https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/434525-dc-2234
This week's show is kind of like a string of firecrackers, with each song setting off the next one until we run out of time. In other words, it's more free-form explorations on Rockin' in the Days of Confusion, with several tracks that have never been played on the show before.
Artist: John Lennon
Title: Gimme Some Truth
Source: CD: Lennon (box set) (originally released on LP: Imagine)
Writer(s): John Lennon
Label: Capitol (original label: Apple)
Year: 1971
Even though it first appeared on the 1971 album Imagine, John Lennon's Gimme Some Truth can easily be applied to modern life, particularly when it comes to the various sources of "information" that are designed not to inform at all, but rather to reinforce existing beliefs. Musically the song rocks out harder than most of Lennon's solo tunes, thanks in part to what Lennon called some nice slide guitar work from Lennon's former bandmate George Harrison.
Artist: Neil Young
Title: I've Been Waiting For You
Source: LP: The 1969 Warner/Reprise Songbook (originally released on LP: Neil Young)
Writer(s): Neil Young
Label: Warner Brothers (original label: Reprise)
Year: 1968
Despite being included on the very first Warner Brothers Loss Leaders album, the 1969 Warner/Reprise Songbook, I've Been Waiting For You, from Neil Young's self-titled 1968 debut LP, is one of the least-known and underated of all of Young's songs...or at least it was until 2002, when David Bowie (with Dave Grohl on guitar) released his own version of the song as a single and included it on the album Heathen.
Artist: Blind Faith
Title: Well, All Right
Source: CD: Blind Faith
Writer: Petty/Holly/Allison/Mauldin
Label: Polydor (original label: Atco)
Year: 1969
Supergroup Blind Faith was made up of members of Cream (Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker), Family (Rick Grech) and Traffic (Steve Winwood). The group only recorded one LP before disbanding, and almost all of the material on that album was written by members of the band. The lone exception was a heavily-modified arrangement of Buddy Holly's Well All Right, which sounds more like a Traffic song than any other track on the LP.
Artist: Procol Harum
Title: Conquistador (live)
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Brooker/Reid
Label: A&M
Year: 1972
Although Conquistador was originally recorded for the first Procol Harum album in 1967, it was the 1972 live version with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra that became one of the band's biggest hits, second only to A Whiter Shade Of Pale.
Artist: El Chicano
Title: Make It All Go
Source: LP: Revolución
Writer(s): Ducey/Millis
Label: MCA (original label: Kapp)
Year: 1971
Inspired by the success of Carlos Santana's San Francisco-based band, El Chicano was formed in East L.A. by bassist Freddie Sanchez, organist Bobby Espinosa, guitarist Mickey Lespron, , and drummer John De Luna and conga player Andre Baeza, with Ersi Arvisu as lead singer. The band embraced a variety of music genres, including rock, funk, soul, blues, jazz, and salsa, as can be heard on tracks like Make It All Go, from their 1971 LP Revolución.
Artist: Deep Purple
Title: Woman From Tokyo
Source: CD: The Very Best Of Deep Purple (originally released on LP: Who Do We Think We Are)
Writer(s): Blackmore/Gillan/Glover/Lord/Paice
Label: Warner Archives/Rhino (original label: Warner Brothers)
Year: 1973
Deep Purple's most successful period came to an end with the band's seventh LP, Who Do We Think We Are. The album, released in 1973, was the last for vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover, both of whom had joined the band three years earlier. Those three years saw the group go from semi-obscurity (especially in their home country) to one of the world's most popular rock bands. Songs like Smoke On The Water and Highway Star had become mainstays of FM rock radio worldwide, but tensions within the band itself were starting to tear it apart. Nonetheless, the final album by the classic lineup of Richie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord and Ian Paice featured some of the band's best material, including the LP's opening track, My Woman From Tokyo, which is still heard with alarming regularity on classic rock radio stations.
Artist: Rush
Title: A Passage To Bangkok
Source: LP: 2112
Writer(s): Lee/Lifeson/Peart
Label: Mercury
Year: 1976
Bassist and lead vocalist Geddy Lee of Rush described A Passage To Bangkok, the opening track of side two of the landmark 1976 LP 2112, as "a travelogue for all the places in the world that grow the best weed". Need I say more?
Artist: Golden Earring
Title: Radar Love
Source: 45 RPM single
Writer(s): Kooymans/Hay
Label: Track/MCA
Year: 1973
Formed in The Hague in 1961, the Golden Earrings (they dropped the plural in 1969) released 25 studio albums and took nearly 30 songs into the top 10 over a period of nearly 30 years...in their native Holland. They were completely unknown in the US, however, until 1973, when Radar Love became an international hit. They returned to the US charts in 1982 with Twilight Zone, and had a final international hit in 1984 with When The Lady Smiles, although that song did not do as well in the US. Radar Love itself is now considered one of the all-time greatest "road" songs.
Artist: Uriah Heep
Title: Love Machine
Source: British import CD: Look At Yourself
Writer(s): Hensley/Box/Byron
Label: Sanctuary/BMG (original US label: Mercury)
Year: 1971
Often used as Uriah Heep's show closer in 1971, Love Machine, a song written by Keyboardist Ken Hensley, guitarist Mick Box and vocalist David Byron, was also used to close out the band's third LP, Look At Yourself. According to the liner notes written by the band itself, the tune "just rocks".
rtist: Wishbone Ash
Title: Leaf And Stream
Source: CD: Argus
Writer: Wishbone Ash
Label: MCA/Decca
Year: 1972
One of the first bands ever to feature two lead guitarists was Wishbone Ash. The story goes that following the departure of their original guitarist bassist Martin Turner and drummer Steve Upton auditioned several lead guitarists and got it down to two finalists, Andy Powell and Ted Turner (no relation to Martin), but could not decide between the two. At that point they decided just to keep both of them, and a heavy metal tradition was born. Whether the story is true or not, the two definitely traded off leads for the next three years and five albums, even on relatively quiet songs such as Leaf And Stream from their third LP, Argus. Like the majority of Wishbone Ash tunes from that time period, Leaf And Stream is sung by Martin Turner.
Artist: Elton John
Title: Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters
Source: LP: Honky Château
Writer(s): John/Taupin
Label: MCA (original label: Uni)
Year: 1972
After hearing the sound of a gun going off through his hotel window in New York, Bernie Taupin wrote the lyrics to Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters. Elton John, who cites the song as "one of my all-time favorites" wrote the music for the tune, which appears on the 1972 LP Honky Château. John has performed the song more than 100 times in his career.
Artist: Moody Blues
Title: Legend Of A Mind/House Of Four Doors (Part 2)
Source: CD: In Search Of The Lost Chord
Writer(s): Thomas/Lodge
Label: Deram
Year: 1968
The Moody Blues started off as a fairly typical British beat band, scoring one major international hit, Go Now, in 1965, as well as several minor British hit singles. By 1967 lead vocalist Denny Laine was no longer with the group (he would later surface as a member of Paul McCartney's Wings), and the remaining members were not entirely sure of where to go next. At around that time their record label, Deram, was looking to make a rock version of a well-known classical piece (The Nine Planets), and the Moody Blues were tapped for the project. Somewhere along the way, however, the group decided to instead write their own music for rock band and symphony orchestra, and Days Of Future Passed was the result. The album, describing a somewhat typical day in the life of a somewhat typical Britisher, was successful enough to revitalize the band's career, and a follow-up LP, In Search Of The Lost Chord, was released in 1968. Instead of a full orchestra, however, the band members themselves provided all the instrumentation on the new album, using a relatively new keyboard instrument called the mellotron (a complicated contraption that utilized tape loops) to simulate orchestral sounds. Like its predecessor, In Search Of The Lost Chord was a concept album, this time dealing with the universal search for the meaning of life through music. One of the standout tracks on the album is Legend Of A Mind, with its signature lines: "Timothy Leary's dead. No, no, he's outside looking in." Although never released as a single, the track got a fair amount of airplay on college and progressive FM radio stations, and has long been considered a cult hit. On the album itself, Legend Of A Mind is part of a longer suite called House Of Four Doors, which concludes the album's first side.
Artist: Doobie Brothers
Title: Natural Thing
Source: CD: The Captain And Me
Writer(s): Tom Johnston
Label: Warner Brothers
Year: 1973
The Doobie Brothers' producer, Ted Templeman, brought in synth programmers Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff to engineer Natural Thing, the opening track of the band's third LP, The Captain And Me. Synthesizer technology being what it was in 1973, the two overdubbed individual notes to create chords for the Tom Johnston tune.
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