Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists (Series Four) #2: Bonzo Dog Band

/ J. Eric Smith / 1 Comment

Note: For an explanatory introduction and an index of all articles (plus groups yet to be covered) in all four “Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists” series, click here.

Who They Were: An English comic cabaret ensemble formed in 1962, and known at various times in their evolution as The Bonzo Dog Dada Band, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Bonzo Dog Band, and The Bonzos. The original incarnation of the group was a large, fluid ensemble of clever collegiate players, primarily working in a traditional/big-band jazz space, usually playing lost and obscure gems of the genre. By 1966, the group’s peak core had cohered with Vivian Stanshall (vocals/brass) and Neil Innes (vocals/guitars/keyboards) as the primary composers of their growing catalog of original songs, supplemented by Legs Larry Smith (drums/tap-dancing), sax players Roger Ruskin Spear and Rodney Slater, and a revolving door of bass players, with Dennis Cowan the longest-lasting and most prominent.

The Bonzos’ stature swelled rapidly and immensely with their appearance in The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour teleplay, playing a most risque stage version of “Death Cab for Cutie,” and by their regular musical features on the popular Do Not Adjust Your Set television program, which was also the birthing ground for the Monty Python troupe and their similarly-irreverent, slightly-later Flying Circus. The Bonzos released four albums before splintering in 1970; a fifth contractual-obligation album emerged in 1972, though Let’s Make Up and Be Friendly only featured Stanshall, Innes, and Cowan consistently across its tracks, while Slater was completely absent.

Stanshall, the eccentric and ebullient “Ginger Geezer,” became something of a ’70s rock music gadabout, issuing four quirky solo albums and appearing regularly in both musical and socio-cultural milieus, often scandalously, before his tragic death in 1995 in a house fire. Innes became a key collaborator with Monty Python, writing or co-writing many of their songs, and appearing in Monty Python and the Holy Grail as (among other things) the lead minstrel in Sir Robin’s troupe. He also developed and starred (as Ron Nasty) in All You Need Is Cash, a brilliant Beatles send-up/tribute built around the fictional Rutles beat group who then, as happens, became a “real band” in the decades that followed. (My 2019 obituary for Innes, here, covers these elements in far more detail). The other key Bonzos, often supplemented by early ensemble members Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell, Sam Spoons, and Bob Kerr, worked together in various intermittent incarnations over the years after Stanshall’s demise. In 2007, a new Bonzos album, Pour l’Amour des Chiens, emerged, featuring all of the surviving core members, plus latter-day guest vocalists/comedians Adrian Edmondson, Stephen Fry, and Phill Jupitus, standing in Stanshall’s sizable and fashionable shoes.

Despite winning a significant legal settlement in 2019 to regain control of the band’s branding and name, the deaths of Innes and Spoons seemed to have closed the door on further Bonzo music, though the group’s history certainly seems to invite a “never say never” approach to the possibility of such activities in the future. They’re in their 80s, sure, but I’d still be interested in what Ruskin Spear, Slater, and Smith might have up their billowing sleeves, should the spirit ever move that trio to wave their arms for our entertainment once again.

When I First Heard Them: This is a tough one to nail down, since I’ve been listening to them for so long, but if I had to posit a guess, I’d say it was around the time of All You Need Is Cash, in 1978 or thereabouts. I was a big Monty Python fan in the mid/late-’70s, so was aware of Innes from Flying Circus and from their albums of the era, so it’s possible that I might have grabbed me some Bonzos before The Rutles’ emergence. I’m really not sure, all these years on, though I do know that the first record I heard (and loved) by them was 1968’s The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse, borrowed from the Nassau Community College lending library while I was living at nearby Mitchel Field. That one remains my favorite by the group to this day.

Why I Love Them: Comedic musical acts tend to get short shrift in rock music’s various canonical hagiographies, presumably because artistes are supposed to be serious, maaaaan, not silly. But I would put the Bonzos up there with Frank Zappa and Ween in my own Holy Trinity of Funny Rock Stars, all of them great in large part because their irreverent or ridiculous words are offered atop some truly virtuoso playing and exceptional songwriting. In the Bonzos’ case, having the incredibly engaging and strange and striking Viv Stanshall as a front-man was a great boon, but each of the ensembles’ other key characters brought their own unique strengths and features to the mix as well, with Legs Larry’s tap-dancing and Roger Ruskin Spear’s robotic stage apparatuses being particularly prominent examples. Because the Bonzos were television regulars early in their collective career, there are fantastic archives of their live and studio performances available, so being able to see so much of what they did, when they did it, certainly adds a lot to my appreciation for their work.

The group’s 1967 debut album, Gorilla, featured a song called “Jazz, Delicious Hot, Disgusting Cold,” which featured a rollicking romp through every bad musical cliche and performance tic offered by substandard traditional players. (In similar fashion, Innes later offered what he designated “the worst guitar solo ever” on “Canyons of Your Mind.”) I would argue that parody and satire are similar to jazz in being delicious hot and disgusting cold; they’re creative pursuits that are easy to do badly, and hard to do well. The Bonzo Dog Band were masters at delivering their parodic, satiric fare in the most blazingly hot fashions possible, merging clever, well-arranged music with truly amusing and insightful texts. Many comedic creations only really work the first time you hear them, not hitting as hard once you know the jokes and the punchlines. But with the Bonzos, some of their greatest works still make me grin with glee, no matter how many times I’ve spun them over the past four decades or so. Nobody else looked or sounded like them, and that still keeps their brilliance at a high and unique level, often admired, seldom attempted, rarely achieved by any others.

For my Top Ten Bonzo Dog Band songs below, while I reference their original source albums, and usually listen to them via those sources, I have included some of their live/studio videos where possible to give you both the audible and visual elements of their all-senses-engaged musical magic.

10. “I’m The Urban Spaceman,” from Tadpoles (1969):

9. “Humanoid Boogie,” from The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse (1968):

8. “The Intro and the Outro,” from Gorilla (1967):

7. “Rhinocratic Oaths,” from The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse (1968): 

6. “What Do You Do?,” from Keynsham (1969):

5. “Canyons of Your Mind,” from Tadpoles (1969):

4. “Keynsham,” from Keynsham (1969): 

3. “11 Mustachioed Daughters,” from The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse (1968) (Note: This video is performed by bIG Grunt, a group formed during the Bonzos’ early ’70s hiatus, featuring Stanshall, Cowan, and Ruskin Spear, among others): 

2. “Sport (The Odd Boy),” from Keynsham (1969):

1. “My Pink Half of the Drainpipe,” from The Doughnut in Granny’s Greenhouse (1968): 

 

Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists (Series Four) #1: HOUSE Of ALL

/ J. Eric Smith / 1 Comment

Note: For an explanatory introduction and an index of all articles (plus groups yet to be covered) in all four “Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists” series, click here.

Who They Are: As I launch the fourth series of this recurring examination of my favorite musical artists, it seems apt to choose HOUSE Of ALL to kick it off, because they did not exist at the time that I wrote the first series installments in 2020, and yet they have been so prolific since their inception, with releases of such high quality music,  that they clearly earn a spot in the roster of my all-time faves. The group was formed as an extension of “The Fall Family Continuum,” featuring five key former members of Manchester’s finest group: Fall founding guitarist Martin Bramah (also the lead vocalist here, and also longtime front-man with Blue Orchids), stalwart Fall bassist Steve Hanley, final Fall guitarist Peter Greenway, and dual drummers Paul Hanley (Steve’s brother) and Simon Wolstencroft.

That quintet’s Fall service time collectively covered the group’s history from its very beginning to its very end, except for the more-tumultuous-than-usual 1998-2007 era. Some of them played together in The Fall at the same time(s), and some didn’t. Greenway does not play live with HOUSE Of ALL, so non-Fall-alumnus Phil Lewis has provided six-string textures on stage since the group’s inception, and has also become a participating studio member of the group, which grew into a seven-headed beast when longtime on-and-off Fall drummer Karl Burns joined in time for HOUSE Of ALL’s third album, remaining ever since. So if you’re keeping score, that means that on the group’s most recent album, Inklings, we’ve got three guitarists and three drummers thundering and shuddering around Steve Hanley’s monstrous anchoring bass lines, with Martin Bramah offering excellent declamatory texts atop the strong sonic stew. HOUSE Of ALL have released four albums, plus some adjacent EPs and singles, since 2023, all of them of excellent quality, all of them immediately recognizable, yet each one demonstrating growth and change and progress over its predecessors. That’s impressive, that is!

When I First Heard Them: As soon as it was possible to do so, with the release of the “Harlequin Duke” single in advance of their self-titled debut album, in early 2023. That single was a brilliant revelation, clearly cut from Fall-patterned fabric, but of a different Fall cloth than that garbing the other primary post-Fall group, the excellent Imperial Wax (who also feature the ever-interesting Peter Greenway on guitar). I’ve since grabbed each subsequent HOUSE Of ALL release, eagerly, as soon as it was possible for me to do so, and I’ve not been disappointed by anything I’ve heard.

Why I Love Them: The obviously logical answer would be because I love The Fall, and these players are among the most influential and important in that group’s long history, and so they must be good and appealing to me when working together in a new configuration. But that narrative doesn’t actually work, because there have been a lot of post-Fall groups and releases out there over the years (given that there are a lot of ex-Fall members), but most of those groups and releases haven’t much appealed to me, as they’ve somehow not captured the spark and magic that have made The Fall so important to me, for so many years.

But no worries on that front about HOUSE Of ALL, who make excellent, original music, deftly merging ear-worm melodies, powerful riffs and grooves, and Bramah’s quirky and fascinating lyrics, often anchored in ancient texts and tropes, with pleasing occasional references to The Fall and its fallen guiding visionary, Mark E. Smith. Bramah’s voice is interestingly evocative of Smith’s at times, though never to the point of mimicry; in their very earliest days, that duo’s roles in the Fall were reversed, though Smith’s lack of discernible guitar talent quickly led him to taking the microphone while Bramah took the early group’s instrumental and songwriting lead. The other interesting aspect of the chemistry the group creates hinges on the different eras represented by these Fall alumni, as their various incarnations of that great group were quite different on the sonic front, so the elements they bring to their new stew are of different flavors, and together they make something fresh and vibrant and most musically tasty. But truly, the glue that holds everything together, and that is simultaneously the most historically Fall-like and the most right-now like, is the bass work of Steve Hanley, a giant on his instrument, who serves his songs brilliantly, guiding them with a firm hand, while giving them the swing and sway that they so well deserve.

While all seven members of HOUSE Of ALL are equally credited, it’s also really interesting how they deploy their resources in the studio and onstage, with different combinations of drummers and guitarists appearing on different songs. They’re all talented enough, and different enough in their styles and technique, that this approach results in a fascinating variety of tones and textures in their music. I also love their iconic approach to packaging their music, with Jim Donnelly’s beautiful and haunting photographic studies of Manchester-area architecture giving the records a cohesive feel, like multiple issues of a periodical magazine that you always love finding in your mailbox, and can instantly recognize by its glossy dressing.

Finally, I deeply appreciate the presence of some of The Fall’s best archivists and storytellers in HOUSE Of ALL, by which I mean both Bramah as a lyricist, and the participation of Steve Hanley, Paul Hanley, and Simon Wolstencroft, who I would argue have written three of the four best books ever penned about The Fall. (The fourth would be Steve Pringle’s You Must Get Them All: The Fall on Record). I highly commend Doc Shanley’s The Big Midweek: Life Inside The Fall, Paul’s Have A Bleedin Guess: The Story of Hex Enduction Hour, and Funky Si’s You Can Drum But You Can’t Hide for your reading attention. And I must note in closing that the Hanley Brothers also inspired one of my occasional weird quasi-musical adventures, documented here. Be sure to visit when you’re in Southwestern Minnesota, you hear?

#10. “Infamous Immoral Sister,” from HOUSE Of ALL SOULS (2025): 

#9. “Turning of the Years,” from HOUSE Of ALL (2023): 

#8. “Letter to a Young Poet,” from Continuum (2024):

#7. “Prince of This World,” from Inklings (2026): 

#6. “Dominus Ruinea,” from HOUSE Of ALL (2023): 

#5. “Under a Crooked Sky” from Continuum (2024):

#4. “Valiant Heart,” from Inklings (2026): 

#3. “The Good Englishman,” from HOUSE Of ALL SOULS (2025): 

#2. “Harlequin Duke,” from HOUSE Of ALL (2023):  

#1. “Born at Dawn and Dead at Sunset,” from HOUSE Of ALL SOULS (2025): 

(My) Best of Sedona, 2026

/ J. Eric Smith / 2 Comments

The greater Sedona metro area (including Uptown Sedona, West Sedona, and Village of Oak Creek) has a permanent resident population of fewer than 20,000 souls, but we welcome about 3.0 million tourists and visitors each and every year. There are a few times in the annual calendar when tourism spikes and peaks, and we’re in the heart of one of those seasons right now, with various Spring Breaks and the rebirth-time religious holidays in close confluence, one to the other.

After nearly six years here, Marcia and I know when and how to steer clear of the hordes that arrive at our peak tourism seasons, adjusting our social, entertainment, shopping, and recreational activities accordingly. That’s actually easier than it might otherwise be due to the influence of the Internet on tourism, because the vast majority of visitors here feel compelled to hike the same small number of destinations, seek out reservations at the same small number of restaurants, and engage in the same small number of social and shopping activities, because Yelp, or Instagram, or TripAdvisor, or any number of other platforms have told them to do so.

Are those Internet-mandated activities the best things that Sedona has to offer? Nope. Not by a long shot, generally, and the popularity of certain destinations is often completely mind-blowing to those of us who actually live here. Though we are also equally often pleased that such baked-in presumptions exist, because they tend to focus on places that we don’t go, and herding the visitors into such densely packed destinations frees up space elsewhere for those less inclined to follow the herd.

Probably the most classic example of this is the Devil’s Bridge hike. When you search for Sedona destinations, you’ll almost certainly come across photos like this one, of a wonderful and magical stone arch, where you can commune with nature and have a glorious, pristine, natural experience, even in your wedding attire, or ballet clothes, or culturally-appropriated Native garb, or hottie influencer designer outfits, or whatever (note that this is not my own photo):

But here’s what you don’t see in those artistically framed and edited photos (this one is also not mine):

To get that “perfect photo,” you will slog through heavy road traffic, you will fight to find a parking spot and probably end up parking along the road far from the trailhead, you will slog up a long trail in huge crowds of people, many of whom will neither be dressed appropriately for the conditions, nor have the stamina (nor water supply) to safely get to the top, and then you will stand in a long line, for a long time, for a quick “perfect photo” opportunity, that will look just like every other “perfect photo” taken thousands of times every day from that same spot.

Which, to be quite frank, is dumb, because Sedona is filled with incredible vistas, magical hikes, beautiful rambles, exceptional flora and fauna, and all sorts of other magnificent attractions. Many of those amazing destinations can be pleasurably enjoyed, in near privacy, all year long, without having to deal with the mobs that the Internet’s algorithms produce at Devil’s Bridge, or Cathedral Rock, or Bell Rock, or Chicken Point, or the Birthing Cave, or Snoopy Rock, or the Subway Cave, or any of the nonsensically-designated “vortex” sites popular with the Woo Industrial Complex.

Being semi-retired and somewhat obsessive about my fitness and exploratory activities, I estimate that I am on the trails around here well over 300 days each year, and that I have hiked over 7,000 miles in the immediate Sedona area since we moved here in 2020. I have been on every mapped/maintained forest service trail in the area, though I now spend the majority of my time on unmapped/unmaintained social trails, or game paths, or bushwhacking, or scrambling rocks with no trails whatsoever. And even at that extreme level of activity in a relatively small geographic area, I still find new things, am awed by new views, discover new routes, and have truly magical moments, alone or with friends, deeply relishing the natural experiences available to us hereabouts.

It occurs to me that it might be helpful to share a bit of local perspective on some of those magical experiences, for those who might want to visit our incredible home community. Marcia has (correctly) noted that I can be a bit of a crank (which we define as a person who has too many strong opinions about too many things)(check and check), so my suggestions and recommendations will likely diverge quite a bit from what other Internet sites will tell you, but I can assure you that you will leave the area with some different stories to tell than most of the other stories you’ll hear about Sedona visits if you engage with these tips, and those stories won’t be heavily focused on bad traffic or long lines or obnoxious behavior or over-priced retail experiences.

Getting Here:

First off: what is “here”? I tend to use “Sedona” as a descriptor for the greater red rocks region around us (formed from the distinctive local Schnebley Hill Formation sandstone), rather than specifically to the City of Sedona, which is divided into the Uptown area (in Coconino County) and the West Sedona area (in Yavapai County). The rocks and wilderness areas here are pretty much right on top of or adjacent to the areas where people actually live (as an example, the border of Coconino National Forest is directly across the street from our house, behind our neighbors’ property there), so unlike with a National or State Park, there’s no gated control point where you can distinguish being inside the attraction from being outside of it.

We actually don’t live in the City of Sedona, but instead reside in The Village of Oak Creek (VOC), an unincorporated Yavapai County community about six miles south of the City’s borders. Many of the signature destinations of the “Sedona” experience are actually in or close to VOC, and the traffic here is far less awful than it gets in the City, so I would personally recommend finding your lodging/base of operations here, if you’re not hell-bent on being able to walk to the tourist shopping areas, which are pretty much like all other tourist shopping areas you’ve experienced in every other tourist-oriented retail hub you’ve visited, anywhere, ever. I would also note that the explosion of short-term rentals has been devastating to the region’s housing stock, making it difficult-to-impossible for many people working to support the tourism industry to actually live here. So I would respectfully encourage you to consider one of the many hotels, motels, resorts, or traditional BnBs (not the “Air” kind) that the region offers. We’d be in an even better place, if more visitors did that.

Unless you’ve got a private plane (or can afford to charter somebody else’s), you’re going to drive into Sedona, and if you’re doing it during heavy tourism season, you’re going to experience some nasty traffic. There are only three roads that lead into the City of Sedona: Highway 179 from I-17 and VOC to the south, Highway 89A up from Cottonwood to the southwest, or Highway 89A down from Flagstaff to the North. And guess what? All three of those roadways eventually meet at a single point, a traffic circle complex known as “The Y,” which is immediately adjacent to the biggest shopping and dining destinations in the area. Gridlock is common there, and unfortunately, there’s really no way to get around it, since there are no other roads to bypass it. This problem is exacerbated by the preponderance of traffic circles in the area; they are simple and effective if people know how to use and drive in them, but I’m routinely amazed by how many people don’t possess that skill, causing backups or accidents by failing to properly navigate into or out of the circles. If I have to go into the City of Sedona from VOC during tourist season (normally a ~15 minute drive), I either go super early in the morning, or I take a 35-mile detour through Page Springs, which ends up being faster and less aggravating than sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic for seven-plus miles.

Since we moved here, the City has implemented a Shuttle Bus service that cycles between two centralized parking areas and a variety of popular tourism sites. On one hand, that certainly seems like a good and viable solution to congestion. But in reality and execution, since there aren’t any designated roads for the shuttles to use beyond those already clogged with private vehicular traffic, the net effect of the buses is that you just end up sitting in traffic with others, rather than in your own car, and as the buses get backed up, you may also find yourself waiting at a trailhead or shopping center for far longer than you might like at the end of an excursion, hoping that when the bus finally arrives, it won’t already be full. Staying in the VOC will eliminate a lot of that aggravation while still giving you access to incredible destinations, so I again do strongly encourage people to consider that.

Hiking in Sedona

As noted above, I spend most of my time off of the “official” forest service trails, but I certainly can’t recommend you do the same on your own if you’ve never been here, or if you’re only here for a brief visit, as it takes time and experience to learn to navigate such routes safely. (I’m always happy to guide hikes, so if you know me or others like me, that’s the best way to have your first off-trail experiences hereabouts). Three other key suggestions/notes for hiking hereabouts:

  • Surface conditions can be gnarly, even on well-traveled trails, as our crumbly rocks mean that there are very few routes where you will be walking on groomed or even or level or smooth surfaces. If you’ve never hiked in such rocky-rolly conditions, and you’re looking at trail ratings online, I suggest you slightly bump up the ratings, such that an “easy” trail may feel like a “bit harder than easy” trail, when compared to other similarly rated trails elsewhere. Good footwear is essential, and sneakers or sandals or flip-flops are not a good idea. Hiking poles are highly useful (but learn how to use them correctly, please), especially on skrittly descents, and I remain perpetually bemused by people (usually men) who refuse to use them, for (mumble mumble) reasons, then end up slipping or falling on slopes that a good pole would have made manageable. No shame in a good butt slide to get down a steep descent, either. Whatever works for you, and is safe, is good. Water is also essential, and you’re a fool if you grab a 12-ounce plastic bottle at a convenience store and think that’s going to suffice on a hot, dry day hereabouts.
  • The hierarchy of rights-of-way on mixed-use trails around here is horses > hikers > bikers. Many trails, however, are not mixed use, especially in the wilderness areas, so if the signs say no bikes, or no e-bikes, or no horses, then that means no bikes, no e-bikes, and no horses. Don’t be that guy who kills someone (or yourself) by rocketing around like Evil Kneivel on your mountain bike if you’re not supposed to be there, and despite the law of gross tonage, don’t expect hikers to get out of your way if you’re out of control on a descent or a flat, because the hikers have the right of way, and many of them will insist on asserting it. (As a former cyclist myself, I’m a bit more lenient on this issue, as I understand that it’s easier for me to just step aside than it is for a cyclist to have to un-clip or regain momentum after a stop, but I’m an exception in that regard, not the rule).
  • Peace, quiet, and serenity are key components of our outdoor experiences around here. So please don’t be that guy who brings a tinny blaring Bluetooth speaker on the trails, because other people will hear you and your noise a long, long way from where you are making it. I’m about the most music-manic person I know, so if I can stand to be without my tunes every day while out on the trails, so can you. Headphones and earbuds are not good alternatives, mind, as you want to hear hikers/bikers/horses behind you, or the sound of falling rocks, or wildlife. Rattlesnakes (which are common here) are good about warning you when you get too close, but if you can’t hear them, their warnings do no good. Chomp!

Here are ten good hikes that I would suggest to visitors, in three tiers of difficulty. They are all on official, mapped, forest service trails, but they are not as congested as some of the more Internet-favored routes, they all feature more-readily-available parking (sometimes free, sometimes paid; get a Red Rock Pass or use your National Parks pass to cover the expense), and they all offer wonderful, memorable views and experiences. Click the link in each trail’s name to get a map image to help you find it, then use the well-marked trail signage or your own GPS to navigate them safely once you arrive at the start of each route.

Easy Hikes:

  • Fay Canyon from Fay Canyon Parking: Paid parking, for a short out-and-back that gets you into a very scenic canyon with the least effort possible; side trails to Fay Canyon Arch, or up the left and right canyon forks at trail end are available for those willing to add some unmapped extra credit bits, with some scrambling available for good measure. A solid introductory trail choice for those with young children or those with limited mobility or stamina. Mellow, pretty, easy.
  • Woods Canyon from Red Rock Ranger Station: An out-and-back as far as you want to go, up to ~11 miles round trip if you take the trail to its end. Nice shade/forest in its middle/far sections, great picnic/rest/swim sites toward the turnaround point, and some nice side trails to the right as you’re out-bound that are delightful when Dry Beaver Creek is in flow (typically spring snow-melt and summer monsoon seasons).

Moderate Hikes:

  • The “Pig Trails” Loop from Broken Arrow Parking: Puts you near the crowded Chapel/Chicken Point area, but from a direction that keeps the traffic volume down. Takes you to a great up-and-over pass north of Twin Buttes/Elephant Rock with incredible views and some fun clambers up and onto a variety of red rock decks.
  • Chimney Rock/Thunder Mountain Loop from Thunder Mountain Parking: Puts you into another somewhat-busy area, but from a direction where you won’t have to deal with parking messes or too many people. Keep an eye out for the Amitabha Stupa and Peace Park just below Chimney Rock Pass; there are a variety of side trails leading down to it, and it is beautiful and peaceful indeed. Extra credit: climb Little Sugarloaf via a signed trail for some extra mileage, elevation, and views.
  • Turkey Creek Trail from Upper Turkey Creek Parking: You need to go up a moderately-rough dirt road to get to the parking area, but it’s worth it. This is an out-and-back, like Woods Canyon, where you can go as far as you want, then turn back. If you follow the trail to its end, you will be up on House Mountain, our local dormant volcano. There is a major trail-building project in this area right now, so for extra credit, you can peel off onto any of the new routes (well, actually formally-adopted old social trails, for the most part) to get up out of the Turkey Creek Basin.
  • Ridge/Sketch/Secret Slickrock Loop from Sunset Park: A lovely loop with a variety of options on how to do it, including some fun side trails, but getting up to the Ridge Saddle south of Airport Mesa, and then down onto the Secret Slickrock area, will give you some of the signature/best views of Cathedral Rock available.
  • Canyon of Fools/Mescal Mountain from Canyon of Fools Trailhead: Roadside parking, for a “balloon” route that takes you up a series of high/narrow washes onto the decks surrounding Mescal Mountain. As you come back around, you will encounter the Devil’s Bridge and Birthing Cave parking/traffic, but the folks going up to those attractive nuisances will generally be going a different way, so just push through them and you’ll get back to peaceful  times fairly quickly. For extra credit here, go out-and-back on the Long Canyon Trail for as far as you’d like. It’s rich with stunning cliffs walls and soothing forest shade.

Difficult Hikes:

  • Sterling Pass/Vultee Arch from Sterling Pass Trailhead: If you really need to see and walk on an arch, and you’re a strong hiker, definitely do this one instead of Devil’s Bridge. There’s very limited roadside parking at the lightly-marked trailhead, so an early arrival is advisable. For extra credit, look for the Vultee plane crash site marker on the rocks above the east side of the arch; the crash site itself is harder to reach, and I wouldn’t advise trying to find it on a first visit without being familiar with the general area. Also, watch out for bears.
  • North Wilson Trail to Sedona Vista and Canyon Vista from Encinoso Picnic Area: Paid parking, for the largest vertical climb you can do in the immediate Sedona area, which delivers two of the best vistas in the region, one overlooking Sedona to the south, one overlooking Sterling Pass (you can see Vultee Arch) and Oak Creek Canyon to the north. Both vistas are well worth visiting, if you’ve taken the time to get up top on Wilson. Many people go to the Sedona Vista from the South Wilson Trailhead at Midgley Bridge, but parking is tighter there, and the trail is longer (though less steep) with serious southern exposure, which can make for quite a slog on a hot day. The North trail has more shade and is much prettier.
  • Bear Mountain from Bear Mountain Trailhead: Paid parking (though if it’s busy, you may end up parking on the roadside, for free) for an out-and-back route through some incredible panoramas, and one of the best examples of the geology of the area, as you will climb through the various sedimentary beds that define our region. A signature, memorable route, though you might have to grind through the Devil’s Bridge/Birthing Cave/Subway Cave automotive hordes to get there. Early arrival, always advisable.

I keep Flickr albums of many of my more memorable adventures in the area, so if you’d like to look at them for ideas and inspirations on hikes, you can do so here. If something looks interesting to you, shoot me a note via comment or email, and I can give you more details, or even take you out for a local-guided experience. (Unpaid and casual, of course, as I don’t have, nor do I want, a commercial guide’s license, with the related expenses and liabilities). I’m always happy to share the best of what I’ve found hereabouts.

Dining Out in Sedona:

I’m a big believer that an excellent dining-out experience involves three components: quality of food, ambience of surroundings, and competence of service. Failure to deliver even one of those three criteria results in a less-than-stellar experience, always. And I’m very likely to offend people (especially some of our local restaurateurs) in saying this, but Sedona often struggles to meet those three criteria consistently, especially in some of the restaurants that the Internet will tell you are must-eat destinations hereabouts. (I’m also a believer that when Internet-driven hype means I have to work ridiculously hard, weeks or months in advance, to get a reservation some place, I’m almost certain to be disappointed in the results of my efforts). There are a few restaurant groups around here with multiple eateries, and our clear favorite is the Mercer Group, which is well-represented in my recommendations below.

I’d gently suggest that you just temper your expectations about dining out when you come here, having spent much of my life in world-class foodie destinations and cities. This isn’t one of them, though I have had consistently solid and enjoyable experiences at the seven restaurants listed below, and recommend them all without reservation.

Fine Dining:

Mid-Tier Dining:

Casual/Budget Dining:

Arts and Culture in Sedona:

There are a lot of bars and restaurants that have live music hereabouts, but it tends to be of either the “dude with acoustic guitar singing overwrought renditions of overplayed  Van Morrison, Bob Marley, and James Taylor cover songs” idiom, or of the “person with a decent voice singing karaoke over canned backing tracks” variety. Having been deeply immersed in amazing music scenes over the decades, neither of these are interesting to me, at all, so I have no recommendations on that front.

I consider the best music-related organization in the region to be Sedona Symphony. (Full disclosure for transparency’s sake: I served in a consulting capacity as their Interim Executive Director last year, and am committed to joining their Board of Trustees in July). Under the artistic direction of Maestro Will White for the past year, programs, guest artists, and performances have been consistently outstanding. The Symphony generally performs only five times each year (four classical concerts, one Pops concert), but if you’re here when they’ve got a concert scheduled, I highly recommend attending it.

I also recommend the Sedona Heritage Museum to help you understand the region’s pioneer, settlement, and development history, which are all quite fascinating. After you’ve learned a bit about how Sedona came to be, and for an extra credit assignment that most people miss, find the Cooks Cedar Glade Cemetery (now in a loosely-industrial area near the road up Airport Mesa) and pay your respects at the graves of T.C. and Sedona Schnebley, the latter of whom is the namesake of the City and region.

Sedona’s pioneer history is, of course, but a small bite of the pie of historic human activity in this area, which was settled in antiquity by various Native peoples, perhaps most notably the Hisat’sinom (also known as the Sinagua), who left behind over a thousand dwelling and art sites hereabouts when they migrated north to the Hopi Highlands around 1425 CE (for reasons mysterious). Most of these sites are difficult to reach, unmapped, and not widely known/advertised, but once you develop a sense of where the Hisat’sinom were active, and where they liked to build, you can find and explore some truly remarkable sites. Keep in mind, of course, that these sites are often considered sacred spaces by the Native peoples still living in the area, and visit them as you would a fine cathedral in Europe, with a sense of both humility and respect. It’s bad form to eat, drink, be loud, or otherwise disruptive in such sites, and never, ever touch any rock art, nor carve into nor mark anything man-made or natural, nor pocket anything you find at such sites. Footprints are all you should leave, photos and memories are all you should take.

There are two driving-required day-trips that I’d also recommend, which allow you to visit the relatively small number of preserved/protected/interpreted archaeological sites hereabouts; you could do both in a day, if you wanted to, but I will cluster them into two groups based on relative proximity:

Given the amazing volume and quality of legitimate Native American history in the area, I get routinely annoyed by a lot of the fake/appropriated stories told about sites here, to give them some kind of cool extra cache by playing the Native card when it’s not valid. No, the local Native women did not have to climb up into the Birthing Cave when it was time for them to deliver. No, the Seven Sacred Pools were not a holy site for the Native people here. And no, the supposedly magical “vortex” sites were not sacred to the Native people either. That’s probably the most offensive and stupid of the cultural appropriations hereabouts.

The whole “vortex” concept dates from the 1980s, during the heyday of the New Age movement. A psychic and writer named Page Bryant came (briefly) to Sedona from Florida in 1979, after which she claimed that she was visited by a spirit called Albion, who told her where these sacred energy spots could be found.  Bryant did some talks and tours about her concepts, which then later had the fake Native influence elements grafted onto them, and which the Sedona Chamber of Commerce and government thought was a worthy tourism-revenue generating ploy, so the concept was adopted and codified and is still sold, snake oil style, to this day. Bryant later relocated to Asheville, North Carolina, where (whaddyaknow!) she also “discovered” vortexes, with Albion’s guidance. More about all of that in her 2017 obituary, here.

I post that not to be mean/cruel to her, but just as a defense from those who inevitably lecture me about my lack of open-mindedness on things other-wordly, when I roll my eyes when people ask me how to get to a vortex site, and then also are prone to further lecture me on their “factual,” “research” based investigations in such matters. Which, as we all know, means they asked an AI a question, or did a Google search, so now they are experts. Yes, some people will certainly claim that they can feel magical or metaphysical forces when they visit a vortex (with hordes of other people), but I’m perfectly confident in arguing that you can experience such feelings just about anywhere in the majestic rocks around Sedona, even more so when you can do it without a mob crowding the site. You don’t need to honor the Woo Industrial Complex by going where it tells you to go to get a taste of Sedona Magic. The whole place is special. The vortexes are just tourist nonsense, anchored in a charlatan’s delusions.

And yes, I know that the plural of “vortex” is “vortices,” but those into these sites tend to use the grammatically incorrect plural form, which is also annoying to me, as a language guy.

Shopping in Sedona:

The two biggest shopping areas in greater Sedona are near each other: the Uptown Tourism Strip, and the Tlaquepaque Outdoor Arts Village. The Uptown area has the usual sorts of shops common to most any tourism destination, while Tlaquepaque offers some higher quality galleries and shops in the actual mall complex, supplemented by a few additional galleries and shops southward along Highway 179 up to the nearby Hillside Shopping Complex. Expect crowds, parking difficulties, lines, and higher prices at these destinations, should you wish to visit them during peak tourism seasons.

I don’t often shop at (or even visit) either of those destinations accordingly, but I do have some favorite places that I can recommend elsewhere:

  • Kachina House: An outstanding outlet for historic and contemporary Native American art, the best in the region, easily.
  • Village Gallery: An artists’ cooperative located in VOC, near our house. The art and artists rotate fairly regularly, so there’s almost always something new and interesting when I visit.
  • Canyon Outfitters: We have a variety of outdoor/hiking/camping/biking stores in the area, but this one is easily the best of the bunch.
  • Son-Silver-West Galleries: When we moved here, we could never remember the name of this place, so we still refer to it as “The Tchotchke Shop.” It’s essentially a tourist shopping destination, but it’s a big, multi-building complex with some fun bric-and-brac and art to be had, and it’s between City of Sedona and VOC, so you can get in and out a bit easier than you can the Uptown and Tlaquepaque areas, if you really need some little retail remembrances of your time here.

Golfing in Sedona: 

What Hiking in Sedona is for me, Golfing in Sedona is for Marcia: she’s out on the links playing 18 holes three or four times a week, happily obsessing about the recreational activity she most enjoys. There are three 18-hole courses in the area: Sedona Golf Resort, a public course adjacent to the Hilton Hotel on the south side of VOC; Oakcreek Country Club (OCC), a semi-public course in the heart of VOC (its signature 13th hole is just around the corner from our house)(if you consider climbing over some rocks to be “just around the corner,” as I do); and the private Club at Seven Canyons out west of Sedona, near Boynton and Long Canyons.

Marcia has played all three courses, but OCC is her home course; she’s been a member since we moved here, and was the President of the Club’s Women’s Golf League for a couple of years. There’s no doubt in her mind that OCC is the finest course in the area, with its challenging design, spectacular views, mature trees, and pleasant water features. It is the region’s oldest championship course, co-designed by the legendary Robert Trent Jones, Sr. and Robert Trent Jones, Jr. Lest you think Marcia might be biased as a member, I’ll point out that OCC was named the Fourth Best Public Course in the United States by USA Today this year; click here to learn more about that. So if you’re a golfer, we feel perfectly comfortable advising you to play OCC when you visit. We’ve never heard anybody complain about doing so.

Conclusion: 

So those are my thoughts and counsel about things to do in a place that doesn’t lack for them, and that also doesn’t lack for people wanting to be here, doing other things, most of the time. Hopefully this is useful to someone, and if not, it’s still useful to me to jot down the things I think about, every now and again, regarding the place where I’ve made my (hopefully) forever home. The bottom line is that I love it here, dearly, as much as I’ve ever loved anyplace where I’ve spent comparable time. I also deeply love sharing my experiences here, both online, and in person, when people are able to visit the area, or visit us. I like to think that if you do come here, and take some experienced local advice to heart over what some Instagram Travel Influencer or commercial tour company wants to sell tell you, you will optimize your chances of having your own magical time here, rather than spending most of your trip being frustrated by traffic, crowds, lines, and noise. Happy travels, be safe, and maybe I’ll see you out there on the trails!

Happy after the hard work of making it to the Wilson Mountain summit. But I’m almost always happy and doing hard work, wherever I go hereabouts!

Lost Chronicles

/ J. Eric Smith / 1 Comment

1. Two years ago yesterday, my trail buddy Bob Breard died suddenly of an aortic dissection, on his 75th Birthday. I wrote a tribute to Bob and his impact on me and our community a few days later, and you can revisit that remembrance here, should you wish. Yesterday, a group of my former and current regular hiking partners gathered for a chilly morning ramble up to the outcrop where we had scattered Bob’s ashes in 2024 to tell stories, most of which involved a lot of laughter, and to sing “Happy Birthday” to a man who hated to have each of his orbits around the sun noted or remarked upon, to the point where he was actually quite secretive about his natal date. It was a lovely gathering, including some folks who I haven’t seen for awhile due to various life and health events taking them off the trails. At the end of our small act of loving reflection, three of us went up to the (very windy) Twin Buttes Saddle to stretch the day’s remembrance time, and to celebrate the fact that we can still climb the rocks that we all love so much. You can click on the photo of our group heading up into the rocks, below, to see the rest of the hike photos. As a reminder, if you enjoy seeing these types of Sedona views, I keep a collection of albums on Flickr, and I generally post about adventures in real time on Facebook. Follow along, should you like to share in these experiences more regularly than I post about them here at the website.

2. In my prior post here, I noted that I was working as a consultant for the Southern Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) to facilitate the search for and hiring of a new Executive Director for the Chapter. We are continuing to accept applications through April 15th, working toward a goal of having the new Executive in place by July 15th. It’s a great opportunity leading an impressive organization, representing and advancing the interests of the professional community of arborists and urban foresters across a seven state/two territory region. Should you be potentially interested in this opportunity, or know anybody who might be a good fit for it, those links above provide the information needed to apply. Feel free to share, with our thanks.

3. Having finished my Genre Delve series a month or so ago, I’ve been thinking about another new writing series/project for the website (I have plenty of those ongoing right now for non-website purposes), and I keep circling back to my Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists concept. I’ve written 100 articles within that rubric, over the course of three series posted between June 2020 and November 2024. I enjoy writing them, and my traffic stats tell me that they’re actually quite popular with readers and search engines. I’ve had a couple of occasions recently where I’ve wanted to reference one of my posts about a particular group or artist, usually because I’m writing an obituary or other such retrospective piece, only to be surprised that I hadn’t actually written a post about said group or artist. Hmmmm. So there’s still a lot of faves out there to explore, and I think I will launch Series Four of Favorite Songs By Favorite Artists over the next couple of weeks. I’ve made a list of artists to consider, and share it below as a tease on who I’ll be covering. I may or may not do all of them, and I may or may not remember some other group or artist who will be added to the list, but this will at least give you a little taste of what I’ll be listening to, thinking about, and writing on as long as Series Four continues to entertain me, as will hopefully will you, too.

  • The Jazz Butcher
  • The Velvet Underground
  • Eric Dolphy
  • Joni Mitchell
  • Nick Cave (and related artists)
  • Black Flag
  • Midnight Oil
  • Split Enz
  • Yusef Lateef
  • The Pogues
  • Led Zeppelin
  • Fela Kuti
  • Henry Cow (and related artists)
  • Bad Company
  • Black Sabbath
  • Bonzo Dog Band
  • This Heat (and related artists)
  • Camper Van Beethoven
  • Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band
  • The Chap
  • Elton John
  • Family
  • House of All
  • J. Geils Band
  • Jonathan Richman/Modern Lovers
  • Little Feat
  • Mindless Self Indulgence (and related artists)
  • Oingo Boingo
  • The Police
  • Public Image Ltd.
  • The Smiths
  • Spooky Tooth
  • Warren Zevon
  • White Denim

What Are We Going to Do While We’re Here?

/ J. Eric Smith / Leave a comment

1. Today is our family’s most important holiday: Marcia and Katelin’s shared birthday, and also International Women’s Day. A perfect stack-up of the personal and the aspirational for us all, and their birthday should be a National Holiday, as it is in many other countries around the world. Katelin was born on Marcia’s 30th birthday, and this year is “35/65 Year” in our parlance for marking the day. I love them both with all my heart, mind, and soul, and they’ve given me more joy, fun, and happiness over the past three and half decades (longer, in Marcia’s case) than I would have imagined possible.

This is the first photo taken of them together, on March 8, 1991:

And this is the most recent photo I have of them together, taken when Marcia and I were in Las Vegas visiting Katelin and John last month:

Beautiful then, beautiful now. And smart and funny and talented and socially conscious as well. The complete package, times two. Yay, them!

2. A little over a year ago, I was the guest on the fourth episode of a then-emergent podcast called Steve’s Mix Tapes. Exceptional music historian/researcher/writer Steve Pringle, the podcast’s namesake, is now up to his 60th episode of Steve’s Mix Tapes, and I am once again a guest, this time as part of a tag-team approach involving ten stalwart members of the Fall Online Forum. These are folks who I’ve had online friendships with for well over 20 years; I’ve met some of them in person, while for others, this is actually the first time I’ve heard their speaking voices. The music, stories, and commentary on this episode are fun and enjoyable, and I commend it to your attention as 90 minutes well spent.

3. I posted my 2025 Album of the Year Report on December 5, 2025, the 34th year that I’ve offered such an assessment in either traditional print media, or online, or both. I usually present my annual albums report in late November or early December each year, on the presumption that I need to live with an album for a month, at least, before I declare it among the best things I heard over the course of a given year. I then do an update or supplement in January if I feel like I need to add anything truly notable that slipped in after I went live with my list for the year.

Nothing that came out in December made me feel like I needed to amend last year’s report, but as we are now three months beyond my declared end-of-year for 2025’s musical offerings, it means we are now into the First Quarter Report for 2026. I’ve been doing these interim reports to share what’s moving me in (slightly) more real time for a few years now. I don’t provide any reviews or rankings at this point, and some of these albums may indeed appear in my year-end report, while some might drop off if they don’t prove to have long legs. I also track singles and EPs as they come out; most of them are lead tracks for albums expected later in the year.

So if you’re looking for the best new slabs of music in the young year (thus far), then here’s what I would suggest belongs on that list, sorted in the order in which I acquired these discs; click on the links if you’d like to learn more about any and all of these records:

Best Albums of 2026 (First Quarter):

Best Non-Album Singles/EPs of 2026 (First Quarter):

If you want a sampler mix, with my fave song from each of these releases, here’s my Spotify tracking list for this ongoing work in progress report, which will be updated again in another three months:

Genre Delve #13: AOR/Classic Rock

/ J. Eric Smith / 8 Comments

(Note: This is one of an occasional and ongoing series of assessments of my favorite albums, parsed by musical genre. Click Here for a series introduction and list of all genres covered, or to be covered, therein).

Background: This article is the final installment of my Genre Delve series, which I created to provide a different lens for looking at the records that have most moved me throughout my life. “AOR/Classic Rock” was not actually a Genre that I had included in my working list when I first laid out the series, but as I explained in the Metal vs. Hard Rock installment:

Since I don’t like the term “heavy metal,” I decided [to frame this piece as] “metal” vs “hard rock” [. . .] but then that “hard rock” bucket offered some of its own challenges, especially when it came to big superstar ’70s rock acts like Led Zeppelin or The Who or Aerosmith. As I pondered the conundrum, I decided that there was actually a meaningful distinction between “hard rock” and “AOR/Classic Rock,” so I am going to cull what I consider to be emblematic records of the latter category, and give them a Genre Delve of their own. In some ways, I think that one will almost represent “Rock albums that are great, but at bottom line are just rock albums, no subsidiary distinctions necessary.”

While I noted the “no subsidiary distinctions necessary” caveat for this piece, there actually is a history with regard to this sort of catch-all Genre, largely driven (as is so often the case) by marketing considerations. In 1967, the Federal Communications Commission enacted a regulation that forbade radio station holding companies from simulcasting their AM content on their FM stations. The AM stations typically preserved their hold on Top 40, talk, and country music, while the FM airwaves (assisted by its stereo capabilities) began to offer disc jockeys the chance to curate “progressive” playlists, featuring deep album cuts, longer songs, and much wider stylistic freedom. (Note well that in those early FM radio days, the word “progressive” was not specifically associated with “progressive rock,” a.k.a. Prog).

By the early-1970s, as the radio station magnates sought to add listeners to their FM station inventories, progressive (usually called “freeform” by that time) radio focused in more specifically on rock-based music, with jazz, experimental, blues, soul and other genres being marginalized, or shifted to their own formatted stations. The original name for this new radio Genre was “Album-Oriented Radio” (AOR), though that evolved into “Album-Oriented Rock” by the late-’70s, to make it clear that rockers wouldn’t be subjected to, you know, any disco or funk or R&B or other “black music” that might offend their sensibilities. Of course, AOR would occasionally feature Jimi Hendrix or Thin Lizzy songs, and later Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” (featuring Eddie Van Halen), which was sort of the radio version of “I’m not racist! See, I have a black friend!”

AOR has evolved in the subsequent decades to also include “Adult-Oriented Rock,” which softens the idiom a bit with lite rock and pop oriented tunes. Stations also began to use “Classic Rock” as a synonym for AOR, and the aging Baby Boomers ate that up, leading to “Dad Rock” and “Yacht Rock” as subsidiary idioms for stations that cultivated audiences whose musical tastes had ossified around the mid/late-’70s, then grew to embrace ’80s Hair-Band Metal, then never evolved again.

It’s probably clear from the above that I don’t consider AOR/Classic Rock to be a Genre that I appreciate or value very much. But, that being said, there are certainly some magnificent “just regular old rock” albums that prominently feature in that programming idiom, and which don’t really fit into any of the other Genres that I have explored in this series. So on some plane, it’s good to finish this series with this installment, as it’s kind of a mopping-up, “don’t work elsewhere” entry. I love the ten albums cited below dearly, and have for much of my life, but I recognize that they’re sort of musical comfort food for many people at this point, providing inoffensive soundtracks to the living of every-day lives, without much thought or consideration for their relative artistic merits, or lingering influences.

There’s nothing really wrong with that, mind, and I know that most people don’t inhabit and obsess about music as much as I do, or give it as much weight in the reckoning of days, years, and decades. So in summary, these albums are really important to me and my musical evolution, even if the Genres into which they are normally slotted make me roll my eyes.

MY TEN FAVORITE AOR/CLASSIC ROCK ALBUMS EVER (IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)

1. The Who, Tommy (1969): While concept albums existed before Tommy (e.g. Small Faces’ Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake or The Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow), Pete Townsend’s “rock opera” really codified the approach to such narrative/literate rock. And with good reason: Tommy is an ambitious (and weird) set, filled with ace playing, powerful singing, and masterful melodies. It gave rock music artistic credibility, which it truly deserved.

2. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Déjà Vu (1970): If concept albums were a key tenet of AOR/Classic Rock’s heyday, supergroups were another, with varying configurations of established artists combining their talents, often creating things that were less than the sum of their ostensible parts. Déjà Vu, on the other hand, was something bigger, with four huge musical personalities making magic, which they never achieved again.

3. Fleetwood Mac, Future Games (1971): One of what most folks will likely perceive as a weird album choice by an obvious group. Yes, Rumours and Fleetwood Mac (the first two Buckingham-Nicks albums) were far more commercially successful, and I like them both, but Future Games (with singer-guitarists Danny Kirwan and Bob Welch and the J. McVie-C. McVie-Fleetwood core) is my fave Mac album. A neglected classic, verily.

4. Led Zeppelin: IV (Zoso) (1971): It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that “Stairway to Heaven” was the most played song in the history of AOR/Classic Rock Radio, and as such, it’s sort of become a punchline to a joke about musical pomp and pretense. But even though I don’t ever need to hear it again, I recognize its greatness, and then I recognize that it’s probably the weakest song on this truly epic, tremendous album.

5. Rolling Stones, Exile on Main St. (1972): Led Zeppelin were the paragons of “Audiences love ’em, critics hate ’em” during their heyday, but the Stones have generally managed to please both punters and pundits. Most especially on this, their drug-addled double-disc masterpiece, the most perfect set of songs they ever laid down to vinyl, plastic, bits, or bytes. There’s hits, there’s deep cuts, there’s greatness.

6. Wings, Venus and Mars (1975): I love me some Wings, and have been pleased to see that era of Paul McCartney’s amazing career getting some love via the recent Man On The Run documentary and book. As with Fleetwood Mac, the obvious choice of a Wings album here would seem to be Band On the Run, but I actually slightly prefer its follow-up, Venus and Mars, largely as the first record to feature Wings’ definitive lineup.

7. David Bowie, “Heroes” (1977): The central disc in David Bowie’s “Berlin Trilogy,” and really the only one actually (mostly) recorded in Germany’s then-divided city. “Heroes” finds “The DAM Trio” (Bowie’s funky American rhythm section of George Murray, Carlos Alomar, and Dennis Davis) joined by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, and together they make some of the most sensually cerebral music ever recorded, by anyone.

8. Steely Dan, Aja (1977): This is one case where my favorite album by a group is also the best-seller by said group, while standing tall as the Dan’s most essential critical masterpiece. Aja only has seven songs, but each of them are perfectly amazing little masterpieces. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were on their third album’s worth of overseeing an army of sessioneers with Aja, and they got everything just right, just so.

9. Bad Company, Desolation Angels (1979): Bad Company were another 1970s “supergroup,” with former members of Free, King Crimson, and Mott the Hoople banding together to make some great rock and roll, on Led Zeppelin’s boutique Swan Song label, no less. This, their fifth album, narrowly edges out their self-titled debut as my fave of theirs, the point where their chemistry cohered most completely for me.

10. Rush, Signals (1982): Okay, back to picking a perhaps obvious group for a list like this, but then picking an album that most other fans wouldn’t. I know I’m in a minority in liking their synth-heavy ’80s work more than their power trio ’70s releases, but I like what I like, and Signals contains some of my fave Rush songs, plus the most consistently enjoyable set of deep cuts on any of their discs. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

As I do for each installment in the Genre Delve series, I’ve linked my own personally-curated Spotify playlist related to this article, below. You can sample songs from the albums and artists cited here, and also other related favorites to give them setting and context. As always, I welcome your thoughts and reactions to my list, and your suggestions for other things that I might find interesting. Or, since this wraps the Genre Delve series for now, your thoughts on other musical idioms I might explore if there’s to be a second round of these sorts of articles at some point in the future.

Genre Delve #12: Funk vs. Soul

/ J. Eric Smith / 3 Comments

(Note: This is one of an occasional and ongoing series of assessments of my favorite albums, parsed by musical genre. Click Here for a series introduction and list of all genres covered, or to be covered, therein).

Background: As was the case with earlier Genre Delve installments on Hardcore vs. Post-Punk and Metal vs. Hard Rock, this article is gonna be a two-fer, because parsing “Funk” vs “Soul” is more difficult and arcane than I expected it to be when I first framed my genre categories. I tend to approach both idioms in an “I know it when I hear it” mindset, though the distinctions between Funk and Soul may be minor, at times, and there are many cases where one great album could readily fit in the Soul bucket, or the Funk bucket, or both buckets.

Both genres are anchored in the earlier Rhythm and Blues idioms that also birthed Rock n’ Roll, with strong influx from the sacred/Gospel side of the equation, especially in Soul music. Soul emerged as its own identifiable genre a bit before Funk did, with the term first documented to describe a musical sound/style around 1961. African-American music had, since the early 1940s, been tracked and charted in a segregated fashion; Billboard magazine had ranked such music under an evolving series of terms (first “The Harlem Hit Parade,” then “Race Records,” then various lists anchored around the catch-all “Rhythm and Blues Records” rubric) before beginning to track “Best Selling Soul Singles” in 1969. (That list has since been known as “Black Singles,” then “R&B Singles,” and “R&B/Hip-Hop Singles” from 1999 to present times). Of course, by the time Billboard began using the term “Soul,” the music had achieved significant crossover with the “non-Race” radio listening world, with numerous chart toppers through the latter parts of the 1960s. Motown, Stax, Atlantic, and Philadephia International Records all played key roles in recording and releasing many classic and commercially-successful Soul albums and singles, each label developing its own distinctive styles and sounds within the idiom.

Funk built on the established Soul framework, but shifted emphasis away from the melody and toward the groove, with bass and drum to the fore. Funk also featured more “self-contained” writing and instrumentation within groups, replacing the earlier “studio system” where house bands played songs written by house songwriters, with the singers publicly credited for the tracks (maybe) adding vocal stylings atop them, and then touring the product. Funk was often slower and punchier than Soul, and it tended to stretch songs out longer to make dance floors move. A key tenet of Funk is “The One,” the hard-stressed first beat of every measure. An equally key directive related to this tenet is: YOU DO NOT CLAP ON THE ONE!!! (As Buggy Jive once correctly noted in his song “This Is Not a Pipe:” The One is not for clapping, the One is where your ass goes.). While Soul Music certainly represented the messages of the Civil Right Movement ably and passionately, Funk Music tended to be more militant and activist in its messaging, recognizing that you could definitely think while you moved, and that the energy of a slamming groove is as great a motivator and inspiration as anything else readily served over the radio or in a club.

Another key difference between Funk and Soul lay in their stereotypical arrangements, where lush strings and other orchestrations were more likely to appear on Soul records, with punchy horn charts more prominent on Funk cuts. You were more likely to encounter studio and on-stage improvisation in Funk, while Soul tended to be more tightly composed and arranged. Funk drew a bit more than Soul on Jazz (especially Hard Bop) and Blues traditions, and it also tended to lend itself more to hybridization with other then-emergent forms, most especially Psychedelic Rock. Funk was freakier fare, Soul often smooth and sexy. (At the risk of being crass/coarse, I’ve heard the difference between the two described as “Soul is Lovemaking and Funk is F*cking,” and that’s not a bad summary, on some plane, when outside of polite company).

Great Funk and Soul cuts have been sampled and recycled since the dawn of Hip-Hop, keeping some of those classic grooves in the minds, ears, and hearts of generations of listeners not yet born when their beats were first laid down. Elements of Soul and Funk also fed back into Jazz, especially on the Fusion side of things, in the 1970s, and their killer dance-floor beats were directly contributory to the rise of Disco, which also brought in elements of Urban LGBTQ+ culture, and the driving monomania of America’s peak cocaine years. Billboard and similar music trade magazines never gave Funk its own charts, instead broadening their Soul banner to include everything from the smoothest harmony groups through the gnarliest dance bands, unfortunately focusing solely on the reductive “Black” aspects of the artists and their music over any actual distinctions between the idioms.

This, of course, is part of why it’s complicated to this day to parse the diversities between the genres, especially during their ’60s and ’70s heyday. But, being a list-making kinda guy, I’m going to give you two “Favorite Albums Ever” lists below, one for the Funk, one for the Soul. I’m going with some gut feel here in what I include in each list, and I am certain that we could have long and passionate arguments about where I draw the line, so if that’s problematic for you, then just merge the lists together and read them as “My Twenty Favorite Funk/Soul Albums Ever.”

MY TEN FAVORITE FUNK ALBUMS EVER (IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)

1. Sly and the Family Stone, Stand! (1969): San Francisco’s Sly and the Family Stone were the first multi-ethnic and multi-gendered group to score big on the pop music charts. Their first six albums are all essential, but Stand! (their fourth album) marks their pinnacle to these ears, the point where the original line-up was firing on all cylinders, and before Sly Stone’s mental health issues became problematic.

2. Funkadelic, Maggot Brain (1971): Maggot Brain was the third and final album by the incredible original lineup of Funkadelic, and it’s a masterpiece. That said, I debated about whether to include this LP or another from George Clinton’s early instrumental crew, as Maggot Brain is as psychedelic as it is danceably “funky” in the most common use of that word. But, hey, Funk often got weird, and this is the apex of that alignment.

3. Miles Davis, On the Corner (1972): While I’ve never really been a big fan of “Fusion” (Instrumental Rock + Jazz), I do quite love whatever we should call the more interesting merger of Funk + Jazz. On the Corner was critically hammered by the snooty jazz media upon its release, but in some ways, it may stand as Miles Davis’ most influential, forward-looking album, a masterpiece of groove, improv, and found sound.

4. Curtis Mayfield, Super Fly (1972): Isaac Hayes’ score for the 1971 film Shaft made Ike the first Black artist to win an Oscar for Best Original Song. But Curtis Mayfield’s score for 1972’s Super Fly was a stronger album, soup to nuts, than Shaft. The score actually out-sold the film, and its title song and “Freddy’s Dead” were both huge hits. Super Fly was also arguably a concept album, picking up a popular rock trend of the era.

5. Herbie Hancock, Head Hunters (1973): Herbie Hancock played on Miles Davis’ On the Corner (cited above), and a year after his work on that landmark, Hancock put together a killer band of his own to release the funk-jazz masterpiece Head Hunters. While this disc is often labeled as “Fusion,” I find it tighter and punchier than most of that hybrid genre, far more compelling than the noodlier stuff many fusionists played.

6. Earth, Wind & Fire, Open Our Eyes (1974): EWF main-man Maurice White grew up in Memphis and cut his musical teeth as a blues session player at Chicago’s famed Chess Records, then as jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis’ drummer. It took a few albums for his own band to find their unique style, but they most certainly had achieved that mark by the time of Open Our Eyes, the most consistently funky LP in their deep, great catalog.

7. Parliament, Mothership Connection (1975): While I only allow one album per artist on these lists, and while Parliament and Funkadelic (“P-Funk”) could be considered as a single act operating under different names for contractual reasons, there were true conceptual variances between the two, and the players on this disc and Maggot Brain were almost entirely different. So it stays, as the funkiest disc in the P-Funk Universe.

8. War, Why Can’t We Be Friends? (1975): War got their start as a backing band for Eric Burdon of The Animals, but he left in 1970 after their second album together, and they went on to greatness without him. This disc is the septet’s seventh without a personnel change, and it is a tight monster of monumental grooves and great singalong melodies. The title track and “Low Rider” are among the ’70s most tenaciously tasty jams, surely.

9. Mother’s Finest, Another Mother Further (1977): This one’s the most obscure entry here, but I love it, and it funks ferociously with hard rock guitar, so it earns a spot, since these are (after all) my own favorites. Mother’s Finest are an Atlanta-based juggernaut, formed in 1970 by singers Joyce Kennedy and Glenn Murdock, guitarist Gary Moore (not that one), and bassist Jerry Seay, all of whom remain in the group to this day.

10. Prince, 1999 (1982): Prince remained an active, prolific, working musician right up until his untimely death in 2016, but his true legend is built on the extraordinary run of nine albums he released between 1978 and 1987, every one surprising, amazing, and exciting upon real-time release. 1999 is arguably his magnum opus (though 1984’s Purple Rain outsold it, by a lot), with two solid discs of sexy, spiritual, topical Funk.

MY TEN FAVORITE SOUL ALBUMS EVER (IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER)

1. Aretha Franklin, I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967): The Queen of Soul issued nine fairly wan albums of jazz standards on Columbia Records before jumping to Atlantic Records in 1967. Her label debut was an absolute masterpiece, with Aretha’s formidable vocal chops supplemented by her under-appreciated piano work and great session playing by members of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. “Respect,” indeed!

2. Isaac Hayes, Hot Buttered Soul (1969): Isaac Hayes’ sophomore disc was a weird wonder, with a 19-minute version of Jimmy Webb’s “By The Time I Get to Phoenix” and a 12-minute version of Burt Bacharach’s “Walk On By” book-ending a pair of shorter tunes, one written by Ike. Sounds like it could be a bore, but it’s anything but, with Hayes’ smooth baritone raps and some rich arrangements making the music soar.

3. Marvin Gaye, What’s Going On (1971): Marvin’s eleventh studio disc is a concept album exploring inequity and injustice through the eyes of a Vietnam veteran returning home in challenging times. Its themes are dark, but its tunes are transcendent, with Gaye’s beautiful melodies atop lusciously arranged instrumental beds. It was a hit in its time, and remains a perpetual entry on any “Best Albums Ever” list worth its salt.

4. Al Green, Let’s Stay Together (1972): Al Green was a phenomenally successful Soul artist in the early 1970s, with this and most of his other great albums featuring original songs able served by killer performances from the Hi Rhythm Section. But after some tragic domestic struggles near the peak of his success, he shifted from Soul to Gospel, later becoming an ordained pastor. Let’s Stay Together is his greatest secular LP, easily.

5. Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, I Miss You (1972): The Blue Notes were formed all the way back in 1954, but never achieved lineup stability nor major success until they hired drummer Teddy Pendergrass in 1970, then promoted him to lead singer. By 1972, they’d signed to Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff’s hugely influential Philadelphia International label and released I Miss You, arguably their finest, most-consistent work.

6. Billy Paul, 360 Degrees of Billy Paul (1972): Another exemplar of the Philadelphia International sound, Billy Paul was a Philly native who made his first recordings in 1952. After a stint in the Army (he served with Elvis Presley), Paul led a Hard Bop jazz ensemble, then was also briefly a Blue Note. This fantastic record explores many of Paul’s musical touch-points, highlighted by the Soul masterpiece “Me And Mrs Jones.”

7. The Spinners, Spinners (1973): Yet another group formed in the early 1950s who performed in a yeoman-like fashion for many years before maturing into their mature, masterpiece form. Spinners was their third album, and the first with masterful singer Philippé Wynne joining long-time members Billy Henderson, Bobby Smith, Henry Fambrough, and Pervis Jackson. Beautiful music, sung sublimely, ear-worms aplenty.

8. Barry White, Can’t Get Enough (1974): Barry White is the absolute peak performer of smooth and sultry ’70s romantic Soul, his basso profundo voice and larger-than-life personality making him a most influential and popular performer at his peak. Working as both a solo artist and as a member of The Love Unlimited Orchestra, Can’t Get Enough marked White’s commercial apex. Nicely enough, it was also his best album.

9. Stevie Wonder, Songs In the Key of Life (1976): Stevie’s another of those artists who’s definitely funky, and supremely soulful, and hugely successful, and incredibly innovative and influential. While Songs In the Key of Life isn’t quite my fave Wonder disc (that would be Talking Book), it best embodies the sounds, styles, and messages of Soul Music, and it was his most commercially successful disc, with five hit singles. That’ll do.

10. Silk Sonic, An Evening With Silk Sonic (2021): It’s rare, in my experience, for artists to undertake a tongue-in-cheek tribute to a beloved musical genre, and then to make a record that ends up as good as those they’re honoring. Ween’s 12 Golden Country Greats is one such album, and this Bruno Mars/Anderson .Paak tribute to ’70s Soul is another. Super songs, arrangements, and sentiments, which always make me smile.

As I do for each installment in the Genre Delve series, I’ve linked my own personally-curated Spotify playlist related to this article, below. You can sample songs from the albums and artists cited here, and also other favorites to give them setting and context. While I’ve ranked Funk and Soul separately above, I acknowledge that the lines are fuzzy enough that a single playlist will suffice. Of course, there’s so much to choose from, so it’s a big playlist (150 songs), suitable to soundtrack an entire day if you want it to, as I often do. As always, I welcome your thoughts and reactions to my list, and your recommendations or suggestions for other things that I might find interesting.

California Getaway

/ J. Eric Smith / Leave a comment

Marcia and I are back in Sedona after a little mid-winter getaway to the California Coast. While we hike and golf and generally get out and about all year long here, February is usually our coldest/wettest winter month, so it seemed sage to get a bit south to escape that. No need, as it turns out, as the weather has been remarkably lovely in Sedona all winter long. Hopefully we don’t pay for that later this year with scorching summer heat, drought, and wildfires.

But even though we didn’t need to leave, weather-wise, we still had a delightful time away. We drove down to Phoenix for a night for a dinner with Marcia’s cousins, then over to Las Vegas for some hiking and great food with Katelin and John. Then onward to Carlsbad, California, on the coast north of San Diego. We stayed at one of the best AirBnB homes we’ve ever rented, and highly recommend it, should you wish for a Carlsbad-area vacation. Great location, great amenities, great outfitting, and considerate hosts. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

We had one drizzly day, but otherwise out time in Carlsbad was very nice. We did some walks/hikes, ate some great meals, read books, relaxed, and generally enjoyed a comfortable stay away. We took a day trip down to San Diego to get some indoor activities in during our one marginal weather day, and then Marcia golfed once, while I went and got nerdy at museums, as one does. When one is me, anyway.

We split our drive back home into two pieces, taking the “Weird California” route on the first day, getting to Blythe via a circuit around the Salton Sea, California’s accidental largest lake. We visited the Republic of Slowjamastan on the way (the Sultan was out, alas), and also stopped at Bombay Beach, a post-apocalyptic hamlet known for its weird seaside public art installations. Weird fun, there.

I took lots of pictures (duh), which you can see by clicking the “summit selfie” of Marcia and I atop Calavera Crest. Yeah, the “summit” is 4,000 feet lower than where we live, but it’s the thought that counts, and it did have a bit of steep scrambling up the final 400 feet. What’s in the photo gallery?

  • Hiking in Red Rocks State Park west of Las Vegas
  • Various beach, hike, and sunset photos around Carlsbad
  • The San Diego Air and Space Museum
  • The Museum of Miniature Engineering Craftsmanship
  • The San Diego Botanical Garden
  • Slowjamastan
  • Bombay Beach
  • And an unexpected bonus: Getting to see a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base, as it rose above Blythe, California, while we were on our way to get dinner last night. Good timing, team!

As a bonus item for this report, I made us a special trip mix on Spotify to mark our location, with songs about California, and the beach, and cars, and surfing, and sunshine, and summer, and such like and so forth. If you need such a collection of tunage in your life, you can stream the 100-song list by clicking through the playlist below: