Especially for Trump

I said last week that I still had loads of right songs to play you, so a second set seems like the obvious way to go, doesn’t it? And before anyone tells me that three of these should really be ‘alright,’ these are the titles the songwriters gave them, so who am I to disagree? And I wouldn’t have included them otherwise.

I’m starting today with one of the more obvious candidates, which I somehow managed to omit last week:

All Right Now was released as a single in May 1970, and was also the closing track on Free’s Fire And Water album which came out the following month. This was the band’s third album, and although they had enjoyed some chart success with the previous two this is the one which really made them big stars, getting to #2 in the UK and #17 in the US. It is a superb album and one which I still play a lot today: if blues rock is your thing I can’t recommend it highly enough. All Right Now was their first hit single: it got to #4 in the US and #2 in the UK, spending six weeks in that position stuck behind Mungo Bloody Jerry and In The Summertime. Guess which I preferred? This was the soundtrack to that summer for me: I had my motor scooter which gave me all sorts of freedom, and I spent most evenings at the local youth centre, having loads of fun. One of my best summers ever! It was a pretty good time for Free too: they got the Isle of Wight festival gig on the strength of this hit single, and it turned them into superstars.

In a rather different vein for this next one, but I’ve always loved the song:

This is a bit of a departure from my normal type of music, if there is such a thing, more pop-oriented than my usual listening, I think. You can call me an old softie if you like, but I still think it is lovely. Right Here Waiting was released as the second single from Richard Marx’s album Repeat Offender in June 1989, and was a big hit worldwide, including getting to #1 in the US and #2 in the UK. The album had come out a couple of months earlier, and was also a US #1, getting to #8 in the UK. I bought it at the time, and it was played a lot – probably more by my then-wife than me!

Now for something from that Nobel Prize winner. But not by him – a rather nice cover version:

Jack & Daisy are a British indie folk duo, based in Javea in Spain. They have been playing music together for eight years, during which time they have racked up more than a thousand performances across Europe. They have been taken under the wing of Dave Stewart, formerly of The Eurythmics, and he is now recording and releasing their music.  Their first EP, Barcelona (In The Rearview), came out in July 2025, and I’m hoping to hear more of them in the future – those harmonies are lovely. Their cover of Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right was released as a single in June 2022 but unsurprisingly didn’t make the charts. Hopefully with some promotion behind them they will enjoy  some well-deserved success.

There are loads of versions of this next one, and I’m going with one from a classic album:

Rod Stewart recorded That’s All Right for his mega breakthrough album, Every Picture Tells A Story, as the clip shows. That album really did turn him into a major star as a solo artist, though he was already well known from being a member of The Faces. It was released in May 1971 and was a massive hit: it topped the charts in the UK, US, Canada and Australia and did well in several other countries, and has often featured in those ‘best album of all time’ features that magazines like doing. This is the full album version which, as you will have heard, becomes a medley with Amazing Grace. That’s All Right was written in 1946 by Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup, and a cover version was the first single released by Elvis Presley – a bit of useless trivia for you there.

One of my ‘usual suspects’ is closing today’s set:

The Devil’s Right Hand was a track on Steve Earle’s third album, Copperhead Road, which was released in October 1988 and reached #56 in the US, #14 in Canada and #42 in the UK. It also made #7 in the US Country Albums chart, and #30 in the Canadian Country listings. It is a fantastic album which is till my favourite of his after all these years, and regularly gets played again. If Steve’s mother really did say this it was sage advice – if only American gun culture would take note. A good blogging friend, Jill, recently posted that in 102 days of the year so far there had been 100 mass shootings. It really is the devil’s right hand, isn’t it.

That’s all for today, and as always I hope you enjoyed these tunes. I’ll be back for #300 in the series next Tuesday and hope to see you again then, as well as for the offerings I will give you in the interim. Take care 😊

[As usual, I’ll be sharing this at Esme’s Senior Salon Pit Stop and Cathy’s Monday’s Music Moves Me links, so do please take a look to see what you can find there – I’m off theme for Cathy, sorry, but these are what move me this week!]