By 'Rebel' Rod Ames
A lot has taken place over the past few days and it has somewhat stifled my thought process. It has been very hard to focus on what this blog is about. Music.
I hear a lot of complaining about the shape of things in general. How crappy mainstream music has become; how shallow television has become with all of this so called "reality" TV; how oppressed we are because of the government; how ignorant the liberals are; how ridiculous the conservatives are. It just goes on and on, and we get it 24 hours a day 7 days a week. It's a non-stop barrage of lunacy. And to make matters worse, I get sucked right up into the vortex of this tornadic insanity.
It's no wonder I can't think of anything to write. Then it finally occurs to me. Shut up, get up, and put on a record.
I dug through my collection and found one of my all time favorite live recordings, The J. Geils Band's "Full House", recorded April 21-22, 1972 at The Cinderella Ballroom in Detroit.
I remember hearing this record for the very first time and falling in love with it. So much so, that I purchased tickets to see them at Memorial Auditorium in Dallas as soon as they came through town. We were about eight rows back. No one, I mean no one, sat down for two hours. It was as if I had put Full House on the turntable and the band magically emerged from the black vinyl and onto the stage! They didn't miss a beat, a lick, or a bar. It was absolutely one of the most amazing live performances I had ever seen, and back then there were many.
If I wasn't at Mother Blues witnessing legends like Lightnin' Hopkins, I was at the Dallas Sportatorium watching the likes of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, or at the Lone Star Opry House to see Pure Prairie League, or even It's A Beautiful Day at the Majestic Theater in Downtown Dallas. Those shows certainly were outstanding, but this one, well, this one is at the very apex of my personal concert going experience. None can touch it.
If you want to see what it was like to see J. Geils Band back then, all you have to do is go to your friendly neighborhood record store, amazon.com, Itunes, or whatever your preference is, and buy it, put it on your turntable if you're old school, or your Ipod if you happen to be technologically inclined. It really doesn't matter.
The record get's started with "First I Look at the Purse" (Robert Rogers) and is followed by "Homework" (Dave Clark, Al Perkins, & Otis Rush), "Pack Fair and Square" (Walter Travis Price), "Whammer Jammer" (Juke Joint Jimmy), "Hard Drivin' Man" (J. Geils, Peter Wolf), "Serves You Right to Suffer" (John Lee Hooker), "Cruisin' For a Love" (Juke Joint Jimmy), and "Looking for a Love" (James Alexander and Zelda Samuels). This is a list of songs guaranteed to get you off your feet and dancing.
Of course, J. Geils Band is Stephen Bladd on drums and vocals, J. Geils on guitar, Seth Justman on keyboards and vocals, Danny Klein on bass, Magic Dick on harmonica, and Peter Wolf on vocals.
This is one of the best of the 70's and you can't go wrong with it. An absolute delight to revisit. Check it out.
I feel better already, and apparently I'm no longer linguistically stifled. I think I'm just going to leave the TV off and the turntable on.
Until next time....
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