Vinyl Distractions

After Bathing at Baxter's front cover 2

Jefferson Airplane — After Bathing at Baxter’s

Released just nine months after “Surrealistic Pillow” in 1967, “After Bathing at Baxter’s” didn’t produce any followup single hits and thus didn’t do nearly so well on the charts as its predecessor. But it’s...

Surrealistic Pillow front cover 0

Jefferson Airplane — Surrealistic Pillow

Sometimes I think I should really take these entries out of order (or in emotional/biographical order), because I shouldn’t embark on the Jefferson Airplane discography without starting with the record that introduced me to...

Travelin' front cover 2

Tommy James & The Shondells — Travelin’

It’s my opinion that this is in its own way the finest Tommy James & The Shondells album. It didn’t produce any big hits (although “She” got to #23, and “Gotta Get Back to...

Something Special! front cover 2

Tommy James & The Shondells — Something Special!

It’s possible (nay: probable) that I bought all my Tommy James records in the same few months, during the spring semester of 1980, because I associate every one of these albums with an apartment...

Elmore James Blues After Hours plus front cover 0

Elmore James – Blues After Hours

I’ve already written about how my first impressions of Elmore James actually came through a song by Eric Burdon from his solo career, in which he bemoans the loss of the blues great in...

Elmore James: The Collection 1

Elmore James — The Collection

I first became aware of Elmore James through Eric Burdon, of the Animals. On an odd import soundtrack album by the Eric Burdon Band from 1982, he sings a song called “No More Elmore,”...