It's Only Rock and Roll, Part 4
A while back I did a column on the loss of live music and some albums that may be able to satisfy that live music urge. Well, live music is back, and just like the CDC it’s confusing as Hell, as some groups are touring, sort of, some groups are putting shows off, time and time again and then you have Eric Clapton. he is doing a two week tour and going back to his castle or his resort or wherever he drops his guitar now.
So that brings us back to what we can listen to and enjoy at home. Once again, purists will scoff at some of my selections but as you know, I am nothing if not eclectic.
Let’s get the show started and let me put this one out there: Grand Funk Live. I know that this group is almost universally disliked but I can’t help it. They were raw and funky and put on a hell of a show. Loud and direct, this album has no soft moments and if you want to get pumped listen to “Inside Looking Out”. I actually think the live version is much better than the studio version. Brings back memories of Shea Stadium back in the ‘70’s.
Here’s another ditty people will scoff at, The Ramones, It’s Alive. Recorded in London, this album shows The Ramones at their peak. 28 songs in the span of it would seem, an hour, since every song is no more than two minutes, thirty seconds.The Ramones were the Godfathers of the English Punk movement and a lot of the New Wave stuff that came out of England as well. Good chance, this performance changed the course of music in subtle and not so subtle ways. I know the Ramones were not everyones cup of tea but they are fun to listen to even if every song has the pretty much the same chords and melodies.
The Band’s Last Waltz has to be one of the greatest events in rock history along with being a great live album. The movie “The Last Waltz” chronicles the whole shebang and if you haven’t seen it, you should. There are soo many good tracks on this three record set that I can’t pick one. Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Ronnie Hawkins, Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell to name a few of the artists along with The Band. May be the best three-record live album of all time.
Another album that will make purists head explode is Yes, Yessongs. I got into Yes for about a month in the summer of 70 something and this was the album I bought and listened to non-stop. It is a bit of a hodge-podge of Yes shows but all of their hits are on it and while they tend to overdo some of the breaks in songs, they were still have a very unique sound with very talented members. I still listen to it sometimes and it brings up great memories and while prog rock has died decades ago, it still is worth listening to again.
Elton John’s 11-17-70 is a great live album no matter what the critics may have said at the time and it still holds up today. This was Elton John starting out. Even though he made his real debut in the US a few months before at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, this show was done for a local radio station and only had Dee Murray and Nigel Olssen backing him and he blew away the music heavyweights in the audience. It’s simple and the songs are the stars but his craftsmanship was also front and center.
Don’t shoot me but I still think Woodstock is a great concert album. Granted there is a lot of bad music in there and the concert was a train wreck from a million different perspectives, there still are some awesome performances. Sly and the Family Stone’s performance stands out, even if Sly Stone was on another planet, it’s hard not to get up and get into this medley. Santana’s performance was also a breakout and no matter how many times I listen to it, I still love it. Ritchie Havens, Jefferson Airplane and The Who all stand out as well. There are like 12 versions of the concert so be careful which one you buy, you could be paying for more Leslie West that you expect.
Crosby, Nash, Stills and Young, Four Way Street is one of those concert albums that highlights the individual songbooks of the artists rather than what they did together. Luckily, these four guys have an incredible library of material to chose from and they had amazing chemistry and produced an excellent live album. They do a couple of songs from Deja Vu and there are several songs that were unreleased so the mix is interesting and very enjoyable.
Finally, It’s hard to pick the best Grateful Dead live album because there are just so many of them. From the bootlegs to any of the Dick Picks, there are dozens(maybe hundreds) of great ones and for true Dead Heads, it’s a personal preference for sure but I do have to pick one and I am going to go totally commercial here and say if I had to put one of the commercial volumes out there I would say it’s Europe ‘72. Don’t get your tie-died shorts in a bunch, I am not a Dead Head, never have been and I only came to appreciate the Grateful Dead a decade or two ago so this is a novice speaking but I think Europe ‘72 gives a very broad example of what their live performances were like and it does have the best version of “Jack Straw” recorded.