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Lynyrd Skynyrd — 350, 349, 348

ALBUMS: One for the Road (live) (1976); Gimme Back My Bullets (1976); Nuthin’ Fancy (1975).

MVT Rating: Live 4/$$$$; Bullets 4/$$$$; Fancy 4/$$$$

I remember some lunchtime conversation in Orlando with a few colleagues although I can’t remember who was there. But we started talking music and Lynyrd Skynyrd came up. This was the 90s so Skynyrd had already crashed their plane and had settled into comfortable Southern rock ‘classic rock’ kind of a band, without their most significant participant, Ronnie Van Zant. Before he died, he was their lead singer and had written most of their songs.

Everybody at the table dissed them leading me to proclaim, they are/were one of the best bands ever. I was the only one in the group to have seen them live.

I brought up the Allman Brothers and, now,they said ‘Oh they aren’t the same, the Allman’s were cool.’

Now I’ve heard this before. Skynyrd had a string of big hits and were on the radio quite a bit in those early days in the 1970s. Just because they didn’t put on albums of one song per side: See In Memory of Elizabeth Reed — doesn’t mean they weren’t great.

The Allmans were certainly pioneers, combining smooth almost country vocals to rhythm and blues, jazz and rock. Skynyrd absorbed that influence, amped it up a bit and wrote shorter, catchier — but still intelligent — songs. The cautionary (anti) drug song, ‘That Smell’ and the anti-gun song, ‘Saturday Night Special,’ and of course their magnum opus —‘Free Bird.And there was’ ‘Call me the Breeze’ and ‘The Ballad of Curtis Loew and ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’

I first picked up ‘Nuthin’ Fancy’ with the classic shot of one of the band members flipping off the camera person, I guess.

I was told by a friend that his big sister said we couldn’t listen to Skynyrd because the band took a shot at Neil Young in ‘Sweet Home Alabama.’

“I hope Neil Young will remember, Southern Man don’t need him around, anyhow.”

Those words are a response to Young, the Canada-born rocker who wrote the song “Southern Man,’ an unflattering portrait of its title subject.

Young reportedly said upon hearing it: “Sounds like they mean it.”

According to Wikipedia Lynyrd Skynyrd took their name from Leonard Skinner, a high school P.E. teacher who rigidly enforced the hair length rule.

What’s a little confusing to me is that a picture of real estate For Sale signs printed inside the ‘Nuthin’ Fancy’ album have the name Leonard Skinner, Real Estate Agent.

Maybe he was both PE coach and agent. I don’t know but it has gnawed at me for long time.

“What song is it you wanna hear?

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Woman

I’m adding a couple of songs to the chorus on a day when hundreds of women speak online at AL.com and in the pages of the Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, and the Mobile Press-Register.

Woman by John Lennon

Woman with the Strength of 10,000 Men by Peter Himmelman

For more on Lennon and Himmelman

Add a song in comments.

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John Lennon — 353, 352, 351

ALBUMS: John Lennon/Plastic Ono band; (1970); Imagine ( 1971); Greatest Hits (1978)

MVC Rating: JL/Ono– 5.0/$$$$$; Imagine — 4.5/$$$$; Hits 4.0

I’ve been putting this one off. What can be added to all that has been written about John Lennon?

He was possibly one of the world’s most influential persons. “Bigger than Jesus” he said to one reporter, describing the millions of enthusiastic young Beatles’ fans. That comment led to worldwide controversy, and John said he was just making the point about what was true. Not that it was wrong or right.

In Birmingham there were bonfires to throw Beatles records into the conflagration, fuel for the fire.

White albums turned black.

(OK, don’t call and tell me they hadn’t put out the White Album before the bonfires. It’s too good a line to let the facts get in the way. Some albums may have been ‘shattered’. Or so I hear.)

Some of Lennon’s best work, his first solo album and Imagine, the follow-up, asked the big (frustrating and depression inducing they could be) questions:
If the Beatles had more influence than Jesus or parents, and teachers — Why?

In the song ‘God’ I think Lennon is saying you can’t count on many things. For him, he feels safe and happy with himself and Yoko

‘God’ comes with a recital of what he doesn’t believe in. Here’s a random mix, but it sure seems to be his intention to say I don’t believe in anything or anybody: I don’t believe in Zimmerman: I don’t believe in Beatles; I don’t believe in I-Ching; I don’t believe in Buddha… And so on (Zimmerman is the birth name of Bob Dylan). He ends this piano-backed ballad declaration of adoration for Yoko witth what he does believe in: “Yoko and me, that’s reality.”

John also wrote “God is a concept by which we measure our pain.” Sounds like he’s not a big believer in the God presented by various churches, Islamic mosques and Jewish synagogues.

But in a video clip, Lennon was asked about death. Standing by two cars in a parking lot, he got into one and then into the other saying death is getting out of one car and into another, he said.

I am giving the basically untitled first solo album a rare 5 stars. Ironically I can’t listen to it a lot. So much emotion is layered into that album. Lennon was using primal scream therapy and shows off his angst-ridden screams several times through-out, especially on “Isolation,” ” Found Out’ and “Mother.’

Sample lyric: ‘Mother, you had me, but I never had you.’

His mother was struck and killed by a car at a crosswalk in 1958; His father was a Merchant Marine who was not home much and finally quit coming home at all. So John was raised by his aunt. John’s edge was nicely counterbalanced by McCartney’s silliness. Both had amazing songwriting abilities — though despite Lennon/McCartney being on most of the credits, in the later years, they filed their songs separately. In other words, John wrote “Day Tripper” for example, and Paul wrote. “Get Back.” But all were credited with Lennon/McCartney.

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Who moved my clock? Daily Journal May 15, 2019

Up until recently. We had a clock that was on a piece of furniture near the front door. It was a special little table clock, simple elegant and it kept good time. It was a gift from me to Catherine so many many years ago.

Recently, we cleaned up and partially reconfigured some rooms, adding decorative paintings and such. This happened a few weeks ago upon the arrival of my brother David and sister-in-law Lori Oliver. They help throw things out and put stuff in other spaces and stuff like that. Well in the process, they moved my clock.

I can’t say I was much help …I kept saying looks like a good day to go for a walk. But back to my clock.

For years, this clock has been over by the front door and every time i’d come down the stairs, I’d see the clock. Always there to glance at, quick time.

But now that it’s gone its usual place — it’s just two steps around the corner on the fireplace mantle — I keep looking for it.

It’s kind of like tricking myself when I set the clock ahead 10 minutes to get my carcass out of bed.

Again it’s practically autonomic in that your body starts reacting, adrenalin infusion even before your brain tells you ‘Relax, you built 10 minutes extra time into the wake-up program. ‘

Oh yeah! I smiled.

Then I started wondering.

Now I’ve been trained to look at that clock. As hard as I try not to look at that clock — because I know it’s not there — I still can’t help looking for that clock as I amble down the stairs. But every time I look for that clock. I’m aware that I’ve been lured, again, into a habit that I can’t stop.

When I started my first newspaper job at the Birmingham News in 1982, I was paid as a ‘part-time’ correspondent to cover Etowah, Calhoun and Talladega counties. Catherine and I rented a cheap house in the woods of Jacksonville off of Nesbitt Lake Road. The house had no central heat.

Space heaters were set up in some of the rooms. The rooms were tasty warm but the hallway was freezing. Whenever we had to get up for a glass of water, use the restroom or grab a late night stack, we had to come out into the 40-degree hallway which we responded to by autonomically clinching. Over the months this became ingrained. When I was promoted and we moved to Birmingham, we found a house with central heat. But guess what?

For months thereafter as we went out into the hall we would clinch, bracing ourselves for the expected chill.

Even our dog Pavlov got involved. Joke. Seriously our dog Maggie liked the warm rooms better but her first priority was to find humans wherever they might be.

So I’m left with the thought that I may be conditioned like in these examples to react a certain way under certain conditions, even when unnecessary. I guess PTSD would be an example of a cause for a harmful type of this kind of pre-conditioning. I imagine we all have layers of this preconditioning, reaction to ads, politics, and music to name a few.

I think we may move the clock back.

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Daily Journal, May 13, 2019

Yesterday I wrote up a long post before bed, closed my eyes and through the miracle workers of the Internet, found that my post was not there by morning. Abracadabra. Just a paragraph and a sentence stopped before its end.

I realize I need to be careful with that. Some folks think I may be dropping any minute and when they see a sentence unfinished … well, I can imagine the scene, elderly couple reading my latest post on his tricked-out Dell laptop:

Old man says to his wife: “Something ain’t right with that man on MyVinylCountdown.com. He just stopped writing without finishing the words and, he’s got a brain disease called Lewy.”

“Well what did he write? What were his last words.” Maw maw asked.

This was my last sentence:

“On my question yesterday about why …”

And this was his last word: Warranted.

My earlier missing version had the sentence at the bottom\

Will post more, if warranted. The last sentence I was asking about my question related to why Joe Cocker is getting the most traffic on my blog, up against my 300-plus posts including artists like Allman Brothers, Al Green, Carpenters, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Beatles, George Harrison, Heart and the Temptations.

A reader named D.L. suggested the upcoming 50th anniversary of Woodstock in August (if it’s still on) might be a reason for a bump in traffic. Cocker got his bones at Woodstock.

And in case you’re wondering I didn’t die mid-sentence — that would make for good headline though. Memo to me: I need to come up with some good last word(s).

Rosebud.

Sorry, taken.

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Daily Journal May 12, 2019

7:22 am: I need to get some reviews up but I keep getting diverted. When Emily gets here, I’m going to have her help me do some video.

On my question yesterday about why

More coming … if warranted.

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Daily journal May 11, 2019

1:57 pm: Happy Birthday Catherine – Love of my life. Had a few other events here rolled up. Happy Mother’s Day mom. I made her breakfast (eggs an bacon). Then I went to play my weekly game of basketball. It was fun.

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Daily Journal,May 10, 2019

2:45 p.m.: Need to remember journal every day. Still battling my hands a bit. I’m going to check out some of that transcription software. I’m not sure how it’s going to work but looking forward to trying. Also several folks here have it. (The software not Lewy.}

Will do a survey.

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Daily Journal May 9, 2019

I rolled out about 5:20 a.m. to get ready for a speech to the Vestavia Hills Rotary Club.

I spoke at 7 but I needed all the time I could get to get ready.

It went well, I think. I told them I had to set my alarm for ‘yesterday’ — that’s how early it was. Good people. I spoke mostly on living with Lewy body dementia.

I did talk a little bit about our upcoming Mike Madness basketball fundraiser. And don’t be surprised if you see a Rotarian team in the 3X3 classic at UAB Rec Center on July 20.

Don’t have sign-ups right ready to roll but here’s some links about donations and my blog.

Here’s the link to donate (more on how to register your team (3 or 4 people) to play. Expecting big things this year.

Also my blog www.myvinylcountdown.com

1:45 a.m.: Went to lunch. Got caught in rain, wet but feeling all right. Right hand starting it up again, hoping meds catch up soon.

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Daily Journal May 7, 2019

I’m back from a long weekend respite in the woods on the occasion of my daughter Claire’s 27th birthday. Little spur of the moment and kept meaning to write and journal but I couldn’t take my eyes off the bobber.

In case you missed my stories in AL,com this weekend:

Bubblegum music and other guilty pleasures

Dave and Busters meet Lewy

Busy week, stay tuned.