Groove On 12

This is Bella’s radio for the lockdown – an hour and a half of tunes from Stewart Bremner. Listen to them all here.

On episode 12 there might actually be some songs you’ve heard before. As well as that, there’s a bit of a Friday night rock show thing happening. That begins with ‘Sting Me’ by The Black Crowes, from their second album The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion. The rock get distinctly harder for the second track of the episode, ‘Kill the King’ by Rainbow. Formed by ex-Deep Purple guitarist Richie Blackmore and featuring singer Ronnie James Dio, this is more or less heavy metal.

Staying with guitars but heading more down to earth, we come to ‘Bad Reputation’ by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, a song recorded by Jett not long after the split up of her first band The Runaways. We go then from the Godmother of Punk to the Godfathers of Grunge, Mudhoney with ‘The Farther I Go’ from their self-titled debut album. The last of this swarm of guitar music is ‘My City Was Gone’ by The Pretenders, from 1984.

We get funky next, starting with ‘Old Man With Young Ideas’ by Ann Peebles, a fine Memphis soul tune from 1978. It’s paired with ‘Who Is She (And What Is She To You)’ by Gladys Knight & The Pips, a cover with gender change from Bill Wither’s original.

The funky tunes move to modern times now, with two songs proving that soul music is still going and still brilliant. ‘Take Me Back’ by Sugaray Rayford featuring The Italian Royal Family is followed by Deva Mahal’s ’Snakes’, both of which can be found on Bandcamp.com.

Into the nineties now, for ‘Line Up’ by Britpop sensations and some time copyright infringers Elastica, followed by ‘Flippin’ Tha Bird (Ceasefire Remix)’ by Ruby, a solo project began in 1994 in Seattle by Scottish singer Lesley Rankine.

We slip into something different next, with ‘Strange World’ by Iron Maiden, a track from their debut album that might come as a surprise to many. It’s followed by that songs you’ve heard of, mentioned previously. The songs are ‘Music’ by Madonna, ‘Common People’ by Pulp and
‘Modern Love’ by David Bowie, all hit singles and marvellous in their own ways.

If Elvis could have an obscure song – that doesn’t suck – then it might be ‘Bossa Nova Baby’ from the film Fun In Alcapulco. A song that is definitely obscure is ‘I Got A Guy’ by Kathy Lynn & The Playboys, a swinging piece of sixties garage rock.

More up to date, but hopefully less obscure, is ‘Eyes On You’ by Eli “Paperboy” Reed, a deeply soulful gospel-tinged number from his 2016 album My Way Home on Yeproc records.

The final three tracks are again all by big name artists. First is A damn fine funky tune called ‘Baby Get It On’ by Tina Turner and then the episode is closed by two big guitar numbers, Heart’s barnstorming ‘Barracuda’ and, uh, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)’ by Elton John. Um.

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