THE WORLD IS A GHETTO  -  WAR

YEAR:  1972
LABEL:  United Artists
TRACK LISTING:  The Cisco Kid,  Where Was You At,   City Country City,  Four Cornered Room,  The World Is A Ghetto,  Beetles in the Bog
BONUS TRACKS:  (on 40th Anniversary reissue):  Freight Train Jam,  58 Blues,  War Is Coming (Blues Version),  The World Is A Ghetto (Rehearsal Take)
IMPRESSIONS:  This is another album that was always around in my childhood.  We got this when it came out and it heavily recalls the house on Linwood Ave.  A superb album that's about half instrumental and a superb album cover -- this was the era when they KNEW how to make an album cover.  I mean, just look at that beautiful cover.  The epic music of the title track and "The Cisco Kid" are unbeatable and this album is to me the pinnacle of the "apres-Burdon" War.  Then there's the excellent "Ghetto Jams" that didn't fit on the original vinyl which now are included on the 40th anniversary edition and we get an album which cannot be beat!
MY FAVOURITE TRACKS:  The Cisco Kid,  Where Was You At,  City Country City,  Four Cornered Room,  The World Is A Ghetto,  Freight Train Jam,  58 Blues
FACT SHEET:  THE WORLD IS A GHETTO is War's fifth album.  War's personnel at this point included Howard Scott (guitar, percussion, vocals), B.B. Dickerson (bass, percussion, vocals), Lonnie Jordan (organ, piano, timbolies, percussion, vocals), Harold Brown (drums, percussion, vocals), Papa Dee Allen (bongos, conga, percussion, vocals), Charles Miller (clarinet, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones, percussion, vocals) and Lee Oskar (harmonica, percussion, vocals).  The cover was drawn by Howard Miller.  The album reached number one on the Billboard charts and the magazine awarded it the "Album of the Year" as the best-selling album of 1973. 

STARS - Various Artists

YEAR: 1977

LABEL: K-Tel

TRACK LISTING: The Things We Do For Love - 10cc, Rich Girl - Hall & Oates, Year of the Cat - Al Stewart, Torn Between Two Lovers - Mary MacGregor, A Little Bit More - Dr. Hook, Love Me - Yvonne Elliman, So Into You - Atlantic Rhythm Section, Devil Woman - Cliff Richard, Slow Dancin' Don't Turn Me On - Addrisi Brothers, I'm Your Boogie Man - K.C. & the Sunshine Band, Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel (Pt. 1) - Tavares, Don't Leave Me This Way - Thelma Houston, Cool Town - Stanky Brown Group, The World Is A Ghetto - War, Theme from "Roots" - Quincy Jones, Hard Luck Woman - Kiss, Tryin' To Love Two - William Bell, Couldn't Get It Right - Climax Blues Band

IMPRESSIONS: In our last episode, we discovered the magic that was K-Tel and were left with the burning question: What did I eat for lunch that's affecting me like this? Be that as it may, STARS was the next K-Tel record I bought after HIT MACHINE; this was after moving from Maple Surple to our new house in Clay Town. I was all of 11 years old. I remember spinning this record many times on my portable black record player that folded up like a suitcase; especially because my favourite song at the time was on it: Thelma Houston's "Don't Leave Me This Way". Of course, these were the editted radio versions of the singles; however I still have a soft spot in my heart for some of these songs which aren't exactly too great but give me an incredible rush of nostalgia. It's also hysterical to me that K-Tel seems to have shoved some really OLD songs (at the time) onto their records both here and on HIT MACHINE. On STARS, War's "The World Is A Ghetto" is from the early 70s and Paul Anka's cheesefest "(You're) Having My Baby" was from 1974 and appears on the 1976 HIT MACHINE album. Ha!

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: The Things We Do For Love - 10cc, Rich Girl - Hall & Oates, Year of the Cat - Al Stewart, So In To You - Atlantic Rhythm Section, Devil Woman - Cliff Richard, I'm Your Boogie Man - K.C. & the Sunshine Band, Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel (Pt. 1) - Tavares, Don't Leave Me This Way - Thelma Houston, The World Is A Ghetto - War, Hard Luck Woman - Kiss, Couldn't Get It Right - Climax Blues Band

FACT SHEET: Once again, nothing really to say here. This is a K-Tel Records LP released in 1977.

HIT MACHINE - Various Artists

YEAR: 1976

LABEL: K-Tel

TRACK LISTING: (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty - K.C. & the Sunshine Band, Right Back Where We Started From - Maxine Nightingale, Moonlight Feels Right - Starbuck, Summer - War, When Will I Be Loved - Linda Ronstadt, Happy Days - Pratt & McClain, Our Day Will Come - Frankie Valli, (You're) Having My Baby - Paul Anka, Love Really Hurts Without You - Billy Ocean, Disco Duck (Pt. 1) - Rick Dees & His Cast of Idiots, Island Girl - Elton John, A Fifth of Beethoven - Walter Murphy & the Big Apple Band, Let Your Love Flow - Bellamy Brothers, Welcome Back - John Sebastian, Evil Woman - Electric Light Orchestra, Take A Hand - Rick Springfield, Rock and Roll All Nite - Kiss, I'm Not Lisa - Jessi Colter, Who Loves You? - Frankie Valli & the 4 Seasons, Disco Lady - Johnnie Taylor

IMPRESSIONS: Ahhhhhhh, K-Tel Records. Remember the days when you could pick up a K-Tel record and hear all the latest hit singles with sound quality worse than the actual albums? Apparently, the poorer sound quality was due to K-Tel cramming more grooves onto the record in order to fit more songs on it with a necessary loss in fidelity. But who cared back then? I was playing this on my portable black record player that folded up like a suitcase and was carried around by its handle! I do remember that this was the last LP I bought while still living in Maple Surple before we moved to Clay Town in January 1977. However, this would not be the last we'd hear from K-Tel Records . . . as tomorrow's post will show . . .

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: (Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty - K.C. & the Sunshine Band, Right Back Where We Started From - Maxine Nightingale, Moonlight Feels Right - Starbuck, Summer - War, Island Girl - Elton John, A Fifth of Beethoven - Walter Murphy & the Big Apple Band, Welcome Back - John Sebastian, Evil Woman - Electric Light Orchestra, Take A Hand - Rick Springfield, Rock and Roll All Nite - Kiss, Who Loves You - Frankie Valli & the 4 Seasons

FACT SHEET: There's nothing to tell, really, This is a K-Tel record released in 1976.

DAZED AND CONFUSED - Various Artists

YEAR: 1993

LABEL: The Medicine Label

TRACK LISTING: Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo - Rick Derringer, Slow Ride - Foghat, School's Out - Alice Cooper, Jim Dandy - Black Oak Arkansas, Tush - ZZ Top, Love Hurts - Nazareth, Stranglehold - Ted Nugent, Cherry Bomb - The Runaways, Fox on the Run - Sweet, Low Rider - War, Tuesday's Gone - Lynyrd Skynyrd, Highway Star - Deep Purple, Rock and Roll All Night - Kiss, Paranoid - Black Sabbath, Free Ride - The Edgar Winter Group, No More Mr. Nice Guy - Alice Cooper, Living in the U.S.A. - The Steve Miller Band, Never Been Any Reason - Head East, Why Can't We Be Friends - War, Summer Breeze - Seals & Crofts, Right Place Wrong Time - Dr. John, Balinese - ZZ Top, Lord Have Mercy On My Soul - Black Oak Arkansas, I Just Want To Make Love To You - Foghat, Show Me the Way - Peter Frampton, Do You Feel Like We Do - Peter Frampton

IMPRESSIONS: The movie depicts the last day of school in 1976 and, for those of us of a certain age, is stuffed full of nostalgia. Even though I'm too young even to have been one of the youngest of the junior high school students shown (I would only have been in 5th grade at the time), it still looks veeeeeeeeery familiar to me and what it was like back then. The soundtrack fits the time and feel of the film perfectly and, unlike most films which plug popular songs into them to merely exploit nostalgic recognition, every song in the film derives from the action itself and has an internal source because the kids are listening to them on their car radios, at their hangouts or elsewhere. Even when there isn't a direct source for the music (such as at the baseball field, for instance), one can rationalise quite easily that someone's got their puke-coloured Camaro parked just outside the camera's viewpoint with the motor running and the car door open.

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: Slow Ride - Foghat, School's Out - Alice Cooper, Stranglehold - Ted Nugent, Fox On the Run - Sweet, Low Rider - War, Tuesday's Gone - Lynyrd Skynyrd, Highway Star - Deep Purple, Paranoid - Black Sabbath, Free Ride - The Edgar Winter Group, Living in the U.S.A. - The Steve Miller Band, Why Can't We Be Friends - War, Summer Breeze - Seals & Crofts

FACT SHEET: DAZED AND CONFUSED is Richard Linklater's second film as director. The soundtrack album was actually released as two cds with the second being entitled "EVEN MORE DAZED AND CONFUSED" but here I treat them as one soundtrack album cuz they are, ya dig? The name of the film is taken from the Jake Holmes song covered most famously by Led Zeppelin. Linklater asked the surviving members of Zep for permission to use the song in his film but while Jimmy Page said yes Robert Plant said no. When first released in 1993, the film only grossed less than $8 million but since then it has grown to become a huge cult film on video. Quentin Tarantino has placed it on his list of 10 greatest films of all time in a 2002 "Sight and Sound" article.