As a fan of a wide variety of popular (and not-so-popular) music from the 1950s (and sometimes even earlier) up through the present, one of my bucket list projects for years has been to put together a list of my 100 favorite songs of all time. At some point I decided that, once I got around to figuring that out, I could put it out on a blog, for the infinitesimally small proportion of the Internet world that might be interested. So, here we are. While the Top 100 will be a major focus, I also plan to post on a variety of other musical (and occasionally non-musical) topics, in which you may or may not be interested. (If a particular posting doesn’t ring your bell, you’re only a few clicks away from a dancing cat video on YouTube.)
I can’t add much to the excellent obituaries referenced
above, other than to state the obvious (IMO): The Allman Brothers’ At
Fillmore East was the foremost live album of its time, and one
of the greatest ever.
One of the pleasures of seeing Richard Thompson is the
mixture of familiar and seldom-heard tunes, with the latter changing from tour
to tour. This time, most of the “hits” appeared relatively early, with the
obligatory “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” nestled among “Valerie”, “Beeswing”,
and “Walking The Long Miles Home”. The less-heard tracks included three that
were new to me: “Sunset Song” (which kicked off his three-song encore), “The
Poor Ditching Boy”, and “Pharaoh”.
Zara Phillips came out to provide harmony vocals during the
second half of the show, which consisted primarily of Richard and Linda
Thompson tracks, along with three cuts from his upcoming Ship to Shore
album. The high points were “Wall Of Death” (which ended the main set) and “I
Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight”, which was the final encore.
Thompson’s vocals and acoustic guitar work were great
throughout, although he did forget one verse of “Sunset Song”. He was certainly
well-received by the sellout crowd, although it was notably less demonstrative than
those that typically attend his performances at the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis.
