Top Ten Of The Week-1/11/11 Or Don't Stop Believing

Since we won't this day and time ever again I thought I would make a very early special Top Ten Of The Week. Usually I do this on Wednesday but can't pass this up.

Some interesting spam comments, I did thought about putting that Russian shopping site up.

Much love and respect to Clyde Clifford and Beaker Street. If I owned a radio station I'd penciled in the 7 to Midnight slot for his show. It's been a long time staple down in Arkansas and thank God for the internet so I can hear it when I'm on Explorer.

More passing to tell you about. David Nelson, Rick's older brother and last living member of Ozzie & Harriet died from colon cancer at age 74. The Nelsons are all reunited in the great TV Land in the sky.

Pat Moran, sang for The 70's band Spring but more famous for producing and recording Robert Plant but also did work for Danny Wilde (Any Man's Hunger), The Searchers 2 albums for Sire Records, John Kilzer's second album for Geffen, Lou Gramm's Ready Or Not and The Questionnaires 1988 EMI album Window To The World died from longtime illness.

Phil Kennemore, bass player for Y & T from lung cancer. He was 57.

I got into a spirited conversation with a Steve Perry fan while making an observation about Perry's leaving the band in 1996. Supposely he was forced out of the band but couldn't play on the Trail By Fire 1996 tour due to Hip surgery. And basically made a comment that he may have been hard to get along with the other Journey members. And this woman accused me of disrespecting the guy. Far from it but then again Journey as always been a band of egos. Goes back to the mid 80s when it became The Steve Perry Band and having Ross Valory and Steve Smith removed out of the band in favor of Randy Jackson and Mike Baird for what would become the Raised On Radio CD. I guess around 2005 Perry approached Herbie Herbert to rejoin the band but Herbie was still miffed at Perry from the 1996 fiasco to which Steve Augeri took over. And later replaced by John Scott Soto then Arnel Pineda.

For the record Journey wouldn't be Journey without Steve Perry and that hi voice of his that shaped the albums Infinity up to Raised On Radio although anything after Escape I didn't get much into. I even thought Street Talk was actually better than Frontiers or ROR. Love Of Strange Medicine another story. I'm sure there's egos on both sides of the fence and Perry has refrained from slamming the other guys so I'll give him that. Before Perry, Journey was a fairly decent jam band but without a distinct singer (although I do enjoy all three of the before Perry albums mind you, especially Next), and what he gave that band was that distinct sound that sold records. People talk Escape the shining moment but for me, I think it was either Infinity or Evolution. I give him this, the man could sing back then.

The Top Ten Of The Week.

1. Fall Of The Peacemakers-Molly Hatchet 1983 Dedicated to Gabby Giffords and the people shot in Tucson last Saturday which killed six people plus a 9 year old girl. I haven't reported much on this tragedy here, I don't think anything I could say would even echo the sentiments of this Molly Hatchet classic written 27 years beforehand. How many times must good men die (or women), how many times will the children cry till we suffer no more sadness. Stop the madness. Stop the madness indeed.

2. Slow Ride-Foghat 1975 Overplayed classic time. And yes I play this from time to time, it sounded like a good idea to do it sunday night and I did. I perfer the live version myself but your opinion may vary. Probably one of the very few songs that has lead breathing on the bridge leading to Rowdy Rod Price go all out on guitar. I remember some big shot DJ passing out free 45's of this song at some high school dance I went to. My best friend got a copy. I didn't.

3. Hard Times In The Land Of Plenty-Omar & The Howlers 1987 Probably the best known song from Omar Dykes and company and I got to see the video on MTV back when MTV was playing music videos. Stevie Ray Vaughn played a role of getting Omar signed to Columbia (from what I heard) and they made two for that label before Omar returned to the independent music label scene. Omar plays a mean guitar and sounds a lot like Howlin Wolf. Which is why I like this guy.

4. Free-Chicago 1971 One for the pleasures of growing up is hearing all these new songs when they got played on AM radio back then AM radio was playing music instead of being the wasteland of hot air right wing radio and faux paus ESPN wanna be sports station. I perfer the Chicago of this era, plenty of horns and plenty of hot guitar playing from Terry Kath. I'm sure you miss those days too.

5. Green Onions-Roy Buchanan 1977 The guy can burn on guitar too. Heard this on an underground FM radio station to which Roy trades guitar leads with Steve Cropper and even gets Don Duck Dunn on bass too. But no Booker T on organ nor Al Jackson Jr on drums. David Garbardi plays drums instead and the organ is by Malcolm Lukens.

6. Hosannas From The Basement Of Hell-Killing Joke 2006 I've been meaning to get the new Killing Joke but have yet to find it anywhere in town. I heard bits and pieces of the new record and it's good but it nowhere near as great as Hosannas and the killer self titled track. This does sound like the end of the world.

7. Come Into My Life/29 Palms-Robert Plant 1993 The first track features the only meeting between Mr. Plant and Richard Thompson one of the best unknown guitarists out there. The second track is Plant's best showing on the rock charts and it still remains catchy and easy to sing to. Plant doesn't seem to be interested of going back to his band anytime soon.

8. Honest With Me-Bob Dylan 2001 Mr. Dylan was in a pretty jovial mood when he wrote this song and gets great backing from his band too.

9. Mighty Joe-The Shocking Blue 1970 Venus was their bread and butter and this was the followup which didn't do half as well. Band was never heard from again. Bought this 45 at the old Salvation Army in downtown Marion in the early 70s from an elderly lady who worked there and gave me a nickname of Record Boy. Forgot her name but she was a total sweetheart.

10. Doesn't Anybody Believe-The Sidewinders (Sand Rubies) 1990 Band from Tucson that had a minor hit with We Don't Do That Anymore and made two albums for RCA/Mammoth before being dropped by RCA and then got sued by a Top Forty Bar Band in NC for use of The Sidewinders name so they changed it to The Sand Rubies and continued to make music off and on for other labels (Ensign/Chysalis, Polydor/Atlas, Contingency, San Jacinto) .