FOURTEEN FOR THE ROAD

Fist Bump

How about a fist bump for the captain?

My brother Mark and I don’t have a heck of a lot in common, but we both love music. Even there, though, we have very different tastes. He likes the hits. His iPod is filled with anything and everything that was an AM hit or played on FM radio during the classic rock era, generally speaking, from the 1950s through the 1980s.

I like those songs as well, but I like albums too, from favorite artists as well as one-offs. I also am deep into soul music, like a smattering of country, and have a handful of jazz albums on my player. (Kind of Blue is kind of essential.)

For a recent trip home to Va. Beach I wanted to make a music mix that both of us could enjoy for our usual nostalgia driving tour through our old neighborhoods and past various former haunts. After all, what’s more enjoyable than driving around and listening to music at night, something I rarely get to do in Philadelphia, where I mostly get around by my feet.

Pungo Church of God
Crabs

To make the mix these are the parameters I was dealing with: of course, I had to have the songs on my iPod. I wanted the music to be propulsive or have great guitar, preferably both. Nothing live. The songs had to have been played on the radio, hits of a sort, from the 60s through the 70s. And there could only be 80 minutes worth of music, maximum, so it would fit on a disc.

Here’s where I ended up:

  • Let It Ride – Bachman-Turner Overdrive
  • Radar Love – Golden Earring
  • Get Back – The Beatles
  • Can You Hear Me Knocking – The Rolling Stones
  • Every Picture Tells A Story – Rod Stewart
  • That Lady – The Isley Brothers
  • Layla – Derek and The Dominoes
  • Call Me The Breeze – Lynyrd Skynrd
  • Green Grass & High Tides – The Outlaws
  • Barracuda – Heart
  • Good Times Bad Times – Led Zeppelin
  • I Can See For Miles – The Who
  • Susie Q – Creedence Clearwater Revival
  • Down By The River – Neil Young

NOTES:

Mark’s three favorite songs were Layla, Susie Q and Down By The River.

Songs I would have considered if I had them on my iPod were Free’s All Right Now and either Foghat’s Fool for the City or Slow Ride.

Songs I would have liked to have included but just couldn’t fit were Alice Cooper’s School’s Out and the Raspberries Go All The Way. Actually, they were among many others that just couldn’t make the cut.

One song that I chose not to include was Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild. It just felt a little too easy for a rocking car ride mix.

There are a couple of amusing items I learned while checking out the history of some of the bands, i.e., Golden Earring, a Dutch group, and The Outlaws.

The Outlaws’ founding drummer is Monte Yoho. His last name sounds like how a Philadelphian would call out for a streetwalker.

One of Golden Earring’s first hits, in 1968, was Dong-Dong-Di-Ki -Di-Gi-Dong. I wonder what that translates to in Dutch. Or maybe I don’t.

We took our drive at night, so that precluded taking pictures. The photos are sights we might have seen had we taken our drive during the day.

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