Content tagged 'aod'

“I saw a bum about a block away and I knew he was going to ask me for spare change,” recalled Joe Walsh of the title to GOT ANY GUM? “I'm all ready but he gets up to me and I say, 'Here, help yourself.' He says 'I don't need money, ya got any gum?'” In keeping with that, the 1987 Warner Bros. collection is filled with pleasant surprises; “The Radio Song” reached Billboard's Hot Mainstream Rock Top 10, follow-up single “In My Car” was co-written with Ringo Starr and such songs as “Malibu” and the title instrumental are infectious fun. Recorded at Ardent Studios with Memphis music stalwart Terry Manning handling production, the underrated GOT ANY GUM? is one of Joe Walsh's best albums of the 1980s, and we'll give it another spin now to wish the performer a happy birthday.

“Driving Home For Christmas” took Chris Rea down a long road, but at its end was a holiday classic. Following a December 1978 recording session at London's Abbey Road Studios, the British singer-songwriter was headed back to his home in Middlesbrough; to save money, his wife picked him up in her car. As traffic slowed to a crawl, inspiration struck when Rea saw frustration on the faces of surrounding drivers; as he recalled, “whenever the street lights shone inside the car, I started writing down lyrics.” It was years later before a melody was paired to the words, and later still before the song was committed to tape – it charted in the U.K. when released as an A-side in 1988, and again in 2007 and 2017. For those of you planning to travel during the holidays, we'll make seasonal favorite “Driving Home For Christmas” our Song of the Day.

Fleetwood Mac celebrates a half-century of music with a new 50-song collection that is the first to explore the group's entire career, from its early days playing the blues, to its global success as one of the most-enduring and best-selling bands in rock history. The 3-CD set 50 YEARS-DON'T STOP offers a deep dive into the band's expansive catalog by bringing together essential tracks released between 1968 and 2013. The first disc revisits Fleetwood Mac's beginnings as a blues-rock combo, a six-year period ending in 1974; among the U.K. Top Ten hits included is “Albatross.” The second disc focuses on the group's most commercially successful period with music from multi-platinum releases FLEETWOOD MAC, RUMOURS and TUSK. The final disc explores songs the band released between 1982 and 2013, including such U.S. Top Ten hits as “Hold Me,” “Big Love” and “Little Lies.” Today we wish bassist John McVie a happy birthday with 50 YEARS-DON'T STOP.

Beloved singer-songwriter-painter-poet Joni Mitchell first conceived LOVE HAS MANY FACES: A QUARTET, A BALLET, WAITING TO BE DANCED as the music to a ballet about love. Unable to distill everything she’d written about love - and the lack of it - down to a single disc, Mitchell continued to sequence her songs, and after two years had created a four-act ballet based on the 53 songs that make up this inspiring collection. She likened the process to making a film: “I had forty years of footage to review. Then, suddenly, scenes began to hook up. Then series began to form … themes began to develop.” Featuring Mitchell's visual art as well as her emotionally charged music, the critically-acclaimed LOVE HAS MANY FACES is now available on vinyl for the first time as a limited-edition, eight-LP boxed set.

Forty years ago – more than seven years after his death – Jim Morrison was back on record racks with AN AMERICAN PRAYER. The Elektra/Asylum collection was built around poetry recordings the performer had made in 1969 and 1970, with instrumental backing provided by former bandmates John Densmore, Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek, making this in effect the final Doors album. The pieces may not have the kind of song structure that girded the foursome's hits (though there is a killer live version of “Roadhouse Blues” included here), but Morrison's gift for striking lyrical imagery is in full effect, and the musical accompaniment is eerily sympathetic. The list of platinum-selling spoken word albums is a pretty short one, and AN AMERICAN PRAYER earned a place on it by channeling the spirit of one of rock's all-time greatest groups.

Jethro Tull played its first show under that name in February 1968; months later, Ian Anderson, Mick Abrahams, Glenn Cornick and Clive Bunker released the band's debut, THIS WAS. The only Tull album to feature guitarist Abrahams (who soon left to form Blodwyn Pig), the set shows the group moving away from its early blues-based sound, and includes such enduring concert favorites as “My Sunday Feeling” and “Beggar's Farm.” The collection debuted at #10 on the U.K. album chart, and was the first step in a 50-year (and counting) journey that made Jethro Tull one of the world's most successful progressive rock bands. Now in stores, the 3-CD/1-DVD THIS WAS: 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION includes a new Steven Wilson stereo remix, the original mono version, BBC recordings and other rarities including b-sides, outtakes and radio advertisements.

The Germs emerged from the Hollywood club scene with a string of shows legendary for their chaos, with food, broken glass and performers threatening to fly off the stage at any moment. Naturally they got banned at a lot of places; the quartet used the pseudonym GI (for “Germs Incognito”) to skirt the ban - and as the title of their debut album. The 1979 Slash Records collection was produced by former Runaway Joan Jett, who brings enough discipline to the proceedings that distinctive songs and performances emerge that would've been obscured by concert sound systems. These 16 tracks, including “Richie Dagger's Crime" and the classic “Lexicon Devil,” show frontman Darby Crash to be a visionary lyricist, and future Nirvana/Foo Fighter Pat Smear to be a forceful guitarist. Decades after its original release, L.A. hardcore punk landmark GI retains its contagious excitement.

Pink Floyd's first proper live album, DELICATE SOUND OF THUNDER was recorded at Long Island's Nassau Coliseum while the band was touring behind A MOMENTARY LAPSE OF REASON. In the wake of Roger Waters' departure, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Richard Wright pulled out all the stops on these shows, and the double-disc set serves Pink Floyd's music admirably. The group's then-current album figures prominently of course (“Sorrow” and “On the Turning Away” arguably surpass their studio versions), but the band also delivers vibrant performances of such classics as “Money,” “Comfortably Numb” and “Wish You Were Here.” DELICATE SOUND OF THUNDER was released 30 years ago today, and will thrill any fan of the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers.

Along with composing Broadway hit The Music Man, songwriter Meredith Willson's résumé includes the yuletide classic “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.” The 1951 song has been covered by artists including Perry Como, Alvin and the Chipmunks and America, but few as memorably as Canadian hitmaker Michael Bublé. It's the leading track to the singer's 2011 Reprise album CHRISTMAS, a chart-topping, Juno Award-winning collection that's among the most successful seasonal albums of the millennium. With producer David Foster's sure hand behind the boards and  Bublé's ever-supple vocals carrying the melody, “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas” is the perfect kick-off to December, and it's our Song of the Day.

Chic helped define the pop and disco genres with unstoppable hits like "Le Freak," "Good Times," "I Want Your Love" and "My Feet Keep Dancing." After Chic's initial success, founders Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards began making music for other artists as The Chic Organization; among their biggest successes was Sister Sledge's WE ARE FAMILY. The new THE CHIC ORGANIZATION 1977-1979 boxed set includes Chic's first three albums (CHIC, C'EST CHIC and RISQUÉ) along with WE ARE FAMILY - all newly remastered from the original Atlantic tapes under Rodgers' supervision. The 5-CD collection also features a disc of 12" mixes and 7" edits of such Chic classics as “Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah),” “My Forbidden Lover” and “Everybody Dance.”