Al Green. Aretha Franklin. Any number of the greatest singers in the history of soul have put their own distinctive spin on this heartbreaking civil rights anthem since Sam Cooke heard Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” as a clarion call to weigh in on the sorry state of race relations from a black man’s point of view. But no one’s ever done it with more soul than Otis Redding. One of three Cooke classics Redding cut for Otis Blue in tribute to his fallen hero, who was shot to death 11 days before his own recording hit the airwaves as “Change Gonna Come,” it proved the perfect vehicle for Redding’s aching vocal style. You’d almost swear that melancholy horn chart in the intro had brought him to tears as he trembles his way through the opening line, “I was born by a river, oh my.” And it only gets better from there until he’s pleading with his family to give him the help he needs with a desperate cry of “I said mother, I’m down on my knees.”

Recommended by: Ed Masley

Long before they’d gone Top 40 with the timeless psychedelic soul of “Time Has Come Today,” The Chambers Brothers chose a Jimmy Reed song, “Yes, Yes, Yes,” to kick off their first album, People Get Ready for the Fabulous Chambers Brothers. Captured live at L.A.’s Ash Grove and the Unicorn in Boston, the album also featured Reed’s “You’ve Got Me Running,” but it’s pretty obvious why “Yes Yes Yes” was chosen as the opener, setting the tone with some serious blues harp and the sort of groove the British beat groups lived to borrow. It’s what people used to mean by swagger – not as primitive as Reed’s original, perhaps, and yet more bad-ass in its own way. Reed’s own version of the song, it should be noted, was “I’m Goin’ Upside Your Head,” but these guys toned the title down without changing the actual lyrics, warning baby, “If you don’t watch out, goin’ upside of your head.”

Recommended by: Ed Masley

In the unlikely event that Otis Redding’s first big hit, “These Arms Of Mine,” had failed to make a solid case for Redding as a new soul legend in the making, this one should have left no doubt. A gospel-flavored ballad packed with raw emotion and vulnerability, “Pain in My Heart” found Redding playing to the strengths that made “These Arms of Mine” so devastating. The tempo is nearly identical – just slow enough to smolder. The feel is the same, a stately, soulful waltz with the piano player holding down the triplets — only this time, there are horns, a future Redding staple. But the instrument that ultimately makes this record such a timeless treasure is, of course, the vocal, pleading its case — “said I want you to come back, come back, come back, baby” – with an urgency and passion rarely heard since Redding’s passing, at the tender age of 26, in 1967.

Recommended by: Ed Masley

By the time he got around to making Killer, Alice Cooper’s reputation for depraved onstage behavior all but guaranteed that any parent looking for another reason not to let this record in the house would automatically assume “Dead Babies” was the ticket. But the punchline is, it’s actually an oddly poignant cautionary tale about the dangers of bad parenting. As Alice once explained the song to me, “That record was one of the first times anyone had ever said anything about child abuse. I certainly wasn’t gonna say, ‘Now, don’t abuse children ’cause it’s not good.’ Alice Cooper wouldn’t say it like that.” In retrospect, what’s really shocking is how Beatlesque those backing vocals are at the end of the chorus.

Recommended by: Ed Masley

This unsung highlight of Are You Experienced? didn’t even make the U.S. version of the album back in 1967, one of three tracks cut to make room for the early singles “Hey Joe,” “Purple Haze,” and “The Wind Cries Mary.” But it would have been a better album if they’d added those and kept “Remember.” Picture Hendrix doing Memphis soul without the horns. Guitar licks stab and swagger like the great Steve Cropper while the lyrics channel Otis Redding in his brokenhearted prime and Hendrix sings about the impact of his baby leaving him on nearby birds and honeybees. “They used to sing so sweet,” he sighs. “But since my baby left me, they ain’t sang in two long days.” And just in case she won’t be swayed by melancholy honeybees? He lets her know that if she doesn’t come back soon, he’ll starve to death. Apparently, he doesn’t cook much.

Recommended by: Ed Masley

There’s plenty of clatter and chaos and tension going down in the first 40 seconds of this track, including the torture of a violin in what sounds likes the devil returning to Georgia for a rematch. It’s the first song off Being There, Wilco’s second LP and their first with then-new member Jay Bennett, who left the world far too soon last Sunday. “When you’re back in your old neighborhood, the cigarettes taste so good, but you’re so misunderstood,” Tweedy sings on the understated first verse. The piano is gorgeous, playing off the ache in Tweedy’s vocal as the tension slowly creeps back in with squalls of feedback and assorted racket. And, after winding their way through a lead that could pass for an outtake from Magical Mystery Tour, the drummer and the strings throw exclamation points at Tweedy’s vocal as he tells a needy fan, “I’d like to thank you all for nothing!”

Recommended by: Ed Masley

It’s kind of weird that the Ramones would toss in a moment as tender as this one on the album that launched the American punk revolution. It was written by Tommy Ramone, the original drummer, but Joey’s vocals are what take it to another level, all starry-eyed yearning and vulnerability. If you switched the title to “I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend,” it could be a great lost girl group classic, from the chiming Wall of Sound production to the minor chord that sweetens Joey’s vocal when he asks her, “Do you love me, babe? What do you say?” As Joey once noted, “The girls always like that one.” So did the Bay City Rollers, who wanted to cover it. But the Ramones said no. How punk is that?

Recommended by: Ed Masley

The opening track on Otis Redding’s finest hour, Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul, sets the tone of despair with a classic Steve Cropper guitar riff: two emphatic hits giving way to a slinkier groove that sounds like something Jimi Hendrix would have studied. Then the Memphis horns come sobbing in to underscore the sadness of the riff. But it’s when Redding’s melancholy vocal makes its entrance, urging Ole Man Trouble to “go find you someone else to pick on,” that this B-Side starts to feel more like an A-side—although, to be fair, the A-side was “Respect.” But this is just as timeless, boasting one of Redding’s most emotional performances, with every nuance the essence of soul. The album is packed with examples of Redding’s interpretive prowess, but this heartbreaking Redding original more than holds its own in such rarefied company.

Recommended by: Ed Masley

“Pretty Vacant” couldn’t hope to cause as big a stir as the Sex Pistols’ earlier triumphs, “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “God Save the Queen.” Once you’ve declared yourself the Antichrist and followed through by skewering the Queen on the occasion of her Silver Jubilee, how many eyebrows can you honestly expect to raise with “We don’t care?” But apathy has rarely sounded more aggressive, crashing the gate with one of punk’s essential riffs—a textbook case of less-is-more, driven home by guitar antihero Steve Jones, who’s soon surrounded by an army of himself. “What I wanted to get was a new Wall of Sound,” the guitarist once told NME. But any similarity between this record and the great Phil Spector ends the moment Johnny Rotten takes the mike with an opening sneer of, “There’s no point in asking. You’ll get no reply.”

Recommended by: Ed Masley

One of three new songs The Stooges cranked out in a single night when Elektra refused to release their now-classic debut on the grounds that there weren’t enough songs, “Not Right” is quintessential Iggy Pop. Dig the pause he sticks between a sneering “She . . .” and “uh, not right” and the attitude with which he shrugs his way through every subsequent complaint. Like nearly every second of The Stooges’ finest hour, “Not Right” is a fuzz-driven proto-punk classic, blurring the lines between garage and psychedelic rock. It sounds like Ron Asheton is playing on strings made of rubber while chain-chugging bottles of maximum-strength Robitussin. The Stooges didn’t sell well or get many good reviews, but like the Velvet Underground’s debut, there’d be no punk and very little alternative music worth a damn without it.

Recommended by: Ed Masley

The Soft Bulletin, a chamber-pop masterpiece hailed at the time as some late-’90s weirdo-rock version of Pet Sounds, captured Oklahoma City’s Flaming Lips at their artistic peak. But the opening seconds of this richly textured highlight feel more like a Carpenters song, with its fluttery piano fills trickling over the synthesized flutes and strings. Then Wayne Coyne starts to sing. His words are inspired by the way his family pulled together when his father died, and it takes on an aching emotional resonance that no amount of soft-rock orchestration can undo. “And though they were sad,” he creaks like Neil Young reaching for that high note, “They rescued everyone. They lifted up the sun. A spoonful weighs a ton.” The album never cracked the Top 200, but that didn’t stop it from earning a spot on nearly every list of greatest albums ever published since the day it hit the streets.

Recommended by: Ed Masley

A guitar hero album for people who don’t like guitar hero albums, Keep It Like A Secret is what happens when you give an indie-rock guitar band major-label dollars to construct a symphony of interweaving riffs. There’s something almost Pavement-esque (with hints of XTC) about the way Built To Spill make their way through this off-kilter pop gem, with Doug Martsch defending his place at the center of the universe. “I don’t like this air, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop breathing it,” he sighs. “Who doesn’t think they’re at the center of the universe?” Revered at the time for their extended jams, Martsch and company cut to the chase on this, coming in under the three-minute mark. But there’s still plenty of guitar to go around.

Recommended by: Ed Masley