The 500 - #118 - Late Registration - Kanye West

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album #:118
Album Title: Late Registration
Artist: Kanye West
Genre: Hip Hop, Pop Rap, Progressive Rap
Recorded: Three Studios in Hollywood, One in New York

Released: August, 2005
My age at release: 40
How familiar was I with it before this week: A couple songs
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #117, rising one spot
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Gold Digger

I love the way music transforms. How a melody can slip out of one era and reappear in another wearing a completely different outfit. How something sacred can become secular, and then become something else entirely. I think of it as sonic alchemy (although I suspect I'm not the first to use that term). For me, it defines the way one artist melts down an old sound and recasts it into something new. Eventually, a new creation exists that is unrecognizable from the original source material.

It reminds me of the way my classroom lessons evolve over the years, and how each new cohort of students finds inventive ways to remix the challenges I give them. I often call these “low floor, high ceiling” activities because the entry point is accessible to everyone, but the possibilities stretch as far as their imagination. One of my favourites, a simple rock‑blaster coding game, has been reimagined for more than a decade in ways that still surprise me.

Gold Digger, the second single released from Kanye West's sophomore studio release, Late Registration, is a fascinating tale of sonic alchemy that takes place over more than a century. It is also a musical odyssey that continues today and, I suspect, will keep going beyond my lifetime.

It all started in 1901 when American gospel songwriter William Lamartin Thompson penned the Christian hymnal Jesus Is All The World To Me. Thompson, born in East Liverpool, Ohio, in 1847, studied at the New England Conservatory of Music in his early twenties. After facing rejection from commercial publishers in New York, he founded The W. L. Thompson Music Company in 1875. It soon became a prominent gospel publishing house and allowed Thompson to retain the rights to his music -- a rarity at the time.

William Lamartin Thompson

Fast forward 50 years and the gospel quartet The Southern Tones borrowed the hymn's melodic structure and transformed it into the song It Must Be Jesus. The reworked piece became a modest hit, mainly on Southern gospel radio stations where, one afternoon in 1954, singer Ray Charles was listening to it.

It Must Be Jesus - by The Southern Tones.

Charles secularized the gospel groove, a decision that shocked some church communities at the time, and wrote the soul song I Got A Woman. Charles kept the melodic contour of the song, as well as its rhythmic bounce. He also made use of the "call and response" lyrics, a technique that he would return to with his biggest hit, What I'd Say, in 1959.

Album jacket for the single, I Got A Woman (1954).

Fast‑forward another 50 years and Kanye West is in the studio, zeroing in on a tiny slice of Ray Charles’s I Got a Woman, the moment where Charles belts out that unmistakable line, "She gives me money, when I'm in need". Kanye lifts that fragment, reshapes it, and drops it into the foundation of his beat, building a new melodic world on top of Ray’s groove before laying down his rap.

To strengthen the Ray Charles connection, West recruited actor, comedian and singer Jamie Foxx to sing the a capella (vocal) introduction to the song. Foxx had won the Academy Award a year before for his portrayal of Charles in the biopic Ray.

Movie poster for Ray, starring Jamie Foxx.

So, a Christian hymn from 1901 informed a gospel hit from 1954 which was reworked into a R&B hit for Ray Charles, which, 50 years later, was sampled in a platinum selling hip-hop classic. That sonic alchemy continues today. In 2025, American rapper Freddie Gibbs partnered with DJ/producer The Alchemist (real name Alan Maman) to release the song I Still Love H.E.R. which samples West's Gold Digger. The beat, indeed, goes on.

The 500 - #119 - At Last! - Etta James

 I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album #: 119
Album Title: At Last!
Artist: Etta James
Genre: R&B, Blues, Pop, Jazz
Recorded: Chess/Argo Studios in Chicago, Illinois

Released: November, 1960
My age at release: Not born yet
How familiar was I with it before this week: A few songs
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #191, dropping72 places
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: At Last!

One night recently, I was sitting in the half-light of the Hyland Cinema, London, Ontario's beloved little repertory and art film house. As the trailers played, my wife and I quietly whispered about the upcoming movies and made tentative plans to see a few selections that we have never seen on the big screen. Two grabbed our attention -- Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki's dream-like, Japanese animation film, and Dirty Harry, the Clint Eastwood blockbuster from 55 years ago.

Posters for Spirited Away and Dirty Harry.

Then the feature started and we settled in to watch True Romance, a gritty, 1993 romantic-thriller, written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Tony Scott. It was a movie my wife and I loved in the ‘90s, but had never seen on the big screen. This version was the Director's Cut, restored in stunning 4K resolution.

It’s still an engaging and enjoyable movie, even with the troublesome language that felt edgy in the ’90s but land more uncomfortably today. In fact, prior to the screening, an employee offered a "trigger warning" to our audience. The cast is a who’s who of Hollywood A‑listers, including Patricia Arquette, Christian Slater, Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, Christopher Walken, Val Kilmer and Dennis Hopper. Watching it again, after at least 20 years, I couldn’t get over how young everyone looked. Sure, many of them were in their twenties when the movie was filmed, but even Dennis Hopper, who seemed ancient to me in 1993, was only 57. Younger than I am now.

Dennis Hopper as Cliford Worley in a powerful scene from
True Romance - one that features triggering language.

The age factor lingered long enough to follow me home, where I ended up reading about Etta James for this record, At Last!, her 1960 debut. I’ve always imagined her as a woman from another era, impossibly older, carved out of time. But, I was surprised to discover she was born only a year before my mom and was only 73 when she died in 2012. In fact, she was just 21 when she recorded this legendary record. People just looked older than their years back then and they seemed even older when viewed from a teen-age or 20-something perspective.

Etta James in the recording studio, circa 1960.

Born Jamesetta Hawkins, her professional career began in 1954, performing in Nashville clubs and touring in the Chitlin' Circuit, a loose collection of venues located in the eastern and southern U.S.. They provided safe havens for African-American performers and audiences during the time of segregation.

James (she jettisoned Hawkins and switched around Jamesetta to form her first and last names) performed in a wide range of genres, from gospel to blues to jazz and rock. She had many hits, the biggest being the title track from this record, At Last!. However, she struggled with several personal battles, including addiction, physical abuse and incarceration.

She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001. She also received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her number 22 on its 2008 list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time; she was also ranked at 62 in the magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.  Multiple artists and bands, including Diana Ross, Janis Joplin, The Rolling Stones, Amy Winehouse, and Adele, asserted they had been influenced by her.

James' grave marker in Inglewood, California.

I only really knew the big hits, so spending time with the whole album felt like discovering a hidden room in a house I thought I already knew. The lush, orchestral arrangements wrapped around her voice in an almost physical way -- warm, enveloping, unmistakably intimate. And that voice! That powerful, smoky, earthy contralto, carrying the weight of a lifetime. Which is why it stopped me cold upon realizing how young Etta James was when she recorded it. I’d always imagined her as older, someone who had lived through decades of heartbreak and hard fought wisdom. But she was barely more than a kid, singing about timeless romance and deep sorrow -- emotions seemingly far beyond her years. It’s astonishing how convincingly she harbored  experiences she hadn’t yet lived.

The 500 - #120 - Sweetheart Of The Rodeo - The Byrds

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album #: 120
Album Title: Sweetheart of the Rodeo
Artist: The Byrds
Genre: Country-Rock, Roots-Rock, Americana, Progressive Country
Recorded: Columbia Studios in Nashville and Los Angeles

Released: August, 1968
My age at release: 3
How familiar was I with it before this week: One song
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #274, dropping154 places
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: One Hundred Years From Now

I am delighted to welcome back, for his third visit as a guest blogger, podcaster and writer of the My Life In Concerts media page, Various Artists. Enjoy.

The Byrds were never one of those bands that I “discovered”: they already existed fully-formed as a contemporary, thriving entity as my awareness of the world around me began to take shape in my later-1960s, childhood brain.

I loved how they sounded, with McGuinn’s chiming, jangling guitar, the gorgeous choirboy harmonies, the brilliant songwriting and interpretations, their musical adventurousness, the trippy folk rock sound, and also their supercool look via McGuinn’s fringe and granny glasses, David Crosby’s capes, and drummer Michael Clarke out-Brian-Jonesing Brian Jones with his barnet.

Michael Clarke with his "barnet" aka: hair. Barnet is cockney
rhyming slang, taken from the annual horse fair, held in Barnet, England.
Barnet fair = hair.

I was also very aware of them as my 12-year-old sister went along with her friends to scream at them when they played here at the London Arena in 1966. She loved the show. (I also only just now realized: my sister and I saw our first concert at the same age).

Concert poster for The Byrds show at the 
London Arena.

While I loved the band, I didn’t actually own a Byrds album until the early 80s. At that time, that 12-string Rickenbacker jangle sound had returned as a massive influence to indie and alternative rock in a big way. So many of my favourite bands of the time -- R.E.M., The Smiths, Orange Juice, Echo and the Bunnymen, and a bit later, The Grapes of Wrath -- were clearly indebted to The Byrds (and Big Star for most of them too) in their music. Most also actively championed California’s Five Mop Tops as an influence and sonic inspiration.

A 12-string, Model 360 guitar from the Rickenbaker manufacturer.

They first hit hard in the summer of 1965 with their innovative folk rock take on Bob Dylan’s Mr. Tambourine Man. As it turns out, that sense of innovation was a quality that the band never stopped embracing, leading to musical tangents and line-up fluctuations in the years ahead. The next few years saw them release a series of adventurous and increasingly psychedelic albums.

Album cover for Mr. Tambourine Man by The Byrds.

In the mid-80s, after purchasing Greatest Hits, a friend of mine who was already a Byrds nut taped most of their albums for me. It was then that I went deep into my own Byrdsmania, particularly loving the journey through their first six.

For those rare bands or artists who literally change the course of music, it is usually one of their greatest honours. Well, The Byrds changed the face of music THREE TIMES.

The Byrds' 1968 line-up, (l-r) McGuinn, Kevin Kelley, Gram
Parsons and Chris Hillman.

First, with their original folk rock hits which launched that genre and movement. The second time around, they became one of the premier California rock acts to go early and deep into psychedelic experimentation, with 1966’ Eight Miles High as one of the very first psychedelic hits.

Album cover for The Byrds' Eight Miles High.

And then there’s change number three which brings us to this week’s album: 1968’s Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Album number six was a sharp left turn into country music, but modern and infused with young people’s values and vibes.

They’d birthed folk-rock. Now they were birthing its cousin, country-rock.

By this time, three of the five original Byrds were gone (Gene Clark, David Crosby, and Michael Clarke) replaced by Kevin Kelly on drums and, much more importantly, Gram Parsons on guitars and keyboards.

The Byrds original line-up, (l-r) Crosby, Clark, Clarke, Hillman
and McGuinn.

At the time, Parsons was largely unknown. He himself had started exploring the country-rock synthesis with his own small-time group, the International Submarine Band. And indeed, a variety of artists had contemporaneously been exploring this genre merge with specific tracks: Buffalo Springfield, Mike Nesmith of The Monkees, even The Beatles and The Stones.

Gram Parsons, who appears three times on The 500 list, with
two bands (The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers) and solo.

But Sweetheart of the Rodeo was a complete leap into the deep end. Initially, McGuinn’s vision for the album was going to be a survey of 20th Century American music, starting with bluegrass and country through jazz, R&B, etc. But it was the newly-installed Parsons who eventually swayed Roger and bassist Chris Hillman into making the record an all-country affair, blended with aspects of rock music and attitude.

Essentially, Parsons wanted to blend a variety of roots genres into what he named as Cosmic American Music.

Image from Robert Rubsum's 2017 article, Cosmic American Music.

The LP’s material ranged from traditional-to-recent country classics (I Am a Pilgrim, The Christian Life, Blue Canadian Rockies, Life in Prison, etc.) as well as countryfied folk (Pretty Boy Floyd) and R&B (You Don’t Miss Your Water). And since this is a Byrds' album, there is the requisite, and excellent, Dylan covers (You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere and Nothing Was Delivered) although here they were making their public debut as McGuinn sourced both of these songs from the then-unreleased Basement Tapes. (#292 on The 500 list).

The Basement Tapes album cover - a 1975 release from Bob Dylan
backed with members of The Band.

Then there were the two Parsons originals: One Hundred Years from Now and the classic Hickory Wind which he later re-recorded for his seminal and final album, Grievous Angel (#425 on The 500)

When I got that glut of Byrds cassettes in the ‘80s, Sweetheart was one of the first I played as I had read so much about it. I couldn’t have been introduced to it at a more perfect time. In that era, I was listening first to some country-inflected bands, particularly R.E.M., as well as some of the great country legends such as Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, and Hank Williams along with some of the new, more left-field country artists such as Steve Earle, k.d. lang, Emmylou Harris, and Dwight Yoakam.

In hearing Sweetheart, I experienced the seed that flowered into a variety of more alternative country sounds and movements over the next several decades. I also rediscovered Gram Parsons. I knew who he was as my brother had some Flying Burrito Brothers albums in the early 70s, but had largely forgotten about him and them.

Album cover for The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Gilded Palace
of Sin, #192 on The 500.

I absolutely loved this album from first listen: the songs, the vocals, all the pedal steel and great playing, the whole feel and aesthetic. I went on to play it obsessively in the years ahead, buying the CD upon its ‘80s release and a deluxe version from this century. I still love it today.

A pedal steel guitar being played.

In and around this time, Pamela Des Barres released her landmark book, I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie, of which Parsons is one of the key players. It all just seemed to be in the air at that time.

I'm With The Band: Confessions of a 
Groupie book by Pamela Des Barres.

As with most innovators and innovations, the wider audience is usually not prepared or open-minded enough to initially welcome such a deviation. Indeed, during the recording of this album, the band played a show at the Grand Ole Opry where they received a hostile reaction from the mainstream country audience.

Furthermore, when the album dropped in August 1968, it absolutely tanked (just like the two other very different albums from 1968 that Marc has had me write about: The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat and The Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society). 

Album cover for The Kinks' Village Green Preservation
Society (1968).

The band and album were essentially shot by both sides upon its release. Anything to do with country music couldn’t have been more toxic or undesirable to the hippie cognoscenti while the typical country audience saw them as long-haired hippie freak weirdo interlopers.

It resulted in SOTR being their lowest-charting and lowest-selling album to date. Initially.

Meanwhile, Parsons had already jumped ship two months before its release as the album vanished.

As it turns out, it was just slightly ahead of the curve. 1968 also saw a roots music revival countering psychedelia with the arrival of The Band’s debut, Music From Big Pink, as well as Bob Dylan’s John Wesley Harding and 1969’s Nashville Skyline, and back-to-roots albums by the Beatles and Stones.

Sweetheart’s influence began making an impact as the country rock genre surged in the ‘70s, with this album -- and Parsons’ post-Byrds career with the Burritos -- being its progenitors.

By that time, SOTR was retrospectively hailed as an influential classic, with its impact now spanning the decades, especially on the Outlaw and then Alt-Country movements.

What started as a commercial failure has become a consistent seller over the decades.

I put it on to relisten to it a few times before writing this piece and it still sounds so fresh, vibrant, and sparkling. Here’s a rodeo always worth attending.

The 500 - #121 - Stand! - Sly and The Family Stone

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album #: 121
Album Title: Stand!
Artist: Sly and The Family Stone
Genre: Psychedelic-Soul, Funk Rock, Progressive Soul
Recorded: Pacific High Studios, San Francisco, California

Released: May, 1969
My age at release: 3
How familiar was I with it before this week: A couple songs
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #119, rising 3 places
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Everyday People

This week’s choice for my Spotify Playlist, is Everyday People from American band Sly and The Family Stone. It is one of  those catchy, earwormy-tracks that never fails to make me feel better about life. Released in 1968, months before the group's fourth studio record Stand! hit the shelves, the song is a catchy two-minute and 21-second ditty that delivers a simple message: All people are fundamentally the same, despite their differences. It promotes equality, unity and empathy by calling out the ways humans divide themselves by race, class, appearance and ideology, and then dismantles those divisions with messages of shared humanity.

It was an important message in 1968 when the United States was reeling from the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Those tragedies and the deepening societal upheaval over the Vietnam War sparked riots in cities across the country. In that climate of grief, division, and uncertainty, Everyday People offered solace, and a reminder that equality, empathy and shared humanity was possible.

A photo snapped moments after Martin Luther King was
shot in Memphis, Tennessee. April 4, 1968.

Unfortunately, the lesson of Everyday People is no less urgent today. As Russia continues its brutal assault on Ukraine, as violence and polarization persist across the United States, and as Gaza struggles to recover from devastating bombing campaigns, the need for compassion and unity remains as pressing as ever. The world continues to fracture along lines of ideology, nationality, and fear.  But, the song’s core truth endures -- we must find ways to live together, or tear each other apart.

ICE agents deployed in Minneapolis gunned down protester
Alex Pretti in January, 2026.

This week, I found myself in a strange emotional juxtaposition, needing Everyday People more than I could ever have imagined. On one hand, the Winter Olympics filled my screens with images of nations coming together in shared celebration. In contrast,  my country of Canada was left reeling from a horrific mass shooting in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, where eight people, most of them children, were killed and more than 25 were injured. Trying to process the contrast between the two events -- unity on the world stage and heartbreak at home -- left me a little unmoored.

Police tape outside the Tumbler Ridge School, one of two sites
for the shootings.

Talking to my students about the random shootings was designed to help them feel safe and ensure they understood that their emotions were valid. However, they also had to be made aware of  the harmful narratives that quickly began circulating, especially the cruel backlash directed at the trans community after the shooter was identified. In that difficult space, Everyday People served as my personal ballast. The lyrics and music were a gentle reminder that compassion, acceptance and shared humanity are not relics of the past but values that require repeating over and over again. I didn't play them the song, but I might do so in the days ahead to affirm what I want them to understand -- that we, as Canadians...as humans...as everyday people, are capable of something better than fear and division.

The 500 - #122 - "The Harder They Come" Soundtrack - Jimmy Cliff and Various Artists

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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Album #: 122
Album Title: The Harder They Come Soundtrack
Artist: Jimmy Cliff and Various Artists
Genre: Rocksteady, Reggae, Ska
Recorded: Multiple Studios, Jamaica

Released: July, 1972
My age at release: 6
How familiar was I with it before this week: A Couple Songs
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #174, Dropping 52 places
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: You Can Get It If You Really Want

Just a few months ago, on November 24, 2025, the world said goodbye to Jamaican singer, musician, songwriter and actor Jimmy Cliff. In the days that followed, social media lit up with tributes. Friends, fans, and fellow musicians flooded timelines with memories, gratitude, and celebrations of a legacy that stretched far beyond the Caribbean island’s shores.

Born James Chambers, Jimmy Cliff began writing songs while still in primary school in Saint James Parish, just outside the tourist hub of Montego Bay. Recognizing the spark in his son, Cliff’s father took 14‑year‑old James to Kingston, the humming. creative centre of Jamaica.

It was there that he adopted the stage name Jimmy Cliff. He later revealed that he chose “Cliff” to symbolize the artistic heights he intended to climb. From the very beginning, he wasn’t content with being a local sensation. As a teenager, he dreamed of carrying his music far beyond the shores of the Caribbean island he called home.

Cliff in 1971 - age 27.

In 1964, after releasing several hit songs in Jamaica, he was chosen as one of the country's representatives at the 1965 New York World's Fair. He was featured in a promotion called This Is Ska! alongside fellow Jamaican artists Prince Buster, The Dragonaires, Byron Lee, and Toots And The Maytals, whose record Funky Kingston appears at #380 on The 500.

Postcard for the New York World's Fair, 1964.

The Jamaican exhibit at the World's Fair helped to introduce global audiences to the island's music, but it would be a 1972 crime movie, The Harder They Come, starring Cliff, that helped bring the genres of reggae, ska and rocksteady to the world.

Movie poster for The Harder They Come.

The Harder They Come follows Ivan, a young man who leaves rural Jamaica for Kingston with dreams of becoming a reggae star, only to discover a city shaped by poverty, corruption and exploitation. As he chases opportunities, through music, work and love, he’s pulled into the vibrant but unforgiving world of Kingston’s tough streets where ambition, injustice and survival collide with the pulsing backdrop of early 1970s Jamaica.

A promotional poster, featuring positive
reviews for The Harder They Come.

The film operates on multiple levels. It is, ostensibly, an action/crime flick, but it also offers a sharp social commentary on the urban poverty and systematic corruption that were byproducts of post-colonial inequality. Cleverly, the film pulls in audiences with the promise of excitement and then delivers a surprising social, economic and political critique. The movie was a massive success in Jamaica, but quickly found audiences around the world.

The film has been credited with "bringing reggae to the world", with Jimmy Cliff as the de facto ambassador. The soundtrack, which appears at #122 on The 500, features six tracks by Cliff as well as hit songs from other Jamaican artists, including  The Maytals, The Slickers, Desmond Decker, DJ Scotty, and the Melodians. The result was, according to music critic Robert Christgau, a soundtrack that "collected the best songs of artists whose music was either unavailable or not rich enough to fill a Long Play (LP) record."

Re-issue of The Harder They Come on vinyl (2024).

The record is now considered one of the best of all time and has been deemed "culturally, aesthetically and historically significant" by the Library of Congress (U.S.A.) and has been selected for preservation by the National Recording Registry (U.S.A.).

Rest in Peace Mr. Cliff. You absolutely crested the peak of that summit you hoped to climb as a teenager.