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.

James Taylor, You and I Again, San Diego, 6/18/16

Hi everyone, I'm back with hopefully a new blog every Monday! I've been having a great time going to lots of concerts, buying new music and I just got the itch to start sharing my passion for music with you again!

A couple of weeks ago, I had the chance to see one of my heroes, James Taylor at the old Sports Arena in San Diego. They now call it Valley View Casino Arena but as they say, "you can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig." 

James and the band were fantastic and his voice just shined through. I took a video of the last sang, You and I again, from his latest album that I featured last year in my blog, James Taylor, for the long run, about his new album, Before This World. So here is my updated James Taylor playlist with apologies to my shaky hand and distance to the Walking Man on this first video. 

And, a Happy Birthday today to my ol' buddy Bill DeVoe who shares the same birth year of 1955 with me. Bill this story and song is a bit like our lifetime friendship.
Love ya!

Riding with lady luck

Last week a couple of things happened that inspired this post. First off, Grooveshark was fatally speared as the sea of lawsuits by the BIG recording companies finally brought them down. And down they went, not to mention their parental scolding inspired apology statement on their former website. You could almost feel the tears - Please Please don't put us in jail! Kind of makes me think this will truly be the last (company-based) mp3 pirate of the free Internet. Almost makes you want to reminisce over the wild west days of Napster and Limewire. Anyway in 2011, Grooveshark was a free and subscription music service on the Internet and it got me actively back into listening to music from the 60's and 70's. I tried free Internet radio and playing with streaming services like Spotify,but nobody beat Grooveshark for having rare older songs and also the ability to customize free streaming playlists for both my computers and smartphone. But as it sometimes goes with free apps, here today and gone tomorrow. Hey, but I'll be on the search and will report back once I find a (probably fee-based) music service with customized playlists to share. In the meantime, I'll happily embed here with the deep pockets of Google's YouTube to share 40+ year old songs with you.

That brings me to my musical selection as business took me to Bakersfield this past week. From San Diego, one takes the I 5 north through LA, over the Grapevine, to Highway 99 and into Bakersfield. The whole trip was freeway, cars and trucks and it made me instantly think of the Tom Waits song, Ol' '55, covered by the Eagles on their 1974 record, On the Border. Well I was driving with my true lady luck, Mary Kit, as we must have passed a thousand trucks in the blazing heat . It's not like we were roughing it like in the old days, going over the Grapevine in a car with no AC, it's 95 degrees with the windows rolled down, and you're praying the radiator doesn't blow. Kind of decedent of me to admit having a Honda CRV with the AC on and the heated leather lumbar seats on to keep my old back loose on the trip, just talking with my lady.

Well here's the great song,  Ol' '55. I'll say bye-bye to the audio link in Grooveshark as this is now shared to you courtesy of YouTube.

This song goes out to the boomer's as they know the experience of being inside a 1955 car on the roadways. No need to buckle up.