The Allman Brothers: Brothers and Sisters

This album is why vinyl records still exist.  Moreso, it's why vinyl records just won't ever die.  Vinyl (a compound of equal parts carbon and hydrogen) was surely invented with the intent to have music this great fused into its microgrooves.  We have all seen the little boy on the right.  But right after I bought this record today, I headed down to the basement and fired up the amp and mixer, and dropped the needle on side one, track one (Southbound) and when I took the record out - I had no idea there was a little girl on the other side.  Hence...Brothers and Sisters.   Even if this record had just two songs on it's two sides, Southbound and Jessica - it would rank in the top 100 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest record albums of all time.  It also has Wasted Words and Dickie Bett's Ramblin' Man.  It's on the great label in my book, Capricorn Records.

Heart: Bad Animals - Who Will You Run To

Heart - Bad Animals.  This record contains one of my favorite songs from my musical sweet spot - the mid- to late-eighties.  Technically, Bad Animals came out in 1987, it is the band's 9th studio album.  The song is "Who Will You Run To" which was written by classic American pop songwriter Diane Warren.   Back in the day of making party tapes or road trip tapes (on cassettes for all your little leaguers out there), Who Will You Run To and another great (yet similar) song from their eponymous 1985 album called "Nothin' at All" always seem to "go good" together.  And if you liked one, you loved the other one.  As for Warren - [wiki] "her songs have received six Academy Award nominations, five Golden Globe nominations, (one win), and seven Grammy Award nominations (one win).  Warren was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001."  I looked up the Songwriters Hall of Fame.  Though founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer and music publishers Abe Olman and Howie Richmond - this HOF does not exist in an actual, physical locale or building.  It is a vertual or online museum.  Other W's in it are Jimmy Webb, Fats Waller, Meredith Wilson, and Brian Wilson.  For more see http://songwritershalloffame.org/

The Boomtown Rats: the fine art of Surfacing

The Boomtown Rats: the fine art of Surfacing...with the song I Don't Like Mondays.  Today is a Monday and it is not that bad.  I recall when the song came out and read something somewhere that the song was about a tragic school shooting, maybe in Australia.  Band leader Bob Geldoff of course went on to lead in the creation of the first LiveAid multi-continent live concerts in the mid-eighties.  In the UK - at Wembley Stadium, and in the US - at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.  Phil Collins played both concerts the same taking to Concorde over.  It was the almost-reunion of Led Zeppelin, whereby Tony Thompson (Chic's awesome drummer) sat in the hallowed spot for that 3 or 4 song set.