The staff of the College Football America Yearbook is on the road every weekend of the college football season, shooting games and gathering information for the following year’s book. That means a lot of driving and listening to a lot of music.
Earlier this year our College Football America Yearbook publisher Kendall Webb and our director of editorial content Chuck Cox put together ‘The Coronavirus Countdown – 100 Days of Great Music.’ Each of them sat down and compiled a list of 100 great albums. Their goal was not to select the ‘100 greatest albums of all time.’ It was simply to select 100 great albums to write about as they passed the time during quarantine and shelter-at-home orders.
This 2020 college football season will be unprecedented in so many ways. It’s very likely none of us will be on the road for games because, like most people, we’re trying to stay healthy. And we hope you are too.
So, for the next 100 days, we’re going to publish their countdown here at CollegeFootballAmericaPR.com (the list was originally published on Webb’s personal site, kendallwebb.net). Consider it the ultimate playlist for the ultimate college road trip — music for every taste, from every genre and from every decade of the modern era of music. When the staff of the College Football America Yearbook is back on the road, you can bet these will be some of the tunes we’re listening to.
And, if you missed the previous installments of our series, just click here to head to the Coronavirus Countdown — 100 Days of Great Music home page.
Here’s Day 20.
We haven’t given you much blues, yet, either so today we’re diggin’ up a nice career retrospective of a bluesman from our neck of the East Texas woods.
Samuel John “Lightnin'” Hopkins was a country bluesman from Centerville, Texas, who was influenced by another East Texas bluesman named Blind Lemon Jefferson. Hopkins actually met Jefferson when he was eight years old, and was later taught by yet another classic Texas blues singer — a distant cousin by the name of Alger “Texas” Alexander.
I stumbled onto Hopkins through the music of Steve Earle, who was an admirer of the Texas blues tradition. Your bonus pick today is an outstanding collection titled “The Complete Aladdin Recordings” that he recorded from 1946-48.
— Chuck Cox and Kendall Webb
CHUCK’S ALBUM OF THE DAY
Why I Love It
Epic is the best word to describe this album. As a fledgling fan of rock and roll when it was released, I was blown away. With every hit single off The Game, I remember thinking, ‘I have never heard anything like this before.’ And that bass line on “Another One Bites the Dust” — wow. This album is what happens when a great band with perhaps the all-time greatest lead singer swings for the fences and connects. Queen did that a lot.
Album Highlights
“Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” “Another One Bites the Dust” and “Don’t Try Suicide”
Kendall on Chuck’s Album of the Day
I know the hits, but honestly, I had to give this one a spin to get a feel for the full album. It’s very theatrical as you might expect from Freddie Mercury and the gang, and there’s a reason they call this arena rock. This is music made to soar into the rafters and beyond with thousands of screaming fans singing along to every word. And I’m sure Chuck knows every word of it.
KENDALL’S ALBUM OF THE DAY
Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits
Why I Love It
Honestly, when it comes to classic rock, I listen to Creedence Clearwater Revival about as much as any other act. It all starts with great songs, and John Fogerty had a full bag of them, but he sang with such an urgency in his prime that the songs are almost imprinted on our collective musical DNA. This is some of the finest rock-and-roll ever recorded.
I could have pointed you to just about any of CCR’s studio albums from their self-titled debut in the summer of 1968 to “Pendulum” in December of 1970. They released a total of six LP’s in that two-and-a-half year stretch, and all of them are essential listening. But this is one of the finest original rock-and-roll greatest hits collections with all 19 of the band’s hits included among the 20 titles. For that reason alone, this collection becomes the definitive way to experience CCR, and even the casual fan will recognize just about every cut on this record.
Album Highlights
“Lodi,” “Have You Ever Seen The Rain?” and “Someday Never Comes”
Chuck on Kendall’s Album of the Day
You can’t go wrong with anything by CCR. This greatest hits collection displays the depth of the catalogue of a band with one of the most distinctive sounds in rock and roll history. I imagine if I had been a little bit older, I would have seen as many CCR concerts as I could have managed.
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