A rare 10-inch record, the Mitch Ryder and Detroit Wheels album ‘Wheels of Steel.’
Yikes we are still in the ‘M’s. I believe this Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels record is the last one. That was a lot of M’s, but we need to keep going so I’m lining up my N’s — for artists like Neutral Milk Hotel, November Group, Harry Nilsson, and and others.
Remember I’m counting down my records — which when I started about two years ago– stood at 678.
Going with M for Mitch (alphabetizing the band not just Ryder).
For Ryder and band I have a 10-inch “collector’s” edition featuring the group’s best known works. ‘Devil with a Blue Dress/Good Golly Miss Molly’ — said to be the best one-two punch combo in rock. Other raucous party tunes are ‘Jenny Take a Ride,’ the always fun party dance tune, ‘Shake a Tail Feather.’ Here’s line-up:
Side One Jenny Take A Ride Sock It To Me Baby Little Latin Lupe Lu You Get Your Kicks Side Two Devil With A Blue Dress On/ Good Golly Miss Molly Breakout Shake A Tail Feather Too Many Fish In The Sea/ Three Little Fishes
Ryder was a real deal hard rock blues guy from Detroit –and possibly a little underrated.
According to AllMusic (which calls Ryder “the unsung hero” of Michigan rock and roll), Ryder withdrew from music after experiencing throat trouble,[1] moving to Colorado with his wife and taking up writing and painting. In 1983, Ryder returned to a major label with the John Mellencamp-produced album Never Kick a Sleeping Dog.
Interesting footnote from Wikipedia: Ryder was the last person to perform with Otis Redding, they performed the song “Knock On Wood”, on December 9, 1967, in Cleveland, Ohio, on a local TV show called Upbeat. Redding and four members of his touring band, The Bar-Kays, died in a plane crash near Madison, Wisconsin the following day, December 10, 1967.
Sorry, I couldn’t help that. Mitchell was one of the more literate pop stars in the 1970s and 80s. And the confidence in her word selection and playfulness in her jazzy delivery makes me think: She knows she is good.
She also is considered a top guitar player, usually playing on her acoustic.
“Free Man in Paris,’ and ” Help Me” were all over the radio in the mid-1970’s. Up until then she was known for ‘Big Yellow Taxi.” (They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.) It was a minor hit in the U.S. in 1970. (Counting Crows covered it not too many years ago.)
I was 14 or so and was discovering Queen, Aerosmith, Cream and Jimi Hendrix. Actually Elton John was a favorite as well. But to be honest the beauty of Court and Spark failed to hook me at that age. They were pleasant jazz/pop songs with intelligent lyrics. I must have absorbed it in the car. many years later before I found this album — her best I’m told — for about $4.
I’m not fond of the cover though. Mine is Tang-colored with art that is too small and too faded. Looks like a tattoo on a recipient with mottled yellow orange skin. Maybe QT accident.
ALBUMS: Astral Weeks (1968 ); Moondance (1970); Tupelo Honey (1971); ): St. Dominic’s Preview (1972 ); Hard Nose the Highway (1973); T.B. Sheets (1973 ); Common One (1980); No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (1986); World of Them (1973)
MVC Ratings: Astral and Moondance get top scores with 5. Both come with $$$$, but it might be hard to find in good condition under $20. Tupelo Honey, St. Dominic’s and No Guru comes in at 4.5 with $$$$ for Tupelo and St. Dominic’s; and TB Sheets at $$$; World of Them is 4.0 with a $$$.
Just after I learned of my illness, my wonderful friends and colleagues raised several thousand dollars to fund a trip to Europe. Ireland was one of four countries we visited on this ‘bucket list” trip. We went in this order: Spain, Scotland, Ireland, England and back to Spain where my daughter was living.
In Dublin, Ireland , I had to go see the Irish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was a small-ish building, having moved into a place that used to be a pub. I loved it but I had one major criticism, and told the museum people — who were good folks — about it. There was not enough Van Morrison. One could argue that he should have dominated that museum, based on artistry, talent and influence on the music.
They had lots of Thin Lizzy and U2. Don’t get me wrong I love both of those Irish artists. Check one of the streaming services for the Phil Lynot/Thin Lizzy documentary. He had an interesting life growing up mixed race in a 90-plus percent white population. His mother, the museum folks told me, still comes by the museum and visits, occasionally bringing memorabilia to display. There could be couple of things going on here. First, Morrison is considered ‘Dad-music.’ Not many under 30 could name three songs by Van the Man, or any at all, for that matter. Also, Morrison grew up in Belfast not Dublin meaning Morrison’s family and possible sources of memorabilia are in another part of the country.
In the United States, Morrison had a home north of San Francisco in Marin County. He said it was the place in the US that reminded him most of the rolling green hills of Ireland. I lived in that county some called paradise for a decade in San Anselmo. Van even wrote a song called ‘Snow in San Anselmo’ on one of his lesser known albums called ‘Hard News the Highway.’ The song says it hadn’t snowed there i n 30 years. It did not snow the 10 years I was there as the ocean moderated what was essentially a Mediterranean climate.
One morning in 2006, I came to play my usual pick-up basketball on Saturday morning at the Lagunitas elementary school. It was a game that had been ongoing for long time before I wandered up one day. On this day, a couple of players said they had seen Morrison the night before in a secret word-of-mouth event at this place in the San Geromino Valley called Rancho Nicasio — not far down the road where I played hoops every week. Damn, I said, why didn’t y’all call me! (I still broke out the y’all in California.) The Marin Independent Journal — a newspaper I had written for — said Morrison concert was the worst kept secret in Marin. Well, I didn’t know about it. Of course I’ve always had this feeling I was the last to know.
I don’t know what else to say about Van Morrison. He’s a rocker, a great writer. His songs are equally imbued with the blues and jazz. He always has great musicians around him. He sings a little like Mick Jagger if Jagger ventured deeper into jazz.
I’m not going to give a history here, that would be long. But he was in a band called Them in the beginning. He wrote a song called ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ whose opening riff is one of the most recognizable in rock. He journeyed through mystical observations. In the mid-to-later part of his career, he became a little more overt with use of Christian language wrapped around his deep spiritual explorations in words and music. Albums representing this would be ‘Common One‘ and “No Guru no Method no Teacher.’ And actually, thinking back, he’s always had that philosopher/poet quest that shape songs like “Into the Mystic,” or the whole album Astral Weeks, for that matter.
He’s still putting out music. I saw that an album is about to be released in November. Lastly, I’d like to make bring out some teaching points for lyricists and poets. I’m not saying I am that good at it, but I know good when I see it and hear it. Morrison’s style was to weave in and out of mystical explorations with repetitive chants and jazzy excursions. But he often wrote plain slices of scenes. a little portrait or a scene that draws you to a place so you can begin to feel what Van feels.
On the song ‘And it Stoned Me’ from the Moondance album, see how Van sets the scene without over describing.
Half a mile from the county fair And the rain came pourin’ down Me and Billy standin’ there With a silver half a crown
Hands are full of a fishin’ rod And the tackle on our backs We just stood there gettin’ wet With our backs against the fence
Oh, the water Oh, the water Oh, the water Hope it don’t rain all day
Oh the water, let it run all over me
He drops in detail but with a deft touch leaves a little wiggle room for you, the listener, to put in your own details: These kids, adolescents, had just been to the fair? Or were going? Had a silver half a crown.
I don’t know what the song is about. Or, wait, maybe I do: Life.
Before the Neville Brothers were the Meters, playing New Orleans bayou roots music or whatever you may call it. I call it ‘swamp funk’ because there was some funky music going on. Art and Cyril Neville were in the Meters and the Neville Brothers.
Aaron Neville, who went on to become the best known of the four Neville brothers, as his voice, described as that of an angel singing, seeped into the public consciousness in a big way in during the 1980s. The Aaron album here is a compilation of early songs including the hit “Tell It Like It Is.” It might be the least expensive record here if you can find it. The Meters album is a collectible that will likely cost more than $25 (see MVC ratings explained) depending on condition.
Unfortunately my Meters record has a crack in it. Yet it still plays with very little surface noise right over the crack. I’ll keep it but likely will limit its playing time as I am worried it might damage my stylus. You should be able to find the Neville Brothers album for $10 to $15 in good condition (VG+).
I think I have reader in L.A. who might enjoy this Neville Brothers singing a classic ‘Brother John’ melded with Iko Iko (see video below).
Well, I’m not going to be the one to give Mozart anything less than a 5. And the sound is good, digitally remastered from newly remixed original master tapes.
So I was on the front row in ’83 and he came out impeccably dressed, running around the stage with a wig and make-up. Wait a minute that’s David Bowie.
But. I never saw Bowie live here. Must have been Roger Daltry of the Who. His long curly blond hair seemed like a wig anyway.
And of course I never saw Mozart alive. It was 1762 when this prodigy was 6-years-old and leaving people talking about the Next Big Thing. The liner notes say this kid from Austria could play any instrument, violin, piano, harpsichord and vocals. Vocals? Never knew that.
He could hear a song he didn’t know and could play it back note-for-note. At 17, he had already written 150 works of ‘incredible variety,’ the liner notes say. After that came 500 compositions, many considered masterpieces.
. But i think I may have to change the wording of my Motown post where I called Michael Jackson’s early work as the best music ever by an 11-year-old performer.
This album was actually played by me many times. And it’s not just easy listening music with its orchestral presentations of grandeur and pomp.
Picking this record up was part of my record buying strategy of getting a sample platter before ordering the entree. After this I joined a Classical music record club and actually have a nice collection of about 30 classical CD’s, wherever they may be.
If you have nothing on the Motown label, this is a great record to get a taste of Motor City’s hit factory. These days, I don’t listen to this much. It was a good primer for me and led me to explore artists. But I’m more likely to pull out an album by Marvin Gaye or my Smokey Robinson two-record set then listen to this hits compilation.
Although if I suddenly have a hankering to hear ‘Keep on Truckin’ –– which does happen sometimes — I’ll grab this one because I don’t think I have that great bit of 70s dance music on anything else.
The ABC album by the Jackson 5 was one of my first full length LPs. And the Jackson 5 song ‘I Want You Back ‘ is the world’s best song led by an 11-year-old lead singer.
You cannot not dance to ‘I Want You Back.’
This two record specially priced set (when it came out anyway) hit some key figures but is hardly definitive.
Of the 20 songs on here Diana Ross (with and without the Supremes) has four slots; Jackson 5 and Michael Jackson have four slots; and Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye have three slots each. The Temptations, Eddie Kendricks, the Commodores and Smokey Robinson and his Miracles round out the list of very familiar (and mostly great) songs.
I think their hits, many from the Boyce/Hart songwriting tandom, sound pretty good. I especially like (I’m not) Your Steppin’ Stone’..
In a 2012 interview, Dolenz described The Monkees as being “a TV show about an imaginary band… that wanted to be the Beatles that was never successful.”
Looking back I find it kind of weird — the show I mean. It was almost like pre-psychedelia TV effects (sped-up action, filming in reverse, the in and out camera lens thing. I’m sure there was some backmaskinggoing on. “Mom, what’s in those Fruit Loops?”
I was about 9 and 10 years old, and a big fan. I remember it coming on about 11:30 and it usually capped off a full morning of cartoon watching. (Superceded sometimes by chores my mother would give us). So end of the Monkees or Johnny Quest would be a signal to the beginning of a long afternoon outdoors. Had to be home by sundown.
This is composer Daniele Luppi’s musical statement regarding Milan when it was party central in the 1980’s.
This album features Karen O and Parquet Floors. It has some interesting songs including a few that have nothing on Prince’s early work when it comes to R-rated sexual content.
The last song on the album is an instrumental free jazz piece that is as good as it is long and as long as it is unexpected in the context of other songs. I’ll have to file this record under ‘re-visit’ when I’m in a better place to take more time to get into it.
I believe this was sent to me — new vinyl late last year by one of my relatives but honestly have forgotten who.
Danielle Luppi worked as an arranger for artists like Gnarls Barkley and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
According to a Pitchfork review in the Milan Luppi is evoking is that of a city where everything was possible.. “Money flowed, parties raged, and the streets were filled with glamorous foreigners.”
It was superficial but vibrant.
Featured here are Karen O, the lead singer with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Parquet Floors. One blogger called it the strangest albums recorded. I’d say yes, it’s strange, but after recently reviewing the Mothers of the Invention, my threshold for strange has been broadened and few albums are stranger than several of Zappa.
I also hear a B-52’s influence here in songs like Flush. I hear bits of Talking Heads and Prince as well.
It might sound weird to describe this straight ahead hard rock band as influential. They rarely colored out of the lines. Guitarist and lead singer Leslie West took his direction early following Eric Clapton’s gritty blues rock as displayed by Clapton’s work with the Yardbirds and Cream..
But they did become influential in that they are one of a several bands mentioned as precursors to heavy metal. The Long Island, NY, group also had a big fan in fellow Long Island native Howard Stern. And they played Woodstock.
Leslie West’s guitar playing was admired and mimicked by later hard rocking heavy metalists. The crunching chords and cowbell (yes more is less) opening to Mississippi Queen was and is a staple of classic rock radio.
Key members of Mountain included West, Corky Lainge and Felix Pappalardi. I’ve had this record a long time and not sure where I picked it up but I think it was from my Athens, Ga., high school and college years. I hadn’t played it in a while prior to this review and it’s solid, rock solid.
He’s a guy from Indiana. Small town Indiana. I lived in Indiana in 7th, 8th, and 9th grades in the early to mid-1970s. That age, 12-15, is arguably one of the pivotal periods in one’s life.
In Indiana, everyone was Jack and Diane.
We were in West Lafayette. My family lived in an area where I was not zoned for the West Lafayette schools, the ‘city’ schools with professors’ kids in the shadow of Purdue University where my father worked.
I took a bus to a more rural school, farmers’ kids, families in trailer parks, where 13-year-olds smoked cigarettes in the laundromat at the Service Center, inside, playing pinball.
If you knew how to trick the machine into giving you countless extra games you play on a quarter for hours. Or some of us were just that good to hold a machine without tricks.
“Hey ‘rook’ go get me a pack of smokes,” Owens snapped at me as I walked by. Rook meant I was a 7th grader at Klondike Junior High School. Owens was a bully in 8th grade. He and his crew terrorized us through that rookie year.
Owens handed me a dollar and told me to hurry.
“But will they sell me cigarettes?” I asked.
Owens, dirty blond hair touching his shoulders dressed in an Army jacket, laughed and said ‘Rook go get ’em.’ I made the purchase successfully, brought them back with a quarter in change. Owens said ‘You’re all right. Maybe I won’t beat your ass so much.”
I could go on and on with stories from Indiana. And it’s weird because there wasn’t much to do there. Corn fields. In the hot summers some of us would get paid piece work de-tasseling corn. In the fall, especially on Halloween, we’d go into the cornfields and pick up the hard corn kernels and put them in bags. We’d lie in wait in the darkness until headlights approached from a distance. Scooping a handful of hard kernels, you had to time it just perfectly letting loose at the front grill of the car as it passed by. It sounded like your engine just fell apart, clankety clankety, as the kernels bounced around in the radiator fan or other moving belts and such. Harmless we told ourselves but then there was the chase.
It’s an Indiana past-time: Corning cars. At least where I was hanging. One of my buddies said he’d been shot at doing this before. Great, another added touch of cornfed bravado.
But the thrill of corning was not in the actual corning but the chase after the driver pulled over. That’s because most folks were from around there and instantly knew they’d been corned.Sometimes the cars would drive right into the cornfield. We were sprinting through the rows, laughing. Crazy Indiana kids.
I’d love to ask Mellencamp of Seymour, Indiana, if he ever corned a car.
Mellencamp has put together quite a career. I have two of more than a dozen albums he has released. Possibly two of his best and most impactul:
Uh huh! and Scarecrow. I saw him in Birmingham, I believe in 1982, and thought he was fantastic. One of my all time favorite concerts actually. The drums! Kenny Aronoff.
I haven’t listened to these records in years and I thought they may sound dated, but they hold up. Mellencamp is a good if not great songwriter. Straightforward, his words mean what they say. Even when he uses symbolism, it is in-you-face: Rain on the scarecrow, blood on the plow.
The crops we grew last summer weren’t enough to pay the loans Couldn’t buy the seed to plant this spring and the farmers bank foreclosed Called my old friend Schepman up to auction off the land He said john it’s just my job and I hope you understand Hey calling it your job ol hoss sure don/t make it right
But if you want me to, I’ll say a prayer for your soul tonight
‘ol hoss.’ Yep that line sounds like exactly how someone from Indiana would say it.
He astutely captures the cycle of rural Indiana laugh in ‘Small Town:
Well I was born in a small town And I can breathe in a small town Gonna die in this small town And that’s probably where they’ll bury me
And Jack and DIane’s anthemic, drum-slapping chorus:
Let it rock. Let it roll. Let the Bible belt come and save your soul. Hold on to 16 as long as you can. Changes coming real soon make us women and men.
Don’t know if this would be surprising but the big town Lafayette — the twin town of West Lafayette was home town of Axl Rose, lead singer for Guns N Roses. I knew many Axl Roses as well. sIt’s only two hours from Seymour to West Lafayette/Lafayette, straight through Indianapolis.
