Posts

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Cheap Trick- Essential pt1- Rick Nielsen, Robin Zander

On a maximum scale of five stars, the 1977 debut by Cheap Trick  receives AllMusic.com's highest rating, and the even more melodic, better sounding  sophomore effort "In Color" in the same year earns 4 1/2 stars. Then Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen, Robin Zander, Tom Petersson, and Bun E. Carlos wrote and recorded the  masterpiece "Heaven Tonight" in May 1978, yet again scoring a critics' perfect five star rating. So in hindsight it would appear that recording the Rockford IL quartet's set while performing the strongest material from these three killer studio albums, in front of an adoring audience in one of the world's premiere venues, would be as obvious as a sumo wrestler in your shower stall.
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Rush- 2112: Early Best 45th Anniversary- Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson

"2112"  by Rush was an amalgam of hard rock, progressive rock, science-fiction and Ayn Rand socio-economics right about the same time that The Ramones, The Dead Boys, and Ian Dury and the Blockheads were singing "Sex and Drugs and Rock'n'Roll". So things were about to get interesting in 1976. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush join me here In the Studio
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Doobie Brothers- Takin’ It to the Streets 45th Anniversary- Tom Johnston, Pat Simmons, Michael McDonald

The fact that the Doobie Brothers reinvented themselves for their March 1976 album "Takin' It to the Streets"  is quite widely known, but the reasons for the musical shift, and the manner in which they made it work so successfully, is a fascinating back-story worthy of an HBO mini-series.. On the album's 45th anniversary, Tom Johnston, Pat Simmons, & Michael McDonald are all here In the Studio to recall how it really went down.
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Phil Collins- Face Value 40th Anniversary

Of his cinderella  first solo album "Face Value" forty years ago, Phil Collins recalls the real-life betrayal and heartbreak which inspired "In the Air Tonight", "I Missed Again"; and why he did not include another original, "How Can You Sit There?", on Face Value nor it's follow up, Hello I Must Be Going, but opted instead to give it to the soundtrack of the 1984 movie Against All Odds, going on to become Phil Collins' first #1 hit.
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ZZ Top First Album 50th Anniversary- Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill, Frank Beard

In Spring 1972 ZZ Top released the much-improved second album Rio Grande Mud,  the vastly  underrated follow-up to the woolly ZZ Top's First Album  containing "Brown Sugar".  The stronger songwriting and much better production sound of such…

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer 50th Anniversary

On the fiftieth anniversary of the the first Emerson, Lake, and Palmer album, it's clear that Emerson Lake and Palmer were much  less "Be Bop a Lula" in their melodic grandeur and much more "Andrew Lloyd Weber". Here In the Studio is the story in their own words of progressive rock's first supergroup.
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REO Speedwagon- Hi Infidelity 40th- Kevin Cronin, Neal Doughty

REO Speedwagon believed in their long game, and their long-suffering record label gave them TEN trips to the plate until the band touched all the bases in November 1980 with Hi Infidelity . Lead singer Kevin Cronin and band keyboard player co-founder Neal Doughty tell the worst-to-first ten year overnight sensation story In the Studio.
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Queen- A Night at the Opera 45th- Brian May, Roger Taylor

Forty-five years ago Queen sent out invitations for "A Night at the Opera" and the whole rock world RSVP'd. With Brian May and Roger Taylor here In the Studio.
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Eddie Van Halen Dead- Story of “1984”

Eddie Van Halen, one of the most influential guitarists of the last half century, has died of throat cancer at age 65.

Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble- Soul to Soul 35th Anniversary

On the thirty-fifth anniversary of "Soul to Sou"l , their third album release, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble Included here in these classic rock interviews is my second interview with Stevie in late Spring 1984; legendary bluesman Buddy Guy; Chris Layton, Tommy Shannon, and biographer Joe Nick Patoski; and the songs "Pride and Joy","Cold Shot", the spectacular Hendrix cover"Voodoo Child", "Look at Little Sister","Life Without You", and two "Big" Doyle Bramhall songs, "Change It" and "Life By the Drop".