Notes from the weird side of rock and roll

A compendium of the unusual, and sometimes downright bizarre, from the world of rock and roll:

'Gimme Shelter’ cost the life of her unborn child: Four months pregnant when she added her piercing vocals to “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones, singer Merry Clayton blames the stress of the recording session for her subsequent miscarriage.

Doing the Pandora shuffle, 5th edition

"OK, Google: Shuffle my Pandora."

"Crimson and Clover," Tommy James & The Shondells (Crimson & Clover/Cellophane Symphony, 1991): Oh, yeah, one of those early hard-rock favorites that opened my mind for exploration beyond your typical Top 40 fare. I cannot express how much I loved this song in my early high-school years. Pandora is serving me the 5:32 version from the 1991 CD packaging of the band's 1968 and 1969 albums. To explain this one, let me start at the beginning: The single "Crimson and Clover," clocking in at 3:23, was released in November 1968 and quickly became the biggest of The Shondells' string of big hits. A month later, the band released the album Crimson & Clover, which featured a 5:25 version of the centerpiece song. This version essentially was the single with a long guitar solo by Ed Gray edited into the middle of the track. But that piece was inadvertently sped up slightly during the mastering process, and the 1968 album went out that way. Engineers corrected the mistake digitally for the 1991 package, resulting in the 5:32 version of the song, billed as the way the song originally was intended to be heard. It sounds as great as ever.

Doing the Pandora shuffle, 4th edition

"OK, Google, shuffle my Pandora."

"The Golden Age of Rock 'n' Roll," Mott the Hoople (The Hoople, 1974): A jumping rock-and-roll burner that sounds exactly like what the title suggests -- Jerry Lee Lewis imported into 1970s glam. The opening track on Mott's seventh studio album, it's dense with three saxophones, Ian Hunter's piano and lead vocals, and backing vocals by sister team Sue and Sunny. Hunter left Mott after this album and did a lot of this kind of stuff in his solo career.