Ron’s Pandemic Picks – The Sinners

Ron has had a lot of free time lately to listen to music and has decided to pass along his favorite quarantine albums to you.

Recently one morning, taking advantage of the opportunity to spend some free time to kick back and listen to some genuine rock’n’roll from my record collection, I found it next to impossible to decide which albums to play. Then an idea struck: why not select a few of my absolute faves from the past 35 or 40 years?

I’ve been hosting and producing a radio program called Nightwaves in Saskatoon since 1983 – initially on the former campus radio station, CHSK, and then, up to the present time, on our Community Radio Station, CFCR. The all-vinyl record show, features rock, pop-rock, psychedelia, roots-rock and garage-rock from around the globe. At the end of each year, I compile a Top Ten list of my favorite albums of the year for broadcast early the following year. Fortunately, I’ve kept my annual Top Ten lists over the years, so it’s now a simple matter of referring to these lists and choosing a number of albums to listen to during these self-isolation days.

This Feedback Society column will feature some of these releases I’ve recently been enjoying. I’ll be selecting albums which are available in full on YouTube as my way of being able to share the listening experience with you, the reader.

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Sweden enjoyed an exciting, fresh-sounding music scene in the mid-eighties and early-nineties and several of that country’s record releases found their way into my Top Ten lists over the years. In 1987, the debut album by The Sinners, From the Heart Down, was my number six pick that year. The quintet formed in Lund, Sweden in December of 1982 and went on to release four well-received albums. The band’s debut effort, like most of their other releases, featured no-frills rock’n’roll with a rockabilly flavor. The album opens with one of my favorite song titles, “The Bridge & the Broom”, and also includes a kickass treatment of Bob Dylan’s, “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight”. Check out the full album on YouTube.

About the Author

Ron Spizziri grew up in Toronto in the 50s and 60s, building up a record library (which became an addiction early on and continues to this day). After moving to Saskatoon in 1979, he got into the “music biz” in a big way – running a record store (Records on Wheels), producing and hosting radio and TV shows, promoting concerts, doing some freelance writing, and starting up a record label (Rockin’ Rod records). Luddite that he is, Ron still favours vinyl analogue recordings over all other forms of recorded music.