DJTees Blog — Johnny Recommends...

If I was to ask you what was the most successful Johnny Winter album chart-wise, which release would think it was?  Surprisingly, it was 2014’s Step Back, his final studio album which reached #17 on the Billboard 200. Very good it is too. If, like me, you feel like charts are not as important now as they once were, indeed, I can’t even work out how they’re calculated any more, being a strange mix of sales, streams, plays and a hundred other metrics, then looking back to when charts mattered, we find his highest charting album was Still Alive And...

While they were only around from 1968 - 1974, I’ve always thought The Tooth have been undervalued in the history of British rock and were influential in their approach. Formed out of the ashes of a good psychedelic band called Art when Island’s Chris Blackwell introduced Gary Wright to the ex-Art boys.  Their debut, It's All About, was released in June 1968 on Island Records and was produced by the already legendary Jimmy Miller, who was also the man twiddling knobs for Spencer Davis Group, Traffic and Blind Faith. That first album was a unique blend of heavy over-amped guitar,...

I love all and every Steve Miller Band album and own all but the most recent. This love affair with his music began, like so many, with The Joker album in 1973. The title track was a #1 in USA and I used to listen to the USA chart run down on Radio Luxembourg every Wednesday. I discovered this in 1972 and it was obvious that the US charts were much better than UKs. You got actually rock music, for a start. I always remember hearing the edited version of Yes’s Roundabout which was a minor hit single in America...

While The Band’s first two albums are rightly hailed as game changers in the history of rock and roll and as works of great musical art, the third release, Stage Fright often gets overlooked when critics are writing about the band. Those first two albums do cast a long shadow but in my view Stage Fright is at least the equal of them. And what’s more, the public seemed to agree as it was their highest charting album in both UK and USA, making #15 and #5. Released in August 1970 it dials down the Americana of those first two...

In the pantheon of classic British progressive rock, while the likes of Yes, Genesis and ELP were critically lauded and even now are hailed as innovators on the genre along with The Nice and King Crimson, somehow The Moody Blues get forgotten about, at least here in the UK.  But the Moodies have a good claim to have been the first prog rock band and to have pretty much invented it.  And they were massively popular, a fact that also gets forgotten. From 1968’s In Search Of The Lost Chord to 1981’s Long Distance Voyager, every album they released made...

Steelyard Blues was an OK comedy caper movie, but had a great soundtrack of original music written and recorded by Mike Bloomfield, Nick Gravenites and Paul Butterfield. Now, I collect soundtrack albums - of course I do, would you expect anything less? But when I say soundtrack albums I don’t mean records like The Bodyguard - the best selling soundtrack of all time - which are just a collection of pre-existing songs featured in the movie. I mean soundtracks that were written for the movie and later released on record.  This is actually less common than you might imagine. I...

My own love of jazz-fusion dates back to when I was 14 and for no reason that I can recall decided to buy The Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Inner Mounting Flame album. What roared out of the grooves was a noise I had never heard the like of before in my short life. The guitar was loud and distorted, just the way I liked it, but everything else was different. It seemed to fill up holes in my mind that I didn’t know were even there, let alone empty.  Thus began my adventure into jazz-rock/fusion (I’m never sure what the genre difference...

If you’re not familiar with the pleasures of the Third Ear Band then if you love music which walks a different path to most, you’ll love this, their debut album recorded in 1969. Firstly, what a great name for a band. We’ve all heard of our third eye, our mystical pathway to metaphysical understanding, so why wouldn’t there be a third ear which allows us similar access to the unknown? A third ear hearing sounds that the other two ears can’t register is a great notion, I think. They evolved out of another wonderfully named group 'The Giant Sun Trolley'...

Mountain is not only one of my favourite bands, they’re also an important band in the history of rock. In their short career they were sometimes called Cream imitators. That was very wide of the mark and really only came about because of Cream producer’s Felix Pappalardi’s involvement. They were actually a more adventurous band in some ways, with a strong keyboard presence and some really great songs and of course some very massive riffs all played on that wee Les Paul Junior of Leslie West. In early 1969 Leslie West, formerly of the Long Island R&B band The Vagrants,...

Paladin were a really interesting early progressive rock band who sold very few records - and as a result they’re quite collectible, selling for up to £200 ($300) -  They were founded 1970 by classically trained multi-instrumentalist Peter Solley and jazz drummer Keith Webb who had both been in Terry Reid's band that had opened for the Rolling Stones on their 1969 American tour.  The other members of the band were Derek Foley (guitar and vocals) who previously played in Grisby Dyke; Lou Stonebridge (keyboards and vocals) from Glass Menagerie, which had released five progressive rock and psychedelic rock singles;...

The Blues Project : Projections Released in 1966, the band’s second album is very much the place to start with this band, one of the first ‘jam bands’ who would perform extended improvisations live. A unique blend of blues, psychedelics and R & B this album has their classic FM hit ‘Flute Thing’ which transports the listener back to the days of love, peace and flowers perfectly. With Al Kooper, one of rock n roll’s more seminal figures on keys and songs like I Can’t Keep From Cryin’ Sometimes’ a song that Ten Years After would play for 25 minutes...

Jade Warrior were a bit obscure to all except prog rock freaks like me. Essentially they were two or sometimes three fellas who played everything and they largely specialised in extended jazzy proggy instrumentals featuring guitars, flutes and keyboards. Sounds good already, doesn't it? In 1970 they were signed to Vertigo and their early records are very collectable now as they didn't sell at all. In 1974 on Steve Winwood's recommendation they signed to Island and began to get a more expansive sound and grander concepts. This album is called Waves and is dedicated to 'the last whale.' It is...

Aoxomoxa was their third release and came out in 1969. The previous album Anthem for the Sun was as wild and far out as anything they did - famously Phil Lesh claimed they were trying to record the sound of 'thick air' and we all know how difficult that is! Aoxomoxa has its very weird moments too, especially on the sound collage that is What's Become Of The Baby?' But it also some of their best songs of their early period notably 'China Cat Sunflower' which is possibly my all time fave Dead track and which was often performed with...

Let's settle in and go back to 1969 for a big dose of Quicksilver Messenger Service. Recorded at both Fillmore East & West - though frustratingly it doesn't say which tracks are recorded where - Happy Trails is something of an acid rock classic, I guess. Their 25-minute long version of Who Do You Love, which is basically a two chord jam, has a quintessential late 60s vibe led by John Cippolina and Gary Duncan's guitar work. This is one of those records which, when you put it on, you can still kind of feel yourself coming up on the...

This was their 1979 release and was the first after Grace Slick and Marty Balin had left. OK so it is a long way from the Jefferson Airplane days but it's still wonderful rock n roll and still has a psychedelic twist in songs like the title tracks sub title! Freedom at Point Zero (Climbing Tiger Mountain through the Sky) Oh yeah, we've all climbed a mountain through the sky when in certain altered states, haven't we? They scored big with the single 'Jane' from this which was a hit all over Europe & peaked at #21 in UK and...