Bobby Charles (1938-2010) was early rock's ragin' Cajun, a white Louisiana cat who wrote and sang with down-home R&B vigor. By the early Seventies, Charles – the author of "See You Later Alligator" and the Fats Domino hit "Walkin' to New Orleans" – was in Woodstock cutting this simple diamond of swampy drawl and country-hippie soul with Dr. John and most of the Band. Songs like "Small Town Talk" and "Street People" have the unhurried swing of a hammock on a bayou porch. The 10-track '72 album is blown up to three discs in this reissue, so you also get an LP's worth of 1974 sessions that were just as fine yet strangely abandoned.

Listen to "Small Town Talk":

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“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.