40 Year Itch : Your Light Shines Through

Nazareth : Beggar's Day/Rose in the Heather

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Play this wicked Nils Lofgren cover as loud as your speakers can take it.

40 Year Itch : Those We Missed October 1973

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Bonnie Raitt's third album, Takin' My Time,  is another critically acclaimed gem. Here she broadens her musical canvas to include calypso and dixieland while handing  over all songwriting duties to others ( including Randy Newman , Chris Smither and Jackson Browne). Of the album, often recorded with members of Little Feat,  Bonnie says:

"Takin' My Time is one of my favorite records to listen to, although I started out with Lowell George producing it, and he and I got too close to be able to have any objectivity about it. That's the problem when you're a woman and you get involved with the people you work with - and I just don't just mean romantically. It becomes too emotional. It's hard to have a strong woman telling the man her ideas when, in fact, the man wants to take over the situation. So that album had a lot of heartache in it. At the time it was a difficult one to make, but now I like it."

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With leader Nils Lofgren off recording and touring with Neil Young, and the label running out of patience,  this was the swansong for Grin. Fans would have to wait two years for Lofgren's spectacular solo debut

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The "one man Beatles" never made any money from his terrific catalogue thanks to a messed up record deal with Dunhill. Farewell to Paradise is the third and final album before Rhodes would abandon his musical career facing tens of thousands of dollars in debt.

"That was it, I didn't want to do it anymore," he told LA City Beat. "I wanted to open a Laundromat and watch the dryers go around."

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The former McCoy and member of Edgar and Johnny Winter's bands, killer guitarist Rick Derringer released his debut album featuring his solo version of "Rock and Roll, Hootchie Koo"--a song already featured on three albums. Derringer's version hit highest, peaking at #23 in 1974. Edgar Winter, Joe Walsh and Suzi Quatro lend a hand on the album.

John Martyn follows up his classic 1973 album Solid Air with the  even more experimental and jazzier Inside Out, recorded with Danny Thompson and  Stevie Winwood on bass and keyboards respectively. Absolutely hypnotic.

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40 Years Ago This Month: Nils Lofgren, Leo Kottke & Malo

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Nils Lofgren and band mates hit power pop perfection with the single "White Lies" but it only received heavy airplay in the Washington D.C. area. Even with an "A" rating from Robert Christagu, 1 +1 , released in January of 1972, did not sell. C'est dommage!  At 20, Lofgren had already played guitar and piano on After The Gold Rush and with Crazy Horse on their debut. After Grin broke up, years before touring worth Springsteen, Lofgren recorded a self-titled album in 1975 that will always stand out as a personal favorite.

BTW, I planned to post a song from this album. I know I used to have "Lost A Number" on a now-deceased IPod. In the digital age we can lose songs as easily as a sock in the dryer.




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Fingerpickin' guitarist Leo Kottke gets funky all by himself on this opening track from his January 1972 release Greenhouse, my introduction to this brilliant musician. "The Song of The Swamp", "Louise" and the buoyant "Spanish Entomologist" reveal the exuberant talent of this Athens GA native.




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Carlos Santana's brother Jorge was one of the guitarists in the 12-piece San Francisco band Malo. You'll hear more brass than on any Santana album, often used to great effect. "Suavecito", which has become something of an anthem for American Chicanos, hit the Top 20 in 1972. Maybe it's because I was growing up in Malo's hometown then, but this song transports me to a spot on the Marina Green beneath dozens of flying kites.



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Members of the Rolling Stones jamming with Ry Cooder may sound like a great way to spend your time and money but it's really nothing more than a curiosity.