Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 

One more journey through songs that hit the charts and other that are just good.

1957: Buddy Holly

1966: Jr. Walker (I prefer the cover by The Flying Lizards from1979)

1972: Elton John

1978: Meat Loaf

1997: Natalie Imbruglia (not only because she recently said goodbye to the music business)

1966: Spencer David Group

1966: The Beach Boys

1977: Dave Mason

1985: Pet Shop Boys

1965: The Who

1982: Golden Earring

1964: Petula Clark

1970: Gilbert O'Sullivan

1970: Dave Edmunds

1978: Joe Jackson

Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 

This week are less songs to remember but those who appear today are still worth a listen.

1975: Bruce Springsteen

1979: The Jam

1986: Bruce Hornsby T The Range

1968: Mary Hopkin

1967: The Who

1969: Elvis Presley

1996: Sublime

1959: Buddy Holly

1975: Aerosmith (I prefer the version by Run DMC)

1964: The Supremes

1990: Cocteau Twins

1964: Roy Orbison

Red Hot And Blue VII

 

This weeks journey through the colors starts with Reverend Horten Heat, a psychobilly band form Dallas, Texas. Formed in 1986 by guitarist James C. Heath he became the godfather of modern rockabilly/psychobilly. He has been stoically playing his sound for decades, always loud and aggressive, and is a force to be reckoned with live.

Reverend Horten Heat - Big Red Rocket Of Love

I think I don't have to say much about The Who, except that this ballad is untypical for their sound.

The Who - Behind Blue Eyes

I don't know if someone remembers Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen but this series gives me the chance to do it. I liked their interpretation of country music, knowing were they came from and willing to break the circle. This cover version by an old song from Charlie Ryan is probably their well know song and this is good this way.

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen - Hot Red Lincoln

Singles Released This Week Years Ago

   

This week's compilation takes us back to the early Rock 'n' Roll, give a little soul, some singer songwriter, former hits and early British rock from 60's. Just for your pleasure.

1958: Eddie Cochran

1972: J.J. Cale

1978: 10cc

1992: Lithium

1985: UB40 Featuring Crissie Hynde

1965: Lee Dorsay

1976: Blue Oyster Cult

1983: ZZ Top

1964: The Zombies

2006: Snow Patrol

1974: Barry White

1980: Peter Gabriel

1967: The Kinks

1969: Johnny Cash

1974: Kiki Dee

1979: The Clash

1957: Buddy Holly

1968: The Who

1979: AC/DC

Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 

Welcome to another journey to well-known, long-forgotten and classic songs from the last 40 years.

1967: Pink Floyd

1978: Jackson Browne

1963: The Kingsmen

1971: Bill Withers

1971: The Who

1976: Blondie

1978: The Clash

1971: Rolling Stones

1970: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

1970: The Knack

1984: Nick Cave

1973: David Bowie

1989: The B-52's

1975: Elton John

1989: Indigo Girls

Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 

Without further ado, here are some of the songs released this week.

1967: Jimi Hendrix

1967: Nancy & Frank Sinatra

1967: The Who

1977: The Clash

1985: Tears For Fears

1971: Richie Havens

1973: Jim Croce

1969: Simon and Garfunkel

1970: Guess Who

1977: Peter Gabriel

Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 

When I started this series, I didn't really have any great expectations as to which songs would appear on these pages. In the meantime, I really enjoy listening to these songs again after many years or even just watching the videos.

1972: At the height of glam rock, you can't get past Gary Glitter and I thought long and hard about whether I should give a pederast a forum.

1978: Warren Zevon released his masterpiece Werewolfes Of London

1979: Frank Zappa released Bobby Brown and his reckoning with the American dream so bluntly that it was banned in the United States.

1969: A Song from The Who's rock opera Tommy. Still nice watching Elton John playing pinball.

1965: A classic song by Them with the very young Van Morrison.

1970: The movie Easy Rider started when the when the main characters bought drugs for their journey and accompanied this with a song by Steppenwolf.

1965: Bob Dylan and a rare video

1962: A little bit of soul by Arthur Alexander. Willy DeVille made a fantastic cover of this song.

1979: The Pointer Sisters were successful with Bruce Springsteen's Fire. But I prefer the version by Robert Gordon with the great Chris Spedding on guitar.

1979: This year's one hit wonder

Rough Mix

 

When we were young, we regularly went to a mountain hut in Austria as a football team for a long weekend in autumn. We could rarely decide on a style of music to play during the trip and decided that everyone should make a tape that didn't include punk, jazz or metal. The majority of my tape contained Pete Townshend's latest album. Rough Mix is one of these albums showing two great musicians doing their very own thing not looking for big success. Pete Townshend was the leading figure from The Who and Ronnie Lane bass player by Small Faces/Faces. Townshend asked Lane to produce this album but over time it became more of a joint album combining the influences of both groups. It goes without saying that there are no really bad songs on it. The basic mood is relaxed and many songs sound as if they were recorded around a campfire in the evening. Both artists wrote the best song from the autumn in their career and it ends with a superb version of a Don Williams song. 

I'm Free

 

After talking about it a lot, I had my last day at work yesterday and officially retired today. I had ambivalent feelings about saying goodbye to longstanding colleagues and knowing that I probably won't see many of them again. Next, I will try to bring a new structure to my daily routine and put everything I plan to do into practice. I can't explain why I came up with these songs about freedom, especially as I've never felt trapped. Maybe just because they are good songs.

Monday's Long Song

 

The recent days I got the news that The Who released Who's Next | Life House as a 10-CD-box after more than 50 years of it's original release. Townshend describes Life House in his introduction to the new editions as a portentous polemic about the coming of a nation beaten down by climate issues an pollution. He then explains how an opportunist and autocratic government enforce a national lock-down in which every person is hooked up to an entertainment grip.. Music itself becomes an inconvenient diversion, a very real distraction to the subjugation of the population in suits. I didn't listen to these songs in that context but now I can see his intention in various songs. Anyway, Who's Next is the last great album they made. Everything else later didn't fit to my musical taste any more, although it wasn't worse. Listening to the demo of Baba O'Riley shows once again Pete's ability of songwriting and I ask myself why I should have to wait for decades to listen to this version. But better late than never.

Purchased Because Of The Cover

In 1971 The Who released their their fifth studio album Who's Next and it was their second album I purchased after Live At Leeds. I was fascinated by the cover showing the band after urinating at a block of stone. I still don't know if the name of the album means that it is the next album of The Who or if they meant who is the next one to be peed. Anyway, the album was in is a milestone in their music. After they were established as a guitar based band with the best drum sound in these days they tried as one of the first bands embedding synthesizers into their own sound. And to my surprise - it fits to their sound.

The Who - Baba O'Riley
The Who - Behind Blue Eyes
The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again

Monday<'s Long Song

Last week JC released an superb ICA by ´The Who compiled by Martin that made me want to listen to their best album Live At Leeds. It was one of the first rock albums I ever heard in full length introduced by a local biker that was engaged in these days to my best mates sister. And we were overwhelmed by what we heard. Pete Townshend playing his ecstatic guitar, Keith Moon treating his drums like a madman, Roger Daltrey made the songs famous with his bluesy voice and John Entwistle kept it all together with his bass. Nic Cohn once said that this live album is the perfect hard-rock holocaust and even if was harsh words they were true. Never before and after a band played with such a verve and fun to built up song to de-construct them and put them together with other songs by their own. A classic that I enjoyed to explore this 15 minutes ride once again.

The Who - My Generation

Evolution

Back in 1972 Pete Townshend released his first solo album after years working together with The Who. It was one of the first albums ever I listened to in full time. An older friend of my close friend in school days introduced us to this record. Since then I was impressed by the work of Pete Townshend. Not that I like everything he did after The Who but I always felt that he made his very own music without his bandmates. The songs on this album are totally different to the sound of the mod-like The Who and maybe the reason is that Ronnie Lane guided Pete to another way of sound. These days an anniversary edition was released with some out-takes and other stuff. And on this record he showed us his affection to country/folk inspired music that he couldn't do with his band. But this doesn't matter at all - it is still fun listening to this old songs again.

Pete Townshend - Evolution
Pete Townshend - There's A Heartache Following Me
Pete Townshend - Time Is Passing

We're Not Gonna Take It

Yesterday when I came home from work I switched on my TV. Zapping through the various programs I finished by a documentary about the history of communism in Europe. From the start in the early years of the last century international communism raised throughout Europe but failed at least. A lot of them leaders were killed by right wing nationalists and lead us to the civil war in Spain. For sure I am nowadays not the one who would take the gun in my hand but it makes me sad that in these days we failed the chance to change to world into a better one. Not that I am a person living in the past but there were a few ideas decades ago for a better and peaceful world for us all

This are some songs that mean a lot to me belonging during the decades of rebellion.