Hidden Gems in Classic Rock Albums

Actually, I'm mistaken.

'Excitable Boy' is classic rock, It's not a rock classic.

Heavy Metal and All of You by Don Felder from the Heavy Metal sound track. Quite a few cool songs on this album, maybe not top of mind.

OP - thanks for starting this thread - and thanks to everyone digging deep - it's pretty cool that you can jump on Qobuz or whatever and listen to many of these great tracks, save what is interesting and expand your library.

Jimi Page

"White Summer."  Yardbirds  & Led Zeppelin 

Here’s a good one:

’End of the Night’ by The Doors.

Plug in your lava lamp, put on your Nehru jacket and light up or crunch on whatever it is you old hippies were into..!

A black light probably wouldn’t hurt either.

 

@lostinseattle

Zoom and Alone in the Universe

are both as good as any ELO album, IMHO. Not quite the original ELO sound, since they are Jeff Lynne, with some guest performances from old members

Peter Kaukonen. Dynamo snackbar.

 

 

 

 

 

Elvis Costello, "This Year's Girl" off This Year's Model. Ran as the opening track for HBO's short lived series Vinyl. Great tune for sure and 1978 is certainly classic rock territory 

U.F.O.- Love to Love

Many of the posts are not from "considered" top 100 "classic rock" albums. Also songs are being asked for not albums as stated by the OP. This is Audiogon we can do better!

Paul Simon Run That Body Down (from Paul Simon)

Loggins & Messina Pathway to Glory (from Full Sail)

Iron Butterfly Stone Believer (from Metamorphosis)

Nilsson Lottery Song (from Son of Schmilson)

Blood, Sweat and Tears Lonesome Suzy (from BS&T 3)

Wishbone Ash Sometime World (from Argus)

Uriah Heep Come Away Melinda (from Uriah Heep…later re-released as …Very ‘Eavy…Very ‘Umble)

Blues Image Parchman Farm/Wrath of Daisy (from Open)

Lighthouse You Give to Me (from Sunny Days)

Amazing Rhythm Aces If I Just Knew What to Say (from Too Stuffed to Jump)

Sea Level King Grand (from On the Edge)

Chase Bochawa (from Pure Music)

Pousette-Dart Band Ice (from Pousette-Dart Band)

Guess Who Just Let Me Sing (from Guess Who #10)

Manhattan Transfer, Twilight Zone.

@thecarpathian 

@larsman 

I too a Zevon fan.  For me, anything from Life’ll Kill Ya can make is the list.  Sad though in its concept.  
Another favorite where almost any cut can be can be on the list:  Boz Scaggs Greatest Hits Live.  His jazzy rock fusion style and voice never better in these well recorded, excellent performances. 

Hocus Pocus by Focus

Linda Ronstadt's "Prisoner in Disguise" entire album is a great album & very well recorded & mastered by the late, great Doug Sax. The whole album sounds very good but Smokey Robinson's "Tracks of My Tears" is especially good. 

Great test for any hifi system if you want to listen up loud & understand the full dynamics of the song. Great, tight bass guitar & drums, really nice electric & acoustic guitar work & of course Linda's outstanding vocals. 

With good horns & tube amp, the band is right there in front of you! So fun!

Want to just add one more group of classics (beyond the Kinks) and that is Pink Floyd. 2 albums that aren't really known that well (at least in my opinion) are Relics (which has early Syd stuff and showcases members such as Rick Wright) and The Valley Obscured by Clouds which was a soundtrack and an album (like Echoes) that showed the band was on its way to do DSOTM and more importantly, is Nick Mason's favorite Pink Floyd album. 

BNL Maroon, maybe too young to be a classic

Deep Purple "The Shield" from The Book of Taliesyn 
Procol Harum "Homburg" and "Salty Dog"

 

Mott the Hoople has a number of them. Right now I’m thinking of "Drivin’ Sister." Has almost every clique guitar riff in it and it is fun. 

Savoy Brown “Hell Bound Train”

Bowie “China Girl” Stevie Ray on guitar

Tull “Minstrels in the Gallery”

AC/ DC “Sin City”

Floyd “Pigs on the Wing”

 

@dayglow ,

You know threads always get a tad sidetracked (or a lot!) or stray from the precise meaning of the thread. Sometimes that's a bad thing, sometimes it's a harmless meandering off the designated path. This is harmless and it's bringing up a bunch of hidden gems that would not otherwise be mentioned.

Hope all is well with you.

Zep, Physical Graffiti, Black Country Woman. 

Spirit - Street Worm (from 12 Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus)

Danny O'Keefe - Quits (So Long Harry Truman)

P. Floyd - San Tropez (Meddle)

James Gang - Woman (Rides Again)

Zappa & the Mothers - Trouble Every Day (Freak Out)

Savoy Brown - I'll Make Everything Alright (Hellbound Train)

ELO - Can't Get it Out of My Head (Eldorado)

Elvis Costello - Mystery Dance (My Aim Is True)

Los Lobos - Lil' King of Everything (Will the Wolf Survive)

Thirteenth Floor Elevators - Slip Inside This House (Easter Everywhere)

The Kinks - Acute Schizophrenia Paranoid Blues (Muswell Hillbillies)

It's a Beautiful Day - Wasted Union Blues

Graham Parker & the Rumour - Love Gets You Twisted (Shooting Out Sparks)

Mott the Hoople - I Wish I Was Your Mother (Mott)

Gregg Allman - Don't Mess Up a Good Thing (Laid Back)

Creedence - Before You Accuse Me (Cosmo's Factory)

Iron Butterfly - Stone Believer/Soldier in Our Town  (Metamorphosis)

Pete Townsend - (Nothing is Everything) Lets See Action (Who Came First)

Tommy Bolin - Shake the Devil (Private Eyes)

There are so many more.......!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Sorry for the extra spaces in my last post...)

Warren Zevon: "Desperados under the Eaves" - Warren Zevon

"Tenderness on the Block" - Excitable Boy

The Kinks: The entire Face to Face album gets overlooked compared to the Pye/Reprise albums that follow it, but it has always been my favorite.

Carly Simon: "Embrace Me, You Child" - No Secrets

Now don’t get me started on CCR. :)

Keep On Choogling.

:)

“No Expectations” and “Prodigal Son” from Beggars Banquet and “You Got the Silver” from Let It Bleed. Outstanding acoustic blues from the Stones.

Cream - Dance the Night Away (Disraeli Gears)

Steely Dan - Daddy Don't Live in That NYC No More (Katy Lied)

Ten Years After - One of These Days (A Space in Time);* seek out the Audio Fidelity 24K disc that was mastered by Steve Hoffman!*

@rtrlover, + 1 on "For Someone Special" by The Doobie Brothers.

Roxy Music - Mother of Pearl, In Every Dream Home a Heartache

Pink Floyd - Summer of '68, (Atom Heart Mother), (rip Rick Wright), Remember a Day

King Crimson - the Sheltering Sky (Discipline)

Black Sabbath - Turn up the Night (Mob Rules), Sabotage in it's entirety

U2 - the Drowning Man (War)

Santana- Just in Time to see the Sun (Caravanserai)

Tangerine Dream - Cloudburst Flight, Thru Metamorphic Rocks (Force Majeure)

Hawkwind - Over the Top (Hawklords), Assault and Battery (Warrior on the Edge of Time)

Everything on Jonathan Goes Country by Jonathan Richman.

Album .."The Chieftans featuring Ry Cooder"     The song...".THE COAST OF MALABAR " simply MAGICAL

I don't want to rain on the parade of enthusiastic posts here but this thread is a good example of why people should be a bit circumspect when coming here for advice on how to choose gear. As someone mentioned, the original post was pretty clear about the narrow range of LPs the recommendations should come from--just the top 100 or so classic rock and roll albums. The idea was to uncover some hidden gems on albums that many people own so they would be inspired to pull them out and have a listen to some classic rock favorites with an ear toward songs that don't often get air play on the radio. Instead folks just chimed in with random rock and roll songs (or albums, or bands) that they like, some of which are less well known. At the end of the day that's fine--I've enjoyed learning about a few tunes that I didn't know about before that I will look for next time I'm out at the record shop. But carry this mentality over to a post about recommendations for equipment and what we routinely see are folks who respond to very specific questions (such as: What are the best high efficiency floorstanders below $4K?) with a list of their own favorites which may or may not fall within the parameters of the post with speakers that are often well above the price point or that are bookshelf type or low sensitivity designs. Kinda makes for a lot of static that doesn't really help people get where they are trying to go. Again, thanks for the enthusiastic response and maybe try to keep your suggestions to songs that appear on the most popular classic rock LPs.

@dodgealum -- Thread drift is a fact of life in these modern times. Succumb to it. Revel in it. It doesn't hurt that loose fingers sometimes yield valuable insights.

Yeah, what @edcyn said!

No harm done and a lot of great song suggestions.

Everyone is as civil as can be and sharing some of their favorites.

A dandy of a thread!

Eric Clapton, 461 Ocean Boulevard "Mainline Florida"

@dodgealum   +1

Emmylou Harris - "the Pearl" from Red Dirt Girl

@dodgealum    -1.................Great stuff here...don't be so "stuffy"

@dodgealum - nice thread, but what he says is also true. And I'm confused as to how an album's title track can be a 'hidden gem' - if it's the album's title, it ain't hidden very well! 😄

If you like I can show you lists of the top 100 classic rock albums that will probable add up to 1000 or so. 

1 - Procol Harum - Live in Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Salty Dog and Conquistador. Probably the best live recording ever!!

2 - John Mayall - Jazz Blues Fusion.  Country Road. Another incredible live performance.

3 - Linda Ronstadt - Simple Dreams.  Blue Bayou.  Her cover of Blue Bayou is worth the price of the album.

4 - Johnny Winter - Progressive Blues Experiment.  Tribute to Muddy. Texas blues at its finest.

2 complete albums:

B. W. Stevenson "We Be Sailin"

The Byrds "Sweetheart of the Rodeo"

shoot. didn't read the instructions clear through,

again

@sgreg1    With any type of best of lists your going to have some with extreme biases towards a specific genre. Here are some solid examples of a top 100 classic rock albums list.

Most-Pink Floyd DSOTM 

Many-The Cars ST

Some-Dire Straits Brothers In Arms

Few-U2 Joshua Tree

In 1977 the original lineup of the Animals reunited and released Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted. Remains a truly great lp with killer vocals by Eric Burdon and keyboards by Alan Price. The production is clean and the mix shows what a great lineup this was.

Neil Merryweather - Star Rider on the 1975 album Kryptonite. Definitely a lesser known singer but he has recorded with quite a few well known artists over the years. 

Temptation  Prince  Around the World in a Day

Savoy Brown Hellbound Train great solid album from an often overlooked group.

Tim Buckley : Goodbye And Hello - I Never Asked To Be Your Mountain

Love : Da Capo - She Comes In Colors

Rod Stewart (w/Faces) "I'm Losing You" - Every Picture Tells A Story