Approaching her mid-60’s, Bonnie Raitt is still playing hard
and kicking ass on tour, and just like her daddy before her, most of her life
has been spent on the road. This is true for most musicians and especially true
of the generation before Bonnie. Many of those old-timers in their late 70’s
and 80’s are still paying their dues on the road. For many, it’s all they know
and will just keep doing it until it’s physically impossible.
A little late to this week's game, but let's hope fashionably late is still acceptable.
This week, over at Lance's Myblogcanbeatupyourblog weekly meme, the 100 Word song is a cover by an old classic, about a classic road. Written in 1946 by Bobby Troup, is was first recorded by Nat King Cole, then covered by Chuck Berry, The Stones and many others. For this week's writing exercise, Lance has chosen the cover by Depeche Mode.
For any newbies, we take a song as inspiration and write exactly 100 words of prose, poetry, whatever. So here's my 100 words about "Route 66."
Laid out ahead, she’s a history lesson just waiting to be
learned.
The road, a better teacher than any school. This one’s full
of stories, ghosts and a time before now.
They tried to make her irrelevant, but even covered with dust, she knew getting
somewhere fast wasn’t always the reason for going.
And before too long, the next generation would learn.
And they would get the itch, just like me. The itch to see her
as she is, and imagine what she once was, and to feel it.
Without AC in this old ’55, it shouldn’t be too hard.
Driving up to the weekend house, I was thinking that I was in need of some serious Rock & Roll. And because my mind easily wanders, I started to list in my mind, songs that have Rock & Roll in the title. There's a shitload for sure.
So for today's exercise, I thought I'd post some Rock & Roll videos. Some are pretty obvious, some are not. Check out a few if you're not familiar with them, or if it's a song you haven't heard in a while, take a listen, smile and just rock.
Up first, let's start with the lowest common denominator.
Rock & Roll - Led Zeppelin
Getting hungry for more? How about a little....
Rock & Roll Stew - Traffic
"She started shakin' to that fine, fine music. You know her life was saved by rock & roll". Yeah, that.
Rock & Roll - Velvet Underground
Originally recorded by The Byrds, how about a little TP.
So You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Had a dose of Robert Plant... bring on Paul Rogers.
Rock & Roll Fantasy - Bad Company
Just had to put this on the list because, well...
Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo - Rick Derringer
This list could go on forever, Off the top of my head I had another twenty songs: Joan Jett, Kiss, Huey Lewis, Billy Joel, The Ramones, Bob Seger and ELO to name a few artists I've omitted. But the last on this list is one artist who had to be here. Because, as Bob Seger sang "all of Chuck's children are out there playing his licks."
Rock And Roll Music - Chuck Berry
"You can come back baby, rock and roll never forgets."
.
Every band, singer, writer and musician has them. What makes an average musician a great one, is taking those influences and creating a sound of your own.
On July 12, 1962, the Rolling Stones made their first club appearance in London at the Marquee Club. That night, their entire set did not include one original song. It was all covers of songs by singers who were an influence on their later style.
While it would have been easy on this 50th anniversary to highlight some Stones music, I thought it would be more fun to feature some of the music which was covered in that first set list. These links are to the artists who originally wrote/sang them. These are the musicians whose music first cried out to Mick and Keith...this is where it started.
