Rock Show Classics

Rock fanatics, we're about to return to the glory days of the axe-filled airwaves, when dials were turned up, pop was filtered out, and — when Fluff Freeman said "Alright, not 'arf" — the world nodded back in a state of blown-away, chord-caressed concurrence. All the great mysteries of life seemed to make perfect sense, once viewed through the sonic prism of "Hocus Pocus" by Focus and Wishbone Ash's "Time Was"; transcendence was attainable via the slowhand of Eric Clapton ("Bell Bottom Blues") and flamin' fingers of Jimi Hendrix ("The Wind Cries Mary"); and heaviness descended like a blessing from the gods when Led Zep and Deep Purple showed us the light.

Carlos Santana and Jeff Beck set about their fret-work, in Next Steps.

Home-brewed or imported from North America, heavily metallic or boldly progressive, southern-skewed or jazz-fused, the great bands of the radio rock era offered all things to all listeners. Before the onset of punk and then new-wave, the airwaves were a glorious, resonant tapestry of rock, uniting the Latinate grooves of Santana ("Soul Sacrifice") with the conceptual awesomeness of Rush ("2112 Overture" transitioning into "The Temples of Syrinx"), and setting the Wonder-ous hybridizations of Beck Bogert & Appice ("Superstition") alongside the epic glamorama of David Bowie, as he led us through The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

Find out how Saxon stacks up against the Doobie Brothers, in Deep Cuts.