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Five weeks after the deaths of his trusted guitarist Randy Rhoads, his tour bus driver, and the band’s wardrobe seamstress in a single engine plane crash, Ozzy Osbourne summoned the courage to honor a commitment to perform a live national radio broadcast from Memphis’ Mid South Coliseum, with Night Ranger’s Brad Gillis doing a commendable job of guitar grace under pressure, ripping through “Flying High Again”.
By 1976, it was go big or go home for this intrepid six-man band from Topeka, Kansas. Because of the hit “Carry On Wayward Son” ( submitted by the prolific Kerry Livgren even as the band was packing up to leave rehearsals ) and radio hits “Miracles Out of Nowhere”,”The Wall”, “Cheyenne Anthem”, and “What’s On My Mind “, Leftoverture gave Kansas rock statehood to the tune of over four million sold. Livgren is joined by Richard Williams, Phil Ehart, Steve Walsh, & the late original Kansas violinist/singer Robbie Steinhardt here In the Studio.
This Jethro Tull concert performance is outstanding, from both the standpoints of the band’s tight performance and the stellar live broadcast mix from Philadelphia’s Tower Theater back in late November 1987. Here is a blistering concert version of “Steel Monkey”.
In September 1976, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Atlanta’s venerable Fox Theater each needed a minor miracle. Performing over three hundred shows on 1975’s notorious “Torture Tour” had original Lynyrd Skynyrd members dropping like flies. Three things were evident: America’s hyped bicentennial was entering the history books even as the wrecking ball was heading for the Fox Theater; a live “best of” discounted price double album by Peter Frampton earlier that year was re-writing the record books; and Lynyrd Skynyrd was selling more concert tickets than copies of their diminished ranks studio album “Gimme Back My Bullets”. The band needed a stop-gap recording that could capture their lightning in a bottle live show, and the Fox Theater needed a lightning rod which could make saving it a cause celebre. Original co-founder the late guitarist Gary Rossington joined me here In the Studio for the tale behind “One More from the Road”.
In the Summer of 1975, a year before releasing what quickly became the biggest selling debut album in music history, the band Boston did not even exist . A year later Tom Scholz’s seven year basement tapes would emerge out of nowhere to re-write the record books on popularity and profits …(more) Tom Scholz is my guest for Boston’s 45th anniversary.
“When things get put onto celluloid, they tend to get bigger than life,” the late guitarist/ singer Alvin Lee told me by way of explanation as to how Ten Years After was catapulted from the second tier of English boogie and blues by their prime spot in the Woodstock Festival movie documentary. The band utilized that momentum to deliver their most popular album ever in late Summer 1971, ” A Space in Time”, which included “One of These Days”, “Baby Won’t You Let Me Rock’n’Roll You”, and what turned out to be their biggest hit, “I’d Love to Change the World”.
“Metallica” (affectionately known as “The Black Album” in the same way The Beatles had been dubbed “The White Album”), Metallica’s lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and lead throat James Hetfield show how the band sits atop the family tree of hard rock/heavy metal evolution.
For the Super Bowl 50 halftime entertainment hosted by the San Francisco Bay Area, the NFL really fumbled the ball when they passed on homies Metallica as “too heavy for halftime”. So the band threw their own party the night before in Golden Gate Park, from where this terrific performance of “Wherever I May Roam” comes, shared just ahead of the “Black Album” thirtieth anniversary.
When AC/DC played Dallas in October 1985, the band “threw the dog a bone” by performing “Jailbreak” for their earliest American fans who were in San Antonio and Dallas/ Ft. Worth ten years earlier when the Aussie’s were just struggling to get known by playing Texas clubs.
Jethro Tull’s singer/ songwriter/ flautist Ian Anderson ( left ) returns here In the Studio next week for the band’s big fiftieth anniversary of “Aqualung”, so this should prime the pump with another angle on all of that material. Here’s another of the rare “Dressing Room Tapes” performances in the backstage bowels of the concert hall before a Zurich Switzerland 1989 concert with guitarist Martin Barre ripping a spirited “Locomotive Breath”.