Music was ever-present throughout my life. Mom always had albums around. Spanky & Our Gang, Frankie Valli & The 4 Seasons and many Frank Sinatra records graced our turntable.

And what a turntable it was! We had a huge piece of furniture, 5 or 6 feet across (oak, I think… it was heavy!) that included a turntable, AM/FM stereo tuner, reel-to-reel tape player and gigantic speakers on the left and right. This was impressive for the early 70’s.

This thing was the pre-cursor to today’s entertainment centers. You could copy from albums or the FM radio onto the reel-to-reel and get pretty good sound quality (at least until you taped over and over and over again, which I did). I distinctly remember taping Don McLean’s “American Pie” from the radio and playing it incessantly. The rock-royalty and quasi-religious prose meant nothing to me at the time. The song had a great chorus and I was hooked!

Dad was more into Motown, soul music and, later, disco… anything you could dance to. To this day, I cannot hear a song by Sly & The Family Stone

without thinking about driving around Chicago with my dad and listening to that warbled sound you could only get from an 8-track tape that had been played a few too many times.

Through my teenage years, whenever we’d go for a drive, dad would quiz me on whatever song was playing on the radio. I’d have to name the song and artist. I think I impressed him most of the time, because I would get a lot of them right. When he’d flip over to US99, the big country music station, I knew I was screwed! By the 80’s, he’d grown an affinity for country music. It would take another 15 years or so for me to follow suit. It’s still not my favorite genre by any measure, but I do love the oldies… Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Hank Willams, etc.

Anyhow, now I turn the tables. I’ll play the True Oldies Channel and see if dad can remember some of the obscure 60’s tracks they play. I’ve kept up the tradition with my wife, always asking if she knows the song and artist whenever something interesting is played. Unfortunately, she does not find this as entertaining or amusing as I do!

In the mid-70’s, I started listening to pop music. Every Sunday, I’d listen to the syndicated radio show, American Top 40 – hosted by Casey Kasem. It was on for four hours and played Billboard Magazine’s top forty songs, counting down to #1 and interjecting fun factoids. My weekly Sunday chore was to sweep the back yard (which was a concrete deck). It shouldn’t have taken more than 30 minutes, but it took me four hours, every week. Coincidence?

It took years for me to realize that top 40 was not cool. My stepfather Mike started working as a manager at the Rainbow Bar & Grill in West Hollywood, CA back in 1976. He had great stories of these hip dudes that would hang out there… Keith Moon, John Entwistle, Jimmy Page

, Robert Plant, Ritchie Blackmore and many others. I had no clue who these people were!

When Mike scored backstage passes for a Led Zeppelin show in 1979, I stayed home. The next year, it was The Who that I missed! At 13 or 14, I was still all about The Bee Gees, Village People, Donna Summer and Pat Benatar… whatever was popular. A few years later, I was seen kicking myself. Hard. I eventually saw The Who (sans the late Keith Moon) in 1989, but Led Zeppelin never toured again after their drummer, John Bonham, died.

In the late 80’s, all the hard rockers and hair metal wannabes hung out at the Rainbow. I got to meet Entwistle, Ronnie James Dio, Tommy Lee, Klause Meine from the Scorpions and others… so I cannot complain! Lo these many years later, Mike still manages the Rainbow and is still telling great stories about guys named Ozzy, Izzy, Slash, and Duff .

I started listening to the really good stuff around 1985. The Beatles were always there, of course. How could you not hear them? But it wasn’t ‘til I bought used copies of The Beatles 1962-1966 (The Red Album) and The Beatles 1967-1970 (The Blue Album) that I got the bug. Released in 1973, these were essentially the only “Greatest Hits” type package they ever released. Each was a set of two albums made of glorious bright red or blue vinyl!

I was very impressed with the energy, the harmonies and the sheer quality and diversity in the music. While rooted in Rock and Roll, they played variations on just about every musical style you can imagine, except maybe bebop. Other artists have tried and some have been truly inspirational. But no other band can match the Fab Four. John Lennon was, and still is, my favorite.

I remember saving up $110 (big bucks at the time) from my busboy gig just to send off to England for The Beatles Collection, a mail-order package of their original 12 albums on the Parlophone label. I didn’t want the American versions because Capital Records had left tracks off of some English releases so they could cull them together with singles to create “new” albums. What a scam! Anyhow, I took each vinyl disc out, played it once – taping to cassette of course – and then locked them away, where they have been ever since.

Through the 80’s and 90’s, friends and rock radio (KLOS and KMET in Los Angeles) began to influence my choices. I was a music sponge for the better part of 20 years. I loved and appreciated all kinds of music. But for a few exceptions, punk music, new wave and rap just left me cold.

I went through phases. First it was the Doors… then the hard rock scene grabbed me. AC/DC, Rush, Scorpions and Guns ‘N Roses being my favorites. I tried to grow my hair long to fit in with my new crowd, but it just kind of grew outwards in every direction! So, I gave that up and just stayed a short-haired rocker.

Then I made a left-turn to singer songwriters like Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Elton John, James Taylor, Carole King and Jackson Browne. World music pop stars like Peter Gabriel and the current stylings of Paul Simon were next.

Around 1990, I went back to my childhood and embraced Sinatra again. The best of his music is just so good, well sung and arranged. Much of it rocks too. There may not be guitars, but many of the records he made with Count Basie’s band are in 4/4 time with a huge backbeat. Check this out if you don’t believe me:

This naturally led me to the Jazz world where the likes of Coletrane, Monk, Brubeck, Armstrong and Ella took over my CD player for quite a bit.

All good things come full-circle though. In the late 1990’s, I was turned on to Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys. Like a lot of people, I kind of undervalued the music they played. It was all fun-in-the-sun, good-time music for sure, but I just thought of them as an oldies band.

A buddy of mine (our very own Cliff) talked this Brian Wilson guy up like he was the musical equivalent to Jesus himself! OK, so I started reading up on them. As I did, my admiration grew. While the Beatles were clearly an outstanding entity, they did enjoy the benefit of having two master songwriters plus an old pro George Martin producing and lending a hand with arrangements. Brian Wilson did all of this himself, writing, arranging and producing massive hits in 1962 at the age of 20. Impressive!

So I acquiesced and borrowed his box set, “Good Vibrations”. Whoa! The hits all sounded great in their remastered format. At close listen, the nuances that float past you on the AM radio dial become apparent. The interesting counterpoint harmonies, the inclusion of non-traditional rock instruments (banjo, theremin, harp, flute) and the bass playing of Carole Kaye

hitting all kinds of non-root chord notes that lend great texture to the songs.

Plus, there were gems all over the place that I didn’t know, like “Kiss Me Baby”, “Please Let Me Wonder”, “The Little Girl I Once Knew”, most of the songs on Pet Sounds, “Surf’s Up”, and “‘Til I Die”. Amazing stuff, indeed.

When I found out in early 2000 that Brian Wilson was making a comeback from his many well-documented mental health issues and was putting a tour together with a top notch band, I knew I had to be there. As luck would have it, one of his first big gigs was at the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood… right next door to the Rainbow and owned by the same people. What luck!

I called Mike and he said it would be no problem getting in. So, mom and I sat in the VIP section of the packed Roxy with the likes of Lindsay Buckingham and Jon Bon Jovi. It was such a great night. Read my review here: http://rockandrollwritein.com/concert-review-brian-wilson-4800-237structure.

For the last 10 years or so, I’ve really gotten to enjoy the 60’s sound again. Music that was popular when I was a wee lad is what still resonates with me today. The Beach Boys, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Beatles, The Hollies, The Doors, The Allman Brothers, Joni Mitchell, The Byrds, Steely Dan, Crosby Stills Nash & Young and others of that generation are now in heavy rotation on my computer.

There are many more artists and influences to discuss. This website is here to discuss, enjoy and ponder this great music! We’d love to hear from you.

The Beach Boys – Please Let Me Wonder

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