I guess Jack Bruce is a little late for the bus when he said that Cream will never reunite ever again. Didn't Eric Clapton said that in 2008 in a Rolling Stone interview? And Ginger Baker grumbled that Bruce plays his bass way too loud and can't sing anymore. So I guess it finally hit Mr. Bruce that Cream is over and done with.
And now our latest Top Ten Of The Week.
1. Adventures In Success-Will Power 1983 Not to be confused with Will To Power, that goofy assed duo that had a medley hit with Baby I Love Your Way/Free Bird, this is Lynn Goldsmith's project. Goldsmith, who back in the late 70s was one of the most well known rock and roll photo shooter convinced Chris Blackwell on a project of uplifting feel good music and lyrics of positivity. She also got Todd Rungren to record the project and got Sting and Andy Summers of the Police to contribute this little number, which did get some video airplay on MTV and USA's Night Flight. Found this in Dubuque at Goodwill last weekend.
2. Bring It To Jerome-Bo Diddley 1955 The man was ahead of his time with his guitar beats and rapping. He also got lotsa help from Jerome Green who shook those shakers on his best known hits, Bo Diddley, Can't Judge A Book By Its Cover and plenty more. Of course his best of albums always seems to miss a hit here or two and the 2008's Bo Diddley Gold is no exception (where's 500% More Man? Here Tis? Oh Yeah?) but it does cover of the most familar songs of Bo and company. And it's the best in terms of remastered stuff. Would have been better had Universal USA issued the 2 CD Bo Anthology that the UK label put out but what do I know? I do know is that the major labels continue to screw Bo, even when he's dead. Manfred Mann did a cover of this song.
4. Annabel-The Volebeats 1997 This was the band that I was looking for after I left Madison and thinking I could find their 2005 album down here but ended up finding instead Sky And The Ocean instead. Kinda country rock with a guitar edge like the Shadows of Apache fame, I knew I heard this song somewhere before and I did. The 100's did a cover of this on their Take The Gravel Home album a few years ago.
5. It's Over-Boz Scaggs 1976 He put the drive in The Steve Miller Band but when he left, he became a blue eyed soul singer starting with Slow Dancer and later his biggest selling album ever Silk Degrees although this song only made it to number 38 on the Billboard Chart. I forgot just how good Silk Degrees was till I bought it this weekend and played it. Scaggs had major hits with Lowdown and Lido Shuffle and Rita Coolidge took We're All Alone to the top of the charts in 77. The followup album bombed and the next album I bought, Middleman was Silk Degrees Part 2 but not as inspired and I never played it that much. Outside of You Got Some Imgination, it was blah. But Silk Degrees, from start to finish was his shining moment. Still is come to think of it.
6. It's Alright Mama (I'm only bleeding) Bob Dylan 1965 The beginning of Dylan's electric phase and damn he was rewriting the music history with this album Bringing It All Back Home. Roger McGuinn did a nice cover of this for the Easy Rider Soundtrack since Columbia either refused or outpriced Dunhill/ABC over the use of this song.
7. Love In The Harbour-A Band Of Bees 2007 Really there wasn't much that I got excited about last decade about new bands but there were a couple that I followed. A Band Of Bees made Free The Bees, one of the lost classic albums of 2005 with bits of Pink Floyd here, Hawkwind there and good old fashioned Booker T And The MGs in others. The followup Octopus, sold about 40 copies in the US and though good wasn't as earthshaking as Free The Bees. This kinda sounds like The Moody Blues but without the mellotron.
8. Hellbound Train-Delta Moon 2010 New music from Tom Gray and company. Gray used to be the lead singer and keyboardist for New Wavers The Brains before they mutated with new personel and became The Georgia Satellites but by then Gray moved on, changed from keyboards to a National Steel Guitar and made five swamp rock blues albums with Mark Johnson to be known as Delta Moon and the new album shows that they still got that blues and boogie down inside them, although Delta Moon is more blues than boogie. I was very surprised to see that somebody actually had the new album in stock and it wasn't Best Buy. Thank you very much Moondog Music in Dubuque. Now if only somebody had the new Jason & The Scorchers and the Len Price 3 albums..............
9. Mama Let Him Play-Douchette 1977 Classic rock radio bores the fuck out of me. Overplayed songs that I never want to hear again and I switched to The FOX just in time for the ending of Wonderful Tonight by E.C and when I heard the opening chords of this song by Jerry Doucette I actually had a smile starting to form on my face. This song brings back memories of Gladstone-Parnell doing a cool cover of this when they played live and was the rage of Cedar Rapids back in 1980 but swore I never heard Douchette's version on radio back then. Hear it more nowadays than back then. Found the album at Goodwill and picked it up and that's the best song off that album, nothing else came close to rocking. Was on Mushroom Records. Douchette would record one more album and disappeared. Side note: K-Tel Records actually reissued Mama Let Him Play on CD back in the mid 90s under the ERA label and is a much sought after collector's item. And yeah, I used to have the CD long time ago. Wished I had it now but not going to pay 100 dollars for it via amazon.com. The vinyl will do.
10. Save Tonight-Eagle Eye Cherry 1998 Speaking of one hit wonders......This was the first and only top ten number from legendary jazz player Don Cherry's son and it has that jam band vibe that sounded a bit like Blues Traveler or Sister Hazel and still gets lots of airplay on 104.5 or Mix 96.5. Sold a ton of Desireless, EE Cherry's 1998 album for WORK/Sony but the majority of them are now at Goodwill or in the dump. A pretty good album come to think of it but EE Cherry would move on to make a couple albums for MCA, one is a import only since the US one didn't sell as good as Desireless. I'm sure it will be on one of those 90s compliations that Time Life is working on that you will see late night. Eagle Eye is the brother of Nenah Cherry, best known for her 1989 album Raw Like Sushi. And I'm sure can be found in the bargain bins of your local thrift store too.
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2 comments:
Hey Crabby. Don't know mosta yr Top 10 this time, but yr right about Boz -- "You've Got Some Imagination" is a lost classic & "It's Over" was pretty great (tho somehow I always thot it sounded better over the radio?). I was always a big fan of "Dinah Flo," which was sorta a hit 2wice, when it came out in '72 & again when Boz was a bigger deal in '80.
Keep crankin em out! -- TAD.
I had Middleman a long time ago and outside of Imgination, didn't like that much. I remember calling KRNA requesting that song and the bastards finally played it at the crack of dawn and I requested it around 10 PM. So ended up getting the album. That was the last time I ever requested a song from a radio station ever again.
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