Category Archives: The Best Songs

Neil Young, The Best Songs

August 8: Neil Young released “Like A Hurricane” in 1977, 5 great live versions (videos)

Neil Young Like A Hurricane

Once I thought I saw you
in a crowded hazy bar,
Dancing on the light
from star to star.
Far across the moonbeam
I know that’s who you are,
I saw your brown eyes
turning once to fire.

You are like a hurricane
There’s calm in your eye.
And I’m gettin’ blown away
To somewhere safer
where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but
I’m getting blown away.

This brilliant song (one of his best) was recorded on November 29, 1975 @ Broken Arrow Ranch, Woodside CA.

It was released as a single on August 8, 1977 & included on the album American Stars ‘n Bars (1977).

  • Neil Young – Lead guitar and lead vocals
  • Frank “Poncho” Sampedro – Stringman synthesizer and background vocals
  • Billy Talbot – Bass guitar and background vocals
  • Ralph Molina – Drums and background vocals

Produce by Neil Young, David Briggs & Tim Mulligan.

Studio version:

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Soul, The Best Songs, Video

The Best Song: I Heard It Through The Grapevine – Marvin Gaye (and others)

 

Great song: I Heard It Through The Grapevine – Marvin Gaye (and others)

For me, Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” is Motown’s greatest record. It may be played to death but I still like it, like it? I love it!  It’s pulsating hypnotic rhythm pattern and the melodic singing hovering above it, it grooves and it’s funky as well.

Marvin Gaye (audio only):

It’s a love  song, where one part pleads to the other part after a break up, but it feels deeper than ordinary pop ditty. It’s about lies, loss, gossip, torment, fear and doubt. Dark stuff hidden in a soul tune.

Marvin Gaye (1968 live version):

The sinister rhythm gives us a taste of dark things ahead, it’s a painful story underscored with a cinematic theme. Marvin is in pain, and he tells us, over and over again. Lovely. Terrible. Terribly lovely.
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Blues, The Best Songs

The Best songs: Key To The Highway By Chas Segar and Bill Broonzy
broonzy
Big Bill Broonzy

“Key to the Highway” is a blues standard that has been performed and recorded by several blues and other artists. Blues pianist Charlie Segar first recorded the song in 1940. When Little Walter updated the song in 1958 in an electric Chicago blues style, it became a success on the R&B record chart. A variety of artists have since interpreted the song, including Eric Clapton, who recorded several versions.

Key_to_the_Highway_single_cover

Charlie Segar – Key To The Highway:

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Elvis Presley, Music Calendar, Rock'n Roll, Sun, The Best Songs

July 19: Elvis Presley – “That’s All Right” 1954

elvis presley that's all right single

In 2004, Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right Mama” and Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” both celebrated their 50th anniversaries. Rolling Stone Magazine felt that Presley’s song was the first rock and roll recording. At the time Presley recorded the song, Big Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle & Roll”, later covered by Haley, was already at the top of the Billboard R&B charts. The Guardian felt that while there were rock’n’roll records before Presley’s, his recording was the moment when all the strands came together in “perfect embodiment”. (wikipedia)

“A lot of people seem to think I started this business, but rock ‘n’ roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people. Let’s face it; I can’t sing it like Fats Domino can. I know that. But I always liked that kind of music.”
~Elvis Presley

elvis presley that's all right single2

 

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Rock, Rock'n Roll, Rolling Stones, The Best Songs, Video

The Best songs: Angie by The Rolling Stones

The Best songs: Angie by The Rolling Stones

One of the band’s softest and most tenderhearted ballads (and their only ballad to go Number One), “Angie” was written by Richards while he was being treated for heroin addiction at a clinic in Switzerland. “Once I came out of the usual trauma,” he recalled, “I didn’t feel like I had to shit the bed or climb the walls or feel manic anymore. I just went, ‘Angie, Angie.’ ” Completed during the Goats Head Soup sessions in Jamaica, it became a gently strummed benediction with a processional piano by Nicky Hopkins and strings arranged by Nicky Harrison.
– Rolling Stone Magazine

The Rolling Stones performing “Angie” at the Los Angeles Forum, California, USA on Sunday 13th July 1975, part of the legendary Tour of the Americas (TOTA). The track is from the album Goats Head Soup (1973). Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and produced by the Glimmer Twins, the song went straight to number one in the US charts when it was released.

La Forum 1975 version:

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