Essential Studio Albums

[liebzz]

I really could have picked just about any song, but I went with that one by a whisker (ba-dum)

[liebzz]

The Byrds - Sweetheart of the Rodeo

There’s being influenced by country, and there’s going whole hog. But for a couple songs here, it’s chest deep in country twang, which if that’s their space, good for them. It’s not the twang alone, but something just doesn’t seem to fit quite right, even if country rock is on its way to having a moment (and a good one at that). When they sound more themselves inflected with country, like on One Hundred Years From Now and Lazy Days, they sound great - just a bit too few and far between for me.

The Essential Track: Lazy Days

Up Next: The International Submarine Band - Safe at Home

[liebzz]

The International Submarine Band - Safe at Home

Staying in this space with a last minute addition, this album, according to the poor and limited research that went into this at the last minute, may be something of a genesis of the country rock thing. I find this album to be far more listenable than the Byrds album, even if Alan Parsons is the creative force apparently behind both. The covers of Satisfied Mind and Folsom Prison Blues are both really solid, Knee Deep in the Blues is excellent, as is opening Blue Eyes. My favorite might be Luxury Liner, but no surprise there since I think that is the most rock focused of them. This was a good listen.

The Essential Track: Luxury Liner

Up Next: Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends

[liebzz]

Simon & Garfunkel - Bookends

This fourth album from them has 3 tracks that sort of loom large because they are straight up excellent classics: America, Mrs. Robinson, and A Hazy Shade of Winter. Nestled in there are plenty of other good songs, including Fakin’ It, At the Zoo, and Overs. This is a sort of bleaker view of societal existence that hasn’t become really dated at all - less reference to the troubles of the time and more universally a sense of dread in our relationships to each other. In choosing a track, it’s a tough call since I do enjoy Mrs. Robinson, but A Hazy Shade of Winter is so good.

The Essential Track: A Hazy Shade of Winter

Up Next: Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

[liebzz]

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

This is sort of a folk rock album done with a jazz band, and so immediately it announces itself as different. The arrangements aren’t particularly complex, but generated to create open space for Van Morrison to paint impressionist thoughts in a pastoral scene. A sense runs through this that’s he’s somewhere else in his mind, and the challenge here is to let go and go there with him. The songs are long, and intentionally rambling to take you along. And all superfluous words aside, it is an absolute gorgeous record that sweeps you away to a totally different place. Even if my favorite songs, for the most part, were the more concise ones, this thing should be heard in a unit here.

The Essential Track: Madame George

Up Next: The Band - Music From Big Pink

[Kevin Davis]

Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

This is sort of a folk rock album done with a jazz band, and so immediately it announces itself as different. The arrangements aren’t particularly complex, but generated to create open space for Van Morrison to paint impressionist thoughts in a pastoral scene. A sense runs through this that’s he’s somewhere else in his mind, and the challenge here is to let go and go there with him. The songs are long, and intentionally rambling to take you along. And all superfluous words aside, it is an absolute gorgeous record that sweeps you away to a totally different place. Even if my favorite songs, for the most part, were the more concise ones, this thing should be heard in a unit here.

The Essential Track: Madame George

Up Next: The Band - Music From Big Pink

I love this album! I've always thought Van Morrison was really underrated on RM. His run of albums from Astral Weeks through Veedon Fleece is amazing (and lots of great stuff after that too).

The band on Astral Weeks is pretty elite, including guitarist Jay Berliner, who also played on The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.

[Farmer John]

Astral Weeks is on the shortlist for Greatest Album of All Time in my unqualified opinion.

[liebzz]

The Band - Music From Big Pink

The number of great songs on this album is nearly stupefying. Tears of Rage, Caledonia Mission, The Weight, Chest Fever, This Wheels On Fire, and I Shall Be Released all sound very different yet they are all elite tracks here. There really is no more apt name for this group, where every player is fantastic but their fluidity is so wonderful that you don’t really find yourself distracted or focused on anything but the song. Just incredible balance here.

The Essential Track: The Weight

Up Next: The Allman Brothers Band

[Ello Sailor]

The band on Astral Weeks is pretty elite, including guitarist Jay Berliner, who also played on The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.

[liebzz]

The Allman Brothers Band

For all their hemming and hawing about recording in the studio, and for as much as their live performances would always blow their studio output to smithereens, these guys were really an incredible band -outside the studio and in. This start with the Don’t Want Yoh No More/It’s Not My Cross to Bear, basically 6 minutes of immediate southern blues that’s electric, soulful, and badass. What’s mind blowing is that they never take their foot off the gas here, delivering near perfection as the inverse of say, The Band, which we just covered. If I am to regale you with the greatness of almost not focusing on any one instrument with The Band, here you notice them all, and could get a good throw your fists in the air at the elite and moving instrumental throwdowns that go along perfectly with Gregg Allman’s masculine vocal delivery. I mean, Whipping Post alone is beyond most band’s full output. And there’s no other band that’s got the double threat of Duane Allman and Dickey Betts. It’s just not even fair.

The Essential Track: Whipping Post

Up Next: Neil Young

[Kevin Davis]

The band on Astral Weeks is pretty elite, including guitarist Jay Berliner, who also played on The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady.

It’s true!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Berliner

[liebzz]

Neil Young

Even as a fan of the man myself, it’s a scary proposition talking about Neil Young on RM. This first album, much like Dylan’s is good, but not his top stuff (save for The Loner which is phenomenal). I do though love hearing that guitar tone and those herky jerky solos, a reminder of sounds of comfort like a well worn pair of shoes or a favorite t-shirt. And Neil’s true duality is on display, as stunningly beautiful stripped down as he is ruggedly powerful plugged in.

The Essential Track: The Loner

Up Next: The Band

[liebzz]

The Band

This is another of those classic albums that has been in the upper crest of my favorites for a long time. The opening 3 tracks here demonstrate these guys at their very best with all time classics Across the Great Divide (a personal top 5 Band song for me), Rag Mama Rag, and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Add Up On Cripple Creek, Rocking Chair, Jawbone, and King Harvest and you have an all time great album. Even the tracks I am not mentioning are great. This is just so synonymous with American music it’s nearly the median of how I would describe that sounding. Few others bands can execute songs so perfectly that it seems effortless.

The Essential Track: The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Up Next: Credence Clearwater Revival - Bayou Country

[liebzz]

Credence Clearwater Revival - Bayou Country

CCR may be the masters of the 2.5 minute song, but here they loosen up and jam quite a bit, be it Born on the Bayou, Graveyard Train, or the epic Keep On Chooglin’. I mean, Proud Mary’s on here so that won’t be topped, but those three songs are ultimately the heart of this album, and my primary argument for CCR as one of the great bands in terms of their chemistry. They might be able to bang out 2 minute hits without trying, but it’s their interplay that makes them one of the greatest ever.

The Essential Track: Proud Mary

Up Next: Credence Clearwater Revival - Green River

[liebzz]

Credence Clearwater Revival - Green River

CCR released three classic albums in ‘69, one building off the last in creating their classic sound. Green River has the title track, Commotion, Bad Moon Rising and Lodi as enduring tracks you’ll see on the comps, but Tombstone Shadow, The Night Time Is the Right Time, and Cross-Tie Walker are also killer tracks here. I miss the jams that made Bayou Country so great, but this was the clear direction the band was headed.

The Essential Track: Bad Moon Rising

Up Next: Credence Clearwater Revival - Willy and the Poor Boys

[liebzz]

Credence Clearwater Revival - Willy and the Poor Boys

This third album from CCR in ‘69 breezes by quite nicely, a perfect encapsulation of their classic sound, from the bluesy Effigy to the easy Down on the Corner and the epic 2 minute fury of Fortunate Son. The covers of The Midnight Special and Cotton Fields are also highlights, and Feelin’ Blue brings back that excellent grind on Bayou Country that endeared me the most to that album of the three. This, however, is a very good album.

The Essential Track: Fortunate Son

Up Next: B.B. King - Completely Well

[wease]

I’ve been thinking about a deep dive on Creedence. Looks like half their output was in 1969. Three albums in one year? That’s crazy.

[liebzz]

I’ve been thinking about a deep dive on Creedence. Looks like half their output was in 1969. Three albums in one year? That’s crazy.

They released a lot of short albums in quick succession. They are pretty much all great through Cosmo’s Factory, Pendulum I remember as being pretty good, then nosedive.

[liebzz]

B.B. King - Completely Well

It seems standard to say this, but with King’s albums, you tend to get real highs and the rest is the rest. This was has its fair share of highs, especially at the end. There’s You’re Mean, which is by far the most King has jammed out on any of the albums covered, and the all time classic The Thrill Is Gone. Confessin’ the Blues, and So Excited are the other big highlights. King is playing more solos here, even with a fair use of a big band. I found this to be very solid blues and change of pace as we have been powering through a lot of classic rock.

The Essential Track: The Thrill Is Gone

Up Next: Muddy Waters - Fathers and Sons

[Happy Trees]

I’ve been thinking about a deep dive on Creedence. Looks like half their output was in 1969. Three albums in one year? That’s crazy.

They released a lot of short albums in quick succession. They are pretty much all great through Cosmo’s Factory, Pendulum I remember as being pretty good, then nosedive.

Six albums in a two and a half year period.

Twelve singles, ten of which made the Top 10, and the b-sides of some of them also charted and are equally as popular now and could be mistaken for a-sides.

There was a (comparatively) long delay before the last album because the band fell apart in the process. Fogerty doesn't even consider it a legit CCR album (he only contributed 3 songs).

The 1976 double-album "Chronicle" was moderately successful at first, but went on to become their best-selling album in the millions based on its' undeniable strength.