Lennon's Imagine tuns 50 today. He had released " Power to the People " in March. Ringo had released " It Don't Come Easy " - produced by George - in April. Paul and Linda put out  Ram  in May. George's only studio output for 1971 was the " Bangla Desh " single in July, as he devoted most of his time first to production and then to preparations for the benefit concerts. Had the Beatles still been a band, they would have had enough material for a quality album, Ramagine . It is a solid one, with three or four tracks still garnering airplay in the classic rock format. For the sake of variety, we'll use the first take of Imagine. It has a different mix, with a more prominent harmonium. We'll also include the All Things Must Pass out take, " I Live For You ". At the risk of alienating fans of Wings Wild Life , we won't include any of its tracks here, as the album didn't come out till December. It would have been a pret...

It should have been a double album. That's what they recorded for Lifehouse , Pete's sci-fi rock opera follow up to Tommy . For some reason, he couldn't get the plot or libretto right and ended up paring it down to a single album. They didn't waste a track. Like Sticky Fingers , IV, and others, it is one of those 1971 albums that dominated AOR FM into the '80s and classic rock channels to this day. While I'll usually change stations when a couple of the tunes come on....again....I still listen to some of the tacks that don't get much play anymore.  Most of the other material came out as singles, Townshend solo tracks, cuts on the Odds & Sods compilation, or bonus tracks on one of the several expanded definitive deluxe reissues of Who's Next . The version of "Greyhound Girl" is a live track included on Endless Wire. Here is Pete's demo: The songs here are not all part of the  Lifehouse plot, but they either are from those sessions or ...

Fifty years ago this week, Grand Funk Railroad sold out Shea Stadium in 72 hours, a feat that, 6 years earlier, took the Beatles about two weeks. To be fair, no band had ever played Shea before the Beatles. It may even be possible that the Mets were never able to sell it out in their early years. They were huge at the time, yet nobody could figure out why. Their first two albums, if you read up on them, are often compared unfavorably to Black Sabbath, or Spinal Tap around the time of  Brainhammer .  More "hard rock" than "heavy metal", the first two albums feature a lot of heavy boogie and hard funk riffing without the hooks of Zeppelin or Deep Purple. Production values are pretty lo-fi, they almost seem live. " Got This Thing on the Move " sounds like Blue Cheer or maybe early MC5 while " Paranoid " - not the Sabbath tune - could fit on the Stooges' Funhouse . They were all about the live show. In 1969, as yet unknown, the were well received...

Miles released A Tribute to Jack Johnson fifty years ago . The first track - of two - " Right Off ", stands as his fullest excursion into straight ahead rock, while the second " Yesternow ," is a gritty, bluesy funky vamp. Who knew Willie Nelson could be so funky? It is the "Rock" part of his "Jazz-Rock" fusion that concerns us with this playlist. Some of the tunes here, "Right Off" and "Red China Blues", are straight ahead blues based rock. The pieces from the Bitches Brew sessions are spacier....almost prog...with "Great Expectations" never quite resolving into the implied quote of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade.  There's plenty for a rock fan to enjoy, and some jazz too. When writing about this period of Miles' work, Stanley Crouch said that listening to it was like having nails driven into his forehead. We've got that covered too.

For this week's show we'll go back to April 26, 1971 , to the Young Vic Theatre in London. The Who had set up residence with free weekly shows to showcase the material that would make up the majority of Who's Next , which would be released in August. Most of the songs come from the Lifehouse project. A sci-fi rock opera concept wherein people don't leave the house due to pollution. Instead, they interact with the world through "the grid"....crazy, right? Pete Townshend....what a nutter! The whole thing could've made a double album, but eventually, they shaved it down to one disc's worth, with most of the extra tracks coming out as singles, Townshend  solo tracks , and cuts on the Odds and Sods release. The running order of songs, again, comes from Setlist.fm . Most of the songs were released on a super deluxe release of Who's Next (sorry, I can't keep track of which one). "Bony Moronie" is from the Thirty Years of Maximum R...