Sept 16 AOTD: Robbie Robertson - Music for the Native Americans

Robbie Robertson - Music for the Native Americans 

1994





















Link to listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVMW9huVqCQ&list=PLD82F19E4CF1957E6

In 1994, Ted Turner commissioned a film documentary on Native Americans for his own network.  Seeking to avoid just using straightforward recordings of Indians singing and chanting, which might wear out in accompaniment with his visual series, he, instead, asked Robbie Robertson of The Band to record the music.

The half Mohawk guitar slinger and songwriter ("The Night They Drove Ol Dixie Down") recruited some of the best Native American and Native Canadian singers and an army of musicians and producers to make one of the best albums of the 90s.

The album opens with "Coyote Dance," and one of the album's features is immediately explored: a combination of Native chants, new age productions and droning synths and drums swirl together like eddies in a prairie stream. 

The next song features the morning bird-like vocals of Pura Fe, Soni, Jen of Ulali.
Translation: 

A hundred years have passed
Yet I hear the distant beat of my father's drums.
I hear his drums throughout the land.
His beat I feel within my heart.
The drum shall beat
so my heart shall beat.
And I shall live a hundred thousand years.

Next up ... We finally get to hear the soft, gravelly vocals of Robbie himself on "Ghost Dance," a wonderful lyric-retelling of the resistance that eventually led up Wounded Knee, which is referenced in the song.  The background vocals emerge wisp-like from the music, mirroring the rising spirits he sings of.  And when he introduces the breakdown to sing of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, it feels like trotting horses being reigned in ... and then slowly released again, until the end when said horses are brought to a stand with the cessation of drums and a forlorn, spoken, "We used to the ghost dance; we don't sing them kind of songs no more."

Much of the music is slower or mid-tempo, like "Vanishing Breed," and in songs like these we often hear Robbie's guitar work subtly snaking its way up through the mix to nestle alongside flutes, organs or hand drums - all of it amplified to fill out a canyon wide, cinematic soundscape.

Robertson feels as much like a documenting storyteller as a singer-songwriter on songs like "It is a Good Day to Die."  That dark voice lending gravitas to his subjects of loss, longing, and remorse.

Other highlights on the album include moments when Robertson strips it back to acoustic or electric guitar with simple accompaniment - perhaps just a violin and a drum - like "Akua Tuta," and "Words of Fire, Deeds of Blood." The space between the vocals and instruments often give more weight to the solos and voices. In the latter, the drums echo with enough reverb to shake your speakers ... if you turn it up. Perhaps most effective of all is "Ancestor Song," where Robertson and his production team disappear to leave only drums and chanting.

On The Band's website, this translation is given for Cherokee Morning Song:

We n' de ya ho
Freely translated: "A we n'" (I am), "de" (of), "Yauh" --the-- (Great Spirit), "Ho" (it is so).
Written as: A we n' de Yauh ho (I am of the Great Spirit, Ho!).
This language stems from very ancient Cherokee

The entire album works as transport back through time, back through the mist, back through a history of beauty and sadness.  It is ancient and mystical, a world music album dug up from our own backyard by a Canadian native, an American immigrant, a half mohawk, who guides us on this Native journey with ancient voice and modern guitar. Take the reigns and ride with him.

Sept 9 AOTD: The Who - Quadrophenia

The Who - Quadrophenia

1973



Link to Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyN7WUKRicw&index=1&list=PL705A234F43DA0E34


My last AOTD of the summer has been reserved for my favorite album of all time: The Who's Quadrophenia. Hands Down. PERIOD! (.) . It's the story of Jimmy the Mod, and the story of all mods and all teens, the story of the Sea or nature or God, and how that all works on our minds, on our sould.  It's a story of firsts: loves, drugs, jobs, identities, and spiritual awakenings.

I can't cover most of the material on this, one of the most packed, complicated albums out there; so I'm going to just start the album and give a running stream-of-conscious commentary:


PART ONE ...

I Am The Sea: The album opens with the sound of the sea, recorded by Townshend himself. Over the crashing of the waves, you hear the four themes of the album, the disparate personalities of our hero (actually an anti-hero), Jimmy. Growing up in Duluth, on the edge of Lake Superior, I can immediately identify with this opening.  In nature, especially near any moving water, I find my real self - both a part of the nature around me, as well as dwarfed by the size of the lake, a river, an ocean or a mountain.

The Real Me: This is it, taking us back to our most primal state of teenage maturation, struggling to figure out who the hell we really are?  We act one way for our parents, another for our friends, and then our teachers or preachers get another view, and maybe our bosses and co-workers at our minimum-wage jobs get a fourth view.  All the while we are struggling to decide WHO we want to be.  Check out the Gibson Thunderbird bass in this song! The playful bubbling was done in one take by John Entwistle, a "joke," he said.  Meanwhile the rest of the band loved it and demanded they go with that take.

Quadrophenia: you will hear all four themes again in this song.  And here's that makes it so clear why I love the mind of Pete Townshend - the most creative use of synthesizer, the simplicity of the piano carrying a theme, guitars and drums dually scaling peaks, circling up like wind swirling cathedral spires.

Cut My Hair: A cymbal wash ushers in (like water or like waves) Pete Townshend's vocals - and this is really the secret weapon of The Who and of this entire album.  Whenever a plaintive voice, a bemoaning consciousness - under the lion bravado - is needed, you will hear Pete singing.

The Punk and Godfather: imagine finally meeting your rock star idol.  Pete says that's what Jimmy does, and then this singer he worshipped just tells him to bugger off! And the disconnect between fan and star begins.  Disillusionment.  And we find the disconnect between ourselves, our newly forming ideals and the commercially-driven, self-centered politics of our heroes.

I'm One: This is the song I loved WHEN I WAS A YOUNG teen (I really came to love the full album as a masterpiece later in high school and then more in college).  Honestly, I always misunderstood the chorus. I took "I'm one" to mean "I am an individual," but it's really Jimmy saying he doesn't fit in anywhere else (not coordinated enough, not athletic enough, not good-looking enough), but he DOES fit in with his Mod friends.  Either way, and most times both ways, I love the song with its honest discussion of come downs, autumn (always a depressing time of school starting), feeling like a loser, loneliness, jealousy of another's style and look, but still struggling to put your personal stamp on the world. Maybe, as a teen, it is done in the company of a group or maybe you do set out as an individual. This is MY song, I can play it repeatedly and every line takes me to a moment in my life where I tried something and failed (playing an instrument or singing), looking awkward (I was nicknamed throughout my life various things like "Dumbo" and "coyote" due to my big ears and nose), never having the good clothes or not having them fit me right (I actually stole my older sister's "Levi" jeans at one point just so I would not have wear the ill-fitting Tough Skins or Wrangler jeans I was given as hand-me-downs from the neighbors).  For me and so many others (like Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, this song screamed to us that we were not alone, that someone understood us: Pete Townshend, at least.

The Dirty Jobs/Helpless Dancer: I love these two songs back to back because it gets the nastiness, dirtiness, lowness of our earliest jobs or stations in life. Also, its one of the few places on the album where various minor characters seem to speak to Jimmy and say "you're one of us," a reminder that he's not special - neither as a hero nor as a victim. I also love his response to buck up and stay determined.  Helpless Dancer is one of the most interesting tracks due to the double vocals of Daltrey - as one line comes out of the left speaker (sounding a little more subdued), and then another immediately follows springing out of the right speaker, nastier, almost snarling - and back and forth - as the left voice rises to meet the intensity of the right channel voice.  This is Roger's theme and the explanation of why Jimmy loses his "toughness": he's just too disillusioned in the face of dashed hopes.

Is It In My Head/I've Had Enough: Two songs that remind us of the beauty of the band - the first song always reminds me that so many of our problems ARE in our heads - and we need to get OUT of our heads - out of the paranoia.  What happens next sounds like a modern day Walt Whitman, with his I hear America Singing - his listing - I've had enough of living, dying, smiling, crying ... childhood, graves ... It also contains a verse I've constantly found myself living to:
"Get a job and fight to keep it
Strike out to reach a mountain
Be so nice on the outside
But inside keep ambition"

Half the time I live that sardonically and the other half? ... Seriously! I want to say that my outside and inside are matching, for the purpose of integrity, which I so dearly cling to, but are they???  It's why Pete's theme (Love Reign O'er Me), which he describes as a "hypocrite" and a "beggar" is so appropriately embedded in here.

PART TWO ...

5:15: Jimmy is on the train, leaving town, heading out to seaside towns he used to haunt with his old Mod buddies. He's pilled up and "out of his brain on the train."  Another great bass line from John and more drums that pound and scamper with frenetic urgency, evoking the anxiety of our hero as he ponders his situation.

Sea and Sand/Drowned: some of Townshend's best lyrics - and that's really saying something for an album that is four sides long.  Sea and Sand once again gets at reality - some of the most-straightforward lyrics on the album - the disfunction of his family, the lust for a local girl, the repeat of the style theme with the "GS scooter" and "jacket cut slim." The song is filled with yearning, punctuated with more illusion-splitting realizations - none of the girls are as cool as they seem - but neither is Jimmy!

Drowned is a spiritual twin to the material Sea and Sand: when he says "let me be a drop" in the ocean, "let the tide set me free," he's referencing God's love - the ocean - and His love for EACH of us - the drops (that will return to the sea) - another type of yearning.  I get this one, too, but will leave those thoughts for another day.

Bell Boy: imagine meeting someone that you once knew - that you once thought was soooo cool - and now, years down the road, that person is just like every bloke working a humbling job, kissing up to a boss, "running at someone's heels," "keeping his thoughts to himself, "licking boots for his perks" just to get by...! and where do you get relief from such a heavy let-down?  Another favorite line: "The beach is the only place where a man can feel like he's real."  Props to Keith Moon for his gruff, broken-down cockney delivery of the chorus!

Dr. Jimmy: This is the song I chose to play on my headphones to get myself pumped up for playing in football games in my senior year of high school.  Maybe it was just the line "I'll take on anyone/ ain't scared of a bloody nose."  This is Jimmy's last stand it seems - with everyone - complete abandonment - letting it all hang out - dangerously, violently and self-destructively.  It worked for me when I needed to summon my bravado, when I needed to put it all out there, on the field, with no fear. Listen to this and listen for the note bend - or maybe Roger's voice cracking  - on the world "hold" in the last line of the verse:

"I'm going back soonHome to get the baboonWho cut up my eyeTore up my LevisI'm feeling restlessBring another score aroundMaybe something strongerCould really hold me down"

The amount of aggression in Roger's voice wouldn't be matched until some of the punk bands of the late 70s and early 80s, but that it's juxtaposed with his sweetness in singing "Is it me?/For a moment/The stars are falling/The heat is rising/The past is calling" makes it an unparalleled delivery in all of rock.  Pete wrote for that voice with its rang. And Roger delivered.

The Rock/Love Reign O'er Me - 2nd song from the end, and it's a return to the instrumental, Quadrophenia-style, heard 2nd song in from the start.  All the themes are here - the guitar is singing, drums are crashing, synths are swirling, and that french horn keeps floating in. It sounds like The Who are intermittently marching off to war and into the sunset - a perfect intro into the finale delivered with thunderous punch and into the rain that begins "Love Reign O'er Me."  A finale like no other - Try it!! - go listen to the end of the Wall or Dark Side of the Moon (a close second, I'll give you that) - nothing stands up to this tour de force of Roger's roar, his soul-rending plea - Pete eloquently ramping up to the ending with woeful guitar - and then Daltrey letting rip his impassioned repeated delivery of the word "love," the final word shredding. That would be enough indeed, but then Keith Moon unleashes, stealing the final act of the  show with the most thunderous drums ever recorded (as far as I am concerned), even kicking over a stand of tubular bells for final crashing effect!  The Greatest Band. The Greatest Album.

  

Gratitude:

First: thank you to anyone who has read any of my posts on this blog.  Sharing my love of music, especially rock and roll, has re-energized me, my love for music, my love for writing, and especially my love for the art form of the album.

Second: I would like to thank Zach Palmer for first inspiring me to 1) suggest an album a day to write about, and 2) write about that album for others to gather a sense of why it might be worth listening to. He also made an archive list of the earliest albums of the summer that I recommended.

Third: I would also like to thank Jake Lindberg who about 2/3 way through this project saved me from writing an essay a day as texts on my phone ... and got me to this much more comfortable format of the blog.

Fourth: I would like to thank my sister, Melinda, who salvaged (via transcribing them to google docs) many of my texted essays before I started the blog.

Where would I be without my friends and family?  Probably ... "out of my brain, on the train."

Sept 8 AOTD - U2 - The Joshua Tree

U2 - The Joshua Tree

1987

Lin to Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FsrPEUt2Dg&list=PLIHqGfTiPiMWRadWXFtaSLGUI953vOTrt


In 1987, I was a lucky young man. On March 4, at exactly 11:30 a.m. (radio stations were all strictly forbidden from playing it before this time), the first single to be released from Joshua Tree was suddenly playing on the radio.  I was in my bedroom in my Dad's house, studying - my boom box speakers splayed out on my desk to either side of me.  I stopped - the opening drums and synthesizers capturing my attention... but really two other instruments, soon in the mix, the bass and something else... something I had never heard before ... like a constant wind whistling through some dessert canyon - and I found out later that was The Edge's "infinite guitar," created to hold "sustained" notes - but they appeared to be rising and falling, bending, and then fading ... before that voice. Yes, Bono. But in a much lower register than I had heard him before, and then dropping even more, a full octave at the ends of the verses ... and then that signature "Unforgettable Fire"-sound in his usual register, desperation in his voice as he sang "With or Without You," pushing to emotional heights on "...you give yourself away ... you give, you give, you give"!  I grabbed those speakers, pulled them closer to my ears, and then, as the song crescendoed, cried while listening to music for the first time ever.

Two more singles on the radio just as moving would in the upcoming weeks: "Where the Streets Have No Name" and "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."  The rest of the decade belonged to U2, it was theirs, rightfully claimed with spiritual anthems and experimentation that just didn't exist anywhere else.  The album plays out across a cinematic and sonic landscape - from America's Mojave desert to Ireland and Dublin's drug-ridden Seven Towers. But it was more the draw of a mythical, romanticized America that set the majority of the album's memorable tone. Bono's familiar, chiming guitar introduces "In God's Country," where Bono declares that hope can be found, we can "punch a hole right through the night" where "Liberty, she comes to rescue me."  The album FEELS like that mythical, place-of-dreams, greater than a Hamm's Beer commercial country, with clear blue water cascading down into our desert dreams.

I saw U2 that year on Joshua Tree Tour in Kansas City (and have seen them on every tour since) and witnessed, for me, the closest thing to what I had read about regarding tent revival shows, preachers whipping Southern crowds into religious frenzies. I had enjoyed music before this album and tour.  But now a new standard had been set.  Bono was even more engaging on stage than he was on record, at one point explaining that the meaning behind "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" was a desire to "walk into a music store and not see any separation between the black music and classic rock." It was an incredible moment of hope from a man who would later do so much to build bridges between his white wealth and the needs of those in Africa. That night I felt that no matter what any of us in Kemper Arena believed in terms of faith, we could all spiritually or otherwise get behind this music.

The album also tackles drug addiction on "Running to Stand Still," the revolutionary crisis in Central America in "Bullet the Blue Sky," the death of one of their close friends in "One Tree Hill," and the out-of-work miner strikes of the 80s in England in "Red Hill Mining Town" (one of the most moving songs to NOT be released as a single) ... all before reaching an ending that addresses mothers having lost their children to brutal dictators in Central and South American countries in "Mothers of the Disappeared." It's a rueful, dark comedown, both beautiful in Bono's lyrics, but ominous in the effect-laden, synthesize instrumentation.  It's a fitting ending to an album that is filled with tension.  Streets with No Names can be liberating, but also downright terrifying in their directionless-ness.  And the first single - With or Without You - is really Bono exploring the pull between being a private, faithful husband and being an exposed, wanderlust rock and roll singer.  The album may best be remembered for its embracing of American idealism, but it is also a sociopolitical roller coaster of danger and death.  Perhaps that's its greatest beauty, that it is defined by love AND loss, the two backbones of our essence, of our humanity.

Sept 7 AOTD: Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon

1973




Link to Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW-lXjOyUWo&index=1&list=PL3PhWT10BW3Urh8ZXXpuU9h526ChwgWKy

For my final three Albums of the Day of this summer, I am going to review what (at least currently) are my favorite three albums.  I'll do my best to explain why.  But let's face it, so much of what any one of us loves about any piece of music has to do with where and when we are in life, who we are with, and what we are experiencing at that time.  And sometimes it's just the magic of the music playing upon the chemistry of our brains, forming emotive synapses like sunsets and stars melding in a great euphoric sky.

I fell fully in love with Pink Floyd in the early 80s - especially while attending a military academy in Salina, KS.  It was there that life begin to show just how dark it could get, and I was ripe for some connective understanding from some fellow humans ... and thus ripe for the themes of Dark Side, which Roger Waters claims to have been about all things in life that drive us mad: pressures of school or our jobs, relationships, consumerism, violence, the passage of time, and and death. My love of science fiction also opened me to all the sounds of the album, from the opening bass drum simulating a heartbeat (meant to orientate the listener to the full human experience) to the synthesizers of On the Run, which evoke the stress of modern travel.

The record is truly an "album," all songs meant to be heard together, in order.  The 5 tracks on each side segue with no breaks between songs, and each is meant to be an ensuing phase in a human's life. It works so well, that I have never bothered to learn any of the parts of the album as songs (I always have to look at the liner notes to see), with a few exceptions: "Money" because its popularity on radio has made it a classic rock staple, and "Time" because it begins with the distinct sound of several clocks chiming ... and it's - perhaps - my favorite cut on the album with its line "...hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way ..."  This song addresses everything that piqued my interest at the time - everything British, time, the rat race ("run, rabbit, run") and if we could ever get off, and even a "magic spell."  It also ends with one of the best segues on the entire album, slipping into "The Great Gig in the Sky" that just sounds like part two, like a human's soul crying out in anguish against it's mind's great reveal just heard in part one. Also, listen for another of David Gilmour's mind-peeling guitar solos in "Time."

The album owes so much of it's creative sound to people outside of Pink Floyd themselves.  Take "The Great In The Sky": that's Clare Torrey delivering those exuberant, breath-stealing and haunting vocals.  Richard Wright composed the song with her.  She sued in the 2000s and finally gets liner notes-songwriting credit today.  And who recruited her?  Alan Parsons.  He who is responsible for just about every interesting sonic effect you hear, the most famous possibly the sound of change, ripping paper, and a cash register at the beginning of "Money."  Since this was made long before "pro tools," and other modern computer conveniences, he manually had to cut the tape pieces and then splice them together by hand to create the continuous rhythmic effect.

Side two reaches another epic peak (much like "Time" on side one) with "Us and Them," the other released single (besides "Money") and features a Floyd-signature tenor sax solo played by Dick Parry.

I honestly do not understand why my friends in the late 70s always had a need to get stoned while listening to this album. The beauty of the music, the echoes, the effects, those voice, and empathic lyrics ... well, it all combines to create one of the best natural highs I have ever experienced.  Best listened to ... in the Dark!

Sept 6 AOTD: Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan

1963




Link to Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWwgrjjIMXA&list=PLp4M9H57nRcsq2G1c_60FDeVruqLx0bpx

It's hard to believe that this is not only Dylan's second album, but his FIRST with all his own material (with the exception of one cut).  On his debut "Bob Dylan," he had followed the tradition of folk music artists by covering other's material, hence the passing on of music of the common people - the folk.

Now he was creating the anthems of every kind of folk: those thinking twice about military engagements, those struggling with poverty, and (amongst many other common struggling folks) those seeking equality, justice and freedom.  And he reaches all "folks" - all of us - on the first track, "Blowin' in the Wind" with a series of rhetorical questions that are also images, and rhetorical answers.  Perhaps the most resounding answer is "ENOUGH!" Already! But he was already, at the young age of 20, wise enough to know that people had to find the answers themselves ... they had to "find the wind," he told a Rolling Stone reporter.

Rarely has a song, even in the heaviest metal, so scathing as "Master of War" been written or sung.  He peels back the politics of war to bare the truth of older, aloof, wealthier, soulless men mercilessly discarding the young in the wars they wage.  It's the third song in and he's already earned the Nobel prize for poetry he would not receive till 2016.

For me the apotheosis of the album is reached at "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," where he, once again, uses a series of questions of some innocent prodigal child returning (Where have you been ...?" and this time another voice answers the questions, and the images are harrowing!  But also entrancing in their poetic strength.

Here was the beginning of a revolution in songwriting that is still being followed today.

Sept 5 AOTD: Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run

1975



Link To Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcNtV41jwj4

Just a piano and harmonica intro ... and then that iconic line: "the screen door slams."  You could be anywhere in America listening to the Born to Run opener "Thunder Road." But when you listened back in the 70s and 80s, that porch, stoop, or front door was yours!  And you could clearly see Mary dancing to the radio.  Springsteen had reached a new peak as a story teller, using just the right detail and imagery to make a populist scene come to life.  The E-street band provided the rest of the ingredients, supplying keys, saxophone and drums that laid down grooves that were apropos soundscapes to stories of the city, leaving the city, the road, young romance, and friendships leaning loyal and sometimes friendships looming dark.

In a 2015 interview for Rolling Stone, Springsteen claimed that the album held "quite a sense of dread and uncertainty about the future and who you were, where you were going, where the whole country was going. That found its way into the record."  But every song also dishes up characters looking forward, looking out - across a street or across a river.  They all seem to think they can get across. For the 70s this was an album about class, and Springsteen recognized the truth and dread of the blue collars working themselves toward their graves, but he also offered hope, dreams, and a musical escape. In Cleveland, when Disc Jockey Kid Leo played "Born to Run" every Friday on his radio station, this was a chance for those who did not have fun on their jobs all week to see a glimmer of hope on the weekend.

Springsteen has also spoken in numerous interviews to a feeling of  "this was it: do-or-die," as Columbia Records had no belief in the commercial appeal of him or his band. In fact they wanted to redo his second album with session musicians.  So the sound of flying down a road at a hundred miles an hour on wheels that are blasting through Spector's wall of sound in the single "Born To Run," the single released about 6 months before the album came out - well, that's the sound of a man determined to put it ALL out there. And that's the feeling I get when I sing along - desperation, last chance, and giving it all I've got ... to get across.

But the rest of the album is just as colossal, each song looming like pillars of the night, streets, drug deals, and love  - all supporting that hot rod beacon perfectly located in the middle of the album.

Sept 1, 2, 3, 4 AOTD: Styx, Tom Petty, Queen and Police

Styx - The Grand Illusion

1977



Link to Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO62scTZ7Qk&list=PL15D2FB6E422EC88B

Hey folks, I am going on vacation to Canada to go camping for a week.  I'll be back next Wednesday.

So here are the albums for the days I will be gone:

Saturday, Sept 1: Styx - The Grand Illusion

Sunday, Sept 2: Tom Petty - Damn the Torpedoes

Monday, Sept 3: Queen - The Game

Tuesday, Sept 4: Police - Synchronicity

The first two arrived in the late 70s when my taste in rock was being solidified at the time with a penchant for the more intellectual, dramatic progressive rock (of bands like Styx) AND the classic rock of what sounded like the heartland of America to me, basically Springsteen, Petty and eventually Mellencamp.  Come sail away was as irresistible to me as Refugees was

The next were represent some of my early 80s obsessions.  My number one obsession at the time was Queen.  I literally wore out cassettes of "Live Killers" and "The Game," whereby after getting stuck, I would completely pull out the tape and then rewind them with a pencil.  I also took apart cassette players, determined to fix them, though that never went as well as recycling the cassettes themselves.

Synchronicity is an MTV album, with at least 3 or 4 major hits that were in constant rotation on the music network.  One of my favorite images from that era will always be Sting dancing in slow motion through about a hundred candles in "I'll Be Wrapped Around Your Finger."

Aug 31 AOTD: Led Zeppelin IV

Aug 31 AOTD: Led Zeppelin IV

1971


Link to Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIiu0JI3I5g&list=PLXRJ0SLXQeZrRxcRgkjPCffmHzPilLd4D


It's all here - and never better - guitar solos from heaven, bass lines that loosen boulders, a drummer who sounds like he's wielding Thor's hammer, and a singer who can transition from caterwauling that can summon demons to a wistful delivery resonating a wayfaring, melancholy young man.

"Black Dog" puts the listener squarely in the maximum rhythm and blues camp, stealing the torch from The Who and lighting afire Zeppelin's own brand of the delta blues sojourning to Chicago on a heavy metal harmonica.

"Rock and Roll" ramps up the rhythm, sounding like Chuck Berry on steroids. And then the album deftly shifts to an English folk-sounding duet between Robert Plan and Sandy Denny wherein Denny is the town crier and Plant the narrator in a retelling of a battle out of Lord of the Rings. The use of only a mandolin and acoustic guitar evokes a dark,  primal Middle Earth, or a doomed medieval English country side.

The acoustics of "Evermore" make a perfect segue for the opening of "Stairway to Heaven," which begins instrumentally with only an acoustic guitar and recorder.  But the song has two more parts that follow as it increases with electric instruments and intensity. In the 80s whenever I walked into a music store, some young dude would, inevitably, be strumming this tune on a guitar. As one of the most played classic rock songs ever, not much more needs to be said.

The album stays electric and hard-rocking for the next two songs, before it settles down again into one of the finest ballads by Led Zeppelin or any other rock band of that era. "Going to California" showcases Plant capitalizing on lower register, then rising in pitch, much like the rise and fall of the mountains he has to cross to get to California.  This is Plant at his pensive best.

The closer "When the Levee Breaks" is a stomper with enough reverb on the kick drum to resound like the inside of Smog's mountain cave.  As it slides into its groove with harmonica, an ominous tone, like marching Orcs, resounds with an eery heaviness.  Then plant lays down the forecaster's report and his intent to escape to the blues haven of Chicago.

I know, I barely mentioned Jimmy Page or John Paul Jones or John Bonham - I'll let their instruments speak for themselves.

Aug 30 AOTD: Electric Light Orchestra - A New World Record

Electric Light Orchestra - A New World Record

1976




Link to Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77R1Wp6Y_5Y&list=PLm9smEh4bd5iZqH6lqfxKpq2JCwTVWQn4&index=2

ELO was unabashedly inspired by the Beatles, but this is the album where. though the influences still remain, the band really started to flesh out the vision of Jeff Lynne's sound.  No longer reaching for the esoteric concepts like Eldorado or even some of the songs on the previous album, Face the Music, A New World Record reached for the radio and hit the target.  Seven of these songs have become recognizable hits - four of them the year it was released - all top ten.  Three more grew in strength over the years via assistance from various "essential" and "greatest hits" packages. Rounding out the nine, the other two also deserve repeated listening.

Though the album features all kinds of experimentation from bongos to synthesizers, it's - ironically, given their name - the actual use of a full orchestra embedded in some of the most straight ahead rock rhythms and guitars that make this the best ELO album in the catalogue.

Tha album starts with eerie synths, almost like a fog creeping in at the start of a horror movie, and then the strings, seemingly taking us back to a regal, dark forest.  The strings then give way to Jeff's guitar and a distinct rock and roll pace kicks in with Bev Bevans drums.

Another awesome feature on the album is the use of background singers, who's choruses of "hey hey," "doo wop," "wooo," "do ya," etc. are almost as much fun to sing along with as the verses.

Highlights include the plaintive "Telephone Line" and the blasting "Rockaria," a tribute to opera and classical music with deftly mixed strings, swooping guitar, and Jeff Lynne giving another "Roll Over Beethoven"-lyrical and vocal nod to Chuck Berry.

In my youth, hearing these songs on the radio made me fall in love with ELO. More than other songs though, these are the kind, due to their warmth with lush strings and their adherence to melodic hooks, that still feel like the best, most loyal childhood friends who have grown up beside me.

Aug 29 AOTD: CCR - Cosmo's Factory

CCR - Cosmo's Factory

1970

Link to Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZPG1kEMNVg&list=PLWnVxuqvY7JjwVZcbCVRZlHQaSz9VvPiQ&index=1

This is it the band's zenith of creativity - producing five albums in two years, this one the best - Tom Fogerty walked out of the band by end of the year, having had enough of his brother (John's) overzealous control - so this is the last testament to a lineup that was one of the greatest bands of its time.

Take a listen to the journey that is the first song, what starts as a simple rock single, but then meanders into a monstrous jam session of beautiful guitar work, eventually returning to the chorus.

Travelin' Band is a scorching rocker with rat-a-tat-tat drum fills spitting out punctuation marks of urgency.  But then the horns sail in with a guitar whining away in the back ground - then another verse/chorus, and then guitar breaks free, loudly claiming its right.

The next four songs - after the opener - are all short and fly off the record like the listener is spinning an oldies radio dial between country, rock-a-billy and some far-reaching mountain, hillbilly station.

Then comes that sound of Vietnam (though it was NOT intended to be such) in Run Through the Jungle - actually, though the song is synonymous with the war - John meant it as a plea against the proliferation of guns in America.

Before the album is done, you will hear SEVEN classic rock staples, something very few other albums can claim. Did I mention ... FIFTH ALBUM IN TWO YEARS.

Last note: Every silver cloud has a grey lining - that massive output eventually took it's toll ... Tom left ... and they never had an albums this good again.  Also, the title refers to the studio where they recorded - it belonged to a guy whose nick name was "Cosmo" - and the "factory" part?  Well, that's what it felt like to some of the other band members as John put them through a daily practice schedule to keep up with his prolific creativity.

Aug 28 AOTD: U2 - Achtung Baby

U2 - Achtung Baby

1991



Link to Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKPnKXZV-4o&index=1&list=PL8a8cutYP7fpX03Ur0pjUmZGOmONeIpS2

Bono and U2 were having a "Sunday morning come down" after the high of Joshua Tree and then the critical backlash that followed Rattle and Hum. They were somewhat lost for a musical direction, not wanting to just repeat themselves and sound like old U2 albums. So they pulled a Bowie and moved to Berlin, looking for inspiration from the cabaret, dark, and sexually mysterious days of the 30's while moving through a newly reunified city filled with hope.  It worked.

But the true marks of success on this album show that U2 is really a giant force made of so much more than just Bono. Take Brian Eno who returned for only about a week at a time, then disappeared for about a month. His only job, he claimed? To listen to what had been recorded since his last visit and make sure the songs "did not sound like U2." Daniel Lanois, who stayed on board constantly (along with Flood) made sure that Eno's commands for more innovation and industrialization were adhered to.

Bono and the band ate it up. Bono himself quit singing full-throated, aiming for those arena nose-bleed seats, and, instead, adopted a more restrained, lower-register-reaching, often hushed, breathy styling.  The Edge quit the trademark chiming and played around much more with his pedals and effects. The effect?  The album shimmers with electricity like no other U2 Album, while at the same time, the vocals and lyrics give it a much more introspective feel. The album also feels more propulsive with charging rhythms on tracks like Zoo Station, Even Better Than The Real Thing, The Fly and Ultraviolet (Light My Way).

As an album, it contains a perfect structure for what they were aiming for. Bono has famously said that "Achtung Baby is the sound of U2 chopping down the Josua Treed."  And he's right ... obliterating it with a chainsaw might be an even better description. All of the distortion in the guitars and Bono's voice in the intro of the opener Zoo Station is intended to make the listener believe they've got a broken product, or a mistaken album, anything but the next U2 Album.

Highlights for me:
- The Fly - with it's scaling, yowling guitars and throbbing drums - was the first single, intended to introduce the audience to all of the innovative, industrial sounds U2 was playing with. Since the first song I heard off Joshua Tree was With or Without You, this was bold move, one that left me floored.  I had no idea what I was listening to.  But I immediately liked it and now truly heard them as the best rock band around.  It just skimmed across the radio waves like a rocket reeling back to Earth from the farthest reaches of space.
- Even Better Than The Real Thing and Ultraviolet both have that same reverby space sound.
- One is still an enigma to me when I hear it today.  It seems like it should NOT work in the U2 canon (it does not have that diverse of a build, Bono does not do vocal gymnastics, it's not a driving charger), yet it's one of their most beautiful songs by far. I will say this: maybe Bono when he sings calmly, from hushed to strained, voice sometimes seeming to crack ... well a certain pathos of pain is revealed. Also, when we need to feel "carried," we are typically fallen, lost. But to carry each other (love and support each other) is a simple idea, much like the simplicity of Edge's guitar, which can gets more focus with Bono reigning it in.  Bono finally does unleash into the high register, but only for a moment at the very end.
- Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses - again, starting with distortion like a wind blowing in from outer space (I know ... a little repetitive with the space theme - but, seriously, listen to it and tell me if you don't agree!!) and then one of Bono's best vocal deliveries on the album, propped up by just the right amount of reverb, and not stretching too high, staying just below the falsetto. The guitar reflects like the broken glass on the beach that Bono sings of.  But Larry Mullen's kick drum is HEAVY and combined with Adam Clayton's bass sounds just like a horse galloping, hooves like hammers pounding the ground, a perfect foundation for the song. Also the mix is perfect, everything getting equal billing.

In the world of rock, a singer does not need to have perfect pitch.  It's the character in his or her voice that matters much more.  The same can be said of the instrumentation.  The styling and color of the sound matters a little more than perfect technique.  U2 has not had as much character across 12 songs since this album (though All That You Can't Leave Behind and the new release Songs of Experience come close).

Aug 27 AOTD: The Who - Who's Next

The Who - Who's Next

1971



Link to Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpZmkrA0wEU&list=PLWnVxuqvY7Jh4s8AyVxYaL4vB5QapV7It

It's the first rock album to ever use a synthesizer.

The first song - "Baba O'Riley" - takes it's name from two of Pete Townshend's heroes, his spiritual guru, Meher Baba and jazz experimentalist Terry Riley.

Nicky Hopkins guests on piano throughout the album.

"Baba O'riley" features Dave Arbus of East of Eden on violin at the end of the song.

The guitar Pete Townshend uses in "Won't Get Fooled Again" was given to him by Joe Walsh of the Eagles.

The songs are only a small collection leftover from an abandoned project of Pete's called, originally to have been called Lifehouse.  That project was to tell a futuristic dystopian story of teen girl pied-pipered away by a rock musician and the father that is determined to follow her and then bring her back.  But forget the story.  It's the themes that matter and hold the remnants up, despite the abandoned narrative.

"Baba O'Riley" opens the album and was to have originally been the start of the story as well, with the father taking his wife Sally and two children and hitting the road to escape the pollution of the city. But it's that bridge with Pete Townshend singing "Don't cry, don't raise your eye/It's only teenage wasteland." The line is packed with multiple meanings.  Pete says he was inspired to write it after seeing the teens at Woodstock losing it on acid.  But it also carries meaning within the intended story as an interlude implying that the teenager running away from/leaving home is expected; it's a stage in life filled with emptiness, sowing oats, and adventure - most of it meaningless but also somewhat frightening to adults/parents in the moment. It can also be satirical, questioning the dismissive attitude of friends and family to those young people doing drugs to the point of wasting their minds or lives; after all, Pete had lost close friends like Jimi Hendrix to overdoses, all of these great minds cut down prematurely in a "teenage wasteland."

"Love Ain't for Keeping," details their trip some more as, out in the country during early dawn with the "babes still sleeping," the father beckons to his wife to come lay with him by the fire - one of my favorite rock love songs (not sure that it fits "ballad" description) - and also one of my wife's favorite Who songs. "Going Mobile" round out the trifecta of the "on the road" songs.

Bargain explores spiritual transcendence, featuring a line from Meher Baba: "I'll gladly lose me to find you."

"Behind Blue Eyes" is a great reminder that perceived/real criminals are people too - and, like "Won't Get Fooled Again," plays with the idea of reality vs. illusion.  "Behind Blues" (along with "Love Reign O'er Me") is in the running for one of the most beautiful Daltrey vocal recordings.

In the heart of the album are two songs that highlight everything great about this band, from the writing of hooks and monster choruses to the musicianship to the vocals of both Daltrey and Townshend: "Getting in Tune" and "Song is Over."

The song "Won't Get Fooled Again" is the sound of band flying off the tracks, train cars of heavy musical muscle flying in every direction, yet somehow that train stays, wildly, centered and barreling along.  At a few points it seems like everyone is soloing, yet listen carefully and you'll hear someone applying the glue - Keith on drums (though rare - as he loves his constant fills), John on Bass, Pete on guitar, the synthesizer (yes, the song owes it's cohesiveness mainly to this instrument, which Keith strove to play along to during the recording), or perhaps a vocal refrain to remind us what song we're in.  then comes that synthesizer bridge with all other instruments and vocals suspended for almost a minute. Roger Daltrey's scream that brings the song back to it rock elements is considered by Dave Marsh and Rolling Stone magazine as the greatest scream in Rock and Roll - I'd agree.

This is in competition for one of the top 10-15 greatest albums of all time.

Aug 26 AOTD: Tina Turner - Private Dancer

Aug 26 AOTD: Tina Turner - Private Dancer

1984



Link to listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdbaDpB9_3w&list=PL7F4952EFF0012323

Back in the 80s, Tina's transformative story from the abused wife of Ike Turner to an independent powerhouse making it on her own was well known.  The album Private Dancer was not just an album packed with big hits; it was her comeback album. She had always been a star too big to remain in the shadow of a blues soul man, especially a megalomaniac like Ike Turner.

Private Dancer seemed to the speak to the arc of her entire career, but especially from this perspective: safe, looking back, and reclaiming her rightful crown of "soul survivor."  Rubert Hine and Terry Britten may have written the hits with her in mind, since Capitol records (not Tina) did hire everyone to make the album to capitalize on the sudden and unexpected success of her cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together." But it's the combination of Tina's back story - escaping from Ike with 36 cents to her name back in 1975, working as a cleaning lady to pay bills, having two solo records completely flop, and then rising out of  the ten-year-old ashes of her abandoned career - and that equal-parts plaintive/yearning/threatening voice that packs every song with an emotional conviction that seems like Tina herself is conjuring the words, and is not just interpreting them.

The style of the album fits with other acts/albums from 1984, like Prince's Purple Rain: more anglo-centric than one might expect from a previously blues or soul-focused artist.  The album WAS made in England by two white dudes ... and even Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits is due writing credit on the title song (where Tina sadly states her lonely case as a private escort willing to "do what you want me to do" while keeping her "mind on the money" and keeping her eyes "on the wall."  However, Private Dancer echoes Tina's southern gospel musical roots in "Let's Stay Together" and the soulful rendition of the Beatles' "Help."

"Better Be Good" to me is a personal favorite, a track where Tina seems to be singing to the next Ike-wanna-be that she doesn't take anything at face value. And it's also a great to dance to while mimicking Tina's menacing tone. "What's Love Got to Do With It" won the grammy for Record of the Year, a great look at how attraction sometimes needs a protective, emotion-dismissive plan if a woman (or man) is to survive.  And one last note: check out "Steel Claw," a case for Tina as the hardest rocking woman of the 80s.

In the mid-80s she rivaled Madonna at the top of the charts. It was a long, steep climb from her Nutbush City Limits, so when she sings "Show Some Respect," I have no problem giving it to her.

(Tina Turner is one of my top three favorite women artists of all time - Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox are the other two.)

Aug 25 AOTD: Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair

Aug 25 AOTD: Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair

1985



Link to Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye7FKc1JQe4&list=PLnjEDtbey337PNuRviP-Z3shH1_OWCDMJ&index=1

"Songs from the Big Chair" - the phrase itself - is an allusion to the idea of therapy, speaking your fears or trauma aloud to someone while perched on a couch, or "big chair." The first single, "Shout," also is referencing Arthur Janov's "primal therapy," much like the kind that John Lennon also tried and deeply believed in. The British second-single release of "Shout" furthered the idea of speaking to childhood trauma, fears and repression as a way to undo, or release, the pain. And maybe the chanting chorus was also built for just such a purpose.  This single was the follow up to "Everyone Wants to Rule the World" in the States, and by the time "Shout" followed in June of 1985, spending three weeks in the #1 slot, Roland Orzabel and Curt Smith (the duo that was Tears for Fears) WERE essentially ruling the pop world.

The album has a feel of two kinds: first, a reverb drenched pop album - and by pop I mean hummable choruses, soulful singing, and toe-tapping rhythms.  But for the mid-80s - heck, even for now, it's also an alternative British synth-soul album that would only have worked in the 80s alongside fellow pop acts like the Eurythmics and Simple Minds, fellow experimentalists who were striking it big in the same years. This kind of pop experimentation (outside of progressive rock) had never been accepted to this degree and it never would again.

I would love to hear other people's memories associated with these songs.  The singles were so big on the radio in the summer of '85 that everyone has to remember them playing somewhere.  I can still hear "Everyone Wants to Rule the World" playing over the speaker system at the amusement park Valley Fair in Minneapolis, MN, on weekend away from camp, standing in line, singing along with all my camp buddies.  My fondest memory: instead of a usual camp song, I taught my campers "Shout," and then we (probably obnoxiously, now that I think about it) sang/chanted it everywhere we went around camp for a whole week.

Other standouts include "The Working Hour," "I Believe," and "Head Over Heels," another monstrous hit that same summer."

While Curt Smith handled vocals and Bbass, it was really Roland Orzabel who the mastermind of the two.  He wrote the songs, sang and played guitar and keyboards.

Aug 24 AOTD: Supertramp - Breakfast in America

Aug 24 AOTD: Supertramp - Breakfast in America

1979

Link to listen: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMxW7O6yL-jAmJtqVKe3TVP02-2RvQ27f

There's a few cases to be made for this as a must have album - if not at least a must-hear album. The cover alone - with waitress Libby replacing Lady Liberty in a scene outside an airplane window, behind her New York City is reconstructed with common diner items and breakfast cereal boxes stacked up as skyscrapers, all spray painted white. Genius design - is a rare piece of art certainly worth the ticket.

The album is an excellent collection of English art rock at the end of the 70s. Instead of guitars, saxophones often top the arrangements like syrup on the already-sweet foundation of Wurlitzer piano.

The melodies are gorgeous, lulling and fun. For the most part it is quite an upbeat album - mainly mid-tempo pop songs with hooks aimed straight at radio. In fact during the producing of the album, some band members encouraged Roger Hodson (Rick Davies is the other main writer in the band) to strip out some of the darker lyrics to keep the songs fun, especially in Gone Hollywood, where the star of the song starts out struggling but then, in the final version, gets his big break. Ironically, though, the biggest hit of the album IS a darker, more satirical song showing a man bemoaning his youth when he was sent away to become more "logical, a vegetable."  Another great song for me that coincided with my own circumstances of being sent away to military school.

They composed their songs first on a piano or Wurlitzer - and then brought them to the rest of the band to finish them.

The first half is packed with hits, four of which went on to become top-ten hits: "Breakfast in America," "Take the Long Way Home" (a lyrical high point, amongst many peaks on the album), "Goodbye Stranger," and "The Logical Song." They could just as easily had hits with "Oh Darling" or the epic piano-driven finale "Child of Vision," with a fantastic sax solo wafting out into the ether of end of the 70's.  Interesting ... that song, which gets at how two individuals creatively clash, was originally intended as the main theme of the album, what was supposed to be a concept album detailing a conversation between Hodgson and Davies.  But that, like the darker lyrics, was scrapped for the album that now exists.

Aug 23 AOTD: Sting - Dream of the Blue Turtles

Aug 23 AOTD: Sting - Dream of the Blue Turtles

 * Special Bonus * In honor of my concert tonight - Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats Live at Red Rocks - check out the album by the same name to get a taste of what I'm witnessing out here in Colorado.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0K4oI3JOco&list=PL4wGwko1DhrOPJLBODlq9JgBPigFmdJKS

1985



Link to listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbDWuw6swbY&list=PLVSmE10fWX-AFWSnMjV3azN3moNJ9OwEu

When Sting broke off from the Police, many thought he was crazy; after all, they had just released the biggest selling and just down right BEST album of their career - Synchronicity - which was packed with hits.  They had become a constant on classic rock as well as Top 40 radio.

But the Police's decision to go on hiatus was the perfect time for Sting to assemble a team of the best young musicians who knew Ellington-style swing, rock and jazz - and who were wiling to challenge Sing himself. He raises his vocal game when Branford Marsalis unspools curlicues of sax around his lines. And the rhythm team of Omar Hakim (drummer from the jazz band Weather Report) and Daryl Jones (of the Miles Davis Group) at times pound harder than Stewart Copeland (Police's drummer), forcing Sting to really bust from the diaphragm, and not just sing louder.

They stretch out in the middle of the plodding "Children's Crusade," which bemoans lost generations.
And the improvisations in Hakim's drumming and the swing of Marsalis on shadows in the Rain is as fun as Kenny Kirkland's wildly sprinkled keys.  But when they come together in the dance jam that eventually fades out the song, the teamwork is as impressive as the solos.

But then, at other times, like on "We Work the Black Seam" and "Russian" things slow down to perhaps better showcase Sting's socially-aware themes (mining and cold war insanity).  Sometimes the lyrics wax a little too simplistic or maudlin, but in every one of those cases, the music still delivers.

Sting shines best on three singles from the four that swarmed the radio: "If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free," "Love is the Seventh Wave (a Caribbean flavored pop song that may be my favorites)," and "Fortress Around Your Heart."

Aug 22 AOTD: Van Morrison - Moondance

Aug 22 AOTD: Van Morrison - Moondance



Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuyENi0cPjg&list=PL94gOvpr5yt2oRgbkjGW1V4ikHgq0R3hD

This is one of the best albums I know for a road trip - or any kind of trip where you see pleasure - spiritual or carnal - in nature.  "And it Stoned Me" speaks to the liberty of being on foot and just seeing where life will take you, every person and location thematically intertwined by images of water: from rain to a swimming hole, to moonshine to a mountain stream.  And he still has time to pay homage to his jazz pianist hero Jelly Roll Morton.  That song rests atop a mountain of songs that bring me to nature - and I always choose to accompany me when I am heading out into the canyon, mountain, woods or even just strolling down a country road.

The album continues with two more massive hits appealing to romantics, "Moondance" and "Crazy Love," filled with sweetness and more beautiful imagery.

Songs of gypsy spirit and mysticism follow. 

Moondance is a calling card, an invitation to Van's fellow travelers on his musical, mystical, romantic travels.

So turn it on, "turn it up, a little bit higher ... just so you know - it's got soul - turn it up!"

Written at the Bear's Den in Black Hawk, Colorado, in the Rocky Mountains - bless you, Van.

Aug 21 AOTD: Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

Aug 21 AOTD: Simon and Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water

Link to the album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G-YQA_bsOU&list=PLIFqMjxyKaIYPn-m4GeKhsS03cSEOEYNN

For today’s AOTD, I decided to do something different.  I have been on the road,

traveling to Colorado, via car to Minneapolis, where I visited with my friend of 30 years, Eric.  

Later he, my friend Evan (who is making the entire journey with me),

and I all attended a concert of Dr. Mombo’s Combo in the city at Bunkers -

these are band mates of Prince, who have returned to the band they had before he recruited them.

It was a massive jam. We were out late, dancing, enthralled with the scene.

We were up early this morning, anyway, out to the airport.

And now I sit here on the plane, writing a prose stream of consciousness piece that transforms

into a poem, the text intertwining my thoughts of the album, certain lyrics, and the experience of my

 last 14 hours on this journey.  But I realize the journey started many years ago when music became

 by escape from some crazy times.  Simon and Garfunkel’s “Greates Hits” was the first CD I ever

owned. “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” was the last album (of five) that they made in the studio as a

duo. Here were my thoughts ...

“Flying high over troubled times, pursuing pasts and fruitful futures - I am a bridge - between the

slap of a mother and the hug of a boy.

A span of 40 years between.   

My friend’s son explodes out a door to hug me - he’s only met me once before - and that trust -

that beauty of kind human contact - surges in me like Art Garfunkel saying “ like a bridge over

troubled water, I will ease your mind.” Though he’s a towering 7 ft man, Eric is a new-age father

who understands what it’s like to be small. He has “laid it down” for his family.  I hope I can live up to

THIS human bridge, where still waters run deep and bubble to surface - in solid rock

and playful laughs.

I have my companions

On rivers running mad

On streets paved dark

And in skies suspended cold

But I’m inside the womb of this plane

I’m inside the warmth of the present

And I’m moved by drums, strings, Brooklyn voices - and memories of Minneapolis guitars,

adept axemen, popping bass fingers,

Black women in heels

White men in t-shirts

Shuffling feet

Swiveling hips

Eyes turned up to stage

Lured by these

Soul musicians.

WHAP!

A hand-clap beat

baits my arms up,

Hooks me in,

And I’m on the floor

We’re a school of dancers

Swimming upon beer-soaked wood

I have my memories

Here beside me like so many violins

Reaching, running

In slow motion gallup

Before the drums crashing like waves.

Pause with me here like a sparrow in the haze

It’s the beginning of the end,

And even Paul’s voice sweetens - like Art’s  - to run like mallards

Flying parallel - skimming, dipping over mellow ripples

with blue sky above

If only life could hang like

this airplane

in the sky,

Precarious, streamlined and destined

My safety momentarily in the hands of another

My thoughts momentarily in the confines of my mind

My words momentarily in the screen between my hands

Behind me, family waiting on return

Before me, music and mountains

Beside me, a friend and brother,

My fellow boxer laying it all down -

Seeking “health, wealth, love and happiness.”

For a moment

We ride on this bridge

In harmony.”