Musical Evolution
I'm purging. This piece has been sitting in my drafts for weeks, too long to post. trimmed down and a lot of work put into it. It's still too long. It's incoherent at times. But I must clean out my drafts folder to make room for new stuff. Get yourself a drink, a comfy chair and a couple of toothpicks to keep your eyes open. This is a very long post even by my verbose standards. I'm all over the map with this column. Too many lists. I'm just goddamn done working on it.
(There's the atheist referring to god again. Can't they make up their minds?)
I've been down this road before but it popped back into my head while writing my LIVE MUSIC column. That same day I had my I-Pod on shuffle listening to all kinds of music that ranged from the 1940's Louis Jordan, through 60's and 70's rock, Punk, New Wave, 80's right up to the latest releases from contemporary blues artists. It's like taking a journey through the evolution of my musical taste. I then mused about the technology that makes this trek through time possible, my I-Pod Nano. The I-Pod is a long way from the 8-Track tapes I started collecting in the mid-70's.
This musical evolution idea has parallel threads. The first is our changing taste in music from our teenage years through today, 30+ years. The second is the audio technology and changing formats over that period. The third parallel relates to the people or experiences that influenced or reshaped our musical taste. These are separate but related threads. Someone turned you on to music at an early age, a parent, older sibling or friends. Maybe you listened to their stuff before you found your own. Once you started your collection it's unique to you and constantly changing as you grow and your taste evolves. New people come into your life introducing new artists or genres. Your current music collection may reflect these stages. Depending on how you adapted to format changes you may have everything you've ever listened to in your home..... if you still have old record albums in addition to your newer CDs. If you periodically purge as formats change your collection evolved by losing recordings you outgrew. The pack rats have large collections. Purgers may not.
My father was the first to influence me with his music. I listened to his Johnny Cash, Beatles, Moody Blues and Guess Who when I was a kid in the late 60's. When I started buying my own tapes and albums it was Kiss, Aerosmith, ZZ Top, Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Rush, Queen, Ted Nugent, Peter Frampton, Boston and the typical 70's rock teenage boys were listening to back then. I was mostly mainstream. I saw most of those bands and more in concert when they came to Providence or Boston. My dad did not appreciate my music. FM radio was a big influence on me, as it is for many teens then and now. Brown University's 95.5 WBRU was my station of choice.
I have always begrudgingly embraced new audio formats because once I do I tend to purge. It's out with the old and in with the new. It's hard to let go but I see no sense in having three formats in my collection. I sold hundreds of 8-tracks in the late 70's when it was apparent cassettes were the future. I wanted to purge those bulky plastic boxes while there were still people buying them. I kept my LP's and used the money from my firesale to buy more albums and cassettes. The ability to record LP to cassette made that decision easy. I bought many of the same recordings I had sold in 8-track. My taste has changed over high school so I did not replace all of the music I started with. Gone were some of the bands listed above.......in was Led Zeppelin, Steely Dan, the Doors, The Rolling Stones, Van Halen, Dire Straits, The Stray Cats and some of the Punk and New Wave genre that started in the late 70's.
My friends were now my primary influences. We went to concerts together and anytime we drove in someone's car they played their music. I became a Doors fan driving in my buddy Ski's little Datsun wagon. He also got me into The Talking Heads. I embraced the new wave. The Police, Elvis Costello, The Clash, The Pretenders, B-52's, Blondie, DEVO and Joe Jackson were new favorites. I saw them all live, some a few times. WBRU was slowly changing from rock to new wave / alternative. I attended a blues festival the summer after I graduated high school ('79) that exposed me to an old genre that would some day become my favorite. Roomful of Blues was the headliner with their 4-piece horn section and became an instant local favorite of mine. I've seen Roomful dozens of times.
Through the 80's I stayed with the LP and cassette formats even though CD's were taking over. I resisted the change listening to the rock albums I grew up with in the 70's, new wave and some 60's rock. Sometimes a band escapes your attention. I did not start listening to David Bowie, Blood Sweat & Tears, Van Morrison or Neil Young until the 80's, long after their initial success. Most of the new music I bought in the mid to late 80's was blues as I discovered the old black men, many dead, who wrote the music that influenced the blues inspiried rock bands that had become my favorites. Led Zeppelin, the Stones and the Doors drew a great deal from old blues greats like Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, B.B. King, Johh Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James and many more. My music focus shifted to the point where the blues was all I was buying.
After a while I couldn't find much music on LPs or cassette. The compact disk format had taken over. I was very annoyed at the prospect of changing again. I held out into the 90's before I finally conceded. The compact disks are more convenient, sound better leading to another music purge that had me selling all my LPs and cassettes. I cannot help purging any more than a pack rat can stop clinging to their old crap. It's who I am, so I went to Thayer Street near Brown University where a few record exchanges were happy to take the bulk of my albums. I sold some to friends who remained technology holdouts. Many people still cling to record albums deluding themselves with the claim that LP's sound better than digital. If you like that crackling sound I suppose they're right......Rice Crispies played back up on some old Jimi Hendrix albums I had. My wife bought me a CD player as a gift in '93 and a I started buying my old music and some new. My brother-in-law bought me Bob Marley and UB40 CDs turning me on to reggae, which I had previously overlooked. Now I like Ziggy, Jimmy Cliff, Lee Scratch Perry and others.
While listening and learning about the blues pioneers I also looked for contemporaries and local blues artists in night clubs. In the later 80's and 90's I saw much more live music in clubs attending fewer concerts. The blues may not be mainstream there are plenty of comtemporary artists plying their trade in relative obscurity. They don't enjoy the commercial success they deserve and they won't sell-out to make an extra buck. Blues musicians are true to their roots. The Blues Brothers may have helped bring some new listeners to this genre but without airplay the blues is still mostly night club music. I became a big fan of Robert Cray, Duke Robiliard and I loved what Brian Setzer was doing. You can't beat a great horn section so under that blues umbrella I found some big swing style bands like Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, The Squirrel Nut Zippers and Cherry Poppin Daddies.
I'm certain I lost more artists in my second purge than I did in the first. With the exception of dozen or more favorites listed above most of my new wave and 70's hard rock was lost in the 90's purge as I did not repurchase them on CD. I bought some of the classic rock but I was I was mostly restocking the old blues and buying more blues. I was also getting into some jazz but I'm very picky. I prefer sultry smokey lounge jazz played by a quartet like Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane, Paul Desmond, Billie Holiday and some Charlie Parker or Miles Davis. A coworker in the 90's exposed me to Seal. His music is unique to my collection. I have nothing else from that R&B-Soul genre but I loves Seal's music.
When I moved to Arizona in 2002 I was under the impression this would be C&W country and the blues would be hard to come by. I don't do Country & Western. I'm a yankee city boy. Fortunately I was wrong and moving west has exposed me to a whole new crop of local AZ blues, Bad News Blues, Big Pete Pearson, Sistah Blue and some California bands like Little Charlie & the Nightcats, Tommy Castro and Keb Mo. I'm pleased to say Phoenix has a couple of good blues clubs and annual blues festivals that bring national acts to the Valley of the Sun. About five years ago I started buying CDs of the old stuff I had lost in the great purges of '79 and '93. It amazed me how I could play an old Queen CD and sing along recalling the lyrics I hadn't heard in decades.
When Apple introduced the I-Pod and the digital MP3 era began I thought, "Here we go. Will compact disks be phased out in favor of files or little digi-chips? What's next? FUCK ! I'm not doing this again!" I came around after I bought I-Pods for my sons and saw how nice music in your pocket is. I still didn't upgrade until my girlfriend bought me a shuffle as a gift. She's the latest influnence on my tatse, Jonny Lang, Chris Isaak and John Hiatt are all new to me. All those old rock bands and punkers I lost in the purges are back now that I can buy individual songs without investing in CDs that may have four good songs on them. Let's face it, The Motels only have a few good songs and one great one. The Ramones? I-Tunes is nice for grabbing a few songs here and there, some old Motown, R&B and those one hit wonders you forgot about.
It took me a long time to write this, lots of edits, changes in my approach and trimming down. I listed many bands here but not close to all I have appreciated over nearly 40 years. I have no Stones or Beatles on CD. If I want to hear them I can put on the radio. Along the way it dawned on me that few recordings have been with me from 8-Track, album, cassette and CD always in my collection. I believe there's only a handful I've had in all formats. I have wondered how big my music collection would be had I been a pack rat saving everything from my 8-track through CD. I know it would be in the couple of thousand ballpark but I'll never know.
I'm a purger.