My List of the Best Music Ever! Review

17 is the number and I shall continue with the tradition.   These are 17 of my fave rock ‘n roll songs.  10  here  and the top 7 in part 2. Not classical, not straight up pop, not jazz, not old-time country, not folk.. but rock-n-roll.  So I can't sneak in Bobby Darin's Mack the Knife, Louis Prima's Just a Gigolo or Satchmo's  It's a Wonderful World - all great records-but NOT rock n roll.

Part 2 is here:  My Fave Rock N Roll 

So to get the meat, to the 17 that top my list....they are:

#17.  What's Going On    --  Marvin Gaye  You could almost go with Gaye's incredible version of  I Heard it Through the Grapevine   or a few of the duets he did with Tammy or  Let's Get it On    or  Sexual Healing     Let's say it's  What's Goin On   because of what it asks. 

#16  Superstition    --  Stevie Wonder   Not easy to choose just one from Stevie but forcing myself to do it... it's this one. 

#15  Respect   -- Aretha ‘Queen of Soul' Franklin.  She made Otis' great song (and Otis Redding did a great record of it too) sang about it,  spelled it out,  added sock it me which IS indeed a sexual reference (passionate not violent).  Aretha got the respect and nothing more needs to be said.. just listen...

#14  (I Got You) I FEEL GOOD  James ‘good foot' Brown came up with the groove funk to start and finish all funkiness.  George Clinton got it right many times but it takes more than wild outfits, spaceships and synthesizers to top the ‘Godfather of Soul' in his finest moment.  Rock N Roll became Rock N Soul forever.

#13 Let's Stay Together   or   Tired of Being Alone  --Al Green    I just can't choose my all time fave Al Green song.  Did I mention Love and Happiness   and  Take Me to the River ?   Oh Don't Get Me Started! Let's just say the Rev DOES have the chops to save your soul and leave it at that. You want to insist this is R & B not R n R... fine, but I ain't leavin' Al Green off  any list of great songs.

#12  Born to Be Wild   --Steppenwolf    Sure it became the anthem for Bikers and you probably can't think of it without visions of Hopper and Fonda and Easy Rider   or some stupid t.v. commercial that used it over and over and over again.   But no song has ever been played so damn much and STILL managed to sound so gooood.  The term/label . moniker Heavy Metal was derived from the phrase in this song:  ‘heavy metal thunder' by the way.  So better believe the song that invented the phrase Heavy Metal gets a place on the list.  Sookie sookie, Move Over and Rock Me into a Magic Carpet all you want, Green Bottle Lover, we were Born to Be Wild. (6 John Kaye/Steppenwold song titles for ya).

#11.  Norwegian Wood   --The Beatles  It's a deceptively simple little PERFECT song.  Almost all Lennon and a rock n roll ballad classic. When I was a kid I didn't get it and it was years later when I ‘heard' it and really listened to it that I realized... THIS is poetry.  Short, sweet, perfect.

#10 Sittin on the Dock of the Bay  --  Otis Redding's performance on this song can't be duplicated. Why?  Because it's just about THE perfect marriage of song and vocal you could ever hope to have.  The performance locks it up and throws away the key.  Oh they try so hard to duplicate what's been done here-but it's imitation. I'll take the real thing.  Yep I let this one take the place of Percy's When a Man Loves A Woman ( a great great song and performance)  but you know they can both be there for you.  You don't need to play by the rules-it's rock-n-roll.

#9 California Girls -The Beach Boys   Brian Wilson and company created a unique sound that many copied.  Here it is at its best and they knew it. And yeah at times the fantasy of all being California Girls . . . . . 

#8  Sympathy for the Devil  --The Rolling Stones  If you have to ask why I put this Stones classic here, you don't know Rock n Roll.  The Kinks, Stones and Who were trouble compared to the Beatles.  As it should be.  Jump ahead of classic stuff like the incredible (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction  and   Time is on Your Side   and you leap into a   Sympathy for the Devil    that becomes an instant reflecting mirror of its time but because it is completely authentic, never gets OLD, never fades away.