The Doobie Brothers -- "Neal's Fandango" (1975)

Buying The Doobie Brothers' Stampede album in my final months of high school represented a sort of coming of age for me musically. It was the first time I had bought a full length 33 1/3 vinyl album without having heard one hit.

I already owned The Captain and Me, and God knows every kid who ever picked up a guitar in my neighborhood, including me, could play the riff to "China Grove." I felt like had to be ahead of the curve, before embarking into the unknown far away from home at college. This was going to be my my record collection that I was going to be packing up and taking with me, so it may as well contain the latest and greatest.

I guess I identified with this western-themed Stampede cover, heading to my own personal new frontiers. I had already heard the opening "Sweet Maxine" on FM radio, with its Billy Payne barrel house piano opening and roaring guitars. But it was the second cut, the fast-driving "Neal's Fandango" with its double drum propulsion, and steam engine chords that have stuck with me through the years.

Guitarist/singer Pat Simmons stuffed a ton of words into this three-minute song about being inspired by "beat" author Neal Cassady, and the thinly disguised druggie road trips that formed Jack Kerouc's On The Road novel. Rock stars like writing their road songs and this was Simmons' 100 mph wind-in-your-hair country-inflected literary take, complete with giddyap pedal steel and electric guitar solos.

I had to listen to the lyrics many, many times to get every word down, as Simmons really packed'em in in the second verse.


Well, a travelin' man's affliction makes it hard to settle down,
But I'm stuck here in the flatlands while my heart is homeward bound.

Goin' back, I'm too tired to roam, Loma Prieta my mountain home
On the hills above Santa Cruz, to the place where I spent my youth.

Well it was Neal Cassady that started me to travelin'
All the stories that were told, I believed them every one.
And it's a windin' road I'm on you understand,
And no time to worry 'bout tomorrow when you're followin' the sun.

Papa don't you worry now and mama don't you cry
Sweet woman don't forsake me, I'll be comin' by and by

Goin' back, I'm too tired to roam, Loma Prieta my mountain home
On the hills above Santa Cruz, to the place where I spent my youth.


Stampede has special meaning for me too, as this was the last album the Doobie Brothers would record in their original rocking incarnation before hiring Michael McDonald and adding lots of R&B & soul to their style, taking them to even greater commercial heights and a very different direction.

Below are two videos of the band performing the song live from different eras. The first is from February 1975, before the album was even released, when they were a full blown long-haired and mustachioed rhythm section attack with the unmistakable Jeff "Skunk" Baxter right there in the front with Simmons and fellow lead singer/songwriter Tom Johnston (they also play "Road Angel," from the earlier What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits album). Then there's the very gray and longer-haired Patrick Simmons with the 2004 incarnation of the band at Wolf Trap, now all polished, still cooking, but the audience is all polo-shirted baby boomers!

Dire Straits -- "Tunnel of Love" (1980)

Many people forget that Mark Knopfler used to really rock and roll. Nearly all his solo albums have been so low key, that they can often blend right into each other. But when he led Dire Straits in the late 70's though the mid-80's, he knew how to turn on the jets. I miss that Mark Knopfler.

After two successful albums that sounded pretty much the same, rhythm guitarist David Knopfler left the band. Dire Straits decided to employ a New York City-based production and engineering staff who worked behind hit albums behind Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and Patti Smith.

First there was co-producer Jimmy Iovine, who produced some of the best rock albums of that era before tossing it away to form Interscope Records and rap success. Engineer Shelly Yakus had worked on everybody from Van Marrison and Blue Oyster Cult to Alice Cooper and Lo Reed. And if there wasn't enough of a Springsteen connection, all the keyboards were played by Roy Bittan.

They wanted something that was going to sound different and succeeded in every way. Poetic, big in your face drums, closely mic'd guitars -- this was the early 80's rock vibe being sent out by the studios of New York.

I was doing a publishing internship with the 13-30 Corporation in Knoxville, TN, the first and only time I lived in the south, when this album arrived in the mail. I had made friends with the guys in my building, all U of T students, who thought it was pretty cool that a New York City guy was getting freebie albums in the mail.

Making Movies arrived in a flat cardboard box. I took it to my friend's apartment, put it on the phonograph, and commenced our nightly foosball match. I'm not kidding when I tell you that we played it twice that night, it was that good. This was not the light and airy Dire Straits of "Sultans of Swing" or "Lady Writer," but one with overdrive muscle, huge sound, and cinematic scope (hence the album title).

If "Lady Writer" is my favorite Dire Straits song, the album opening 8-minute epic "Tunnel of Love" is millimeters away as a close second. When CD players first appeared in the US in 1983, I was a early adopter, even though the discs all had to be imported at that time (there were no US plants -- nobody was sure if the format would take off). One of my very first CD's was Dire Straits' Making Movies on Vertigo Records, and the accompanying booklet was"printed in West Germany." For several years after that, when I wanted to demonstrate how awesome a CD could sound on a decent set of speakers, that was the first disc I went to, cranking up "Tunnel of Love," letting the brief Rogers & Hammerstein "Carousel Waltz" blend into that first minor power chord with drums forming the wall with it.

I'll concede that composing songs as coherent stories is difficult. It is like writing at least several short stories, and somehow making the lyrics fit the music in telling those tales. To this day, Knopfler has that God-given skill (next to his absolutely certified Fender Strat style) of spinning musical yarns.

"Tunnel of Love" is a moving nostalgic trip about a wild night out at the carnival, one which Knopfler says in the video below was near Newcastle, the now gone amusement park called "The Spanish City." This rollicking speedboat of a song captures the frenzy, lights, games and chasing a mysterious girl with great emotion that goes up and down like that roller coaster. But in one part, he alludes that the character is reliving that colorful scene with that same girl. You're never sure. The song actually slows down considerably in the middle and Knopfler sings that verse twice, pausing for effect, sounding weary, perhaps nostalgic.

Getting crazy on the waltzers but its life that choose,
Sing about the sixblade sing about the switchback and a torture tattoo.
And I been riding on a ghost train where the cars they scream and slam,
And I don't know Ill be tonight but Id always tell you where I am.

In a screaming ring of faces I seen her standing in the light,
She had a ticket for the race just like me she was a victim of the night.
I put my hand upon the lever said let it rock and let it roll,
I had the one arm bandit fever there was an arrow through my heart and my soul.

And the big wheel keep on turning neon burning up above,
And I'm just high on the world
Come on and take a low ride with me girl.
On the tunnel of love.

It's just the danger when you're riding at your own risk,
She said you are the perfect stranger she said baby lets keep it like this.
Its just a cakewalk twisting baby step right up and say,
Hey mister give me two give me two cos two can play.

And the big wheel on turning neon burning up above
And I'm just high on the world
Come on and take the low ride with me girl.
On the tunnel or love.

Well it's been money for muscle another whirligig,
Money for muscle another girl I dig,
Another hustle just to make it big,
And Rockaway Rockaway.

And girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did,
Like the Spanish city to me when we where kids.
Oh girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did,
Like the Spanish city to me when we where kids.

She took off a silver locket she said remember me by this,
She put her hand in my pocket I got a keepsake and a kiss.
And in the roar of dust and diesel I stood and watched her walk away,
I could have caught up with her easy enough but something must have made me stay.

And the big wheel keep on turning neon up above
And I'm high on the world
Come on and take a low ride with me girl.
On the tunnel of love.

And now I'm searching through these carousels and the carnival arcades,
Searching everywhere from steeplechase to Palisades.
In any shooting gallery where promises are made,
To Rockaway Rockaway from Cullercoats and Whitley Bay out to Rockaway.

And girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did,
Like the Spanish city to me when we where kids.
Girl it looks so pretty to me just like it always did,
Like the Spanish city to me when we where kids.

Now that you've caught your breath with this first sweeping song, it's time to get to the rest of what is undoubtedly Dire Straits' best album. The absolutely haunting "Romeo and Juliet," more skirt chasing in "Espresso Love," and the mournful "Hand In Hand" all follow. On their double album of covers and b-sides from a couple of years ago, The Killers had their cover of "Romeo and Juliet" (which didn't even come remotely close to the original, but I'll give them points for excellent taste).

From the Brothers in Arms tour in 1985, here is Dire Straits performing "Tunnel of Love" at Wembley Arena in two parts. Knopfler in his usual bandanna, a complete master of the guitar, tossing off little bits of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and "Stop In The Name of Love" in the opening intro. That's longtime bassist John Ilsley in the blue shirt to Knopfler's right. Former Rockpile drummer Terry Williams was behind the kit. With the introduction of piano in Making Movies, Knopfler recruited Guy Williams to the band. Watching the video reminds me of a British Springsteen -- clearly Knopfler was influenced by the man.

Richard X. Heyman -- "Falling Away" (1991)

Richard X. Heyman's Hey Man was one of those CD's that I hung on to through moves, marriage, and kids because years ago, Warner Brothers sent it to me and I loved the first song, "Falling Away." If you're a pack rat like me, you end up storing away discs because there was something about it you really liked, but then they ended up getting buried along with all the other stuff you were hoarding.

In my rediscovery of modern power pop in the late 90's, I found Richard X. Heyman's one major label album brought up as a constant favorite. Just in time too, as Heyman released his Cornerstone album in 1998, his first since 1991's Hey Man.

A multi-instrumentalist whose primary chops are on the drums, Heyman was the rare power popper to emerge from the East Village of Manhattan. While that downtown scene was far better known for punk and more artsier aspirations (although you could argue The Ramones had some definite power pop in them), Heyman was a sponge of Byrds, British Invasion, Beatles, and 60's chamber pop and garage rock.

A combination of being on Warner Brothers' alt rock/new wave Sire label and the impression of this tall, lanky long-haired dude on the cover led me to believe I was in for something crushing and punky, perhaps arty in the vein of Tom Verlaine or Richard Lloyd. Yet, as the single always leads off the album, I could not have been more wrong. "Falling Away" is a sparkling 3-minute power pop blueprint, with a little bit of 60's go-go thrown in (as the promo video obviously captured), all hooks and harmonies, a main lick that sounds like a tribute to the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and the overdubbed harmonies of the man himself in all his nasal glory. It's a song that you can't help feeling great when you hear it because Heyman is a rock romanticist

Living that sort of rock and roll fairytale, Heyman married bassist Nancy Leigh, who toured and played on many notable band albums in punk and new wave's heyday (including my friend Binky Phillips' indie album in the early 80's).

Heyman audaciously self-published his memoirs, Boom Harangue, as a paperback in 2001, and on a whim I purchased it. Messy but evocative of the times, Heyman wrote about growing up a child of the 60's in a Plainfield, NJ Jewish family, taking up the drums at a young age, following local TV shows and bands, early teen band signings and various touring gigs and finally getting Hey Man out on a major label, only to see it wither from no support. Let's face it, not a great time to put out a power pop album when Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains were monopolizing all the radio play and album sales.

Since Hey Man, Heyman puts out more fine power pop albums on his own Turn-Up Records label, sometimes on CD and now download only. He used to play living room concerts for people who contacted him on his web site, but it seems like that's history. His wife Nancy manages all his business and performs with him. Heyman reunited with his early New Jersey band The Doughboys and just released their second album of rough and tumble sneering garage rock, cater made for Little Steven's Underground Garage channel on Sirius/XM satellite radio.

The official video for "Falling Away" is a Rickenbacker lover's wet dream, with Heyman changing gorgeous models between edits. And yes, that's wife Nancy on the bass.