What are you listening to right now?

It seems like back in the 50’s if you were an actor or actress, someone, somewhere, would decide you could sing & gave you the opportunity to record some songs. Like this guy.

Sal Mineo was an actor from The Bronx.

He was best known for his role as John "Plato" Crawford in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), which earned him a Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor at age 17, making him the fifth-youngest nominee in the category.

He also starred in Exodus (1960), for which he won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor and received a second Academy Award nomination.

The list of other movies he was in is long but it includes The Longest Day (1962), John Ford’s final western Cheyenne Autumn, and Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) among others.

Sal died at the age of 37. On the night of February 12, 1976, he returned home from a rehearsal for the play P.S. Your Cat Is Dead. After parking his car in the carport below his West Hollywood apartment, he was stabbed in the heart by a mugger. He was found lying and bleeding in the parking alley by neighbors who had heard his cries for help, but he was only able to walk a few steps, after which he collapsed and died immediately.

Lionel Ray Williams, a young pizza delivery man with a long criminal record, was convicted and sentenced in March 1979 to 57 years in prison for the killing and also for committing ten robberies. Although considerable confusion existed as to what witnesses had seen in the dark the night Mineo was murdered, Williams claimed to have had no idea who Mineo was. 

Corrections officers later said they had overheard Williams admitting to the stabbing. Williams' wife later confirmed that on the night Mineo died, he had come home with blood on his shirt. After several years of speculation about the motives for the murder, the police investigation concluded that it was a random robbery. Williams was paroled in 1990 after serving 12 years.

Sal had 2 top 40 hits in 1957. This song was also released in 1957 but it missed out on the top 40 by landing at #45.

All these years later & this is still one of the greatest guitar solos ever recorded.

The song comes from their Can't Buy a Thrill album, it was their debut album & was released in November 1972.

This is the only Steely Dan album to include David Palmer as a lead vocalist, Donald Fagen took over those duties from Countdown To Ecstasy onward. The album peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Top Albums chart, and was certified Platinum 21 years later in 1993.

The debut single was Do It Again & that one went to #6. The song linked to here was the 2nd & final single from the album & it got to #11.

The guitar solo by session player Elliott Randall, was recorded in one take. It has reportedly been rated by Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page as his favorite solo of all time, and he scored it 12/10. In 2016 the solo was ranked the 40th best guitar solo of all time by the readers of Guitar World magazine.

Charlie Musselwhite is a blues harmonica player and bandleader, from Kosciusko, Mississippi. He will turn 80 in January.

Charlie first came to prominence, along with Mike Bloomfield, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop, as a pivotal figure in helping to revive the Chicago Blues movement of the 1960s.

In time, he led his own blues band, and after Elektra Records' success with Paul Butterfield, he released the album Stand Back! Here Comes Charley Musselwhite's Southside Band in 1966 on Vanguard Records to immediate success. Which is where the song linked to here comes in.

This album was one of the first blues albums targeted also to fans of rock and roll, it was influential in bridging the gap between blues and rock. The album's success allowed him to launch a career as a full-time musician, relocating from Chicago to California, and also secured his reputation as a harmonica player. Over the years he has collaborated with Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Tom Waits, Ben Harper, Cyndi Lauper and INXS.

Steppenwolf was a rock band formed in late 1967 in Los Angeles.

The original lineup consisted of lead singer John Kay, keyboardist Goldy McJohn, and drummer Jerry Edmonton, all formerly of the Canadian band the Sparrows. Guitarist Michael Monarch and bass guitarist Rushton Moreve were recruited via notices placed in Los Angeles-area record and musical instrument stores.

The band has had many breakups, get togethers & re breakups during their time, the most recent breakup came in 2018.

During their career they released 13 studio albums, 14 compilation albums, 5 live albums 41 singles, and three music videos.

This song was released as a single in 1970 & charted at #62. Strangely enough, it was never included on an album until they released their 1st Greatest Hits album called Steppenwolf Gold, Their Greatest Hits,  in 1971.

Sting, is an English musician and actor from Wallsend, Northumberland, England. His full name is Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner & he turned 72 in October.

He was the frontman, songwriter and bassist for the Police from 1977 until their breakup in 1986. He launched a solo career in 1985.

As a solo musician and a member of the Police, he has received 17 Grammy Awards: he also won a Grammy for Song of the Year for "Every Breath You Take".

As a solo performer, he has released 15 studio albums, 6 Live albums & 51 singles. This song comes from Ten Summoner's Tales. It was his 4th solo studio album. The title is a combined pun of his family name, Sumner, and a character in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, the summoner. The album came out in 1993.

The album hit #2 in the US & the top 10 in multiple other countries. It has been certified 3 X Platinum in the states. It won 2 Grammy Awards & was nominated for Album Of The Year but lost out to The Bodyguard Soundtrack featuring Whitney Houston.

The album included the singles If I Ever Lose My Faith In You which won Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the Grammys, & Fields Of Gold which hit #23. The song linked to here was released as the 3rd single but did not chart in the US.

Glen Gray, was a jazz saxophonist and leader of the Casa Loma Orchestra from Roanoke, Illinois. He died of lymphoma in 1963 at the age of 63. His full name was Glenn Gray Knoblauch.

He served as leader of the Casa Loma Orchestra although the orchestra itself had been formed as a collective group, with no designated leader. Their mid-1930s appearances on the long-run radio comedy-variety program, the Camel Caravan, (introduced with their theme, "Smoke Rings") increased their popularity. Glen chose not to conduct the band in the early years, playing in the saxophone section while violinist Mel Jenssen acted as conductor. In 1937, the band overwhelmingly voted in favor of Glen leading the orchestra, and he finally accepted the job. Eventually he ended up owning the orchestra & the name.

This song was released as a single in 1937 with a B side called Drifting Apart.

With this song we reach the milestone of the 100th song on this journey through Time, so we might as well take a detour through the psychedelic mind of Vanilla Fudge to celebrate.

Vanilla Fudge is a rock band from Long Island.

They are known predominantly for their slow extended heavy rock arrangements of contemporary hit songs, such as their hit cover of the Supremes' "You Keep Me Hangin' On". And that also proves to be the case with the song linked to below.

The band's original line–up—vocalist and organist Mark Stein, bassist and vocalist Tim Bogert, lead guitarist/vocalist Vince Martell, and drummer and vocalist Carmine Appice—recorded five albums during the years 1967–69, before disbanding in 1970. They regrouped & have toured as recently as 2022 with three of the four original members: Stein, Martell, and Appice, with Pete Bremy on bass. Tim Bogert retired in 2009 and died in 2021.

In April 1967 the Pigeons got signed to Atlantic Records. But there was one drawback, however: Atlantic didn't want to sign a band called The Pigeons. Ahmet Ertegun, the label's founder and president, didn't like that name and told us we had to change it. We didn't mind, in fact, I had always thought The Pigeons was a weird thing to be called but had just gone with it. We tried to think up a new name but were getting nowhere until we played a gig at the Page 2 club on Long Island and ended up talking to a chick named Dee Dee who worked there. She told us how her grandfather used to call her Vanilla Fudge. Then she looked at us and added "Maybe you guys should call yourselves that—you're like white soul music". We liked it. We told our manager, Phil Basile. He liked it. We told Atlantic and they liked it, too. So Vanilla Fudge it was.

They released their most recent album in 2022. This song comes from their 4th album. It was called Near The Beginning & was released in 1969. The album peaked at #16.

This song was written by Lee Hazelwood who had a #26 hit single with it in 1968 as a duet with Nancy Sinatra. Vanilla Fudge turns the song on its head.

Todd Rundgren is a multi - instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and record producer from Philadelphia. He turned 75 this past June.

He began his professional career in the mid-1960s, forming the psychedelic band Nazz in 1967. Two years later, he left Nazz to pursue a solo career and immediately scored his first US top 40 hit with "We Gotta Get You a Woman" (1970). His best-known songs include "Hello It's Me" and "I Saw the Light" (1972), the 1978 hiy "Can We Still Be Friends", and the 1983 single "Bang the Drum All Day", which is featured in many sports arenas, commercials, and movie trailers.

As a producer, his credits include Badfinger's Straight Up (1971), Grand Funk Railroad's We're an American Band (1973), the New York Dolls' New York Dolls (1973), Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell (1977), War Babies by Hall & Oates in 1974 and XTC's Skylarking (1986).

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021.

During his career he has released 21 solo albums, 10 compilation albums & 21 singles. There were 3 albums with Nazz, & 10 albums with the group Utopia. His most recent solo album was released in 2020.

The album was originally scheduled for release in December 1973 but was delayed to the next February due to a vinyl shortage caused by the 1973 oil crisis. The album charted at #69, but had no hit singles.

From one great keyboard player this morning to another this afternoon.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer was an English progressive rock supergroup formed in London in 1970.

Keith Emerson died on 11 March 2016 in Santa Monica, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Following a post-mortem, the medical examiner ruled Emerson's death a suicide, and concluded that he had also had heart disease and depression associated with alcohol. He was 71.

Greg Lake died on 7 December 2016 in London, of pancreatic cancer, at the age of 69.

Carl Palmer is still with us & is now 73.

Marianne Faithful is an English singer from Hampstead, England. She will be 77 next month.

She began her career in 1964 after attending a party for Rolling Stones, where she was discovered by the band’s manager, Andrew Loog Oldham. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single "As Tears Go By" and became one of the lead female artists during the British Invasion.

On 5 March 2009, she received the World Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement at the 2009 Women's World Awards. "Marianne's contribution to the arts over a 45-year career including 18 studio albums as a singer, songwriter and interpreter, and numerous appearances on stage and screen is now being acknowledged with this special award." The award was presented in Vienna, with ceremonies televised in over 40 countries on 8 March 2009 as part of International Women's Day.

This song comes from Go Away From My World. It was her 2nd American studio album. Andrew Loog Oldham was the executive producer. The song linked to here was her final Top 40 hit in the US. It landed at #24 in 1965.

No one seems to have any info as to who is playing on the track.

Styx is a rock band formed in Chicago in 1972.

The original line-up comprised Dennis DeYoung (vocals & keyboards), James "J.Y." Young (lead guitar), John "J.C." Curulewski (guitar & vocals) and twin brothers Chuck (bass) and John Panozzo (drums). The band is still active but has gone through many lineup changes over the years with Chuck Panozzo & J.Y. Young the original members still with them.

From 1977 to 1981, they released four consecutive albums that have been certified Multi-Platinum, for at least 2 million units sold apiece: The Grand Illusion (1977), Pieces of Eight (1978), Cornerstone (1979) and Paradise Theatre (1981).

During their career they have released 17 studio albums, 9 live albums, 16 compilation albums, 39 singles, and 3 extended plays. They have 16 top 40 hits and 8 have gone top 10. They released their most recent album in 2021.

This song was included on Styx II. It was their 2nd studio album & it came out in 1973. It was their 1st Gold record. The album got to #20 & included their breakout single, Lady, which charted at #6.

All the original members of the band were included on this record & the song linked to here was written by John Curulewski. He also handles the lead vocals.

Bridget St John is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist, from Surrey, England. Her real name is Bridget Anne Hobbs & she turned 77 just last month.

Her first performances were at Sheffield University in 1964–5, and her very first "proper gig" was at a pub in Rotherham. But, after releasing all of her 4 albums she emigrated to Greenwich Village in 1976 and disappeared from the public eye.

When she did reappear it was to take part in the Strawbs 25th Anniversary festival held in 1993. She released her 'come-back' album in 1996, Take The Fifth and appeared at a Nick Drake tribute concert in New York City in 1999. She toured Japan in 2006 with the minimalist French musician Colleen, and appeared with the Electric Strawbs in the B.B. King Blues Club and Grill (NYC) on 27 June 2007.

The song linked to here was the 1st song on her 2nd album. It was called Songs For The Gentle Man & came out in 1971.

What a pretty early morning arrangement this is.

The discography of U2 consists of 15 studio albums, 1 live album, 3 compilation albums, 84 singles, and 9 extended plays (EPs).

This song was included on their debut album Boy. It was released as the album's lead single in August 1980. The single was backed by an instrumental song called Things To Make & Do. The album landed at #63 here in the states but did better in other parts of the world. The song did not chart. They won’t have their 1st US hit single until 1983 when they land at #53 with New Years Day.