https://exchange.prx.org/p/565496
This week the emphasis is on live tracks, including the uninterrupted version of the Allman Brothers Band's Mountain Jam from the deluxe edition of the classic Eat A Peach album. But first, a couple studio recordings to warm up with.
Artist: Cream
Title: Politician
Source: CD: Wheels Of Fire
Writer(s): Bruce/Brown
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1968
Despite its title, Cream's Politician, from the Wheels Of fire album, is really not the kind of scathing indictment you might expect from a track from 1968. Indeed, the song's lyrics are actually gentle satire rather than overt criticism. Eric Clapton's guitar work, however, is always a treat, and on Politician he knocks out not one, but two overdubbed solos at the same time, along with his basic guitar track. Controlled chaos at its best!
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Title: The Lemon Song
Source: German import LP: Led Zeppelin II
Writer(s): Page/Plant/Bonham/Jones/Burnett
Label: Atlantic
Year: 1969
If I had to choose just one Led Zeppelin song as representative of the band's early work it would have to be The Lemon Song, from their second album. The track has all the elements that made the Zep's reputation: Jimmy Page's distinctive guitar work, John Bonham's stuttered (but always timely) drum fills, John Paul Jones's funky bass line and Robert Plant's gutsy vocals (with lyrics famously derived from classic blues tunes). Squeeze my lemon, baby indeed!
Artist: Doors
Title: Roadhouse Blues (live)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Jim Morrison
Label: Elektra
Year: Recorded 1970, released 1978
Roadhouse Blues is one of the most instantly recognizable songs in the entire Doors catalog. Indeed, most people can identify it from the first guitar riff, long before Jim Morrison's vocals come in. The original studio version of the song was released on the album Morrison Hotel in 1970, and was also issued as the B side of one of the band's lesser-known singles. That same year the Doors undertook what became known as their Roadhouse Blues tour; many of the performances from that tour were recorded, but not released at the time. In 1978 the three remaining members of the band, Robby Krieger, Ray Manzarek and John Densmore, decided to put music to some recordings of Morrison reciting his own poetry made before his death in 1971. The resulting album, An American Prayer, also included a live version of Roadhouse Blues made from two separate concert tapes from their 1970 tour. An edited version of the album track was released as a 1978 single as well.
Artist: Free
Title: Ride On Pony
Source: CD: All Right Now-The Collection (originally released on LP: Free Live!)
Writer(s): Fraser/Rodgers
Label: Spectrum/UMC
Year: 1971
Formed in 1968 by guitarist Paul Kossoff, drummer Simon Kirke, vocalist Paul Rodgers and bassist Andy Fraser, Free hit the big time in 1970 with the release of their third album, Fire And Water, which included the hit single All Right Now. This led to them headlining the first Isle Of Wight Festival in August of that year. But their success was to be short-lived. Kossoff, in particular, found the band's sudden fame hard to deal with, and became increasingly dependent on drugs as the year went on. He was also deeply affected by the death of his idol Jimi Hendrix in September of 1970, and felt that songs like All Right Now were too shallow, and wanted to concentrate on more serious material. Their late 1970 album HIghway was a commercial disappointment, and the band split up not long after its release. After the breakup, their label released Free Live!, a collection of tunes recorded over the past year, including Ride On Pony, a song that their label had wanted to release as a single from the Highway album, but that the band had voted down in favor of another tune. Free reformed in 1972, but a series of personnel changes led to a final breakup in 1973, with Rodgers and Kirke going on to form Bad Company. Kossoff died from a pulmonary embolism in 1976 at the age of 25.
Artist: Allman Brother Band
Title: Mountain Jam
Source: CD: Eat A Peach Deluxe Edition
Writer(s): Lietch/Allman/Allman/Betts/Oakley/Johanson/Trucks
Label: Mercury (original label: Capricorn)
Year: 1972
Due to the limitations of vinyl records, the first released version of Mountain Jam was split over two of the four sides of the Allman Brothers Band's 1972 album Eat A Peach. CD technology, however, has made it possible to present the entire 33 minute long jam uninterrupted. The piece was recorded live at the Fillmore East in March of 1971.
Artist: Firesign Theatre
Title: Excerpt from Part One: London; Chapter 2: An Outrageously Disgusting Disguise
Source: LP: The Tale Of The Giant Rat Of Sumatra
Writer(s): Procter/Bergman/Austin/Ossman
Label: Columbia
Year: 1974
The Firesign Theatre never passed up an opportunity to make a good (or bad) pun, and on this short excerpt from The Tale Of The Giant Rat Of Sumatra they make a whole series of them, all of which are dog related. The entire piece is a parody of Sherlock Holmes, taking place during England's Victorian Era.
Artist: Uriah Heep
Title: Easy Livin'
Source: CD: Electric Seventies (originally released on LP: Demons And Wizards and as 45 RPM single)
Writer(s): Ken Hensley
Label: JCI/Warner Special Products
Year: 1972
Uriah Heep's biggest hit. 'nuff said.
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