Albert Collins- The Ice Man

Recommended purchases/downloads:

Songs:   1.  Stormy Monday:  Live in Japan  2.  My Woman Has a Black Cat Bone:  Live '92-'93  3. Lights are on but Nobody's Home

Albums:  1.  Live in Japan  2. Live '92-'93  3. Showdown!  4.  Live at Montreux 1992

Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert

Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Neil Young, John Mellancamp, George Harrison, Johnny Winter, Ron Wood, Richie Havens, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, and more, including Dylan himself on this album. I am not much of a compilations album buyer but this one is at the top of my list.

All-Time Great Album One More From The Road

Lynyrd Skynyrd One More From The Road

This is one of the great live albums of all time and right now you can download it at amazon.com for $14.99. If you were to only own one Skynyrd record this is the one to have. It is indeed one of the best live albums of all time in my humble opinion. This is the only live album of the band in their prime, pre-plane crash.

The Zoo!

The below is one of my favorite Scorpion tracks. If you enjoy Michael Schenker on guitar I highly recommend Strangers in the Night live by UFO. As for as the Scorpions go it is hard to pick a best album though Lovedrive is quite an accomplishment. You might also be surprised at their newest release called Humanity Hour 1. As for live albums the 19 song World Wide Live (Remastered) is quite a good deal on Itunes for $9.99.

Neil Young and The Boss Rock the Free World

This a sweet video. I am late comer to Neil Young Music but have really enjoyed his greatest hits CD which just came out not long ago. He and Dylan and Larry Norman are fantastic poets of Rock and Roll. Here are the lyrics to keep on rockin in the free world:

There's colors on the street
Red, white and blue
People shufflin' their feet
People sleepin' in their shoes
But there's a warnin' sign on the road ahead
There's a lot of people sayin' we'd be better off dead
Don't feel like Satan, but I am to them
So I try to forget it, any way I can.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away, and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life, and what she's done to it
There's one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love, never get to be cool.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

We got a thousand points of light
For the homeless man
We got a kinder, gentler,
Machine gun hand
We got department stores and toilet paper
Got styrofoam boxes for the ozone layer
Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive
Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive.

Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world
Keep on rockin' in the free world,
Keep on rockin' in the free world.

Government Mule Bad Little Doggie

What a cool Riff on this song. Warren Haynes heads up this band. You may know him from stints with the Allman Brothers band, etc. Gov'T Mule is a superb band so let me give you some recommendations for getting their music:

1. The Deepest End (Live)
2. The Warren Haynes Benefit Concert Vols 1 and 2. This is a mixture of various bands and great stuff indeed. All sales of these albums goes to Habitat For Humanity. These concerts were recorded at the 12th Christmas Jam in Asheville, NC. The music on this thing is smokin' with artists such as Derek Trucks Band, The Allman Brothers, Susan Tedeschi, Edwin McCain, The Bottle Rockets, etc-- all southern rock/blues stuff.
3. Live With a Little Help From My Friends: They are excellent Live!

Buddy Guy: Skin Deep (Two Videos)

If your a Buddy Guy fan (now in his 70's)and don't have a copy of Skin Deep what are you waiting for? This is one of the best blues albums since Albert King and Stevie Ray put out In Session. This album features guests Eric Clapton, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Quinn Sullivan and Robert Randolph,

The lyrics for the song Whose Gonna Fill Those Shoes are Below:

(Somebody got to help me ……)
Tell me who….. who’s gonna fill their shoes…… (know what I’m talking about)
Tell me who…..who’s gonna fill their shoes
They’re the ones who made the blues
Who’s gonna fill their shoes…. (That’s what I need help about)

Down in the delta….Old sun house
Hard luck and trouble what he was singing about
Robert Johnson heard it …made it his own
He got it started …Now we got to carry on

Tell me who…..who’s gonna fill their shoes
They’re the ones who made the blues
Who’s gonna fill those big shoes

Check out this cool live show recording (10 mins)of Whose Gonna Fill Those Shoes with Linday Ell in Canada.

Albert King

I'm sure there are some BB King fans out there but this is my favorite artist with the King last name. Albert has some great tunes, his signatures being "I'll Play the Blues for You and Blues at Sunrise. Two great albums recommended here are:

1. In Session with Stevie Ray Vaughan
2. Chicago 1978

You want go wrong with the likes of Albert King and Buddy Guy. Get you some!



Check out Matchbox Blues in Studio with Stevie Ray Vaughan

Natalie Merchant Live

One of my absolutely favorite albums-- just wish there were more songs. Thanks to David Hawkins for bringing her to my attention. Her live album is phenomenal. She was with the 10,000 Maniacs before going solo and their live MTV Unplugged album is also very good. For a complete retrospective get the Natalie Merchant Retrospective 1990-2005 album which is all you need without the live stuff.

Other songs of hers (not on the live album) which I love are:

Build a Levee
Jealousy
Kind and Generous
Saint Judas
Put the Law on You
Just Can't Last
Sally Ann
Children Go Where I Send Thee
This House is on Fire

I would love to spend a weekend at a concert featuring her, Alison Krauss, and Loreena McKennitt.

Styx (Two Videos included)

The best Styx Album to me is Crystal Ball (newly arrived Tommy Shaw) and Equinox (pre-Tommy Shaw)is also good. And for kicks here is my Styx Greatest Hits compilation.

1. Suite Madame Blue
2. Crystal Ball
3. Jennifer
4. Mademoiselle
5. The Grand Illusion
6. Blue Collar Man
7. Renegade
8. Light Up
9. Miss America
10. Come Sail Away
11. Put Me On
12. Shooz
13. This Old Man
14. Castle Walls
15. Man in the Wilderness
16. Heavy Water
17. This Old Man
18. Midnight Ride
19. Born For Adventure

Below is Styx(with REO) performing Blue Collar Man live in Saint Louis. Also, see my earlier entry for the REO/Styx co-peformance of Roll With the Changes.

ACDC Black Ice

Ok so here goes. If your gonna get pure ACDC music here is how I would now rank their albums following the recent release of Black Ice.

1. If You Want Blood, You've Got it: 1978 live release
2. Highway to Hell: 1979 (last album for singer Bon Scott)
3. Back in Black: 1980, the first album with new singer Brian Johnson
4. Black Ice: 2008

That's right, Black Ice is their best album in 18 years, getting back to the blistering type music of the Bon Scott era. And 15 songs with perhaps only one "filler song" is pretty incredible.

My favorite tunes on this one is perhaps Stormy Mayday (slide guitar, zepplinesque), Decibel (sounds like ZZ Top in the beginning), and War Machine. Least favorite song for me is Anything Goes which seems to belong on some other album.

This is in your face rock n roll with some blues rock thrown in. And that is good because lyrically there is not much to see here as in most ACDC songs. One thing to celebrate is that all these tunes are not steeped in sexual innuendo.

Rush: 2112

Well, this is certainly one of the greatest albums of them all in my opinion and is the one Rush album to have if you can only have one. The songs 2112 and A Passage to Bangkok are two of their best ever recordings. Almost everything about this album will blow you away.

The video below is a piece of the song 2112 from the Show of Hands Tour.

REO Speedwagon You Can Tune a Piano . .

You Can Tune a Piano but You Can't Tune a Fish is one of the best REO Speedwagon albums, probably my favorite of their studio releases. It has great tunes and is known for Roll with the Changes and Time For me to Fly. But its the other tunes that do it for me, primarily the Unidentified Flying Tuna Trot and Say You Love Me or Say Goodnight. Every track on here is very good to my ears. One ituner said this would be one of his five albums with him if he were stranded on an island. Well . . . that might be a stretch but it is super good.

If I were getting one studio recording of REO it would be the compilation Decade of Rock and Roll 1970 to 1980. For live go with You Get What You Play For or Live at Riverport (together with Styx). I like this latter one because Styx and REO play Blue Collar Man and Roll with the Changes together which is cool (see below).

It is very remarkable to see REO and some of the other "older" bands like the Stones, Aerosmith and others still performing at a high level with great sound. But they are still getting it done as can be seen here with Styx in Saint Louis.

Jefferson Airplane The Woodstock Experience

This is my first ever Airplane CD to purchase so I thought I would review it. This was recorded on Sunday morning, August 17, 1969. This summer is the 40 year anniversary of this legendary concert.

This is the first time their full concert has been offered and it is a good and long one, coming in at about 90 minutes. Two months after their performance they would release their album Volunteers which is also included as a studio CD. In my opinion, I wish they would have just offered the woodstock concert as a stand-alone product. However, this is neither here nor there.

This concert finds the airplane at the top of their game and indeed, they were one of the top groups around at the time. This is a very enjoyable CD and one I would highly recommend. Sound quality is very good. Highlights include monster-long versions of Wooden Ships, The House at Pooneil Corners, and The Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil.

If you want to understand the drug, sex, and anti-war culture of the 60's, check out the lyrics from the Airplane. Take these for instance (from the song Won't you try/Saturday afternoon):

yellow clouds rising in the lune
acid incense and ballons
saturday afternoon
people dancing everywhere
love is shouting
i dont care its a time for growing
and a time for knowing
saturday afternoon

Check out White Rabbit performed live at woodstock here.

Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit (Woodstock 1969)- Watch more Music Videos at Vodpod.