10 Songs is a weekly list of ten songs that happen to be on my mind at the moment. The lists are usually dominated by songs played on the previous Sunday night's edition of This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl. The idea was inspired by Don Valentine of the essential blog I Don't Hear A Single.
This week's edition of 10 Songs will really be 40 Songs, presented in four parts. The selections draw from the playlist for This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio # 1240, presenting a few of the tracks featured in my new book THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE! (VOLUME 1).
We played 48 tracks on this week's show; for ten of those, I read on-air excerpts from the book's chapter about that track. This four-part collection of 10 Songs columns will offer snippets on behalf of the other 38 tracks, with two bonus tracks at the end.
BADFINGER: Baby Blue
..."Baby Blue" is the embodiment of why I fell in love with the radio in the first place. It’s an enduring testimony to why I still love radio's potential, in spite of all efforts to make me give up on that love. Radio gave me Badfinger. I can never repay that debt....
CHUCK BERRY: Promised Land
...Chuck Berry knew well the travails of the downtrodden. Dark skin, humble origin, and destined to transcend everything to become one of the most significant performers in the history of rock 'n' roll. His mind was quick, his fingers precise, wedding intricate, unforgettable wordplay to a guitar he played like a-ringin' a bell. He struggled. He pushed. He got noticed. He got pushed back. He kept pushing back in turn, smiling and duck-walking, while seething behind his flamboyant mask. A nice man? Possibly not, but beside the point. An important man? If you've ever loved rock 'n' roll, you should be ashamed to even ask that question...
...Into this tinderbox, Chuck Berry brought an electric match: Black music that made white kids dance. He wrote in code—most famously, the irresistibly potent brown-skinned handsome man who became (wink) a brown-eyed handsome man—but he crafted and chronicled the American teen-age dream with greater eloquence than anyone else, black or white....
DUSTY SPRINGFIELD: I Only Want To Be With You
...Writer Greg Shaw noted that Dusty Springfield's "I Only Want to Be With You" explodes with as much pure pop noise as any Dave Clark Five record. The horns propel, the strings soar, the girl-group spirit celebrates, the music leans forward. Miss Dusty Springfield presides over all of it, dancing by herself at the microphone, singing sweetly of her love, her happiness, her contented fulfillment in the arms of her chosen one. Her only wish, only ambition, is to be with the object of her desire. We hope it can really be as simple as that....
ELVIS PRESLEY: Heartbreak Hotel
The entire world was about to change in an instant. No one knew what was about to happen. If they say they did, they're lyin'.
Unless, maybe, "they" happened to be Sam Phillips....
BIG MAMA THORNTON: Hound Dog
...Where and when did rock 'n' roll start? There are a few key artifacts to consider in seeking to ID the first rock 'n' roll record. "Rocket ‘88’" by Jackie Brentson and his Delta Cats (1951, and really Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm) is the closest we have to a consensus choice. Some would point to "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino (1950). I would at least add Amos Milburn's "Down the Road Apiece" (1947) to the discussion, and no less an authority than Lenny and Squiggy (on TV's Laverne and Shirley) spoke on behalf of "Call the Police," a 1941 single Nat King Cole made with the King Cole Trio. There are other progenitors and trailblazers from across the heady mingling of jump blues, R & B, country, and swing that birthed this bastard child we call rock 'n' roll. What was the daddy of them all? Not even a blood test is going to make that determination.
"Hound Dog" is not the first rock 'n' roll record. But its original release does predate the Rock 'n' Roll Era. It was written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller specifically for rhythm and blues singer Big Mama Thornton. Thornton's "Hound Dog" single topped the R & B chart in 1953. Fittingly, her performance of the song is as much a growl as it is anything else, a snarling dismissal of a worthless cur who can wag his tail, but she ain't gonna feed him no more...PATTI SMITH: Gloria
Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine.
That may be the greatest opening line in rock 'n' roll's long and thumping history. It's iconoclastic. It's rebellious. It swaggers, it shrugs, and it seethes with the promise of desire, the pursuit of quick-fix happiness. It's a precise moment of rules breaking beyond meaningful repair. It's a confession. It's a sacrament. It's sacrilege. And it's all in service of a freakin' cover song.
Patti Smith's "Gloria" is a medley, grafting her own rant "In Excelsis Deo" onto Van Morrison's surly juggernaut "Gloria." Morrison's group Them recorded the original “Gloria” as a British B-side (to "Baby, Please Don't Go") in 1964. In the US, radio programmers objected to the lines And she comes to my room/Yeah, she makes me feel all right, deeming the song too salacious for airplay. A 1966 cover by the Shadows of Knight excised the offending line and hit the Top 10. And American youth was safe.
One wonders what 1960s moralists would have said about Patti Smith's "Gloria" if they could have heard it a decade before it even existed.
Probably nothing. Hearing it would have struck them mute....
LITTLE RICHARD: The Girl Can't Help It
Stranded in this conformist world of the 1950s, Little Richard was the Georgia Peach, a wild and effeminate black man, flamboyant, a strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. His performances were electrifying, pounding, an irresistible symphony of WOOOOO! A-wop-bopa-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom. In the late fifties, only Jerry Lee Lewis could match the sheer fervor of Little Richard. Little Richard was as bright a star as this dull world had ever seen.
And he was certain that he was going to Hell....
NEIL DIAMOND: Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show
Faith is infectious. Its specifics can vary from believer to believer, even among those who share a covenant.
Among his vast résumé of well-known pop compositions, Neil Diamond wrote both "I'm A Believer" and "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show." The former is a love song that casually employs elements of the celestial. The latter evokes Gospel without being Gospel, a not-quite-secular/not-quite-sacred first-person report of a man with a Bible in his hand, a sermon in his heart, and a tent full of believers primed for salvation on a hot August night....
THE RAMONES: Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
Dangerous. Deplorable. Degenerate. The Ramones were supposed to be dirty, filthy punks, likely to slit your throat for spare change, or just for kicks. They were loud. They were sloppy. They were beneath contempt.
And they were one of the greatest pop bands in the world.
That seeming incongruity has never quite resolved itself. In certain circles, one risks immediate scorn for the sin of considering the Ramones a power pop band. But it was never a sin.
It was a revelation....
ARTHUR CONLEY: Sweet Soul Music
...Do you like good music? You've come to the right place. Oh yeah!
TOMORROW: PART 2!
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My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available for order; you can see details here. My 2023 book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is also still available, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.
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