Musical palate cleanser, gong edition

Somebody mentioned “Get It On” in the comments last week, and I thought, what the hell, right?  Here ’tis:

One of the all time great guitar riffs…

Musical palate cleanser, coming out of lockdown edition

Who’s that, you say?  Oh, it’s just Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl, celebrating the coming pandemic’s end, totally like you expected.

Musical palate cleanser, still going strong edition

Look who had a birthday yesterday.

75 y’all pic.twitter.com/9SdUrK1Hos

— Al Green (@algreen) April 13, 2021

In honor of the occasion, allow yourself to be swayed by the dulcet tones of the Reverend Al.

The dude could sing the phone book and it would kill.

Musical palate cleanser, life ain’t fair edition

If a band ever deserved a better fate than it got, Badfinger surely qualifies.  Their history is one of rock’s saddest, especially because they created some brilliant music.  Here’s one of my favorites, their second big hit, “No Matter What”.

Amazingly enough, “the hierarchy at Apple reportedly was not inclined to release it in any format.”  Go figure.

Musical palate cleanser, glam battle edition

Friends, let me take you back to a simpler time, the early ’70s, when dudes could wear weird looking shoes, do, um… interesting things with hair and mix pop and hard rock together to come up with glam.  For a few years there, it was big, trust me.

Here are a couple of catchy numbers for you to wallow in.

Sweet’s “Fox on the Run” was a world wide hit, charting at #5 in the US.

Meanwhile, Slade scored a number one hit in Britain (only reached #98 in America, though) with “Cum On Feel The Noize”.

Musical palate cleanser, bangin’ like Charlie Watts edition

I’m appalled I’ve never posted a John Hiatt MPC here.  Time to rectify that with a live version of “Slow Turning”.

Jesus, Sonny Landreth on that slide guitar is one bad motha’.

Musical palate cleanser, younger than yesterday edition

From his thirtieth anniversary concert, here’s Bob Dylan, with a little help from his friends, performing “My Back Pages”.

Musical palate cleanser, time, time, time edition

Here are the Bangles, with a muscular cover of Simon and Garfunkle’s “Hazy Shade of Winter”.

Musical palate cleanser, “Working with a husband or wife is tricky” edition

Richard Thompson has a personal memoir coming out, Beeswing.  I’m looking forward to reading it, one reason being Thompson’s sensible enough to limit it to the period of his life when his career started with Fairport Convention until just before his infamous last tour with his then-wife, Linda.  (There’s probably an entire book that could be written just about that tour.)  There’s a fantastic review/interview about the book here, if you’re interested.

One paragraph from that piece:

The songs he “wrote for Linda,” he says, “are precious to me”. They include some of the most touching songs ever committed to record, such as Dimming of the Day/Dargai, a clarion call to tumultuous love (also covered by Alison Krauss, Tom Jones and the Corrs), and Withered and Died, a song that feels steeped in centuries of heartache (memorably covered by Elvis Costello).

Here’s an example, from March, 1975, “A Heart Needs A Home”.

One other great bit (from Linda) from the article:

She’s keen to read Beeswing for a different reason. “I’m dying to know if he’s as good a book writer as he is a songwriter.”

Pretty high bar, that.

Musical palate cleanser, let me jump in your game edition

Let’s get the week started with a little live Lizard King and his boys: