Segment 143

If memory serves and my record keeping is at all accurate (neither of which is guaranteed), today’s batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl features two bands that have never been in one of our sets. It’s not that the bands are what you’d consider wildly obscure, I mean, Nazareth and Humble Pie are pretty mainstream rock ‘n’ roll outfits. And it’s not that I don’t like them, I do. But as I’ve said before, the segues determine the songs we play, not the other way around. In other words, it’s outta my hands. So there I was listening to Deep Tracks one day when Nazareth came on doing a little something that put me in mind of “Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings.” But I wasn’t familiar with the track, so I had to wait and see if it was something I could work with. Well, sure enough, it’s got two false endings and a cold end, so off we went. Actually, it’s more accurate to say the song has two near false endings, but they’re close enough for what we’re up to. So, anyway, given that we’re dealing with Nazareth and that little old band from Texas, you know we’re going in search of some more crunchy guitar riffs. And we found some too. From 1971, Steve Marriott and Peter Frampton provide the riffs on a track from the Humble Pie album Rock On. Later in the set, but also from 1971, we’ll go deep with a group that didn’t have a single guy in it, a band called Fanny. They were formed by guitarist June Millington and her bass-playing sister, Jean and they put out a fine collection of albums on the Reprise label. And speaking of girls, it’s been said that all the young girls love Alice, which is another way of saying we’ll be taking a trip down Yellowbrick Road. And at the end we’ll get some Dixie Rock from Mobile, Alabama’s Wet Willie. But to get us started on this riff-rocking extravaganza, we’re going to call on a band that released three albums on the Shelter label before Shelter lost their distribution deal with MCA. Their album Belle of the Ball is a lost classic, if you ask me. We’ve played a couple of tracks from this album in the past, including their cover of Lindsey Buckingham’s track “Don’t Let Me Down Again.” So without further ado, here’s Richard Torrance and Eureka.

Wrapping up a surprisingly international set, that’s “Leona” from Wet Willie all the way from Mobile, Alabama and recorded in Macon, Georgia. Before that, a little Fanny for you. As I mentioned earlier, they are one of the first female hard rock outfits signed to a major label. Fanny was formed in California by sisters June and Jean Millington who were actually born in the Phillipines. We heard the title track to their second album, “Charity Ball,” a single which hit #40 on the Billboard charts in 1971. Now Fanny was more popular in the UK where they toured as the opening act for a lot of bancs, including Humble Pie. Speaking of whom, we heard the Pie’s “Stone Cold Fever” from the album Rock On. Now the track that got me started on that set was “Gimme What’s Mine” by the Scottish rockers, Nazareth. That’s from their 1977 album Expect No Mercy. The song has a couple of false endings and in into the first one, we slipped that little old band from Texas doing one of my favorite ZZ Top songs, “Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings” from the studio side of their Fandango album. Then it was back to Nazareth for a minute before we heard the tale of that poor little darling with a chip out of her heart, the girl acting in a movie when she’s got the wrong part. “All the Girls Love Alice” from Elton John’s two-record set Goodbye Yellowbrick Road. I read somewhere that Bernie Taupin wrote all the songs on the album in two and a half weeks while Elton cranked out the tunes in three or four days. The record went on to sell 15 million or so copies, so that works out to a pretty decent hourly wage. At the very top of the set, we heard Richard Torrance and Eureka’s “Hard Heavy Road” from their great album Belle of the Ball which you can find on CD, at Richard Torrance dot com. And as long as you’re poking around on the web, be sure to stop by our Facebook page or my website, Bill Fitzhugh dot com where we keep all the set lists and show commentaries along with all the shocking photos. From the Way Back Studios, I’m Bill Fitzhugh, thanks for listening. I’ll be back next time with another batch of All Hand Mixed Vinyl and I hope you’ll join us, right here, in the Deep Tracks.