Rockin' in the Days of Confusion # 1908 (starts 2/18/19)

    This week the emphasis is on exploring album tracks that often get overlooked, with a couple of well-known cuts thrown in to balance things out. We start with a 1969 set, then a long, strange trip backwards through the years 1976 to 1970, one at a time.

Artist:    Neil Young/Crazy Horse
Title:    Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Source:    CD: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Writer(s):    Neil Young
Label:    Reprise
Year:    1969
    After releasing a fairly well produced debut solo album utilizing the talents of several well-known studio musicians in late 1968, Neil Young surprised everyone by recruiting an unknown L.A. bar band and rechristening them Crazy Horse for his second effort, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. The album was raw and unpolished, with Young's lead vocals recorded using a talkback microphone normally used by engineers to communicate with people in the studio from the control room. In spite of, or more likely because of these limitations, the resulting album has come to be regarded as one of the greatest in the history of rock, with Young sounding far more comfortable, both as a vocalist and guitarist, than on the previous effort. Although the album is best known for three songs he wrote while running a fever (Cinnamon Girl, Cowgirl In The Sand, and Down By The River), there are plenty of good other songs on the LP, including the title track heard here.

Artist:    Steve Miller Band
Title:    Feel So Glad
Source:    LP: Your Saving Grace
Writer(s):    Steve Miller
Label:    Capitol
Year:    1969
    "Session man" Nicky Hopkins makes a guest appearance and ends up dominating the song Feel So Glad from the fourth Steve Miller Band LP, Your Saving Grace. The song itself is an anomaly in the Miller catalog, as it has little in common with either the band's early psychedelic offerings or the later pop hits like The Joker and Jet Airliner that the Steve Miller Band became famous for.

Artist:    Who
Title:    Welcome
Source:    CD: Tommy
Writer(s):    Pete Townshend
Label:    MCA (original label: Decca)
Year:    1969
    The Who's landmark Tommy album has plenty of well known tunes on it, including the top 40 single Pinball Wizard and the closing piece We're Not Gonna Take It, with it's famouse "See me, feel me" refrain. The album, generally acknowledged as the first rock-opera, tells the story of the rise and fall of Tommy, a savior figure who emerges from a near-catatonic state to become a modern messiah. Welcome, a tune near the end of the album, is a mostly pastoral tune that immediately follow's Tommy's awakening and documents his desire to share what he's learned with anyone who is willing to listen. Of course the entire movement ends up spiraling out of control very quickly, leading to Tommy's downfall.

Artist:    David Bowie
Title:    Memory Of A Free Festival
Source:    CD: David Bowie (original US title, Man Of Words, Man Of Music)
Writer(s):    David Bowie
Label:    Parlophone (original US label: Mercury)
Year:    1969
    Memory Of A Free Festival, from David Bowie's self-title 1969 LP, was based on an actual event, although it could just as easily be taken as an epitaph for the entire hippie movement. The track, running over seven minutes in length, closes out what is now considered a transitional album for the singer-songwriter.

Artist:    Tommy Bolin
Title:    Hello, Again
Source:    CD: Private Eyes
Writer(s):    Bolin/Cook
Label:    Columbia
Year:    1976
    After the breakup of Deep Purple in 1976, guitarist Tommy Bolin (who had joined the group for their final LP) got to work on his second solo LP, Private Eyes. With a mix of songs reminiscent of his years with the James Gand, Private Eyes includes the acoustic-based Hello, Again, which shifts the emphasis away from Bolin's guitar work and instead focuses on his vocals. Bolin died from a drug overdose while touring to promote the album, in December of the same year Private Eyes was released.

Artist:    Crack The Sky
Title:    Hold On/Surf City
Source:    LP: Crack The Sky
Writer(s):    John Palumbo
Label:    Lifesong
Year:    1975
    The first LP released on Terry Cashman and Joe West's Lifesong label was a group that is still active in the Baltimore area called Crack The Sky. Originally called Words, the band had been formed in Weirton, West Virginia by members of two local bands, Sugar and Uncle Louie. The 10-member band successfully auditioned for CashWest Productions, the company that also produced singer/songwriter Jim Croce, and, after paring down to five members, released their self-titled debut LP in 1975. Although never a major national success (due mostly to distribution problems on the part of Lifesong), the group did manage to place three albums on the Billboard charts, the two of which have since been reissued as a single CD. The band itself is hard to classify, incorporating elements of progressive rock, jazz and even soft-rock, with unexpected twists and turns, as can be heard on the first LP's opening track, Hold On, which segues directly into the innovative Surf City.

Artist:    Eric Clapton
Title:    Get Ready
Source:    CD 461 Ocean Boulevard
Writer(s):    Clapton/Elliman
Label:    Atco
Year:    1974
    Yvonne Elliman, best known for her portrayel of Mary Magdalene on both the original LP and film versions of Jesus Christ Superstar, makes a guest appearance as a vocalist and songwriter on Eric Clapton's 1974 album 461 Ocean Boulevard. The song is sandwiched between two cover songs (Willie And The Hand Jive and I Shot The Sheriff) that got a lot of airplay on FM rock radio stations in 1974.

Artist:    James Gang
Title:    Ride The Wind
Source:    CD: Bang
Writer(s):    Bolin/Kenner
Label:    Atco
Year:    1973
    After Dominic Troiano left the James Gang in 1973 to join the Guess Who, vocalist Roy Kenner, drummer Jim Fox and bassist Dale Peters recruited the talented Tommy Bolin to be his replacement. The new lineup made their vinyl debut that same year with Bang, the first James Gang album to be released on the Atco label. As was the case with the band's original guitarist, Joe Walsh, Bolin's songwriting was prominent throughout the album, usually in collaboration with one or more of the other band members. Ride The Wind, which opens side two of the original LP with Bolin's power chords, was co-written by Kenner, and probably should have been chosen for single release, but was passed over in favor of the much inferior Must Be Love.

Artist:    Deep Purple
Title:    Highway Star
Source:    LP: Machine Head
Writer(s):    Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1972
    Deep Purple's most successful album was Machine Head, which hit #7 on the Billboard album charts in 1972 and went all the way to the top in several countries, including the UK. The LP starts off with Highway Star, a song that was written on the band's tour bus as a demonstration of how the band created new material. It was first performed the same day it was written. The song is a hard rocker that features extended solos from both guitarist Richie Blackmore and organist Jon Lord. Both solos were inspired by the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. The song became a concert staple and was often used as the show opener throughout the band's existence.

Artist:    Focus
Title:    Hocus Pocus
Source:    British import CD: Spirit Of Joy (originally released on LP: Moving Waves)
Writer(s):    van Leer/Akkerman
Label:    Polydor UK (original US label: Sire)
Year:    1971
    Although it was not a hit until 1973, Hocus Pocus, by the Dutch progressive rock band Focus, has the type of simple structure coupled with high energy that was characteristic of many of the garage bands of the mid to late 60s. The song was originally released on the band's second LP, known alternately as Focus II and Moving Waves, in 1971. Both guitarist Jan Akkerman and keyboardist/vocalist/flautist Thijs van Leer have gone on to have successful careers, with van Leer continuing to use to the Focus name as recently as 2006.

Artist:    Van Morrison
Title:    Everyone
Source:    LP: Moondance
Writer(s):    Van Morrison
Label:    Warner Brothers
Year:    1970
    Generally considered the most upbeat song on Van Morrison's 1970 LP Moondance, Everyone is known for its use of a clavinet on the song's intro. Morrison himself described Everyone as "just a song of hope".

Artist:     Pink Floyd
Title:     San Tropez
Source:     CD: Meddle
Writer:     Roger Waters
Label:     Pink Floyd Records (original label: Harvest)
Year:     1971
     In the years between the departure of Syd Barrett and the release of Dark Side Of The Moon, Pink Floyd crafted out a reputation for being one of the most experimental bands around. One of their best-known albums of this period was the 1971 LP Meddle, which included album-rock radio standard One Of These Days. Most of the album is credited to the entire band. One track, however, was actually written by bassist Roger Waters prior to the band's existence. San Tropez is a jazzier sounding tune than any other Pink Floyd track I know of.