shades Of Two Worlds album, it’s yet another example of the Allmans’ magic – they can go on for 10, 20 minutes (just wait until later in the set) or more and it’s never boring. As their longtime producer Tom Dowd was once quoted as saying, and it really applied to all versions of the band: “Here was a rock and roll band playing blues in the jazz vernacular.” Perfectly put.

3. The Allman Brothers Band, Blue Sky . . . From 1972’s Eat A Peach, Betts’ love song to his Indigenous Canadian girlfriend, Sandy “Bluesky” Wabegijig, whom he would later marry, on of his five marriages. It was Betts’ first lead vocal performance on an Allman Brothers Band record. He originally wanted Gregg Allman, who had handled all lead vocals to that point, to sing it but was encouraged by Duane Allman to do the honors. Duane Allman’s playing on the song was one of his last performances with the band before he was killed in a motorcycle accident. Betts, well known for his many instrumental compositions with the Allmans, went on to sing many of their songs including of course Ramblin’ Man and latter day classics like Seven Turns, which I get to later in the set.

4. The Allman Brothers Band, Revival . . . The first solo songwriting credit for Betts on an Allmans album, their second studio effort, Idlewild South, released in November, 1970. It’s got that typical country-esque boogie beat inherent in many of Betts’ songs. It was also the first Allmans song to chart, albeit only making No. 92 on Billboard’s top 100.

5. Dickey Betts & Great Southern, Bougainvillea . . . Beautiful ballad/jam from Betts’ second solo album and first one co-credited to his band Great Southern. Among the players on the record are ‘Dangerous Dan’ Toler, who later joined the Allman Brothers Band for the 1979-82 period albums Enlightened Rogues, Reach For The Sky and Brothers of the Road as well as playing on Gregg Allman’s solo albums I’m No Angel and Just Before The Bullets Fly. At the top of the set, I mentioned Warren Haynes coming into the Allmans’ family via his association with Betts starting with Betts’ Pattern Disruptive album and Toler is another example typical of the Allman Brothers through their various breakups and reunions and configurations: new seeds were often planted and the branches from the parent band continued to interact and collaborate in one way or another, throughout.

6. The Allman Brothers Band, Pony Boy . . . Funky, acoustic country blues from the Brothers and Sisters album which featured Betts’ signature Allmans’ tune, Ramblin’ Man. The album was part of a period where, following the deaths of founding guitarist Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley, Betts assumed a huge leadership role in the band alongside Gregg Allman. He became a major songwriting contributor and, for Brothers and Sisters and its followup studio album Win, Lose or Draw – aside from occasional session players before Toler was recruited for Enlightened Rogues – Betts was the Allmans’ lone guitarist.

7. The Allman Brothers Band, Louisiana Lou and Three Card Monty John . . . A jaunty Betts-penned tune from the critically-panned 1975 album Win, Lose or Draw which even the band members themselves didn’t much like, as the band was in tatters by that point, before its first breakup. To quote drummer Butch Trucks: “Everyone was into getting f*cked up and f*cking. We were into being rock stars and the music became secondary. When we heard the finished music, we were all embarrassed.”

Gregg Allman: “Win, Lose or Draw was a perfect reflection of our situation in 1975. It was basically all over with the Allman Brothers Band.”

Yet . . . as with all great bands, the album wasn’t nearly as bad as reviewed, even by the players who made it. My opinion. It’s just that it may have not measured up to previous higher standards as determined by, who, exactly, given that any and every assessment in art is subjective. I maintain that quality bands don’t do bad albums. They do great ones, and less great ones or, at worst, average ones that lesser bands would consider their best work. The Rolling Stones and Dirty Work, for example. But that’s just me. Anyway, Win, Lose or Draw has its gems like the Muddy Waters cover Can’t Lose What You Never Had, the title cut written by Gregg Allman and this one, nice piano by Chuck Leveall coupled with Betts’ typically lyrical guitar, plus a long Betts instrumental, High Falls, that’s often overlooked among the great Betts instrumentals but I get to later in the set.

8. The Allman Brothers Band, Les Brers In A Minor . . Another epic Betts instrumental, this one from the studio portions of the half live, half studio 1972 album Eat A Peach, the last Allmans album on which Duane Allman played, although not on this track, before his death.

9. The Allman Brothers Band, Pegasus . . . Another Betts composition where words aren’t necessary. From Enlightened Rogues.

10. The Allman Brothers Band, Seven Turns . . . Title cut from the reunion album issued in 1990 and one of my all-time favorite Allmans tunes. Beautifully sung and played by Betts but what ‘makes’ it for me, and others in the band, and this is the magic of a band of brothers, is when Gregg Allman comes in on backup vocals with the “somebody’s callin’ your name’ refrain. From the book One Way Out, guitarist Warren Haynes describes how it came about, by happy accident: “Dickey, Johnny Neel (piano, keyboards, synthesizer) and I were working on the three-part harmony stuff for Seven Turns in the studio hallway and Gregg was in the lounge shooting pool. As we rehearsed the ‘somebody’s calling your name’ part, I heard Gregg answer it. I don’t even know if he did it on purpose. It wasn’t like he said “hey, check this out.” He was just singing along to what he heard us doing as he shot pool. And I said, ‘hey, listen to that. This is what we need.’ It was all very coincidental and it became one of the pinnacles of the tune, when Gregg comes in on the anwer vocal at the end of the song.”

11. Richard Betts, Hand Picked . . . Hand pickin’ indeed. Fourteen minutes of western swing, toe-tapping rockabilly instrumental from Betts’ first solo album, Highway Call, 1974, featuring fiddle player legend Vassar Clements.

12. The Allman Brothers Band, No One To Run With . . . Bo Diddley beat tune sung by Gregg Allman, originally written for a Betts solo project but shelved until polished and released on the Allmans’ 1994 studio album Where It All Begins.

13. The Allman Brothers Band, Southbound . . . Up-tempo, swinging tune from Brothers and Sisters.

14. The Allman Brothers Band, High Falls . . . Seemingly almost forgotten, or overlooked, among the band’s acclaimed instrumentals it’s nevertheless a quality composition and a centerpiece of the Win, Lose or Draw album.

15. Richard Betts, Long Time Gone . . . A Ramblin’ Man-like tune from his first solo album, Highway Call.

16. The Allman Brothers Band, Can’t Take It With You . . . Co-written by Betts and actor/sometime musician Don Johnson of Miami Vice TV show fame. From 1979’s Enlightened Rogues album. Could have been a Lynyrd Skynyrd track as it’s very much, to my ears anyway, in that style.

17. The Allman Brothers Band, In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed (from Play All Night: Live at the Beacon Theatre 1992) . . . Elizabeth Reed was the name on a tombstone Betts used to disguise a song to a girlfriend of his who was cheating on her man at the time. The original studio version appeard on the second Allmans studio album, Idlewild South, 1970, and became more well known via the live interpretation on the band’s breakthrough album At Fillmore East. But while it may seem sacrilegious in that I’ve played nothing from that seminal live album in this set, anyone who knows the Allmans knows that album and that version. Instead, I’m going with this mind-blowing 21-minute take on the tune from the latter day Warren Haynes version of the band, proving Betts’ contention that he and Haynes approached the levels of Betts and Duane Allman. The rest of the band ain’t bad, either. Only one original member left now, given Betts’ passing, that being Jai Johanny Johanson, born John Lee Johnson but best known as Jaimoe, drummer and percussionist, age 79 at this writing.