Tag Archives: 1969

541. I’m a man

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Hate on Chicago (the band) all you want, but you’d be a fool to write off their first couple or few albums, particularly the first one, when the band was still known as Chicago Transit Authority. 1969 was the year, so the smoke from the crash and burn of the so-called hippie revolution was lingering in the near distance (at least that’s what the experts say). But the evolutionary energy was still percolating, such that a big fat double album from a big fat seven piece band could erupt from it all with equal parts power and precision. Just try to keep still for their take on I’m A Man.

556. by the time I get to Phoenix

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“Which gets us to the middle distance selection of the list. 555 down, 555 still to go. So I figure it has to be a record that arguably (and I love to argue) could also be Number One, on a different day, in different weather, different levels of love and chaos reigning over man and his world. So yeah, there’s great depth in Isaac Hayes‘s take on Jimmy Webb’s By The Time I Get To Phoenix, and distance, and soul, by which I mean not just the hot and buttered kind — soul that’s infinite, eternal. Once soul gets a hold of you, all the normal rules don’t apply anymore. Conventional notions of space and time become meaningless. A three minute pop mega-hit can become a twenty minute journey into the heart of truth of man, god, love, EVERYTHING. As long as you believe.” (Philip Random)

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565. fat man

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“From 1969, when Jethro Tull was still the hot new band of the moment, riding the hip edge of the cool underground, here with mandolins, bongos, other things made of wood. The song’s simple enough. A young man expressing his desire to not someday grow old and fat, and just good fun. Easier said than done, of course, but I’m comfortably into my forties now and so far so good. Yes, I’ve failed at pretty much every ambition I ever set for myself but at least I can still see my feet when I look down.” (Philip Random)

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616. monkey man

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1969 ended badly for the Rolling Stones at a free concert in Northern California, a place called Altamont — a man murdered directly in front of the stage. But that was only after Brian Jones got booted from the band he’d founded, then drowned in his swimming pool, or was he murdered, too? And meanwhile, Keith Richard just kept slipping deeper and deeper into the fool’s kingdom known as heroin. And yet the Stones still found time to record Let It Bleed, maybe their single greatest slab of vinyl, with Monkey Man a track that managed to not get played to death on commercial radio. Too bad, too ugly, too good.

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625. volunteers

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Call Volunteers (the song) Jefferson Airplane‘s punk rock moment, a short, sharp revved up call for genuine revolution at a time when such actually seemed possible. That is, if your hair was long and your soul experienced, and you were one of maybe four hundred thousand standing out in a muddy field one August morning in 1969 between downpours. Volunteers (the album) isn’t half band either.

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626. blister on the moon

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Taste, straight outa Cork, are one of those bands that genuinely should’ve conquered the world way back when. They had the songs, the presence, the power, even the likes of John Lennon and Eric Clapton singing their praises. But for whatever reason, it didn’t happen. We got two albums of taught, tough blues based r’n’r and then it was breakup time. Main man Rory Gallagher took off on a prolonged and committed solo career that only really stopped when his liver finally failed. And of the other two, not much more was ever heard.

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