Greetings one and all, all for one.
We made it. Another year another top ten. Six years of giving y'all the insight of what the cd player was playing here on the crabb player. You think ten songs, fifty two weeks a year comes out 520 songs but take into consideration 6 years of this and you come up with a amazing 3120 songs. The mind boggles if we did a top thirty.
Everything has a beginning has a end. Just as life is. Or a tv show. Or buying out the music stores, there's a beginning and there's a end. Putting together a top ten does take a commitment and a dedication and a love for records to show the world what's in the player. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it didn't. I did a top ten in the mingles' site one time and people looked at me as if I was a freak. Sure didn't get any dates out of that mess. But I know in the first two years of the Roose and one year at My Space I did managed to trade top tens with some of my good friends and everybody learned something new. I didn't expect to get this far six years later. I was surprised with myself it survived the first year. Imagine my surprise when it made five years running.
I remember in my young age that The Gazette Newspaper would put out a KCRG Super 30 survey an for all intent purposes I would clip them out and I did managed to save most of 1971. It was fun to see what type of songs were on the list and sometimes when we all made the big trip downtown to Woolworth's I'd pick up the KLWW top 30 which varied just a bit but growing up me and my friends would fight to see what station we listen to, 1600 or 1450. Back when music was great, back when we had AM stations that played the latest and sometimes sneek in a blast from the past. Back then we all lived for the radio and the chance to run down to the record store to pick up the latest forty five. And make up our own top ten lists. I even did that when I was in the fifth grade, dedicated enought to put a top 30 of my own. I had lots of ambition then.
My Top Ten was only a window to my world, an extension to share to you the wonders of what's out there besides the usual overplayed stuff that we got tired of long ago before the umpteeth classic rock station came on board. Sometimes we all got a good laugh and good discussions on some of them. Some weeks, I can go back as far as the 1920s for a selection as well as pick out a song from the latest. All for the love of good music. And hopefully got you my friends to seek out the album. I know some tracks that some of y'all put down managed to get me to search for particluar cuts. Certainly some of the suggestions that Hoop or Harvey or Starman or Brooksie talked about figured into this. Even got me to complete The Ocean Blue output that way.
1. Gonna Send You Back To Walker-The Animals 1964 The first forty five that I have ever had when I was type, or at least the first one that I noticed, I remember my folks having this record and I played it on my record player and after that breaking it just a three year old brat not knowing what he did and was mad I couldn't play it anymore. Oh I tried to find another copy but the next animals record i got was Inside Looking Out to which I didn't break. But I managed to find a good copy on EBAY and can't wait to finally get this record back into my collection, forty four years after the fact. Perhaps you can go home again.
2. Tallahassee Lassie-Freddy Cannon 1959 Did ya know that there's a longer version of this song off the Best Of 50s Party CD? The longer version goes up to 2:30 but on Freddy's Rhino best of, it's the 2:10 edit. But this was one of many records that my mom had in her collection of 45s. The CD that I got at Half Priced books seemed to be autographed by Freddy himself but then again I may have said that last week. Song is so good I had to add it twice already.
3. Come On Come Over-Sam and Dave with Jaco Pastorius 1976 By then, the great soul Atlantic artists were dropped from the label or just moonlighting such as this little funk fusion number done by the Jimi Hendrix of the Bass guitar, whose talents were wasted 12 years later by too many drugs and a bad attitude. Eventually Sam and Dave would break up after a nasty fight themselves but Sam Moore still lives and plays on.
4. I Get So Weary-BB King 2008 The last of the original bluesmen, BB continues to amaze and amuse us by still playing the blues the way they're meant to be played. I wouldn't say this is the comeback album of the year but again to be 85 years old and still making decent records is nothing short of a miracle. BB outlived John lee Hooker for goodness sakes. And guess what? This album has no cameos by Carrie Underwood or the flavor of the day on it either. Carrie wouldn't understand the blues. Take that Miss Everything.
5. Just Pass It On-Joe Cocker 2008 Joe can sing the telephone book in his own way and if you think about it, his voice hasn't changed in the forty years he's been around. Only Lemmy from Motorhead still sounds the same after all these years too. Yeh, I know, you don't care too much bout either one but at least Joe Cocker managed to find some cool cover versions this time out. And left the U2 song catalog alone for a change.
6. A Piece Of What You Need-Teddy Thompson 2008 Yes, I have been playing a lotta albums from this year this month and it does show up on this list. There's still good music out there but it's not on TV or on The Radio, but it is getting to be a chore trying not to buy American Idol inspired pap. This song has a horn chart dating back to Sgt Pepper, but the music is today rather than yesterday. His mom is Linda Thompson, his dad Richard but Teddy sounds a lot like Rufus Wainwright. Certainly in this decade there hasn't been too many artists and bands with staying power but Teddy seems to have done fairly well.
7. Doctor Gee-The Len Price 3 2007 Out of all the albums that I played this year that I enjoyed the hell out of, this British band ranks up high. With vocals that recall early Who and this song that sounds like a cross between the Byrds and Kinks, this song was forty years behind the times and AM radio. I'd wouldn't mind hearing more from these guys but i'm sure the next album their damn record label would put it in a oversized digipak. And did I mention that digipak sucks?
8. Sixteen Tons-Bo Diddley 1960 This year we lost a lotta people and nothing was more major than Bo Diddley who never recovered from a stroke he had last year. Bo was a big influence on my music but also in the music that I've listened to.
9. Heaven Help Us All-Stevie Wonder 1970 Once everything is said and done, I think my favorite years of music still remain the 1965 to 1975 range. I think it had to do with 45s and AM radio and hearing Stevie play this song on the transistor that I snuck into bed around that time. Why does it seem that back then we had more music then we do now with more channels but less music? Doesn't make sense.
10. Ride In Peace-The Marshall Tucker Band 1982 And so we come to the final track. I can't think of any other songs that could put things in perpective than this little tribute that MTB did 26 years ago. Kind of reminds me being on a train that goes from coast to coast and comes to the end of the line. A strange adventure going from peaks to valleys in a single setting. The type of songs that would get me fired from a regular radio station since I'm from the time that being a DJ would be able to select what he think the public would like and not the corporate CSers that have killed radio as we know it today.
And thus endth the 2008 season of top tens from here in Crabbland . Thanks to countless emails to continue this journey of music, we shall return next year with weekly reasons to give argument that Music is your best entertainment value. After all we shouldn't kill something that for six years has been the alternative to the garbage that passes as top ten elsewhere on the net or those hopeless crap Best Year Ever things that 40 something still living at home rent free.
At least I moved out of the house and into my own basement to which we're paying rent. HAHAHAHAHAHA.
We made it. Another year another top ten. Six years of giving y'all the insight of what the cd player was playing here on the crabb player. You think ten songs, fifty two weeks a year comes out 520 songs but take into consideration 6 years of this and you come up with a amazing 3120 songs. The mind boggles if we did a top thirty.
Everything has a beginning has a end. Just as life is. Or a tv show. Or buying out the music stores, there's a beginning and there's a end. Putting together a top ten does take a commitment and a dedication and a love for records to show the world what's in the player. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it didn't. I did a top ten in the mingles' site one time and people looked at me as if I was a freak. Sure didn't get any dates out of that mess. But I know in the first two years of the Roose and one year at My Space I did managed to trade top tens with some of my good friends and everybody learned something new. I didn't expect to get this far six years later. I was surprised with myself it survived the first year. Imagine my surprise when it made five years running.
I remember in my young age that The Gazette Newspaper would put out a KCRG Super 30 survey an for all intent purposes I would clip them out and I did managed to save most of 1971. It was fun to see what type of songs were on the list and sometimes when we all made the big trip downtown to Woolworth's I'd pick up the KLWW top 30 which varied just a bit but growing up me and my friends would fight to see what station we listen to, 1600 or 1450. Back when music was great, back when we had AM stations that played the latest and sometimes sneek in a blast from the past. Back then we all lived for the radio and the chance to run down to the record store to pick up the latest forty five. And make up our own top ten lists. I even did that when I was in the fifth grade, dedicated enought to put a top 30 of my own. I had lots of ambition then.
My Top Ten was only a window to my world, an extension to share to you the wonders of what's out there besides the usual overplayed stuff that we got tired of long ago before the umpteeth classic rock station came on board. Sometimes we all got a good laugh and good discussions on some of them. Some weeks, I can go back as far as the 1920s for a selection as well as pick out a song from the latest. All for the love of good music. And hopefully got you my friends to seek out the album. I know some tracks that some of y'all put down managed to get me to search for particluar cuts. Certainly some of the suggestions that Hoop or Harvey or Starman or Brooksie talked about figured into this. Even got me to complete The Ocean Blue output that way.
1. Gonna Send You Back To Walker-The Animals 1964 The first forty five that I have ever had when I was type, or at least the first one that I noticed, I remember my folks having this record and I played it on my record player and after that breaking it just a three year old brat not knowing what he did and was mad I couldn't play it anymore. Oh I tried to find another copy but the next animals record i got was Inside Looking Out to which I didn't break. But I managed to find a good copy on EBAY and can't wait to finally get this record back into my collection, forty four years after the fact. Perhaps you can go home again.
2. Tallahassee Lassie-Freddy Cannon 1959 Did ya know that there's a longer version of this song off the Best Of 50s Party CD? The longer version goes up to 2:30 but on Freddy's Rhino best of, it's the 2:10 edit. But this was one of many records that my mom had in her collection of 45s. The CD that I got at Half Priced books seemed to be autographed by Freddy himself but then again I may have said that last week. Song is so good I had to add it twice already.
3. Come On Come Over-Sam and Dave with Jaco Pastorius 1976 By then, the great soul Atlantic artists were dropped from the label or just moonlighting such as this little funk fusion number done by the Jimi Hendrix of the Bass guitar, whose talents were wasted 12 years later by too many drugs and a bad attitude. Eventually Sam and Dave would break up after a nasty fight themselves but Sam Moore still lives and plays on.
4. I Get So Weary-BB King 2008 The last of the original bluesmen, BB continues to amaze and amuse us by still playing the blues the way they're meant to be played. I wouldn't say this is the comeback album of the year but again to be 85 years old and still making decent records is nothing short of a miracle. BB outlived John lee Hooker for goodness sakes. And guess what? This album has no cameos by Carrie Underwood or the flavor of the day on it either. Carrie wouldn't understand the blues. Take that Miss Everything.
5. Just Pass It On-Joe Cocker 2008 Joe can sing the telephone book in his own way and if you think about it, his voice hasn't changed in the forty years he's been around. Only Lemmy from Motorhead still sounds the same after all these years too. Yeh, I know, you don't care too much bout either one but at least Joe Cocker managed to find some cool cover versions this time out. And left the U2 song catalog alone for a change.
6. A Piece Of What You Need-Teddy Thompson 2008 Yes, I have been playing a lotta albums from this year this month and it does show up on this list. There's still good music out there but it's not on TV or on The Radio, but it is getting to be a chore trying not to buy American Idol inspired pap. This song has a horn chart dating back to Sgt Pepper, but the music is today rather than yesterday. His mom is Linda Thompson, his dad Richard but Teddy sounds a lot like Rufus Wainwright. Certainly in this decade there hasn't been too many artists and bands with staying power but Teddy seems to have done fairly well.
7. Doctor Gee-The Len Price 3 2007 Out of all the albums that I played this year that I enjoyed the hell out of, this British band ranks up high. With vocals that recall early Who and this song that sounds like a cross between the Byrds and Kinks, this song was forty years behind the times and AM radio. I'd wouldn't mind hearing more from these guys but i'm sure the next album their damn record label would put it in a oversized digipak. And did I mention that digipak sucks?
8. Sixteen Tons-Bo Diddley 1960 This year we lost a lotta people and nothing was more major than Bo Diddley who never recovered from a stroke he had last year. Bo was a big influence on my music but also in the music that I've listened to.
9. Heaven Help Us All-Stevie Wonder 1970 Once everything is said and done, I think my favorite years of music still remain the 1965 to 1975 range. I think it had to do with 45s and AM radio and hearing Stevie play this song on the transistor that I snuck into bed around that time. Why does it seem that back then we had more music then we do now with more channels but less music? Doesn't make sense.
10. Ride In Peace-The Marshall Tucker Band 1982 And so we come to the final track. I can't think of any other songs that could put things in perpective than this little tribute that MTB did 26 years ago. Kind of reminds me being on a train that goes from coast to coast and comes to the end of the line. A strange adventure going from peaks to valleys in a single setting. The type of songs that would get me fired from a regular radio station since I'm from the time that being a DJ would be able to select what he think the public would like and not the corporate CSers that have killed radio as we know it today.
And thus endth the 2008 season of top tens from here in Crabbland . Thanks to countless emails to continue this journey of music, we shall return next year with weekly reasons to give argument that Music is your best entertainment value. After all we shouldn't kill something that for six years has been the alternative to the garbage that passes as top ten elsewhere on the net or those hopeless crap Best Year Ever things that 40 something still living at home rent free.
At least I moved out of the house and into my own basement to which we're paying rent. HAHAHAHAHAHA.
