Top Ten Of The Week-Despite Blizzards The Top Ten Must Go On

After a uneventful January, the first of February gave us the BLIZZARD OF THE CENTURY.  But neither ice, snow or ten below will stop THE TOP TEN OF THE WEEK.  Kick out the jams to that mutherfucka.

1.  Stranded-Manfred Mann Earth Band 1980  What better song to start out this week is this ode to being stuck in a ditch during a blizzard in the great state of Iowa by a band that's never been here?  From their problematic album Chance, famous for not only another Bruce Springsteen cover but a cover of Tom Gray's Heat In The Street.  Tom Gray of The Brains mind you.   Trevor Rabin co produced this.

2.  Mother Freedom-Bread 1971  Much maligned for their soft rock top ten hits, David Gates could rock out and this is probably the most heaviest rock songs that Bread ever did.  But then again, I do like their ballads although their albums were spotty (Liked On The Waters, Baby I'm A Want You, didn't care much for Manna or Lost Inside Your Love).  The late Mike Botts helluva of a drummer.

3.  Baby Step Back-Gordon Lightfoot 1982  This charted although I never heard it on the radio.  Gordon more famous for Early Morning Rain or Sundown but by the time the 80s came around his albums sold enough for him to make another album.  Wounded Bird Records reissued most of his Reprise/WB albums last year.  This is off Shadows, a very underrated album.


4.  Banana Boat (Day O) Stan Freberg 1957  Music satirist, Freberg is a cult artist at best.  Long ago, he worked for Warner Brothers Cartoons and actually was the voice of Pete Puma in a Bugs Bunny cartoon and a few others.  But I heard this version in a local puppet show, can't think of the name but they used this song as a skit.  Harry Belifonte didn't care much for this parody.  I think Stan's best moments when he did the Joe Friday parodies, he actually got the Walter Schmann from Dragnet to score the music on a couple sections.

5. Every Generation Got Its Own Disease-Fury In The Slaughterhouse 1993  Their biggest hit.  They came from Germany and made a few albums to which BMG issued two of them in the states.  The first Mono was the better of the two and can be found in dollar bins at your local junk shop.

6.  Commercial Rain-Inspiral Carpets 1990  Forgotten band part of the Madchester Music Scene I guess, best known for their shoegazer alt music but with a keyboard sound that hakens back to the 60's and The Doors.

7.  She Lives In A Time Of Her Own-The Judybats 1991  Another band you see in the dollar bins, The Judybats made two listenable albums before losing their female background singer and their identity in the progress.   Their meddling label forced them to do this Roky Erickson cover and it turned out to be their best song. They made two more albums for Sire but it sounded like 3rd rate Samples or DMB.

8.  Games People Play (They Just Can't Stop It)-The Spinners 1975  In my wild youth I actually was more into the R & B out there and The Spinners always made great music.  This was one of those songs although I think I enjoyed it more now than I did back then.  Phillippe Wynne excellent singer, once he left, The Spinners were never the same.

9.   Piano Nellie-Bobby Brant 1958  If you follow my blog this was a repeat from the lost songs earlier in the week but I had to repost this again.  Actually known as Bobby Poe, he made a few rockabilly singles on White Rock before changing his name to Brant and made this wild rockabilly number that wouldn't sound out of place at Sun Records.  The piano player was Big Al Downing who would go rock on with Wanda Jackson on her Capitol singles later and then Downing has a somewhat successful career as a black country and western singer.  This song does sound like lot The Blasters, I'm surprised they didn't cover this song.

10.  Snowblind-Black Sabbath 1972  I thought this song pretty much sums up everything about this blizzard.  Although I'm sure Ozzy wasn't singing about snow.  Or was he?