K-Chuck Radio: Set Sail…

It’s Columbus Day, so today I decided to set up a K-Chuck Radio blog post that features ten songs about sailing, sailors, and every other sort of aquatic travel.  So get your life jackets on, run to the front end of the boat, and shout “I’m the King of the World!!” – oh yeah, I’m not playing THAT song.  And I’m not playing Christopher Cross’s “Sailing,” so you can thank me already for that.

But I do have some other sailing songs, including:

THE BEACH BOYS
Sloop John B

There were a few Beach Boys songs I could have used… It was either this one or “Sail On Sailor,” and I chose this one… because…

KGB
Sail On Sailor

KGB was a supergroup that included drummer Carmine Appice and lead singer Mike Bloomfield. I do enjoy this bluesy, hard-rock version, and in my opinion, I do find it superior to the Beach Boys version.

TROOPER
Santa Maria

This bouncy 70’s radio hit deserves several plays, and should have been a bigger hit than it was.

BLUES IMAGE
Ride Captain Ride

Blues Image was a Tampa-based band that had only one hit. And what a hit it was. Check out this funky old early 1970’s music video…

GRAND FUNK RAILROAD
I’m Your Captain / Closer To Home

Sometimes, if this song is on one of my mixtape CD’s, and I’m driving home from somewhere, I’ll try to start the song at some arbitrary point, and see how close I can get to seeing “Welcome to Albany” highway signs as the chorus sings “I’m getting closer to my home…”

JAY FERGUSON
Shakedown Cruise

Jay Ferguson had a big hit in the 1970’s with a song called “Thunder Island.” Unfortunately, he released this song as a follow-up, and it didn’t do very well. Gotta love the lyrics – “You boys want some sex? // You can squeeze the sails, you can lick the decks…”

THE COMMODORES
Sail On

Don’t tell the youngsters that read this blog, but Lionel Richie was once in this really popular funk-rock band called the Commodores. They had a bunch of hits, and this was one of their most soulful.

STYX
Come Sail Away

Set an open course for the virgin sea… I would argue that this is the quintessential Styx song, the perfect mixture of sweet ballad and hard rock crescendo. This, maybe also “The Best of Times” or “Don’t Let It End.”

GORDON LIGHTFOOT
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Some of the greatest balladeers of the 20th century wrote and performed songs about, of all things, train wrecks and sunken ships. This is not only a tribute to the ill-fated ship and its crew, but it’s also Gordon Lightfoot’s homage to that era of the singer-storyteller.

ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS
Shipbuilding

And finally, here’s a song about how the shipbuilding industry in a small town might be saved by, of all things, the country going to war and needing new maritime vessels. Fantastic song.

Time to pull up the anchor, disengage from the dock, and let the currents take you to a new adventure. With K-Chuck Radio, your waycool blog radio playlist!