I did not buy an album of my own until I was 12 years old. Pop music was completely unknown to me until I hit junior high. Before that – I listened to my parents albums. I still remember the little metal TV stand thingie – which held all the vinyl albums beneath, in slots. I love records. I love vinyl. There’s something so exciting about sliding the record out from the cover – that popping a CD out of its case just DOES NOT capture. There’s a ritual to vinyl. I’m nostalgic about it.<\/p>\n
It’s interesting: it seems like now, in the current generation, kids are the ones who sort of lead the parents, in terms of taste, and knowing what’s hip, and cool. Like – the 13 year old daughter gets into Eminem, because she watches MTV, or whatever – and the parents may at first be concerned about it … but then they realize the awesomeness … and then they buy the albums. Without the 13 year old kid in the house, the parents might still be listening to their Go Gos albums from their youth – Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I still have all my Go Gos albums. And I also yearn to bulk up my Adam Ant and Billy Idol collection. I’m just saying that kids are WAY more savvy, in terms of pop culture, than we were in my generation. After all: we had 3 television stations. Well, no, we had 4 – including PBS. I remember when TV actually HAD NO PROGRAMMING after a certain hour of the night. They would play “The Star Spangled Banner”, and show a waving flag and then the screen would go blank. Can you imagine??? There was no VCR in the house. We didn’t sit around listening to the radio. (Now – this is just MY family. Other families were VERY in tune with what was going on – I remember the family down the street – they were always going to Elton John concerts, and they knew about stuff like Blondie and stuff like that … But this was not how my family operated).<\/p>\n
We were the kids. And we listened to the albums that my parents already had. We listened to them over … and over … and over …<\/p>\n
A couple of years ago, my parents and Jean and I were driving in the car. And something someone said reminded Jean and I (at the same moment) of some little coffee-house folk song that had been on one of those albums – 35 years ago – and Jean and I, simultaneously, with no discussion beforehand, BURST into song. My mother glanced at my father and said, ‘We have ruined our children.”<\/p>\n
Like I said – once I got to junior high I made certain discoveries. I left the world of my parents music collection and learned about things like … oh, Michael Jackson. And Air Supply. And Lionel Richie. And Cyndi Lauper. A whole new world opened up to me!!<\/p>\n
What was the first album I bought on my own?<\/p>\n
ELO’s Time.<\/p>\n
I heard the whole album at Mere’s house – and it was the first time that I thought: I NEED to own that.<\/p>\n
I look at that album cover and still feel a thrill of excitement – I so remember how much I was into that album. It absolutely blew my mind. Also … there was this new-ness to the whole experience. It was the beginning of me choosing my own way. ELO!! hahahaha But it’s true!!<\/p>\n
My fantasy for this post (which I’ve had percolating for a while) was that I would be able to actually find images of all the old album covers from my parents collection – but I was only 3\/4 of the way successful. Some of those albums have slipped off into oblivion – I have searched and searched, and cannot find images of the album covers anywhere. Two in particular. Oh, but they live on in my heart!!<\/p>\n
Now there were other albums in my parents collection outside of the ones below – but for whatever reason, they didn’t burn themselves into my psyche the way these ones did.<\/p>\n
I know they had some Beatles, but I can’t remember the albums. I seem to recall Abbey Road<\/i> being there. I know they had Peter, Paul and Mary – which we all loved – but I can’t remember the album. I know it was a live album. I know we had some Bob Dylan, but again – can’t remember the albums.<\/p>\n
The albums below are the ones that are emblazoned in my mind as forever being a part of my childhood, and a part of my growing up.<\/p>\n
So. Here we go. Oh, and to my siblings: I am sure I have forgotten some. Please remind me of any I might have missed.<\/p>\n
The albums in my parents record collection that made up my cultural landscape as a child:<\/p>\n
American Pie. <\/p>\n
This album was so huge in my life that in kindergarten I recited the entirety of “American Pie” on Show and Tell day. Uhm … what? How much would I love to have a home video of me, with the colored ballies in my hair, wearing a small frock that my mother probably made me, and my shiny Mary Janes, shouting out to my kindergarten classmates:<\/p>\n
Well, I know that you\u0092re in love with him
\n`cause I saw you dancin\u0092 in the gym.
\nYou both kicked off your shoes.
\nMan, I dig those rhythm and blues.
\nI was a lonely teenage broncin\u0092 buck
\nWith a pink carnation and a pickup truck,
\nBut I knew I was out of luck
\nThe day the music died.<\/p>\n
Other kids had brought in their pet turtle. Other kids did magic tricks. That was my Show and Tell. I was 5 years old. Let’s say that that album had already woven itself into my DNA.<\/p>\n
And it’s still there. A couple years ago, I went to the Garth Brooks concert in Central Park – which was AWESOME – and at the very end, Brooks said something like: “And now I’d like to welcome to the stage my main influence – the man who pretty much is the reason I’m here today – Don McLean!”<\/p>\n
It was a complete surprise, and people literally LOST THEIR MINDS. I started crying.<\/p>\n
It’s mainly because he – and that album in particular – is so wrapped up in my childhood that I can’t separate the two. He is a part of my life. So to see him … up there … singing American Pie with Garth Brooks … it was one of the coolest concert-moments of my entire life.<\/p>\n
I do remember, though, being 5 years old, or 6 – and the album cover itself really frightened me. There was something violent about that huge thumb … and the fact that he was swathed in darkness … It scared me. I didn’t know what it meant, but I knew it meant SOMEthing. As an adult, I can look at that photograph and see the anger beneath it – and somehow, as a child, I picked up on it.<\/p>\n
And lastly: the line:<\/p>\n
“I went down to the sacred store
\nWhere I’d heard the music years before …”<\/p>\n
For some reason, as a child, I got it into my head that the sacred store was Anton’s Deli – which was right around the corner from our house on Route 108. Every time I heard that particular verse, I would think mistily of Anton’s Deli … and how sad it was … that there was no music there anymore.<\/p>\n
Next album – it took me FOREVER to find the image of the album cover online – but I did it!!!<\/p>\n
Bob Gibson’s There’s a Meetin’ Here Tonight<\/i>. Bob Gibson has a very Mighty Wind<\/i> appeal – the kind of folk singing depicted in that film – the pre-political folk songs, the pre-message folk songs. Gibson is an unbelievable banjo player – with a marvelous voice – and we just loved loved loved this album. I still do – I have a cassette tape I made of my parents albums – with scratches in the vinyl intact.<\/p>\n
Jean and I can still sing the entire album in its entirety.<\/p>\n
“There’s a meetin’ here tonight
\nThere’s a meetin’ here tonight
\nI know you by your friendly face
\nThere’s a meetin’ here tonight …”<\/p>\n
My personal favorite?<\/p>\n
“This train is bound for glory, this train …”<\/p>\n
He sang old spirituals – “Jordan River” … He sang “Titanic”, a rollicking funny version:<\/p>\n
Oh, they built the ship Titanic to last a thousand years
\nBut the good Lord could not save them from their fears
\nAn iceberg on a wave
\nbrought them to a watery grave
\nIt was sad when that great ship went down<\/p>\n
It was sad, oh glory, it was sad, halleluia
\nSad when the great ship went down
\nHusbands and wives, little children lost their lives
\nIt was sad when the great ship went down.<\/p>\n
I have known a couple of banjo players in my life – and whenever I have said, “Uhm … geeky reference … but did you ever listen to Bob Gibson?” they flip OUT. “That dude could play.” Banjo players all know who he was, and all rave about him.<\/p>\n
Bob Gibson. Love that album. Love him.<\/p>\n
“Woah back Buck and bee-baba-lan
\nWho brought the back Buck – WOAH Cunningham!”<\/p>\n
I have no idea what I am talking about but Jean will remember.<\/p>\n
Next album? It’s still an album I listen to all the time:<\/p>\n
The Clancy Brothers at Carnegie Hall! My parents had many more Clancy Brothers albums in their collection, but this one was our favorite – and indeed – it still is for me, today. It’s a perfect album. Hard to call an album perfect, but this album is.<\/p>\n
I loved the pictures of them on the back of the album, with their Irish knit sweaters, and their laughing faces. There was something about them … something familiar … I loved the accents. I had to warm up to Tommy Makem because he wasn’t, you know, a Clancy … and I didn’t get half of their jokes … but as the years have gone on, the humor deepens, I see what’s going on – and best of all – my favorite thing about this album – is the crowd at Carnegie Hall. Listening to them cheer, and clap along, and burst into laughter gives me goosebumps to this day. They know all the words, get all the jokes …<\/p>\n
Perfect album. Just perfect.<\/p>\n
Their whole medley of childhood songs they would sing … I love that:<\/p>\n
“Ahem! Ahem!
\nMe mother has gone to church!
\nShe told me not to play with you because you’re in the dirt!
\nIt isn’t because you’re dirty
\nIt isn’t because you’re clean
\nIt’s because you have the whooping cough and eat Margar-een.”<\/p>\n
You can imagine after listening to stuff like THAT that going to dances in junior high where everyone was gyrating to Michael Jackson was quite a culture shock.<\/p>\n
Next album:<\/p>\n
Ian and Sylvia!! The Mitch and Mickey of a bygone age. Aren’t they both so gorgeous? My parents loved Ian and Sylvia and had many of their albums – I remember this album cover as well:<\/p>\n
I actually can’t remember any of their tunes – but the album covers themselves fill me with nostalgia – I can SEE our den on Paul Avenue, with the hooked rug, and the old couch, and I can HEAR the sounds of kids playing in the neighborhood outside the window … and I can taste the popsicle I was probably eating … and I know that I was wearing corduroy pants my mom made me, and I had my hair in ponytails … Those two album covers bring back an entire world.<\/p>\n
Stuff like this always reminds me of the brilliant statement by acting teacher Lee Strasberg: “Sometimes you look at a pair of your shoes and see your whole life.”<\/p>\n
Ian and Sylvia’s album covers are like that for me.<\/p>\n
Next album? This one was HUGE, at least to me:<\/p>\n
John Denver!<\/p>\n
Ah, the first chords:<\/p>\n
“He was born in the summer of his 27th year …”<\/p>\n
Goosebump territory. I just loved John Denver. I think my love might have been validated by his appearnces on The Muppet Show<\/i> and on Sesame Street<\/i>. He seemed like the kind of guy who would understand kids.<\/p>\n
OBVIOUSLY someone who wrote “Grandma’s Featherbed” understood what it was like to be a kid!<\/p>\n
This is from memory:<\/p>\n
“It was 5 feet wide, 6 feet high
\nAnd soft as a downy chick
\nIt was made from the feathers of forty-leven geese
\nTook a whole bolt of cloth for the tick
\nIt’d hold eight kids and four hound-dogs
\nAnd a piggy we stole from the shed
\nWe didnt get much sleep but we had a lot of fun
\nOn grandmas feather bed”<\/p>\n
I will overlook the unbelievable GOOFINESS of “forty-leven geese” – and just say: this song was one of those songs that I wanted to just climb into as a child. I wanted to be in that bed, I wanted to live in that world. I just loved it.<\/p>\n
But there are other wonderful songs on that album – His version of “Mother Nature’s Son” is great – and don’t even get me started on “Matthew”.<\/p>\n
Yes, and joy was just a thing that he was raised on
\nLove was just a way to live and die
\nGold was just a windy Kansas wheatfield
\nBlue was just the Kansas summer sky<\/p>\n
And this always gets me right in the throat:<\/p>\n
And so he came to live at our house
\nAnd he came to work the land
\nHe came to ease my daddy’s burden
\nAnd he came to be my friend<\/p>\n
Goofy? Yes. Sentimental? Yes. But I guess I like sentimental if it’s done right. “He came to be my friend”. Denver’s telling a story in that song. And that’s the payoff moment. It’s KILLER. Those lyrics have stayed with me for 35 damn years.<\/p>\n
Next album?<\/p>\n
Joan Baez.<\/p>\n
Now – I could have SWORN that that was not the album cover. How I remember it is that the front of the album was a kind of swooping line drawing of a woman – kind of a very spare Mists of Avalon-ish woman – and on the back was a serious black and white photo of Joan Baez.<\/p>\n
The only reason I know that this one is the album (and maybe they re-released it with a more modern cover) – is that this is the album that has Baez’s version of Dylan’s “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” – which, I swear, I could not get enough of as a kid. The lyrics are so intricate, and … they never repeat themselves … and I remember thinking that this was a reaallly grown-up song. I couldn’t understand it. It was in another realm, the realm of grown-ups. I could understand all of John Denver’s songs, but there was a mystery at the heart of Baez singing “Sad-Eyed Lady” and I found it fascinating, and also vaguely upsetting. It made me feel left out. Her voice is so marvelous, so perfect, really … but I didn’t know what was going on … who was the lady … why were her eyes sad … Genius lyrics.<\/p>\n
My parents had a lot more Joan Baez in their collection – but this is the album that stands out for me, because of that one song.<\/p>\n
Next album?<\/p>\n
My Fair Lady.<\/p>\n
We listened to this album until it was filled with scratches and became uesless. We ADORED this album – only we ritualistically skipped over “On the street where you live”. BORING! Now I love that song, but it’s just the most boring thing on the album when you are 8. I loved her, I loved her voice, I especially loved her tour de force (although I wouldn’t have called it that) on “Show Me”. Now that I know how difficult that damn song is – I am even more blown away by Julie Andrews’ pipes.<\/p>\n
We loved this album. I never really liked the movie version because … I just couldn’t get the sound of Julie Andrews out of my head … I didn’t like that Audrey Hepburn was lip synching – even though there was a perfectly wonderful actress out there who had originated it and could sing her own stuff! Yes – even back then – I was aware of the injustices and realities of show biz.<\/p>\n
Next album? Uhm ….<\/p>\n
Herb Alpert.<\/p>\n
What? What IS this album? I am still totally confused by the entire project. I don’t even know what the project WAS. Not to mention the album cover.<\/p>\n
The cover, naturally, kind of scared me as a child … because you can alllllllllmost see her boob … and I just didn’t want to see her boob. Also, I couldn’t help but wonder: won’t her skin be all sticky and gross after being covered in whipped cream? Ikky!<\/p>\n
However: my sister Jean and I had HOURS of fun listening to this album. We would dress up in my mother’s old party dresses, from her high school formals – one was green and pink – and one was white and yellow – they were gorgeous – with pouffy skirts that flared around when you twirled, and cinched waists – We would put on those dresses and do entire dance routines, involving pantomime, and choreography, to the Whipped Cream album. We had entire story-lines in our mind – there was one story-line involving a young man named Pedro, if I recall, and we would enact these stories – through dance – whirling around and around in the den – wearing my mother’s dresses from her high school formals.<\/p>\n
I guess it was the only way we could make sense of that terrifying album cover.<\/p>\n
Now there were two other albums which were MAJOR in my life – and despite a long ardous search on the Internet – I cannot find the album covers from my memory.<\/p>\n
But I will list the albums nonetheless – in case anyone out there has ANY information about any of these albums:<\/p>\n
The Raunch Hands<\/i> – these guys were from Harvard, I believe – 6 or 7 of them – and they formed a folk group – and put out a couple of albums. I loved them so much that I STILL keep my eyes open for second-hand versions of their albums. They may not be as good as I remember, but I am willing to take that chance. They were wonderful – I love male harmonizing.<\/p>\n
Which leads me to the last album – the ultimate male harmonizers:<\/p>\n
The Yale Whiffenpoofs<\/i>. The oldest a capella group in America – the Yale Whiffenpoofs are 14 Yale undergraduates – chosen every year – and … basically, they’re unbelievable. You might recognize the current group from their brief appearance on The West Wing during a Christmas episode. When I found out that my friend Kate’s brother HAD ACTUALLY BEEN A FECKIN’ WHIFFENPOOF, I flipped out. Anyway, the album that my parents had – was an album they put out in 1959 – it was some anniversary, some important Whiffenpoof anniversary. I cannot find evidence of it ANYWHERE online – I still have a cassette tape that I made of my parents album – but it would be nice to have that particular album in my collection, in CD form. It’s male singing at its best. Also, I remember the album cover – and I remember the back of the album – a scattering of black and white photos: Images from the black-tie dinner celebrating the Whiffenpoof anniversary – little doddering old men who had been in the Whiffenpoofs 40 years earlier, whatever – down to young strapping undergrades of the 1959 class … Also, there were hot pictures of these guys singing all over the world – including a drop-dead gorgeous picture of them singing in some tropical country, or maybe in Florida – who knows – but whatever: they were wearing Bermuda shorts instead of the usual tuxedo. I LOVED that picture. I dreamt of dating a Whiffenpoof one day. When I finally met Kate’s brother, the little child within me was a bit in awe. It was as though I was back in my parents den – an awe-struck young girl – looking at these strapping young Ivy Leaguers – wondering if I would ever be a grown-up … and there I was, now an adult myself, meeting an ACTUAL Whiffenpoof.<\/p>\n
Old dreams never die!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I did not buy an album of my own until I was 12 years old. Pop music was completely unknown to me until I hit junior high. Before that – I listened to my parents albums. I still remember the … Continue reading