Beer and Rock- My Top Ten Beer Songs
Something a little light-hearted this time around. More beer and brewing stories coming, I promise.
Beer and music: To me they go hand-in-hand. I am a huge music fan, absolutely love classic rock, modern rock and blues (anything with electric guitars, a good riff, a good groove and a good melody usually works for me).
Though it has been far too long since I’ve been able to, one local event I like to participate in is San Diego radio station FM 94/9 Rock and Roll Happy Hour on Friday evenings, where great craft beers are tasted and discussed, and great tunes (always includes a Tom Waits tune, thanks to Ken Wright!) are played. The folks at 94/9 love their craft beer, and love amazing, independent rock music. It’s always fun to try and pick tunes from my own collection that fits the theme of the show, and get them played on air.
In a couple of weeks I’ll be going to the Mammoth Bluesapalooza, which in my mind is the perfect event: Great blues music accompanied by great craft beer on Friday night, followed by a full-fledged beer festival with a day of blues performers on Saturday. Plus it’s in the mountains, so the setting is amazing. This year’s headliner is Tinsley Ellis, one of my all-time favorite guitar players, so I am doubly excited about this.
I thought it might be fun to list some of my favorite beer drinking tunes. I know it’s been done before, but I don’t care. Here are my top ten beer-related rock and blues tunes-songs that just go great with a pint of beer, or that reference good beer in some way. In no particular order:
1. Hey Bartender: The Blues Brothers (and others). “Draw one, draw two, draw three, four glasses of beer”
2. Sweet Goddess of Love and Beer: Popa Chubby. Great groove and very tasty electric blues. One of my favorites from blues master Popa Chubby. Sums things up nicely.
3. John Barleycorn Must Die: Traffic. Amazing rework of a traditional English folk tune that is all about the love of the barley.
4. One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer: John Lee Hooker, George Thorogood. You can’t go wrong with this riff. Amazing. And George Thorogood’s cover knocks it out of the park. Turned me on in the early 1980s to John Lee Hooker, for which I am grateful.
5. Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers: ZZ Top: Great old-school ZZ Top. Bluesy, raunchy, perfect.
6. Beer Drinking Woman: Roy Buchanon. Great tune from an under-appreciated guitar maestro. Roy Buchanon and Danny Gatton: Amazing Tele players-check them out if you aren’t familiar. Unfortunately both are deceased.
7. I Ain’t Drunk (I’m Just Drinkin’): the late, great Albert Collins. Speaking of Telecasters, Albert Collins is the “Master of the Telecaster”. Texas Blues deluxe.
8. Beercan: Beck. Not sure how cool of a beer drinking song this really is, but I just like Beck and I like this song.
9. Pretty Good at Drinking Beer: Billy Cunningham. I’m not a huge country fan, and there are tons of country songs about drinking beer, but I like this one. Tried to get one of the bands I’ve played in to do it, but not successful, yet.
10. Roadhouse Blues: The Doors. One of the mainstays of my band, Craigsband. We usually end the mellower first set of our gigs with this song, to give a people a taste of the harder, more energetic sets to come. One of our singers used to change the lyric “Woke up this morning, and I got myself a beer” to: “Woke up this morning, and got myself a Stone”, which I always liked.
What are your top beer songs?
