https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/411649-dc-2212
This week's show starts off on the hot side as we long for a Hot Summer Day, but eventually cools down for a Lou Reed classic from his Rock N Roll Animal album. In between, there's all kinds of good rock. Read on...
Artist: It's A Beautiful Day
Title: Hot Summer Day
Source: CD: It's A Beautiful Day
Writer: David and Linda LaFlamme
Label: San Francisco Sound (original label: Columbia)
Year: 1969
Next to White Bird, the two most recognizable It's A Beautiful Day songs are Bombay Calling and Hot Summer Day. All three songs are on the band's debut album. David and Linda LaFlamme split up after that album was released, and stopped writing songs together. There was an overall drop in the quality of the band's recordings as well. Coincidence? I think not.
Artist: Janis Joplin
Title: One Good Man
Source: CD: I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama
Writer(s): Janis Joplin
Label: Columbia/Legacy
Year: 1969
Janis Joplin's first solo album, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama, got a lukewarm reception, both from the rock press and from fans of the singer who had been listening to her since her days with Big Brother And The Holding Company. The main problem seems to be that, while musically more proficient than the members of Big Brother, Joplin's new group (sometimes called the Kozmic Blues Band) never seemed to gel as a group. The fact that all but two of the tracks on the LP were cover songs didn't help matters, either. The two Joplin originals, however, are among the album's best tracks. I suspect that a few more tracks like One Good Man (featuring some nice guitar work by Big Brother's Sam Andrew) would have helped the album immensely.
Artist: Cactus
Title: Let Me Swim
Source: CD: Cactus
Writer(s): Appice/Bogert/Day/McCarty
Label: Wounded Bird (original label: Atco)
Year: 1970
Following the breakup of Vanilla Fudge, drummer Carmine Appice and bassist Tim Bogert started making plans for forming a new band with guitarist Jeff Beck. Unfortunately, a car wreck derailed those plans and the two instead teamed up with vocalist Rusty Day (Amboy Dukes) and guitarist Jim McCarty (Mitch Ryder's Detroit Wheels and the Buddy Miles Express) to form Cactus in 1970. McCarty shows his blues chops on Let Me Swim, one of the original compositions from the band's first LP.
Artist: Jimi Hendrix
Title: EZY Rider
Source: CD: First Rays Of The New Rising Sun (originally released on LP: The Cry Of Love)
Writer(s): Jimi Hendrix
Label: MCA/Experience Hendrix (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1971
Ezy Rider was one of the many songs that Jimi Hendrix had recently completed when he died suddenly in September of 1970. Although no one will ever know for sure what his plans for the song were, Ezy Rider was one of the tracks chosen for inclusion on The Cry Of Love, the first post-humous Jimi Hendrix LP. The song, inspired by the film Easy Rider, has since appeared on both Voodoo Soup and First Rays Of The New Rising Sun, CD albums that attempt to piece together what would have been the next Hendrix album had the guitarist lived long enough to complete it.
Artist: Deep Purple
Title: Smoke On The Water (live version)
Source: CD: Made In Japan
Writer(s): Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label: Rhino/Purple (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1972
Based on what is quite possibly the most recognizable riff in the history of hard rock, Smoke On The Water was released in December of 1972 on Deep Purple's Machine Head album. The song became a huge hit the following year when a live version of the tune appeared on the album Made In Japan, released in December of 1972.
Artist: Jethro Tull
Title: A Passion Play (Edit #10)
Source: Stereo 45 RPM single (promo)
Writer(s): Ian Anderson
Label: Chrysalis
Year: 1973
My very first "radio" gig was at a closed-circuit station serving various locations at Holloman AFB, New Mexico. Even though most radio stations got lots of free promo copies of current songs, the Voice Of Holloman was pretty much ignored by the major record labels, with one notable exception: Warner Brothers (and it's associated labels such as Reprise and Chrysalis). Since the Voice Of Holloman was pretty middle of the road, they didn't play Jethro Tull, and I got to snag a copy of the second Tull single taken from A Passion Play. Unlike Edit #8, which got enough airplay to warrant inclusion in Jethro Tull's "M.U" The Best Of Jethro Tull collection, Edit #10 was pretty much dead in the water as soon as it was released. In fact, I have never actually seen a regular copy of the single. My original promo copy is long gone, but I did manage to find one from a reliable source in 2018. Unfortunately, 1973 was the year of the great vinyl shortage (one of the reasons the Voice Of Holloman wasn't getting stuff from most labels), and the promo used poor quality vinyl. Still, it is, to my knowledge, the only source available for this rare edit, so here it is, noise and all.
Artist: Jeff Beck
Title: Constipated Duck
Source: CD: Blow By Blow
Writer(s): Jeff Beck
Label: Epic
Year: 1975
Following the dissolution of Beck, Bogert And Appice in 1974, guitarist Jeff Beck, after doing session work for various bands, decided to work on his first entirely instrumental solo album. To help with the project he recruited keyboardist Max Middleton from the second Jeff Beck Group and hired George Martin to produce the album. Filling out the group instrumentally were bassist Phil Chen and drummer Richard Bailey. The shortest track on the album, Constipated Duck, is also the only one solely credited to Beck as a songwriter, as much of the album's songs were written (or co-written) by Middleton. The album was a critical and commercial success, prompting Beck to record mostly instrumentals since then.
Artist: Steely Dan
Title: The Royal Scam
Source: CD: The Royal Scam
Writer(s): Becker/Fagen
Label: MCA (original label: ABC)
Year: 1976
By 1976 Steely Dan had evolved from being an actual band to being a pair of songwriters who recruited the best musicians available to play specific parts on their albums. The credits for their fifth LP, The Royal Scam, included two dozen names, including guitarist Larry Carlton, who is heard prominently on several tunes on the album, including the title track. Lyrically The Royal Scam, with its message that sometimes the American Dream ain't all it's cracked up to be, is consistent with the cynicism that had come to be associated with Steely Dan's songs at that point in time. The album itself, while not getting strong initial reviews, has since come to be regarded as a classic.
Artist: Lou Reed
Title: Heroin
Source: CD: Rock N Roll Animal
Writer(s): Lou Reed
Label: RCA/BMG
Year: 1974
Lou Reed's career was on a bit of a downer when he recorded a live concert at New York's Academy Of Music, a venue that had also lost some of its former glamor. That concert, with Reed's Heroin as its centerpiece, ended up saving Reed's career when it was released in 1974 as Rock N Roll Animal. Reed was accused by critics of promoting drug use with the song (and even simulated shooting up as part of his stage show), but later was quoted as saying "People do what people do" when confronted about it, adding "You can't tell people anything".
Artist: Queen
Title: Doing All Right
Source: LP: Queen
Writer(s): May/Staffell
Label: Elektra
Year: 1973
Before there was a band called Queen, there was Smile. Formed by guitarist Brian May and bassist Tim Staffell, the group soon recruited drummer Roger Taylor and, eventually, keyboardist/vocalist Farrokh Basada, who suggested the band change its name to Queen. Staffell left the band before the group's first album (replaced by John Deacon), but not before co-writing a song called Doing All Right, which Staffell originally sang lead vocals on. When Queen finally got a record contract in 1973, they included Doing All Right on the debut LP, with Basada, who by then had taken the stage name Freddie Mercury, doing the vocals in a style deliberately similar to that of Staffell.
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