Joe Satriani - ...and on guitar (2020)

Joseph Satriani was born in Westbury on 15 July 15 1956 and raised in Carle Place, and he started playing guitar at 14, after being inspired by hearing of the death of Jimi Hendrix, and later taking lessons from jazz musicians Lennie Tristano and Billy Bauer. He enrolled in Five Towns College and also began teaching guitar, taking his first notable student in Steve Vai, a musician who would soon be credited with "stunt guitar" on Frank Zappa records. Satriani headed out to Berkeley, California in 1978, supporting himself through teaching, and beginning to gig with local bands, and over the next few years he racked up what would prove to be an impressive roster of pupils, including Kirk Hammett (who would join Metallica), jazz fusion guitarist Charlie Hunter, Larry LaLonde (later of Primus), Kevin Cadogan (who joined Third Eye Blind), and David Bryson (Counting Crows). During this period he started to be noticed as a musician himself, landing his first notable steady gig in The Squares, and then joining the Greg Kihn Band in 1986, just as the hits started to dry up for the power popper. Satriani has said that as Kihn was desperate for a replacement guitarist, he was paid far too much money, and he used that, along with his credit cards, to finance his full-length debut album 'Not Of This Earth', released on the Relativity label in 1986. At the same time, his student Steve Vai was hired by David Lee Roth, pushing him into the national spotlight, and Vai often tipped his hat to his old guitar tutor. This helped set the stage for the 1987 release of 'Surfing With The Alien', which received rave reviews from guitar publications, and it rocketed Satriani to mainstream stardom almost overnight, eventually being certified platinum, which was an almost unheard-of feat for an instrumental album. 

As a result of this notoriety, he was offered the chance to play with Mick Jagger on his solo tour of Japan in 1988, which he readily accepted, and he was also asked to guest on 'Blue Öyster Cult's latest recording. The following year saw the release of his next album 'Flying In A Blue Dream', which included a couple of cuts where he sang lead vocals, possibly at the request of his label, but it did help propel the album into the upper reaches of the charts. Before he started work on his next album, he played on four tracks with Alice Cooper, and appeared with Spinal Tap on the 'Break Like The Wind' album. 1992's 'The Extremist' was his highest-ever chart position on Billboard, and a year later he joined Deep Purple, taking over the lead guitar slot from the absent Ritchie Blackmore on a Japanese tour, after which he was offered a full-time position, but he turned it down and the gig went to Steve Morse. The next big event in his career arrived in 1996 when he teamed up with Steve Vai and Eric Johnson for G3, a tour designed to showcase the three guitar virtuosos, and it was captured on the 1997 live CD/DVD set 'G3: Live In Concert'. More solo albums followed, with 2003/2004 being particularly productive, not only for him personally, but he also guested on tracks from the reformed Yardbirds, Stanley Clarke, and Jordan Rudess. Satriani's next project was the supergroup Chickenfoot, with ex-Van Halen rockers Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, plus Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, and they released their self-titled debut in 2009, while at the same time he was keeping his solo career afloat with 'Black Swans And Wormhole Wizards' appearing in 2010. A year later Chickenfoot released their second album 'Chickenfoot III', while an overview of his work was issued as 'The Complete Studio Recordings' box set in 2014, followed by yet another new release with 'Shockwave Supernova' in 2015. A couple times a year Satriani joined other artists in the studio to add his blistering guitar runs to songs by artists such as Frost*, Don Felder, Todd Rundgren, and just last year on the latest release by Ayreon. This collection shows the huge variety of artists that have benefited from Satriani's fiery guitar-work over the years, and if you aren't already a fan then I hope in inspires you to check out his many solo releases.  

Track listing   

Disc One
01 Love And Rock And Roll (from 'Love And Rock And Roll' by Greg Kihn 1986)
02 Montery (from 'Aquamarine' by Danny Gottlieb 1987)
03 The Siege And Investiture Of Baron Von Frankenstein's Castle At Weisseria 

                                                                                (from 'Imaginos' by Blue Öyster Cult 1988)
04 Flow My Tears (from 'Radio Free Albemuth' by Stuart Hamm 1988)
05 Burning Our Bed (from 'Hey Stoopid' by Alice Cooper 1991)
06 Break Like the Wind (from 'Break Like The Wind' by Spinal Tap 1992) 
07 Ellipsis (from 'All Sides Now' by Pat Martino 1997)
08 Labios De Fuego (from 'Soy' by Alejandra Guzmán 2001)
09 Train Kept A Rollin' (from 'Birdland' by The Yardbirds 2003)

Disc Two
01 Hair (from '1,2, To The Bass' by Stanley Clarke 2003)
02 Screaming Head (from 'Rhythm Of Time' by Jordan Rudess 2004)
03 Hang Me Out To Dry (from 'Gillan's Inn' by Ian Gillan 2006)
04 River Of Longing (from 'Collection' by Jason Becker 2008)
05 Nail Grinder (from 'Clean' by Martone 2008)
06 Hold On To The Vision (from the soundtrack of the 1986 film 'No Retreat No Surrender' 2010)
07 Falling Awake (from 'What Lies Beneath' by Tarja 2010)
08 Gaia Tribe (from 'Elemental Journey' by Sonny Landreth 2012)

Disc Three
01 Closer To The Sun (from 'Falling Satellites' by Frost* 2016)
02 This Is Not A Drill (from 'White Knight' by Todd Rundgren 2017)
03 The Healer (from 'Borrego' by Marco Minnemann 2017)
04 When Did Men Rock (from 'Smalls Change (Meditations Upon Ageing)' by Derek Smalls 2018)
05 Power Drunk Majesty (Part II) (from 'Volume II: Power Drunk Majesty' by 

                                                                                                              Metal Allegiance 2018)

06 Rock You (from 'American Rock 'n' Roll' by Don Felder 2019)
07 Tears From A Glass Eye (from 'Old Lions Still Roar' by Phil Campbell 2019)
08 Get Out! Now! (from 'Transitus' bu Ayreon' 2020)

Todd Rundgren - ...and on guitar (1980)

After departing Nazz in 1969, the 21-year-old Todd Rundgren briefly considered working as a computer programmer, and then decided that his calling was as a producer. He moved to New York in the summer of 1969 and involved himself with the clubs of Greenwich Village, particularly Steve Paul's Scene, and met a number of Manhattan musicians and fashion designers. Michael Friedman, a former assistant of Nazz manager John Kurland, offered him a job as staff engineer and producer under Albert Grossman, which he accepted. Grossman, known for his management of folk rock acts, had just founded Ampex Records, a joint business venture with the tape company of the same name, and built Bearsville Studios near Woodstock, with the Bearsville name soon becoming its own record label. One of Rundgren's first gigs as a producer was engineering and mixing for The Band, and in 1970, while producing one of the artists in Grossman's stable, he added guitar to James Cotton's 'Taking Care Of Business' album, although generally he stuck to engineering and producing artists such as Jesse Winchester, The American Dream, Great Speckled Bird, Jericho, Halfnelson (later Sparks), and Badfinger. In 1972 he added guitar, keyboards, drums and even lead vocals to future band-mate Mark "Moogy" Klingman's eponymous album, and from then on he was much more hands-on with his productions, adding his guitar if he felt it was needed. In 1973 he was part of the 'Music From Free Creek' album, which brought together a multitude of stars to play what was pretty much a jam session, with Rundgren's contribution being the superb instrumental 'Cissy Strut'. 
In 1974 he provided some screaming guitar-work to 'I Am Free' from Felix Cavaliere's self-titled album, and the same year he played on Grand Funk's 'Shinin' On' record. 1974 also saw him collaborate with Daryl Hall and John Oates, to take the soft blue-eyed soul that they were known for and turn it into the hard-edged, political album 'War Babies'. 1976 was a quiet year, just producing Steve Hillage's 'L' and Bette Midler's 'Songs For The New Depression' records, but 1977 brought perhaps his most acclaimed production work, on Meatloaf's classic 'Bat Out Of Hell' album. He limited his guest appearances to one a year over the next few years, as he was still busy recording and releasing solo albums, as well as records with his band Utopia. In 1979 he played on The Tubes 'Remote Control' album, and we end with a somewhat surprising collaboration with Shaun Cassidy (half-brother of heart-throb David Cassidy), writing and playing on songs on an album which has been pretty much universally condemned as being the strangest and worst record of Cassidy's career, although I have managed to find perhaps the one song that is not that bad. Rundgren redeemed himself in 1981 by producing, arranging and engineering Jim Steinman's 'Bad For Good' album, and then moved on to produce bands like The Psychedelic Furs, Ian Hunter, Cheap Trick and Dragon throughout the 80's, and he continues to release solo albums and produce other artists to this day, although the production work has tailed off recently. Looking through his credits on albums from the last 50 years as writer, singer, multi-instrumentalist, engineer, producer and mixer, it all just confirms that Todd Rundgren truly is a genius of modern music.      

Track listing

01 The Sky Is Falling (from 'Taking Care Of Business' by James Cotton Blues Band 1970)
02 Kindness (from 'Mark "Moogy" Klingman' by Mark "Moogy" Klingman 1972)
03 Cissy Strut (from 'Music From Free Creek' 1973)
04 I Am Free (from 'Felix Cavaliere' by Felix Cavaliere 1974)
05 Carry Me Through (from 'Shinin' On' by Grand Funk 1974)
06 Screaming Through December (from 'War Babies' by Daryl Hall & John Oates 1974)
07 Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad (from 'Bat Out Of Hell' by Meat Loaf 1977)
08 Late In My Bed (from 'Elizabeth Barraclough' by Elizabeth Barraclough 1978)
09 Telecide (from 'Remote Control' by The Tubes 1979)
10 Morning Chorus (from 'Air Pocket' by Roger Powell 1980)
11 Selfless Love (from 'Wasp' by Shaun Cassidy 1980)

Todd Rundgren And The Hello People - Mad Red Ant Lady (1972)

I'll start by saying that I consider Todd Rundgren as something of a musical genius - singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and engineer, band leader and solo artist, and fashion icon! (just check out some of his stage outfits from the 70's and 80's). He started his musical career in the band Woody's Truck Stop, before leaving them to form his own band The Nazz, who released three albums of Anglophile rock, heavily influenced by The Beatles and The Who, but with Rundgren writing the material. On their first album he even took a stab a producing the record after the actual producer Bill Traut had gone home, adding effects such as varispeed and flanging to the recordings. The single 'Open My Eyes' backed with 'Hello It's Me' became their first hit, and the albums 'Nazz' and 'Nazz Nazz' followed, with 'Nazz III' being released some time later after the band had left the label, and the old record company collected together some outtakes and off-cuts to cobble together something to release to make a quick buck. Some of these came from the sessions for their second record, which was originally to have been a double album entitled 'Fungo Bat', but the record company cut it down to a single record and re-titled it 'Nazz Nazz'. 
After The Nazz split his songwriting became very much influenced by artists such as Laura Nyro, who he felt had a unique songwriting style, and he continued to write and record songs while working as a producer for other bands in New York. Among his production duties during this period were albums by The American Dream, Great Speckled Bird, and on a recommendation by The Band's Robbie Robertson he produced a record for Jessie Winchester, which impressed Robertson so much that he was asked to produce The Band's 'Stage Fright' album. Despite his successful productions, he still wanted to make his own music, and so formed the band Runt in 1970, including Hunt and Tony Sales, years before they joined David Bowie in Tin Machine. Rundgren himself wrote, produced, sang, and played guitars, keyboard, and other instruments on the record, and so whether Runt is best described as a band or simply a pseudonym for Rundgren the solo artist is open to conjecture. For the album 'Runt' the group appeared to be a bona fide trio, but on their second album 'Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren', Hunt Sales plays only on two tracks and is replaced by N. D. Smart on the rest of the album. 
By this time, Rundgren had effectively moved his base to Los Angeles, and as he prepared for his second solo album, he met aspiring LA band Half-Nelson, led by brothers Ron and Russell Mael, with guitarist Earle Mankey. After attending an elaborate, self-staged 'showcase' performance by the group at their LA rehearsal space, Rundgren agreed to produce their debut album, originally released as 'Half-Nelson' and later re-titled 'Sparks', and the brothers have credited Rundgren with launching their career. By 1972, the Runt persona/band identity had been abandoned, and Rundgren's ambitious double album 'Something/Anything?' was credited simply to Rundgren, who wrote, played, sang, engineered, and produced everything on three of the four sides of the album. It provided Rundgren with two hit singles in 'I Saw the Light' and a remake of the Nazz near-hit 'Hello It's Me', and on the subsequent tour he asked The Hello People to be his backing band. Rundgren and The Hello People went into Ultrasonic Studios in 1972 to record a number of the songs from the album, and when I found this bootleg I was really looking forward to hearing studio recordings of full band versions of the songs, but on playing it I found that it was actually a live concert in front of an invited audience. The recording itself was studio quality, though, and so to make up for my disappointment I decided to remove all the audience noise to make the studio album that I expected to hear. A few edits and fades later and I have the band album that I wanted, so here is a great vintage recording of Rundgren at his peak, with a band behind him who know exactly what he wants, and featuring a number of songs that I assume are Hello People originals, including the title track which they eventually released a couple of years later.   

Track listing

01 Broke Down & Busted
02 Georgia Swing
03 Piss Aaron
04 Outside Love
05 A Dream Goes On Forever
06 I Saw The Light
07 Blaze
08 It Wouldn't Have Made Any Difference
09 Feels So Good To Be Alive
10 Mad Red Ant Lady
11 Lady On The Terrace
12 Slut