There are a lot of good, live country music albums. But are there any out there that could possibly top Johnny Cash's "At Folsom Prison" from his January 13, 1968, show at California's Folsom State Prison?
If there are, I'd like to know about them.
Columbia Records didn't see fit to invest much money into the project, which was a groundbreaking effort at the time. But it turned into a hit, reaching the top of the country chart and the top 15 on the national album chart. All these years later, it's gone triple platinum.
It was an album that turned Cash's career around. With June Carter, Carl Perkins and the Statler Brothers along to back him up -- and with that Johnny Cash bite -- it was hard to go wrong with this one.
I was looking through a list of "Rolling Stone's Top 25 Best Live Albums of All Time," and with any list like that there's sure to be something that music fans disagree with or see missing, and they're sure to say something about it.
That was how it was with this particular list. Oh, there were some great ones in the list. What was interesting was how many comments there were about one particular album that didn't make it.
"Where’s Frampton? Are you kidding? You can’t leave him off, he was too much a part of our times ..."
" ... where the HELL is frampton comes alive?"
"Frampton Comes Alive = #1"
Yeah, it goes like that.
It's pretty much impossible to please everyone in subjective things like this, and many people could and would argue that -- for various reasons -- there are better live albums than Peter Frampton's "Frampton Comes Alive."
But it's hard to argue with the "popular vote," and Frampton's breakthrough solo live album (after a few less-than-successful studio recordings coming on the heels of his time with the band Humble Pie) was huge in terms of sales and time spent on the charts: the album spent 10 weeks at the top of the Billboard charts; it was the best-selling album of 1976, selling over 6 million copies in
the U.S. and became one of the best-selling live albums to date; it was voted "album of the year" in the 1976 Rolling Stone readers poll; it stayed on the chart for 97 weeks and was still #14 on Billboard's 1977 year-end album chart.
It was an album that turned Frampton into a household name, made him a movie star, and even today you never know when you might find Frampton showing up in a television commercial.
This is a week for music so powerful, it has a kind of force that can
knock you out just thinking about it. It's relentless. It can stick
with you for a lifetime.
And here's where this week of "kickin' tail" was inspired. It came to me last Sunday, as I was driving that morning to do a few hours' worth of work. I was just in one of "those moods," with my beat up pair of cowboy boots on, and as I was finding a radio station to listen to as I was driving my pickup truck, I came across the familiar strains of a scorching guitar.
My favorite classic rock station was doing one of its "weekend blocks" of songs by artists, and I came across George Thorogood and The Destroyers doing "Bad To the Bone," along with a couple more tunes from them.
I was happy to come across that. It set the tone for my whole week.
So, who do you love? For me this week, it's been those "tail kickers."
And it all started for me with George and The Destroyers.
This is a week for music so powerful, it has a kind of force that can
knock you out just thinking about it. It's relentless. It can stick
with you for a lifetime.
In the world of progressive rock, there's one name that comes to my mind that fits the mold of a "tail kicker." That would be Frank Zappa.
He was always one to speak his mind and not hold back, whether it was through his recorded music, in a live performance, in an interview, or appearing in front of a Senate committee. Zappa saw the world the way it is, warts and all, and he described it the way he saw it.
Frank could "kick tail" through his lyrics or just strapping on a guitar and letting it all hang out. He wrote music that was insanely challenging, and could kick the tails of the best players on their particular instruments.
A large piece of classic jazz music history is gone now. Pianist and legendary quartet leader Dave Brubeck died today of heart failure, one day short of his 92nd birthday.
Brubeck wrote some jazz classics such as "The Duke" and "In Your Own Sweet Way." But it was a song written by his saxophonist Paul Desmond, "Take Five," that the Dave Brubeck Quartet will be remembered for by most. And the album that song came from, "Take Five," has gone into the history books as one of the great jazz albums ever recorded.
Brubeck's style, his playfulness with time signatures, and his mere presence will be missed by many.
This is a week for music so powerful, it has a kind of force that can
knock you out just thinking about it. It's relentless. It can stick
with you for a lifetime.
There've been many country music songs and artists who've fit that description, and the lives some of those musicians have led have fit that mold. Steve Earle fits the mold pretty easily. He's been married several times, served some time behind bars, and when it comes to being outspoken ... well, Steve Earle isn't one to mince words. He'll tell you what's on his mind, in great detail. He believes what he says, says what he believes.
That makes for quite the activist.
Steve Earle's songs reflect that attitude of his. Whether it's doing someone else's songs, like The Chambers Brothers' powerful "Time Has Come Today," or one of his own (my favorite of his being "Copperhead Road"), it's music that has quite a bite to it.
This is a week for music so powerful, it has a kind of force that can knock you out just thinking about it. It's relentless. It can stick with you for a lifetime.
To start it off, I'll turn to a band that's been on a "high" lately and has never really faded away in the hearts, minds, and ears of so many classic rock fans even though it ceased to exist as a full-blown group with the death of its "heartbeat" -- drummer John Bonham -- in 1980.
John Paul Jones, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Bonham
Of course, I'm talking about that force of nature known as Led Zeppelin.
It's not every band that can get together for a huge one-off concert at London's O2 Arena the way Zep did in December 2007, and have the official film of the event -- Celebration Day -- become so highly anticipated when it appeared in theaters and on home video nearly five years later. They may have been missing John Bonham's powerful drums, but not by an awful lot. John's son Jason makes for a very worthy fill-in for his father.
And, let's be "blunt" here. Back in the late '60s, when the Zep was launched, how many people would have predicted that Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones -- the surviving members -- would be standing in the finest attire, looking all spiffed up, to receive the Kennedy Center Honors, as they did on Sunday? The celebration continued the following Monday night with an interview on The Late Show with David Letterman.
It's all most definitely a "high" for a bunch of rowdies who've been rocking people's worlds for years. It is cause to celebrate.
