Fifty Years of Music • March, 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.

Our Democracy and Takin' It To The Streets

50 Amazing Signs from Women’s Marches Across the Globe

I came across the above post as I was preparing to write my music blog for this week. Click on the link above to get a

Katie & Shawna marching in San Diego

slice of pure Americana angst and humor as people express themselves during the January 21st, Women's March on Washington and cities around the country and world. The March will go down in history as the kick-off of the Trump resistance movement that will eclipse anything seen in the Tea Party movement after Barrack Obama was sworn into office in January, 2009. Conservatives are saying, "Where were these people during the election?" Well, they happen to be correct about this point and a point well-made of our nation's complacency and detachment towards our issues and elections. Even when the stakes were this high as Trump emerged in 2015-16, an overall majority of American's (excluding working-class white voters) didn't think this election would drive off that cliff until FBI Director, James Comey gave Trump a 3 point bump in the final weeks of the election. By then, it was too late and as a Democrat, you have to hand it to the smaller numbered and better organized Republican's for kicking our ass, yet again despite our larger but sitting-on-our-hands numbers. And all other extenuating events aside, we as Americans all have to take responsibility for this historic loss. Yes, I know this is a music blog but don't worry, I'm getting there...
 

As a 1955 baby-boomer, I grew up ten years after World War II and through the Vietnam War years. By Richard Nixon's second inauguration, in January 1973, I was a senior in high school as many other young Americans had become seasoned mobilized marchers for minorities and women's equal rights and against, the war in Vietnam. And the just-elected President, "Tricky Dick" Nixon saw the marching demonstrators 100,000 strong the day before the start of his second term.

It is always said, that as Americans, we always respond as a strong united front when things really turn bad. I think as a nation, we hit that point once again in Trump's first week in office. Of all the pictures from the signs from the Women's March on Jan. 21, this is my favorite as it speaks volumes to me as an American who grew up watching big city protest marches from my small town TV set. The Women's March brought together at least three generations of women as grandmothers, moms and daughters all marching together. I'm just so encouraged by the large numbers of women and men protesting together and feeling this is indeed a sustaining movement that is bringing out both younger and older people alike.

For the younger, I personally was inspired by LA singer MILCK and her song, Quiet that she used to rally a group of women together to sing at the Women's March. I love how she took her song to the streets here -

For the older, the Women's March on Washington also got me playing the the Doobie Brothers 1976 hit, Takin' It To The Streets in my head. I also remember Michael McDonald, James Taylor and a host of 70's hit makers singing it here at the 1979 protest concert for No Nukes (MUSE). Below, I'll leave you with the Doobie Brothers doing the song themselves back in the day when Michael had black hair. I've always loved this song and I'm happy to share it with anyone today mad as hell about the daily Trump shit show and needing a little Monday pick up to say a little, "hooray for our side". Signs show us there's going to be a lot of marching in the streets in the days and months ahead, so we better all just put on our running shoes and say, "Game On" for hopefully the short run of one Donald J. "malignant narcissist" Trump.

Touch of Grey

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!