The Kingsmen, featuring Louie, Louie

The Kingsmen...Louie, Louie.  

Try this one too:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEIP8sHqIgs&feature=related

Wiki entry - "When recorded the band members were Jack Ely (vocalist/rhythm guitar), Lynn Easton (drummer), Mike Mitchell (lead guitar), Don Gallucci (electric piano) and Bob Nordby (bass guitar).  Ken Chase (Kingsmen manager and Portland radio station KISN music director) produced the recording session.  Robert Lindahl (Northwestern Inc. recording studio owner) was the audio engineer.  "Louie Louie" was kept from the top spot on the charts in late 1963 and early 1964 by the Singing Nun and Bobby Vinton, who monopolized the #1 slot for four weeks apiece. The Kingsmen single reached #1 on the Cashbox chart and #2 on theBillboard Hot 100 chart. Additionally in the UK it reached #26 on the Record Retailer chart. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.  The B-side of the single was an instrumental, "Haunted Castle".  The band attracted nationwide attention when "Louie Louie" was banned by the governor of Indiana, Matthew E. Welsh, also attracting the attention of the FBI because of alleged indecent lyrics in their version of the song.  The lyrics were, in fact, innocent, but Ely's baffling enunciation permitted teenage fans and concerned parents alike to imagine the most scandalous obscenities.  All of this attention only made the song more popular. In April 1966 "Louie Louie" was reissued and once again hit the music charts, reaching #65 on the Cashbox chart and #97 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart."

Spooky Tooth - the last puff

the last puff...Spooky Tooth.  Spooky Tooth can trace their roots back a version of Free, and they are in the entry titled Good & Bad Company in Pete Frame's great rock band guide book, called Rock Family Trees.  Spook Tooth has 6 iterations, the last and final one has Gary Wright, Mick Jones, Bryson Graham, Mike Patto, and Val Moore in it.  And you can see how that flows into Foreigner.  Above Foreigner in this groupings Rock Family Tree is Mott the Hoople.  It's very complex to explain how his book is laid out (but go get the book - it's awesome!), so I don't use it much here for postings.  Back to this record - the last puff, the first track here is a cover of the Beatles' I am the Walrus.  And the great and ubiquitous Chris Stainton plays bass guitar, piano, guitar, and organ here.  Plus, the record was produced by Stainton, and Chris Blackwell.  It was recorded at Island Studios, London - remixed by Glyn Johns.  Also, The Last Puff is actually credited to "Spooky Tooth Featuring Mike Harrison."  The band broke up shortly after the album's release, reforming two years later.

David Crosby - you are a mensch...

David, - really?  If I Could Only Remember My Name  - his debut solo record, released in February 1971 on Atlantic Records.  Four high-profile albums were released by each member of CSNY right after Deja Vu.  The album gained new recognition in 2010 when it was listed second on the Vatican's "Top 10 Pop Albums of All Time" as published in the official newspaper of the Holy See, L'Osservatore Romano.  And these are some of the cast of characters we are reading about in The Last Sultan, a terrific biography of Ahmet Ertegun.  So, if you are scoring at home, here they are: Side one, from upper left: Graham, Neil, Phil Lesh, Bill Krevtzmann, David Frieberg, Mickey Hart, Heny Diltz, Paul Kantner, Santana drummer Michael Shrieve, who's performance on Soul Sacrafice captured on the Woodstock film is often credited as the event's finest, certainly the fest's youngest performer, then on to Himself, Laura Allen (not the soap opera actress), Jerry Garcia, and Jack Cassiday.  On the right side:  Jorma Kaukonen, (a founding member of Jefferson Airplane), and Grace Slick, Gregg Rolie (Santana and later Journey), Joni, Gary Burden, Stephen, Barncard, (record producer and sound engineer, he produced this record), Robert Hammer, David Geffen, Ronald Stone (likely of Greene and Stone), (Woodstock financier) Elliott Roberts (nee Rabinowitz), himself - David Crosby.

Led Zeppelin One - Australopithecus

And I called myself a vinyl record collector before today, when I bought this record?  This is the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock of rock records.  The Model T, Abe Lincoln, Apollo 11, it is L'Anse aux Meadows.  It is the Rosetta Stone.  It's fittingly on Atlantic of course, Produced by Jimmy Page.  Director of Engineering Glyn Johns. Executive producer Peter Grant.  Back liner photo Chris Dreja.  Recorded at Olympic Studios, London.  When I saw Jason Bonham in his tribute concert he introduces Your Time is Gonna Come as the portion of the show when he tries hardest to not cry.   "TABLA DRUMS on Black Mountain Side Viram Jasani."  Speaking of BMS, "Black Mountain Side" was inspired by a traditional Irish folk song called "Down by Blackwaterside". The guitar arrangement closely follows Bert Jansch's version of that song, recorded on his 1966 album Jack Orion.  This arrangement was learnt by Al Stewart, who followed Jansch's gigs closely, and who, in turn, taught it to Jimmy Page, who was a session musician for Stewart's debut album."  You Shook Me has a credit to Willie Dixon, as is I Can't Quit You Baby.  This completes my set of the Zeppelin's entire set of the known 8 studio albums: I-IV, Houses of the Holy, Graffiti, Presense, and In Through the Out Door. 

Eighties Rock MTV Reunion Concert Review; Hosted by Jim Peterik

I took this photo from the 2nd row.  As many of you know, there is a living legend and rock and roll God who lives near me in the western suburbs of Chicago.  He is Jim Peterik.  Known mostly as founding and current member of the (still intact) Ides of March (Vehicle), and Survivor - the eighties band he formed that put out Eye of the Tiger for the Rocky III movie.  But Jim is so much more than just that.  He is a prolific hit-making song-writer. He penned most of the .38 Special canon, and has co-written hits with and for Sammy Hagar, REO Speedwagon, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Brian Wilson, and many others.  Jim hosts an annual concert in January at a nearby community college theater.  For the past 11 years, at that he dubs World Stage, Jim assembles some of his very good friends in the bands he used to tour with back with Survivor.  I'd call the concert, all 4 hours of it, a Revue, with Jim as MC, host, and guitarist vocalist.  He assembles a band made up of some great, local talent like guitarist Mike Acquino and others.  Jim did an old Ides gem called LA Goodbye.  Fast rising vocalist Lisa McClowerly joins in.  Jim's son Sijay too.  And a guy who really should be more well-known, the energetic guitar thrasher Anthony Gomes.  Then, as the concert unfolded after the intermission, Jim started to bring out the big guns. Jim "turns loose" Mike Reno from Lover Boy, to start the "weekend."  Lisa takes Ann Wilson's role in the classic lover's duet Almost Paradise.  And Rik Emmett gives us the finest 3-song Triumph mini set imaginable: Lay it on the Line, Fight the Good Fight, and the ultimate '80's uplifter - Magic Power.  Just when it can't get any better, Night Ranger's Kelly Keagy does Sister Christian.  And the whole assemblage comes out for Eye of the Tiger.

Jefferson Airplane - Played at Woodstock...

Jefferson Airplane - played at Woodstock...if this record and album cover was in better shape, it would quite valuable.  It was a throw-in at the Record Show a couple of weeks ago.  One dealer was selling a VG issue of it for close to twenty dollars.  This one, that I own - as you can see - it pretty banged up.  Here is what wiki tells us about it.  Jefferson Airplane Takes Off is the debut album of San Francisco rock band Jefferson Airplane, released on RCA Victor Records in September 1966. The personnel differ from the later "classic" lineup and the music is more folk-rock than the harder psychedelic sound for which the band later became famous.  Signe Toly Anderson was the female vocalist and Skip Spenceplayed drums.  Both left the group shortly after the album's release and were replaced by Grace Slick and Spencer Dryden, respectively.