Redbeard’s Blog

Doors- Back Door Man medley- Pittsburgh 5-2-70

Just before The Doors withdrew from live concert touring to record the now-iconic LA Woman album, the band performed at the Pittsburgh Civic Arena to "get together one more time..." . The Doors opened with a medley of  Willie Dixon's "Back Door Man", "Love Hides", and their own "Five to One".
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Aerosmith- Rocks 50th! Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, Tom Hamilton, Brad Whitford, Joey Kramer

Aerosmith "Rocks". It was a declarative statement in May 1976 with no equivocation. If "Toys in the Attic" a year earlier had been the definitive mid-Seventies  American hard rock statement, then Aerosmith "Rocks" made it musically imperative with "Back in the Saddle", "Sick as a Dog", the clever sequel to "Toys..." with "Rats in the Cellar", and another infectious Steven Tyler/Brad Whitford hit, "Last Child". Fifty years of Aerosmith "Rocks"!

Doors- L.A. Woman 55th- the late Ray Manzarek

"L.A. Woman" by The Doors released 55 years ago is one of the greatest albums ever made by an American band, one of the first great albums to usher in the Seventies decade, the last album ever by the incomparable Jim Morrison, and a personal "desert island disc" for me that never ages; with the late Ray Manzarek In the Studio.

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers- Don’t Bring Me Down- Boston 1978

When Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers only had two albums of material from which to draw for their club sets (which often meant several sets a night), the band would reach down at just the right time and throw a change up cover song such as "Don't…

Alan Parsons Project- Tales of Mystery and Imagination @50

"Basically he signed a blank tape," Alan Parsons chuckles about 20th Century Records President Russ Regan greenlighting a concept album "Tales of Mystery and Imagination", based on the books of Edgar Alan Poe, composed by the young Abbey Road studio hound and songwriter Eric Woolfson as The Alan Parsons Project.
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Van Halen- Fair Warning@45- Eddie & Alex Van Halen

Van Halen's April 1981 album "Fair Warning" is easily the band's most overlooked effort in the original David Lee Roth era; the most Eddie Van Halen-dominated album until the mega-hit "1984". 

Aerosmith- Last Child- Brussels 10-31-93

Originally found on Aerosmith “Rocks”  fifty years ago, this little mid-tempo song was performed in concert on Halloween in Belgium in 1993. "Last Child" is proof that Aerosmith rocks in any language, on any continent, in any decade.

Eric Johnson- Tones 40th Anniversary

Eric Johnson joins me here In the Studio to recall the Spring 1986 debut "Tones" forty years ago;...Eric Johnson joins me here In the Studio.

Van Halen- So This is Love- Oakland- June 1981

Here's Van Halen ripping through the rock rhetorical, "So This is Love?", while playing Oakland in June 1981 on the "Fair Warning" tour. Crank it up!

Steve Earle- Guitar Town 40th Anniversary

"Guitar Town " Steve Earle shares here In the Studio for his #1-charting Country debut in March 1986: "I'm a straggler from what was going on in Austin and Nashville in the mid-70s. I had good teachers, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Jerry Jeff Walker, B.W. Stevenson...when I first got to Nashville on any given night, you could go to Guy's house. And he'd have everybody, from the street level where I was to Mickey Newbury and Neil Young, with the guitar going around. So it was a good place to learn. Then, basically cocaine sort of created a caste system  and killed that real fast!"