Exposed! From Cheap Peak to Time Capsule in Just 41 Years!

Exposed and Exposed II: Cheap Peaks at Today’s Provocative New Rock! (circa 1981)

I’ve decided I am going to start speed dating items in my record collection. That is to say I am going to start pulling things out at random, throwing them on the turntable (or in the CD player) and deciding whether I ought to continue to own and cherish them, or pass them on to someone else who might love them move.

I don’t plan to deliberate too much over this process thus “speed dating”. Of course, my first two choices — Exposed: A Cheap Peak at Today’s Provocative New Rock and its follow-up, Exposed II — are exactly the kind of records that send me down rabbit holes.

These two “loss leader” collections were released by the CBS Records group in 1981. They were cheap, probably about $3.00 each. I am pretty sure I picked up both volumes at Village Records, a store that doubled as a head shop (I think) at my local mall. I might have picked them up at the Listening Booth at another local mall, but these feel like Village Records records to me.

The idea behind these two double albums is that some impressionable music fan (i.e., me) would buy them for cheap, take ’em home, behold the wonders of not one but two featured Loverboy song, and then go out and pay full price for that first Loverboy album.

These kind of albums were big in the 1970s, and even earlier than that, but I think that the Exposed records may have been the first loss leaders that were aimed fairly close at the teenager-at-the-dawn-of-the-’80s demographic. (again, i.e., me). Some of the songs and artists may have been “provocative”, some not so much, but variety was the key. Side 1 of the first Exposed collection featured this array of artists:

• Loverboy
• Judas Priest
• Ellen Foley
• Adam and the Ants
• Steve Forbert.

Each artist had two tracks, so if you didn’t like Ellen Foley’s “We Belong to the Night” (I did not), you might like her “Phases of Travel” (I did).

I listened to Exposed and Exposed II in 1981 and probably into 1982. I was doing some at home physical therapy at the time for scoliosis, and these records became a huge part of my workout soundtrack. Those Loverboy songs — “The Kid is Hot Tonight” and “Lady of the ’80s” — really got me fired up to do those push-ups, you know?

Each of the Exposed albums featured gatefold sleeves that contained short essays extolling the virtues of each represented artists. I’d read these puff pieces over and over, at least when I was not doing my prescribed pelvis thrusts. I don’t recognize the names of any of the writers, but I guess they were PR folks in the CBS offices, writing under strict deadlines and being scolded to make their copy about Adam and the Ants or Tommy Tutone “more clever” or “grabbier”.

As mentioned, the Exposed albums featured a mixed bag of artists. There was an emphasis on “new wave”, but then Judas Priest and Rosanne Cash showed up for the party as well.

Ultimately, the Exposed albums had the record companies’ desired effect, just not in the time frame Columbia and Epic probably wanted. I did pick up a few of the featured albums, like Rosanne Cash’s now-classic Seven Year Ache and Steve Forbert’s enduring debut, Alive on Arrival. Mostly though, instead of rushing out to buy up all the albums featured on Exposed, I’ve spent the past four decades with both collections spinning around in some obscure corner of my brain. Once in a while, I’ll encounter an Exposed-highlighted record, like Ellen Foley’s Phases of Travel or Karl DeVito’s Is This a Cool World or What? in a record store’s dollar bin. I will usually buy them.

Obviously Exposed and Exposed II pass my speed date test. Here’s a Spotify playlist that features 36 of the 44 songs on the two albums. I did cheat once: the Karla DeVito tune is not the original, as heard on Exposed II, but a live version from a Rick Derringer (!) album, but it is DeVito singing the song.

So, please enjoy this “cheap peak at 1981’s provocative new rock”!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5kTIVFeBUUZq9mIubgpGmL?si=c5a558f875324236

Give Me a Bottle of “She Wore Lemon” Iced Tea…and a Glazed Donut…to Go (go-go-go)

I don’t mean to bug ya, Frank, but can I tell you about U2’s new line of iced teas?

As I mentioned in my previous entry, I have decided to resurrect this music blog of mine by creating a Spotify playlist every week in 2022 and writing about each of them. My first playlist featured albums that I received for Christmas and one I bought on New Year’s Eve.

Before I launch into a discussion of my playlist #2, here is a list of the types of playlists I’m likely to be compiling:

1. Songs that I’ve recently listened to just because I want to.
2. Songs that I’ve listened to because my Mystic 20-Sided Dice of Random Musical Adventures have decreed that I listen to.
3. Songs that I’ve listened to because I’ve recently dreamed about the artist(s) represented in the playlist
4. Songs that related to a music writing project I’m working on, probably for the PopMatters website.
5. Other possibilities that haven’t yet occurred to me.

I’ll explain more about these various types of playlist as we move through the year. For now, I’d like to introduce this week’s playlists, which I like to call U2: The LemonPop Years. If you have Spotify, please feel free to play the mix in sequential order or shuffle it. Your choice!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2dDqclfYvo9OtJ2BgbBxOE?si=7c260bf2bfff47f3

Rich’s House of Vinyl Playlist #2 — U2: The LemonPop Years

This playlist of mid-1990s songs by U2 fits playlist category #3, since I had a dream about U2 this week. I have been dreaming about famous musicians for me of my life (though the first dream I ever remember having, long before I began keeping a journal, featured the cast of The Beverly Hillbillies), so the fact that I dreamed about U2 is not surprising. Here is the dream:

I am in a room, looking at mock-ups for record album covers. These are proposed covers for the seven seprate-but-related albums U2 plans to release, all on the same day, at some point in the near future. In additions these being album cover designs, it is my understanding that the graphics will also be used as the labels for a series of U2-branded bottled iced teas. Each album will be complimented by a different flavored U2 iced tea.

I am inspecting these labels — and, sadly, I don’t remember any details regarding the artwork or album/song/iced tea titles — because I am on U2’s marketing team and it’s my job to assist in rollout of either the albums or the iced tea or both. Other people are in the room with me, but I don’t think the members of U2 are present.

That’s it. That’s my U2 dream. Or, rather, my latest U2 dream. I think I’ve dreamt of Bono and the boys before. My impression is that the dream was taking place in the present, so we’re talking about seven new U2 albums that know of us have ever heard before. However, as I was contemplating the dream, I began to ponder during which era in U2’s long career would the band have had to artistic impulse to launch seven albums — with corresponding iced teas — all at once.

If you know U2’s history, you’ll probably come to the same conclusion I did. While I realize that some people might point to the band’s “let’s put our new album on everybody’s iPhone” debacle, the only time the band truly would have done something as crazy as what they were doing in my dream would have been during the mid-1990s.

Quick history lesson: after growing tired of their own earnestness — and reading about how tired of it everybody else was — U2 revamped their sound and embraced irony with their brilliant Achtung, Baby album in 1991. The massive critical and commercial acclaim Achtung Baby took U2 to an even more rarified rock band status than their iconic (and very earnest) Joshua Tree album had taken them.

While Achtung Baby can be seen as the beginning of a trilogy of 1990’s U2 albums, I’m leaving it out of my playlist equation. To me, Achtung, Baby has a singular place in the band’s canon, clearly not part of their ’80s-era albums, but also separate from their subsequent work. Like the farmer in the dell’s cheese, Achtung Baby stands alone.

The string of great-to-classic albums that culminated in Achtung Baby gave U2 artistic license to do anything they wanted, and they pretty much did just that for the rest of the ’90s. And that’s what my playlist focuses on: the rest of U2’s ’90s beyond Achtung Baby. This includes 1993’s vibrant Zooropa; the U2/Eno collaboration Original Soundtracks 1 (credited to Passengers, not U2); and their full-blown, technicolor entry into ’90s dance music, Pop.

U2 was doing everything they could to defy/annoy their old school fans during this time. In the process, they created some fascinating music, along with a some awful stuff. I especially love Zooropa: it was tough for me not to include every note of that album on this playlist, but “Lemon” and the title track are among my all-time favorite U2 tunes (U2unes?). Even though some of the sentiments on Zooropa are dark, the music is vibrant and inventive; when I listen to this album, I want to go do vibrant and inventive things myself.

The Passengers album is their “experimental” record but it contains one flat-out classic, the haunting “Your Blue Room”, and the more far-out stuff is generally worth hearing. While not a proper U2 album, Original Soundtracks 1 remains an important part of the band’s ’90s journey. Having said that, I only picked up the album on CD a few years ago, and I’ve never given the album the attention that I lavished upon Zooropa.

Speaking of CDs, I should note that though this is Rich’s House of Vinyl, I don’t own any of these particular U2 albums on vinyl. It would be cool if I did, but if any specific band’s output doing a specific era makes sense on compact disc, it’s U2’s post-Achtung Baby ’90s era.

Pop is probably the most controversial of all U2 albums, aside from the one that the band stuffed into everybody’s phones. I dutifully picked Pop album and gave it some spins when it was released in the spring of 1997, but my wife Donna and I had just moved, we were going to have a baby, and, anyway, I was still probably listening to Zooropa once a week. I liked several songs on Pop, and still do — they’re on the playlist. But I couldn’t get into songs like “Miami” and “The Playboy Mansion” back in ’97, and I’ve given up the notion that they’ll grow on me.

Pop also gave us the spectacle of U2 appearing in the lingerie section of an NYC K-Mart to announce their PopMart tour; and the even more spectacular moments when the band got stuck in a giant lemon, a la Spinal Tap, during shows on the tour.

So thank God for Pop.

In addition to the albums, U2 released some one-offs that can be found here. I’ve always enjoyed their Batman song, “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me”, which seems like an attempt to somehow fuse “old U2” with the sleeker ’90s version. But I could be wrong about that.

Meanwhile Bono’s “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” duet with Frank Sinatra is one of the greatest things ever, in the history of humanity. Period. Full stop.

Sadly, one thing U2 never attempted to do in the mid-1990s was release seven albums at once, with a set of matching bottled iced teas. If they had though, I’d like to think I would have been there for it.

Firing Up the Long Lost Music Blog!

I’m thinking about firing up this old music blog of mine. Here’s the plan:

Each week in 2022, I’ll make a Spotify playlist based on songs and albums I’ve been listening to recently. Then I’ll build a blog entry around the playlist. This playlists will be relatively concise — probably between 60 and 90 minutes long — and I won’t be deliberating too much over the blog entries. Basically, I just want to listen to records and tell you about them.

Here’s the first playlist:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1D4zRdel3hIWk89bixMRx5?si=14cd4ac13bf74c58

Rich House of Vinyl 2022 #1 January 1-7, 2022

Ideally, each playlist/blog entry will have a theme, even if the theme is sometimes “pure randomness”. In the case of this first playlist, the theme is very clear: the 20 songs you’ll hear come from three albums my family gave me for Christmas and one that I picked up for myself on New Year’s Eve. All of these vinyl records came from Forever Changes, a great new record store here in Phoenixville. Forever Changes is run by my friend Shawn and when you’re here in Phoenixville you should 1) let me know you’re in town; 2) meet me at Forever Changes; and 3) join us for lunch/dinner at El Burrito.

If you have Spotify, please feel free to listen to the playlist any way you’d like. It features five tracks from each of the following four records. Listening straight through will give you a decent intro to each of the records, but shuffle mood works nicely for this set of tunes as well.

OK. Enough of my introductory yakking. Let let tell you about…

662 — Christone “Kingfish” Ingram (2021). If you know me, you know that my mom died suddenly last April. Clearly, it’s been a rough time since then but day by day I’ve gotten through and will continue to do so. Mom’s passing took the rest of my 2021 in directions that I never anticipated. One very minor — but, for me, unusual — thing that happened was that I stopped paying attention to nearly any new music released over the course of the last nine months. I stuck with whatever tried and true songs and records would get me from one day to the next.

I did listen to the radio, specifically Philadelphia’s WXPN, probably a bit more than usual, and it was the conduit to whatever 2021 music I did hear. One such new song that I heard several times and liked was “662”, the title track to the second album by young blues guitarist and singer Christone “Kingfish” Ingram.

I’m not kidding when I say that Ingram is young. He is older than my younger son Chris, but younger than my older son, Jimmy. I think both of them would like Ingram’s music, and I certainly do too.

If you read a bit about Ingram, you’ll learn that he’s been a hotshot blues guitar player since he was pre-teen. He’s worked with Buddy Guy and other blues legends, and it shows. I have yet to hear Ingram’s first album (but I will), other than a great tune called “Fresh Out”, which was also an ‘XPN mainstay. The liner notes to 662 indicate that the album reflects Ingram’s recent experiences, including the death of his mom. The music and lyrics on 662 certainly attest to a maturity earned from experiences of all kinds. The lyrics seem to have a genuine autobiographical feel to them and they’re backed up with music that ranges from straight-ahead blues to more subtle soul-infused tunes.

When I visited Forever Changes late in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve, I deliberately chose to buy an album released in 2021. I guess it was a way for me to end the year on a life-affirming note. With that in mind, I’m very happy that the album I chose is Kingfish Ingram’s 662.

Scene of the Crime — Bettye LaVette (2007). Scene of the Crime, the second album in what is now a full-blown late career revival for soul singer Bettye LaVette, was first released 15 years ago. I’ve had it on CD practically from the day it was released, but it’s great to have this one on vinyl.

Scene of the Crime was produced by David Barbe, Patterson Hood, and LaVette. Hood’s band, Drive-By Truckers serves admirably as LaVette’s backing band. The result is exactly the kind of album I love to hear by any veteran soul singer. LaVette’s singing is ragged but oh-so-right in the best way possible, and DBT is up to the task. Hood reveals in the liner notes that the sessions occasionally got contentious, but the result was worth it. Highlights abound, but LaVette’s transformation of Elton John’s “Talking Old Soldiers” stands out, as does “Before the Money Came (The Battle of Bettye LaVette)”, a LaVette/Hood songwriting collaboration.

James Brown’s Funky People — various artists (1986). This compilation, first released in 1986, contains essential tracks that originally appeared on Brown’s own People record label. Released between 1971 and 1974, these tracks are essential funk by the likes of Fred Wesley, the J.B.’s, Maceo and the Macks, and Lyn Collins. Obviously, James Brown’s Funky People is an instant party — or, as Maceo spells it, “parrty” — and every track is a highlight. However, two of the Lyn Collins’ tunes stand out, not just for being funky damn songs but for their lingering cultural influence. “Think (About It)” has been widely sampled, most famously as the leading hook for Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock’s huge hit, “It Takes Two.” Less well-known but equally intriguing is Collins’ “Rock Me Again & Again & Again & Again & Again & Again”, which was covered by Human League, even before they hit the studio with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

Rip It Up: The Best of Specialty Records (2001?). This is a new vinyl reissue of a previously released compilation that snugly fits 18 of the best songs from Art Rupe’s Specialty Records on one record. Speciality’s biggest star was Little Richard and he is well-represented here with four explosive rockers — “Long Tall Sally”, “Tutti-Frutti”, “Lucille”, and “Rip It Up”.

Nothing else on Rip It Up rocks quite like the Little Richard tracks — seriously, what could? — but the rest of the big band-influenced rhythm & blues tracks are all well-worth hearing. I particularly like Jimmy Liggins’ scorcher “Drunk”, and “Pink Champagne” by Liggins’ brother Joe. And, of course, it’s always great to hear Sam Cooke (the longing “I’ll Coming Running Back to You”). But drop the needle — gently! — on any of the 18 tracks on Rip It Up and you’ll find something special.

That’s week #1 of this potential 52-week-long vinyl adventure. Thanks for tuning in!

Rich’s Listening Diary, Week 001 (March 15-21, 2020)

“Music will provide the light you cannot resist!” — “I’m Gonna DJ”, R.E.M.

I listened to a lot of music over the past week, more than usual. Anytime that happens, I find myself wanting to reboot this music blog, so here’s my latest attempt. (If you have Spotify, the following playlist will make the perfect soundtrack for this entry.)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/70JiWnQn86FS4E80ezOOvy

I have been collecting records for, lo, these past 45 years. Probably longer than that, depending on the moment at which a pile of like objects becomes a collection.

In recent years I’ve often found myself stymied by the question, “what do I want to listen to right now?”. Like most people, I am often in the mood to listen to certain artists or genres, but left to my own devices, I could wind up listening to R.E.M.’s Murmur on a loop for the rest of my life.

To avoid falling into a loop like that (much as I love Murmur), I’ve devised this ridiculous dice game to help me semi-randomly chose what I’m going to listen to over the course of a given week. I keep the dice in the Mystical Box of Random Music Selection:

The Mystical Box of Random Music Selection. Note the lobster die.

I love the Mystical Box of Random Music Selection because: 1) I love 20-sided dice, but do not play fantasy games, so I need a practical use for them;  2) as you can see, there is a lobster where the one-dot mark should be on the six-sided dice; and 3) the Box is going to help me decide what to listen to each week.

It works like this: my record collection is broken down into 20 sections. When I shake the box, the total number of the six-sided dice is the number of successive albums I take from each of the sections noted on the 20-sided dice. So, based on the photo above, over this past week, I pulled out three albums each from sections 3, 6, 9, 12, and 19.

Simple, right?

Also, I pull out any CDs and/or 45s that fall within the sections chosen.

The idea of this new series of blog entries is simply to note that music I listen to each week, based on these dice rolls. However, I do listen to certain music intentionally, with no chance operations involved in its selection, and I’ll cover that as well.

Here is the music I listened to over the last week. First, the intentional, non-dice-chosen stuff:

PopMatters!
As you may know, I have been a music writer for PopMatters for almost a year. By all means check out my recent reviews on Truth or Consequences, the entrancing new album by New Zealand pop band Yumi Zouma; Do the Damn Thing, by Canadian funk band The Soul Motivators; and the noir-ish self-titled solo debut album by Sam Doores. Check them out, and if you like them, go to Bandcamp or the artists’ websites and buy some tunes. All three of these acts are facing cancelled concerts dates and could certainly use as much fan support as possible.

You can also delve deeper into my PopMatters archive or explore the detailed reviews of other writers on the site. If you find something you like, please considering purchasing some music from the artists, even if it’s just a few songs. I would imagine every purchase helps.

Thelonious Monk

• It’s Monk’s Time (1964)

This Columbia album is among Monk’s biggest hit records, and with good reason. It places Monk’s immense piano genius and eccentricities in a relatively accessible context. In short, It’s Monk’s Time feels like one of Monk’s most enjoyably listenable records.

I love Thelonious Monk’s music. I can’t explain it, but the way Monk plays piano intersects with my brain waves in a positive way. I am not necessarily a “Listening to Mozart will make your kid a genius” kind of guy, but I do think certain music tickles certain brains in certain good way.

With this in mind, each week I try to randomly pick a Monk album to listen to over the course of the week, and this week it was It’s Monk’s Time. Excellent choice for my work-from-home week during the strange times in which we are now living. When I listen to Monk play piano, I marvel at the way he works his way through musical/mental complexity, and that seems like a good practice to try to emulate these days, and anytime, really.

John Denver

• Greatest Hits (1973)
• Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 (1977)
• Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 (1984)

My son Chris mentioned “Take Me Home, Country Roads” one morning this week, which lead us to a full listen to his three original greatest hit compilations. I don’t love everything Denver did, but I like much of it, and of course, as someone who grew up in the ’70s, Denver’s presence was ubiquitous.

In reading about Denver, I was struck by how “Take Me Home, Country Roads” was written. Songwriters Bill Danoff and Taffy Nivert already had written the song and were thinking about trying to sell it to Johnny Cash. But after their friend Denver heard it, he wanted it for his next album so Danoff and Nivert (who were married at the time) revised the song, with Denver’s input. Within a few days, the three songwriters performed it for the first time onstage at the Cellar Door, a now-legendary club in Washington, D.C. It choked me up just a little when I read that they sang the lyrics that eventually millions would know by heart from handwritten sheets of paper for that performance.

The other John Denver song that gets to me is 1981’s “Some Days Are Diamonds (Some Days Are Stone)”, the 14th of his 15 Top 40 hits. It is a fairly realistic depiction of the fact that some days are indeed diamonds and others, maybe not so much. A song for our current moment, but maybe we can find tiny diamonds within these scary and stony days.

Kenny Rogers

• Kenny’s Greatest Hits (1980)
• Love Will Turn You Around (1982)

We listened to Kenny Rogers’ Kenny’s Greatest Hits to mark The Gambler’s passing. My copy is actually my mom’s copy — it was a birthday present from me to her back in 1980, back when it was a crime for fifteen-year-olds not to give their mothers Kenny’s Greatest Hits for their birthdays. I don’t know if Mom actually loved Kenny, but she liked him, and I found that much of the hits compilation holds up today. “Lucille” is certainly a classic country song, and “The Gambler” will live on as philosophy forever. Plus, you’ve got “Coward of the County”, a song far darker than many people might remember it being.

I also listened to the only other Kenny album I have, 1982’s Love Will Turn You Around. The sticker still attached to the shrink wrap helpfully notes that the title track is from the motion picture, Six Pack. Spoiler alert: I am pretty sure the titular six-pack was a bunch of kids, not a half dozen brewskis.

“Love Will Turn You Around” is one of my favorite Kenny songs, but he was clearly moving in a pop direction on it, and other songs on the album. In fact, “Take This Heart” sounds like a cross between Christopher Cross and Lionel Richie, who had written and produced Rogers’ huge hit, “Lady” back in 1980.

And here are the artists who the dice decreed I should listen to this week:

Carlene Carter

• Two Sides to Every Woman, 1979
• Musical Shapes, 1980
• Blue Nun, 1981
• Cest C Bon, 1983

Carlene Carter is a daughter of June Carter and her first husband, country singer Carl Smith. She has had a long, storied career as a country singer, recording albums from 1978 through 1983, then taking a break for the rest of the ’80s before reemerging in 1990. Since then, Carter has released a series of critically acclaimed albums, and most recently was a significant contributor to John Mellencamp’s 2017 album, Sad Clowns & Hillbillies.

As for these early albums (I do not have Carter’s ’78 debut album), they’re grounded in country music, but manage to go off in all kinds of directions.  Musical Shapes and Blue Nun are my favorites, but good tunes (both those written/co-written by Carter and written by others) can be found on all four records. Nick Lowe, who was married to Carter, figures in both of these albums. In fact, Lowe’s band, Rockpile, is the backing band on much of Musical Shapes, so the rockabilly is strong on this one. At the same time though, a highlight of the Musical Shapes is a disco/new wave/country hybrid cover of  “Ring of Fire” that shouldn’t work but does.

To be honest, I do not remember how I came to own four Carlene Carter albums, but I’m glad that I do, and that I had a chance to explore them this week. I have not heard her post-1990 work, but I’d like to: the 1978-’83 years may have simply been a prelude to her later musical accomplishments.

The B-52’s

• Live! 8.24.1979 (Record Store Day 2015)

Per my friend Dave, each week that a lobster shows up on the 6-sided dice, I’ll listen to “Rock Lobster.” And so, this week I did.

Eydie Gormé

• Eydie Gormé (1957)
• Eydie Swings the Blues (1957)
• Blame It on the Bossa Nova (1963)

These albums are all fine pop vocal albums, especially the effervescent Blame It on the Bossa Nova album. But what I really love about these albums are the covers. Quite beautiful and nicely focused on Gormé’s likeable personality.

Midnight Oil

• Place Without a Postcard, 1981
• Diesel and Dust, 1988
• Blue Sky Mining, 1990
• Earth and Sun and Moon, 1993
• 20,000 Watt R.S.L (compilation), 1997

Need a blast of righteously angry rock to provide some catharsis during this weird time? Midnight Oil, perhaps Australia’s greatest band, might just do the trick.

I first encountered Midnight Oil in 1988 when we started playing their new album Diesel and Dust at the Record Bar where I worked. “Beds Are Burning” hit the charts, but the second single, the propulsive “Dreamworld” was, and is, the Midnight Oil song I love the most. Eventually though, I fell hard for the entire Diesel and Dust album which deftly balances a serious rock sound with spare acoustic accents that evoke the wide open spaces of Australia.

While I picked up the follow-up album, Blue Sky Mining, I didn’t really move forward or backward in Midnight Oil’s discography for many years. Recently though, I started investigating both pre- and post-Diesel and Dust albums, and have discovered that I seriously love this band. The lyrics are passionate and pointed, often focused on Australian issues, but in ways that connect those issues to those of the entire planet. And damn, do these guys rock.

If you have only heard “Beds are Burning”, and are Oil-curious, start with the 20,000 Watt R.S.L compilation, and then Diesel and Dust. From there, just jump in anywhere. There are still many Midnight Oil albums for me to discover, and over time I will, but I have been happy to blast these five this week.

Midnite Gypsies

• “The Girl from Ipanema” (12-inch single), 1987

Midnite Gypsies were apparently a hair metal band who did a hot-rockin’ hair metal version of “The Girl from Ipanema”, which I have on a 12-inch single. I think it arrived as a promo record when I was working at the Record Bar in Granite Run Mall in 1987. Don’t look for Record Bar or Granite Run Mall anymore. They’re gone, and Midnite Gypsies are apparently not on Spotify, but you can hear their unique interpretation of the bossa nova classic by clicking here. If you dare.

The Mighty Lemon Drops

• Happy Head, 1986

Catchy Britpop from the mid-1980s. The Mighty Lemon Drops released a handful of albums that made some impact in their home land, but very little (other than some college radio play) in the United States.

I first encountered this album when a promo copy drifted into the offices of my college newspaper, where I wrote for and edited the entertainment page. I grabbed the promo, but I honestly don’t remember if I reviewed the album. At some point during the “Vinyl is dead! Long live compact discs!” years, I ditched the album, though I didn’t even have it on CD. However, awhile ago, I found the copy I currently have, in a record shop on the boardwalk in Ocean City, New Jersey. Because, when I think “beach music”, I naturally of rainy ’80s Britpop.

Anyway, if like the ’80s wave of UK band and haven’t heard Happy Head, check it out! I think you’ll like it!

RAMP

• Come Into Knowledge, 1977

RAMP was a protégé band of soul/jazz artist Roy Ayers (RAMP = Roy Ayers Music Productions) and their only album, 1977’s Come Into Knowledge is a treasure. I mean, literally, a treasure: original copies of the vinyl go for big bucks on the Internet. But musically, Come Into Knowledge is priceless as well: a beautifully-produced album filled with timeless, socially relevant 1970s soul. Hearing Come Into Knowledge for the first time is stumbling on a never-before-released vintage Stevie Wonder album. It’s seriously that good.

Because of record company shake-ups, Come Into Knowledge didn’t make a huge impact upon its release, but it has had a rich afterlife, spurred by A Tribe Called Quest sampling “Daylight” for their “Bonita Applebum”. Since then, the album has achieved cult status, and deservedly so.

I have to admit that I had never heard of RAMP, even after a “demonstration — not for sale” copy entered my collection through a box of vintage ’70s soul albums that a friend passed on to me. I didn’t initially listen to it, but when I did a few years back, I was floored. This is when some very basic research led me to discover that I have a potentially hot commodity on my hands, should I ever decide to sell it. But that won’t happen any time soon.

Raspberries

• Raspberries’ Best, 1976

I’ve got the first Raspberries album on vinyl but it is so beat up that I think I’m going to ditch it. Fortunately, I also have their original “best of” compilation and that will do me just fine. I love their first two Top 40 hits: “Go All the Way” and “I Wanna Be with You”, but the pop hooks don’t feel quite as immediate on the rest of the album, though I have a feeling some of those hooks will sink in after a few more listens.

Ben Vaughn

You just can’t go wrong with Ben Vaughn. I’ve got three of his early records on vinyl:

• The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn (1986)
• Beautiful Thing (1987)
• Ben Vaughn Blows Your Mind (1988)

If you are anything at all like me, even just a little bit, all three of these albums will make you happy. Just trust me on this. And while you’re at it, check out Vaughn’s current radio show, also called “The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn”. It can be heard on various radio stations throughout the land, and it will make you happy as well.

Hey, if you read this all the way through, thanks! Let me know what you think.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Voice(s) of Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan on the cover of Blonde on Blonde, as painted by my son Chris. 

I get it: Bob Dylan’s voice is an acquired taste. Not everyone goes for Dylan’s voice, and that’s fine. But don’t tell me that man can’t sing. To me, Dylan is a wildly expressive singer who is capable of righteous anger, sweet tenderness, and acute sensitivity. But, if you haven’t acquired a taste for his voice (again: understandable), you’re probably missing what Dylan does with that voice.

I should note that Dylan’s voice and I go back. Way back. My dad was a fan, so Mom gave him Dylan albums, I guess as Christmas or birthday presents. I remember hearing the initially-misunderstood, now-iconic Nashville Skyline album around our house within a few years of its 1969 release date. I’m sure I wasn’t eight years old, probably younger, when I first heard Nashville Skyline, as well as the first Greatest Hits album. Aside from my immediate family’s voices, Bob Dylan’s voice could very well be the voice that I have had the most longstanding relationship with over the course of my lifetime.

Therefore, I might be a bit biased. I probably listen to Dylan more often the average music fan, but over the past month, my Dylan listening became immersive, as I accidentally juxtaposed Dylan eras that I’d never attempted to connect. The Nashville years bumping up against the brief live gospel era. The resurgent Time Out of Mind Dylan meeting up the recently Sinatra-fixated Dylan. Christmas Dylan up against everything.

Oddly, I barely touched on what most people would agree to be classic 1960s era Dylan. My son Chris and I listened to most of Blonde on Blonde during a car ride, and we also listened to his early, and devastating, “Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” once. But mostly my ears have leapfrogged wildly though the years from Nashville Skyline (1969) to Trilogy (2017), completely skipping important eras along the way.

While this recent Dylan journey of mine has been quite scrambled, here is a chronological list of my stops along the way.

• Bob Meets Johnny Cash/Nashville Skyline. 2019 brought Travelin’ Thru, the 15th installment of Dylan’s Bootleg Series. The three-disc set covers Dylan’s sessions for John Wesley Harding (1968) and Nashville Skyline, with a focus on Dylan’s recording session with Johnny Cash in February 1969. Dylan sounds loose and fun here, with his voice showing the unexpected sweetness that emerged on Nashville Skyline.
• The gospel concerts. Trouble in Mind, the two-disc condensed version of volume 13 of the Bootleg Series, contains highlights from the gospel concerts Dylan presented from 1979-1981. The sweetness and lightness of the Cash sessions is nowhere to be found here, replaced by a commitment to communicating messages inspired by Dylan’s recent Bible study. As with the Dylan/Cash sessions, Dylan’s work during the gospel concerts was helped considerably by talented musicians and backing singers who were as committed to supporting Dylan as Dylan was to the songs he was singing.
•  Time Out of Mind. Dylan sounds positively spectral on Time Out of Mind, a 1997 album that was immediately hailed as his latest comeback album upon its September release. As spooky as the album is, it yielded one of Dylan’s all-time most covered songs, “Make You Feel My Love”. I could write a separate entry on the full-circle aspect of this album in my life — and I just might — but for now, I will simply note that I have just heard it on vinyl for the first time, and that has been a revelation to me. If you are a Dylan fan who has not heard Time Out of Mind on vinyl, you should rectify that situation when you can.
•  Christmas Dylan. Dylan did two wacky Christmas-related things in the 2000s. 1) In 2006, he hosted a two hour “Christmas extravaganza” on his Theme Time Radio Hour show, playing Christmas songs you’ll never hear anywhere else, and dropping serious knowledge on everything from how much Oliver Cromwell hated  Christmas revelry to what listeners are to believe is Dylan’s own recipe for figgy pudding. Dylan doesn’t sing, but it’s just not Christmas for our family if we don’t hear Dylan reel off that figgy pudding recipe at least a dozen times over the Christmas season. 2) In 2009, he released Christmas in the Heart — or, as I like to call it, The Bob Dylan Christmas Album. Dylan is in his post-Time Out of Mind voice here, singing a set of holiday standards that is a serious throwback to the era of Ray Conniff-styled Christmas albums. From the moment it was announced, the very idea of Christmas in the Heart beguiled many people, myself included. I would imagine it has largely been forgotten, but I still wholly, unironically love it.
•  The recent Sinatra phase. Finally, since 2015, Dylan has released three albums — including a triple record set! — of songs that were recorded by Frank Sinatra. Again, it might be easy to dismiss these records, especially given the natural weathering of Dylan’s voice. Plus, it could be reasonably argued that nobody really wants to hear Dylan sing Sinatra. But give some time to Shadows in the Night, Fallen Angels, and Triplicate and you might be surprised as how sensitively Dylan approaches other people’s lyrics. These might not necessarily be albums I listen to often, but when I do, I am surprised by how affecting Dylan’s singing is on them. Listening to these albums does make me wondering if we will hear any more albums of original Bob Dylan songs, but I’m content to let Dylan follow any particular roads he wants to pursue.

There you have it, my month-long journey into the voices of Bob Dylan. I can’t imagine that it’s over though. Like Dylan’s tours, my travels in DylanLand appear to be never-ending

 

 

 

 

 

Dad Was a Stones Guy

 

Beer, Girl Scout cookies and the Rolling Stones. Why am I not doing this every Friday night?

One Sunday afternoon, back in the late 1980s — or maybe the very early 1990s — my dad pulled into the driveway. I heard his car door slam, heard him bound up the steps, burst through the front door, and suddenly he was in my bedroom.

“Quick, turn on ‘MMR,” Dad commanded. “They’re playing some great old Stones song!”

Dad, who was typically a stoic, though hardly humorless guy, was practically beside himself with excitement. Since this hardly ever happened, I hastened to spin my radio’s dial to 93.3, WMMR, which for decades had been Philadelphia’s premiere rock station. As I hit the station, I heard Mick Jagger lasciviously intone, “we all need someone we can lean on…”

Dad was entranced. He was acting as if he was discovering “Let It Bleed” for the first time ever, though this couldn’t possibly be true. Dad was an early adopter of ‘MMR during its early years in the late 1960s, and “Let It Bleed,” the title track of an immensely popular Stones album, had to be in heavy rotation. Whether he’d ever heard it before or not, it was cool to see Dad so immersed in a tune on the radio.

As the slide guitar faded out and ‘MMR moved on to some other classic rock song, Dad went off to do whatever it was he intended to do before the Rolling Stones ecstasy took hold. The moment passed but I never forgot it.

Fast forward a few years. October 17, 1992. Our wedding reception. Dad and Uncle Charles, two guys I never normally thought of when the word “fast dancing” came to mind, hit the dance floor with Mom and Aunt Ruth to dance along to the Stones’ stone cold classic, “Brown Sugar.” With everything else happening on my wedding day, that was one of the moments that stuck with me.

 

These two incidents are all the evidence I need. Dad was a Stones Guy.

Let me explain. While I think it is perfectly possible and reasonable to love both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, nearly all of us can be classifying as either a Beatles person or a Stones person (though I think my friend Ed, a huge fan of both bands, would still self-classify as a Kinks person).

Dad liked the Beatles just fine, I’m sure. But he was a Stones Guy.

I consider myself very lucky: I am married to a Beatles Girl. My brother-in-law Roy is a Stones Guy. My brother-in-law Mike is a Beatles guy. It’s nice to have one of each, though I’m honestly not sure where my brother-in-law Bill would fall.

This is a phenomena that transcends generations. Our son Jimmy is a Stones Guy. Our son Chris is a Beatles Guy. Again, nice to have one of each.

Funny thing about Dad is that, as far as I know, he did not actually own any Rolling Stones records, at least not until I gave him the ’64-’71 compilation, Hot Rocks, for Christmas sometime in the 1990s. I am now the keeper of Mom and Dad’s records and there is not a single Stones album among them.

But, as an avid WMMR listener during the early glory days of that pioneering FM rock station, Dad probably didn’t need to, or even care to, actually own Rolling Stones albums. Clearly the Stones would have been in very heavy rotation.

So, Dad didn’t own the following Rolling Stones albums:

• Beggar’s Banquet
• Let It Bleed
• Sticky Fingers
• Exile On Main Street

However, it is highly probable that he heard every song from each of these absolutely badass records at least once on WMMR. But who knows? The “Let It Bleed” moment in my bedroom all those years ago certainly seemed like an epiphany for Dad.

I have been listening to these four Stones albums all week, diving deeper than I ever had before. Unlike Dad, I have owned these records for years, but that doesn’t mean I’ve listened to them often. It seems to me that the big hits, as chronicled on Hot Rocks, are so epic, in and of themselves, that it’s easy to take the albums from which those hits emerged, for granted.

But, damn, that’s a huge mistake. Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street are all totally necessary albums. While I know that Stones fans will consider this a “D’oh” conviction, I think that very note on each of these albums should be heard by every rock fan. Absolutely necessary records, for damn sure

Listening intently to this quartet of albums in depth, it is obvious that, with all due respect to the earlier and later work of the Rolling Stones, these records represent the core of everything that made the Stones “the world’s greatest rock’n’roll band.” You’ve got Jagger’s swagger, Richards’ rhythmic cool, the seamless fusion of several musical genres, the paradoxically loose-but-tight musicianship by everyone involved. It’s all there, and it’s all classic.

More important to me, these four records seem to embody practically everything — other than bluegrass — that Dad loved about music. Blues, country, rock, and in a song like “Let It Bleed,” it all just comes together so brilliantly. No wonder Dad was so excited.

I would have loved to have spent this evening hanging out with Dad, listening to these records and knocking back a few beers, and maybe even a shot of Jack Daniel’s. But, even though Dad’s not physically here, that’s exactly what I feel like I did. Because Dad was certainly here in spirit and, as much as I love the Beatles, I realized tonight that I’m a Stones Guy too.

Here’s a playlist/mix CD I made tonight that features four songs from each of these four classic Stones albums:

Dad Was a Stones Guy

1. Brown Sugar
2. Let It Bleed
3. Rocks Off
4. Sympathy for the Devil
5. Dead Flowers
6. Gimme Shelter
7. I Only Want to See His Face
8. Street Fighting Man
9. Bitch
10. Monkey Man
11. Happy
12. Stray Cat Blues
13. You Gotta Move
14. You Can’t Always Get What You Want
15. Shine a Light
16. No Expectations

 

 

 

I Enjoyed These Records in 2017

 

It’s been awhile, nearly a year, since I’ve posted here at Rich’s House of Vinyl. This is supposed to be my music-related blog, and I’ve certainly listened to music during the past year. Sadly though, the writing hasn’t happened.

The truth is, the writing hasn’t happened this year on my other primary blog, The Dichotomy of the Dog, either. I realized recently why this has happened, but I’m not going to go there right now.

Instead, I’m going to thank my friend Tom. Tom, a fellow Phoenixville resident, is a sculptor. A few weeks ago, he presented me with a piece he made specifically for me: a stand to hold the record that you’re currently playing.

Tom’s thoughtful gift took me by surprise and also inspired me to revive this blog. I’m not sure exactly where I’ll take this, but I’ll start tonight, New Year’s Eve, with a list of records released in 2017 that I’ve heard.

I did a better job hearing new albums this year than I did back in 2016, when I only heard three ’16 releases by the end of the year. It would appear that I have heard 10 (!) 2017 albums. As someone who has followed pop music closely for nearly all my life, I’d like to say I’ve heard more, but the end of 2017 doesn’t mean the window has closed on discovering great music from that year. In fact, I’d love to hear your suggestions on 2017 albums I should investigate!

For now, here are 10 albums released in 2017 that I have heard and enjoyed. Listed alphabetically by artist:

Southern Blood — Gregg Allman. Yesterday (December 30) would have been my dad’s 76th birthday. As a way to celebrate his birthday, I listened to a bunch of records Dad loved (Dylan’s Nashville Skyline, Ry Cooder’s debut album, the Allman Brothers Band’s Eat a Peach, etc.). I also picked up Southern Blood, Gregg Allman’s last album, and gave it some spins.  Opening with an original, “My Only True Friend,” that ranks among Allman’s finest songs, Southern Blood reveals itself to be a heartfelt goodbye statement from Allman. Dad would have enjoyed it, for sure.

Broken Biscuits — Corin Ashley. I first encountered Corin several years ago when he opened for my friend Cliff Hillis, right here in Phoenixville. I fell hard for Ashley’s previous album, New Lion Terraces. Broken Biscuits is a worthy follow-up. Informed in large part by the stroke that Corin suffered midway through recording, Broken Biscuits, is a pop rock delight that rocks out when necessary, from beginning to end.

Pollinator — Blondie. Speaking of pop rock delights, give a listen to Pollinator, the latest Blondie record is just such a thing. The record opens with a strong Debbie Harry/Chris Stein rocker, “Doom or Destiny,” featuring Joan Jett sharing vocals with Harry. The rest of the album mixes up band-written originals with tunes custom-written by the likes of Sia and Johnny Marr. It’s not all brilliant, but it is fun. It’s Blondie for the 21st Century.

The Nashville Sound — Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Isbell and I go back to his Drive-By Trucker days, when his early songs held their own alongside the songs of fellow DBTers Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley. When all is said and done, The Nashville Sound might emerge as my favorite from 2017, a great singer/songwriter album that also happens to be a great rock’n’roll record.

Trinity Road — Lilly Hiatt. I just became aware of this album via a Top 10 Americana list on the Pop Matters website. I have not heard her previous albums, but I received this as a Christmas gift and have listened to it several times this week. Each time, I’ve like it more, as the details and emotional depth of songs like “The Night David Bowie Died,” “Imposter” and the title track have revealed themselves.

Many Happy Returns — Cliff Hillis. My friend Cliff is keeping himself busy these days with a wide range of pop music pursuits, but he managed to release a cool six-song EP, Many Happy Returns, that ranges from crunchy pop-rocker “Time An Evangelist” to mellow yacht rock contender “Superfluous.” Cliff Hillis: pure pop for now people.

Damn. — Kendrick Lamar.  Back when Kendrick Lamar released To Pimp A Butterfly, it received unanimous praise from my friend and professional music critic, Ed Masley; Drive-By Truckers’ member Patterson Hood; and my son, Jimmy. That combination of praise doesn’t happen often, so I took it seriously. Damn. has received similar accolades, with good reason. Jimmy and I listened to Damn. the day it was released, as I was driving him home from school. Jim just gave me the CD for Christmas, so I can give it some closer listens now.

Big Bad Luv — John Moreland. My friend Ed Whitelock gave John Moreland’s album, Big Bad Luv, a stellar review on the Pop Matters website. Ed’s review totally sold me on the album, which has a total Springsteen-in-his-prime vibe to it. But then, once I heard Big Bad Luv, it pretty much sold itself.

Way Out West — Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives. Stuart and his Superlatives played a show at the Colonial Theatre, right here in Phoenixville. I missed it, mostly because I had not heard this amazing album, which covers an astonishing range of western music, from surf to country to rock’n’roll. The title track is just one highlight out of many.

A Deeper Understanding — The War on Drugs. Donna gave me this one (on vinyl!) for Christmas so I’m still letting it sink in to my ears and my brain. But I am liking the dreamy melodies, expansive guitar solos and technopop touches very much.

There you have it. Ten records released in 2017 that I actually heard in 2017. Thanks for reading and thanks again to Tom, for the inspiration!

Happy New Year!

 

 

The Daily Record: “Wonderful Crazy Night”–Elton John (2016)

 

For the next few weeks, I’m going to post brief “Daily Record” surveys of albums released in 2016. The plan is to post them in chronological order from their 2016 release dates. Last night I wrote about David Bowie’s Blackstar. Tonight, I’ll move on to Elton John’s Wonderful Crazy Night, released in early February 2016.

Right after Christmas, I realized that I’d only heard three albums released in 2016. This is very odd for me, since I’m usually at least a little better at keeping up with pop music. But, while I did hear more Top 40 radio than I would have imagined, I seriously fell down on album-listening.

Wonderful Crazy Night was one of those three albums. Of course, Blackstar was one of the others. The third will turn up in a future entry.

Now, I have been an Elton John fan forever. He was probably my first favorite rock star. I’ll even defend his first “down” period (1977-1982 or so), though I have to admit that I can’t find much EJ music from ’84 all the way through 2000 to recommend. Scattered songs here and there, but the albums suffer from all matter of problems, from questionable production choices to lazy songwriting.

Beginning with 2001’s Songs from the West Coast, Elton began to turn things around, and I’ve been generally pleased with his albums since then. I was looking forward to Wonderful Crazy Night  and I was intrigued with the pre-release buzz that the album was going to be an upbeat album, filled with rockin’ songs reminiscent of his classic ’70s singles. In short, it was going to be a whole lotta “Crocodile Rock,” as opposed to John’s previous album, The Diving Board, which was sort of a whole lotta “Someone Saved My Life Tonight.”

Of course, “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” is one of my all-time favorite songs and I actually liked The Diving Board very much. Sure, it didn’t exactly rock, but it had gravitas, which seemed to work well for EJ. Plus, it had a spare, stark production sound and plenty of piano.

So, when Wonderful Crazy Night was released, I dutifully bought it and listened a few times but compared to the stately and grounded The Diving Board, the new album seemed a little bit too lightweight. I’d listen to Wonderful Crazy Night, then it would float away and I’d go listen to Blackstar again.

Elton’s new album was competing with the gravitas of his own last album as well as that of his recently deceased peer–Bowie and John were born mere months from each other in 1947. Wonderful Crazy Night soon got filed away for much of the rest of the year.

A funny thing happened though. In anticipation of this post, I started listening to  Wonderful Crazy Night over the past few weeks and I let it sink in a bit more than I had last February. It’s grown on me, and it clearly fits in nicely with his fine string of 21st century records. I’m still not sold on every song on the album, but the upbeat songs like the title track and “Looking Up” are fun and most of the ballads are pretty OK, even if they don’t have the depth of the songs on The Diving Board.

Tonight, “I’ve Got 2 Wings” is my favorite Wonderful Crazy Night song. It’s a true story, the biography of Utah Smith, a traveling preacher who roamed the United States with an electric guitar and a pair of paper angel wings he wear while playing and singing gospel tunes. I had never heard of Smith before I heard this song, but I’m finding myself touched by his life story tonight, for reasons that I can’t completely explain. Maybe I’ll delve further into the Utah Smith story and report on it sometime soon. For now that, here’s a bonus song from Utah Smith. Just still photos, but check out the wings!

 

The Daily Record: “Blackstar”–David Bowie (2016)

 

There is, of course, a real danger in saying that one is going to perform any sort of creative ritual “daily,” but, hell, I live on the edge. I’ll try to post short Daily Record posts here for awhile, beginning with a set of records released in 2016.

Today’s “Daily Record” is David Bowie’s final album, Blackstar. Released just over a year ago, two days before Bowie’s death. I have already written about how Bowie’s death hit me and about Blackstar itself, so I will keep this entry brief (and, in fact, I’ll keep all future Daily Records brief).

I bought Blackstar late in the morning after Bowie’s passing. I’ve listened to it many times since then, so many times, in fact, that I released in late December that it was pretty much the only album released in 2016 that I paid any serious attention to it. I am making up for that now, but for the time being, let’s talk briefly about Blackstar.

Knowing that Bowie was seriously ill during the recording of Blackstar and died just days after its release certainly colors the perception anybody will have when they hear the album, but minus those circumstances, I’d still rank Blackstar among Bowie’s best work. It’s probably among my favorite five Bowie albums, and I’ve heard my share. It is of course, a spooky work. It’s sad. It’s horrifying. But it’s all beautiful, transcendent and, dammit, pretty funny at points. I mean, the chorus of the song I’m listening to right now is “Where the fuck did Monday go?” over and over. And it’s weird and funny and oddly life-affirming knowing that Bowie, in the midst of a serious illness, sat or stood in a recording studio near his home in New York City and sang that line over and over again.

Blackstar isn’t merely “oddly” life-affirming though. It’s gloriously, oddly life-affirming.

So, I’ve listened to a bunch of 2016 albums recently. I like all of them in different ways and if this latest “Daily Record” iteration takes off, I’ll write about them all before I move on to older records. But Blackstar is the king of them all. My favorite record of 2016.

 

Where’s That Confounded Bridge?

Earlier this week, my 20-sided dice told me to listen to Led Zeppelin’s classic 1973 album, Houses of the Holy. I listened to it several times. I will now report my findings.

I have no specific memories of March 1973. Just hazy impressions.

I was in second grade at a smallish Catholic school in southeastern Pennsylvania. Each morning, I’d eat breakfast while I listened to powerhouse AM Philadelphia radio station WFIL on the radio. After I’d leave my house to walk to school, I would turn around at two or three specific spots to wave to Mom, standing inside the front door. Eventually, of course, there was no looking back, and I’d make the short trek to school.

My second grade teacher had a name that to this day I probably wouldn’t be able to spell. I am sure there was a basic second grade routine, but the details are lost to me now. Friday mornings, all the kids from first through eighth grade would walk in two neat rows over to the church for Mass. Our First Holy Communion would be happening in May, so it’s a safe bet that we were practicing for that.

In short, my life in March 1973 was about as different from that of Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert “Don’t Call Me Bob” Plant’s life that year as you can possibly imagine.

In fact, it might sound improbable, but I think I was unaware of the existence of Led Zeppelin in 1973, despite their lofty status as Rock Gods. I certainly liked music, and my tastes were gradually being formed, but no one was guiding me toward the kind of heaviness that Zeppelin represented. I can safely say that I had no idea that Led Zeppelin had released their fifth album, Houses of the Holy, in the spring of my second grade year.

Despite this, Robert Plant and I did share one common interest in 1973: spinning tales of the endless journeys of thousands of adventurers on some kind of mystical quest.

When school ended each day, I would wait for the old man crossing guard to part the traffic on Concord Road and I’d head down the long catwalk back into our neighborhood. As I walked, I’d often gaze at the ground and imagine that it was the terrain for some kind of epic journey being taken by massive groups of explorers or soldiers, facing danger at every turn. On rainy days, water streaming down the street would become mighty rivers on which imaginary sailors took endless, perilous journeys. Some survived, some did not, but the journey/battle/quest went on forever. At least in my mind. Each afternoon on my way home from school, I’d pick up the story where I’d left off the day before.

Though I certainly hadn’t heard the song, I was essentially acting out “No Quarter,” a dark story song from Houses of the Holy. It’s a mysterious song about a shadowy group of (presumably) men who are facing a raging snow storm and the “winds of Thor,” as they walk “side by side with death,” while “the devil mocks their every step.” The point of the march? To “carry news that must get through” and to “build a dream for me and you.”

I don’t know precisely what Plant was getting at with those lyrics, but hearing them now reminds me of those tales I’d make up during those walks home from school so long ago. Tales that existed completely in my head for more than 40 years, until I mentioned them to my wife Donna last night.

Of course, I guess Robert Plant and I both have Homer to thank for putting these kinds of stories in our heads. And in the head of any kid who ever grew up anywhere over the last few millennia.

I missed out on Houses of the Holy in 1973. When I think of the music from March 1973 that might have resonated with me, I find that it’s the soul songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 from late March of that year that feel the most foundational to my musical tastes. In short, the songs by the Spinners, Stylistics, O’Jays and so many more are the ones that I was probably hearing the most those mornings on WFIL, and they’re the ones that sank deep into me. Bands like Zeppelin and Pink Floyd–whose Dark Side of the Moon was also released in March 1973 and whose popularity has arguably eclipsed that of Houses of the Holy–would have to wait for me to catch up to them.

But I did catch up eventually. I’m sure that I had heard all eight songs from Houses of the Holy on rock stations like WMMR by the time drummer John Bonham’s death brought Zeppelin to an untimely end in 1980. I got over my fear of “heavy” music and began to dive into Zeppelin’s albums, first by borrowing them from my high school classmate Dave, and then by buying them one by one for about $5.00 at my local Listening Booth record store.

And so it was that about 10 years after its release, I heard Houses of the Holy for the first time. I don’t remember the first time I listened to it, beginning to end, but I was likely amazed at how I’d already heard every song from the LP on ‘MMR. Houses of the Holy was just that damn important to the burgeoning “classic rock” culture of the early 1980s.

I don’t know that Houses of the Holy was universally acclaimed at the time of its release, but I think it holds up well. It’s a diverse album, ranging from raging Zep stompers like “Dancing Days,” “Over The Hills and Far Away,” and “The Ocean” to the ethereal “The Rain Song,” still one of the most gorgeous songs Plant has ever sung (and dig those mellotron-generated strings!). Plus, you get a goofy reggae tribute, “D’yer Mak’er” and the James Brown parody, “The Crunge,” both rare displays of a Zeppelin sense of humor. Where is that confounded bridge, anyway?

During my college years, I was falling in love with all kinds of new music, but I wound up burrowing deeper into the classic rock canon as well. More than a few times, Houses of the Holy would be the soundtrack to college dorm backgammon matches. Yes, indeed, I knew how to party.

Houses of the Holy and I sometimes spend years apart, but every now and then I rediscover it and listen to it for days or weeks on end. This is what happened after I met an online friend named Tommy back around 2008 or thereabout. He was a big Zeppelin fan, and he reignited my love for Houses of the Holy. I never met Tommy in real life and he is now sadly gone. But I feel his presence, along with the presence of those still here–Rick and Greg from college, Dave and Joe from high school–with whom I’ve shared the mighty Houses of the Holy through the years. And even the presence of seven-year-old me, telling myself the story of “No Quarter,” as I walked home from school, long before I’d ever heard of “No Quarter,” Houses of the Holy, or even Led Zeppelin itself.