Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#499 in the Series) is The Beach Boys, Surfs Up Sometimes the Mojo inspirations for my psychedelic meanderings for Cool Album of the Day come from lubricating the death machine, wandering in the desert aimlessly with an Indian Shaman by my side guiding me.  Other times I am in the Falcon’s Nest jungle room staring at the black light posters of Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin wondering where I can put my next lava lamp while consulting my Todd Mcfarlane figures of Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, Rob Zombie, and Jim Morrison. Alice Cooper is usually the more vocal of this quartet. Dave Alvin (Cool Album of the Day #471) was his. Jim Morrison...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#445 in the Series) is the debut, self-titled debut from America America? Cool? I say heck yeah, especially this album. This was 1971. I remember walking up to Roseland Music Store and buying my first ‘45s’ ever. In fact, they were just about the only 45s I even bought. I went pretty much right into albums. That day, however, I did by two. They were two songs by two artists that I think we’re very similar at this time. They were America, “Horse With No Name,” and Neil Young, “Heart of Gold.” Similar, at this stage of their music, absolutely. Listen to Horse With No Name and tell me that that couldn’t be...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#407 in the Series) is Crosby & Nash,  Another Stoney Evening. This release recorded on October 10, 1971 was making the rounds as a bootleg until the proper release in 1998. Self-described by David Crosby in the audience patter as “the loosest show on earth”, the album at times has the feel of two friends playing the guitar for friends by the campfire, and at other times sounds like two angels harmonizing in Heaven. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young had just broken up, Neil Young going off to form the band Crazy Horse, and Stephen Stills forming a group of super musicians collectively known as Manassas, leaving the two better vocalists of the...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#397 in the Series) is The Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers Before I go into a quick recap on The Rolling Stones, Sticky Fingers, let me take a moment to once again discuss what Whale Wednesdays are all about. As you most likely know, we here at Cool Album of the Day like to showcase many albums from different genres. Since most of you are real audiophiles, most of the time you’ll be seeing titles that you know, but not always. I’m sure most of you specialize in one area or another.  Hopefully you’re seeing some names that you may not be familiar with at all, or most likely, you’ll see names that you’ve...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#349 in the Series) is Carole King, Tapestry. There has always been one thing that I’d love to know about an artist like Carole King, and about her writing her masterpiece Tapestry.  That is, do you really know what you’re writing when you write an album like this? Meaning, this just wasn’t your run of the mill singer-songwriter album.  This was indeed a masterpiece of music.  Did Carole know that this was something special? Did she know that although she’d written a ton of hits, mostly for others, that this was just different?  I really don’t know how to answer that.  I’d love to hear what you think. Please share your ideas below.  I’m betting she...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#318 in the Series) is B.B. King, Live in  Cook Country Jail. B.B. King, Live in Cool County Jail was most likely my introduction to the blues. It was a long time ago. I don’t remember any other blues albums that I had before this one.  I don’t think I had it the year it was released, 1971, but it wasn’t long after that. This isn’t a long album. It clocks in just over 38 minutes. It does however; contain many of the B. B. King songs that you’d want.  I’ve seen him in concert a few times. I can tell you that his shows were never all that long either.  I never...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#313 in the Series) is Faces, A Nod Is as Good as a Wink… to a Blind Horse. A Nod Is as Good as a Wink… to a Blind Horse. What a classic name for a classic early seventies album.  “Nod” was the third album from one of the UK’s best exports, Faces. It features one of the best singles of that era, Stay With Me. I had forgotten how great that track was!  I recently heard it again after a ‘long time no hear.’  I just love the drawn out ending. Shame on you 70s AM radio for cutting it off. This was released just after Rod Stewart had a huge hit...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#293 in the Series) is The Nice, Elegy The Nice was one of those bands that I found ‘retroactively.’  I was a big fan of Emerson, Lake and Palmer in the seventies. Were they my favorites? Actually, yeah, pretty close!  I knew about Greg Lake’s earlier work as I was already a King Crimson fan as well. I had to do a looking research to find out about Carl Palmer’s and Keith Emerson’s beginnings. Ok, I did some reading and found that Carl spent some time with two bands. Atomic Rooster and before that, The Crazy Work of Arthur Brown.  They of ‘I am the God of Hell Fire… and I bring you,...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#197 in the Series) is Focus, Moving Waves. Focus was a Dutch seventies band that featured the keyboards and vocals of Thijs van Leer and the wonderful guitar work of guitarist Jan Akkerman.  The other two band members were Cyriel Havermans on bass and Pierre van der Linden on drums. Their second album was titled Focus II. Here in the United States it was known as Moving Waves. Moving Waves included one of the most original hits songs in US history, of course that would be “Hocus Pocus.” The music was quite experimental sounding even without a yodeling falsetto based vocal track. This was head of its time when this was released in...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#169 in the Series) is Rod Stewart, Every Picture Tells a Story. When you look back at his career, it’s amazing how many times Rod Stewart has reinvented himself.  He’s segued from blues rocker to disco to rock and roll to crooner etc.  His popularity also was all over the place. He went from loved to hated to questioned to loved and everything in between. During all that time, he never released a better piece of music than Every Picture Tells a Story.  I feel this will always be considered his Magnum Opus. Gasoline Alley was strong, Blondes Have More Fun sold more, Foot Lose and Fancy Free had more airplay. But you...