Tag Archive

This week’s rock song is more rock-adjacent. Banda music is what happened to brass bands when they made it to Mexico. (That’s the Mark Ramsay version, anyway. You can hear some German oom-pah in it.) This one’s in honor of Marta, a Mexican lady I know who had to leave the country to take care of her dying father. She …

If you don’t have Otis Redding’s live recordings from London and Paris, you need to get them. Every song is bonkers with energy start to finish. This cover meets or possibly exceeds the Beatles original.

Grainy black-and-white, but you get to see 1969 Dick Clark introduce an early music video of sorts.

Campy enough house music that it’s not for everybody. But surely the inclusion of elements of Parliament-Funkadelic and A Tribe Called Quest broadens the appeal.

I usually don’t go as far back as somebody who was with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers (and Cream), but here you go:

He’s a Tennessee boy, you know.

This is a reader-submitted entry (thanks, Dan!). The copyright may force you to click on the link to go watch it directly on YouTube. It’s worth it. I saw Susan Tedeschi at a B.B.. King Blues Festival. We had to leave early, and it was indeed a thrill to hear B.B. coax out “The thrill is gone …” as we …

I mentioned before a seminal moment in England where I learned about Supergrass. But I’ve never featured them on #HornSectionsMakeRockBetter. This is from their second album. Its bonus promotional disc has my favorite song they ever did, but alas! It has no horns.

Well how about some Ed Sullivan? Here are the Rascals, AKA the Young Rascals. Keep watching for the next video, “Groovin’.”

You may know twin brothers Charlie and Craig Reid from “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” but this song from their first album is even more genius. My favorite line: “Then I saw you on the streetYou looked happy, that’s a factI’m impressed – it’s a hell of an act”