October, 1973 is a monster month in rock 'n' roll. I've already featured three albums from this list of twelve shown above recently and decided to mix them all together and make a big ol' playlist this week.
I always seem to surprise myself 50 years down the road, and this past week it was listening to Neil Young's Time Fades Away. This was the album that followed Harvest and it just became part of Young's succession of albums where he seemed not to care as much in making great records. Neil has a lot of personal history within this time period, so much so that this live album is not officially listed in his catalogue, and wasn't pressed as a CD until 2017. In my journey through the past this last week, I found Time Fades Away very satisfying. In a year, I'll give Neil's 1974 On The Beach, another try.
Two other gems, are Fleetwood Mac's Mystery to Me, and Dave Mason's It's Like You Never Left. I think I included every song from both albums here as the Brits just kept making great music.
Enjoy my friends, you've got a full week of listening enjoyment as I was personally having the time of my life with my girlfriend and into my first semester of college in October, 1973.
Monster month. It's my 18th birthday and I'm counting the days before graduation. It's the spring semester and I still have an English class requirement for graduation and decide to take a literature class with Miss Dunn. A pretty and spunky little redhead is sitting right behind me everyday now in class. Her name is Mary Kit and I love that name as she'll quickly correct anyone that calls her, "Mary."
We are starting to strike up a daily conversation. She quickly works out a routine of leaning forward and talking to me as I don't turn around to attract attention to Miss Dunn, she's reading passages from To Kill a Mockingbird. In fact, I'm hatching a plan that we sit together in the Ethel Pope Auditorium to watch the 1962 movie starring Gregory Peck, as Miss Dunn has planned this as a culminating event to the Harper Lee classic.
Mary Kit's a Junior but I find out soon enough that she's graduating a year early and my fascination is increasing by the day as I can't wait for the few moments before and after English class to have a little face to face conversation with my new friend. Sitting directly behind Mary Kit is her best friend, Valerie and when Miss Dunn breaks us off into small discussion groups, we quickly form our little triangle.
At some point, I find out she's Judge Smith's daughter and I'm thinking, am I way out of my league to ask her out?
Many of the tunes in the playlist this month are all over the radio and the association of meeting Mary Kit and hearing these songs in that spring and summer of 1973 are seared into my brain forever. Pink Floyd's, The Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin's, Houses of the Holy, and the Doobie Brother's, The Captain and Me, playing on KUHL FM. So I'm driving to the southside of town to get gas for .25 cents a gallon, listening to the car radio in my 1957 MGA convertible, and I'm thinking about that girl.
Amazingly enough, I don't have a picture of that car, but here's a 1961 I found on the Internet that had the same deep green color. I bought mine for $600 my Junior year in high school, and all I wanted in life at the time, was to have a girl in the passenger seat.
From a music standpoint, listening to all the Rock, Folk and R&B from fifty years ago always has it's wonderful surprises. In 1973, I never listened to Tom Waits debut album, Closing Time. I don't have to tell you it's a classic like the car above, as I couldn't get enough of listening to the entire album this past week. It's ironic that I am now listening to digital streaming music made from 50 to 60 year old vinyl records. The early 70's had such fantastic singer-songwriters like Randy Newman and Harry Nilsson who had that early 20th century upright piano playing and singing style that goes with a cold beer sitting in a bar. Raise a glass to Tom Waits and Closing Time!
Lots of little gems here, but I found myself also listening to the Faces, Ooh La La. This would be the Faces last album as Rod Stewart broke up one of the truly great rock 'n' roll bands seeking his own fame and fortune.
I also gave some extra listening time to Fleetwood Mac's Penguin, as one of my favorite's, Danny Kirwan was fired from the band while on their Bare Trees album tour for his out of control behavior. Bob Welch would suddenly take on a more important central role on Penguin and in a band that had a knack for losing great musicians only to replace them with newer great musicians.
Enjoy my friends, and thanks to Monday Monday's spunky little editor for proofreading this publication every week. It's been 50 years in the making. And, Happy 68th birthday to the Ol' 55 who writes this rag.
I love Christine McVie.Most people only know of Christine McVie from the most famous years of Fleetwood Mac with Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham starting in 1975 and through the 80's.
Before the mega-rock-star years, Christine Perfect had burst onto the music scene in 1967 joining the British Blues band, Chicken Shack. As fortune would have it, another British Blues band called Fleetwood Mac often played the same gigs as Chicken Shack. In time, Perfect started playing with Fleetwood Mac as a contract session player in 1968.
That all changed in 1970 when Christine married bass player John McVie and joined Fleetwood Mac full-time that same year.
As a side note- The founder of Fleetwood Mac was guitarist Peter Green. Green named the band Fleetwood Mac after drummer Mick Fleetwood and bass player John McVie by simply combining their two names together. In the annals of rock and roll history, I find this to be one of the most generous offerings ever by a leader of a rock 'n' roll band. Sadly, Peter Green would leave Fleetwood Mac in 1970 with a steady decline in his mental health.
I became a fan of Fleetwood Mac in 1971 with the arrival of their 5th album, Future Games. The album includes several songs written by Christine, but the one that kind of got me attracted to her as a singer-songwriter is Show Me A Smile. The song's indicative of what would become McVie's writing style of tight pop classics always surrounded by the wonderful guitar playing of Danny Kirwan, Bob Welch, and later of course with Lindsey Buckingham.
In 1972, Fleetwood Mac released, Bare Trees one of my all-time favorite albums, the cover is even exquisite. Christine would contribute Homeward Bound, basically her dislike of touring, and the song that send me over the moon with my love for this woman, Spare Me A Little Of Your Love. Such a wonderful song that I never get tired of listening to, a complete gem by the band. Christine's voice is so understated and evenly beautiful and I became a big fan of her and the band. To have this woman in your band would be like having Lou Gehrig in your baseball lineup. Christine McVie simply took a 60's British Blues band to another level, a more popular level.
The enduring thing I want to say about Christine McVie is her great ability to be a team player. In 1975, how many lead women would openly accept another beautiful woman and the dynamo of Stevie Nicks in their band? I would say, not many. Christine's openness to accept Stevie and let her fly in Fleetwood Mac is just another reason to love Christine McVie.
Christine McVie stayed with Fleetwood Mac through thick and thin from 1968-1998. She then took a 15 year retirement and came back rested and strong in 2013 for even more band drama. Now that's rock 'n' roll stamina and a testament to my unwavering admiration for the greatest generation of musicians born in the 1940's.
In August of 1975, I saw Fleetwood Mac for the first time with my girlfriend, Mary Kit Smith and what would be a lifelong friendship with dorm mate, Mark Hunter. It was their first tour of the NEW Fleetwood Mac with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Mick Fleetwood needed a new guitarist and wanted Buckingham alone. Lindsey insisted that his girlfriend Stevie join the band or he wouldn't. Fleetwood Mac played at the old Balboa Stadium in San Diego. They played songs from their newly released, self-titled album, Fleetwood Mac (almost like telling the public it was their first album). That album would be the soundtrack of my 1975-76 dorm year at San Diego State. At Balboa Stadium, on a clear summer day, Christine McVie and her band were making history and I will never forget seeing her singing at her station at the electric keyboard.
Mary Kit and I saw Fleetwood Mac several more times over the years and on December 8, 2018 we saw them for the last time with Mike Campbell and Neil Finn in the band. That was a great show with the band still rolling after all the their changes. I end the playlist with a fan's video in Pittsburgh on that same tour with Chris and Stevie closing the show with a duet of a Christine McVie song, All Over Again.
The playlist is mostly a chronological order starting with Christine in Chicken Shack, her first solo album in 1970, and then through her songs in Fleetwood Mac. In the end, I added a few solo album hits, and her wonderful 2017 duo album with Lindsey Buckingham including, and not to ever forget, the rock solid percussion section of Mick Fleetwood and John McVie always driving the band.
Enjoy this selection of this truly gifted woman's songs to the world, as I'm sure, you love her too. Rest in peace Chris.
September, 2020 finds me in my (almost) 50 year old house and she's starting to show her age. The past several months have been, "Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling" as the ol' copper pipes sounded like a jackhammer when we turned the water on. This condition in the plumbing biz is actually called, "water hammer" or as the plumber called it, "Hammer Time."
This past month has been a scene right out of Beetlejuice as the walls would rattle and the downstairs bathroom floor tiles were getting warmer and warmer. It finally dawned on me, "Dear I believe we've sprung a hot water leak underneath the concrete slab."
Well, After consulting my old buddy and contractor, Ron Zieman he guided me to go with a complete "Pex" repipe of the entire house. A repipe, cuts off the copper lines leading under the slab and are replaced with the Pex pipe rerouted within all of the walls and ceiling. Why, because you don't have to tear out the floor and slab to fix one leak, and then do it all over again somewhere else in the house and keep rolling the dice.
Anyway, the repipe and drywall jobs went great and I just have to repaint the exterior stucco by the kitchen, the kitchen, downstairs bedroom, laundry room and this downstairs bath just completed yesterday to the missus specifications.
The really cool thing now is we have new shower and bath fixtures in both bathrooms with great water pressure throughout the house, and you don't have to worry about flushing the toilet in the downstairs bathroom and scalding the person taking a shower in the upstairs bathroom anymore!
I still found time this week to musically go back in time to 1970 where 'they' came up with the brilliant idea to put the plumbing system underneath the concrete foundation.
Music wise September, 1970 was a great month with releases from: The Byrds, The Rolling Stones (Live also featuring B.B. King and Ike and Tina Turner), Billy Preston, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, The Allman Brothers Band, Seals and Crofts, Jesus Christ Superstar, Glen Campbell, Santana, Johnny Winter, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and James Brown.
So, I now got a new playlist to whistle while I work. Enjoy my friends, register to VOTE, and stay well.
In 2019, I will write a monthly feature of music released 50 years ago from that month in 1969.
I'm going to use 1969 in music from Wikipedia as my primary source as you can see by the January list here. If I (or Wikipedia) miss a big album, please feel free to write a comment, and I'm sure I will correct that in a re-edit from that blog.
I also plan to feature an entire album deemed 'great' (by me of course) from a month in 1969. Abbey Road and Crosby, Stills & Nash are just two albums that come to mind.
In January, 1969 I was in Mr. Richard Ziegler's 8th grade homeroom class. During that year, I became President of the Antique Bottle Club and certified nerd. Mr. Ziegler formed the club after his passion for finding and collecting old bottles in the creeks and old dump sites around the central coast of California. I did the same for a couple years and to this day still have boxes of antique bottles that I've carted to every apartment or house that I have ever lived in.
Looking back, I remember one Jr. High dance where a local cover band of high school students performed the song, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vidawhile I watched from the sidelines as kids tried to dance to it. As a side note- the album also titled, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida released in 1968 was the biggest selling album of 1969.
If you follow Monday Monday Music, the real content is listening to the weekly YouTube playlists that I put together. And I thought it was my fantastic writing. No dummy, you just began the last sentence with, "And."
Ok, so one of the keys of life is making the time to do the things YOU want to do. If you've followed me this far, listening to music is one of those magical things of life.
So strike a match, light the incense and get back to a little 1969 in music.
Writing Sunday morning at 5:45 am in the Las Vegas Airport. My head is remarkably clear but my stomach is now saying, "dude, what in the hell have you been putting in me for the past 4 days!" I'm not eating anything on this plane ride back to San Diego that's for sure. Anyway, I'm popping Altoids to settle things down so let's talk Vegas, history and music as I'm hearing country pop piped in from the ceiling.
For me, Las Vegas is always a fish out of water experience as I land here and start my little venture with wall to wall people from all over the world, coming to have a little fun in sin city. This trip included my sister Stephanie, her husband Roger and my lovely wife Mary Kit. My daughter Shawna recommended that we see the Mob Museum located in the historic federal courthouse and U.S Post Office building. It was fantastic! You've got to do this on your next visit here as it will not disappoint. By the way if you're ever in Memphis, you must also see the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Hotel (site of Martin Luther King's assassination). For Boomers, both museums let you travel through our parents and our own generation's history either directly experienced or connected through conversation, books, news, television and the movies. You get little mental flashbacks of yes I remember that and lots of new info too. I didn't realize for example that the Beatles were scheduled to play at the Sahara Hotel on their 1964 tour, but with the overwhelming response the two shows had to be moved to the Las Vegas Convention Center to hold at least 8,000 screaming fans. The mafia ruled the town back then with a lot of other interesting people who made this place America's playground. It got me thinking about being born in the 1950's. We landed right in the middle of the 20th century and I think it gives many of us an unique perspective on life. For example, we know a lot of things about The Great Depression and World War II even though we weren't there. We know who Moms Mably was and are interested in Frank Sinatra (see new HBO documentary) and the Rat Pack all the while streaming new digital music to our smartphones. We experienced the middle and end of the industrial age, created the digital age and will carry that probably to some middle stage before we check out. I just hope this perspective can be valued a little more as we get older because we have something to share to young people about our times here. We were good listeners.
Well now, back to Vegas 2015. The low cost hotel rates and meal days are long gone here and you're just going to have to shell out some cash from your savings if fun is on your agenda. The only thing that's the same and eerily nostalgic about Las Vegas is the deja vu levels of second hand smoke you experienced as a child. You literally get that thick-head smoke high once you enter the casinos, combined with the recycled AC, your body is changing and you haven't even started drinking beer, cocktails and eating rich food yet. Oh did I mention that other thing, the part about giving your hard earned money away to shiny machines or to a person sitting around a table with strangers?
But oh, the musical entertainment in this town is the reason many of us come here in the first place and Las Vegas doesn't disappoint. First off, we got to see The Beatles Love at the Mirage for the second time (Mary Kit her third). It's becoming a religious pilgrimage for us and we converted Stephanie and Roger too. I don't think you can ever see this very special Cirque du Soleil show too many times.
Second up, we got to see Fleetwood Mac at the MGM Grand. A simply fabulous show by the same people who formed the 1975 - present lineup of the band: Mick Fleetwood, John McVie, Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham and the wonderful Christine McVie. (Mary Kit, pal Mark Hunter and I saw the band way back in 1975 at the old Balboa Stadium in San Diego with Heart, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Rod Stewart on the same bill.) Anyway, Christine is back touring with the band after a 16 year absence and makes them complete. Mary Kit and I just saw them in December in San Diego (40 years later) when they started their tour and they even seemed more energized this time while doing this long tour together. Stevie said this was their 78th show of the tour and they just had the place rockin', lots of smiling from the band and the crowd was in a very singalong groove. With that I leave you some YouTube videos from the recent April shows, and as the band says, "Don't stop thinking about tomorrow." Or as Frank would say, "Vegas baby." So get online, check out who's playing when and where and start planning that Vegas trip soon!
Well it's actually a bit more than a touch of grey, more like full-on grey (see my profile picture, oh boy). This Thursday, I turn, turn, turn 60 and I've got the B-cards coming in. This card was LOL funny and thought it would make for a great playlist of songs for this week's blog. Also thought I'd add the large size font just to play along with my children. Anyway, here are two songs each from the real bands that made us sing and dance when us boomer's had our original hair color. Enjoy!
The weather report for this week puts most of the country in a blustery situation from severe snow storms in the east and midwest to rain on the west coast. Several songs came to me on a morning walk yesterday and hope you are in the mood for a little weather music.
First up is Bare Trees by Fleetwood Mac. Released in 1972 by the group's original lineup and written by Danny Kirwan who was fired by the band later that year. This album and song seems to get lost with the monster mid-seventies addition of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham.
Next is Hazy Shade of Winter by Simon and Garfunkel, first released in 1966 as a single and then included in the 1968 Bookends album. I always loved this song because it showed the boys could rock 'n roll with the best of them. My guess is that this song with its quintessential beat influenced other groups in the mid-60's.
And lastly, California Dreamin' by the Mama's and Papa's, released in 1966 on the If Your Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears album. You'll be singing this song in your head again, like you have done so many times before, on such a winters' day.
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