Category: Bands

Max Picks …songs from 1989

1989

Tom Petty – Free Fallin’

Free Fallin’ may be the song he is most remembered by. Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne wrote and recorded “Free Fallin’” in just two days, the first song completed for Full Moon Fever. “We had a multitude of acoustic guitars,” Petty told Rolling Stone of the song’s Byrds-y feel. “So it made this incredibly dreamy sound.”

Tom Petty: “There’s not a day that goes by that someone doesn’t hum ‘Free Fallin” to me or I don’t hear it somewhere,”  “But it was really only 30 minutes of my life.”

Replacements – I’ll Be You

My favorite band of the 1980s. I was so amazed to hear The Replacements on mainstream radio at this time. This was the closest the Replacements came to having a “hit.” It peaked at #51 on the Billboard 100 and #1 on the Modern Rock Charts in 1989. The song did expand its audience with younger kids coming to see them without knowing their back catalog. This was an annoyance to some of the band members who some nights didn’t play I’ll Be You.

The line, “Left a Rebel without a clue” was later borrowed by Tom Petty into his hit, “Into the Great Wide Open,” in 1991. The Replacements opened up for Petty in his 1989 tour with the Heartbreakers.

Roy Orbison – You Got It

Roy was making a great comeback in the late eighties. He was a member of the Traveling Wilburys and he finished a new album called Mystery Girl in November of 1988. He confided in Johnny Cash that he was having chest pains and he would have to have it looked at…he never did.

The Traveling Wilburys Vol 1 was rising in the charts and he flew to Europe to do a show and came back and did a few more in America. On December 6, 1988, he flew model planes with his kids and after dinner passed away at the age of 52.

I remember watching the Traveling Wilburys video “End of the Line”. They made the video after Roy passed away… when his part came up they showed an empty rocking chair with Roy’s picture beside it.

You Got It featured Jeff Lynn, Tom Petty, and Phil Jones.

Bonnie Raitt – A Thing Called Love

Thing Called Love was written by John Hiatt for his 1987 album Bring the Family. Bonnie covered this song for her 1989 Nick of Time album.  

Nick of Time was Bonnie Raitt’s breakthrough album. After years of endless touring and making albums it all paid off with this album.

This is the song that really got me into the newer version Bonnie Raitt. I did like her earlier hit Runaway and I’d heard of her music and read about her. She paid her dues and I was happy to see her hit big. She is an extremely gifted slide guitar player and singer.

Neil Young – Rockin’ In The Free World

This is from our favorite Canadian Neil Young. It surprised me that this was released in 1989. I remember it the most in the 90s.
This was inspired by the political changes going on at the time, and was highly critical of George Bush Sr. Some of the lyrics mock Bush’s campaign speeches: “We got 1,000 points of light, for the homeless man,” “We got a kinder, gentler machine gun hand.”

Rocking In A Free World was written in February 1989, as Neil Young toured the Pacific Northwest. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini had just issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Salman Rushdie because of his controversial novel The Satanic Verses and Russia had recently withdrawn its forces from Afghanistan.

Pearl Jam has performed this song from time to time with Young, who said that Neil is their musical mentor. The first time they performed it together was at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards, where the “Jeremy” video won four awards. Young came on as a surprise guest.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd – On The Hunt

Sometimes as a guitar player, you come up with a riff that you know is good…this riff must have made Allen Collins happy when he thought of it. 

It was released on their third album Nothin’ Fancy in 1975. The album was produced by Al Kooper who signed the band and produced their first three albums. Near the end of the sessions, it was decided that Kooper would leave and not produce them anymore. The sessions were tense so he told them he would rather be their friend than their producer so they parted on good terms. 

They premiered the song live in Paris in 1974. Nothin’ Fancy was not one of their best albums but did contain some staples for them. Saturday Night Special, Whiskey Rock-a-Roller, and this song On The Hunt. Allen Collins and Ronnie Van Zant wrote this song in 1974. 

Bob Burns and Artimus Pyle

Right before this album it was decided that the drummer Bob Burns needed to part from the band. He was getting more erratic personally. He had some mental issues that the large amount of drugs and drinking certainly didn’t help. The worst occasion was when he went to see the Exorcist. After he saw that he started to see demons everywhere. While in England he was in the 3rd or 4th floor and threw the hotel’s cat out of the window. He thought the cat was the devil himself. The other band members, even the tough Ronnie Van Zant, were not comfortable around him. 

They called up Charlie Daniels and asked him if he knew any drummers, so Daniels told them about Artimus Pyle so he joined. No doubt about it, Pyle was a better drummer but he also fit the band perfectly at that time. Pyle had been marking time and making friends as a session drummer for the likes of both Marshall Tucker and The Charlie Daniels Band. Pyle was a former Marine, a health enthusiast,  and a Vegan for the most part. He wasn’t all natural though. He would normally take LSD while they were flying and staying at hotels. 

The biggest problem with making the album was that they did not have the time to write the songs and arrange them before they recorded them. On their previous two albums, they had that luxury….even the solos were planned out in every song. The record company wanted something now so they had to write in the studio. 

Now that many reviewers have looked back on the album…it has got favorable reviews now. As I have said before…they only released 5 studio albums (not counting one after the crash that had their pre-fame material on it) and three of them would be classic albums. Two of them would be very good…other rock bands at the time would have taken this album and loved it. Their live album released in 1976 is one of the best in rock. It shows the band in great form…the one who opened up for the Stones and made a statement at the 1976 Knebworth event. 

Al Kooper: Each record got harder to make, and on the third record [Nuthin’ Fancy]we really battled it out and it was getting dangerous in terms of our friendship. At the last day of the third record, I told them that I didn’t want to produce them anymore — that I would rather be their friend than their producer. I think they had suffered as much as I had and were glad to hear that.

The third album was a very tough album to make because they didn’t have the preparatory time that they had on the first two albums. For instance, the guitar solos were not composed. They were made up in the studio.

On The Hunt

I said baby mama, I don’t know your name
But I said baby, sugar I can play your game
Every night when we leave the hall
I see you hanging around
You wanna ride in my big black car baby
Wanna go uptown

[Chorus]
I know who you are baby
I know what they call you girl
Never put you down baby
I’m just like you baby, I’m on the hunt

I know lady
People gonna talk about you and me
Let me say one thing mama, sugar I do as I please
And if you wanna love me baby, I’m your man
And all those high-falutin’ society people
I don’t care if they don’t undertand

[Chorus]

My daddy told me a long time ago
Said there’s two things son
Two things you should know
And in these two things you must take pride
That’s a horse and woman, yeah
Well both of them you ride

Max Picks …songs from 1988

1988

Three albums shaped this year for me. One was by The Traveling Wilburys, U2, and the other was by Keith Richards..

Traveling Wilburys – Handle With Care

This was the hit that kicked the Wilburys project off the ground. George Harrison and Jeff Lynne started the ball rolling… Initially an informal grouping with Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, they got together at Bob Dylan’s Santa Monica, California studio to quickly record an additional track as a B-side for the single release of Harrison’s song This Is Love. This was the song they came up with, which the record company immediately realized was too good to be released as a single B side. They also recorded “You Got It” at the session, which helped convince them to record an album together.

The title Handle With Care came when George Harrison saw the phrase on the side of a cardboard box in the studio.

Tom Petty on Bob Dylan: “There’s nobody I’ve ever met who knows more about the craft of how to put a song together than he does. I learned so much from just watching him work. He has an artist’s mind and can find in a line the keyword and think how to embellish it to bring the line out. I had never written more words than I needed, but he tended to write lots and lots of verses, then he’ll say, this verse is better than that, or this line. Slowly this great picture emerges. He was very good in The Traveling Wilbury’s: when somebody had a line, he could make it a lot better in big ways.”

 

Steve Earl – Copperhead Road

Brilliant song by Steve Earle. I became a fan of  Steve Earle when I heard “I Ain’t Never Satisfied” off of the Exit 0 album. Copperhead Road was an actual road near Mountain City, Tennessee. It has since been renamed Copperhead Hollow Road, owing to the theft of road signs bearing the song’s name.

What is interesting is Earle tells a story of three generations, of three different eras, and shows how they intersect all in one song. Earle himself called the album the world’s first blend of heavy metal and bluegrass.

U2 – Angel Of Harlem

This song has an old feel and a lot of power. It was on the Rattle and Hum album. I’ve talked to many U2 fans who don’t like the album a lot but it is my favorite album the band did. It broke a little from their previous albums. The Edge backed off the reverb and delay some on this album. They traded their “new wave” sound for Americana and I loved it. Rattle and Hum is very rootsy and raw. For me and I’m sure I’m in the minority…this song was one of the best singles of the 80s. I could hear Van Morrison doing this. This song is what made me go back and listen to the rest of their catalog. This album is not The Joshua Tree Part II…they go down a different path like great bands do.

The “Angel of Harlem” is Billie Holiday, a Jazz singer who moved to Harlem as a teenager in 1928. She played a variety of nightclubs and became famous for her spectacular voice and ability to move her audience to tears. She dealt with racism, drug problems, and bad relationships for most of her life, and her sadness was often revealed in her songs. She died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1959 at age 44.

Angel of Harlem was recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis.

 

Tracy Chapman – Fast Car

When I heard this song it sounded so different than other songs at the time. It’s a well-written song lyrically and musically that has a folk feel to it. It could have been a hit in any era… the lyrics got my attention. While they’re standing in the welfare lines / crying at the doorsteps of those armies of salvation / wasting time in the unemployment lines / sitting around waiting for a promotion.

The song remains one of my favorites from that era. I always thought this song was an instant classic. It could have been released in 1973.

A still unknown Tracy Chapman was booked to appear down the bill at the Nelson Mandela birthday concert at Wembley Stadium on June 11, 1987. She had no reason to think her appearance would be the catalyst for a career breakthrough. After performing several songs from her self-titled debut during the afternoon, Chapman thought she’d done her bit and could relax and enjoy the rest of the concert.

That would not be the case… later in the evening, Stevie Wonder was delayed when the computer discs for his performance went missing, and Chapman was ushered back onto the stage again. In front of a huge prime-time audience, she performed “Fast Car” alone with her acoustic guitar. Afterward, the song raced up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

Keith Richards – Take It So Hard

When I heard this song with the opening riff coming from that 5-string G turning that he is known for I loved it. I bought the album Talk is Cheap which some reviews half-jokingly called the best Rolling Stones album in years (It WAS!). The song got plenty of play on rock stations at the time. It peaked at #3 in the Mainstream Rock Tracks. The album was recorded in a period when Mick and Keith were feuding with each other about the direction of the Stones. They were not recording or playing live. “You Don’t Move Me Anymore” off of the album points right at Mick.

Personally, I’ve always liked Keith’s voice. Happy, Salt of the Earth, You Got the Silver, and Before They Make Me Run rank among my favorite Stones songs. This song would fit on any Stones album.

Max Picks …songs from 1987

1987

I listened to the radio in 1987 a little more than in the previous 3 years or so. The albums that really got my attention were George Harrison’s Cloud Nine and the Replacements album that’s one of my favorites of the 1980s…Please To Meet Me… it was recorded in the Memphis studio where Big Star recorded. It was also the year of the Grateful Dead…a huge top-ten album and single.

Grateful Dead – Touch Of Grey

I knew of the Grateful Dead from an older brother of a friend I had. I had heard of them as a kid in the seventies before I actually heard them. I knew some of their songs and the Garcia song Sugaree. I always pictured this heavy tough metal band with a name like that. Whenever they toured they would draw a massive amount of fans despite having no top ten hits…until this song. After this song, they drew a larger amount of attention and fans.

When this came out in the 80s, it was like Deadmania. With MTV  suddenly everyone was talking about them. While big success is great it did cause some trouble at some of their concerts. Chilled-out Deadheads followed them around the country for decades. Some financed their travels by hawking food, T-shirts, and handicrafts…not to mention pot and LSD usually peacefully. Through the years more would add to the fold…some described it as a giant community more than a regular concert. In 1987 they suddenly had an influx of new young fans (Touchheads) and some didn’t know what the band was about. Along with them came some gate crashers and riots.

With the backing of the band, older Deadheads handed out flyers on how to act, trying to mellow out the newer crowd.

Robert Hunter started writing the lyrics to this song in 1980, and the Grateful Dead first performed it in 1982. They played it sporadically over the next few years and finally recorded it for their 1987 album In The Dark.

George Harrison – We We Was Fab

I loved this song when I heard it. To hear George sing about his time with The Beatles surprised me. Of all the Beatles George seemed to have the most resentment and some of it was understandable. A few years after this he would join the remaining Beatles and start on The Beatles Anthology. George wanted Paul to be in this video but Paul was tied up at the time. He asked George to put a left-handed bass player in the video with a walrus mask and tell everyone it was him.

George co-wrote the song with Jeff Lynne, who also co-produced the album that shortly pre-dates the two of them forming The Traveling Wilburys. ‘When We Was Fab’ is a musical nod to the psychedelic sound that the Beatles had made their own. George used a sitar, string quartet, and backward tape effects.

He also got some help from Ringo. Starr played drums on this track and a few others on the album. Harrison says that when he started writing the song, he had Ringo’s drumming in mind for the intro and the overall tempo

Replacements – Alex Chilton

The Replacement’s tribute song about Big Star and Box Tops lead singer, Alex Chilton. The song was off the album Please To Meet Me. One of my favorite bands of all time singing about a singer in one of my favorite bands. This would be my number 1 song of 1987.

The Replacements recorded Pleased To Meet Me in Memphis at Ardent Studios, the same studio as Big Star. The man behind the board was Jim Dickinson, who produced the storied third   Big Star album. Alex came into the studio a few times while the Replacements were working on the record (and laid down a guitar fill for “Can’t Hardly Wait”), but the band avoided the awkwardness of playing “Alex Chilton” whenever Chilton was around.

R.E.M. – It’s The End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

This song came off of the great Document album. With some REM songs, it takes a few listens for me but this one… the first time was enough to know I really liked it. It was recorded in the Sound Emporium in Nashville, Tennessee. The song peaked at #69 in 1988. The song was inspired by  Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan and you can tell.

Michael Stipe said: “The words come from everywhere. I’m extremely aware of everything around me, whether I am in a sleeping state, awake, dream-state or just in day to day life. There’s a part in ‘It’s The End Of The World As We Know It’ that came from a dream where I was at Lester Bangs’ birthday party and I was the only person there whose initials weren’t L.B. So there was Lenny Bruce, Leonid Brezhnev, Leonard Bernstein… So that ended up in the song along with a lot of stuff I’d seen when I was flipping TV channels. It’s a collection of streams of consciousness.”   

Los Lobos – La Bamba

This band had been around a long time before this song came out. They formed in 1973 and released their first album in 1978. They opened for bands such as The Clash and The Blasters so they got exposed to a lot of different audiences.

They recorded some Ritchie Valens covers for the movie La Bamba and their cover of the title track made them known internationally. The song was number 1 almost everywhere including the US, Canada, the UK, and New Zealand.

Max Picks …songs from 1986

1986

Crowded House – Something So Strong

It was love at first listen to this song. They had another hit that was larger in Don’t Dream It’s Over but this song is a perfect pop song. The lyric “bring life to frozen ground” still stands out to me and I cannot hear this song enough. As far as pop songs go it’s hard to beat this New Zealand band.

The song dates back to 1984 when Neil Finn did a demo of the song. He was still in Split Enz at that time. They split in 1985 so Finn and drummer Paul Hester formed Crowded House.

The song was written by Neil Finn and  Mitchell Froom.

R.E.M. – Fall On Me

A musician friend of mine invited me over to listen to this album. We must have played it 5 times through by nighttime.

Bill Berry (drummer) said the song was specifically about Acid Rain, which occurs when the burning of fossil fuels releases sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere, causing rain to be acidic and threatening the environment.

Michael Stipe said about the song: “I was reading an article in Boston when I was on tour with the Golden Palominos, and Chris Stamey showed me this article about this guy that did an experiment from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, whereby he dropped a pound of feathers and a pound of iron to prove that there was… a difference in the… density? What did he prove? I don’t even know. They fall just as fast.”

Steve Earle – Someday

Ever since I heard him in the mid to late 80s I liked Steve Earle. He opened up for Bob Dylan in 1988 and he was fantastic. His music was between country, folk, and rock. You can’t really put Earle in a box…and you shouldn’t. I’ve read reviewers compare him to Randy Newman, Bruce Springsteen, and Waylon Jennings in the same review. That is a great span of artists.

The song is about escaping the town you are living in. I knew a lot of people who wanted to escape the small town I grew up in. The song reminds me a little of The River by Bruce Springsteen in content. It’s a song that many people will be able to relate to.

The song was from his debut album Guitar Town. I remember he was being played on country radio and WKDF…Nashville’s number-one rock station back in the 80s. The album is ranked 489 on Rolling Stone Magazine’s top 500 albums. They called it a rocker’s version of country.

Georgia Satellites – Keep Your Hands To Yourself

A friend of mine who played guitar in high school got a bootleg of this song a year before it was officially released. His band was playing in the gym before we went on and they played this song. I thought they wrote it until I asked him. It’s a great-sounding song live.

It was an instant bar band song classic. It was a song you didn’t really have to rehearse…just one listen would do it. We learned it in one take… and again it was one of only a handful of times that we played a song in the top ten at the time. This is the kind of music I missed in the mainstream during the mid to late eighties.

This was the only big hit for the Georgia Satellites, although lead singer Dan Baird had a hit as a solo artist in 1992 with “I Love You Period.” They didn’t have another big hit but they did have some songs that got airplay on radio and MTV like Battleship Chains and a cover of Hippy Shake. This was one of the few straight-out rock and roll songs to hit the charts at this time.

Dwight Yoakam – Guitars, Cadillacs

Buck Owens made the Bakersville sound popular and it’s one of my favorite types of country. Yoakam and Steve Earle came out at around the same time and they were not like everyone else (George Jones has a funny quote about that at the bottom). They were a breath of fresh air in country music and they crossed over genres as well. They essentially brought the country back to being country and not southern rock pop with a twang.

It was released in 1986 and was the second single off of his debut album Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc. This song was written by Dwight Yoakam. Pete Anderson (producer) was a huge help in the making of the album. He provided some ideas music-wise, played the guitar, and even sang background vocals.

George Jones: ‘We spent all these years trying not to be called hillbillies, and Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle fucked it up in one day.’”

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Max Picks …songs from 1985

1985

This was an important year for me. It was the year I graduated from high school and I got into surf and alternative music. The pop charts were dismal to me so I turned to my records, tapes, and alternative radio stations. If I listed what I listened to in 1985…it would be Beatles, Jan and Dean, Beach Boys, Van Morrison, and The Who. There still were some things I listened to on the charts as you see down below.

Replacements – Bastards Of Young

This is a lost anthem of the eighties that should have been taken up by my generation. Just because a song isn’t heard by the masses doesn’t mean it isn’t great. Westerberg’s songwriting in the 1980s rivaled any artist in that decade…including Springsteen.

This song starts with a raw cool riff and a scream…how much more rock and roll can you get? The lyrics are what got me into this song in the 80s. The song was on the album Tim released in 1985. It was produced by Tommy Ramone. Alex Chilton also helped out with the album.

It has no giant 80’s production…it’s raw and honest about youthful uncertainty and alienation.

Dire Straits – Money For Nothing

This was the first video played on MTV Europe. The network went on the air on August 1, 1987, six years after MTV in the US… This was back when MTV (Music Television) actually played music but now has questionable shows.

The clipped guitar sound won me over the first time I heard this.

In the US, this stayed at #1 for three weeks. It also won a Grammy in 1986 for best Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group.

Dire Straits recorded this in Montserrat. Sting was on vacation there and came by to help. Sting sings on this and helped write it…Sting and Knophler were credited as songwriters. Sting did not want a songwriting credit, but his record company did because they would have earned royalties from it. It’s been said that the line “I Want My MTV” sounded very similar to a song Sting wrote for The Police: “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.”…well the same amount of syllables anyway.

Tom Petty – Don’t Come Around Here No More

When I first heard this song in the 1980s…the instrument that stood out was the sitar. I’ve been in love with that instrument since I heard Norwegian Wood. I want one and if I find a cheap one I will get it. One strum and you are back in the sixties and it fit this song well…or this song fits the sitar.

After Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers toured in 1983, they took some time off, and Petty started working with Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics. This was the first song they wrote together, and the psychedelic sound was a big departure from Petty’s work with The Heartbreakers.

It was at the time, my favorite video hands down.

The Smiths – How Soon Is Now? –

This intro is just plain epic. The Smiths had difficulty playing this song live. Johnny Marr had trouble recreating the guitar effect in concert. The tremolo is perfect in this song.

Bassist, Andy Rourke, called the song “the bane of The Smiths’ live career.”

This incredible song was the B side to William, It Was Really Nothing. It was on the album Hatful of Hollow. The album was a compilation album released in 1984 and Q magazine placed the album at No. 44 on its list of the “100 Greatest British Albums Ever.”

John Fogerty – Centerfield

Near spring training every year I listen to John Fogerty’s Centerfield. This was John Fogerty’s comeback after being away from the charts since 1975.

Along with “Talkin’ Baseball” and “Take Me Out To The Ballgame,” this quickly became one of the most popular baseball songs ever. It’s a fixture at ballparks between innings of games and plays at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

John Fogerty: “I’d hear about Ruth and DiMaggio, and as my dad and older brothers talked about the Babe’s exploits, their eyes would get so big. When I was a little kid, there were no teams on the West Coast, so the idea of a Major League team was really mythical to me. The players were heroes to me as long as I can remember.”

“It is about baseball, but it is also a metaphor about getting yourself motivated, about facing the challenge of one thing or another at least at the beginning of an endeavor. About getting yourself all ready, whatever is necessary for the job.”

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Max Picks …songs from 1984

1984

We have some mega hits this year and some alternative hits.

Prince – Purple Rain – This is the song that really made me a Prince fan. I will always say that I liked his Around the World in a Day the best but the title song of Purple Rain is great.

Prince and his peers such as Bruce Springsteen, Madonna, and Michael Jackson were the artists who defined the decade of the 1980s in the top 40. In the late 70s my sister had a single that I would listen to. It was called “I Wanna Be Your Lover” and I didn’t pay attention to the artist. Later on, around the time Purple Rain came out…I looked at the single again and was surprised to see it was Prince. He had chart success before this but this album and movie broke him out internationally.

R.E.M – So. Central Rain – The song was on their Reckoning album released in 1984. REM. avoided the sophomore slump with Reckoning. It’s hard to beat this song as the first single off the album. I always thought So. Central Rain stands as one of the group’s most melodic songs.

The band chose to work with Murmur producers Don Dixon and Mitch Easter. They recorded the album in just a few weeks. Peter Buck told Rolling Stone magazine:  “We were going through this streak where we were writing two good songs a week, We just wanted to do it; whenever we had a new batch of songs, it was time to record!”

Stevie Ray Vaughan – Voodoo Child (Slight Return) – Around this time is when I noticed SRV. I heard his guitar playing in songs and then watched him later on Austin City Limits. His guitar playing was on another level. I’d never seen anyone that aggressive on guitar. I was never a huge fan of many of his songs but I was of his guitar playing. He did an excellent cover of this song.

He covers a Jimi Hendrix song here. This song is like an atom bomb going off. From the first words “Well, I stand up next to a mountain and I chop it down with the edge of my hand” you know Stevie means business.

The song was on his second album Couldn’t Stand The Weather.

The Replacements – I Will Dare -I Will Dare was released in 1984 as an independent single and then included on their Let It Be album. I loved this song in the 80s and after hearing it in the past weeks…it was like the first time I listened to it. Peter Buck from REM is playing the intro to this song.  Paul Westerberg wrote the song and plays mandolin. The Replacements were my top band of the 80s bar none.

Let It Be was the third full album by the band’s original lineup: lead singer and songwriter Paul Westerberg, guitarist Bob Stinson, bassist Tommy Stinson, and drummer Chris Mars.

This song should have cracked the top 40 but it didn’t…mostly because they were on a small  Minneapolis record label named Twin/Tone.

Bruce Springsteen – Born In The USA – Springsteen wrote this about the problems Vietnam veterans encountered when they returned to America. Vietnam was the first war the US didn’t officially win, and while veterans of other wars received a hero’s welcome, those who fought in Vietnam were mostly ignored when they returned to their homeland.

The other song that has someone really ripping the vocals is “Twist and Shout” sung by John Lennon with the Beatles. I remember back in the 80s Chrysler offered Springsteen $12 million to use this in an ad campaign with Bruce… Springsteen turned them down so they used “The Pride Is Back” by Kenny Rogers instead. Springsteen never let his music be used to sell products at that time.

I knew a couple of Springsteen fanatics before this album came out. They loved everything Bruce but after this album…they wanted nothing to do with him. Why? Because he wasn’t their secret anymore. For me, I guess it would be like if Big Star had hit huge…but I would love it!

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The Inmates

CB and I were emailing each other and he sent me a few links to this band. They were a great British pub band that formed in 1977. They got together after the split of another band named The Flying Tigers. As CB and I have done these…I usually give you a “sample platter” of them and later on I’ll concentrate on one song at a time in a later post. This should introduce you to them.

The first thing I noticed was how good their songs sound. Many pub bands I’ve heard have a muddy sound to them but this band sounded clear and great. I do remember one of their songs…it was a cover of the Standells Dirty Water. Their producer until 1989 was a guy named Vic Maile who helped shape their overall sound. He was a winner…he worked with artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, The Pirates,  Hawkwind, Motörhead, The Godfathers, The Kinks, Small Faces, Dr. Feelgood, Girlschool, and the Deep Fix. Most of those bands I’ve covered.

They released nine studio albums and three live ones between 1979 and 2008. They were considered a Pub band but you also hear a lot of that great 1960s garage sound in lead singer Bill Hurly’s voice. They remind me of pre-Godfathers…they take no prisoners and come right at you. Their songs are rough and raw but their melodic and catchy at the same time. Their choice of covers is quite interesting. They pick many songs you wouldn’t think.

They also made a tribute live album to the Beatles called The Inmates Meet The Beatles: Live In Paris. They did it in their style and made the songs their own which is a great way of doing it. They even managed to take one of the very few Beatles songs I don’t like and turned it on its head. I like their version of it…Little Child.

Enough of me babbling on…let’s listen to the Inmates. I’ll start off with one that you should know. I do remember this song and this version. Their first album First Offence peaked at #40 on the Billboard Album Charts. The song Dirty Water peaked at #51. I’ve included songs from their first three albums.

The next song is a cover of a song called The Walk by Jimmy McCracklin and His Band originally released in 1958.

This song is Sweet Rain off of their  2nd album Shot in the Dark released in 1980. I can hear a lot of Them in this one. The guitar in this has an older sixties feel. This was the B-Side to the song below.

This song is the A-Side to Sweet Rain called Stop, It Baby off of their  2nd album Shot in the Dark released in 1980. It jumps and moves…very catchy.

This one called She’s Gone Rockin’ was off of their third album Heatwave in Alaska It was released in 1982.

 

Max Picks …songs from 1983

After this year, my fandom with The Replacements and REM began to accelerate because of the top 40. There is still some great top 40 coming but alternative music started to make more of an impression on me.

1983

U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday – Of all the U2 songs this one is probably on the top of my list right beside Angel of Harlem. The drum pattern sounds like they are marching off to battle. It’s raw and you can hear the conviction in what Bono is singing. The Edge’s guitar is crunchy and perfect. The drum beat was composed by Larry Mullen Jr. It was recorded in a staircase of their Dublin recording studio because producer Steve Lillywhite was trying to get a full sound with natural reverb.

“Bloody Sunday” was a term given to an incident, which took place on 30th January 1972 in Derry, Northern Ireland where British Soldiers shot 28 unarmed civilians who were peacefully protesting against Operation Demetrius. Thirteen were killed outright, while another man lost his life four months later due to injuries. It was reported that many of the victims who were fleeing the scene were shot at point-blank range.

The first person to have addressed these events musically was John Lennon who composed “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and released it on his third Solo album “Sometime In New York City”. His version of the song directly expresses his anger towards the massacre

David Bowie – Modern Love – This was my favorite song off of the Let’s Dance album released in 1983.

Stevie Ray Vaughan played guitar on this song. Bowie asked him to play on the Let’s Dance album after seeing him perform at a music festival.

David Bowie and Nile Rodgers wrote this song.  Modern Love peaked at #14 in the Billboard 100, #2 in Canada, #2 in the UK, and #6 in New Zealand in 1983. The album was also produced by Bowie and Rodgers.

Nile Rodgers said that Bowie came into his apartment one day and showed him a photograph of Little Richard in a red suit getting into a bright red Cadillac, saying “Nile, darling, that’s what I want my album to sound like.”

How cool is that?

John Mellencamp – Pink Houses -I remember this song well but I also remember the MTV giveaway contest “Paint The Mutha Pink”. Oh yes, you could win a free house in Indiana where Mellencamp was from…a pink one of course! MTV got a good deal on the first house…20,000 dollars…there was a reason for that. It was across the street from a toxic dump. MTV then had to get another house and they finally did and gave it away. Susan Miles won the house along with a pink jeep and a garage full of Hawaiian Punch…not sure how that factored in.

According to a 1991 article in the Herald times online, it turned out that Susan Miles had only kept the house long enough to reap some tax advantages from owning a property. She never actually lived in the house. She went back to Bellevue, Washington after the contest was over.

Inspiration for this song came when Mellencamp was driving on Interstate 65 in Indianapolis. As described in the first verse, he saw a black man sitting in a lawn chair just watching the road. The image stuck with Mellencamp, who wasn’t sure if the man should be pitied because he was desolate, or admired. After all, he was happy.

MTV Contest

Big Country – Big Country – I love the drums in this song…they are so BIG…no pun intended. In America, this was their only song that hit big. Stuart Adamson was inspired to write “In A Big Country” after hearing what producer Steve Lillywhite was able to achieve on Big Country’s “Fields of Fire” single.

I thought this had bagpipes in it but it doesn’t. The guitarist, Stuart Adamson, used a technique called the “e-bow” to achieve the sound that resembles bagpipes. This technique involves using a handheld electronic device to vibrate the guitar strings, creating a sustained, bagpipe-like sound. For almost all of their music, Big Country was an all-guitar band.

Van Halen – Jump – This song was unusual for Van Halen because of the Oberheim OB-Xa synthesizer. Roth didn’t want to use it because he was afraid people would look at it as selling out to get a record in the charts. ZZ Top was doing the same thing at the time.

Eddie wanted to use it and had written the riff in 1981. Songfacts said: 1984 was David Lee Roth’s last album with Van Halen before he left the band in 1985; the video for “Jump” inflamed the tensions that led to his departure. The video was produced by Robert Lombard, who wanted to show the personal side of the band on stage. Roth, however, wanted the performance intercut with footage of him in various hedonistic pursuits, so they shot him doing things like riding a motorcycle and getting arrested while wearing nothing but a towel. Lombard edited the video and used none of the extra Roth footage, taking it to Eddie and Alex for approval. Two days later, the band’s manager fired him for bypassing Roth; Lombard says he never received the award the video won from MTV.

Max Picks …songs from 1982

1982

Kinks – Come Dancing – I saw the Kinks on this tour. It remains one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to…if not the best. They were in their early forties at this point and all over the stage. This song got heavy play on MTV at a time when I watched it. The Kinks are one of the four walls that make up modern rock including The Beatles, Who, and Stones.

Dexys Midnight Runners – Come On Eileen – It was very different than what was on the radio at the time. It was a refreshing song to hear in the early eighties.

I really thought this band would score another hit but they ended up a one-hit wonder in America…one thing that didn’t help was when they were opening up for David Bowie in France, Kevin Rowland called Bowie a bad copy of Bryan Ferry and later he told the British press: “We only agreed to the show because France is an important market for us – not because I have any respect for Bowie”… Not a smart thing to do.

Billy Joel – Allentown – A great single by Billy Joel with a song off of the Nylon Curtain album.

Allentown is a town in Northeast Pennsylvania about 45 minutes away from the Pocono mountains. An industrial town, many of the once-thriving factories and mills had fallen on hard times when Joel wrote the song, and unemployment in the area was at an all-time high of 12%.

Also mentioned in the song is nearby Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, whose main employer, Bethlehem Steel, had been closing operations. Joel sings about the unemployed workers in the line, “Out in Bethlehem they’re killing time, filling out forms, standing in line.”

Judas Priest – Living After Midnight -I liked this one the first time I heard it. I never really cared what a band was…as long as they sounded good…and this does.

John Lennon has a distant connection to this song. Judas Priest was renting Tittenhurst Park (John Lennon’s former home) in 1980 to record their album British Steel. As they were watching television…guitarist Glenn Tipton said they saw John Lennon’s Imagine video and were in the very same room where it was filmed… he said they could imagine the piano and the white walls…and how surreal it was…

Rob Halford actually got the inspiration for the lyrics for Living After Midnight as his bandmates kept him awake by blasting out riffs and drum beats in the studio below.

He came downstairs to complain and said, Hey, guys, come on. It’s gone midnight…and they wrote the song.

Madness – Our House – At the start of MTV the small town I lived in had yet to get cable…but it wouldn’t take too long. At that time I had to travel to relatives in Nashville before I got a chance to see it. I would spend the weekend and we would watch MTV for hours at a time. Binge-watching before binge-watching was a saying. We would wake up bleary-eyed the next day and turn on more MTV.

I did find some music I never heard before. This band and song caught my attention. The song was on the The Rise & Fall album. They were different…they have been described as a British ska and pop band.

This was Madness only top-10 hit in the US. Much of the song’s success in America was helped out by the clever music video that was in heavy rotation in the early days of MTV.

Max Picks …songs from 1981

1981

The Who – You Better You Bet..I always thought of this song as the sister song to Who Are You. You Better You Bet was on the album Face Dances. This was the first album without Keith Moon and with Kenney Jones on drums.

Pete Townshend has said he wrote it “over several weeks of clubbing and partying” while the still-married guitarist was dating a younger woman. He said: “I wanted it to be a great song because the girl I wrote it for is one of the best people on the planet.”

Rolling Stones – Start Me Up…I was over at my friend Kenny’s house and I heard this song. Kenny loved animals and had a tarantula, piranha, and other sorts of fun animals. I think it was his radio alarm that went off but I heard this song and knew exactly who it was and I was hooked. This was before it was worn completely out. The opening riff is straight out of the 5-string open G tuning for all of you guitarists. That tuning helped Keith come up with all of those great riffs.

All the news at the time was on their tour. They were called old and over the hill…funny now thinking back…they were only in their late 30s and early 40s. Nowadays that is a young band. I went out and bought the album and loved it. The next year I bought the live (from that tour) Time is On My Side and Going To A Go-Go singles. I then broke down and bought the Still Life live album they came from. This video is amusing…it’s a video a high school band would make with one take but it worked for them. Charlie’s expressions are worth watching alone.

Kim Carnes – Bette Davis Eyes – More than any other song at that time…this one seemed so different and I knew music was changing in the 80s. I still liked it and I bought the single. Just like with Bonnie Tyler and It’s A Heartache…my first thought when hearing this was Rod Stewart. I really like Carne’s raspy voice more than the pop singers at the time…and now. Now I’d love to hear a duet with Kim Carnes and Bonnie Tyler.

“Bette Davis Eyes” was originally recorded by Jackie DeShannon on her 1975 album New Arrangement. DeShannon wrote the song with the songwriter Donna Weiss. According to DeShannon, she got the idea after watching the 1942 Bette Davis movie Now Voyager. It was Donna Weiss who submitted the demo to Carnes, who along with her band and producer Val Garay, came up with the hit arrangement for the song.

Rick James – Super Freak..Me being a bass player…this song is impossible to resist. The movie Little Miss Sunshine used this song to great effect. When James exclaims, “Blow, Danny!,” he’s talking to his sax player Daniel LeMelle just before his solo.

The song featured backup vocals by The Temptations.  You will hear James point it out in the song when he says: “Tempations sing.” Temptation member Melvin Franklin was Rick James’ uncle.

One story bout Rick James… He dodged the Vietnam War draft by heading across the Canadian border from his hometown of Buffalo. But as soon as he got into Toronto, three drunk guys tried to beat him up for going AWOL. Some other guys came over to help Rick out… Two of those guys were Garth Hudson and Levon Helm, then playing backup for Ronnie Hawkins…later The Band. He also became friendly with Joni Mitchell and she introduced him to Neil Young…Rick and Neil would soon form a band called the Mynah Birds.

Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime… David Byrne at his visual performance best with this video. According to David Byrne’s own words, this song is about how we, as people, tend to operate half-awake or on autopilot. Or perhaps a better way of explaining that statement is that we do not actually know why we engage in certain actions that come to define our lives.

The members of Talking Heads…David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison – all contributed to the writing of this song along with the track’s producer, Brian Eno. And “Once in a Lifetime” itself originated from jam sessions. With this album the band wanted a more democratic process instead of Byrne writing all of the songs.

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Max Picks …songs from 1980

1980

We are entering the new decade. This is the year I  became a teenager and I was looking forward to the 1980s. It started off terrible in December of 1980. John Lennon was murdered for no reason. As the decade went on my love for the top 40 practically vanished in around 84-85. This is the decade that I found alternative music like The Replacements and R.E.M. This is the decade of big hair, one glove, parachute pants, synths, and yes some good music came out of it.

John Lennon – (Just Like) Starting Over. Great song but every time I hear it…it’s December 1980 again and I’m watching news stories about Lennon’s death. Double Fantasy was a strong comeback album for John…a little more Yoko than I would have liked but a good album all the same. John would have been 83 if he would have lived. 

When it was released Ringo had said John Lennon sounds like Elvis at the beginning of this song…then he said no…he doesn’t sound like Elvis…he IS Elvis. John Lennon himself said: “All through the taping of ‘Starting Over,’ I was calling what I was doing ‘Elvis Orbison.’ It’s like Dylan doing Nashville Skyline, except I don’t have any Nashville, being from Liverpool. So I go back to the records I know – Elvis and Roy Orbison and Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis.”

ACDC – Back In Black -The album Back In Black was very popular. I think it was a requirement for every teenage boy to own a copy or two all over the world.

The rock band I was in my Sophomore year in high school played this song in our first gig in the school theater. We had the only singer around who could actually sing it. The riff to the song is one of the more memorable ones in rock.

This was the first AC/DC single and album featuring new lead singer Brian Johnson. He replaced Bon Scott, who died on February 19, 1980, after a drinking binge. Scott’s father made it clear to the band that they should find a new singer and keep going.

Bruce Springsteen released The River this year. The title track of the album is one of the most depressing but best songs ever…the reason is because it’s so true.

Bruce saves the best for last though. He is talking about the dreams we have when we are younger about what we are going to do in life until life wakes us up with a bang…at least that is what I interrupt.

Now those memories come back to haunt me
They haunt me like a curse
Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true
Or is it something worse

Queen – Another One Bites The Dust – Supposedly Steve McQueen is Steve in the opening lyrics. Steve died the year this was released on November 7, 1980. You couldn’t go anywhere in 1980 without hearing someone sing, whistle, or hum this song. I remember the high school band did a version of it. Queen released The Game in 1980 and it was huge here.

Brian May: “Freddie sung until his throat bled on Another One Bites The Dust. He was so into it. He wanted to make that song something special.”

Motorhead – Ace Of Spades. I’m not a huge Motorhead fan and it’s a bit harder music than I usually listen to… but I do like this song. I also like any interview of Lemmy I’ve ever listened to. After playing this for years, Lemmy admitted he was sick of the song, but said he kept it in the setlist because, “If I went to a Little Richard concert, I’d expect to hear Long Tall Sally.”

 

 

 

Max Picks …songs from 1979

1979

I hate that it’s the last year of the seventies. A great decade for music and a lot of cool things. Now the eighties are coming…

A masterpiece. I was 12 when this was released and it sounded timeless even then. It was a great song in 1979 and will be great in 2079. Not only are the words inventive but this was most people’s introduction to Mark Knopfler. I wasn’t a guitar player when I was 12 but I knew he was something special.

I’ve heard this one at what seems like a thousand times but I’ll always turn it up when it comes on the radio.

Blondie members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein wrote the first version of this song in early 1974, shortly after they first met. They didn’t have a proper title for the song, and would refer to it as “The Disco Song.”

Evidently finding words to rhyme to “glass” that fit in a song were… a pain in the ass. American radio at that time frowned on that rhyme. To ensure airplay stations were sent an edited version with the offending line replaced with “soon turned out I had a heart of glass.”

This was the first song I ever knew by the Clash when I heard it on the radio in 1980. The song is credited to Mick Jones and Joe Strummer like most Clash songs. Mick Jones takes the lead vocals in this one.

They started off as a punk band but The Clash, unlike some other Punk bands, could really play and sing well…, especially Mick Jones. He is was probably the best pure musician in the band.

This song was released in 1979  was one of many signs a change was coming in music.  Gary Numan on the inspiration of the song. “A couple of blokes started peering in the window and for whatever reason took a dislike to me, so I had to take evasive action. I swerved up the pavement, scattering pedestrians everywhere. After that, I began to see the car as the tank of modern society.”

Numan has stated that he has Asperger syndrome, which is a mild form of autism, but until he was diagnosed, he had a lot of trouble relating to other people.

I was never a huge disco fan but this song always meant a lot to me. I’m a huge baseball fan and my Dodgers really sucked in 1979. The Pirates on the other hand had a 39-year-old Willie Stargell leading them to a World Series championship and this is the song that will be forever linked to that year, team, and World Series. Here’s to Pops…Willie Stargell.

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Max Picks …songs from 1978

1978

I remember this year well. The Dodgers repeated a World Series trip but also repeated losing to the Yankees.

Great song by The Who on their last album with Keith Moon. Keith was not in the best shape by this time but his drumming on this is still fantastic. The song is about real events that happened to Pete Townshend down to being passed out drunk at night and asking a policeman that knew Pete’s name, Who the F**k are you? You can still hear Daltrey sing the expletive on classic radio stations.

This one was always a favorite of mine of the Rolling Stones. Keith Richards wrote this, but a lot of the lyrics were improvised in the studio. While the band played, Jagger came in with different lines to fit the music.

This song is a good example of the Rolling Stones tapestry of guitars. Keith and Ron Wood weave their guitars in and out until the two guitars are almost indistinguishable from each other.

Warren Zevon was a very clever songwriter. He went were other songwriters don’t often go. This track was produced by Jackson Browne. The songwriters were LeRoy Marinell, Waddy Wachtel, and Warren Zevon. John McVie and Mick Fleetwood played on this song.

This song is one of the best pop singles of the 1970s. It was on the album City To City. This was Rafferty’s first release after the breakup of his former band Steeler’s Wheel. Gerry Rafferty had been unable to release any material due to disputes about the band’s remaining contractual recording obligations, and his friend’s Baker Street flat was a convenient place to stay as he tried to remove himself from his Stealers Wheel contracts. It was his second solo album, the first being Can I Have My Money Back? released in 1971.

The album and song were about life on the road in all its glory and squalor. To emphasize this notion even further, Jackson Browne literally recorded the album on the road, in hotel rooms, on buses, and, in the case of “Running On Empty,” on stage.

Max Picks …songs from 1977

1977

This is the year I became aware of sports, news, and politics. This year is an eclectic bunch of songs. You have punk, reggae, pub rock, rock, and pop/rock.

I didn’t get into the Sex Pistols at the time they came out. They were not as big over here as they were in the UK. I did find them later on. I can’t say I’m a huge fan but I do recognize the importance of the Punk rock movement… and they stirred up the rock music industry when it needed stirring up.

This was originally called “No Future.” The band played it live and recorded a demo version with that title, but changed it when lead singer Johnny Rotten got the idea to mock the British monarchy.

I got into Bob Marley and the Wailers a little later but better late than never. Jammin’ is on their ninth studio album Exodus. In Jamaica, the word “jamming” refers to getting together for a celebration. Although it can also mean an impromptu musical session.

Marley wrote the song in exile in Nassau after the 1976 attempt on his life.

The song was written by David Bowie and Brian Eno and was on the Heroes album released in 1977. After burnout because of touring Bowie moved to Berlin and rented a cheap apartment above an auto-repair shop, which is where he wrote the album.

I was walking through a drug store in the late seventies as a kid and I saw this album cover…I thought what??? another person named Elvis? Who is this skinny guy? While at the drug store, the guy was playing this album and I heard Alison… That was the first thing I ever heard from Elvis. The album peaked at #32 in the Billboard Album Charts in 1978. His songs were different than a lot of the radio hits of the day…with different, I mean better.

Fleetwood Mac released Rumours and it was the album of the year. An incredible four singles were pulled off of this album plus the other songs that would become FM classics. Personally, my favorite two are Second Hand News and Never Going Back Again but I do like Go Your On Way.

Lindsey Buckingham showed that less was more in this solo…he used very few notes and used sustain.