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This is Oliver's weekly My Vinyl Countdown column where he is counting down and writing a piece on each of his 678 vinyl records to raise awareness for Lewy body demential. My NP (now playing) this week is Fleetwood Mac. I have two of their albums on vinyl. The world renowned 'Rumours' and the lesser known 'Mystery to Me,' an album before the arrival of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. On 'Mystery' there's a song called 'Hypnotized' that people I've played it for fall in love with upon first listen. But few can guess that it's Fleetwood Mac. The ethereal song summons a semi-tropical hazy glaze. It's the best thing on this album other than the wild cover art featuring a baboon-like creature painting his lips with coconut oil?

Dunno, but it fits the hypnotic vibe. As for Rumours what can you say. An album in the realm of classic like Carol King's 'Tapestry' or Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon.'

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Mike Oliver moliver@al.com Practically every song is a hit and high quality and man I got tired of hearing them on every single radio station all day and all night back in the late 1970's. Let's get started on my reviews.because I have 7 rather than the usual 5. One of my posts was a 3-for-1 deal. Remember, most of these are shortened versions of those on my blog, click on the artist's name in the title for more.

ALBUM: High Priest (1987) Boy wonder vocalist out of the chute at the speed of sound. Sweet 16 and burning white soul-boy vocals with the Box Tops. Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane Ain't got time to take a fast train Lonely days are gone, I'm a-goin' home My baby, just-a wrote me a letter Killer opening. What's the encore? Alex Chilton was going to be a Big Star. He was, and he wasn't.

The star fell without anyone seeing it. Oh, but a few did. An influential few remembered the shooting star. A song by one of the world's coolest bands, The Replacements, was titled Alex Chilton. REM declared him a divine inspiration.

Big Star had some big expectations. How could their three albums, or just one of them not set the world on fire. After that didn't play out,many would do. I'll do what I want, start an indie career where you put out albums like this one where songs like Volare - are you kidding me?- become part of the buoyant fun. Toss off a Carole King song here, an obscure instrumental, and not so subtle (or sexy) invitation to get naughty.

And it was, sort of. Chilton died at 59 in 2010. ALBUM: Tracy Chapman (1988) Forget the hole in the head, the world needs another folk singer like Tracy Chapman. I had a feeling that I could be someone, be someone For me it wasn't that the words blew me away Or the music and playing was so much better than many other folk-rock singer-songwriters. For me it was all these things together and the voice. Yes the voice. I can't really describe it.

There are certain voices I really appreciate. And hers, singing about race, domestic abuse, poverty and just plain heartache and heart break, sounded real. That the voice comes from a gay black woman and seems shot-through with wisdom brought by pain makes it all the more remarkable that it connects so powerfully with an older balding white guy, me, and I'm sure many others like me. She's got her ticket is a song about someone in pain who wants to fly away.

She's got her ticket I think she gonna use it I think she going to fly away No one should try and stop her And from this Grammy award-winning album, her debut, came probably her signature song: Fast Car. Mike Oliver moliver@al.com That song plays on the same theme of escape, and is cathartic in its slow down, speed up sound.

The words are potent but the song transcends the words and should be heard. You see my old man's got a problem He live with the bottle that's the way it is He says his body's too old for working His body's too young to look like his My mama went off and left him She wanted more from life than he could give I said somebody's got to take care of him So I quit school and that's what I did You got a fast car Is it fast enough so we can fly away We gotta make a decision Leave tonight or live and die this way =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Another of her biggest hits. Time is here today and because it keeps slipping, slipping into the future, I need to move on this. Here's a 3-for-1 special. There's nothing really that ties these albums together other than they happen to be next on my alphabetical list and the artists here all sing and play musical instruments. ALBUM: Musical Shapes (1980) This is a cutout, meaning the record company, nicked the corner off or punched a hole in the cover's corner.

This meant they were slow sellers and the distributors were to mark them down. Cutouts were controversial in the industry, but I bought them regularly. That's because I felt like I might find that rare album, the best of all time that no one ever heard of. I almost did many times. I think, I remember reading a little about it.

Carter was the daughter of June Carter Cash, by June's first husband, and thus, she was the step-daughter of She is also the ex-wife of Nick Lowe, who plays bass on the album. Dave Edmunds, who played guitar on this album, was Lowe's, co-band member in the great rock and roll group called. All said and done, this is a keeper. Her voice is good.

Her cover of stepdad's 'Ring of Fire' is pretty bad, though. 'Sandy' is good -'I like that cold cash, that cold hard cash. The duet with Edmunds, on is fun and sums up the tone of the album, a little rock but a strong extra dose of country. In fact it sounded like a party going on in recording this. ALBUM: Young Man Gone West (1977) What is this? 10cc cover band? Queen without Freddie Mercury?

I like 'She's Got Style' because it rolls along as if art students were on sabbatical in the Tulsa Time zone. Are they the embers of the Sparks? 'The Man who Ate His Car.' Is there some subtle social commentary in there. I still have to go back to 10cc. That group was sometimes great.

But sometimes good 10cc was bad 10cc. This is bad 10cc that may rhyme but has no reason.

Good guitar player though. ALBUM: The Dream Goes On (1981). Lee Clayton Mike Oliver moliver@al.com This album I know I bought in Auburn. I listened to this for the first time in years.

Interesting cat, this Lee Clayton, growing up 'surrrounded by fences' in Oak Ridge where he lived next to the Atom bomb factory, apparently. He's still radioactive about it - at least on this album which came out in 1981. Industry sucks, he seems to be saying, but, he acknowledges: 'It makes me sick - and well.' ' The vitriol and dramatic singing makes you wonder what really happened to him. In 'Industry' he talks about 'the big boys' and the people being 'drug crazed' and then he quotes the Constitution and then the Bible. In 'Where is the Justice' he rails on about a bad concert tour in Hamburg and Brussels where he saw 'goose-stepping Russians.' At one point he sings with great feeling about '23 hours of madness for one hour on that stage.

That ain't justice. That's bad pay.' And then (whew) he comes up with a simple sweet and lovely song that I remembered the words to after several decades of not hearing this song. 'Won't You Give me One More Chance.' 'To make it with you.

Forget about the bad we had, don't believe its true come and lie with me like the way we used to do; you're the only thing I've got to hold on to.' I know this sounds like a strange and perhaps awful album as I describe it but it's really not. He's passionate, perhaps unbalanced and thus interesting. The music keeps it together.8 ALBUMS: History of Eric Clapton (1972 2-record compilation); EC Was Here (live) (1975); Backless (1979); Crossroads (6-record boxed set 1988) Do I have too much Clapton? Like an unbalanced 401/K plan do I need to liquidate some Eric Clapton. Should I re-rebalance my portfolio of 678 records (which I am writing about in this blog) by selling some Clapton. Mike Oliver moliver@al.com For example, I could sell some Clapton for Albert King, a key Clapton influence whom I don't have.

But that would almost be like buying more Clapton, an artist steeped in blues music. Or, should I diversify and maybe buy some Django Reinhardt, a Gypsy jazz guitarist from yesteryear who was at least as influential as Clapton but had a totally different style, outside the realm of blues. As you can see above, I only have four separate Clapton 'products.' But as you can also see, one is a 6-record box set, and another is a double record chronology.

Pretty comprehensive. That's 10 vinyl slices totaling about six or seven hours of Clapton. That doesn't include my two Cream albums, my Yardbirds album and my Derek and the Dominos double album set, all of which have Clapton in the mix.

I will review separately when they come up in my alphabetical line-up. (I'm in the C's so we'll be doing Cream pretty soon). I think I will hold off liquidating immediately. If you are a Clapton fan, it is good to see the He is praised for his fluid improvisational guitar solos, mostly in a blues context. And he is cursed for his fluid improvisational guitar solos because they infiltrated rock and roll and pretty soon everybody and their brother-in-law's cousin was strapping on a Fender Stratocaster aiming to be a lead guitarist.

As the low-solo 50's melted away to the 1960's, there was a nuclear arms race over how fast and long that guitar solo should be. Too many times the result was guitar for showmanship's sake and not for song-sake.

Granted these guitar jams tended to be used and abused more in the live concert setting, than in the studio In the studio you had a producer saying, 'Uh, Jimi, I think we are good with that 37-minute version of the You can flesh it out a little more on stage tonight if you want. I sure hope our flag is still there.' Clapton can be accused of starting it. He and John Mayall developed a cult following in London, immersing themselves in blues. 'Clapton is God' graffiti began appearing around the city, defining a central tenet of the Clapton mythology to this day,' wrote Rolling Stone writer Anthony DeCurtis in the Crossroad's liner notes.

ALBUMS: Sandinista! (1980), Black Market Clash (1980) If you think about it, the Clash had the perfect name for their band. They clashed with everything.

And Sandinista was a new turn that clashed with the group's punk rock base. (Think Roy Moore followers if they were leftist streetwise Brits. I'm making the point that they are loyalists not so open to change.) Sandinista, a three-record clashing of the soul and gnashing of the teeth was their masterpiece and their self-indulgent jam session - (see the clash there?) It had reggae, dub, punk rock, a waltz, rap, rockabilly, electronica, corner soul and Lord knows what else. Most people didn't play the whole thing through because it was disorienting. It was like wearing plaid, stripes, gingham and seersucker all at once and on the feet: Keds red high tops. Not Converse mind you. That'd be uncool.

But it had great stuff on it. Some of the music was eye-openingly good (The piano and bass on the be-boppin' Look Here, for example.) It just got lost in the shuffle-play.

While the Magnificent Seven, Police on My Back, Rebel Waltz and Somebody Got Murdered got most of the attention, I like the Sound of the Sinners, a gospel send-up that kicks off with this: As the floods of God, wash away sin city, they say it was written in the page of the Lord. But I was looking, for that great jazz note, that destroyed, the walls of Jericho This album featured six sides of six songs each and cost just a little more, if I remember it was something like $9,99. And I believe that included, at least at my record store, a copy of the 10-inch, Black Market Clash, taken from the Sandinista sessions. I loved side two of that 10-inch with bankrobber/robber dub and armagideon dub, and no justice/kick it around. Mick Jones continued this dub reggae rap groove in Big Audio Dynamite, which I reviewed.

The Clash stood up for the working class and grew into a musically adventurous, and politically aware punk rock group. By their fourth album, continuing in the tradition of arguably their best album, London Calling, they absorbed and reconfigured every cross-cultural type of street music imaginable. They discovered dub all right. And dub spelled backward as well.