Going to school at Vermont Academy was an amazing experience. First off, the location, Saxtons River, a tiny hamlet in southeast Vermont. The town’s population falling under 700 people. Joe Walsh lived there while I was in school. I saw him at the village market one day. I was still a few months away from my first Eagles album and I had no idea who he was. To me he just looked like any of the bandana hat wearing, ear ringed bohemian type dude that seemed fairly common in that area.
The next amazing thing was the student population. not only were there kids from all over the country but all over the world. Sure the same kinds of clique-ery and social behaviours that you might find in a typical high school were present, it just seemed that campus life added something more akin to family. When you are living on campus and sharing all your meals and riding all those sports buses with the same people for so many years, you get closer to more people.
Third was the size. When I went there, the student population for all four grades was about 280. It really is possible to know everybody.
Why all the rambling about campus life? It is because I can’t remember how I ended up with Quarterflash. Having acquired a pretty sizable library of my own music, radio play fell by the wayside. It is possible that I heard Harden My Heart on the radio but it is far more likely that I heard it in one of the dorms or on the juke box. So all that so-called rambling was merely an attempt to paint the picture of the environment where these chance influences might happen.
Regardless, Quarterflash was yet another album that I played frequently. Williams Avenue being a favorite. There was something about that guitar solo that starts about 4 and a half minutes in. The sound and style was so different compared to some of the guitar work I had been listening to. It seemed more jazzy and grown up.
Harden My Heart
Find Another Fool
Valerie
Williams Avenue