It almost escaped me this week, but not quite....
Today I shall run with a music theme. Since my love of music spans far and wide - I've been listening to music for as long as I can remember, pretty much on a daily basis - I can come up with WAY more than "three essentials" in terms of albums...so perhaps I will make this an occasional series.
These aren't listed in any particular order. I'll write 'em down as I think of them.
ONE
Morning Dance by Spyro Gyra
This is quite possibly the most awesome jazz album ever released. According to the Wiki god, it was bestowed upon the world in the summer of 1979. My dad bought it when it first came out, and I was immediately hooked. None of SG's later stuff compares. This is one of those albums that makes me happy when I listen to it, regardless of the mood I am in at the time. I tend to play it when I need a serious pick-me-up, or when my day is going particularly well and I just want to give it an appropriate soundtrack. Jay Beckenstein is a superb sax player, and the drumming on the last song on the second side - "End of Romanticism" - just gives me chills.
TWO
Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd
Ok, so....seriously. Not much even needs to be said about this one. This...is likely the best album ever released by any band, ever. It was one of the very first "adult" music albums I ever owned - it, along with Jethro Tull's Aqualung - was given to me for my 7th birthday. Not a whole lot of 7-year-olds can make that kind of claim. Not a whole lot of 7-year-olds would have enjoyed such a gift, but to me, it was amazing. And my parents were happy, because then it meant that I wouldn't be asking them to play their particular copy 10 times a day, as I was in the habit of doing. Along with those two incredible rock albums, I also received my very first real turntable, receiver and speakers. Oh yeah, I was set up right proper....right there in my 7-year-old bedroom with my Mickey Mouse bedsheets, Barbie dolls and piles of stuffed animals. Truly, I was waaayyyy ahead of the game in terms of good, quality music before I was even 10 years old. As a result, I know the lyrics to every single track on DSOTM, and I never, ever get tired of it. Ever.
THREE
Tea for the Tillerman by Cat Stevens
A hippie music icon. These days Cat goes by the name Yusuf Islam, and subscribes to the same religion as indicated by his last name. One doesn't hear much about him any more, and from what I understand he's always been somewhat reclusive anyway. But as CS, he released a couple albums in the early 70's that were quite popular amongst the pot-smoking, peace-loving hippie freaks similar to those my parents hung out with quite a bit when I was very young (and indeed, were flaming hippies themselves. I wore a lot of paisley when I was a kid.) Anyway, I love this album. I probably wouldn't like it at all if I heard it for the first time now, at my age, but I listened to this stuff so much when I was a kid it was imbedded in my mind, in the fondest way, forever. A lot of music from this era is part of me in the same fashion.
I do tend to have the most awesome earworms at any given time.......
Every time I see Spyro Gyra I think it's an STD for shellfish.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember my first "adult" album but my first cassette tape was Loverboy's "Get Lucky." My dad bought it for me along with my first boom box. It was for my 11th birthday, just after the album had been released.