Honorable mentions … 111-120
More cool stuff for your listening pleasure. These are some of my faves!
(If you’re wondering about the parameters and what we’re doing, you can find them HERE)
120: Trouble Funk – “Let’s Get Small” (1982)
I love pretty much anything by Trouble Funk, but this one has a place in my heart as the first Go-Go record that I heard. It was on a flexi-disk that came with one of the first copies I ever bought of New Music Express. … Go-Go, if you’re not familiar with it, is a version of funk from Washington, D.C., that’s heavy on the cowbells and congas. The vocals are hip-hop influenced, but the live beat is what makes it great. Check it out!
119: Jerry Lee Lewis – “Whole Lot of Shaking” – Live 1964
Like a lot of these, Jerry Lee could be in the Top 10 with this one. As good as his 1950s singles were, his 1960s live shows were astounding. His “Live at the Star-Club – Hamburg” is justly regarded as one of the greatest live albums ever. Yup, that Star-Club. And his backup group was the Nashville Teens.
118: Slade – “Goodbye T’Jane” (1973)
Slade was one of those great English bands that never really hit big in the U.S. during their 1970s prime, although they made the pop top 20 with “Run Runaway” in the 1980s. This one was a No. 2 hit in Britain, not one of their six No. 1 songs. Slade made great glam rock, but with a soccer hooligan kind of appeal that never really carried over here. Oh, and they did the original versions of “Cum On Feel the Noize.”
117: King Curtis – “Them Changes” (1971)
King Curtis is probably my all-time favorite sax player. His work as a session man in New York City is legendary, and he recorded a string of singles that made it into the charts, too, before he was killed outside his New York City apartment in 1971, five months after recording this and two months after recording sessions for John Lennon’s “Imagine” album. This song is a Buddy Miles classic that was also recorded with Jimi Hendrix and Band of Gypsys.
116: Rolling Stones – “Respectable” (1978)
Yeah, the Rolling Stones were great for a long time. But for me, they earned my respect with this response to the punk rock explosion. The earlier Stones made great music, but they belonged to my older siblings’ generation more than to me. Then this happened. These are my Stones.
115: John Fogerty – “Rockin’ All Over the World” (1975)
This song was actually a Top 40 hit, but has largely been forgotten. After Creedence Clearwater Revival broke up, John Fogerty had a career before his ’80s comeback. This album was one I bought in the basement record section of the Super Duper supermarket in Gowanda and was one of my favorites as a 16-year-old. It’s aged well.
114: Preston Epps – “Bongo Rock” (1959)/Incredible Bongo Band – “Bongo Rock” (1973)
Here’s another instrumental … well, actually two. One is a bongo/guitar rocker (sort of obvious from the title, I guess) that is just too cool. … Also pretty great is the version below that by the Incredible Bongo Band, which has been sampled to death. Which version is your favorite?
And now the Incredible Bongo Band.
113: Chuck Berry – “No Particular Place to Go” (1964)
This is latter-era Chuck Berry. Although any of his entire catalog could justify being in the top 10, I think his song-writing kept getting sharper into the mid-’60s. This one was a Top 10 hit as Beatlemania was happening in 1964.
112: Bo Diddley – “Who Do You Love” (1956)
Another classic from an early rocker. You hear this song often enough and you normalize it and forget how insane these lyrics are. “I walk 47 miles of barbed wire,
I use a cobra-snake for a necktie,
I got a brand new house on the roadside
Made from rattlesnake hide.
I got a brand new chimney made on top
Made out of a human skull.
Now come on take a walk with me, Arlene,
And tell me, who do you love?
111: Billy Lee Riley & the Little Green Men – “Flying Saucer Rock ‘n’ Roll” (1957)
Our final entry today is another frantic ’50s rocker. To me, this is one of the prime sources of inspiration for John Fogerty and CCR … although Fogerty never dyed his hair green like Riley.