Top Ten Of The Week-Sorry Joe Winters No Snow For You This Week

Well, our local weatherman is bitching about no snow on the ground and with about 10 days left he's very worried about a snowless Christmas.  Actually, we are in the middle of December and usually we do have about four or five inches of the white shit on the ground but at the moment it is raining instead. 

Anyway, the ratings look like this might be the biggest viewership here for all time and I'm sure my fine friends have have contributed greatly as one of their links on their sites.  We might crack over 1,250 views perhaps.  Still the ratings for the all time 10 best still bring them in and I'm getting more views of the Best Of 2009 over the Best Records of 2011???

Read something recent dammit! ;-)

The Top Ten Of The Week:

1.   Sock It To Me Santa-Bob Seger & The Last Heard 1966    Good for him to put The Little Drummer Boy on his brand new 2 CD Greatest Hits but to me I think Bob is shortchanging his rocking early years in favor of the Night Moves/Live Bullet era, which is classic but back in the 60's Seger's Cameo/Parkway stuff damn near out rock just about everything that came out of Detroit.  Grab a copy of Seven or Rambin Gamblin Man (the album) and Smokin OPs and you'll see what I mean.  Anyway, Real Gone Records has this on a Cameo Parkway Christmas album (which has too many crappy seasonal stuff for me to care) but I'm surprised that Allen Klein licensed this the Polygram back in the 1990s and this was on the cheap comp. A Rock And Roll Christmas which Rebound reissued it with a bonus George Thorogood track to beat.  Seger kinda rewrote Papa's Gotta Brand New Bag with the a faster bass line from Heavy Music.  Too bad Seger pussed out and didn't issued this on his best of.  And too bad KDAT or Mix 96.5 won't have the balls to play this either (but they'll torture you with back to back versions of Winter Wonderland).

2.   The Train-Ray Charles 1966   For years this was my favorite 45, yes it was the B Side to Let's Go Get Stoned but at that time I was a five year old and like the strange sounding choo choo train at the beginning and end of the song.  And I wore the grooves off this song, I think the 45 is retired in my dad's collection but he never plays it and it just takes up space I'm afraid.  Couldn't find a decent replacement copy so I ended up getting that 5 CD Complete ABC Singles that Concord issued this fall and it's finally great to hear this song without scratches and lost grooves.  I think my mom knew I love Ray Charles' music and therefore managed to get me a few of them but if she sat down and listen to the lyrics closely, she would have objected. They're very suggestive, but then again I was five years old and cared more about the grooves than the words.

3.   Christmas Lights-John Moreland & The Dust Bowl Souls 2011  The dude at 9 Bullets raved so much about the album Everything The Hard Way that this became my first ever album that I downloaded.  I really didn't know much about this Moreland, he reminded me of a cross of Springsteen and John Cafferty with a bit of Jay Farrar to boot.  This is not a Christmas song mind you but it's the best song off this album, to which it's supposed to come out on physical product next year.  The MP3 sound doesn't really do justice but by golly I beat the middle man in getting this from the net.  And it was only 5 bucks too.

4.  M.T.A.-The Kingston Trio 1959   I had a choice of a couple Kingston Trio songs to put up on this week's top ten but decided to go with this version in tribute to that folk band that I saw in Prescott back in the fall.  Came out on Capitol but Socialist prick Mike Curb has a best of Kingston Trio that I found in the 2 dollar bins a few years ago and brought that.  True, it's all original recordings back when Curb had distribution from Capitol and reissued some best ofs from the likes of Kingston Trio, Peter & Gordon and Bob Welch to name a few.  But thankfully never recorded for the asshole Curb.  BTW, congratulations to Tim McGraw for finally getting away from Mike Curb and can now record and put out the record when he wants to.

5.  Ins & Outs-Cinderblock 1992  Another unknown band that probably isn't worth the time nor effort to tell you about.  Sounded somewhat like Uncle Tupleo and Pavement and made one album for Restless called Cinderblock Greatest Hits, basically figuring they were going to be a one and done deal.  And they were.

6.  Never Heal Myself-Cults 2011  Sounds like Lesley Gore with Phil Spector if you ask me.  This band getting great kudos and reviews and making on some people's best of 2011.

7.  Going To Move Across The River-Bill Pickney & The Original Drifters 1989  Drifters had a nice heyday in the 50's and 60s but then The Beatles came across the pond, and Motown and Memphis came a calling with their soul music, the doo wop and R and B bands got forgotten although the Drifters managed to hang on to being on Atlantic till around 1969.  Like the Clovers, The Drifters with their various lineups managed to eek out a living on the casino circuit.  This song comes to us via Ripete's 4 CD Beach Music Anthology which managed to get original R and B recordings but also adding some newer stuff.   There are no liner notes and there's not indication where Ripete Records is at although I'm guessing that Charly Records had something to do with this.  You remember Charly Records do you?  They were a import label that managed to reissue some pretty nifty stuff via Chess or Vee Jay or whatever came to mind but they always avoided the major labels in terms of royalties until they were put out of business via Universal around the mid 90s.  BTW, there are no more original Drifters living anymore. Pickney passed away in 2007 at the age of 81.

8.  Paranoia Blues-Paul Simon 1972   After the success of Bridge Over Troubled Waters, Simon decided to go in a different direction, leaving Art Garfunkel behind in the making of his first album which if you go past the hit singles of Mother And Child Reunion and Me & Julio Down By The Schoolyard, that the rest of the album is a whole left turn.  Lotta acoustic blues and off the wall stuff.  The Paul Simon reissue gives you a couple demos and a alternative version of this song which I think could have worked just as well on the LP.

9.  One Two Three-Ramsey Lewis 1966   B Side to Down By The Riverside and a 45 that I got for 9 cents at Ben Franklin up in Waterloo around 1967 I believe.  Ramsey lost his rhythm section to Young/Holt Unlimited and replaced them with Cleveland Eaton on bass and Maurice White on drums.  I  am guessing that it is Young doing the jive vocals which gives this Len Berry a certain charm and Boogaloo as they would say.  Maurice White was a in demand drummer for a lot of Chess artists (Etta James and Billy Stewart comes to mind) but he would eventually move on to start up a certain band you all know and love known as Earth, Wind & Fire.

10.   No No Song-Ringo Starr 1974  Hoyt Axton wrote it and had Cheech & Chong in the middle eight temptation but Ringo got the hit and the Richard Perry production to boot.  But basically this is Ringo telling the world that No No No he won't give you no more autographs, he's tired of seeing them being sold on EBAY.    In terms of being around so long, that only he and Paul Mac are still around.  And Ringo's got a new album coming out next year which means that he'll get some aging guest stars to join him.  Wonder if old Sheryl Crow will find a spot on that album.  Just wondering.