You can now find us on www.trackaday.net.

The Animals in 1965 rocked the blues as if they were on a ferry crossing the Irish Sea in Winter. Eric Burdon’s vocals excels on this track. I love the description of his vocals that wikipedia uses – “Eric Burdon’s vocals range from a calm whisper to a primal roar.” This song is over forty years old, yet it still sounds as fresh as if it had been released yesterday, it’s a song I’ve never grown tired of. I guess that may because it can be used in so many situations – you’re going away on a vacation, done with work for the day, leaving High School, getting out of a war-zone, you may even want to imagine you are an animal in a pet store or at the zoo… the possibilities are endless.

Today, A Track A Day packs it’s bags and bids farwell to wordpress.com. We’re getting out of this place, to a new domain. Please update your bookmarks as I will continue to post on an almost-daily basis – you can now find us on www.trackaday.net.

On this day in the history of music, two events occurred three years apart, both would shape the future of rock in their own ways. The latter which I will mention in passing was that Bob Dylan recorded his first album, “Bob Dylan” in 1961. It could have been easy to pick a track off of this album, but too much Bob in one week may deter some of my regular readers. No, instead, I will pluck for an event that took place three years earlier, in 1958, when a certain Buddy Holly and the Cricket’s recorded their last studio session.

Recording that took place fifty-one (51!) years ago were “True Love Ways,” “Moondreams,” “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” and “Raining in my Heart. Holly introduced violins into his class of Rock & Roll music, which was considered a very radical approach at the time. It was a huge success which tragically wasn’t allowed to develop further. On “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” you get the big band feel, the Buddy Holly squeal and a great sing-along melody. There have been countless break-up songs written and performed since this track, but few have bettered what Buddy Holly gave to the world in the infancy of Rock & Roll.

The Killer’s call Las Vegas their home, and this song is the title track of their second album, released in 2006. Sam’s town refer’s to Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall in Las Vegas. The above video is taken from the television series, Live From Abbey Road, one of my favorite series that airs from time to time. This cut-back and personal version of the song has Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road” written all over it. Lead singer Brandon Flowers’ rusty voice and the laid back piano riff is a huge difference to the loud modern-disco-beat version on the studio album. It’s a major improvement over the album track, in my opinion. For anyone interested in the album version, you can watch and listen to the video here.

When an artist has such an expansive collection of music it’s very difficult to pick that first track to blog about, especially when that artist is as well established and successful as Bob Dylan. Today, I present one if his more spiritual songs, one that isn’t as well known as a lot of his work, though, in my opinion is as good, if not better, than more commonly known tracks you would find on one of his ‘best of’ albums.

Dylan released this moving track on his 1981 album, “A Shot of Love”. There are a number of biblical and spiritual references in this song, testament to Dylan’s recent devotion to Christianity.

I gaze into the doorway of temptation’s angry flame
And every time I pass that way I always hear my name.
Then onward in my journey I come to understand
That every hair is numbered like every grain of sand.

Fasten your seatbelts, this one could take a while. At over seventeen minutes in length, you may want to put the kettle on or take a lunch break before you listen to this track in it’s entirety. (As I know you all will!) I decided it’s about time for another creepy Halloween tune, and I came upon this – a psychedelic rock epic, from Iron Butterfly, which was released in 1968. The title originally was supposed to be “In The Garden of Eden”, but either a mis-spelling or a slurring of words created the new title which stuck.

This song is significant in the history of heavy metal – it is documented (if you believe the wikipedia) that this song was the point at which psychedelic rock branched out into heavy metal. In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida proved popular with disc-jockeys, as they could play this song, then go use the bathroom, read the paper and make a ham sandwich three times over before the song finished. That doesn’t work so well on my blog, and I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been wiser had I chosen the single version of the track which was a tiny 4 minutes in length!

There’s a couple of weeks left until Halloween, so if you have any creepy songs you’d like featuring let me know! Enjoy your weekend!

Just beautiful.

I don’t think anybody can have a bad word to say about this live version of such a classic track. Here, Simon & Garfunkel perform Sound of Silence at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967. Just two voices, and one guitar – the result – an amazing melody, with very deep lyrics that will keep turning over inside your head long after the music has ended. Indeed, the sound of silence can be heard.

I also find it amazing that this song almost didn’t make it. Simon and Garfunkel almost split up after producing this song on their first album which tanked. Unknown to the pair was that their record company re-released the track with added instruments, and it became a huge hit. The rest they say, is history.

As promised yesterday, Starsailor rings out again from A Track a Day. This single, taken from their second album copies the blueprint of their earlier work… sympathetic lyrics, strong vocals mix to create a sound that is unmistakably Starsailor. They are not pushing any new boundaries here, but with their previous work being so good I don’t think they need to.

It’s easy to come to the conclusion that Starsailor has one sound, and one sound only, and I wouldn’t disagree with you… this may deter some of you from exploring their music further, especially if you’ve already heard enough from the tracks I picked out this week, but at least I gave you the opportunity!

Starsailor: Ben Byrne, James Stelfox, James Walsh, Barry Westhead

Starsailor came on to the music scene in the early 2000′s, but it wasn’t until recently that I started listening them, thanks to a ‘similar artists’ list from last.fm. This track comes of their debut album, “Love is Here” and is one of my favorites. I don’t have a single song by Starsailor that I would call my favorite, this band has so many songs that I love! There is a lot of meaning and feeling in this song, as with most songs by Starsailor, and James Walsh’s vocals convey the emotions perfectly. Starsailor are fairly well known in the UK, but in my opinion they’re very underrated outside of their homeland. I strongly recommend picking up their debut album and giving it a spin!

Check back tomorrow for another great track from Starsailor.

Photo by Don Hunstein, New York Times

“with a voice like sand and glue”

Robert Zimmerman, Bob Dylan, however you know him, you either love, hate, or love and hate him. Those that have no interest in him mostly cannot get past his gruff and raspy voice… well, I won’t force you to listen to him. There are those fans that idolize Bob up until 1965, when he plugged in his guitar and went electric. Again, I won’t force you to listen to Bob rocking it out. (How can you live without “All Along The Watchtower”?) Then there are the second group of fans that love all Bob, from his folk playing days in the early 60′s, right up to the present time – he realeases his 47th album today, a collection of Christmas songs, all proceeds benefiting charity.

David Bowie, in 1971 realized the greatness of Dylan, and wrote this song as a tribute to him, including it on of his greatest albums, title Hunky Dory. You can also imagine the song as a parody at the same time – it can go both ways. As a tribute, Bowie calls out to Dylan, asking him to call upon his art in songwriting to bring back a togetherness amongst the masses that, in Bowie’s eyes, only Dylan could achieve. I also find it funny that the opening few bars of this song sound remarkably like “Free Bird’, by Lynyrd Skynyrd, which was recorded a couple of year’s after Hunky Dory was released.