Playlists! Playlists! Playlists!
Now that I have turned over most of my music time to Spotify I have once again begun the search for music that I have somewhat paid for several times over.
45’s, albums, cassettes, CDs. From The Beatles to The War On Drugs. It’s been quite the musical journey to find the stuff I love best.
It really started with this one: I have no idea how this came into my ownership but I played the shit out of it.
Released in April 1964
It was the beginning of lyrics teaching me language. I had to know the damn words because whether I can sing or not I had to! So I was hooked early.
Man, I couldn’t wait for Friday, the little store in the Van Horne shopping centre got these little suckers in every Friday and they were available for my pick up on the way home from Jewish People’s School.
This one is just about perfect, look at this mix!
August 30, 1968
Gotta be first week of 6th grade.
Fell in love with Andy Kim’s Shoot ‘Em Up Baby and Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man.
Did I know one was a Montrealer about to do some special things and the other was Led Zeppelin without Robert Plant?
I did not.
Yeah, the mix.
Rock?
The Rascals, The Doors. Steppenwolf, the Beach Boys.
The Who’s awesome Magic Bus and Deep Purple (Hush) before they knew they were Deep Purple.
The Moody Blues, and at #32 The Amboy Dukes.
The Amboy Dukes anyone?
Hell that’s Ted Nugent in 1968!
You’ve Got the Queen of Soul and Marvin Gaye.
The Bee Gees, the 4 Tops, Bobby Goldsboro, Mama Cass.
Not to be left out of the eclectic mix, 2 awesome instrumentals –
Mason Williams’ Classical Gas and Booker T’s Soul Limbo.
There was country with Jeanie C Riley but a boy named Sue was coming and Johnny Nash was holding you tight!
One stop shopping in the shadow of FM radio and in Montreal CHOM FM about to take us away to better but defined music stations around the corner.
But not yet.
It was still the time of sitting with a finger on record of the newer playback machines just waiting on the new Jackson 5.
I do remember an afternoon music show on cable access in Montreal in 1968. You know, kind of pre – Wayne’s World. Dude would play your hits if you called. Can’t find anything on it but the timeline is easy. I remember calling for Cream’s White Room and Gordon Lightfoot’s Bitter Green.
I was 11.
And did I need to know the words.
Yes, I would say yes.
Just past the Van Horne shopping centre there was a pharmacy on the corner of Victoria.I would stop in and have a look at the magazine section.You may have been searching out the ones hiding but I was learning song lyrics from this beautiful mag. Couldn’t afford to buy it so I would memorize the words until the next visit.
Okay I did take a gander at those other magazines but just for a moment you understand.
___________________________________
My Bar Mitzvah was January 1970
What should you get me?
Albums damn it. All of you, go buy me albums!
I did give hints but these were the 3 really:
Zep and Hendrix and I had already begun a long love affair! Stones took awhile for me but eventually, like Corey Perry, everybody comes around. (Sadly the Perry opinion is once again in question.)
Never saw Jimi. Saw Zep twice. First Was June 1972, the other Winter 1975. Crazy stories on both. I luckily enjoyed one concert a month as part of my allowance because of course.
Zep tickets $5 My ticket went missing the night of the 72 show when I was 15, a “friend” had nicked it out of my room. Went to the show to see if there were any still available. Floor seat – $6.50, sat by myself, great show.
In 1975 I had done a couple of hits of windowpane acid before arriving at my friends house the night of the show.
I guess we’ll call my friend Dan cause that was and is his name. I tell Dan I’m not feeling that well, I may be freaking out.
He says, “You go to the hospital, I’m going to see Zeppelin”
And off to Zep we went not knowing what was in store.
Ticker taker cut off too much of the stub! He cut off the event date. The usher wouldn’t let us sit down, saying the tickets could have been for any event. I finally convinced him that nobody would be coming to take the seat if we didn’t, and he could throw us out if that happened.
Nobody came.
Another Great show. That was February 1975.
Middle page bottom left:
Not pictured: First concert: Sly and the Family Stone March 3, 1972
I have never seen the Stones. Crazy I know but here’s the really sad part:
They came a month after Zeppelin in ’72, you know when their truck got bombed!
I was of course at camp.
And double loser, Stones came with Stevie Wonder and I’ve never seen him either, damn. But hey camp that summer was Joe Tex and Shaft and Father and Son and Bill Withers.
Music everywhere.
The Beatles, Zep, Hendrix, Dylan, the Stones, no problem finding that stuff.
What about those artists that are somewhat unique to you? How the hell did you find them?
Luck be my music today.
I’ll give Rory Gallagher’s credit to my Mom who went along with the one concert for month addendum to my allowance.
Heard a song on the radio and went to see him and April Wine at the St Denis Theatre. A few months later he came back to Montreal to do the Nazareth and Rush show at the Forum concert bowl. I read recently that this was Rush’s first tour, still my order of who I would see wouldn’t change.
Rory
Nazareth
Rush
And I defy you to listen to this and not want to run out and see this guy:
But you can’t. Rory died in 1995
In September ’75 I went to Israel to live, work and learn on a Kibbutz.
Folks from all over. They brought their books and music from home.It was 2,3 or 4 to a room.
Su musica es mi musica
Lane from Philadelphia brought along plenty including an album from folk singer Jonathan Edwards. You may remember his hit “Sunshine” (reached #4 on Billboard’s Hot 100). It was on his self titled album.
Also on the LP – Shanty with a fabulous harmonica open.
“We’re going to sit around the shanty Mama and put a good buzz on.”
I eventually bought this album:
Loved it! Still love it. One reason? Of the 10 songs on the album, 3 were written by Jesse Winchester.
That’s how I found Jesse.
Lane’s influence was far greater elsewhere in the end
A year or so after I came back from Israel I moved into a house with 3 other collectors of unemployment insurance.
The neighbourhood people called it ‘The House’. Three of us in our early 20’s and Glen, a college grad who was older. Probably wasn’t that much older but hey when you’re 21.
Smart guy that Glen, tell folks about him all the time. Taught me how to win at backgammon. Loaned me his book “Backgammon for Blood”
Music played constantly.
And the new music that year?
Debut albums by Elvis Costello, George Thorogood, Dire Straits, The Cars. And then there was that opening sax solo to Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street on City to City.
Some of my favourite music to be sure but this is the nugget that Glen dropped on the rest of my life – Every damn song just about!
I am ashamed to say that I didn’t see the film until last year.
One of the visitors to ‘The House’ was having trouble with his motorcycle. Took it apart and couldn’t put it back together. Glen bought the parts, put it back together and drove off into the sunset. Heading West I was told.
Never saw him again.
Thanks for everything.
In 1978 as Bucky was Denting the Red Sox I had entered John Abbott College as a mature student.
The radio station was another chance to tap into other folks musical tastes.
One nugget was Robert Palmer’s Sneaking Sally Through the Alley (one of Bill Lee’s all time favourites). Nothing like his future monster hits.
Spotify proved themselves not be real experts on my music when they played the first song on the album for me in one of their suggested personal playlists. Thought they were smart slipping in one of these beauties. However everyone who knows the album knows the first 3 songs are connected and must be played in order and no other way. Get it together Spotify!
1 Sailing Shoes
2 Hey Julia
3 Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley
Come back when you’ve stopped dancing!
But that wasn’t one that came out of nowhere.
I went through the discarded box of albums at the college station and brought home a bunch that nobody else wanted.
I will listen to anything at least once.
How about an early Bruce Cockburn album?
He’d been around for a decade or so but hadn’t hit yet. The album had Silver Wheels on it and I was hooked.
His 80’s were glorious listening for me. However Cockburn was definitely a hole in my live concert history. And he was not young anymore, (me neither) when he came to Ste Catharines in 2022. Walking with a cane and just him with all those instruments and sounding just like Bruce Cockburn.
Thank you Sir.
And hey Spotify as long as you ain’t got Neil Young or Joni Mitchell you are missing 2 of my favourite albums
The full acoustic side of Rust Never Sleeps
And Joni’s Court and Spark
And while Kate Bush’s The Kick Inside would probably normally win here for artist and album of personal uniqueness (crazy she was only 19 at the time) this also came out in 1978:
Rolling Stone record reviews editor Paul Nelson called the album “one of the most significant releases of the 1970s” and placed Zevon alongside Neil Young, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen as the four most important new artists to emerge in the decade.
Good enough for me, let’s try that out.
I can’t figure out why more didn’t latch on to this brilliant song writer. The album runs first song to last, his catalogue is extensive, varied and lyrically other worldly.
Warren Zevon I will keep you in my heart forever, RIP.
Why is Warren Zevon not in the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame?
That’s a question right up there alongside – Why didn’t more Americans love The Tragically Hip?
I give thanks here to baseball writer and announcer Jeff Blair.
While working at an Expos/Cubs game Jeff came up to me in the press box at Wrigley Field with a copy of the Chicago Sun Times, when he opened it at the set page, the headline screamed:
Tonight Warren Zevon, live at the Park West!
Okay it was screaming at me.
Had never seen him live previously having missed an opportunity during an Expos fantasy camp when I was so wrapped up in that I didn’t even notice he was playing nearby in Florida.
I would name a cat Zevon but I would never see him again.
Thanks again Jeff
That’s the first radio station I ever worked at.
CKMR became CFAN (now in Vancouver) and it’s now 99.3 the River, today’s best country but it was a play-everything-and-try-to-make-everyone-happy station in 1979.
We played country early early, switched to contemporary adult hits at 7 a.m. The noon/news hour was strictly instrumentals. Then Country again from 1-3.
The hits coming your way at 4 p.m.! Heavier rock at 6:30 followed by Back To The Bible and the other religion shows.
Saturday and Sunday mornings more country.
The Boss was heavy handed in the music that made it to air.
All except the country, you could get away with throwing in an Allman Brothers or a Marshall Tucker Band or something else if it kind of fit.
The phone lines would light up on the weekends and Miramichi-ers kept asking for this guy I’d never heard of back in 1979 so one Saturday morning I threw one on.
Hello in there John Prine
Before they gave me a full time speaking gig, they made me play the tapes in the evening.
As a CBC affiliate at the time they were expected to play a certain amount of CBC programming.
Lucky me, that meant listening to the great Barbara Frum and As It Happens each night.
Also CBC’s 90 minutes with a bullet.
We also ran Doug Pringle’s show after he syndicated post CHOM.
Surely I heard Tom Petty first on one of those two.
Two shows bringing Canadians music they would not have heard otherwise
My next stop was Moncton New Brunswick, CFQM-FM.
“The Maritimes Country Music Leader”
4+ hours a day playin’ country music.
Are you going to learn to love this stuff?
Hell yeah and that means there are thousands of songs I had never heard before, what a treasure trove. As well as new artists just entering as Alabama was at the time hitting with Tennessee River but it was Merle who spoke to me and while he was already a Country Hall of Famer he was still putting out gold.
Big City arrived in 1981
But tops is Ramblin’ Fever so yes that was me onstage at The Legion on New Year’s Eve ’81 singing Merle with my girlfriend’s brother’s band.
I may have had a cold one or two.
Not that drunk to tell you the names of those fine people were Jackie and Bobby Kennedy.
They even had a brother John.
As God is my witness, the Kennedys of Moncton NB
——————————————————————————
My albums now reside with Brian Wilde.
I got tired of lugging them all over the country. They had gone from Montreal to Newcastle NB to Moncton NB to Regina Sask.
No wait. Better re-route that back to Montreal and eventually to Whitby but they never made it to Welland, Ontario or Maple Ridge BC. and that doesn’t count the many in-city moves.
Sometimes music just falls from heaven.
I was sitting around in my office one day and found an old tape I had never listened to, in fact I had never heard of Chris Smither.
The album was Up On The Lowdown and it spoke to me from the first note. Made by hand and given to me by Ted Blackman who at this point had already been gone two years.
I cried.
I still think of Ted often.
No more so than when I hear Van Morrison’s The Beauty Of The Days Gone By. It was released a few months before his death and I heard it first at his funeral. Made me cry then, would do so now.
Music can do that.
For some reason Bette Midler’s The Rose gets me every time.
Then there are instrumental parts so strong as to illicit emotion like Michael Brecker’s sax in Paul Simon’s Still Crazy After All These Years or the guitar on Zevon’s Something Bad Happened To A Clown.
Nothing however can get me balling like Annakin Slayd’s ode to the Expos.
Available for you and your own tears on youtube.
Me?
Can’t do it!
In 1988 I was sent by the radio station to cover the Winter Olympics in Calgary.
A wonderful assignment to be sure. My main coverage area was to be the downhill skiing. That meant 100 km bus rides from Calgary to Nakiska and back for 17 days.
Luckily I had won a bet with Mitch Melnick.
Don’t remember what the bet was about, only that he was required to fill several cassettes with the best of his new album purchases.
Melnick and music?
You’re on this website so you know already.
First was Robbie Robertson’s self titled which opened with the heartbeat at the start of Fallen Angel.
Oh my this was good.
Excellent start Mr. Melnick
Next up: U2’s Joshua Tree
2 for 2 clearly.
I had however heard of both of those.
The next guy?
Never.
These 2 albums made the artist a lifelong favourite:
Thanks Mitch.
Also for Lucinda Williams.
End of year is a wonderful ritual for me.
I’ll spend a week or so chasing all the music I might have missed.
Album lists, song lists, all kinds.
You’ve got me for a minute or so. What have you got?
The War On Drugs which I found on the Rolling Stone’s best album list of 2017 was something I had never encountered before. I saw someone describe it as music to drive endless highways with. I literally could put all their albums back to back and never feel the time passing until song last.
For the first time mostly, lyrics be damned.
I mean I even sort of sing to the Allman Brothers Jessica (it’s an instrumental). I know where every damn note goes.
I was supposed to see The War on Drugs in Toronto with my son but it was postponed by Covid. Finally the pandemic was ending and I drove to Florida to play golf February 2022. By chance I checked their touring schedule and fate put them in my path.
Picture above from The Anthem in Washington DC February 2022
Bonus:
The band’s leader Adam Granduciel had Kurt Vile help out on that first album. He has become as much a fave as War on Drugs.
Weird band fact: Granduciel’s real name is Granofsky – Gran of sky = Gran Du Ciel
After finishing and editing I looked at the banner picture and noticed 3 albums I never mentioned once and they probably have been my 3 most played ever.
Dylan’s Blood On The Tracks
Marley’ Survival
Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust
I remember high school friend Clifford Michaels coming back from Toronto having heard Ziggy Stardust for the first time or Bowie for that matter, pointing out the note on the back cover ‘To be played at maximum volume”
And so it was.
So this was all written prior to the 2023 year end music quest.
I added 120 new songs to my current playlist and that should be good for awhile.
All over the map and more than one language as it turns out.
Found these guys too!
Love ’em together, love ’em alone.
A remarkable album
Boygenius
Edit April 2024
Funny thing happened thanks to this article
I fell in love with a band I had never heard of before
After posting this story on Facebook and following up with my favourite new albums of the year
The new one by the Turnpike Troubadours was suggested by a friend, David,
Consider me blown away.
I may be the luckiest Troubadours fan in the world
I didn’t have to wait 6 years for their latest album when most thought the band was done for good,
Their song total that I love outdistances Tom Petty for me which is insane.
Didn’t have to wait to see them either
Picture is from their concert last month in Tacoma, Washington.
And I believe I can legit sing at least 10 of their songs.
Any TT tribute bands?
I am available.
And finally that Stones concert I missed more than 50 years ago?
Well, colour me stunned.
Their new album has blown me away.
Put it on and expected little, got what I think is one of their best.
So here they come:
Seattle in May, Vancouver in July
Never seen them.
Going to call Stevie Wonder and see which one is easier for him.
