JACKSON BROWNE'S RUNNING ON EMPTY THE TOUR BUS RIDE WE STILL WANT TO TAKE

Running On Empty
1977

722 Miles To Go

This is the 1970s tour bus ride minions of music fans still want to take.

Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous brought the era to the movies, but Jackson Browne's Running On Empty is the original backstage pass pressed on black vinyl.

Radically recorded for the era, it's a live collection of new songs with the venues ranging from concert halls to the tour bus to a pair from Room 124 at the Holiday Inn in Edwardsville, Illinois.

It's about the thousands of miles of driving (Nothing But Time, The Road). It's about the drugs (Cocaine). It's about the "girls in daddy's cars" (Rosie, Love Needs A Heart).

And, it's about the love triangle between the performers, the roadies and the fans.

Running On Empty launched a pair of the mainstays of Album Oriented Rock radio still heard regularly today - the opening title track and The Load-Out/Stay.

The former is a quintessential running playlister, while the later makes you believe that if we all cheer just a little louder and longer the band really will come back for one more song.

At times moody and lonely, Running On Empty romanticizes the pleasures over the pain to make every moment on stage feel like it's worth the things left behind by a life in the soft rock circus.

The real snow flurry conversation at the end of Cocaine between Browne and guitarist David Lindley remains funny today and even clearer on ear buds.

In addition to Lindley, Browne is backed by four other members of The Section a.k.a. The Mellow Mafia - drummer Russ Kunkel, bassist Leland Sklar, keyboardist Craig Doerge and guitarist Danny Kortchmar (the songwriter on Shaky Town). Only guitarist Waddy Wachtel is missing.

This all stitches together a concert T-shirt that's barely faded and still fits 26 years later.

Licorice Pizza Notes: This run selection was prompted by an excellent feature called "The Knights Of Soft Rock" written by David Browne for the April 11, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone. It's a revealing and sometimes hilarious retrospective into the making of some of the biggest records of the 1970s and The Section "backing" the stars (Carole King, James Taylor, Warren Zevon, Linda Ronstadt, and Crosby, Stills and Nash).

Three days later on National Record Store Day, I found a copy of their album - The Section (featuring Kunkel, Sklar, Doerge and Kortchmar) - complete with the liner notes insert and the giant "In O So Low Me O" poster in the dollar bin at Elizabeth's Records.

Song For The Soundtrack: Running On Empty

Running Data for Wednesday, April 17:
3.69 Miles
39:24

Mileage In The Change Jar: 0.24 Miles