#101 Tobacco Road – The Nashville Teens (1964)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGuZY6NVXqU

 

I used the music I had in iTunes as the starting point for my favorite 100 songs. This one wasn’t there, because at that point I hadn’t been able to find the original version, only some crappy re-recordings. On September 4, 2014, to my great joy, I checked again, found the original in the iTunes store and promptly purchased it. Had it been there earlier, it almost certainly would have made my initial list of favorites.

 

The two versions of this often-recorded composition by John D. Loudermilk that I now have in my music library are both great, but couldn’t be more different. The Lou Rawls recording runs almost 8 minutes; it’s slow and jazzy, with a long spoken introduction similar to that on his hit “Dead End Street”. The Nashville Teens, however, take care of business in a mere 2:29. Despite their name, they were a British band, and this was their only hit in America. (They had slightly more success on their side of the pond.) For sheer kick-ass rock and roll, however, this compares to anything the Who, the Stones or the Kinks ever came up with. Having Jimmy Page on guitar certainly doesn’t hurt.

More Favorite Songs

Having completed my first two major projects for the blog (favorite songs and favorite albums), I needed something to keep me busy in 2016. After careful consideration (and a beer or two), I decided to come up with another 100 favorite songs.

 

Unlike my carefully-considered Top 100 list, this one will be much more off-the-cuff; at this point I have no idea what all is going to appear. The numbers are for reference only, and unlike last time I’ll start at the “top” (101) and count up to 200. I will, however, still honor my previous rule that no performer can have more than one song in the top 100 (now 200).

David Bowie

Rock icon David Bowie died yesterday, as you probably have heard by now, after an 18-month battle with cancer, and just a couple days after releasing his final album. Tributes have been pouring in from people across the musical spectrum, from Iggy Pop to Kanye West to Cher. WXPN has been wall-to-wall Bowie since 6:00 this morning, 8 hours and counting.

 

Although going back through my vinyl collection confirms that I bought the Let’s Dance LP at one point, I have to admit that I’ve never been a huge fan of Bowie’s work. I think that’s because I found his frequent changes in persona somewhat offputting – I could never figure out what if anything was at his core in terms of music. (I occasionally wondered, semi-seriously, whether “David Bowie” actually existed, or whether the name was actually handed down from one musician to another at various times over the years.)

 

Nevertheless, I’d have to rate these as my top 5 Bowie tracks:

Let’s Dance (also a great video, which I hadn't seen before)

The Man Who Sold The World (although I prefer Nirvana’s cover)

This Is Not America

Modern Love

Suffragette City