Covers of New Playlists Featured Below
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There’s so little time to write these days because I seem to spend my days researching, collecting, curating, shaping, and re-shaping playlists in my iTunes program. The inspiration for every new one seems to suddenly appear out of nowhere every few days, and when it does, I immediately start to work on it until it’s exactly what I want it to be.
Every playlist below is new in the past month. There are 32 in all, and a brief explanation follows each. Everything I use comes from my own collection, or the internet. Listing every track would be impossible – and pointless. All that matters is creating a fresh listening experience each time out with music I love to listen to. Maybe there’s an idea here that will inspire you to make one of your own.
The first half dozen listed were the result of reading Chris Blackwell’s book The Islander. (See previous post for more.) Blackwell founded Island Records, and he built his own studio in the Bahamas.
Island Records One hundred tracks from the Island label spanning their history from Little Millie to Bob Marley to U2 to Sabrina Carpenter.
Island Records (1962-1987) The 30-track 25th anniversary 2 CD set released for the label's anniversary. Very few of the tracks in this list appear in the previous one.
Island: You Can All Join In A label sampler issued in 1969 on vinyl spotlighting Island’s young and upcoming acts. The record was so well received at the time that it actually charted in the UK – something unheard of for what was basically a label promotional record. The record was never issued digitally, so I recreated it to make a playlist. Again, few of the tracks here appear on the other playlists.
Island: Bumpers In 1970, the label again issued a sampler album. And once more, it was very successful. This was even more diverse than the previous one, and the label issued two completely different versions (except for one track that appeared on both) in separate territories (England, and Australia). It, too, was never issued digitally, so using Discogs, I found both versions, and put them together to make a complete 38 track playlist – again with very little repetition from those listed above.
Compass Point Named after the recording studio Chris Blackwell built in The Bahamas. In addition to the facility itself, Blackwell also had living accommodations built nearby to house visiting musicians, and he put together a house band the musicians could use on their records if they wished. The studio became legendary, and the records recorded there all share the studio’s signature sound even though each act was unique. This was my first attempt at a studio playlist, and required quite a bit of research because artists’ records are very often done in a variety of studios. So, I had to find out which songs, specifically, had been recorded at Compass Point. For that I used Wikipedia, and Discogs. The 20-track list includes Grace Jones, Robert Palmer, Joe Cocker, The Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Roxy Music, Dire Straits, Black Uhuru, Gregory Isaacs, Gwen Guthrie, B52’s, and Will Powers.
Sire Records In the book, Chris Blackwell talks about his relationship with Sire Records, and its founder Seymour Stein. The labels shared some distribution, and some of Sire’s artists recorded at Compass Point. I’ve done several record label playlists, but had not done one on Sire – an oversight on my part because it’s always been among my favorites. Of course, Sire’s roster included Pretenders, Talking Heads, Ramones, Madonna, Flamin’ Groovies, Soft Cell, The English Beat, Brian Wilson, Lou Reed, Aztec Camera, Echo & the Bunnymen, Madness, Modern English, The Replacements, and on, and on. This is where Wikipedia is indispensable because they have rosters for all the record labels on each label’s pages. And if you’re thinking this music really doesn’t fit together, trust me – it does. Those music minds who create record labels have a vision of what they want to record, and as a result, each independent label takes on the personality of the executive that founded it. And you can hear that spirit, and those tastes in every act signed.
Muscle Shoals My second attempt at creating a playlist around the music recorded at a specific studio. Muscle Shoals Studios in Alabama had its own house band, and its own sound, and every artist that recorded there did so because they wanted the Muscle Shoals sound on their record. Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones, Boz Scaggs, Traffic, Willie Nelson, Cher, Lulu, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, John Prine, The Staple Singers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Paul Simon, Leon Russell, and many, many more made some of their best records at Muscle Shoals.
Nicky Hopkins One of the finest, and most often recorded session musicians in history was pianist/keyboardist Nicky Hopkins. He lent his distinctive playing to hundreds of great records over a career that spanned nearly three decades before he died in 1994. That piano sound you hear that made that particular record great instead of just good might have belonged to Nicky Hopkins. Wikipedia has an extensive list as does his website. I hand-picked tracks by The Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, The Beatles, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, The Kinks, Steve Miller Band, Donovan, and too many more to mention.
Mickie Most Most produced a variety of some of the UK’s biggest acts in the 1960s including The Animals, Herman’s Hermits, Jeff Beck Group, Donovan, Lulu, The Yardbirds, and later on Suzi Quatro, and Hot Chocolate among others. He was a hit-maker, and this playlist sounds like a Billboard Top 20.
Phil Spector I choose to remember Spector as a great record producer. The best records he made in the first years of the 1960s remain classics, and I’ve collected 14 of the best along with ten more he made with The Beatles, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ramones.
Columbia: Heavy Sounds / Columbia: More Heavy Sounds
As you know if you’ve read any of my previous playlist posts, I love to recreate in a playlist, records that were never issued on CD or available on streaming services, but that capture a particular time, and place, and sound. I did that with a couple of Island label samplers above, and I also did it with a pair of similar albums from Columbia, Heavy Sounds, and More Heavy Sounds. They were issued in 1969, and 1970 respectively, and feature the likes of Janis Joplin, Electric Flag, Laura Nyro, Johnny Winter, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Taj Mahal, Chicago, Santana, and several more.
CTI Records Thirty-nine of the best songs recorded for Creed Taylor’s jazz label CTI.
Underground Gold Another label sampler – this time from Liberty Records issued in 1969. It features Canned Heat, Traffic, Johnny Winter, Albert Collins, Jo Ann Kelly, and The Spencer Davis Group.
The South’s Greatest Hits Vols. 1 & 2 Another digital recreation of a pair of records I own that were never released digitally. There are 20 tracks in all, and I owned 17 of them on CD as well as vinyl. But rather than track down the three I didn’t have – none of which were actually hits – I substituted three classic Southern Rock songs that I believe make the listening experience even better. Whenever I take some liberties with these types of playlists, I either use a different track by the same band from the same original album if possible, or I choose songs that are a perfect fit by different bands. All I’m doing is customizing the list to suit me, but retaining the flavor and feel of the originals.
1980s I have playlists spotlighting specific years ranging from 1965 to 1979. I resisted doing year-by-year lists for the 1980s because it would’ve been too much of a hit on my computer’s memory capacity. Instead, I chose to collect 200 of my favorite 80s songs already in my iTunes program that best represent the decade for me.
Ashley Cooke A young female Country artist I discovered when I was researching several other acts that I’d seen on the ACM Awards Show that recently aired on Amazon Prime. Ashley Cooke was not on the show, but her named appeared as I searched several other artists, and she was the only one I liked enough to do a playlist. She has about three albums worth of material issued since 2023, and I picked 17 tracks that spotlight her terrific voice, and lyrics.
Black Sabbath California Jam ’74 The complete live performance at the Cal Jam concert of 1974 featuring the band’s original lineup. I found this on the Internet Archive site where it can be downloaded for free. It’s bootleg quality sound, but quite listenable, and a board recording so the crowd noise is minimal even though the crowd numbered around 250,000 people. I saw portions of that entire concert on ABC’s In Concert program at the time, and as I already had complete sets by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, and Deep Purple from that show, I wanted to add the Sabbath set as well.
Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks Twenty-nine of my favorite songs from one of the San Francisco Bay area’s most unique, and engaging acts.
Eagles Live ’75 This is the live set only from the recent Eagles deluxe edition of One of These Nights. It’s a great show – far better than the Eagles Live album issued five years later, or any of the live shows issued since. Great setlist, and a great performance.
Miles Davis Copenhagen ’69 / Tanglewood ’70 Two live shows that were part of the 40th anniversary edition of the Bitches Brew box set issued a few years ago. I didn’t buy that box, but I was able to find these shows on YouTube. Both are excellent.
Pink Floyd Another Nice Pair I had already done a playlist replicating Capitol’s 1973 A Nice Pair 2-fer of the band’s first two albums in the wake of the success of Dark Side of the Moon that same year. What I did then was another “2-fer” playlist featuring my two favorite Pink Floyd albums, Dark Side of the Moon, and The Division Bell (1994). I even managed to find artwork that featured both albums cover art in a unique new way to use as the playlist cover (see above).
The Rolling Stones Brussels ’73 (1st Show) / Brussels ’73 (2nd Show) / The King Biscuit Flower Hour Europe ’73 / Australia ’66 The Stones forthcoming new record Foreign Tongues had me scouring the web for live show playlist ideas. I discovered on the Internet Archive, a live radio broadcast from Australian radio in 1966 that is excellent, a King Biscuit Flower Hour show from the 1973 European Tour (which is one of the two best live sets I’ve ever heard by the band – all of it drawn from shows on that tour, but most of it taken from two shows done the same day in Brussels, Belgium). In researching the sources for that King Biscuit radio broadcast, I realized that the bootleg show I have from Brussels was, in fact, the first show played that day, and that the second show – which I did not have – had been issued in the deluxe edition box of Goat’s Head Soup. So, I made separate playlists for each set – one from my bootleg, and the other downloaded from the box. The shows are similar, but not identical, and the performances vary as well. Both are essential, but the best of each along with some tracks from a London show are what makes the King Biscuit Show a must-have.
Sterling Hayden This playlist I owe entirely to the magic of YouTube. Someone had uploaded all three of the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder interviews with actor Sterling Hayden - widely regarded as the best shows in the series’ history. The shows aired in 1977, 1980, and 1981, and my playlist has the complete audio (95 minutes in all) from each interview. These were, collectively, the zenith of television talk. I have never seen, before or since, any interview with anyone in any field better than these with Sterling Hayden. He was one of a kind – genuine, forthcoming, funny, and always, always honest, and direct.
SVT A mostly forgotten San Francisco new wave pop/alternative band, active from 1978-1983. How they got on my radar was that I’d read that Jefferson Airplane’s Jack Casady was their bass player. What was one of the world’s premier bassists, and a veteran of one of Rock’s most legendary bands doing playing with a bunch of young unknowns in a new wave band? That got my curiosity aroused, but it was 2005 before their only album No Regrets was reissued on CD. I had never been able to find the record when it was issued in 1981. Further research revealed that an authorized anthology titled Always Come Back had been issued in 2020. So, I added 11 tracks from that to the original 15 on the No Regrets album, and turned it into a comprehensive playlist for one of the best unsung bands of its day.
Tanya Tucker ’72-’81 / ’82- ’95 The 36-track playlist I had spanning Tanya’s first 10 years on Columbia and Arista, and her stint on Capitol a decade later wasn’t enough for me. So, I created another playlist that covered the years she spent in the middle on MCA. I reconfigured the now 65 tracks into two separate playlists (32, and 33 songs respectively) in chronological order, and now I’m satisfied. As much as I love a lot of the new female Country singers, they’ll never make me forget Patsy, Dolly, Tammy, Loretta, Pam, Lorrie, Sara, Patty, or any of the others, and that goes double for Tanya Tucker.
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers FM Broadcasts Once again, the Internet Archive provided access to a couple of FM radio broadcasts from New York and Boston radio from 1977, and ’78. A portion of the Boston show was issued last month on vinyl for Record Store Day, but the best tracks were left off of it. This one is complete – as is the NY show. Both showcase the young band just hitting their stride, and ready to rule the world.
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Live ’76 – ’80. Digging a little deeper, I discovered that Petty’s label Shelter issued a four-track live EP in early 1977 titled Official Live ‘Leg to spotlight the band’s stirring live sets. I had never seen that, and wasn’t even aware it existed. But I found the tracks and downloaded them for a playlist, and then added officially released live numbers from the period spanning 1977-1980 drawn from the An American Treasure box set (3 songs), and the Runnin’ Down a Dream CD (5 songs) included in the DVD release of that film. It makes a great 12 song live album experience with only one title repeated.
All things considered, I’m as proud of this batch of playlists as any I’ve made to date. I feel as if my collection is better than ever with these additions, and re-imagined ways of listening to the music of artists I’ve known and loved for years.
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