“Free Indeed!”  Rick McKnight  Rainbow Records

“Free Your Mind…And Your Ass Will Follow”  Funkadelic  Westbound Records (1971)

“Exile On Main Street”  The Rolling Stones  Cover art design and photography by Robert Frank.  Frank’s, 1958 publication of The Americans, a book of photographs with an introduction by Jack Kerouac, changed modern photography.  In 1972, he directed “Cocksucker Blues,” an infamous, seldom-seen and much bootleged, cinema verite documentary of The Stones American Tour that year.  In conjunction with the Metropolitan Museum’s current Robert Frank exhibit of The Americans, I attended a screening of CB.  After years of having only a crappy VHS dupe, it was amazing to see the band misbehaving – and performing – on a clean print in the museum’s theater.  And how strange to see this notorious, dirty, “underground” movie being celebrated and analyzed at the Met, the bastion of high art.

“Hully Gully”  The Angels

The Hissing of Summer Lawns  Joni Mitchell (1975)  Asylum Records

“In France They Kiss on Main Street”, “The Jungle Line”, “Edith and the Kingpin”, “Don’t Interrupt The Sorrow”, “Shades of Scarlett Conquering”, “The Hissing of Summer Lawns”, “The Boho Dance”, “Harry’s House/Centerpiece”, “Sweet Bird”, “Shadows and Light”

Graham Nash, David Crosby and James Taylor all contribute background vocals.  Taylor, Robben Ford, Jeff Baxter, Larry Carlton on guitar.  Victor Feldman, Joe Sample on keyboard.  Max Bennett and Wilton Felder, bass.  Chuck Findley and Bud Shank, horns.  Plus the Warrior Drums of Burundi on “The Jungle Line”.  Fun fact: the Burundi drums on this track were sampled on the Beastie Boys ‘B-boy Bouillabaisse’ from Paul’s Boutique

The follow up to Court and Spark, Joni’s most commercially successful album, Summer Lawns saw her risking new-found success with an edgier, experimental and adventurous album (and perhaps rock’s first dabbling in World Music?)  Critically scorned at the time, its now much loved as one of Joni’s most brilliant, personal artistic statements.

“Blues Helping”  Love Sculpture  Rare Earth Records (1967)  Love Sculpture was a British band that formed in Cardiff in 1966 out of the remnants of another local band called The Human Beans. The band, featuring lead guitarist Dave Edmunds (Right), John Williams on bass, and drummer Bob “Congo” Jones disbanded in 1970 after two LPs, this is their first. (Edmunds then went on to success with the number one song “I Hear You Knocking” and “I Knew the Bride (When She Used To Rock and Roll)” and then with Nick Lowe formed the band Rockpile.)

“Blues Helping” is pretty straight forward British blues rock with covers of “Summertime,” “Wang Dang Doodle,” and “Shake Your Hips”

Below is Robert Indiana’s “Love Sculpture” located on the corner of 6th Avenue and 55th Street in Manhattan, NY.

Below is the album cover for “Renegade” by Rage Against The Machine which parodies the “Love” sculpture.  (Neither Robert Indiana nor Rage have any other connection with the “Blues Healing” LP that started this ramble.  None that I know of that is.)

“All-Star Rock and Roll”  An Atlantic Records EP from the early days of “rock and roll” which really means the R&B stars of the day like Ivory Joe Hunter, Clyde McPhatter, Ruth Brown and LaVern Baker.

Los Bravos “La Moto”  Columbia.  (1966).   Los Bravos was the first Spanish group to reach #2 on the UK charts and #4 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart.  That one-hit wonder, “Black is Black,” sold over one million copies worldwide.  (A sad aside:  One of Los Bravos’ founding members Manuel Fernandez committed suicide on 20 May 1967, at the age of 23 after the death of his bride Lottie Rey in an auto accident. He had been driving the car and was riddled with guilt.)

“Black is black I want my baby back It’s gray, it’s gray Since she went away, Ooh-Ooh What can I do ‘Cause I-I-I-I-I’m feelin’ blue If I had my way She’d be back today But she don’t intend To see me again, Ooh-Ooh What can I do ‘Cause I-I-I-I-I’m feelin’ blue I can’t choose It’s too much to lose My love’s too strong Wow! Maybe if she would come back to me Then it can’t go wrong Bad is bad That I feel so sad It’s time, it’s time That I found peace of mind, Ooh-Ooh What can I do ‘Cause I-I-I-I-I’m feelin’ blue I can’t choose It’s too much to lose My love’s too strong Wow! Maybe if she would come back to me Then it can’t go wrong Black is black I want my baby back It’s gray, it’s gray Since she went away, Ooh-Ooh What can I do ‘Cause I-I-I-I-I’m feelin’ blue ‘Cause I-I-I-I-I’m feelin’ blue”

The Smoke  “My Friend Jack”  An EP on Impact records (1967 – French)