Jimi Hendrix, "Band of Gypsys" (Capitol, 1970)

Considering the enormous quantity of Jimi Hendrix recordings available on the legitimate and not-so-legitimate markets, it comes as a surprise to many casual fans that he saw only a half dozen or so of his albums released during his lifetime, and half of those were of questionable pedigree.

Of course, the Holy Trinity of the Hendrix canon consists of the three proper albums recorded by the Jimi Hendrix Experience between late 1966 and mid-'68: "Are You Experienced?", "Axis: Bold As Love" and "Electric Ladyland." All are essential pieces to anyone aspiring to a serious rock 'n' roll collection.

His record companies on both side of the Atlantic came up with two different albums sharing a common name, "Smash Hits," as product during Jimi's recording hiatus of 1969. The U.K. version always was more interesting, containing such oddities as "The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam's Dice" (taken from the acronyms STP and LSD - you figure it out from there).

Meanwhile, Jimi's name was appearing on some recordings of very dubious origin, mostly material on which he appeared as a sideman before anyone had heard of him. Titles like "Get That Feeling" and "Flashing" mostly were the work of R&B singer Curtis Knight, with Jimi merely strumming in the background.

Those exploitative releases were an unfortunate result of Hendrix having signed a contract before he made it big, a pact that obligated him to make recordings for a man named Ed Chalpin. To get out from under Chalpin, Jimi agreed to record a live album for Capitol Records.

The result is "Band of Gypsys," probably the greatest contractual obligation recording in history. No one knew at the time, of course, that it would be his final album before his death in September 1970. Likewise, no one probably realized that the shows from which the album was called - on New Year's Eve '69 and New Year's Day '70 - would be the only proper concerts for the trio of Hendrix, Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums. Music historians long have conjectured what the Band of Gypsys might have done had it remained intact; as it is, the album serves as evidence that Jimi was starting to explore new directions far removed from his "Purple Haze" days.

Bill Graham introduces the band at the album's start as "some old friends with a new name," and they have a new sound: Cox's bass, in particular, serves as an anchor that the Experience's Noel Redding (who was really a guitarist) didn't really provide. Miles' drumming is more muscular that once-and-future Hendrix percussionist Mitch Mitchell, and the net effect is a rhythm section that's very much aligned to what would become known as loved as funk in the coming decade.

The opener, "Who Knows," is like nothing Hendrix had done in the past, as he settles into a heavy groove from which he never deviates, telling his tale of an unfaithful woman with Miles adding some occasionally annoying background vocals. What really is different is Hendrix's playing, as he eschews the bombast that propelled him to stardom, opting instead for a less frenetic but more menacing approach that suits the song's subject matter well.

The angry young Jimi also rears his head on "Machine Gun," dedicated to "all the soldiers fighting in Vietnam." Another epic riff carries this one for 10-plus minutes, before Hendrix finally launches into one of his patented guitar freakouts, apparently symbolizing the bullets flying from the song's title weapon. (Sadly, Jimi remarks during the song's introduction, "If we can make it through the summer ..." He missed by three days.)

Those two songs constitute the first side of the original LP, which definitely is the one worth hearing. Two of Miles' songs, including his future hit "Them Changes," bookend a pair of Hendrix works in progress, "Power to Love" and "Message to Love." Both of the latter appear on posthumous anthologies as studio takes, which in many regards are for the better.

Decades after they took place, the Band of Gypsys concerts were the subjects of the double-CD "Live at the Fillmore East" (including a seriously truncated "Who Knows") and the fascinating DVD of the same title, featuring mostly amateur, black-and-white video. Reportedly, Graham challenged Hendrix not to do his usual jumping around onstage, so he stands still for the most part, doing what he did best: play guitar.

Michael Bloomfield, "Don't Say That I Ain't Your Man! Essential Blues 1964-1969" (Columbia/Legacy, 1994)

Serious music collectors traditionally have avoided the "best of" and "greatest hits" types of packages, preferring to delve deeper into artists' repertoires than the obvious selections.

Plus, many of those compilations are so haphazardly assembled to be sources of embarrassment to the artists and their more discerning fans. A glaring example is "Skeletons from the Closet," a Grateful Dead anthology compiled by Warner Bros. as the band was in the process of leaving the label to start its own operation. Everything from the cover art to the song selection to the hatchet job on "Turn On Your Lovelight" is an affront to Deadheads everywhere. Yet you still see it in the collections of folks who don't know any better. Please, buy "Workingman's Dead" instead!

The presentation of anthologies has changed in recent years, though, and for the better. The discovery by record companies that baby boomers want to hear stuff from old tapes that have sat gathering dust for decades has led to many worthwhile recordings finally seeing the light of day.

Fans of the late guitar genius Michael Bloomfield should enjoy a collection released by Columbia/Legacy in the mid-'90s that feature some very early work of his as a potential solo artist. The first 15 minutes or so of "Don't Say That I Ain't Your Man! Essential Blues 1964-1969" features Mike singing and playing on some old blues standards that never appeared in public before this CD hit the shelves, and as such, makes it a good purchase even for people who usually shy away from anthologies.

Those five songs were recorded in Bloomfield's native Chicago under the auspices of John Hammond Sr. - a man with a definite eye for talent, having "discovered" Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, Robert Zimmerman, Stevie Ray Vaughan and some guy named Springsteen - with a crack lineup that included blues harp whiz Charlie Musselwhite.

The tune selection represents something blues purists of the time would consider a decent set list, with such better-known compositions as Magic Sam's "Feel So Good," Jimmy Oden's "Goin' Down Slow" and Muddy Waters' "I Got My Mojo Working" alongside relative obscurities called "Last Night" (later recorded by Fleetwood Mac, also in Chicago) and "I've Got You In the Palm of My Hand." A couple of those would appear later on Bloomfield's work with the Butterfield Blues Band and the Electric Flag.

As would be expected, the previously unreleased compositions are of relatively raw recording quality, but they show that even at the tender age of 21, Mike was already playing like no one else's business. (As a teenager, he reported would step onstage with some of the most hardened veterans of Chicago blues and proceed to blow everyone away.) The songs also are evidence of a man who could sing a mean blues, something he rarely did as he let his guitar do most of his talking during the latter part of the '60s.

The remainder of "Don't Say That I Ain't Your Man!" (the title is taken from a line in "I've Got You In the Palm of My Hand") is culled from Bloomfield's various albums with Butterfield, the Flag, Al Kooper and as a solo artist with Elektra and Columbia. While I'd recommend collecting each of those works individually, this anthology selects some decent enough tunes as examples. Butterfield's "Born In Chicago," for example, usually is cited as the starting point for blues-rock guitarists as the genre proliferated throughout the rest of the decade. And the Electric Flag's version of Howlin' Wolf's "Killin' Floor" is a pioneering example of blending loud guitar and horns in a rock context.

But the choice of Cannonball Adderly's "Work Song" as the selection from Butterfield's "East-West" is kind of curious. Not that it's a weak song, but the title track from the album represents one of rock's transcendent performances. At 13-plus minutes, "East-West" might have been considered a bit long to include on an anthology; then again, this collection does include 11 minutes of a live performance of Albert King's "Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong."

That track was recorded as Bloomfield teamed with Kooper to promote their "Super Session" album, which - for whatever it's worth - went on to become the biggest-selling album on which Mike's name appears. (Fortunately, the most recent release of the CD contains versions of songs before they were doctored postproduction with sterile-sounding horn charts.) An instrumental version of the late-'60s standard "Stop" is representative here of the Kooper-Bloomfield studio collaboration.

The last few songs on the anthology are from solo albums released just before the end of the '60s. "It's Not Killing Me" put Mike back in the role as lead vocalist, with a ton of musicians backing him (including future longtime Jerry Garcia collaborator John Kahn on bass), while "Live at Bill Graham's Fillmore West" takes elements of that band onstage at the famed venue, with former Electric Flag frontman Nick Gravenites supplying the vocals.

After this gig, incidentally, Nick the Greek would go on to sing for a revamped version of Big Brother & the Holding Company, thus serving as Janis Joplin's replacement.

Unfortunately, the end of the '60s pretty much meant the end of Michael Bloomfield as a household name within rock circles, although he did produce some quality material for John Fahey's Takoma label in the latter part of the '70s. Even more unfortunately, he died Feb. 15, 1981, losing a long battle with addiction.

To get a good idea of what a mighty player he was, check out any number of his proper albums. But to hear how strong he already was playing as a relative youth, the five tracks that open "Don't Say That I Ain't Your Man!" are where to listen.

The Kinks, "Muswell Hillbillies" (RCA, 1971)

The age of hard rock just might have gotten its start with the pair of guitar chords that open "You Really Got Me," the Kinks' first hit single from the summer of 1964. The brothers Davies - Ray the singer and songwriter, Dave the lead guitarist - set the template for the hyperamplified form of music that has aroused the primodial instincts of listeners for a couple of generations now.

The groundbreaking record also paved the way for a string of hits by the quartet, which got its start in the Muswell Hill section of London. Songs like "All Day and All of the Night," "Tired of Waiting for You" and "Sunny Afternoon" still appear regularly on the playlists of certain radio stations as classics of the mid-'60s.

The last-named tune, with its easygoing rhythm and jazzy chord changes, points the way toward the Kinks' preffered sound in the latter stages of the decade. While many of their fellow rock bands on both sides of the Atlantic were exploring blues, psychedelia and primordial metal, the Kinks took a more introspective approach, reflecting Ray Davies' wistful views of the passing of the England he knew as a youngster. A trio of exceptional albums - "Something Else by the Kinks," "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society" and "Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)" - unfold as a series of often-stirring vignettes about the state of Davies' homeland.

Unfortunately, quality doesn't always add up to sales. "Something Else" barely cracked the Top 40 in Britain, and the other two failed to make the charts at all. A handful of singles fared a bit better, but not for American listeners, who pretty much ignored the Kinks until 1970.

That year, the band delivered "Lola vs. Powerman & the Moneygoround, Part One," a harder-edged effort that gives the music business the Ray Davies treatment. The controversial (for the time) single "Lola" cracked the Top 10 in both the U.S. and U.K., and the infectious "Apeman" had chart success as well.

Having successfully recovered a mass audience, the band went into the studio the following year to record a new album for a new label, having switched from Pye in Britain and Reprise over here to RCA in both nations. Executives there probably anticipated another straight-ahead rock effort that would sell as well as its predecessor.

A look at the album's title - a clever play on the Kinks' home neighborhood - shows that wasn't exactly going to be the case.

"Muswell Hillbillies" is what happens when a group of former mods from London turns toward the country for inspiration, and despite the rather absurd premise, it works quite well. Ray Davies assumes almost complete control - producing, arranging and writing the entire album - and the result is a collection of well-constructed songs that don't sound a bit like "You Really Got Me" or "Lola," but stack up quite well to the band's better-known work.

Davies gets things rolling with "20th Century Man," yet another commentary on modern life: "This is the 20th century, but too much aggravation." The song is driven by a propulsive beat that tails off in the middle for a bridge delivers an even bleaker message: "I was born in a welfare state ... controlled by civil servants and people dressed in gray/Got no privacy, got no liberty." Ouch.

The title of the next song, "Acute Schizophrenia Paranoia Blues," is a tip that things won't get much better. But the melody actually is uplifting, and the tongue-in-cheek lyrics or worth some chuckles in their descriptions of trouble hiding around every corner.

The dance hall-flavored "Holiday" is an acoustic-based ode to escaping the evils Davies puts forth in the previous songs, and that's followed by my personal favorite track on the album, "Skin and Bone," a very catchy ditty about how dieting can be too much of a good thing.

"Alcohol" recalls the melancholy themes of some popular melodies of the '30s, with various horns pushing along the sad tale of a "drunken laggard" on skid row. The sing-along chorus of "Complicated Life" might have given the tune a shot as a single in a later era, when the marriage of country and rock wasn't such a novelty.

The masterful songwriting hooks continue with "Here Come the People in Grey," which has a melody somewhat reminiscent of Canned Heat's "Goin' Up the Country," with the message that those people are coming "to take me away."

"Have a Cuppa Tea" is another number full of levity, with Davies bantering about a potion that's a cure for hepatitis, chronic insomnia, chronic insomnia and water on the knee. "Hallelujah, Rosalee!"

American and British folk music merges for "Holloway Jail," with Dave Davies contributing some well-placed slide guitar to yet another tale of woe, this time about a young girl incarcerated for an apparent act of self-defense.

Two quieter songs, the accordion-tinged "Oklahoma USA" and the straight country "Uncle Son," lead up to the near-title-track closer. "Muswell Hillbilly" features a shimmering guitar lick driving a summation of everything Davies has addressed throughout the album: "They're gonna try and make me change my way of living/But they'll never make me something that I'm not."

They didn't make a hit of "Muswell Hillbillies," which peaked at No. 100 in America. But if you know Ray Davies as one of rock's most talented songwriters, give this one a listen and you'll come away impressed, tune after tune.

In case you've been following the daily spin, it hasn't been quite daily as of late. I spent a good bit of last week showing some very personable visitors from Germany around town, and plenty of work-related and plain ol' "normal life" activities got put on the back burner.

I'm starting to get caught up, so in honor of the visitors' homeland, here is today's spin:

Can, "Tago Mago" (Spoon, 1971)

Promotional materials for musical acts often contain the word "unique," often preceded by modifiers like "rather" or "truly." Not only is that an improper use of English, it's amost always hyperbole. Some artists - Zappa, Beefheart, The Shaggs - qualify, but most others could best be considered distinctive rather than unique.

One band that definitely can carry the label is Can, one of the more adventurous of the slew of experimental bands that got their start in West Germany in the late 1960s. The core of instrumentalists - Holger Czukay on bass, Michael Karoli on guitar, Jaki Lieberzeit on drums and Irmin Schmidt on keyboards - developed a sound that followed few of the prevalent conventions of popular music at the time: metronome beat, few chord changes, playing based on dynamics rather than melody.

What really set the band apart was its approach to vocals. Can's debut album, "Monster Movie," features an expatriate American named Malcolm Mooney singing/speaking in a stream-of-consciousness delivery that fits in well with the free-flowing style of music.

Mooney had a few issues that led to his departure, and by the time Can recorded its second proper album in 1971, his place had been taken by an even more esoteric choice for a vocalist, Japanese street singer Damo Suzuki. And the result is one of the more interesting recordings of its era.

"Tago Mago" originally was released as a double album, containing just seven tracks. The three most accessible songs appeared as the set's first side; one of them, the hauntingly flowing "Oh Yeah," appears on Rhino's exceptional five-CD compilation "Supernatural Fairy Tales: The Progressive Rock Era."

From there, "Tago Mago" gets progressively stranger. "Halleluhwah" takes up the entire second side of the original Side Two, with Czukay laying down a funky bass line that would make the coming wave of funk-rock players proud. Karoli's slicing guitar licks help carry the momentum, but what really catches the ear is Suzuki's singing, which ranges from barely intelligible to totally unintelligble; at times, the words seem to be in English, but you're never too sure.

The instrumentals on "Halleluhwah" are fairly straightforward compared with "Aumgn," the track that constitutes Side Three. Kicking off with the sounds of a pick scraping against guitar strings, the song continues through various nontraditional techniques relayed through an echo chamber; for example, Schmidt can be heard picking at the strings inside his piano. Creepy vocal noises add to the cacophony, which at times sounds as if it wouldn't be out of place on one of those Halloween sound effects collections. Eventually, Liebezeit comes in with some innovative percussion that never loses his machine-like sense of timing. The sound collage wraps up with high-pitched keyboard notes that slowly descend into morass of squeaking noises.

As if that weren't bizarre enough, the CD release continues into "Peking O," during which it's Suzuki's turn to play John Cage. Over a backdrop of more heavy echo and Schmidt's faint organ chords, he barks out a lament of some sort (again, much gets lost in the translation) before a quirky little ditty emerges, driven by the organ's beatbox.

Suzuki chimes in with whispered scat singing, then does his best imitation of a tape player gone berzerk, with rapid-fire chattering that must be heard to be truly appreciated. Schmidt backs his screeching with random keyboard notes, doing his best to follow the lead of Suzuki's unpredictable throat noises. The proceedings wrap up with Suzuki doing his thing over a steady, almost robotic rhythm, closing the door on an experience that the adventurous listener is unlikely to forget.

The final track, "Bring Me Coffee or Tea," returns to earth somewhat with a more conventional song structure, although the extrapolations on a single chord and Suzuki's less-frenetic ravings still resemble nothing that would appear on Top 40 radio.

After "Tago Mago," Can refined its approach a bit and went on to some sales success in Europe and a strong fan base in certain circles that continues to this day.

But for sheer departure from the norm, the band's double-LP set of 1971 lives up to a billing as unique.

Canned Heat, "Living the Blues" (Liberty, 1968)

The radio in the photo department at work is perpetually tuned to the local oldies station, which is good until you stop to consider just what qualifies these days as "oldies." (Especially if you can remember when those songs were new.)

On my way past the department this afternoon, I caught a quick earful of a melodic flute line that could mean only one tune: "Goin' Up the Country," the happy-go-lucky ditty that represents the high-water mark of Canned Heat's success, nearly cracking the Top Ten.

Thanks to its presence in the "Woodstock" movie and sporadic appearance on TV commercials, the song has become somewhat emblematic of the fun, carefree side of '60s hippiedom, with Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson's falsetto vocals putting it on the fringe of novelty. (Wilson apparently wasn't having that much fun being a hippie rock star; he died at age 27 in the garden of bandmate Bob "The Bear" Hite, and it's long been speculated that he caused it to happen.)

At any rate, Wilson was mining a very old vein for "Goin' Up the Country": The tune is almost note-for-note an adaptation of "Bull Doze Blues," as recorded in the late '20s by Henry Thomas, who got his start as a musician back in the 19th century.

As "Goin' Up the Country" climbed the charts in 1968, so did the Canned Heat long-player on which it appears, "Living the Blues." Fans were eager to buy the two-record set, figuring they'd hear a large quantity of songs featuring the band's blues-rock sound.

What they got was an LP side's worth of what they expected, including "Goin' Up the Country"; another side featuring a 19-minute suite of sound experiments by each band member; and two more sides consisting of a 40-plus-minute improvisation recorded during one of the group's California club engagements.

"Refried Boogie" stands as a document of a Canned Heat performance staple of the time: taking a basic I-III-IV chord progression (done in more succinct form in "Fried Hockey Boogie" on the "Boogie With Canned Heat" album) and highlighting each band member in his own segment. Hite would improvise vocals - in this case, a story about a drug bust - and each of the instrumentalists would do his thing. In the case of "Refried Boogie," the order is Wilson on a relatively restrained guitar solo, Larry "The Mole" Taylor stretching out on bass, Henry "Sunflower" Vestine taking up about half of the final LP side with a not-so-restrained guitar solo, and drummer Adolpho "Fito" de la Parra bashing away before Hite joining back in to wrap up proceedings.

Needless to say, all that might have seemed pretty cool while sitting in a bar tossing back several beers. But if you put it on the turntable to play, chances are you're not going to flip the record to keep on going another 20 minutes.

"Parthenogenesis," the other extended work on "Living the Blues," works much better because the musicians generally take a more experimental approach. Wilson, for example, plays Muddy Waters' "Rollin' and Tumblin'" on a jew's harp; Vestine plays five overdubbed guitars simultaneously for his part of the puzzle, "Sunflower Power"; and Hite does a takeoff on what John Mayall sounds like on his "Bare Wires" album, calling it "Bear Wires."

The rest of the album is more conventional fare, with Canned Heat ripping through a number of three- and four-minute blues-based tunes, including a hard-rocking version of Blind Lemon Jefferson's "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean," here called "One Kind Favor." (And known to listeners as the B-side to "Goin' Up the Country.")

Canned Heat went on to a well-received performance at Woodstock, with the boogie du jour, "Woodstock Boogie," later appearing as one of the highlights of Cotillion's "Woodstock Two" album. Unfortunately, the song did not appear on the supposedly definitive four-CD set from the legendary festival. Another song, a cover of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," is on the director's cut of Michael Wadleigh's "Woodstock" film.

The band had one more hit single, "Let's Work Together" (No. 2 in Britain), in 1970, but it was all downhill after Wilson's death. Hite followed him to the grave in 1981, and Vestine in 1998.

But a version of Canned Heat, featuring Fito, still performs today, with "Goin' Up the Country" still in the repertoire. It never sounds the same, though, without the Blind Owl's falsetto and particularly his flute.

Love, "Forever Changes" (Elektra, 1968)

Some sad news: Arthur Lee has been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. He has no medical insurance, already has medical bills in excess of $100,000 and is facing a probable bone marrow transplant.

The diagnosis occurred when some favorably light finally seemed to be shining again on a musician who's faced his share of adversity since he made a name for himself with Love, one of the legendary bands to spring out of Los Angeles in the mid-'60s. His life during the ensuing decades included a period of incarceration, but by the late '90s he was performing again for enthusiastic audiences.

His recent shows have been known to include full versions of the 1968 Love album "Forever Changes," and one such performance in England was captured for posterity on DVD. Viewing it is a real treat for fans who for decades have admired one of rock's great records, albeit one that never sold in great quantitites.

More than 40 years ago, Lee started building recognition for himself within L.A.'s emerging music scene by reportedly appearing at strategic spots wearing just one boot on his two feet. Such erratic behavior would hardly seem to have singled him out - Frank Zappa and other members of the Mothers of Invention were hanging around the same places, after all - but Arthur's band certainly captured attention. Love developed such a following that the lead singer of another fledgling Los Angeles band aspired to be that popular; of course, Jim Morrison got more than he bargained for with the Doors.

As big as Love was in Los Angeles, it never quite captured a national following. Two singles, "My Little Red Book" and "7 And & Is" sold in reasonable quantities and now are considered classics of the psychedelic/garage era, but they hardly made Love a household name. Also, band members preferred to stick close to home rather than taking their act to the far reaches of the continent (or to Britain, where Love had developed a sizable following). Love even declined to travel as far as Monterey, a few hours north of L.A., for the June 1967 festival that made superstars out of numerous peers.

In 1968, following quite a few lineup changes over the course of Love's first two albums, the band went to work on a third. What emerged was a collection of songs representing a stylistic departure from the relatively raw sound of the band's earlier days. The acoustic guitar is the instrument that drives most of "Forever Changes," combining with superbly crafted harmony vocals and, in many spots, orchestral and horn arrangements to produce one of the more enjoyable and stimulating works of the late '60s.

The compositions, though, make for the album's real strong point. Lee wrote most of the songs, with the late guitarist Bryan MacLean adding a few. True, the enigmatic titles of some - "Alone Again Or," "The Good Humor Man He Sees Everything Like This," "Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale" - have overtones that are inextricably linked to the era of their creation. But for the most part, this is timeless music, just as much at home in the 21st century as in the 1960s, as Arthur has proved with his recent performances.

Of course, the record-buying public often fails to recognize works of art, and "Forever Changes" failed to make the U.S. charts. (It was a top seller in Britain, but that couldn't convince Love to cross the Atlantic.) Lee subsequently revamped the band's lineup for the follow-up, "Four Sail," but the previous album had set the bar too high for anything else to live up to expectations.

A collaboration between Lee and Jimi Hendrix ended with the famed guitarist's death, after they'd recorded one song together, "The Everlasting First," which appeared on the appropriately titled "False Start" album as more or less of a last hurrah for Love. Lee's recent comeback added an encouraging chapter to his story, but news of his health problems certainly have put a dark cloud on proceedings.

Fortunately, he has plenty of friends and admirers who want to help him. A benefit concert, "We're Doing It For Love," is scheduled for Friday, June 23, at New York's Beacon Theater. Tickets go on sale today.

Headlining is a singer who has been performing three of Arthur's songs on his most recent tour: Robert Plant. He's joined by Ian Hunter (Mott the Hoople), Garland Jeffreys and one of more impressive bands to emerge since the '80s, Yo La Tengo.

They're trying to help the cause of a man whose name might not be the most recognizable of the '60s-era musicians, but whose best work stands up among the true classics of his time.

Neil Young, "On the Beach" (Reprise, 1974)

Back in '72, Warner Bros. executives had plenty of reason to enjoy having Neil Young under contract.

He'd already joined the ranks of superstars through his affiliation with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young when he hit the solo jackpot with a pair of No. 1's, the single "Heart of Gold" and its album, "Harvest." On the heels of the successes, the record company accountants were already counting the dollars from whatever he had cooking next.

Come 1973, Neil released a pair of albums: "Time Fades Away," a collection of new songs recorded on the road, sounding very much like works in progress taped
on substandard equipment, and "Journey Through the Past," the soundtrack to a film that very few people to this day have ever seen. Sales of both LPs paled in comparison with "Harvest," and Warner/Reprise apparently held a grudge; to this day, those are the only two Young albums that have yet to appear on compact disc.

He then proceeded to record "Tonight's the Night," a song cycle about death and drugs that scared the execs enough to have the project shelved for a couple of years. So much for their judgment: The album is regard by many fans of Neil as his masterpiece.

The album Reprise eventually released in 1974, "On the Beach," also ranks as one of his top few releases, right up there with "Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere" and "Rust Never Sleeps." That being said, it's no less somber than "Tonight's the Night," a series of darkly colored compositions that offer little in the way of hope.

Although there's nothing resembling a hit on "On the Beach," the two best-remembered songs are the ones that appeared four years later on Young's "Decade" anthology: "Walk On," the opener, which tells Neil's critics exactly where they can go, and the sparely arranged "For the Turnstiles." The latter song, later the subject of a tremendous cover by Yo La Tengo, contains the type of imagery that pervades the album: "All the bush league batters are left to die on the diamond/And in the stands, the whole crowd scatters for the turnstiles."

If there is a bright spot within "On the Beach," it's tough to find. "See the Sky About to Rain" has Neil singing in one of his more melancholy voices, lamenting: "I was down in Dixieland, played a silver fiddle, played it loud until The Man broke it down the middle." The message of "Vampire Blues" - "I'm a vampire, baby, sucking blood from the earth/I'm a vampire, baby, sell ya barrels' worth" - is cedrtainly as relevant today as it was during the height of the first Energy Crisis.

And the apocalyptic "Revolution Blues" delivers the most disturbing story line, taken right from the headlines of the Manson-Tate-LaBianca mass murders: "Well, I hear that Laurel Canyon is filled with famous stars/But I hate them worse than lepers, and I'll kill them in their cars."

As effective as the lyrics are in conveying Neil's messages of doom and gloom, the instrumentation is nothing short of brilliant in setting the mood: the whiny slide guitar and Wurlitzer piano of "See the Sky," the cataclysmic thud of "Revolution" (check out Rick Danko's bass playing), the unaccompanied banjo and dobro of "Turnstiles," meshing with the agonized vocals of Young and Ben Keith. Then there's the title track, a lumbering conveyor of despair, with Young's guitar and Graham Nash's Wurlitzer competing to see whose tone is more depressing. It all adds up to the ideal music for a week of nonstop rain.

It doesn't exactly brighten up for the final two songs, "Motion Pictures (For Carrie)," Young's reflections on his relationship with actress Carrie Snodgrass, and "Ambulance Blues," nine of minutes of some of Neil venting through imagery that would make Bob Dylan proud, accompanied by the suitably scratching fiddle playing of Rusty Kershaw.

"On the Beach" is far from Neil Young's most accessible album, and the record-bying public let him know it: reportedly, it was his poorest-selling release. The record company no doubt took that into consideration when it waited until three decades after the original release to issue it on CD.

But for true, the reissue finally gave them a chance to finally put away their vinyl copies of "On the Beach," scratched mightily from countless spins on the turntable, and hear the crystal-clear sound of a genius at work.

Yonder Mountain String Band, "Yonder Mountain String Band" (Vanguard, 2006)

When your favorite band makes the leap from releasing its own albums to signing with a well-known label, the reaction often is along the lines of: Uh-oh!

Record companies have a tendency of steering artists in directions that just might result in more sales, a development that sometimes serves to confuse and disappoints fans who have been there from the beginning.

Fans of the bluegrass-oriented jamband the Yonder Mountain String Band may have shaken their heads when they learned the quartet had signed with Vanguard Records, and that the debut for the label would feature percussion along with the strings. After all, that's not what they were used to hearing on the albums the band has been releasing on its own Frog Pad Records since 1999.

But there's no need to worry. Besides incorporating a fuller sound, the band hasn't done much to compromise its rootsy approach to playing on "The Yonder Mountain String Band," the new CD that hit the stores yesterday.

Helping shape the slightly altered approach are producer Tom Rothrock, who has worked with such well-established rock acts as the Foo Fighters and Beck (not Jeff), and drummer Pete Thomas, from Elvis Costello's band. Their presence doesn't transform the Yonder Mountain String Band so much as helping realize new possibilities.

"For me, it was a very necessary step that the band had to take, just because we've always been about letting ourselves experiment to the full width of the spectrum," mandolin player Jeff Austin is quoted as saying in the Vanguard biography of the band. "It was a part of us that was just dying to come out."

The start of the album-opening "Sidewalk Stars" sounds more like something from space than from the mountains, nearly a minute of ambient sounds building toward the song proper. But then the proceedings break into familiar territory: the syncopated banjo, bass, guitar and mandolin combining with vocal harmonies telling a bittersweet love story ("I'm asking you to laugh/But after all, you love a tragedy").

The next trio of songs - "I Aint' Been Myself in Years," "How 'Bout You?" (released as a single) and "Angel" - also are very close to the sound you'd expect from a bluegrass band, with the last of those tunes developing into a very spirited jam.

"That's a song where we draw from personal influences that bridge - for us - our love of heavier rock music, with lyrical imagery that's clearly traditional," bassist Ben Kaufmann says. "There's a fiddle in the solo section (courtesy of onetime David Grisman sideman Darol Anger), but it's clearly channeling the spirits of the rock guitar gods."

"Fastball" follows, a brief instrumental with a title that suits it well: the type of fast-tempo playing that really gets an audience on its feet. The snippet sets the tone for "East Nashville Easter," a rousing tune with lyrics in which the protagonist vows to pull himself up from the situation in which he finds himself.

"Just the Same," a solo composition by banjo player Dave Johnston, is delivered in a manner similar to a few of the tunes performed by the '60s band Kaleidoscope, which dabbled in just about every genre known at the time. "Classic Situation" brings the drums back in an upbeat song featuring some impressive acoustic guitar picking by Adam Ajala. Among the remaining songs, "Night Out" and "Troubled Mind" incorporate relatively straightforward bluegrass elements, while the instrumental "Midwest Gospel Radio" fills Rothrock's request for the band to play a spiritual number.

"Wind's On Fire" wraps up the album on a somber note, with the melancholy tones of Ajala's slide guitar emphasizing a sobering lyrical image: "Look at the size of your soul/Hang that old hanging judge/The highest tree, it ain't enough/Keep on tearing your soul apart/Look at the size of the world." Then again, the final message brings some optimism: "Any old light that shine to me/Let a little light in your heart."

The same can be said for Yonder Mountain String Band fans who might be wary of the sound of the new album. It's different, but not so much to detract from enjoying the talents of your favorite band.

The Pretty Things, "S.F. Sorrow" (Columbia, 1968)

The rock opera has never really taken off as an art form, perhaps because it's asking too much to maintain a listener's attention for an extended period.

The Who made it work with "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia," and Pink Floyd with "The Wall." Other than that ... does anyone remember Fairport Convention's "Babbacombe Lee"? Marty Balin's "Rock Justice"? Ray Manzarek's "The Whole Thing Started With Rock & Roll, Now It's Out of Control"?

OK, then.

Most casual fans assume the rock opera originated with the release of "Tommy" in 1969, but it actually has a couple of antecedents. One of them was by the "Tommy" mastermind himself, Pete Townshend, who strung together a series of shorter tunes to form "A Quick One, While He's Away" as early as 1966. Keith West, lead singer for Tomorrow, scored a huge British hit with "Excerpt from a Teenage Opera" in 1967, and the Moody Blues developed a somewhat unifying theme within the orchestra-laden album "Days of Future Passed."

The following year probably marks the birth of the rock opera. The Small Faces devoted the second side of their album "Odgens Nut Gone Flake" to a series of songs connected by narration and detailing the adventures of one Happiness Stan. And Procol Harum took up most of side two of "Shine On Brightly" with the similarly executed "In Held 'Twas In I."

But the honor for producing the first full album featuring a single story line probably belongs to the Pretty Things, the London-based band that once was described as being just like the Rolling Stones, only more obnoxious.

The Things scored some decent British chart success with a rhythm-and-blues approach, including "Rosalyn" and "Don't Bring Me Down," both of which David Bowie covered on his "Pinups" album. But as the band switched its musical stylings to represent contemporary developments circa late 1966 and early '67, sales took a nosedive.

The band continued in a progressive direction with a new label, Columbia, releasing a single called "Defecting Grey." The ambitious composition incorporates many of the sonic elements being brought into popularity at the time by bands like the Beatles and the Pink Floyd, plus it also tells a story in its own right. But the single sank without a trace.

Undaunted, the Pretty Things went to work on an album that would tell a story. The result came out in late '68 as "S.F. Sorrow," which chronicles a Britisher from his birth through his service in World War I, through the death of his girlfriend in a balloon accident, through his own passing. Admittedly, the plotline is obscure to the point of being lost; a version recorded by the band 30 years later, appropriately titled "Resurrection," includes narration by Arthur Brown (of Crazy World fame) to bring the various songs together in a more coherent manner.

Even without the connecting theme, the songs for the most part could stand on their own as shining examples of the marriage of blues, folk and psychedelic elements that characterized British rock at the time.

The scene-setting "S.F. Sorrow is born," kicks off with crisply played acoustic guitar, which Dick Taylor continues to pick against an orchestral background, creating a sound not unlike what the Moody Blues were doing at the time. "Bracelets of Fingers" follows with some well-executed harmony vocals that swirl around in the mix, an indicator of the growing awareness of how interesting things could sound through headphones. The bridge features sitar playing courtesy of Jon Povey, who was working an instrument owned by none other than George Harrison.

The proceedings get heavier with "She Says Good Morning," on which Taylor plays some very distorted guitar over a strident riff that conveys the tension of S.F. meeting his beloved. That tension heightens with the ensuing trilogy of tunes: "Private Sorrow," which takes the protagonist to the front; "Balloon Burning," which brings further tragedy; and the self-explanatory "Death." "Balloon" is a particularly effective piece, with Taylor's near-metallic guitar evoking images of carnage.

The rest of the album takes the protagonist on a series of further adventures before concluding with the brief, spare "The Loneliest Person," which pretty much sums up the plight of S.F. Sorrow. Pretty Things frontman Phil May does his best singing in sending the message: "You might be the loneliest person in the world/You'll never be as lonely as me."

Maybe if he were deaf, dumb and blind, "S.F. Sorrow" might have been a hit, but at the time it first appeared, the record-buying public looked elsewhere. The album didn't even receive an American release until early 1970, on the Motown subsidiary label Rare Earth, of all places. Sales were negligible.

It wasn't until some writers began making serious inquiries into the history of rock that "S.F. Sorrow" began to gain some notoriety as perhaps the first rock opera. By then, the original band had split, although it has re-formed many times over the years, much to the delight of fans who recognize the Pretty Things' spirit of innovation and how the band just might have launched a new way to go about making albums.

Jeff Beck, "Truth" (Epic, 1968)

Name this band: Late-'60s Britain; blues-based, hyperamplified repertoire; ex-Yardbirds guitarist; raspy-voiced singer who was relatively unknown at the time; and guy playing the bass who wasn't really a bass player.

If you answered Led Zeppelin ... well, that's one of two possibilities.

The other is the first incarnation of the Jeff Beck Group, a band that raised the bar on rock music's sonic possibilities and helped lay the groundwork for what eventually took shape as heavy metal.

Beck had joined the Yardbirds at age 20 (replacing the even-younger Eric Clapton), just in time for the band's biggest commercial successes. Along the way, he developed hitherto unheard techniques for electric guitar playing, especially the intentional use of feedback. His solo on the hit "Shapes of Things" - actually three of his guitar parts overdubbed on top of one another - is regarded as a landmark in the evolution of hard rock.

He had been in the Yardbirds for about a year when bass player Paul Samwell-Smith decided he'd like to get into record production. To replace him, the band hired a much-in-demand London session guitarist named Jimmy Page. After a short stint on bass, Page switched instruments, doubling with Beck for one of the most formidable twin-guitar attacks in history. But that lineup was short-lived, as Beck decided to leave the Yardbirds for a solo career in late 1966.

Over the course of the next year or so, he released three singles that did moderately well in the U.K., although the first two - "Hi-Ho Silver Lining" and "Tallyman" - tended to emphasize his voice, not his strongest suit. The third single, a version of the easy-listening standard "Love Is Blue," was recorded intentionally off-key.

With all that out of his system, Beck went into the recording studio with his core band, which also included Rod Stewart on vocals, Ron Wood on bass and Mick Waller on drums. With the help of some guests - including the ubiquitous Nicky Hopkins on piano, future Led Zeppelin member John Paul Jones on organ and the inimitable Keith Moon on percussion - the band came up with a milestone album.

For one thing, "Truth" introduced the general listening public to the talents of Stewart, who had seen minimal success thus far as a solo artist and member of such little-known groups as Steampacket and Shotgun Express. Before his delving into disco and MOR crooning, Stewart showed himself to be quite the blues-rock singer, especially his workouts on "Let Me Love You" and Willie Dixon's "You Shook Me." His most scintillating performance is probably on "Ol' Man River," a reworking of the favorite from the musical "Showboat."

"Truth" also puts Beck's masterful fretwork on full display, even more than the considerable space he was given within the Yardbirds. He even pulls out the acoustic guitar for a pastoral rendition of the Christmas song "Greensleeves," one of two instrumentals on the album. The other is "Beck's Bolero," a rousing jam with songwriting credited to Page and with Moon delivering one of Rock's great screams right smack in the middle. "Bolero" actually came from a Yardbirds session and is one of just a handful of recordings to features both Beck and Page.

In a historical context, "Truth" is considered as the template by which Page went about constructing the sound of Led Zeppelin. Perhaps the latter band turned up the volume compared with Beck and the boys; perhaps Page's guitar playing and Robert Plant's singing/bellowing took everything a bit more over the top. But the formula for the success that Zeppelin enjoys to this day got its start elsewhere.

Perhaps the Jeff Beck Group would have been right up there, too, had it not imploded shortly after the release of its second album, "Truth" in the summer of 1969. Beck, Stewart, Wood and Waller were supposed to play at an American rock festival in upstate New York, but instead decided to go their separate ways. The guess is that if they would have been part of the Woodstock extravaganza, they'd have achieved superstar status as a unit.

As it happened, Stewart and Wood (switching to guitar) replaced Steve Marriott in the Small Faces, which subsequently became known as Faces, while Beck eventually formed a new version of his group, which pretty much paled in comparison with the original. Waller teamed up with former Blue Cheer guitarist Leigh Stephens on a couple of very obscure projects that nonetheless sound interesting.

Today, Jeff Beck is the least known of the triumvirate of Yardbirds guitarists, but he continues to have a strong following among fans who appreciate the twists and turns his career has taken over the years. And as they listen to his work with Rod Stewart, they can imagine what could have been.

Santana, "Lotus" (Columbia, 1975)

The import sections of record stores used to carry some of the most interesting items, if not quite the most affordable. Perhaps you'd come across the British version of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's "Electric Ladyland," the one with all the naked women on the cover. Or the British version of Roxy Music's "Country Life," the one with the ladies in the see-through ... well, you get the point.

Even though its cover is relatively bland - a depiction of an Eastern religious figure in the middle, bordered by black - the Santana album "Lotus" was another noteworthy import item in the late '70s. "Lotus" first was issued as a triple-record set, and at the time Columbia Records must have figured it wasn't going to sell in the States. So it was issued only in Japan, the nation in which it was recorded in 1973.

The music on "Lotus" represents a departure from what fans had come to know and love from Santana's first three albums, featuring radio-friendly material like "Evil Ways," "Oye Como Va," "Everybody's Everything" and the seamless medley of Fleetwood Mac's "Black Magic Woman" and Gabor Szabo's "Gypsy Queen."

By '73, only half the band's Woodstock-era lineup remained: guitarist Carlos Santana, drummer Michael Shrieve and percussionist Jose "Chepito" Areas. In the meantime, Santana's stylistic focus had shifted to a jazzier, more free-form direction.

As a result, the made-in-Japan set is mostly instrumental. A couple of the hits surface, but the bulk of the album is a series of jams that thoroughly explore the playing talents of the ensemble, an octet at the time.

That doesn't seem like the most commercial of formulas, though, and that probably weighed into Columbia's decision to forestall the release of "Lotus" in the United States until 1990, when it came out as a double CD.

If you're looking for the Santana you know from listening to classic rock stations, try the trio of albums from '69 through '71: "Santana," "Abraxas" and "Santana (III)." But if you have an open mind and the tolerance for two hours' worth of pretty much nonstop music, "Lotus" offers up the band in a not-so-familiar setting.

Proceedings take a bit of a while to unravel, as the album opens with warmup-type sounds called "Going Home" and attributed to Alice Coltrane, John's widow. Some spirited improvisation, given the title of "A-1 Funk" follows, segueing into Shrieve's elongated "Every Step of the Way." Here, Carlos starts to display why he's regarded as one of rock's legendary guitarists, with his rapid-fire attack and screaming feedback at the forefront.

Following readings of "Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen" and "Oye Como Va" - about the only places where vocalist Leon Thomas gets to do much more than shake maracas - the band tears through a series of themes that carries through the rest of the set. Among the more notable are a cover version of Airto's "Xibaba"; a couple of compositions from the first few Santana albums, "Waiting" and an extended "Incident at Neshabur"; and the new "Mr. Udo."

Proceedings wrap up the way every Santana show should, with the transcendent "Touissant L'Overture," from "Santana (III)."

Santana would go on to score more successes in the '70s, from the stimulating cover of the Zombies' "She's Not There" to the less-exciting remake of Buddy Holly's "Well All Right" and the original "Winning." Then there's the late-'90s comeback, but that's a whole other story.

"Lotus" stands as a document of what the band was during during a transitional, experimental phase, and the sheer volume of material makes it a good one to have in the Santana discography. And these days, you don't have to look on the import rack to find it.

Big Brother & the Holding Company, "Big Brother & the Holding Company" (Mainstream, 1967)

When she died in 1970 at age 27, Janis Joplin had only three albums to her credit, and two of those were as a member of the San Francisco-based band Big Brother & the Holding Company.

The second Big Brother album, "Cheap Thrills," was one of the most anticipated releases of 1968 and hit No. 1 in short order, while a single, the incendiary "Piece of My Heart," climbed to No. 16. Coupled with the release of D.A. Pennebaker's "Monterey Pop" film that year, with Janis shrieking her way through Big Mama Thornton's "Ball and Chain," the singer from Texas shot up the ranks of superstardom.

Her vinyl debut came a year earlier with "Big Brother & the Holding Company," an album the band recorded in late 1966. The story of its creation is one of those bittersweet chapters in Joplin's short life: The band traveled to Chicago to play what was supposed to be a monthlong engagement at a nightclub called Mother Blues, but the gigs failed to draw and the club went under. A Chicagoan named Bob Shad, who owned a small record company, offered the band a recording contract, the fairness of which has been questioned frequently in the ensuing decades.

The result is an album that sounds, for the most part, like something that wasn't recorded in a state-of-the-art studio by anyone who had a clue about how to work with a rock band. Elements that made Big Brother distinctive as a live act are missing from the recording, especially lead guitarist James Gurley's fuzz-drenched explorations. Not that the final product gave the band any room to stretch out, as it often did in concert: Not one of the 10 songs on the album exceed two minutes, 40 seconds in duration.

Still, "Big Brother & the Holding Company" is an interesting document, casting Janis as a member of a rather democratic aggregation, rather than a superstar with a backing band, as later became the case. The debut LP spreads songwriting credits and even lead vocals across the board, with Gurley, bassist Peter Albin and guitarist Sam Houston Andrew making significant contributions in those regards.

Joplin, of course, is the featured singer on the albums two best-known tracks: "Down On Me," which almost reached the Top 40 as a single, and "Bye, Bye Baby." The latter tune was penned by Texas songwriter Powell St. John, who also wrote material for a band from his home state called the 13th Floor Elevators. As a matter of fact, Janis almost joined that band before deciding to move to San Francisco.

When compared with live versions, the studio "Down On Me" is very subdued, with Gurley playing clean-toned, rather nondescript guitar lines, contrasting his frenzied wailing onstage. Janis, who never was formally trained as a vocalist, hits a flat or otherwise out-of-tune note here and there, but the raw emotion that would create her legend is evident.

Throughout a good bit of "Big Brother & the Holding Company," she serves as a backing vocalist, starting with Gurley's "Easy Rider," with a tune that sounds quite a bit like Jelly Roll Morton's "Whinin' Boy." A distinctive feature for the time is the solo on the break, which is played on the bass instead of guitar.

Andrew's contribution is "Call On Me," which is pretty much a doo-wop ballad featuring a vocal duet between him and Joplin. And Albin's "Caterpillar" is somewhat of a novelty number, with him uttering lines like "I'm an abominable snowman, calling for your love."

The band seems to come closest to replicating its San Francisco psychedelic ballroom-type sound on Albin's "Light Is Faster Than Sound," the one song on which the engineers allowed Gurley to play distorted guitar, and with the modal drone of the album's closer, "All Is Loneliness."

The tracks for "Big Brother & the Holding Company" languished until after the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, which exposed Joplin to the people who mattered. Shad released the album a couple of months later, to the general disappointment of listeners who expected to hear something resembling the band's stage show. Still, the album sold reasonably, peaking at No. 60.

Columbia Records later re-released the debut album, and the obligatory remastered CD version includes four extra tracks. Two of them appeared on a very obscure Mainstream single released almost two years after they were recorded: "Coo Coo," a song by Albin that appeared in a reworked version as "Oh, Sweet Mary" on "Cheap Thrills," and Joplin's "The Last Time." Both are somewhat rawer than the material that appeared on the debut album, giving a good clue as to why they were outtakes.

Janis Joplin's catalog has been expanded by numerous posthumous recordings, including some material from as early as 1964. But if you're curious about what she was doing during her first attempts at cutting an album, give "Big Brother & the Holding Company" a listen.

Derek & the Dominos, "In Concert" (Polydor, 1973)

By the early '80s, finding your favorite music from the late '60s through mid-'70s was getting kind of difficult.

Back in the age of vinyl, LPs that went of out print tended to stay out of print, available only if you got lucky enough to find it in a used record store. No one foresaw a day when baby boomers would purchase anything and everything from their childhood; the record companies and the stores that carried their products tended to focus on whatever was being released at the time, figuring that would be the best bet for significant sales.

By 1983, for example, most of Frank Zappa's catalog was available nowhere, as his former labels (two of which he sued) weren't printing any of his LPs anymore. I remember scrambling around trying to complete my collection, figuring I'd never see them new again.

Around that time, I heard a copy of "In Concert," the live album made by Eric Clapton and his short-lived group Derek & the Dominos after recording the landmark "Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs." For whatever reason, Polydor kept "In Concert" in print for just a short period after its 1973 release, even though the two-record set hit the Top 20.

I kept an eye out for my own copy for several years, until I finally saw it in a store. By then, of course, it was a two-CD set, and cost quite a bit more than the old double albums. But I plunked down my money, gave a listen and wondered why such good music hadn't been widely available for all those years.

One knock against "In Concert" has been that it lacked the synergy created between Clapton and Duane Allman, who guested on the "Layla" album. True, you don't get those dual-guitar acrobatics with the live material. But EC on a good night is well worth listening to on his own.

But that's another knock: Eric apparently was kind of bent out of shape about George Harrison's wife, and he wasn't taking the best care of himself. So the playing on "In Concert" probably doesn't represent the pinnacle of his fretwork.

Plus the songs are long, just nine of them stretched out over the two discs. Clapton caught flak for not knowing when to stop with Cream; he apparently hadn't learned his lesson with his later band.

Forget all that. Clapton does nothing to embarrass himself on "In Concert," as the Dominos - keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, bass player Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon - carry him through some jams that stand up as some of his most enjoyable work, as far as some fans are concerned.

The material, recorded at the Fillmore East in the fall of 1970, draws mainly from "Layla" (which had yet to be released) and the solo debut "Eric Clapton," which had reached No. 13. Also included is a stunning version of "Presence of the Lord" from Blind Faith's one and only album.

Some of the highlights, though, are two songs that otherwise didn't see the light of day for nearly two decades.

"Roll It Over" was supposed to be the B-side of Derek & the Dominos' first single, paired with a speeded-up version of "Tell the Truth," but the record was withdrawn. Both songs finally appeared on "Crossroads," the four-CD Clapton anthology that paved the way for boxed sets as viable for massive sales. "Roll It Over" features a down-and-dirty riff that serves as a good hook for the down-and-dirty subject matter of the lyrics, which seem to suggest trying something a little different in the bedroom.

"Got to Get Better in a Little While" is 13 minutes of Clapton laying it all on the line, from referencing Sly Stone to urging prayer to uttering the optimstic line: "The sun's got to shine on my guitar someday." His guitar certainly shines throughout, although Radle (who died in 1980) seems to lose his place for a few measures along the way. (A different version of the song appears on an expanded/resequenced/remastered version of "In Concert" released in 1994, called "Live at the Fillmore" - and relegating the original album to out-of-print status once more.)

"In Concert" does sag a bit during an otherwise stellar version of "Let It Rain," when Gordon suddely takes an extended solo in the middle. At least when Ginger Baker did that with Cream, you knew it would be during the last 15 minutes of "Toad," and you can plan accordingly.

As for Derek & the Dominos, the band fell apart while working on tracks for a second album, and Clapton went into a seclusion that finally ended in 1974 when he came up with the brilliant "461 Ocean Boulevard" album and the No. 1 cover version of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff." Since then, he's straddled the line between his blues roots and an easier-listening approach, alternately thrilling and frustrating longtime fans.

"In Concert" probably will do the same, to some degree. But if you're a fan of Eric Clapton's guitar work and the blues-oriented material he was performing at the dawn of the '70s, give it a whirl. If you can find it.

The Yardbirds, "Birdland" (Favored Nations, 2003)

At first glance, the idea of a 21st-century The Yardbirds album featuring just the drummer and rhythm guitarist from the legendary '60s band seems like nothing more than a blatant cash grab.

That didn't prevent me from buying "Birdland" when it emerged after a 35-year hiatus between new material by the The Yardbirds (or whatever they were by 2003). As was the case with probably just about anyone who purchased the CD, I was swayed by the "guest appearances" listed on the jacket: Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter of Steely Dan fame, Slash (Guns n' Roses), Brian May (Queen), Steve Lukather (Toto) and John Rzeznik (I had to look him up to learn he plays in the Goo Goo Dolls). Plus a guy named Jeff Beck.

And the track listing caught my attention, too. Eight of the 15 songs are old The Yardbirds tunes done anew, many featuring the aforementioned guitarists putting new spins on old classics. Considering the relatively primitive sound quality of the originals, it's interesting to hear them spiffed up for the digital age.

I'm guessing that Jim McCarty and Chris Dreja, the two The Yardbirds who were there in '63 and again in '03, felt an album full of new material wasn't going to sell. That's probably true, but the songs that debut on "Birdland" make for a strong set in their own right.

The first of the new songs, the McCarty-penned "Crying Out for Love," begins as a rather lightweight arrangement but picks up steam, culminating in an extended jam that puts the talents of Gypie Mayo - the regular lead guitarist for this incarnation of the Yardbirds - on display. Mayo made his name back in the '70s in the British pub-rock band Dr. Feelgood, and fans of that group have been happy to see him re-emerge.

"Please Don't Tell Me About the News," also written by McCarty, features a vintage The Yardbirds-type modified Bo Diddley beat in a little ditty about the tabloids. The songs veers into a jazzy break driven by John Idan's jazzy bass line, which is reminiscent of vintage tunes like "Over Under Sideways Down" (which also appears on this set). Idan, from Detroit, also is lead singer in the modern-day The Yardbirds, with a gritty voice that does fairly well in comparison with the original vocalist, the late Keith Relf.

Relf is the subject of the album's closer, "An Original Man (A Song for Keith)," a modal jam that sounds like it would have been right at home during the band's psychedelic era of 1966-68. So does "Dream Within a Dream," the Poe poem set to music by McCarty.

Also of note is Dreja's "My Blind Life," a gutbucket rocker featuring Jeff Beck playing with his old band for the first time since '66. The counterpoint to his guitar playing is the harp of Alan Glen, the fifth regular in the 21st-century The Yardbirds.

Among the remakes, a highlight is "Train Kept a-Rollin'," which the The Yardbirds first did by way of the Rock & Roll Trio, by way of originator Tiny Bradshaw. The new version sounds a bit more like Aerosmith played it, dispensing with Relf's odd double-tracked vocals that kind of detract from the '66 take. Having Satriani take one of his scorching solos doesn't hurt matters, either.

Lukather also does a fine job with the break on "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago," one of the lesser-known jewels in the The Yardbirds' treasure trove. The original, incidentally, is one of the very few tracks to feature both Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page while they were members of the band simultaneously.

By no means should "Birdland" take the place of any of the The Yardbirds' 1960s output, but the new album shouldn't be dismissed, either. Consider it a welcome addition to a catalog that's among the cornerstones of classick rock.