Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles

The Amboy Dukes’ raw treatment of Big Joe Williams’ “Baby, Please Don’t Go” from the band’s first album on Mainstream Records was included on the original Nuggets compilation album and already features Ted Nugent’s signature guitar licks.  Additionally, and incredibly, “Baby, Please Don’t Go” was originally the “A” side of the early single by Van Morrison’s band Them that includes the immortal “Gloria” on the flip.  In his book Rock and Roll: The 100 Best Singles, rock historian Paul Williams has said of this record (as quoted in Wikipedia):  “Into the heart of the beast . . . here is something so good, so pure, that if no other hint of it but this record existed, there would still be such a thing as rock and roll. . . .  Van Morrison’s voice a fierce beacon in the darkness, the lighthouse at the end of the world.  Resulting in one of the most perfect rock anthems known to humankind.”

 

(April 2011)