Bloggerhythms

Are you tired of Paul McCartney being treated as a musical wimp? The people who dislike his "granny music" - as John Lennon once called it - get stuck on an extremely small sample of the legend's tremendously huge catalog with The Beatles, Wings and as a solo artist. McCartney's granny songs didn't sound the least bit off-putting to me, possibly because - as I've mentioned here before - I grew up listening to my mother's big band records. I've always believed it was wrong that one of the most important men who helped shape rock music in the 60s was criticized for having broader tastes, and since when is writing melodies a crime? McCartney was greatly influenced by his father. Jim McCartney led his own jazz band and Paul liked what he heard. His first instrument was a trumpet given to him by his dad, but the future star traded it in for a guitar so he could sing while playing. It turned out to be a very smart move on his part. ...

Maybe I'm naive, but I've always wondered why so many musicians take up the ill-conceived lifestyle of using dangerous, mind-altering drugs. To me, their poor choices were hypocritical and in direct conflict with the important social causes many of them campaigned for on a regular basis, especially in the 1960s and 1970s when the "sex, drugs & rock n' roll" lifestyle seemed to reach epic proportions. Bonnie Raitt was among the stars who would rail against the possibility of radiation from nuclear power plants poisoning people  while voluntarily doing the same to her own body by frequently using deadly, illicit substances.  I always said to myself - but never to anyone publicly before, "Why should we listen to these celebrities on any subject - peace, civil rights, clean energy - when they're not smart enough to prevent their own personal destruction."   To m...

I'm not the least bit Irish, but I've been a fan of Celtic-rock for quite a long time now. So, to celebrate St. Patrick's Day today I'm rerunning one of my very early posts. It was originally published here on September 10, 2005. Keith Roberts and Young Dubliners offer a slick, polished, and commercial Irish-rock sound that befits their home base of Los Angeles. Their style is a complete contrast to bands such as Black 47 who flaunt their grittier New York City street image. While Larry Kirwan's band, along with The Saw Doctors, U2, and The Pogues, wear their shamrocks on their sleeves the Dubliners devotion to their roots is a little more subdued. The fact that The Dubliners are more mainstream than any of the bands mentioned above is given away by the arena rock sound of the title track as well as "Touch The Sky," and "Say It's So." There are no politics on this album, no songs ab...

Modern English is a one-hit wonder whose most famous song never reached the Top 40. "I Melt With You" may have climbed to #7 on the US rock chart, but it never made it higher than #76 on the Hot 100, and that was after it was re-recorded and released a second time in 1990 on the quintet's Pillow Lips CD. The original version - and the one most people know from the album After The Snow - placed two spots lower. The video shows a couple dancing, but don't let the song's catchy melody and exuberance fool you. Its opaque lyrics reveal a serious theme. Lead singer Robbie Grey explained that "I Melt With You" is about a young couple making love during a nuclear holocaust. Grey wanted to write a love song, but he told Lori Majewski and Jonathan Bernstein, authors of   Mad World: An Oral History of New Wave Artists and Songs That Defined the 1980s , that " The last thing we wanted was to write a song where boy meets girl, they ...

Country Joe McDonald - who died March 7, 2026 at age 84 - and his band, The Fish were almost entirely known for "The Fish Cheer" and its accompanying song "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-To-Die-Rag," but McDonald had a long career. He recorded over thirty-five albums and EPs with his group and as a solo artist, none of which are familiar to me. McDonald used his fifteen minutes of fame at Woodstock for his performance of the infamous cheer that leads into his still well-loved, anti-Viet Nam war protest song. Along with Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" the "Rag" was a strong statement against the war and was even more pointed than Guthrie's sidelong, LP narrative. Just like Guthrie, McDonald used dark humor to get his point across even though the subject matter wasn't the least bit funny. I remember snickering the first time I heard it way back in prehistoric times when I was a teenager and ...

Stevie Ray Vaughan - deservedly elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015 along with his band Double Trouble - is sorely missed. Sadly, Vaughan left us more than a quarter of a century ago with a discography that's limited in size due to his early passing in a tragic helicopter crash. In Step was the fourth and last studio album Vaughan recorded with Double Trouble, and it was the last one to be released in his lifetime. It went to #33 on Billboard's top 200 album chart. SRV's actual final recording was Family Style , an album on which he shared equal billing with his brother, Jimmie, who is best known for his work with The Fabulous Thunderbirds. Another excellent set, The Sky Is Crying , was issued posthumously two years later, but it was assembled from unreleased tracks found in the vaults. In Step is a fine record, and it opens with a blast. "The House is Rockin'" is nothing fancy, just good old fas...

Even if it's a current release by a newer artist, the kind of rock music I gravitate to more and more these days are the sounds of its formative years - those heavily influenced by the genres that preceded it - and that's exactly what you'll hear if you listen to Ruby James. James is new to me, but the kind of rock 'n roll the veteran recording artist sings is not. She has made several albums with her feet firmly planted back in the days when rock was rebellious, controversial and cool. "Bumble Bee" is the singer's showstopping, fiery lead single from her upcoming album, Call It Rock & Roll , that I'm sure you'll be hearing more about here upon its release. The record was a minor hit in 1960 for R&B singer Laverne Baker (#46 on the Hot 100). James takes Baker's fine, soulful, performance and updates it by turning it into an even better rock song with help from the highly regarded but not widely known  Ro...

Chicago has taken a lot of heat from critics over the years, and many fans - including me - have lamented what this formerly outstanding band became after beginning their career as darlings of the counterculture. In their early years Chicago was never a band to shy away from expressing their political beliefs. The anti-war wall poster that came with the third album - seen at the top of this post - is proof of that. Terry Kath could easily shred with the best axmen of the era, but the group often combined jazz, some classical, and even a little bit of country music into their often-sophisticated rock songs. So, to show non-believers the kind of music Chicago was capable of creating a long time ago here are three of their very early deep tracks that prove my point. "Mother"  from Chicago III  (1971) Chicago's third album was one of the group's more ambitious works and "Mother" - the son...