Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Sucker” by Mott The Hoople        Mott The Hoople were a British pub rock group consisting of Ian Hunter on vocals, guitar and piano, Mick Ralphs on guitar and vocals, Verden Allen on organ and vocals, Pete Overend Watts on bass and  Dale “Buffin” Griffin on drums. By 1972, the band had released four poorly received albums and was ready to throw in the towel. Enter David Bowie to the rescue! Bowie was much too big a fan of the band to let them call it quits, so he urged them to glam up their image, offered to produce their next album, set them up with Tony Defries and MainMan management and...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Willkommen” by Joel Grey from the film “Cabaret” A funny thing happened to the Broadway Musical Cabaret during its adaptation to the big screen. It lost ten out of its original fifteen songs. Many of the original Broadway songs were in the play to express the emotions of the characters and move the plot line forward, something that the medium of film was able to accomplish by using visuals. As a result, Bob Fosse only used the songs “Wilkommen,” “Two Ladies,” “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” “If You Could See Her,” and “Cabaret” for the film. The rest were dumped, as were characters and elements of the original plot. Cabaret opened...

  Song Of The Day by Eric Berman – “Iko Iko” by Dr. John Where do you go after you’ve taken on an assumed name (“The Night Tripper”) and released four of the trippiest, psychedelic, voodoo-inspired albums in all of music history? If you’re Dr. John, you go straight back home! “I decided I’d had enough of the mighty-coo-de-fiyo hoodoo show, so I dumped the Gris-Gris routine we had been touring with since 1967 and worked up a new act—a Mardi Gras revue.” Actually, going home was probably a good idea for Rebennack, since he needed to take some time out to clean himself up after acquiring a massive drug habit while touring the world as “The Night Tripper.”...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#810 in the Series) is Bobby Charles, Bobby Charles Bobby Charles is one of those artists that you know intimately, has been in your life for a long time, but you just can’t remember, or never really knew how the relationship got started. Born in 1938, a true Cajun by birth, Charles was one of the swamp rock founding fathers, a genre that deliciously combines zydeco, boogie rock, rockabilly, and old juke joint rhythm and blues.  A typical “he’s big overseas” artist, in his early days he was generally known as a songwriter penning “See You Later Alligator,” famously covered by Bill Haley and the Comments, and “Walking to New Orleans” for...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#799 in the Series) is Cat Stevens, Catch Bull At Four  Catch Bull at Four was, surprising to me, Cat Stevens most popular album in the United States. If forced to guess I would have named Tea For The Tillerman or Teaser and The Firecat.  Most listeners I know consider those albums superior to this one. They directly preceded this one and I’m sure that the sales here were caused as  a result of those albums popularity. Tea For The Tillerman peaked at #8 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Teaser and the Firecat reach all the way up to #2 on the strength of three huge singles, “Morning Has Broken,” “Moonshadow” and “Peace Train.” By...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#790 in the Series) is Deep Purple, Machine Head Many musicians that are in their early 60s claim it was seeing The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show that pushed them into the music stores to grab their first guitars and to begin the dream about making music. For those a bit younger it was one riff that made many of them jump.  Thinking back I really feel for the guitar teachers of 1972, while they were handing kids an acoustic and making attempts to teach them C, D, G and maybe the odd A-minor chord, the kids just wanted to learn one thing. “Show me how to play ‘Smoke on the...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#730 in the Series) is Harry Chapin, Sniper and other Love Songs. We’re going back to the singer/songwriter genre today for a 1972 release by master storyteller, Harry Chapin. Harry is one  of the few artists that I’ve always been interested in, but never had a chance to see perform live.  As many of you know, Harry’s been gone for years so that chance has passed. There are other Chapin albums that I could have chosen that would have given me  much more popular material to cover, however  I chose this album for one song, “Sniper.” It is quite possibly the most powerful song I’ve ever heard in all my life.  It clocks...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#700 in the Series) is Genesis, Foxtrot One thing that we do here at Cool Album of the Day is endeavor to bring you something special for our milestone numbered posts. As you’ve just read, this piece represents entry number 700. So today we bring you an album that more than arguably could be considered the best progressive-rock album of all time. It contains a song that could also potentially be considered the best progressive rock song of all time.  You already know the album is Foxtrot, and the song of course that I’m referring to is “Supper’s Ready.” Some  may say that Genesis’ magnum opus should be considered The Lamb lies...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#669 in the Series) is the debut self-titled album by Singer / Songwriter Bill Quateman. In 1972 I heard a song on WXRT called ‘Changing of the Guard.’ ‘XRT has always given a run down on what they had just played. Usually as a set.  I loved the song and waited to hear who it was by.  Well That’s when I first heard the name Bill Quateman. So made my trek to Hegewisch Records and bought his debut.  Mind you I didn’t look at the song list. Well somehow I got the album wrong.  The song I heard was Steely Dan.  But I screwed up what I was looking for and ended...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#666 in the Series) is Aphrodite’s Child, 666 Well you knew we’d have to come up with something special for entry #666 didn’t you? Ok, you my friend are correct. I remember always looking at this album when I’d walk past it at good ol’ Hegewisch Records.  For some odd reason, it always seemed to be in front of the bin, staring at you, challenging you to pick it up and look at it.  The bright scarlet red cover with those giant black outlined 666 letters just jumped out at you. It was kind of spooky actually.  Then when you finally did pick it up you were surprised. It was darn heavy!...