In response to jimformation lite, who said:
I’m a half-generation younger than you. My dad turned me on to some of the music of my youth. Specifically, Rick Wakeman.
I was raised by my grandparents. And even my Nan wasn’t cringing at the stuff I was cringing at: Round and Round.
I like Rick Wakeman. I own several of his albums. I’ve read his outrageous stories from the road. When I was younger I liked his long blonde hair and sequined cape. Phenomenal keyboard player. But with all due respect to your father and you, Rick Wakeman is, at best, the Liberace of rock music. More a Las Vegas lounge act version of rock. All he lacks are the candelabras.
Ratt? Orthodontists’ sons with big hair and big amps. Even my dad liked them. Your Nan was on the money. They were harmless puppies.
U2? Hmm. I think they were the reason Todd Rundgren wrote this little ditty.
Rock ‘n’ roll? Iggy Pop and the Stooges! Iggy made parents afraid their children would ingest drugs, strip naked, have unprotected sex in the back seat of a car, go freaking crazy and start a revolution.
He’s an old man and still scaring the hell out of a lot of people.
I listened to Wakeman’s Journey to the Center of the Earth & King Arthur and the Nights of the Round Table over and over an over again on my 8-track tape player. I was 12, maybe 14-years-old. Wakeman got me into Yes and Pink Floyd and Genesis and Brian Eno and King Crimson and ELP.
In that set of 8-tracks my dad gave me was also Jethro Tull’s Aqualung. Tull somehow got me to Neil Young and CSN and The Eagles and America and The Buffalo Springfield.
By the time I was 15-years-old, all roads lead to The Beatles. The Beatles were all I listened too for a couple of years. I would make deals with my step-brother, Bobby, when I hung out with him during summer vacations, “I’ll let you listen to Journey all week long if I could listen to Breakfast With The Beatles on Sunday mornings.”
While I’m not a fan of Journey, I have warm memories when I hear them. I think of Bobby and I know The Beatles are coming soon.
When I got my first job, I was introduced to all sorts of music. Rush hit home the most. I’ve seen them in concert, I don’t know, 30? 40? 50 times?
A progressive rock band, Marillion, once opened for them and I was wowed. For several years, Marillion was MY band — sometimes I still feel that way. But their lead singer broke away, Marillion lost its voice. And the lead singer, Fish, lost his soul.
I still follow Fish. I can’t listen to post-Fish Marillion without thinking, “Jesus Christmas that new guy can’t sing.”
There was The Doors. And I read Morrison’s crappy poetry and started writing some of my own crappy poetry. And that got me into Whitman and Dickinson and the Beat Poets (still some of my faves).
All the while, I’d still watch Lawrence Welk every Sunday at 7 o’clock with Pop. Oh, and if Tom Jones or Engelbert Humperdink or Liberace were on, my Nan almost insisted that I watch.
Before that, I remember watching a Elvis. You had to watch Elvis.
Through the 80’s, I dabbled in post-punk New Wave stuff. A lot of it was light, but some of it still sticks. Older U2 sticks tight to me — The Unforgettable Fire and the four preceding albums were always in heavy rotation.
Post-punk led me into sticking my toe into punk: I listened to The Ramones and The Clash and Patti Smith and Blondie. Even the Talking Heads.
And Lou Reed.
I am still enamored with Lou Reed. In my life, he’s some sort of shaman — someone you don’t approach too closely but admire from a distance. Someone that you know has magical powers.
In the cracks of all of this, I held tight to the singer-songwriters. Everything from Dylan to Billy Joel to Paul Simon to John Denver to Pete Seeger, Warren Zevon, Harry Chapin, James Taylor, T-Bone Burnett, Lyle Lovett. These were my guilty pleasures. Sometimes, while my friends were listening to Floyd and Zepplin, I thought I was the only one going home and listening to Tom Waits and Robbie Robertson.
And, again, Neil Young. Over and over again.
College opened up the blues and reggae to me. I was the kid in the Mustang pulling onto campus blasting BB King and Bob Marley because I loved the music and I wanted everyone to know that I was cooler than them.
They were listening to Duran Duran and Kenny Loggins and Madonna and The Thompson Twins while I had Johnny Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters rattling my windows. I admit, then and now, I felt superior.
Now, at almost 45-years-old, I’m glad I sucked in all that music. Fairly diverse, though narrow to me, because it’s my stuff. I reach out to new music occasionally, but I’m glad I have this dirth to reach back into.
If no one ever put out another album, I’d be no poorer. I have plenty to listen to. There is plenty that I have that will always occupy my ear and fascinate my mind.
… and I haven’t even started on the music that hooked me since I’ve been married. And I’ve been married 21 years.
Sorry for the self-indulgent rambling. It happens.
