What the Riff Next Gen

We covered the self-titled debut album from Crosby, Stills & Nash in episode 137.  Deja Vu is considered the second Crosby, Stills & Nash album, but it is actually the first album by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, with Canadian songwriter Neil Young turning the trio into a quartet.

While the album continues to feature the signature harmonies associated with Crosby, Stills & Nash, it has a harder, more rocking edge to...

Bruce riffs on the twelfth and final studio album from the Beatles “Let It Be,” on the charts in May 1970 (Two of Us / I Me Mine / I've Got a Feeling / Get Back). ENTERTAINMENT TRACK: Main Theme from the motion picture "Kelly's Heroes" STAFF PICKS: "Question” by The Moody Blues — Lynch. “Proper Stranger” by The Guess Who— Rob. "50,000 Miles Beneath My Brain” by Ten Years After — Wayne. “Baby Hold On” by The Grass Roots — Bruce. INS...

Surprisingly, America was formed in London.  The trio of Gerry Beckley, Dewey Bunnell, and Dan Peek met in London where their fathers were stationed at the United States Air Force base at RAF South Ruislip.  The three attended London Central High School and began playing together on borrowed acoustic guitars.  The name came from the Americana jukebox in the mess hall, and a desire to distinguish themselves from the British musician...

Before the grunge movement of the 90's, and before the punk movement of the 70's, there was the garage band phenomenon of the 60's.  One of the forerunners of both punk and grunge from this garage band period is Tacoma Washington's The Sonics.  Their classic lineup consisted of Rob Lind on harmonica, vocals, and sax, Gerry Roslie on organ, piano, and lead vocals, Larry Parypa on lead guitar and vocals, Andy Parypa on bass, and Bob ...

Flesh & Blood, the third studio album by Poison, finds the group at the top of their form.  The team of Bret Michaels on lead vocals, C.C. DeVille on lead guitar, Bobby Doll on bass, and Rikki Rockett on drums had been quite successful in the glam metal genre of the mid-80's, and had developed a reputation for a "work hard, play hard" mentality.  While they had a legendary stage presence, they also were plagued with fights both...

One of the more underrated - some might say virtually lost - bands of the early rock era is Delaney & Bonnie.  This singer-songwriter duo is made of session guitarist/vocalist Delaney Bramlett and his wife and former Ikette Bonnie Bramlett.  Just as important as this founding couple is the number of talented musicians they brought into their recordings, with albums often being referenced as recorded by "Delaney & Bonnie and...

When you explore the music of The Yardbirds you are really observing the evolution of what would become hard rock.  This group started in 1963 and over its time would engage the talents of three of the greatest guitarists of the rock world:  Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page.  Additional musicians in the group through 1968 were Keith Relf on vocals and harmonica, Jim McCarty on drums, Chris Dreja on rhythm guitar, and Paul Sa...

Neil Diamond is one of the best-selling singer-songwriters of all time.  In August 1972 he performed a series of 10 sold-out shows at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.  Recordings from this concert would be released as a live double-album entitled Hot August Night later that year in December.  

Neil Diamond was born in Brooklyn, New York, the child of a Jewish family.  At the age of 16 he was inspired by seeing folk singer Pete See...

Aretha Franklin got her start at an early age in Gospel music.  As the granddaughter of Gospel great Mahalia Jackson and the daughter of a prominent Baptist preacher, Franklin was heard on her father's "gospel caravan" tours at the age of twelve.  By the time she became an adult in 1960 she had decided that she wanted to go into more pop music, and moved to New York for this purpose.  She signed a deal with Columbia Records, in 196...

Many mark the start of the singer-songwriter genre to have begun when Carole King released her second studio album, the iconic Tapestry. As would be expected from a singer-songwriter, all of the songs on the album were either written or co-written by King.  Tapestry is considered one of the greatest albums of all time in the soft rock genre.

Born Carol Joan Klein in Manhattan, King began piano lessons at four years of age.  Her upb...

U2 released a part-live, part studio album in October 1988 called Rattle and Hum.  This album accompanied a filmed “Rockumentary” of the band which was filmed in Denver and Arizona.  Originally intended to be entitled  “U2 in the Americas,” the album and film instead take their name from lyrics in the song “Bullet the Blue Sky’ from their album “The Joshua Tree.” 

Studio sessions for Rattle and Hum included time at Sun Studio in Me...

Every Picture Tells a Story is a great name for Rod Stewart's third solo studio album.  The songs consist of solid storytelling, using mixture of original  and cover tracks to paint a mosaic of life, love, and loss.  This album would mark the transition of Stewart from a solid rock vocalist to an A-list performer.  Every Picture Tells a Story hit the top of the album charts in both the US and the UK, and its blend of rock, blues, a...

Guns N' Roses had established themselves as top tier Rock artists in the mid through late 80's, and it had been three years without an album release by the time we rolled around to 1991.  The band got its start in 1985 when members of the band L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose decided to combine.  They released their debut album, "Appetite for Destruction" in 1987, which originally received disappointing sales, but which built over the ...

Neil Young's most successful solo album is also considered his signature album.  Harvest was Young's fourth solo studio album, and it topped the Billboard 200 chart in the US for two weeks while also spawning two top 40 singles.  

Young grew up in Winnipeg, Canada, and began playing and songwriting there in several groups.  His first success as a songwriter came for a song he wrote for The Guess Who which made it to the top 40 in C...

Nothing Like the Sun, or as it is written on the album, "...Nothing Like the Sun,"  is the second solo studio album by former Police bassist and front man Sting.  The title comes from Shakespeare's sonnet number 130 which contains the lines, "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun."  Sting was met on the street one evening, who asked him, "How beautiful is the moon?"  Sting responded with this line from the sonnet.  

Two events...

1990 is an odd time for a hard rock band from the late 70's to make a comeback.  Hair metal was declining rapidly, and music that would form the grunge movement was percolating up in the pacific northwest.  But that is exactly what AC/DC did with their album The Razors Edge.  The album reached number 2 on the Billboard 200 chart and number 4 on the UK albums chart, and it would become AC/DC's third highest selling album behind “Bac...

By the mid-70's the Beach Boys appeared to be a band that had been left behind.  Sales had been only moderate for their previous albums, and the band was struggling to determine their direction musically.  In the summer of 1973 the movie "American Graffiti" featured several Beach Boys songs, creating nostalgia for the earlier surfing music.

Between the revived interest sparked by "American Graffiti" and the success of the Beatles "...

Folks, we're stretching a bit on this one.  Lynch noticed that Roger Waters performed "The Wall" at the Berlin wall in this month, and used that as an excuse to feature A Momentary Lapse of Reason, which was the latest studio album by Pink Floyd. Since that originally came out in 1987, we're asking you to squint a bit to see it's relevance to the summer of 1990.  That being said...

A Momentary Lapse of Reason is the first Pink Floy...