Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1803 (starts 1/17/18)

I really wanted to do this kind of theme thing around various means of transportation, but lost interest after a couple of songs. So instead we have a short trip through the years, a visit to 1970 and a little prog rock with a Hendrix chaser.

Artist:    Alice Cooper
Title:    Under My Wheels (remix)
Source:    CD: Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits (originally released as 45 RPM single and on LP: Killer)
Writer(s):    Bruce/Dunaway/Ezrin
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1971
    Under My Wheels was the first single released from Alice Cooper's Killer album, generally considered to be the high point of the band's creativity. Producer Bob Ezrin shares a rare writing credit for the song.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    Soul Love
Source:    CD: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Ryko (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1972
    The second song on the album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, Soul Love is an often overlooked gem from the David Bowie catalog. This partial obscurity may be due in part to the fact that Bowie seldom performed the song live. In fact, he only performed it twice on his Ziggy Stardust tour, and then not again until years later.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Place In Line
Source:    Japanese import CD: Who Do We Think We Are
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1973
    The final album from the second, and most popular Deep Purple lineup was 1973's Who Do We Think We Are. The album title was a direct response to critics that had voiced the opinion that the band was getting a bit too big for their britches. Despite internal problems that would lead to the departure of vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover shortly after the album's completion, Who Do We Think We Are was one of the band's most popular albums. Although Deep Purple was not usually considered a blues-rock band, the song Place In Line certainly fits in with other examples of the genre, starting off with a plodding Muddy Waters kind of beat, then transitioning to a faster boogie for the remaineder of the piece.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Any Major Dude Will Tell You
Source:    LP: Pretzel Logic
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagen
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1974
    For a while it looked like Steely Dan would, like many other early 70s bands, start strong and then slowly fade away. Their debut single, Do It Again, got a lot of airplay on AM top 40 radio, which actually worked against them when it came to the more album-oriented FM stations that were starting to pop up all over the US. Despite the fact that their second LP, Countdown To Ecstacy, was much more suited to FM, it was pretty much ignored by FM rock stations at the time. However, it all came together for the group with the release of their third LP, Pretzel Logic, in 1974. In addition to a big hit single (Rikki Don't Lose That Number), Pretzel Logic included several FM-friendly tunes, such as Any Major Dude Will Tell You, and was a favorite of the rock press.

Artist:    Stuff
Title:    Looking For The Juice
Source:    LP: Stuff
Writer(s):    Edwards/Tee
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1976
    The first time I heard Stuff was on an episode of Saturday Night Live, where they appeared first backing up Joe Cocker, and then later in the show performing as an instrumental act. I was immediately impressed by the jazz-funk band's tight musicianship, so much so that I went out and bought a copy of their album. All the tracks on their first LP were instrumentals, including my own favorite track, Looking For The Juice. The band was originally formed as The Encyclopedia Of Soul, and was made up of a highly respected group of studio musicians, including Gordon Edwards (bass), Richard Tee (keyboards), Eric Gale (guitar), Cornell Dupree (guitar), and Chris Parker (drums). Stuff recorded three albums in the late 1970s, each of which went gold.

Artist:    Blues Image
Title:    Fugue U/Parchman Farm/Wrath Of Daisey
Source:    CD: Open
Writer(s):    Blues Image/Allison
Label:    Sundazed (original label: Atco)
Year:    1970
    Despite drawing decent crowds in Florida (and, later, Los Angeles) and getting rave reviews from the rock press, as well as their fellow musicians, Blues Image was never able to sell a lot of albums. This is a shame, as almost all of their material was as good or better than anything else being recorded in 1969-70. A classic example is the medley of Fugue U (emulating J.S. Bach), a jazz-rock arrangement of Mose Allison's Parchman Farm and the latin-rock instrumental Wrath Of Daisey). Guitarist Mike Pinera went on to replace Eric Brann in Iron Butterfly the following year.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    The Witch's Promise
Source:    CD: Benefit
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis/Capitol (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1970
    The remastered version of Jethro Tull's third album, Benefit, includes several songs that were released as singles in the UK, but did not appear in the US until the 1973 anthology album Living In The Past. Among those is Witch's Promise, recorded just weeks before the sessions for Benefit began.

Artist:    Guess Who
Title:    Humpty's Blues/American Woman (Epilogue)
Source:    CD: American Woman
Writer(s):    Bachman/Cummings/Peterson/Kale
Label:    Buddha/BMG (original label: RCA Victor)
Year:    1970
    Guitarist Randy Bachman of the Guess Who was, in the words of lead vocalist Burton Cummings, "chomping at the bit" to use some new guitar effects equipment he had acquired (fuzz boxes and Herzog sustain pedals, mostly). So the rest of the band obliged him by coming up with a Led Zeppelin style blues number called Humpty's Blues. Cummings's lyrics for the song were about the band's drummer, Garry Peterson, who had somehow acquired the nickname "Humpty Mix". The finished song ended up being the longest track on the album, which, combined with a short reprise of the opening section of American Woman, closes out the Guess Who's most popular album.

Artist:    Renaissance
Title:    The Black Flame
Source:    LP: Turn Of The Cards
Writer(s):    Dunford/Thatcher
Label:    Sire
Year:    1974
    Formed in 1969 by former Yardbirds Jim McCarty and Keith Relf, Renaissance was one of the first bands to merge rock, classical and jazz into a coherent whole. By 1974 the band was incorporating excerpts from classical pieces (mostly from the Romantic period) into what was otherwise progressive rock, with very few jazz elements remaining. The lineup had also changed, with a greater emphasis being placed on the vocals of Annie Haslam, who had joined the group in the early 1970s. Black Flame, from the band's fifth LP, Turn Of The Cards, is fairly representative of Renaissance at its most popular.

Artist:    Genesis
Title:    Get 'em Out By Friday
Source:    CD: Foxtrot
Writer(s):    Banks/Collins/Gabriel/Hackett/Rutherford
Label:    Rhino/Atlantic (original label: Charisma)
Year:    1972
    Although Genesis is rightfully acknowledged as one of the pioneer bands of the art-rock movement of the early 1970s, they were also the inheritors of a musical form pioneered by (of all people) the Who: the rock mini-opera. One excellent example of this approach is the track Get 'em Out By Friday, from their 1972 LP Foxtrot. The piece, sung entirely by Peter Gabriel, includes sections sung from the point of view of a variety of colorful characters, including John Pebble of Styx Enterprises, Mark Hall (aka The Winkler), Mrs. Barrow (a tenant) and even Joe Ordinary, a local pub denizen.

Artist:     Jimi Hendrix
Title:     In From The Storm
Source:     LP: The Cry Of Love
Writer:     Jimi Hendrix
Label:     MCA (original label: Reprise)
Year:     1970
     Although nobody knows for sure what the final track lineup would have been for Jimi Hendrix's first studio album since 1968's Electric Ladyland, most everyone associated with him agrees that it would have been a double LP and that In From The Storm would have been included on it. The song was first released on The Cry Of Love, the first posthumus Hendrix album, and subsequently was included on Voodoo Soup, Alan Douglas's first attempt at recreating that legendary fourth album. The song also appears on First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, the CD that has replaced Voodoo Soup in the Hendrix catalog. The recording features Hendrix on guitar, Mitch Mitchell on drums and Hendrix's longtime friend Billy Cox on bass.