What's The Connection? Cherokee

There are a lot of ways to land on Cherokee, and this one covers more ground than most. It opens stretched all the way out, then snaps back into something more familiar and keeps shifting from there, bouncing between styles that don’t usually line up but manage to hold together anyway. The Indian connection is easy, but the approaches are all over the place, sometimes straight, sometimes barely related at all. Even Cher makes sense once you get there, which is kind of the whole point.

What's The Connection? Cherokee

01 Billy Ray Cyrus - Trail Of Tears

02 Gordon Lightfoot - Cherokee Bend

03 Jimi Hendrix - Cherokee Jam

04 Chet Baker - Cherokee

05 Manowar - Spirit Horse Of The Cherokee

06 Jerry Harrison - Cherokee Chief

07 Merle Haggard - Cherokee Maiden

08 Robbie Robertson - Cherokee Morning Song

09 Europe - Cherokee

10 Canned Heat - Cherokee Dance

11 kd Lang - Sweet Little Cherokee

12 Steve Howe & Martin Taylor - Cherokee Ridge

13 Paul Revere & the Raiders - Indian Reservation (The Lament Of The Cherokee Reservation Indian)

14 Hot Club Of Cowtown - Cherokee Shuffle

15 Beau Brummels - Cherokee Girl

16 Michael Martin Murphey - Cherokee Fiddle

17 Joni Mitchell - Cherokee Louise

18 Onie Wheeler - White Lightning Cherokee

19 John Denver - Trail Of Tears

20 Moon Mullican - Cherokee Boogie (Eh-Oh-Aleena)

21 Cher - Half Breed

What's The Connection? Get Up 2

Same idea, just with a little less discipline this time. It starts in a groove you recognize, then gradually pulls in sounds that don’t usually sit next to each other but manage to make sense anyway. The Connection is still obvious, but the ways artists get there are all over the place, from tight funk to looser swings and a few moments that feel like they might fall apart if you look at them too closely. Some tracks push, some resist, and a few seem to be negotiating the whole Get Up thing in real time, which is exactly what keeps it interesting.

What's The Connection? Get Up 2

20 Brass Construction - Get Up To Get Down

21 The Esquires - Get On Up

22 James Brown - Get Up Offa That Thing

23 Suzy Q - Get On Up And Do It Again

24 Parliament - P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)

25 Bob Marley & The Wailers - Get Up Stand Up

26 Tata Vega - Get it Up for Love

27 Jodeci - Get Up On It (Instant Flava Mix)

28 Lil Brian & the Zydeco Travelers - Get Up On That Zydeco

29 Desmond Dekker - Get Up Edina

30 The Cramps - Let's Get Fcked Up

31 Ministry - Git Up Get Out 'N Vote

32 Instant Funk - I Got My Mind Made Up (You Can Get It Girl) (12' Remix)

33 Ringo Starr - Gotta Get Up To Get Down

34 Yes - I Get Up I Get Down (Remix)

35 Anna Kendrick - Get Back Up Again

36 TobyMac - Get Back Up

37 Yoso - Time To Get Up

qBk

Every so often I end up with songs that did not make it into other picks, not because they were not good enough but because they just did not fit what I was building at the time. Rather than let them disappear I started throwing them into the three letter series, and the name is exactly what it looks like. I just randomly hit keys. This pick has no real theme and I am not going to pretend it does. What it has is twelve songs I genuinely like that needed a home. They should not go together and yet somehow they sort of do. Have a listen and see if you agree. That is what this is.

qBk

01 Transglobal Underground - Temple Head (Burundi Mix)

02 Ozomatli - Cut Chemist Suite

03 Cage The Elephant - Shake Me Down

04 Not Bnot Avraham - Rai (instrumental)

05 Black Ivory - Mainline

06 Material & Nona Hendryx - Bustin'out

07 North End - Kind of Life (Kind of Love) (12 inch Vocal)

08 Santana - Oye Como Va (Remix)

09 Maximum Joy - Stretch

10 Emilie-Claire Barlow - These Boots Were Made for Walkin'

11 Shriekback - Nemesis (Extended Mix)

12 Michael Bennett - I Regret It All

Rock Relics 3

This pick closes out this chapter of the series and I will be honest, putting it together felt a little like saying goodbye to an old friend. Not because the music is going anywhere but because narrowing it down is genuinely hard when every song on the list deserves to be there. There is one track in particular that I think stands above everything else here and if you know it you already know which one I mean. There will probably be a Volume 4 at some point, just not right away. I need to live with these three for a while first. This pick has range, it has weight, and it has that thing that all the best Rock Relics volumes have where it sounds better end to end than it has any right to.

Rock Relics 3

37 Led Zeppelin - Rock And Roll

38 ZZ Top - Cheap Sunglasses

39 Steely Dan - Bodhisattva

40 Eagles - Heartache Tonight

41 Creedence Clearwater Revival - Have You Ever Seen the Rain

42 Rolling Stones - Honky Tonk Women

43 Kinks - (Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman

44 Bob Seger - Old Time Rock & Roll

45 Stealers Wheel - Stuck In the Middle with You

46 Grand Funk - The Locomotion

47 Brownsville Station - Smokin' In The Boys Room

48 Kiss - I Was Made For Lovin' You (Original 12'' Single)

49 Nazareth - Hair Of The Dog

50 Shocking Blue - Venus

51 Van Halen - Dance The Night Away

52 Van Morrison - Domino

53 Queen - Bohemian Rhapsody

54 Doobie Brothers - China Grove

55 The Knack - My Sharona

56 Thin Lizzy - The Boys Are Back In Town

Rock Relics 2

I had a fire engine red 1964 Mustang once. Purists would say I ruined it as a classic and they are probably right. I stuffed the largest engine I could fit under the hood, which made it look like it could outrun anything on the road. It could not. But the sound system was something else entirely. Separates, subwoofers in the trunk, sound paneling throughout the whole car. Inside that thing this music was a physical experience. Outside the car you could barely hear it because of all the dampening I put in the panels. So it just sat there looking menacing and fast, quietly shaking itself apart from the inside. This pick is the soundtrack to that car. The kind of rock that was built for exactly that situation, big, loud, unapologetic, and best experienced at a volume that makes the rearview mirror vibrate. That is what Rock Relics is. My old Mustang in playlist form.

Rock Relics 2

19 Ike & Tina Turner - Proud Mary

20 Toto - Hold The Line

21 Lynyrd Skynyrd - Sweet Home Alabama

22 Aerosmith - Sweet Emotion

23 Foghat - Slow Ride

24 Electric Light Orchestra - Don't Bring Me Down

25 AC-DC - Highway To Hell

26 Grateful Dead - Truckin'

27 Ram Jam - Black Betty

28 Bachman-Turner Overdrive - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

29 Free - All Right Now

30 Cars - Just What I Needed

31 Rolling Stones - It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)

32 Three Dog Night - Joy to the World

33 Eddie Money - Two Tickets To Paradise

34 Who - Won't Get Fooled Again

35 Van Halen - You Really Got Me

36 Cheap Trick - I Want You To Want Me

Rock Relics 1

This pick is where the series begins and honestly it might be my favorite of the three just because of what it represents. These are the songs that were everywhere when I was growing up. On the radio, at a party, blasting out of somebody's car in a parking lot at the wrong volume for the neighborhood. You did not choose to love this music, it just happened to you whether you were ready or not. I have been collecting and playing music my whole life and I still cannot fully explain why certain songs just lodge themselves permanently into your brain, but every track on this volume did exactly that to me at some point. That is what Rock Relics is really about. Not nostalgia exactly, more like evidence that some music just refuses to age no matter how many times you have heard it.

Rock Relics 1

01 Elvis Presley - Always On My Mind

02 Guess Who - American Woman

03 Aerosmith with Run DMC - Walk This Way

04 Foreigner - Feels Like The First Time

05 Sweet - Ballroom Blitz

06 Boston - More Than a Feeling

07 Rolling Stones - Miss You (12 Special Disco Version)

08 Foreigner - Hot Blooded

09 Grand Funk - Some Kind of Wonderful

10 AC-DC - You Shook Me All Night Long (Ultimix Remix)

11 T. Rex - Bang a Gong (Get It On)

12 Alice Cooper - School's Out

13 Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way

14 Heart - Barracuda

15 Blue Oyster Cult - (Don't Fear) The Reaper

16 Elton John - Crocodile Rock

17 Queen - Crazy Little Thing Called Love

18 Kinks - Lola

What's The Connection? Groovy 1

This Groovy connection runs from sunshine pop to punk to dub to Texas boogie, and the word shows up in every single title whether it earned it or not. Some of these tracks ARE in the groove and many might be groovy, too. Some of them are just using the word the way everyone did for about a decade, like a verbal tic nobody could shake. I always wished I was groovy. I drove a VW bus for a while, which should have qualified me, but I'm not sure I ever really pulled it off. The racing Bug definitely didn't count. What does count is how totally groovy the cover is!

What's The Connection? Groovy 1

01 The Love Generation - Groovy Summertime

02 P.P. Arnold - (If You Think You're) Groovy

03 Classic Example - That's Groovy

04 Harpers Bizarre - The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)

05 Young Fresh Fellows - Where is Groovy Town

06 Winston Groovy - Please Don't Make Me Cry

07 Pillbugs - Neo Mega Quasi Ultra Super Groovy

08 Militant - Hot & Groovy

09 Nancy Sinatra - Your Groovy Self

10 The Farm - Groovy Train

11 Jakie Mitoo - Groovy Spirit

12 Fabulous Caprices - Groovy World

13 Paraffin Jack Flash Ltd. - Blue 'n' Groovy

14 Harmony Grass - What a Groovy Day

15 New Colony Six - Treat Her Groovy

16 Capt. Groovy and his Bubblegum Army - Capt. Groovy and his Bubblegum Army

17 Larry Harlow - That Groovy Shingaling

18 Lollipop Fantasy - It's A Groovy World

19 Ray Johnson - Kinda Groovy

20 Mad Professor With The Robotiks & Lee Scratch Perry - Groovy Dub

21 Phil Collins - A Groovy Kind Of Love

22 The Clash - Groovy Times

23 The Mike Flowers Pops - A Groovy Place

24 ZZ Top - Groovy Little Hippie Pad