This week's edition of 10 Songs draws exclusively from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1010.
THE ANIMALS: It's My Life
I became a big fan of The Animals about 10-11 years after the fact, when my mid-'70s embrace of all things British Invasion made me the only teenager in North Syracuse who preferred The Dave Clark Five to Led Zeppelin. I loved "House Of The Rising Sun" and "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place," but "It's My Life" was the one that always struck me as something extra special. This track is perfect; I remember listening to it intently a few years later, as a college student alone in my dorm room, playing my unfashionable rockin' pop music amidst the white noise of Southern rock and Grateful Dead that my peers chose as their soundtrack. I was out of step with the times. I didn't care, and I still don't. It's my life.
THE BAY CITY ROLLERS: Who'll Be My Keeper
Technically this is by "The Rollers," the group's name truncated for the release of 1979's Elevator album in a doomed bid for acceptance beyond its vanishing teenybopper base. But the CD reissues of three albums (Elevator, Voxx, and Ricochet) originally credited to the just-plain Rollers restored the "Bay City" billing, so we'll go with that. This is a fantastic track, with Duncan Faure's Lennonesque vocals soaring above a chuggin', rockin' Rollers sound that deserved the wider audience it was denied. All three of those albums are well worth checking out (if you can find them), and I'm all for reissues of the two other Rollers albums, the cassette-only Burning Rubber soundtrack, and the...well, awful synth mistake Breakout. I'm an unapologetic fan of a lot of The Bay City Rollers' hit-era material, especially "Rock And Roll Love Letter" and "Wouldn't You Like It," and I even wanted to write a Bay City Rollers movie when I was a teen. But I tell ya, I betcha Elevator, Voxx, and Ricochet would have garnered more appreciation in power pop circles if not for the unwarranted stigma of The Bay City Rollers' Tartan-clad teen-idol image.
ROSANNE CASH: Pink Bedroom
Rosanne Cash's album Rhythm & Romance got a lot of in-store play when I was workin' for a downtown Buffalo record retailer in the spring and summer of '85. I was 25 years old, married, holding down that full-time record-store job plus a part-time position as a burger-flipper under the Golden Arches, and finally starting to make a few freelance writing sales (a tale I've already told elsewhere). In this time frame, Cash's magnificent and definitive take of John Hiatt's "Pink Bedroom" was as much a joyous part of my everyday sonic milieu as The Del Fuegos, The Ramones, Prince, and Katrina & the Waves. The Neil Diamond vibe of the song immediately put me in mind of The Monkees, and made me dream the impossible dream of a Monkees reunion. Sure, The Monkees (three-quarters of them, anyway) did reunite a year later, but they never got around to recording any John Hiatt songs. They should have.
ANNY CELSI: Sideways Rain
I first heard the music of Anny Celsi in 2003, when her album Little Black Dress & Other Stories was released. A copy of that CD found its way to Dana, and he played the track "Empty Hangers" on TIRnRR; for me, it was love at first spin. Anny's been a TIRnRR Fave Rave ever since, and "Empty Hangers" has secured a permanent berth on my all-time Hot 100. "Sideways Rain" is a previously-unreleased track that appeared on Anny's 2019 best-of LP Kaleidoscope Heart--12 Golden Greats, and my God, it rivals the seemingly nonpareil greatness of "Empty Hangers." Love at first spin? That love endures.
THE CLICK BEETLES: If Not Now Then When
The Click Beetles' Dan Pavelich has been a friend of TIRnRR for many years, and his new pop culture blog Pop-A-Looza carries a weekly dose of Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do). Huzzah! "If Not Now Then When" is my top pick among the many fine tracks that Dan has done over the years, and we were delighted to hear it as part of the 2019 compilation Waterloo Sunset--Benefit For This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio. Now, it's poised to enter Click Beetles canon on the group's forthcoming new album Pop Fossil. Please budget your CD-buyin' plans accordingly.
THE ISLEY BROTHERS: You Walk Your Way
This 1975 Isley Brothers B-side of "For The Love Of You [Part 1 & 2]" should have been an A-side. I didn't even realize it had gotten a single release at all; I thought it was just an album track on the group's 3 + 3 LP, the album that also contains their transcendent version of Seals & Crofts' "Summer Breeze" and their own timeless hit "Who's That Lady." The sad sway of "You Walk Your Way" presents a heartbreaking tale of paths diverging at love's end, a soulful shrug as former partners go their separate ways.
CAROLYNE MAS: In The Rain
Gotta credit singer/songwriter/aficionado Dean Landew for pointing us in the direction of this fine track, which made its first (and thus far only) appearance on the 2003 Carloyne Mas retrospective Beyond Mercury. Prior to that, my go-to Carolyne Mas track was the fabulous, driving "Quote Goodbye Quote" from 1979, but I think I dig the beguiling pleasure of "In The Rain" just as much. Her Carolyne Mas, Hold On, and Modern Dreams albums are scheduled for CD reissue in February; alas, Beyond Mercury is now out of print, but one hopes "In The Rain" will regain its rightful place at retail...somewhere!
MIDNIGHT OIL: The Dead Heart
After graduating from college and moving into an apartment in 1980, I didn't have cable TV until the late '80s. I saw MTV on occasional visits back home to North Syracuse, and in 1986 my upstairs neighbor Cheryl let me watch MTV's afternoon reruns of The Monkees every now and again. I finally did get cable at the end of '86, right before I moved out of Buffalo and back to Syracuse in the spring of 1987. I got cable for my new Syracuse apartment immediately, and again when I bought a house in 1989. I've had MTV ever since.
I don't watch it anymore, of course, but I do have it.
Midnight Oil's "Beds Are Burning" was a huge MTV hit in '87, but I was more taken with their subsequent vid-hits "The Dead Heart" and "Dreamworld." All three of those cuts came from the group's Diesel And Dust album, which I dutifully purchased some time in the late '80s.
THE RARE BREED: Beg, Borrow And Steal
I've told the strange saga of "Beg, Borrow And Steal" as a chapter in my forthcoming book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1). Released versions of the song credited variously to The Rare Breed and The Ohio Express are both the exact same master, with only a little remixing to differentiate the Breed from the Express. Released by the Attack Records label in 1966, The Rare Breed's original single of "Beg, Borrow And Steal" missed the Hot 100, so its producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeff Katz turned around and re-sold it to Neil Bogart at Cameo Records, where it became the first chart hit for The Ohio Express. Again, same record as The Rare Breed's release, just with its mix tweaked and its credit altered.
The Cameo Records catalog came into the possession of Allen Klein, who had a reputation as being something of a schmuck. In the '90s, when labels like Rhino and Varese Sarabande wanted to include "Beg, Borrow And Steal" on '60s compilations, they bypassed the notoriously hardassed Klein, licensed the track directly from Kasenetz and Katz, and credited it to The Rare Breed. BUT! Both labels used the punchier Ohio Express mix rather than the original, comparatively tentative-sounding Rare Breed mix. Call it a shell game or call it musical chairs, but what we know as a Rare Breed track on CD reissues is really an Ohio Express track in disguise. The intrigue! The drama! The...all right, the fact that few beside me care about this at all. Listen: get your own blog.
Anyway. To my knowledge, only two CD reissues of "Beg, Borrow And Steal" correctly match the mix used with the artist named on the package. Real Gone Music reissued the debut Ohio Express album as Beg, Borrow And Steal: The Complete Cameo Recordings, which I believe is the sole authorized reissue of "Beg, Borrow And Steal" by The Ohio Express. The budget label Collectables issued a Rare Breed compilation called The Super K Kollection, which I think--I think--is the only place you can hear the Rare Breed mix of "Beg, Borrow And Steal" outside of a vintage 45. We played the version from The Super K Kollection on this week's TIRnRR: the first time we've ever played "Beg, Borrow And Steal" by The Rare Breed...even though we've already been playing "Beg, Borrow And Steal" by The Rare Breed for decades.
That was complicated. I need a drink.
RONNIE SPECTOR & THE E STREET BAND: Say Goodbye To Hollywood
Billy Joel wrote "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" as a tribute to Phil Spector's wall-of-sound production, and specifically to Spector's work with The Ronettes. Presuming Joel is the die-hard music fan I'm sure he is, I can't even imagine how thrilled he must have been when Ronettes lead singer Ronnie Spector covered "Say Goodbye To Hollywood" in 1977. It's like if The Beatles had covered The Knickerbockers' "Lies," or Creedence Clearwater Revival had covered The Hollies' "Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress." GO, Billy! I used to think that the E Street Band's backing on this record slathered things on a little too thick for my taste, but I've come to embrace that over-the-top kitchen-sink approach as absolutely appropriate for the task at hand. The wall of lawsuits Bruce Springsteen had to navigate between Born To Run and Darkness Of The Edge Of Town prevented his name from appearing on Spector's record, but he's sure the boss of all he surveys here. Ronnie Spector's voice conveys frailty and strength in paradoxically equal measure, and there are days when I believe this is even greater than The Ronettes' "Be My Baby."
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