In ‘High Fidelity,’ two of the guys who work at the record store have a discussion about the relative merits of ‘Little Latin Lupe Lu’ as performed by The Righteous Brothers and Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels. I have … Continue reading
I can listen to six hours of Phil Spector recording sessions, some of which amount to take after take of Spector instructing the lead singer of The Crystals on how to sing the opening lines of ‘Uptown;’ I’ve listened to … Continue reading
On 1966′s ‘A Web of Sound,’ the second album by The Seeds, the one with ‘Mr. Farmer’ and ‘Rollin’ Machine,’ there is a track called ‘Up In Her Room,’ which, along with the opus on side 2 of Love’s ‘Da … Continue reading
I suppose I should be grateful that I was whisked away from the hot city during the summertime as a kid, but lately I’ve been harboring some resentment, because in my mid-teen years, when I was most consumed by music … Continue reading
We were at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame dinner, the year Billy Joel was inducted (I know, you’re asking: Why?, but whatever…), and the thing about Joel getting in was that he asked Ray Charles to be his … Continue reading
#4 – Don’t Worry Baby – The Beach Boys (Capitol) I don’t know what it is about car songs. I’ve never been behind the wheel of any vehicle, never even ridden a bicycle, but I find the whole rock fixation … Continue reading
On the big video screens flanking the ‘Mane Stage,’ Miranda Lambert turned around to face her rockin’ band and wiggled her butt to kick off a raucous version of the Faces’ ‘Stay With Me.’ A few tunes later, she got … Continue reading
Intrigued by a New York Times article about the Grateful Dead, I went online and streamed a concert from May 8, 1977, which is supposedly The Best Dead Show Ever. You’d think it’d be hard to quantify something like that. … Continue reading
You can now purchase The Shadows of Knight’s version of “Gloria” on iTunes for 69 cents, but you have to be careful, because while it’s available for that price on the album “Dark Sides,” the exact same recording is still … Continue reading
I consider myself something of an expert on the rock cinema of the 1950’s and ‘60s, but until the other night, I had never seen a snappy little item called “Let’s Rock,” and I can’t say my life has been … Continue reading
When I finally made it uptown to the Beacon for one of the Allman Brothers Band’s 40th anniversary shows, I had already heard about what’d been going on up there. Visits by Boz Scaggs, Levon Helm, Eric Clapton, Southside Johnny, … Continue reading
#3 – Lively Up Yourself – Bob Marley & The Wailers (Island) So I get a call from an editor at Phonograph Record Magazine asking me if I’d like to interview Bob Marley. Well, yeah. When is he going to … Continue reading
#2 – Can’t Smile Without You – Barry Manilow (Arista) Oh, shit. I am so busted. Barry Manilow. Sometimes people ask me how I got into the record business. I say: A friend of mine messed up his leg in … Continue reading
At current count, there are 19,406 songs on my iPod. Annotating the significance of each one, explaining why it’s been downloaded, giving even the briefest critical and personal analysis, is a task that I’m not quite up to. And, frankly, … Continue reading
“It’s on the roof/100 proof’” The girls were all of 15 that winter, the winter before the summer of love. Maybe we were starting to smoke some pot, mostly we got the older kids on Fordham Road to buy us quarts of … Continue reading
