Post by ArchieLeach on Nov 17, 2018 10:08:23 GMT -5
Welcome, friends, to a happy place. This is where only our very favorite things reside. It’s a place without borders, where your favorite objects, performances of any medium or genre, and even experiences share the table together, to use a metaphor appropriate for the upcoming holiday season. Not only that, you get to list them and number them, because lists are fun.
The only rules are you have to number them, and you’re limited to 10. That’s just to bring a little focus to the exercise. You don’t have to list all 10 at once, and you surely don’t have to put them in a definitive ranking. You’re not expected to go on and on forever like I did on this one (I promise it won’t become a habit). You’ve got plenty of time to remember what it was that turned you on. Let’s dig deep for these.
My list will include at least two music items, and some film, TV and video – these are my usual areas of conversation. But I’ll also include a self-portrait by a notable painter, and maybe a piece of architecture or machinery, and maybe a tourist attraction. I’m probably even going to include a missed opportunity, a live performance I missed. I doubt there will be any fashion or culinary items on my list, but I look forward to any that are shared by you.
As someone whose most frequent and meaningful cultural experiences have been via listening to recorded music, I’ll start with a favorite moment…
10. Record listening at its best – My introduction to Etta James – The summer of 1982, I graduated from college with a B.S. in Business Administration. I had successfully lived a pretty sheltered life, and had no prospects or direction at all. So when my mother said that our family of three, which included my younger brother, should go visit her homeland in the Netherlands for the first time in 10 years, I wasn’t going to say no. The three of us always enjoyed each other’s company and traveled together well.
Beyond the sightseeing and being with my grandmother, aunt, and cousins, I had another specific angle. I had been buying records regularly for six years, using the first edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide to help direct my acquisitions. It was 1984, the internet wasn’t even imagined, and if you wanted to hear something which wasn’t programmed by radio stations you had to find a friend or relative with a good collection, or you paid cash out of pocket in what was, in reality, a gambling proposition. $7.99 plus tax for 40 minutes of music you never heard before – would it pay off? If you didn’t like a record you kept playing it until you found that thing you could like about it, or at least until it worked into your bloodstream, because nothing could suck your soul like a record you wasted money, time and attention on.
Then there was the question of availability. You could go to a record store and flip through the stacks for hours deciding how badly you needed music. (I know Duane Allman is supposed to be a great guitar player, but do I really want to listen to a 20-minute jam from a band I don’t know? Or do I buy their more recent cut-out which the guys at Rolling Stone don’t seem to like? Maybe I should check out Joe Walsh section instead? Barnstorm is supposed to be pretty good, but I don’t know these songs….). If you didn’t live in a real city, you could wait for years to hear music you were curious about.
By the time of my trip to Holland, I was interested in the really hard-to-find prizes, imports like the German version of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour and the UK configuration of the Rolling Stones’ Aftermath, or Derek and the Dominoes Live to play guitar to, Jimi Hendrix’s Rainbow Bridge just to have, etc., etc. I was a man on a mission.
It was in The Hague’s famous department store the Bijenkorf (translates to “beehive”) that I saw a saucy golden face with cat-eye makeup tightly framed by a wide, bold blue border. It was Etta James and her double-LP Peaches. I recognized the cover from Record Guide. It had a long essay saying that this was a flawed 5-star album, poorly sequenced and collected but that it was the best way to anything by a remarkable voice. I was intrigued, so I purchased that and a couple of Jim Croce discs for safety.
Early the next morning I snuck downstairs from the third floor laundry room which was my bedroom. The stairs in Dutch houses are tight, turning, and steep. There was a rumbling sliding door to roll open and closed to get to the ultra-modern first floor living room, and the last flight of steps were highly polished boards sticking out of a wall. I was barefoot, and it felt like walking on furniture in the bright June sunlight.
The whole feeling of trespass continued as I went to the audio system. I fired the system up, put the headphones on, touched the stylus to make sure sound wasn’t coming out through the speakers, dropped the stylus, and leaned back in the leather high-backed chair. A couple of bass notes, some country gospel piano, a cutting guitar, and a woman’s low moan. “I’m loving you moh-oh-oh-oh-ore, loving you more every day.” Wow, already. Then she climbs up a little higher – “I’m loving you mo-oh-oh-ore, sh’oh nuff now, in every way, now.” Then she snapped into a sound more snarling and urgent, like a cat digging its claws into your hand while it’s still purring – “Oh, you got me so I can’t eat, and I can’t sleep.” The background singers repeat the words for support. She swoops her voice up – “Everybody gonna start talkin’…”
One minute in, and I’m smitten. She keeps working the song, putting everything she can into it - the way she wrings the word “squeeze” alone can break your heart. As the song fades, she roars, “more, more, more!...” You can’t believe there’s any more left in the girl, and then a signature song of hers comes on, “I’d Rather Go Blind.” This legit soul version is deeper than the bland Christine McVie cover I knew. It’s a conversation, a break from the intense tour de force of the previous track. Then “Only Time Will Tell,” a heartfelt deep soul ballad with a taste of the first song’s range. Next, strings fall from the sky, Sinatra elegant, and here comes that warm, sure voice, “…Ahh-t last…”
Four songs in, and now I know it’s not just me and a book back home in the states, she’s got it all. I try to listen with eyes closed, but I never know if family is going to wake up, barge in on the moment. I wouldn’t felt more self-conscious if I’d been half-naked with a girl. I got all the way through the collection, the two most prized discs of the seventeen I brought home from that trip.
Etta James became one of my private loves, only known to me and my family. A few years later I found a few copies of an anthology while visiting L.A. and gave them to some friends. The use of “At Last” in the dancing scene in Rain Man was the first sign I had that anyone knew who she was – if you had told me that a president and first lady would be dancing to “At Last” at an inaugural ball I would have found it even more unbelievable than us electing a black president. But her fame grew, and I got to see her at a blues festival on a beautiful June day (other acts that day – J. Geils and Magic Dick, Jimmie Vaughan, Elvin Bishop, and B.B. King).
The only rules are you have to number them, and you’re limited to 10. That’s just to bring a little focus to the exercise. You don’t have to list all 10 at once, and you surely don’t have to put them in a definitive ranking. You’re not expected to go on and on forever like I did on this one (I promise it won’t become a habit). You’ve got plenty of time to remember what it was that turned you on. Let’s dig deep for these.
My list will include at least two music items, and some film, TV and video – these are my usual areas of conversation. But I’ll also include a self-portrait by a notable painter, and maybe a piece of architecture or machinery, and maybe a tourist attraction. I’m probably even going to include a missed opportunity, a live performance I missed. I doubt there will be any fashion or culinary items on my list, but I look forward to any that are shared by you.
As someone whose most frequent and meaningful cultural experiences have been via listening to recorded music, I’ll start with a favorite moment…
10. Record listening at its best – My introduction to Etta James – The summer of 1982, I graduated from college with a B.S. in Business Administration. I had successfully lived a pretty sheltered life, and had no prospects or direction at all. So when my mother said that our family of three, which included my younger brother, should go visit her homeland in the Netherlands for the first time in 10 years, I wasn’t going to say no. The three of us always enjoyed each other’s company and traveled together well.
Beyond the sightseeing and being with my grandmother, aunt, and cousins, I had another specific angle. I had been buying records regularly for six years, using the first edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide to help direct my acquisitions. It was 1984, the internet wasn’t even imagined, and if you wanted to hear something which wasn’t programmed by radio stations you had to find a friend or relative with a good collection, or you paid cash out of pocket in what was, in reality, a gambling proposition. $7.99 plus tax for 40 minutes of music you never heard before – would it pay off? If you didn’t like a record you kept playing it until you found that thing you could like about it, or at least until it worked into your bloodstream, because nothing could suck your soul like a record you wasted money, time and attention on.
Then there was the question of availability. You could go to a record store and flip through the stacks for hours deciding how badly you needed music. (I know Duane Allman is supposed to be a great guitar player, but do I really want to listen to a 20-minute jam from a band I don’t know? Or do I buy their more recent cut-out which the guys at Rolling Stone don’t seem to like? Maybe I should check out Joe Walsh section instead? Barnstorm is supposed to be pretty good, but I don’t know these songs….). If you didn’t live in a real city, you could wait for years to hear music you were curious about.
By the time of my trip to Holland, I was interested in the really hard-to-find prizes, imports like the German version of the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour and the UK configuration of the Rolling Stones’ Aftermath, or Derek and the Dominoes Live to play guitar to, Jimi Hendrix’s Rainbow Bridge just to have, etc., etc. I was a man on a mission.
It was in The Hague’s famous department store the Bijenkorf (translates to “beehive”) that I saw a saucy golden face with cat-eye makeup tightly framed by a wide, bold blue border. It was Etta James and her double-LP Peaches. I recognized the cover from Record Guide. It had a long essay saying that this was a flawed 5-star album, poorly sequenced and collected but that it was the best way to anything by a remarkable voice. I was intrigued, so I purchased that and a couple of Jim Croce discs for safety.
Early the next morning I snuck downstairs from the third floor laundry room which was my bedroom. The stairs in Dutch houses are tight, turning, and steep. There was a rumbling sliding door to roll open and closed to get to the ultra-modern first floor living room, and the last flight of steps were highly polished boards sticking out of a wall. I was barefoot, and it felt like walking on furniture in the bright June sunlight.
The whole feeling of trespass continued as I went to the audio system. I fired the system up, put the headphones on, touched the stylus to make sure sound wasn’t coming out through the speakers, dropped the stylus, and leaned back in the leather high-backed chair. A couple of bass notes, some country gospel piano, a cutting guitar, and a woman’s low moan. “I’m loving you moh-oh-oh-oh-ore, loving you more every day.” Wow, already. Then she climbs up a little higher – “I’m loving you mo-oh-oh-ore, sh’oh nuff now, in every way, now.” Then she snapped into a sound more snarling and urgent, like a cat digging its claws into your hand while it’s still purring – “Oh, you got me so I can’t eat, and I can’t sleep.” The background singers repeat the words for support. She swoops her voice up – “Everybody gonna start talkin’…”
One minute in, and I’m smitten. She keeps working the song, putting everything she can into it - the way she wrings the word “squeeze” alone can break your heart. As the song fades, she roars, “more, more, more!...” You can’t believe there’s any more left in the girl, and then a signature song of hers comes on, “I’d Rather Go Blind.” This legit soul version is deeper than the bland Christine McVie cover I knew. It’s a conversation, a break from the intense tour de force of the previous track. Then “Only Time Will Tell,” a heartfelt deep soul ballad with a taste of the first song’s range. Next, strings fall from the sky, Sinatra elegant, and here comes that warm, sure voice, “…Ahh-t last…”
Four songs in, and now I know it’s not just me and a book back home in the states, she’s got it all. I try to listen with eyes closed, but I never know if family is going to wake up, barge in on the moment. I wouldn’t felt more self-conscious if I’d been half-naked with a girl. I got all the way through the collection, the two most prized discs of the seventeen I brought home from that trip.
Etta James became one of my private loves, only known to me and my family. A few years later I found a few copies of an anthology while visiting L.A. and gave them to some friends. The use of “At Last” in the dancing scene in Rain Man was the first sign I had that anyone knew who she was – if you had told me that a president and first lady would be dancing to “At Last” at an inaugural ball I would have found it even more unbelievable than us electing a black president. But her fame grew, and I got to see her at a blues festival on a beautiful June day (other acts that day – J. Geils and Magic Dick, Jimmie Vaughan, Elvin Bishop, and B.B. King).
She’s become a legend, and everything she recorded is available with a click of a button. But there was a long time you couldn’t find “Loving You More Everyday” in the urgent stereo version I heard. The 1993 two CD collection The Essential Etta James had the mono version which only sounds slower – it’s just phrased more leisurely. It’s a song released on a lost album from the mid-60s, and it’s hiding between a universe of digital files, just another soul song. But the first time I heard this, I felt like I had found King Tut’s tomb. It's a feeling we all pursue.