What a talent and gone WAY to soon. We were just getting to know singer/songwriter Jim Croce in the early 1970’s with hits like “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” when he hits us with this insightful story-song, “Operator,” also commonly referred to as “That’s Not the Way It Feels.” “Operator” was written and recorded in 1972 single Croce as part of his Don’t Mess…
This is the full, three song performance, by the Steve Miller Band live at the Midnight Special on January 24th, 1974 and includes The Joker, Sugar Babe, and the as yet unreleased (and somewhat unfinished) version of “Fly Like an Eagle” On this video, there is… 1) The Joker (from 1973’s “The Joker”) 2) Fly Like an Eagle (early version) (from 1976’s “Fly Like an Eagle”) 3) Sugar Babe (from…
Not sure if I’m the only one or not, but I find some of these musical mashups interesting, especially when they’re done well. I’ve listened to a lot of them lately, and the one I keep coming back to over and over is this merging of Ratt’s “Round and Round” with the Marvin Gaye classic, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” Two very different styles of music, but in this…
“Lay It On The Line” was written by Triumph founder and co-frontman Rik Emmett and surprisingly peaked at only #86 on the US Hot 100 after their breakout hit “Hold On” which were both off their 1979 album, Just a Game. The band, which hails from Ontario, Canada, claims Rush as an early influence of their music and are considered part of the harder-edged progressive power-rock movement of the late…
Wait, what? When I first saw the link to this video I thought it was a joke or parody of some kind, but nope, it’s an official segment from the famous Lawrence Welk Show which ran on television from 1955 to 1982. Did they realize what they were singing? Gail Farrell and Dick Dale sing Brewer and Shipley’s song “One Toke Over The Line,” and Lawrence describes this song as a…
Who remembers Farm Aid? Farm Aid was started by Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp in 1985 to keep family farmers on the land and has worked since then to make sure everyone has access to good food from family farmers. (For more information about Farm Aid, visit: http://farmaid.org) Foreigner performed this LIVE version of “I Want To Know What Love Is” at the inaugural version of Farm Aid…
Another great mash-up! This time we have Chicago’s Classic “25 or 6 to 4” and Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf” which actually meld nicely together, don’t you think? Interesting, the songs came out within a year of each other back in the day, “25 or 6 to 4” in 1970 and “Sweet Leaf” in 1971. Here’s more on each song from Wikipedia: “25 or 6 to 4” is…
So you like strobe lights and explosions, because with Paul McCartney and Wings in the mid-70’s you got strobe lights and explosions! And this LIVE version of “Live and Let Die” (the theme song to a popular James Bond movie at the time) is no exception. Linda McCartney introduces the song which debuted in 1973, right before the movie came out. Here’s more on the song from Wikipedia: “Live and…
I had intended to just find a great LIVE version of Sugarloaf’s quirky 1974 hit, “Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You” but about all I could find was a recording of Sugarloaf’s album version (nice, but not the same as a LIVE performance) and surprisingly, a recording less than a year later of a bootleg tape of one of Van Halen’s early concerts also singing the song! Obviously David Lee…
“Talking in Your Sleep” is a chart-topping hit song by Detroit rock band The Romantics. It was a #3 U.S. hit in early 1984 and became a UK hit in August that year for British band Bucks Fizz. It ultimately became a hit throughout the world, and was the group’s most successful song. The song was from the Romantics’ 1983 album In Heat and was their biggest hit, selling more…