Green Onions 1

This will be a fun collection for you. But it's not that it hasn't been done before. Several people with blogs like this one (see side panel for some clues of some that I visit) have done various kinds of "instro" comps. My pick isn't surf oriented though. I started with Green Onions by Booker T & The MG's (which they named by thinking of the funkiest thing they could at that moment) and compared each track to that. It did not have to sound exactly like that (or else I would have just made a pick with all the versions of it - although I do have quite a few versions of it over the next several volumes of this) but it had to be complimentary. So mostly no real vocals. It had to sound soulful and feel funky to me. A couple of tracks sound like Green Onions but have vocals, I let those slide. You tell me, on each volume, how I did. The cover is plain looking. No text on the cover (like no vocals), but I already broke that rule. I'm so clever. LOL! Not. But I think I am. Just pretend along with me.

Green Onions 1

01 Jack McDuff - Hunk O' Funk

02 The Meters - Cissy Strut

03 Young-Holt Unlimited - Soulful Strut

04 Jimmy Nicol - Husky

05 Rose Royce - Yo Yo

06 Funk Inc. - Thang

07 Instant Funk - Float Like a Butterfly (part 2)

08 The Funk Brothers - Home Cookin'

09 Dennis Landry - Concentration

10 Sonny Boy Williamson - Help Me (instrumental)

11 MFSB featuring The Three Degrees - TSOP (The Sound Of Philadelphia)

12 Gene Harris - Your Love Is Just Too Much

13 Bar-Kays - Soul Finger

14 Billy Preston - Outa-Space

15 The Rolling Stones - Stoned

16 Dennis Coffey & the Detroit Guitar Band - Scorpio

17 Jimmy Mcgriff - I've Got A Woman

18 Isaac Hayes - Type Thang

19 The T-Bones - No Matter What Shape (Your Stomach's In)

20 The Mar-Keys - Last Night

21 Booker T & The Mg's - Green Onions

22 Cliff Nobles And Co. - The Horse

23 Routers - Let's Go (Pony)

Skip Scarborough Pick

I knew about Skip Scarborough because of Earth Wind & Fire. I remember him being on the Spirit album. I was looking at album covers more closely by then. I had no idea how many songs he had written. In fact I thought he was dead for some reason. Turns out he wrote for several of the EWF albums and for a bunch of other bands and artists. I have a sampling of that on this pick. These are all songs he wrote or co-wrote. C'mon, Bill Withers alone puts him at the great level. Add bands like Con Funk Shun, the Emotions, Friends of Distinction, L.T.D. as well as artists like Anita Baker, Patti Labelle, George Benson, Nanci Wilson and you have an amazing catalog. I tried not to do too many of the covers and put the originals in here. I did put Nanci Wilson even though she covered the Emotions version. But I kept L.T.D. instead of George Benson. Choices. Lots of EWF!

Skip Scarborough Pick

01 Earth, Wind & Fire - Earth, Wind & Fire

02 Earth Wind & Fire - Love Music

03 Creative Source - You Can't Hide Love

04 Con Funk Shun - Secrets

05 The Friends Of Distinction - Love Or Let Me Be Lonely

06 Bill Withers - Lovely Day

07 Anita Baker - Giving You The Best That I Got

08 Deniece Williams - Love Notes

09 Patti Labelle - It's Alright With Me

10 Valerie Carter - So, So, Happy

11 Nancy Wilson - Don't Ask My Neighbors

12 The Dells - Stand Up And Show The World

13 The Emotions - Walking The Line

14 Mother's Finest - Love Changes

15 Phyllis Hyman - No One Can Love You More

16 Earth, Wind & Fire - Love's Holiday

17 The Friends Of Distinction - Love Can Make It Easier

18 Con Funk Shun - Can't Go Away

19 L.T.D. - Love Ballad

Pol's Prog Pick 13

This will be the last one for a while of my Prog Pick series. Don't despair, I have afew more picks coming up with prog music, but tomorrow it will not be prog. Thirteen has always been good luck for me, so for now it will end. The first track (or track 81) could and maybe should have been in the Not Prog, Prog series. Definitely a band not known for prog, the Eagles have a song that arguably is prog. You tell me. The rest are fairly prog. Catapilla not as well known as the others, but classic prog. Renaissance had many tracks that were prog. Nektar and Camel for sure. Uriah Heep I would consider a hard rock band, but this track is prog! I'm happy with this. I like to listen to it on random play: all thirteen volumes. I do have another one, but its not quite ready. Later.

Pol's Prog Pick 13

81 Eagles - Journey Of The Sorcerer

82 Catapilla - Naked Death

83 Uriah Heep - Salisbury

84 Renaissance - Ashes Are  Burning

85 Nektar - A Tab In The Ocean

86 Camel - Lady Fantasy (Encounter-Smiles For You-Lady Fantasy)

Pol's Prog Pick 12

Just a couple more left. This is pick number 12 of prog rock. I tried to get a bunch of songs I like that were from bands I hadn't picked yet. That didn't quite work out. Another Camel Track, another Crimson track, another Yes track, another Genesis track, and even a second Van Der Graaf Generator track. I failed that. But it's okay all of those are amazing prog picks. I did add Eloy, a German band that still exists today. But this is from their 1977 album Ocean. The Far East Family Band track came from a 1976 album called Parallel World. The band is known for being an early band of Kitaro's. This does not sound like Kitaro! The other band I hadn't put on before was Quill (no "The" before the name, that's another band). They kinda got gypped. They were at Woodstock, but there were problems with the equipment and they never made it onto the movie. They put out one album in 1970 (which now has cult status). I love this track, but it's short. There are two other bands called Quill with no "The". One is also sort of prog, but the other is ELO lite.

Pol's Prog Pick 12

73 Eloy - Poseidon's Creation

74 Camel - Ice

75 King Crimson - Starless

76 Yes - Awaken

77 Far East Family Band - Kokoro

78 Quill - Yellow Butterfly

79 Genesis - In The Cage

80 Van Der Graaf Generator - Killer

Pol's Prog Pick 11

This eleventh one of the Prog Pick series is a good example of how sometimes it seems random how I got to know music. These prog songs  may not be the most popular or from the most popular bands, but all of them had at least one great (to me) prog song. Probably Red Rider, Black Keys or Gary Moore are the most well known of these bands. The Red Rider with it's comparisons to Pink Floyd definitely made it available on the radio. All the others came because of people introducing me to the songs or band. That's why I love sharing this kind of stuff here. Somebody else may go, "Wow! I need to get this album, This is amazing!" Maybe you hate it or maybe you already know of all these, but I hope you get at least one "WOW!" when you are on this site. If you do, you're welcome. I envy you.

Pol's Prog Pick 11

61 Pure Reason Revolution - Aeropause

62 Airbag - All Rights Removed

63 Red Rider - Lunatic Fringe

64 RPWL - The Gentle Art Of Swimming

65 Crippled Black Phoenix - The Heart Of Every Country

66 Dworniak Bone Lapsa - Funny Farm

67 Mothership - High Strangeness

68 Desert Sessions - Girl Boy Tom

69 Gary Moore - The Prophet

70 John Lodge - In My Mind

71 Wax Fang - Majestic

72 The Black Keys - Weight Of Love

Pol's Prog Pick 10

WIth this pick getting to volume 10, we only have a few more to go. This volume of prog has just four tracks. Magma has the shortest track at just over nine minutes. I had a 21 minute Magma track on volume six. The last track is from Tangerine Dream. Most of their stuff is Electronic Music, but the Mellotron on this track definitely give it a prog feel. I consider it prog. Utopia, Todd Rundgren's band, was kinda progressive. At least on their first couple of albums. They became pretty rock later, but this thirty minute track is as prog as you get! The Yes track is one that most prog fans may not include in their picks, but I like it. This is the version that was redone with Trevor Horn and is basically one side of their album. They divided it up into several tracks for ease on the CD, but really it's meant to be heard as one and that's how it's presented here. 

Pol's Prog Pick 10

57 Magma - Hortz Fur Dehn Stekehn West

58 Utopia - The Ikon

59 Yes - Fly From Here (Complete Return)

60 Tangerine Dream - Cherokee Lane

Pol's Prog Pick 9

Coming around to the last few rounds of this prog rock pick. We're still numbering as if it's one long playlist, but each one is about a CD length, so several of these have few tracks. This ninth volume has medium amount of tracks. Robert Berry starts us off. He only appears once although his band band Hush is on my Pomp Rock compilation. Trillion is mostly considered Pomp rock, but I think this song kinda works in the Prog space. Mike Oldfield, Moody Blues and the Nice are on here again with other tracks. FM and Starcastle are two more bands that had more tracks that were considered AOR or Pomp Rock, but I think these songs could easily fit here.

Pol's Prog Pick 9

49 Robert Berry - Last Ride Into The Sun

50 Trillion - Child Upon The Earth

51 Triumvirat - Across The Water

52 Mike Oldfield - Ommadawn Part One

53 Moody Blues - Legend Of A Mind

54 FM - Phasors On Stun

55 Starcastle - Fountains

56 The Nice - America-Second Amendment