First Draft

One thing our readers don’t know about me is that I love military bands. They’re a standard feature of Carnival parades and I get a thrill every time I see one. In addition to having the best uniforms, the Navy and Marines have the best  bands. It’s the legacy of Lt. Commander John Philip Sousa, the March King.

Most Sousa album covers feature the man himself looking stern and imposing. I’ve opted for a less conventional cover by Jim Flora that does not feature the man and his mustache:

Are you ready to march?

I have no idea why this 1972 compilation album has bacon and eggs in a skillet on the cover. Did they think it resembles Johannes Brahms or conductor William Steinberg? Beats the hell outta me.

All I know is that grim times call for comic relief as well as a good breakfast.

Best of Brahms does not eggist on the YouTube. One of the compositions excerpted was Brahms’ 4th Symphony so here’s the whole damn thing:

This 1989 album by Cajun music gods Beausoleil features some swell pictures by New Orleans based photographer Rick Olivier. He specializes in photographing artists from the Gret Stet of Louisiana and has done many album covers. This is one of the coolest.

Here’s the Bayou Cadillac Medley:

Tumbleweed Connection was Elton John’s third studio album. It was released in 1970 in the UK and 1971 in the US.  Concept albums were big at the time and this record is infused with country and western/Americana themes. It remains one of my favorite Elton John albums.

The cover evokes rural America BUT a closer look at the signs indicates that it was taken at a railway station in Sussex. It’s an indelible image from photographer David Markham.

The YouTube playlists are a mess so here are my two favorite tunes from the album instead:

The Fugs were an underground band formed in 1964 by poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg. This is the first time I’ve selected an album in this space because of its title: It Crawled Into My Hand, Honest. It makes me laugh every time I think of it. There are worse reasons than that, y’all.

Here’s the album in the YouTube playlist format:

Bob Kames nee Kujawa was a polka musician operating out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he was, apparently, a local legend. I’d never heard of him until my friend Marko Romano suggested one of the Bobster’s campier album covers. I went in another direction but I’d like to thank him for putting some polka into my life.

Here are two album covers:

What’s not to love about a happy organ, beer, and the chicken dance?

A friend of mine recently criticized me for rarely posting heavy metal covers in this feature. It’s true: I’m not a fan of the music BUT the genre does have its share of cool covers. This week’s entry is one of them.

1973’s Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was Black Sabbath’s fifth studio album. Here’s how the cover was, uh, covered in the album’s Wikipedia entry:

Drew Struzan (who would later create the iconic cover to Alice Cooper‘s Welcome to My Nightmare LP) was the artist requested to do the cover painting, under the direction of Pacific Eye & Ear’s Ernie Cefalu. The idea behind the artwork was to depict a man dying a horrible death on the front cover, and on the back cover the same man dying a “good” death. It depicts a man on a bed, seemingly having a nightmare or a vision of being attacked by demons in human form. At the top of the bed is a large skull with long, outstretched arms and 666 (the Number of the Beast) written below it. The other side of the album features the opposite of the front cover, as shown here. Inside the gatefold sleeve there is a photo of the band members shown over a photo of a bedroom. In his autobiography Osbourne enthuses, “I fucking loved that cover.”

I fucking like the cover. I’m not wild about the gatefold so I skipped it. Sorry, Ozzy.

Here’s the title track:

I spend a lot of time in my formative years listening to Frank Zappa. I was attracted to his oddball sense of humor and his wry and sardonic stage patter. Wry and sardonic sums me up quite well. Above all else, I loved his tricky music and the virtuosity of the musicians who worked with FZ.

One Size Fits All is my favorite Zappa album. The songs are tight, well-constructed, and perfectly arranged. It’s one of the last albums released using the Mothers name. It’s also one of the best bands Zappa ever assembled: the vocals by George Duke and Napoleon Murphy Brock are to die for. One Size Fits All flat-out rocks.

The cover art is by Cal Schenkel who designed 16+ Zappa covers. He was FZ’s artistic alter ego and described his style as “ragged surrealism.”

Here’s the whole damn album via the YouTube:

Little Feat’s 1978 double LP Waiting For Columbus is one of the greatest live albums of all-time. That shouldn’t surprise anyone who has seen any of the band’s iterations over the years. Little Feat flat-out rocks, especially when the Tower of Power horns join in on the fun as they do on this album.

The cover art is by Neon Park who began life as Martin Muller and did all but one of Little Feat’s covers until his death in 1993. Cheerful tomatoes became a recurring motif on Little Feat album covers and the band even named their record label Hot Tomato Records.

If you’re ready to rock, here’s the 2002 CD re-release complete with 10 extra tracks.

Grim times call for comic relief hence this week’s selection. What’s funnier than a bunch of Southern hippies astride a hog nursing her piglets?

After the success of the Allman Brothers Band, the record labels beat the bushes for Southern rock bands. One of the groups that fell out of the tree was Black Oak Arkansas. They were self-described rednecks who were popular for a few years with their Southern-fried boogie sound.

1973’s High On The Hog was their biggest hit. It features the song Jim Dandy, which became the theme song for their grottily charismatic front man Jim Dandy Mangrum. It’s unclear who or what he was rescuing.

Here are the front and back covers of this gatefolded LP featuring the memorable porcine illustration by Joe Petango.

The quality of the interior gatefold picture isn’t great but you get to see BOA in the backwoods. Boy howdy.

I won’t subject you to the album itself but here’s BOA to the rescue live:

Ron Wood has not only been a rock star for longer than many of you have been alive, he’s also an accomplished artist as you can see from the artwork on his 1979 solo album, Gimme Some Neck. What’s not to love about an album with a punny title?

The music is pretty darn good as well. Here’s the whole damn album via the YouTube playlist thingamabob:

I’ve had letters on my mind this week hence this selection. The Letter was a surprise #1 hit for the Box Tops in 1967, which led the record company to rush The Letter/Neon Rainbow into release. For the Alex Chilton fans out there (myself included) a major bummer: none of his songs appear on this album. But the boxy-n-toppy cover is pretty darn swell:

Here’s the whole damn LP:

Naturally was J.J. Cale’s first album. It was recorded in the wake of Eric Clapton’s hit version of Cale’s After Midnight. Here’s Cale’s description of how the record came about:

Cale, who was languishing in obscurity at the time, had no knowledge of Clapton’s recording of “After Midnight” until it became a radio hit in 1970. Cale recalled to Mojo magazine that when he heard Clapton’s version playing on his radio, “I was dirt poor, not making enough to eat and I wasn’t a young man. I was in my thirties, so I was very happy. It was nice to make some money.” Cale’s friend and producer, Audie Ashworth, encouraged Cale to record a full album in order to capitalize on the success of his song.

The quirky cover art featuring a gentleman raccoon is by Tulsa painter Bill Rabon.

Here’s the whole damn album:

It’s Ash Wednesday, the day after Carnival’s finale. One is supposed to repent and my legs, in particular, are penitent. Penitent and sore, which is why it’s time to repeat a musical pun I made three years ago and declare this Wishbone Ash Wednesday.

1991’s Strange Affair was the veteran prog rockers 16th album. I’m particularly fond of Ian Harris’ cover as it’s so pulpy that it looks like a refugee from Noir Alley:

Here’s the title track with a modified cover from a 2003 re-release.