2-10-10 Top Ten Of The Week-Who Dat

In celebration of The New Orleans Saints winning the Super Bowl I thought I take this chance to congratulate them on that. I'm very happy for Drew Brees who got ran out of San Diego by the odious A J Smith, to which the AJ stands for Ass Jack. I always thought the Chargers gave up too early on Brees and although Phil Rivers is a good QB, he still can't control his emotions and his leadership was questioned in the one and out against the Jets. But don't count out Peyton Manning and company for next year. Only one team can win it all. And the Saints did.

Who Dat doing the Top Ten this week?

1. One Of These Days-Ten Years After 1971 Boogie bands of the 70s are so much laughing stocks forty years later and I can't understand why. Real guitars, real keyboards, real drums can it get any better than that? Columbia had their contract but Chrysalis got the CD rights and managed to put out all the TYA before deleteing some of them. But in my wild youth, once I started having a real job, I could go out and buy albums that I couldn't afford and Space In Time was one of those early albums that I bought. 10 Years After still tours to this day and had put out a album in 2008 but Alvin Lee doesn't play with them anymore. Such a shame really.

2. I'm No Angel-Greg Allman Band 1987 He had a monster hit with this back in the late 80s and I found the vinyl album at CDs 4 Change in Dubuque, which is a better vinyl store than CD. I find myself listening and seeking out more vinyl for what reason I don't know outside of the fact that I don't like downloading MP3's. I perfer the actual album myself Bob Lefsetz and if you remind me one more time about the future of the virtual jukebox on the internet, I'm going to puke.

3. I Wanna Go Back-Eddie Money 1986 From The Sound Of Money, which I found it on Vinyl if you can believe that. The Sound Of Money aka Eddie Money's Greatest Hits was on CD only but I guess there was vinyl copies made for the outdated radio stations that didn't play CDs. Never seen it before on vinyl but CD's 4 Change had it in the 2 dollar record section. Also seen REM's Dead Letter Office in the 2 dollar bins but the guy said that was there by mistake and offered it to me for 10 bucks. Passed on it, it was a CRC record club album and their value is lesser than the A & M/IRS copy. I really didn't need that but I will give a shout out to CDs 4 Change for being a great place for finding records. It's on Asbury Rd on the left side of JF Kennedy Blvd coming from Kennedy Mall. Question is why does Dubuque still have 2 record stores and Cedar Rapids has none?

4. Strange Conversation-Ted Hawkins 1994 Legendary folk/soul singer who made a living singing around the Los Angeles area did made two albums for Rounder before scoring a contract with Geffen and putting out The Next 100 Years but never did enjoy the rewards since he suffered a stroke and died on New Year's 1995. Rhino put out a very good overview called Suffer No More for those who are interested.

5. March From The River Kwai-Mitch Miller 1957 Say what you want about the great goatee wonder but his invention of the echo chamber made his recordings interesting to listen to. I remember when I was with my late Uncle Clint in Arizona, he loved to go to the Greyhound Park and do some betting and having ice tea and everytime they do the next race, they played March every time. Uncle Clint came from Rhode Island, married my mother's older sister and his east coast ways and means made it impossible to hang with him very long. I could tolerate him for about 10 minites tops but I got to drive his Cadillac out to the park and we chat a bit. He was always on my case to get married or find somebody to settle down with. He died about five years ago, too bad he didn't get to meet my GF. That would have shut him up for about five seconds.

6. It Ain't Going To Save Me-Jay Reatard 2009 Another vinyl album I bought was Watch Me Fall, Jay's Matador debut to which got good reviews and I do like that garage rock vibe that he had on this album. Too bad that he had to OD on drugs and booze and meds. The guy had a bright future I think.

7. Love Is What You Make It-The Grassroots 1973 I found a lotta vinyl albums in my trip to Dubuque last weekend before the snows hit and this comes off the forgotten Lotta Milage album that The Grassroots put out for ABC Dunhill and I think it was their last before they moved on to Haven/Capitol. This hit top 20 on the KCRG Super 30 in late spring of 1973 and I still have the 45 to this song. But you don't hear it on oldies at all.

8. Male Chouvinist Pig Blues-Roy Harper 1974 The lineup of this recording was Jimmy Page on Guitar, Ronnie Lane on Bass and Keith Moon on drums! Roy Harper is a legend in the UK, highly regarded by every musician over there but over here he's a cult artist at best. The Right Stuff complied a sampler in 2000 to which this song comes from. Side note, when I was sit there rocking away on my piece of shit rocker recliner, i broke yet another screw that holds the chair together. So far I had replaced the screws there three times. Time to get a wider screw or get a better rocking recliner that's not going to break when Crabb rocks out. GD you Anamosa Furniture Store Mart for crap.

9. Jump They Say-David Bowie 1993 Black Tie White Noise aka Let's Dance 10 years later. Nile Rodgers returned to produce it. Bowie moved over to an upstart label Savage Records to promote it. Savage Records went bankrupt a few months later and the album never did much on the charts due to lack of promotion. It's more dance music than rock I think. You can still find cut out copies of this at thrift stores across the country. Arguably his best album from the 90s.

10. Uncloudy Day-Willie Nelson 1976 Originally part of his Atlantic output and supposed to be released in 1974 but Atlantic gave up on country music and Willie moved over to Columbia. The sessions were released in 1976 as The Troublemaker and it was basically a Willie Gospel Record but it had such a good vibe and goove that it did very well on the country charts and even this managed to crack the top 100 rock if you can believe that. The late Sammi Smith and the late Doug Sahm helped out on vocals and the still alive Larry Gatlin added his vocals too. Gospel never gets this good as The Troublemaker and remains one of Willie's definite albums ever. The man simply just can't do no wrong.

And neither do I.