Posted on

Jackson Browne — 616, 615

Preview(opens in a new tab)

ALBUMS: Lives in the Balance (1986), Running on Empty (1977)

MVC Rating: Balance 3.5/$$$; Empty 4.5/$$$$

Singer, songwriter, activist Jackson Browne was the perfect 1970s-80s pop rock star:

Good looking, wrote sweet melodies;  protested against wars in places  ‘we can’t even say the names;’ has a silent ‘e’ at the end of Browne; sang about cocaine; made a splash when he  married and later divorced Daryl Hannah.

All of these things: Rock star.

He had bands that were so good. L.A. good, that Eagles thing which not everybody digs.  To paraphrase Yogi, ‘They are so popular no one likes them anymore.’

Browne actually wrote the song “Take it Easy” which the Eagles scored big with.

I have ‘Lives in the Balance’ and ‘Running on Empty,’ which was an on-the-road live album with a number of  tracks recorded in hotel rooms.. Balance is a protest album against US involvement in Nicaragua,  El Salvador and wherever  we were messing around militarily in the world. But mostly Nicaragua from what I can tell. As an album it suffers from a few weak songs. The  title track and ‘For America’ are standouts.

Given the choice, I’d pick Neil Young’s passionate Living with War if you want to  hear some railing against the war.

“You Love the Thunder’ is my favorite on Empty.

But my favorite thing about Jackson Browne is through him I discovered  David Lindley, a real excellent guitarist in the band who made a string of solo albums that are among my favorite albums. He was in some ways nothing like Browne. He had long stringy hair and wore plaid pants with stripe shirts. That kind of guy. Much more on him when I get to the ‘L’s.

(Can’t believe I’m stuck in the ‘B’s all this time.  Ready for C’s soon).

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

Posted on

Lenny Bruce — 617

ALBUM:  The Story of Lenny, What I Was Arrested For (1975)

MVC Rating: 3.5; $$$

REM, of my Athens, Ga. home, wrote about the end of the world (as we know it):

That’s great, it starts with an earthquake
Birds and snakes, and aeroplanes
And Lenny Bruce is not afraid

Lenny Bruce would certainly not be afraid., Buzzing on amphetamines,, he was  driven by what:? By insecurity? Courage? Seeking attention? All of the above?

He was relentlessly stepping up to the line and crossing over. He eventually contributed to moving those lines.

He was busted on drug and obscenity charges over and  over again between 1961 and 1966, at which time he died of a narcotics overdose.

He was glib and cussed  on stage in the early 1960s, pushing the boundaries of society’s slowly expanding borders of taste and decency.

As a journalist i appreciate pioneers in the freedom of speech. I would err on the side of freedom of expression over someone’s idea of  decency. But in most situations I like decency, with the weapons of profane words used strategically for effect

The fall-out is that  the F-word, and others,  became ubiquitous in the movies. And everywhere for that matter. Do people really talk like that? All the time? Well, in newsrooms, yes, I can vouch

I remember Kat in Walnut Creek, Calif., at the Contra Costa Times  had a tip jar requiring a dollar for every naughty word. Some reporters (Tom Peele?) paid in advance. Others on  the installment plan.]

.We in the news biz  have been much more lenient on what we allow in the more free-wheeling online platform. You’ll see less of that kind of language in the actual newspaper.

What Lenny Bruce was doing as a traveling comedian was delving into matters sexual and heretofore considered obscene.

My problem  is he wasn’t all that funny, based on this record  Of course it’was a  different time.

Half the material was about his legal problems and his inability to keep his fucking mouth shut (sub freaking if necessary, trying to demonstrate  effect  here.)

Sure he was a pioneer. But an  unpleasant addicted self-absorbed  one.

In his biographical book on Bruce, author Albert  Goldman cast Lenny  as a pioneer and martyr, albeit haunted by demons. It’s the same Goldman who wrote an exhaustive, negative  tome on Elvis. (I read both books because I was fascinated in my 20s  by both of these larger than life figures.) In Goldman’s portrayals, Lenny did much better than Elvis,, who was portrayed as a fat, drug using, liquor swilling redneck, who’s talents were demeaned more than praised. Forgive me if I can’t  remember details, I read both decades ago.

Closing up now I see the lineage between Bruce and George Carlin and Richard Pryor, both of whom could be brilliant. Dave Chapelle is another.

My tastes wander more around  absurdists such as Monty Python, Steven Wright and Andy Kaufman.

Reminds me of another  REM  song:

Now, Andy did you hear about this one
Tell me, are you locked in the punch
Andy are you goofing on Elvis? Hey, baby 
Are we losing touch
If you believed they put a man on the moon, man on the moon
If you believe there’s nothing up his sleeve, then nothing is cool

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

o

Posted on

Roy Buchanan — 618

ALBUM: Dancing on the Edge (1986)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

Ask a rock fan about who are the  best guitarists and you usually hear, Hendrix, Clapton,  Page, Van Halen, Richards, Townshend, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jeff Beck, Chuck Berry, etc. and so on.

You don’t usually hear the name Buchanan unless you are talking to some experienced  guitar players.

Roy Buchanan’s father was a sharecropper and Pentecostal minister who brought music into the house, according to various Internet articles, including Wikipedia.

Originally from Arkansas, the family moved to small town California. At 15 Buchanan left home  to seek his fame and fortune.

He never found it.

At 47, in jail in Virginia for public drunkenness, he died by suicide, hanging himself by his shirt, authorities said

His family disputes that suicide was the cause of that death in 1988.

I have his 1986 album ‘Dancing on the Edge’ and it’s a fine, fun record of country and rock and blues, featuring Buchanan’s swinging, and stinging guitar.

In rock critic  David Fricke’s top 100 guitarists for  Rolling Stone, Buchanan is rated 57. A documentary about his life is named ‘The World’s Greatest Unknown Guitarist.’

And if you are a fan of electric guitar his cover of ‘Hey Joe’ is not to be missed. Listen to the tone, the subtlety and finally the blazing lead runs where  he does something similar to what young people call shredding. Watch it to the end and see if you agree that he should be in top 10. (SEE BELOW)

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

Posted on

Are You Random Orientation or Straight Playlist?

About two weeks ago I wrote a post entitled ‘Who Am I.’

It was loosely about a Lewy Body dementia patient, me, getting a little existential.

There’s an anecdote that comes out of writing that blog post that blows me away and I want to share it.

It probably won’t blow you away, dear readers, because it was a kind of you-had-to-be-there moment.

But anyway, the anecdote will allow me to raise the question: Are you a ‘random shuffle’ person? Or a ‘straight playlist’ person?

OK here comes the anecdote: It was a weekend day and I had a chore. Do laundry and clean up my messy room. I brought my 120GB iPod to play to  make the work go easier. I turned it on to Shuffle all songs. That would be a random shuffle of about 7,500 songs.

Midway through this cleaning escapade I got an idea. One of the things I’ve been thinking a lot about since being diagnosed with a fatal degenerative brain disease is my mortality, the meaning of life and, frankly, ‘Who Am I.’

So idea in mind, I went downstairs to write, leaving the music, the iPod playing my 7,500 songs at random.

An hour, maybe two, slips by as I write on my laptop. Eventually I meander upstairs and I was stopped dead in my tracks. I instantly knew this song just now coming out of my iPod, which as you remember I had left on and  had been randomly shuffling for the better course of two hours.

I immediately knew the guitar-organ opening with drum build-up and the group in unison asking a question.

The song: Who Are You?

Who Are You? That well-known song by the Who.

After catching my breath, I looked around to see if someone was pranking me.

What are the odds? I thought (maybe 7,500 to 1?) that that song would be playing.  As I walked in after writing a post called Who Am I? I was actually a little shaken.

I ran and told my daughter and her friend who were in the house. But I don’t think they had the same reaction, nor friends and colleagues of mine. Coincidence they say. Funny, how these coincidences are following me around though.

So that brings me to the question about a facet of who you are? Random shuffle or straight playlist.

I’m definitely a random shuffle guy. When they invented digital music and I could load up my jukebox of CDs (about 100 at least). I put it on shuffle.

My wife complained as soon as she figured out that the nice James Taylor song ‘Fire and Rain,’ now playing, might be followed by a Rancid song (yes, Rancid, those Bay Area punksters). I liked the randomness, the expectation of anything can come next.

Catherine didn’t like so much. I never peeked at my presents on Christmas. Catherine did (and still does).

I like starting on a hike not knowing where we’ll end up.

I like taking multi-day road trips with absolutely no plans on how far I’ll get.

My grandfather, a career Army guy, had the mileage all figured out (pre-GPS) and made reservations to make sure he and grandmother had a place to stay.

I can’t tell you how many times Catherine and I would stop at motels with no vacancy and have to keep going. But that was the fun. Where will we end up?

She tolerated me and still does most of the time.

Now these orientations can be taken to the extreme, so I think we are combinations of the two but lean one way or another, some more than others.

A totally random person would presumably never get anywhere on time. (Although, I haven’t worn a watch in 50 years, and I’m not usually late). I think my random orientation has served me well as a journalist over the years. Everyday is something new at a newspaper or online news operation where I worked and still work at AL.com. <NOTE: Retired in 2019>

Reporters know that the Supreme Being laughs when we make plans. You  might think you are going to spend the day researching and writing this big story, only to get tapped on the shoulder to cover a breaking story like a tornado, or major court ruling or whatever.

In fact ‘whatever’ was coined by random folks.

The nature of this blog, www.myvinylcountdown.com is a mix between random and playlist. I am reviewing on this site my 678 vinyl records in alphabetical order. Now that sounds tidy, right? Well it has the same effect  as random play on the iPod. For example, I open the blog with African music, King Sunni Ade, which is followed by hard rockers Aerosmith.

I have a huge 625-song Christmas playlist in my iPod that, as my family is well aware, I have insisted on playing on shuffle for years and years (but only after Thanksgiving.)

“But Dad, I want to hear the rest of that Christina Aguilera Christmas album, I hate what’s on,’’ a daughter would say.

“Just wait sweetie, this Love Tractor track will be over in a minute and I can’t wait to see what will be next, can you?” I say, blocking their hands from the iPod controls with my arms in a style I learned watching Karate Kid (wax on wax off).

I usually won because I could fend them off just long enough for the next track and it would be the Hanson’s Christmas collection.

Saved once again to fight another day. For random play.

For another shuffled deck click here.

Posted on

The Sky Fell on Alabama Long Time Ago

Sunday is a beautiful cold day.

People are quiet inside. Waiting for redemption.

I decided to go to church. There was good discussion on the environment drawn from a book called Beyond  Eden.

“Do we really have stardust in us?” I ask.

“In Alabama we do,” Arthur said. “They even wrote a song about it.

“Stars Fell On Alabama”

Arthur is funny.

I can’t forget the glamor
Your eyes held a tender light
And stars fractured ‘Bama
Last night

I was at First Presbyterian Church Birmingham, one of the oldest, if not the oldest church in the city. The church, started  in the 1870s, fractured over Civil Rights or related issues in the 1960s.

It’s right across the street from the YMCA.

With snow on the ground outside, we sang ‘In the  Bleak Midwinter.’

My wife, the Rev. Catherine Oliver, is interim associate pastor at First Presbyterian.

The Rev. Catherine Goodrich is head of staff.

Goodrich led a thanksgiving prayer and said this to the congregation:

We give you thanks for this community and pray this morning for our state.

The eyes of the nation are focused on Alabama waiting to see if we believe that  all people are created in the image of God,

if we believe in the separation of church and state,

If we stand on the side of love and if we believe that the poor and the vulnerable should be protected.

Send your Spirit, Oh God, that all may heed the voice of justice, hear your call to compassion and embrace paths of peace.

 And a long time ago, in 1833,  stars fell  on Alabama. Someone wrote about it in 1934:

We lived our little drama
We kissed in a field of white
And stars fell on Alabama
Last night

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

Posted on

My Rx for Dementia

I’d like to put in a bottle what I am doing to fight my dementia for everyone facing what I’m facing.

On this blog, I’m counting down, in photos  and words, the 678 vinyl record albums I collected mainly in the 70s and 80s before CDs and digital took over. In doing so I am reconnecting with my past, and my memory of it. I’m finding forgotten memories. I’m rediscovering good (and bad) music.

And I’m loving it.

Every day is like Christmas to me. What is the next one to review? What surprise and memory will it bless me with. The discipline of writing connects me to my mind in a way beyond speech.

I’m doing this in addition to traditional drug therapy, on which I am   combining a carefully calculated  mix of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s medications. That’s because my disease, Lewy Body dementia has symptoms that resemble both degenerative brain diseases.

The problem is that Lewy Body, despite being the second leading cause of dementia after Alzheimer’s, is not well known. Early diagnosis is a key to getting on the right meds because some anti-psychotic medications, used in Alzheimer’s treatment, are contraindicated and dangerous to the Lewy Body patient.  There is no cure, and its cause is unknown.

I am better off than I was a year ago when I was diagnosed. I felt miserable. I felt like I was antsy all the time. My arm would unconsciously slide up my side in the so-called gunslinger mode, a classic Parkinsonian symptom. But I had also had insomnia and REM sleep disorder which caused me to act out dreams, sometimes thrashing, punching and kicking. Not so great when you’re sharing a bed. Those are classic Lewy Body dementia symptoms, including waking hallucinations.

I believe I’m feeling better now because of the medication. But I believe I may also be doing well because of the value that blogging has brought to my psyche. It’s given me something fun to do while keeping my dexterity refined through typing and my memory honed by remembering and writing about remembering.

Will the meds slowly quit working, as frequently happens? Will I be unable to type at some point? That ability already fluctuates. My writing is often more coherent than my speech, I know that. Just an honest observation. In live conversations with people, I often forget names or crash my train of thought. I have to thumb through the bins in my brain to find the right words.

It’s one of the reasons I came out publicly with my disease because I want people to know what’s going on when they talk to me and not be afraid to ask me how I’m doing living with dementia. “Very fine thank you,” I say. “And what’s your name again?”

My friends and colleagues and many others I don’t know so well know it’s no sweat that I can’t remember something right away.

So long before the dementia diagnosis I had this idea of counting my records down and selling them one-by-one on eBay. It was, to be honest, a good argument over the years to thwart the pressure by my wife, Catherine, to get rid of the precious vinyl. But as you are hearing it is becoming much bigger than that. It’s a treatment. And it is also a written legacy that my loved ones can read to get a dose of me after I’m gone. If they want that dose. My beautiful daughters, young women, Hannah, Emily and Claire, don’t seem too too interested in the blog now. (Whaddya mean  you don’t  want to read my 1000 word dissection of the Allman Brothers’ influence on Southern rock and jam bands?).

in the future, something may resonate (or not). But i would like to leave something where they can remember and know who i was before i become not who i am.

My records represent many hours perusing record bins and many quarters and dollars, usually bought used or as cut-outs. They range from R&B, classic rock, hard core country, punk, funk, soul, New Wave, comedy, classical, folk, Americana, reggae, alternative, and jazz, both old school and modern.

Since I started in September, I have done 64 record reviews in 67 posts. Some of those posts had no album reviews as they were about other things I’m trying to write about such as basketball, journalism, and Lewy Body dementia. Sometimes, especially if I have multiple records from the same artist, I review them in the same posts.

So I have 614 reviews to go, not counting new vinyl additions my family and friends are giving me in a loving gesture to add length to the reduction in my life (and its quality) that Lewy Body will try to make happen.

That’s because I have vowed to finish this blog out.

I’m loving it.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

Posted on

Billy Bragg — 620, 619

ALBUMS: Talking with the Taxman about Poetry (1986);  Back to Basics (1987)

MVC Rating: Taxman 4.0/$$$; Basics, 3.5/$$$$

A smart bloke this Billy Bragg.  Articulate working class. We could be mates I think, over a pint.

He doesn’t even try to change his thick English accent. Hell why should he? To sell more records, maybe?

Basics is a compilation of early songs, mostly just Bragg and his guitar. Taxman has higher production values which means a violin and trumpet sneak in some of the songs.

He was a smart lad; I haven’t followed him in  years but I’m sure he retains his intellect, if not his passionate fight  for the poor and working class. But I do know he worked with Wilco producing an extraordinary song together called ‘California Stars,’ taken from unpublished writings of Woody Guthrie.

To get a sense of his mind, one can look at the song titles: ‘Ideology,’ ‘There is Power in a Union’ ‘Help save the Youth of America’ ‘To Have and to Not Have.’

Or burrow down deeper into his lyrics. In one of his best songs, Levi Stubb’s Tears, a few lines capture a world of hurt.

She ran away from home in her mother’s best coat
She was married before she was even entitled to vote
And her husband was one of those blokes
The sort that only laughs at his own jokes
The sort a war takes away
And when there wasn’t a war he left anyway

Weaving songs of personal relationships and their many hazards with songs of protest and activism have an interesting way of meshing; one side illuminates the others.

But listening  through these earlier songs, a line jumps out that’s probably not surprising given his age and by the fact it is  hard and slow to change the system.

Bragg sang, “I don’t want to change the world. I’m not looking for a new England, I’m just looking for another girl.”

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

Posted on

Brothers Johnson –621

           

 ALBUM: Right on Time (1976)

MVC Rating: 3.5/$$$

The Beatles did Strawberry Fields Forever.

Prince changed fruits when he went for Raspberry Beret. But that song along with the Beatles song have connection in mood and sound, if not fruit, with one of my 70s favorites: Strawberry Letter 23 by Brothers Johnson.

Coulda been a Beatles or Prince song.

There’s a lot of stuff on the interwebs about what this song was about: a letter, the 23rd  in a pink envelope with strawberry scent. Hmm OK let’s delve into the lyrics to see where that leads:

In the garden, I see
West purple shower bells and tea
Orange birds and river cousins
Dressed in green

Uh huh. Now I get it. But forget the fact that I don’t get it.

It sounds good. I love the opening organ fade-out/fade back in, the thumping, running bass line, the funky guitar.  And the organ/guitar interlude that is either appropriated from the Who, Yes, or vice versa.

Oh and I really like the vocals  even though the words are as obscurely nonsensical as Strawberry Field, flowing on a funk groove as easy as  Raspberry Beret.

Put it on to dance because that, in this case, is what it is all about.

TRIVIA: Brothers Johnson won a Grammy for best R&B instrumental for ‘Q’ off of this album.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

Posted on

Bread — 622

ALBUM: The Best of Bread (1973)

MVC Rating: 4.0/$$$

‘Oh I like bread and butter, I like toast and …’

‘Wait, wait this is not my beautiful song,’ I say, waking up rubbing my eyes.  ‘This is not my talented soft rock  band.’

It’s the falsetto guy singing ‘Bread and Butter,’ the second best worst song of all time.

Sorry I was dreaming. Or should I say nightmaring.

I went to bed last night with the intention of writing a review for the album ‘The Best of Bread,’ you know that group that when their music is played consecutively with the group America will likely leave you unable to wake up – ever.

Luckily I hadn’t indulged in any America earlier.

(So, probably no need to call the somnambulance.}

There I was, laying there with my ear pods in, listening to the string-laden song “If’.”

If a picture paints a thousand words
Then why can’t I paint you?
The words will never show
The you I’ve come to know

Aaaaaah. I think I fell asleep on the second line but woke up in a sweat with Bread and Butter going through my mind. Dang, an earworm alert at 3 a.m., obviously caused by the ‘Bread’ keyword.

All funnin’ aside, Bread, like America, has written and performed some beautiful songs, including:

Bread: ‘Everything I Own,’ ‘Make it With You,’ ‘It Don’t Matter to Me.’

America: Horse with No Name, Sister Golden Hair, Ventura Highway. (However America gets docked, totally docked, a point for being responsible for ‘Muskrat Love.’)

And on that note, for comparison purposes, I’m going to throw in the Carpenters here. Again, great craft, melodic tuneful songs, wonderful voice. It’s just that all these soft rock songs can be OD’d on really quickly as seen in my opening.

Carpenters. ‘Close to You,’ ‘We’ve Only Just Begun’ ‘Rainy Days and Mondays.’

These are just a small sampling of these groups’ hits. Any group or artist that can sell as many millions of records as these did cannot be called ‘bad.’ But excessive radio play in my youth and a developing taste for something a little more powerful, this music isn’t my usual thing.

It is the usual thing for Catherine, my beloved, who has built up some unusual resistance for the deadly and sleepy  SRMS (Soft Rock Melancholia Syndrome.) In fact, she can take the three aforementioned groups and add Carly Simon, Carole King and James Taylor and she’s set, right dear? Cat? Cat?

Whoa this is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.*

-=-=-=–=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

*sorry to crash the landing here. But I hope people understand this closing is a Talking Heads reference foreshadowed in the opening dream sequence in which our hero (me) has a bad dream of a squawking falsetto guy from the song Bread and Butter, which I have elsewhere on this website named the 2nd best worst song of all time. So upon waking up from the nightmare, our hero/writer finished the Bread album review, slyly and with great subtlety (ruined only by this end note) brings the story full circle, beause full circles are good.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.

Posted on

British Rock Classics (various) — 623

MVC Rating: 3.0/$$$

This 1979 Sire compilation is for those who strive to be completists but fail due to laziness or distraction. Or a lack of that OC gene. This one had some classic material from smaller  names and not-so-classic music from larger names.

And yes there were big names on this two-record set: Beatles, Rod Stewart, Elton John, Bee Gees, Cream, just to name a few.

The Zombies  ‘She’s Not There’ is a classic.  The Beatles with Tony Sheridan singing My Bonnie — not so much.

The Cream’s ‘Anyone for Tennis’ is just, well, odd.

The Troggs ‘Love is all Around’ is just right.

The Bee Gees song is so absurdly dramatic, I love it. Reminding us no phones on death row.

The Kinks rock out on an early song available on  a plethora of Kinks compilations.

And Fleetwood Mac on a pretty strong blues song called  Homework, long before there were Rumors of radio domination.

Truth is that people like me would buy these in the  Bargain Bin for $2.99 and cull the best five or six songs for a mixed tape.

Trivia: Sonny Bono of Cher fame wrote the song Needles and Pins performed on this album by the Searchers.

Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.