Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1702 (B12) (starts 1/11/17)

This time around we manage to fit 13 tracks into 59 minutes. Pretty amazing, considering the first track alone runs nearly seven minutes in length! See playlist below for details.

Artist:    Temptations
Title:    Papa Was A Rolling Stone
Source:    45 RPM single
Writer:    Whitfield/Strong
Label:    Motown
Year:    1972
    One of the longest songs ever to get played on top 40 radio, Papa Was A Rolling Stone was in many ways a climactic recording. It was the last big Temptations hit, and one of the last songs produced by the team of Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, the so-called "psychedelic soul" producers, before Whitfield left Motown to form his own production company. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it was the last major hit to feature the Funk Brothers, the (mostly uncredited) instrumentalists who had played on virtually every Motown record in the 60s but had been largely supplanted by studio musicians working out of Los Angeles, where the label had relocated its corporate headquarters to, in the early 70s. And on Papa Was A Rolling Stone the Funk Brothers finally got to shine as soloists, with an intro on the LP version that lasted more than four minutes and a long extended instrumental section in the middle of the piece as well. Papa Was A Rolling Stone has been called the last great Motown record. I tend to agree with that assessment.

Artist:    Fanny
Title:    Borrowed Time
Source:    LP: Fanny Hill
Writer(s):    Nickey Barclay
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1972
    Fanny was one of the first self-contained all-female rock bands, and the first to release an album on a major label. The group, consisting of sister June and Jean Millington on bass and guitar and Alice de Buhr on drums, were first known as Wild Honey, and were on the verge of breaking up when they were discovered while playing an open-night mic gig at L.A.'s Troubador Club by producer Richard Perry, who got them a contract with Warner Brothers' Reprise label. After recruiting keyboardist Nickey Barclay the band changed their name to Fanny, issuing their first album in 1970. Their third LP, Fanny Hill, is often considered the highlight of their career. The album features a mix of cover tunes (such as the obscure Beatles' song Hey Bulldog and Marvin Gaye's Ain't That Peculiar) and originals, including Barclay's Borrowed Time. After two more albums, Fanny disbanded, although all of the members remained active as studio musicians. In a 1999 interview David Bowie called Fanny "one of the most important female bands in American rock", adding that the early 1970s "just wasn't their time."

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Mr Door Is Open
Source:    LP: Straight Shooter
Writer(s):    Troiano/Kenner
Label:    ABC
Year:    1972
    One of the most interesting rock and roll histories of the early 1970s was that of the James Gang. Originally consisting of drummer Jim Fox, bassist Tom Criss and guitarist Joe Walsh, the Cleveland-based band first appeared on vinyl on 1969's Yer Album. After replacing Criss with Dale Peters, the group released James Gang Rides Again, which, thanks to tracks like Funk #49 made them stars. Following one more album with this lineup, Walsh left the group for a solo career. At around this same time, labelmates Bush decided to disband after one unsuccessful LP, and Fox and Peters recruited vocalist Roy Kenner and guitarist Dominic Troiano from Bush to continue James Gang. The first album with this new lineup was Straight Shooter, released in 1972. Unfortunately, the inevitable comparisons to the band's earlier material made it difficult for this incarnation of the James Gang to achieve a great amount of commercial success, despite the quality of tracks like My Door Is Open, which was written by Kenner and Troiano. After one more album, Troiano left the group to replace Randy Bachman in the Guess Who, and the James Gang recruited Tommy Bolin, whose outstanding guitar work once again put the band in the national spotlight. But that's a story for another time.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    Starman
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
    Starman was the first single released from David Bowie's breakout hit LP The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars. The song, about a benevolent being from outer space, was so influential that it became the inspiration for the 1984 movie of the same name.

Artist:    Foghat
Title:    Maybelline
Source:    LP: Foghat
Writer(s):    Chuck Berry
Label:    Bearsville
Year:    1972
    Foghat was created when the entire membership of Savoy Brown, save bandleader Kim Simmonds, decided to leave and form their own band in 1970. Originally consisting of "Lonesome Dave" Peverett on guitar and vocals, Tony Stevens on bass, and Roger Earl on drums, the band soon recuited Rod Price on guitar and slide guitar, taking the name Foghat in 1971. Their 1972 debut album was produced by Dave Edmunds, and was a solid example of early 70s British blues-rock. Among the outstanding tracks on the album is a hopped up cover of Chuck Berry's Maybelline.

Artist:    Steely Dan
Title:    Change Of The Guard
Source:    CD: Can't Buy A Thrill
Writer(s):    Becker/Fagan
Label:    MCA (original label: ABC)
Year:    1972
    The first member of Steely Dan recruited by founders Walter Becker and Donald Fagen was guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, whose work is showcased on Change Of The Guard from the band's 1972 debut LP, Can't Buy A Thrill. Baxter would go on to greater fame as a member of the Doobie Brothers later in the decade. He now chairs a Congressional Advisory Board on missile defense. Seriously.

Artist:     Flash
Title:     Small Beginnings
Source:     45 RPM single
Writer:     Peter Banks
Label:     Capitol
Year:     1972
     Before Steve Howe joined Yes, the group featured Peter Banks on lead guitar. After the first Yes album, Banks left the group to form a new band, Flash. Despite having a similar sound to Yes at a time when such bands were in vogue, Flash failed to achieve more than a small fraction of the original band's success.

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. The version heard on the band's first Greatest Hits collection is actually a remix done by producer Bob Ezrin, who wanted the compilation to have "something new" to make it appeal more to fans who already had the original Cooper albums.

Artist:    Uriah Heep
Title:    I Wanna Be Free
Source:    LP: Look At Yourself
Writer(s):    Ken Hensley
Label:    Mercury
Year:    1971
    No, it's not the Monkees song.

Artist:    Jethro Tull
Title:    Mother Goose
Source:    CD: Aqualung
Writer(s):    Ian Anderson
Label:    Chrysalis (original label: Reprise)
Year:    1971
    Aqualung was Jethro Tull's breakthrough album, and it remains their all-time best-seller, with over seven million copies sold worldwide so far. The album, released in 1971, was the first to include keyboardist John Evan and bassist Jeffrey Hammond as full time members, and also the last to feature founding member Clive Barker on drums. The album also contains more acoustic material than the band's earlier works; a prime example of this is Mother Goose, a song that continues the abstract imagery of Cross-Eyed Mary, which appears earlier on the same side of the original LP.

Artist:    Steeleye Span
Title:    Hard Times Of Old England
Source:    LP: All Around My Hat
Writer(s):    trad., arr. Steeleye Span
Label:    Chrysalis
Year:    1975
    Perhaps the best-known track in the Steeleye Span catalog, Hard Times Of Old England appeared on the 1975 LP All Around My Hat, the group's highest charting album. The song itself was released as a single the following year, going all the way to the #5 spot on the British charts, the highest of any Steeleye Span single. The original tune dates back at least to the 1800s, when it was known as Rigs Of The Times. Steeleye Span's rendition is based on a post-Napoleonic Wars version of the song.

Artist:    Pink Floyd
Title:    Have A Cigar
Source:    CD: Wish You Were Here
Writer(s):    Roger Waters
Label:    Parlophone (original label: Columbia)
Year:    1975
    Yeah, I know I played this just last week. You see, for a variety of reasons I decided to take a week off and use a backup show that I recorded a few months ago that just happened to include this track. Hey, it's a good song, right? See last week's listing for additional information.


Artist:    Tommy Bolin
Title:    The Grind
Source:    Japanes import CD: Teaser
Writer(s):    Bolin/Cook/Sheldon/Tesar
Label:    Sony (original US label: Nemperor)
Year:    1975
    So I have this scratchy copy of Tommy Bolin's single, Savannah Woman from his Teaser album (which I don't have). To rectify the situation I decided to order a copy of Teaser on CD. It comes, and I am delighted to notice that it includes a thick book of liner notes...all in Japanese, which of course I don't read or speak. So, even though I'm sure there's some interesting stuff in there, I can't share it with you. What I do know is that The Grind is the opening track on the album, and that Van Halen used to cover it before they became famous. Motley Crue also recorded a cover of The Grind on the 1989 compilation album Stairway To Heaven/Highway To Hell, which featured various bands that played at the Moscow Music Peace Festival doing songs by musicians that had died due to drug and/or alchohol abuse (Bolin being a prime example of "and").