Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1054 in the Series and #38) is The New Barbarians, Buried Alive: Live in Maryland The band The New Barbarians was formed in 1979 as a means to promote Ron Wood’s most recent album Gimme Some Neck. The album was a minor success peaking at number 45 on the billboard charts and was the first to feature Wood’s own artwork on the album cover including a self-portrait. The band and the subsequent eighteen gig U.S. tour may have gone largely unnoticed were it not for the exceptional musicians that accompanied Wood on the tour. The stellar line-up included Ron Wood and Keith Richards on guitar, Stanley Clarke on bass, former Faces keyboardist Ian...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1053 in the Series) is Roxy Music, Manifesto The conventional wisdom surrounding Roxy Music seems to suggest that there are two distinct “periods” of the band’s initial existence.  The first phase, from the band’s inception through 1976’s Siren, was characterized by dual predilections for high-brow artiness and otherworldly glamour; and the second phase, from 1979’s Manifesto through 1982’s Avalon, signaled the band’s transition into a brooding, stylish, and literate pop hit machine, helmed by Bryan Ferry’s inimitable voice and buoyed up by a small army of studio technicians. However, while there are undeniably two sonic phases to Roxy’s chronology, Manifesto, often hailed as the first album of Roxy’s later period, really finds...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1049 in the Series) is Styx, Styx II All I have to do is look at that Styx II album cover and I immediately feel a smile forming on my face as all these wonderful childhood memories return. I was raised in the far Southside neighborhood of Chicago called Roseland.  A place that while part of a huge metropolis, still felt like small town America to us. It was a small town that was made up of many immigrant families.  There was a Polish area, a Mexican area, a Lithuanian area (that gave us director Robert Zemeckis. Back to the Future, Forest Gump) an area called “Bum Town” (that gave us Elliot...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day is the Original London Cast recording of  Jesus Chris Superstar. It”s now our Cool Album of the Day every Easter Sunday. Don’t give me the knock-offs. Give me the original 1971 release featuring Ian Gillian as Jesus. I remember playing the hell out of this back in the day. To me this has always been the definitive version of  Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s rock opera.  It’s the Original London Concept Recording.  Yes, I also realize that the story told in the opera ends on Good Friday.  We still feel that it’s fitting for Easter Sunday. The music here is absolutely brilliant.  It includes some wonderful performances from Deep Purple lead vocalist Ian Gillan...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1043 in the Series) is Billy Joel, 52nd Street While 52nd Street is not Billy Joel’s most popular album, that honor goes to The Stranger with the mega-hits “Just the Way You Are”, “Scenes in an Italian Restaurant”, “Only the Good Die Young”, and the rest, or his most socially aware album, that would certainly be The Nylon Curtain with the brutally honest social commentary of “Allentown”, and “Goodbye Saigon”, and it was by far not the worst, clearly An Innocent Man gets that dubious honor, but it is in some circles, including mine, simply the best. In the interests of full disclosure, my view of this album may be somewhat influenced...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1034 in the Series)  is Bob Dylan’s 1975 release, Blood On The Tracks. “A lot of people tell me that they really enjoy that album. It’s hard for me to relate to that, you know. I mean, people enjoying that type of pain ?” – Bob Dylan. It’s one of the most famous quotes in rock music history and he was referring, of course, to people’s reaction to “Blood On The Tracks,” not only his own personal best album but one of the greatest ever made, by anyone. Bob being Bob though, he also came out later and denied that the songs on the album were based on his own life, marriage or...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1032 in the Series) is The Outlaws, Hurry Sundown. The Outlaws first hit the music scene (at least as far as recordings go) in 1975. They actually had been together on and off since as early as 1967.  Their debut album was simply titled The Outlaws.  It contained a song that would be closely associated with the band for the rest of their career. That song would of course be “Green Grass and High Tides.” While it did help their popularity, I also thing it mistakenly categorized them as a southern rock band from then on.  I use the word “mistakenly” because I really don’t believe that The Outlaws were a southern-rock...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1031 in the Series ) is Uriah Heep, Live Back in the mid-seventies, one of my friends had a “neat” drum kit in his attic. He and and a few other  friends would pound away on it. At that point I had taken some lessons so I knew a little bit of what I was doing. We had a stereo up there as well.  If memory serves me correct, it was a two story unit apartment house type of thing with maybe one person living in-between. So we could make a ton of noise up there and no one cared, and we did. We’d get some of our favorite albums and try and...

Today’s Cool Album of the Day (#1028 in the Series) is Jean-Luc Ponty, Imaginary Voyage. Some people might not realize how popular jazz-fusion was from the early 70s to early 80s. Acts like Jean Luc Ponty, Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, Brand X, Jeff Lorber, Herbie Hancock, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Passport, Pat Metheny, Lee Ritenour and Shadowfax were all over the place. Cripes, Spyro Gyra was a house hold name! (I was a bigger fan of “Spyrograph” myself) It was really a fun time. Jean Luc Ponty was one of the leaders in this genre.  He was popping them out like crazy while playing in bands along the likes of Frank Zappa and the previously mentioned Mahavhishnu Orchestra. Don’t get...

  Today’s Cool Album of the Day  (#1026 in the Series) is Daryl Hall, Sacred Songs. This is one of the main reasons that I’ve decided to create this site. That is to point out ditties like this. I have a feeling that many people did not know this gem existed. It’s the first solo release by Daryl Hall of “Hall and Oates” fame. I don’t know if DH is the best rock vocalist of all time, but he’s in the team picture. This was recorded in 1977 but not released until 1980. The wonderful RCA records held the album because is was ‘not commercial enough.’ I guess ‘very good’ just isn’t a good enough reason for a label to...