Top 50 Favorite Albums: Part #1

If you scroll back through the posts to #10 in this series you’ll see my criteria and purpose for this series of posts. If you’re having trouble sleeping you can check out all fifty albums and my reviews/defense of them as you move through the posts. It’s been hard work, but it was fun to listen to these again and reacquaint myself with them all these years later. After the first ten or so the numbers might change a bit, but the same albums would still be in the mix.

1. Slim Slo Slider - Johnny Rivers

Sorry to disappoint here if you were expecting an album you’ve heard of. I take the word favorite in its most literal sense in this case. For over thirty years this album has been my constant companion. I’ve never grown tired of it and when it finally surfaced on CD the love affair started all over again. I think I can safely say I’ve probably played this one more than anything else.

The time was 1970 and Rivers was still moving in a spiritual direction. Unlike many artists who choose this path he took a more subtle approach and found it in the works of others. Nothing overt here at all, but the theme is there if you look. Rivers had made his career covering the works of others and showcasing both known and unknown writing talent. For this one he went to album tracks from some of his favorite writers and pooled them all for his best recording.

With a voice like his nearly any song is your oyster. He’s one of the greatest of the blue eyed soul singers and on this collection he merged it with the sounds that were coming out of the West Coast country rock scene. It’s an organic sound that contains no flash, just a singer at the top of his game. Using the best studio musicians in L.A. and covering the works of Van Morrison, Tony Joe White, John Fogerty, Gram Parsons, and others he makes it all sound like they were destined to be heard together.

There's no deep message floating above or below this album. It is simply a pleasant listening experience that I turn to more than any other in my collection. It's all you could want in an album.

When this finally arrived on CD it was from a European label that paired it with his follow up album “Homegrown” where he continued the same concept. It comes close to this one, but not quite its equal. If you’re ambitious though one could easily cull the best tracks from both into a classic mix-disc.

2. Blood On The Tracks - Bob Dylan

I could write for days about this album, but what would be the point? This is the most universally lauded album of his endless career. It means so many different things to so many different people we should all just spin it and enjoy it in our own way.

Feel free to talk among yourselves.

3. Astral Weeks - Van Morrison

This album is proof of my mortality. When it comes to this album I’m no different than anyone else. I’m a slave to its sway just like anyone else. I can still remember that long ago late evening listening to my clock radio when I first heard the song “Madame George” and being just as seduced as the characters in the song. (Suddenly my 45 of “Brown Eyed Girl” seemed quaint and possibly by some other artist with the same name.)

Other than a few Leonard Cohen songs nothing beats this one when it’s too late and you’ve maybe drank too much. Where a song like this comes from I can‘t say. The imagery and the swirl of the instruments for nine minutes is like very few things I’ve ever heard. Nearly forty years later I still feel the same each time I hear it. You can say goodbye to Madame George all you want, but he’ll never truly be gone.

The rest of the album of course is just as strong and singling one track out is tantamount to picking your favorite child. The leap from this recording and “Blowin’ Your Mind” that proceeded it is the Grand Canyon and then some. Even an early version of “Madame George” doesn’t tip you off to what’s coming next.

At the time (1968) this album was just too much for the masses and it never registered with the buying public. It failed to even make Billboard’s Top 200 when it was released. Reviewers and FM jocks kept it alive though and over time it has found a home on nearly every “Best Of” list of albums that you can name. If you find one that doesn’t include it move along and forget anything else listed.

4. The Wild, The Innocent… - Bruce Springsteen

Hearing this album for the first time was a revelation for me musically. It was at that point when I knew I was going to judge the music I liked differently. I was in the midst of shaking off Deep Purple, I’d already dumped Sabbath and was tiring of Zeppelin. I guess in hindsight it seemed like a regular guy got to make an album the way he wanted to. I’m not sure looking over these tracks today that the label had any hopes of anything but FM play for this one. The funkiness and length of the songs made it a sure bet that AM wasn’t chomping at their heels for focus tracks.

I actually heard this one before his debut “Greetings From Asbury Park.” I’ve grown to appreciate it over the years without ever completely embracing it. I often wonder what he thought of the final product too. These two albums were released only eight months apart in 1973. A trend he would never revisit. I’ve always felt that this album was really him and that the other one was him exorcising his Dylan influence. (Bruce, call me we’ll hash this out.)

I don’t think I’ve ever heard this album referred to as a concept album in the traditional sense. To me though it is one of the better ones. The entire set plays like some Jersey version of “West Side Story.” Not to wax to poetic here but Berstein and Sondheim surely must have heard some of this over the years and noticed the influence. The nearly twenty five minute, three song second side of the original album is a prefect example of the magic of vinyl. This would be the least self conscious he would ever get with his music. Probably because at this point he was making it for himself as much as anyone.

If one song is truly worth the price of an entire album then you need only to check out the second song on side one. “4th Of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)” is a song that I will never tire of. Set against the backdrop of a boardwalk carnival, serving the role of metaphor, this song set the stage for both the song and the album “Born To Run.” The nuance of the vocal and the sweep of the lyrics sound like a short story come to life with the narrator finally putting into words what he can no longer hold inside.

Before we go here, let me also mention that I think this is one of his best recordings when it comes to just plain singing. He showed a soulful side and never once drops into the growl that he would debut on “Born To Run.” This album sounds like it was as much fun to make as it is to listen to.

5. Never A Dull Moment - Rod Stewart

This selection is truly just keeping this spot warm for Stewart’s early solo material. At any given moment his debut, “Gasoline Alley,” and “Every Picture Tells A Story” could be in this slot. Those albums are almost interchangeable in their energy and importance to my musical upbringing. They all contain the perfect mix of covers, originals, sloppy, but effective instrumentation and vocals. What’s not to like?

This one gets the nod because I could hardly sleep in the days leading up to its release. Then, I could hardly sleep for weeks afterwards although I should have been fatigued from turning it over so many times. I even sprung for the eight track because it contained an extra cut. It was his cover of the country standard “What’s Made Milwaukee Famous.” Why it was left off the album is a mystery to me. The album isn’t very long and it wouldn’t have been out of place as far as I’m concerned.

The cracks would begin to show a bit after this album before the damn finally burst. However, between his early solo albums and the Faces albums coming out around them it’s a pretty decent stack of wax by any measure. Who could blame him for grabbing the ring when it came around? A hot British actress for a main squeeze, a different girl in every other town, untold riches, vacations on the Riviera, luxury autos, yeah we’d all turn the other way to keep our street cred, right? Let’s be real, he’d put in his time during the sixties and deserved some of the spoils of the seventies. No hard feelings here, just a big thanks for those early recordings.