CoronaVinyl Day 428 (L): Best of Nils Lofgren by Nils Lofgren

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "L," and I listened to Nils Lofgren's 1981 Best Of album.  This is one that I got from my neighbor, and at some point, he had some sort of music-related job that allowed him to get promotional albums.  This is one of those, but the cool thing is that inside the album were two review sheets that the recipient was supposed to fill out after listening to the album and then return it to the music store that provided the promotional copy.  I posted a picture above.

Lofgren is best known as Little Steven Van Zandt's replacement in the E Street Band.  Lofgren has been a member of the E Street band since 1984 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the rest of the band in 2014 (15 years after Springsteen himself was inducted).  He got his start as a member of Neil Young's Crazy Horse in the early '70s at the ripe old age of 19.  After that, he was in the band Grin, before launching a solo career in 1975.

The Best Of album is a compilation of Lofgren's solo work from 1975 to 1981, as well as a song from the Grin era.  I've never listened to any of his solo stuff prior to today, and it's pretty good.  As you might imagine, there are some heartland rock undertones, but it's mainly just straightforward rock and roll.

Even after joining the E Street Band, Lofgren has continued to release solo material over the past four decades, and he also reunited with Neil Young and Crazy Horse to release a couple albums over the last few years.

The album is not on Spotify or YouTube, so I just embedded my favorite song from each album below.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Rock and Roll Crook"
This one is from Lofgren's 1975 self-titled debut album, and it's a nice, mellow rock song.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Back It Up"
I guess I like songs from Lofgren's debut, as this one is also from that album.  It's another straightforward pop rock song, bordering on power pop.