The seeds of this playlist were sown on Monday of this week (May 26th) when I used my 20% off Holiday discount at Goodwill to buy a JVC Dual Cassette deck for $8.00. As a result, over the next several days I searched for my old cassette tapes.
One of them I found was a Charlie Mussellwhite 1969 release Tennessee W0man. Now I know I didn’t buy the tape in 1969. It’s more likely I bought the tape in the late 1990s when Tunes, store in Marlton NJ, my sons and I used to frequent, was clearing out its tape inventory. As I was listening to the album I reflected on the fact t that a few days previously I had been listening to Charlie’s recent release Look Out Highway.
Anyway that thought started me thinking about all the musicians I started to listen to in the late 60s early 70s that are still out there making great music and albums! Those thoughts lead me to create a playlist!! And here it is!! What I tried to do was start with two songs from each artist from the 60s and then I chose two songs from their most recent albums!
The Fifty Years Later Playlist (Part I)
Charlie Mussellwhite
While I don’t have a lot of Charlie’s music in my library, I have always admired his harp playing. I‘ve enjoyed blues harp since I first heard Sonny Terry way back in the 70s.
Then
From: Tennessee Woman
- “Tennessee Woman” – How could I not start the playlist with anything but the very song and album that inspired it.
- “Blue Feeling Today“
From Look Out Highway
Now
I am still getting to know these two songs but Charlie’s vocals and harp playing are as great as they ever were!
- “Look Out Highway”- the title track of Charlie’s latest
- “Hip-Shakin’ Mama” –
Jerry Jeff Walker
I followed Jerry Jeff’s career from the first album Mr. Bojangles to the last album It’s About Time. (1969-2018). Along the way in addition to placing a bunch of songs in the “Jukebox in my head” Jerry Jeff also introduced me to : David Bromberg, Guy Clark, Tom Russell, Chris Wall, Ray Wylie Hubbard and the great Lloyd Maines. And probably many others!
Then
From Mr. Bojangles
- “Gypsy Songman” – there’s better to start with when considering whose music I’ve been listening to for fifty years than Jerry Jeff. And “Gypsy Songman” certainly captures the spirit of Jerry Jeff. I have rocked all of my grandchildren to “Mr. Bojangles”. The other day we were visiting my fifth grandchild Luca and my wife handed a crying Lucas to me. I started rocking and singing Mr. Bojangles and he quickly stopped crying. The power of Jerry Jeff.
From Drifting Way of Life
- “Ramblin’ Scramblin” – one thing I’ll probably never do is rock a grandchild to Ramblin’ Scramblin”. I first heard this song many years ago – I’d never heard anything like it, and I immediately loved it!
From It’s About Time
Now
- “My Favorite Picture of You” – through the year JJW covered several Guy Clark songs and this one found it’s way onto JJW’s last album and he made it his own in 2018, when JJW covered it on It’s About Time, two years before JJW passed in 2020. Here’s a link to Guy’s version.
- “ That’s the Way I Play” – just a nice JJW song.
Tom Rush
While I didn’t discover Tom Rush’s music until he was several years into his career, I’ve been a fan since The Circle Game was released in 1968. And while there was a big gap in the release of a studio recording in his career (from 1974‘s Ladies Love Outlaws to 2009’s. What I Know, Tom has never stop performing! His last two albums Voices (2018) and 2024’s Gardens Old , Flowers New are both terrific albums. He has aged like a fine wine!
Then
From The Circle Game…
- “Urge for Going” – – Tom’s album The Circle Game is high on the list of my All-Time favorite Albums and it’s mainly because of his covers of then unknown artists like Joni Mitchell who penned both “Urge for Going” and the title song
- “The Circle Game” – a brilliant cover -nuff said
From Gardens Old, Flowers New
Now
I’m still getting to know these two new songs, but they are both vintage Tom Rush…..
- “The Harbor”
- “Sailing”
Eric Andersen
Like Tom Rush I didn’t discover Eric Andersen’s music until he released Blue River in 1972. At that point Eric was an established fixture in the Greenwich Village Music scene and had released six or seven albums. Eric says this about that period of his life:
I was documenting a whole other emotional and interior world moving through the ’60s and beyond,” he says. “My songs dealt more with inner perceptions, views, and feelings — songs that were perhaps the precursors to those of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen. [Greenwich Village] felt
exciting because you knew it was a historical, breakthrough time, and it was amazing to belong to such a vibrant era.”At one point, Cohen even told him that one of his songs inspired him to start writing and performing. Read More
Again my musical journey with Eric started with Blue River (1972) and has continued to today. Like Tom Rush, Eric had a gap in his musical career when he was in Europe. There was a fourteen year gap between Be True To You and Ghosts on the Road (1974-1989). And while his latest album Dance of Love and Death is a far cry from his Greenwich Village Days it is an outstanding album, in my humble opinion,
Then
From Blue River
- “Is it Really Love at All” – this is one of my favorite songs of all-time. It’s just a great song.
- “Wind and Sand” – another favorite – especially the last line…..
From Dance of Love and Death
Now
- “Dance of Life and Death”
- “After This Life”
So check these artists and songs out!
Got a similar story or favorite artist who’s still going strong? I’d love to hear it.
As for me, I’m already at work on Part II of this playlist, which will feature some of the rock and blues artists who’ve grown older, wiser — and are still absolutely worth listening to!
Links for the Further Explorations of These Artists
Charlie Musselwhite
Jerry Jeff Walker
Tom Rush
Eric Andersen
The Fifty Years Later Playlist
