We didn’t like all of mom’s records. There were a few that didn’t make the roation when we were playing DJ. You are probably not surprised that I can’t remember what they were. The memory is a strange thing. I might be jumping ahead here but in late 1985 or maybe early 1986, I bought my first CD player. People my age will remember that back in those days a good CD player for your component system was hundreds of dollars. CD’s themselves were $20 and the local record store would have racks and racks of vinyl albums and a tiny section for the New Compact Discs. One of my projects early on was to try to recreate my mom’s collection on CD. It took 25 years but I think I’ve done a pretty good job. Don’t let me forget to tell you the story of how I got my first CD player.
The 5th Dimension – Aquarius
Steely Dan – Hey Ninenteen
Bread – Baby I’m A Want you I believe this marks the first use of “I’m a” in popular music.
Although mom had a fairly extensive collection and it seemed to include just about everything, I notice now that it was missing some big names of the era. Elvis Presley for example. I know mom liked Elvis a little bit I think at some point she had some elvis albums. The Scratchy 45’s did not include Elvis. Other examples of absentees include The Rolling Stones, The Who, Aerosmith, Yes, The Doors and The Beatles. She had some John Lennon, George Harrison and Paul McCartney stuff but the Beatles didn’t make it with the exception of Nowhere Man Which i beleive might have been acquired after we watched the animated Yellow Submarine. I should ask my mother why she didn’t have more Beatles stuff. After all she was the right age for the British invasion. My guess is that she was simply fond of Top 40 style pop music and more album oriented rock artists didn’t reach her over the radio.
The Beatles – Nowhere Man
John Denver – Sunshine On My Shoulders A few years later, John Denver would show up on 8-Track and I would really get into that. We’ll discuss more about it later. Here’s where it started.
Three Dog Night – The Show Must Go On I think this might have been a B-side to one of their more mainstream, mom oriented hits but we liked it. Maybe it was the circus sounding parts. What does Three Dog Night mean anyway? How did they come up with that. I know I could probably look it up but I like a little mystery.
Paul Anka – Put your Head On My Shoulder
Lesley Gore – It’s My Party
Danny & The Juniors – At The Hop Just wanted to remind you that mom’s records spanned three decades.
Mom had this album in her collection. To this day, I have never heard it. I can’t even say if it was hers or left by Dad or something else. I remember the cover vividly. In fact, to get this image I went to Bing image search and typed in Frankie Laine Hell Bent For Leather. I remembered it exactly. So it had to have some kind of impact. Can you think of an album from your childhood that you knew so well and yet never heard? Before I proceed let me share this with you. I thought I searched Frankie Laine but on closer inspection of the search window which is still open on another tab, I see that I actually typed Frankie Lame. Do you think that the LAME was an unconscious manifestation of how I feel about country music? I’ve never been a fan of country music.
As a child, I remember watching Hee-Haw, Johnny Cash, Glen Campbell and other country music television programs. I don’t hate it, i just can’t get interested enough to listen to it or buy any. I’ve gotten close. By this I don’t mean that I was standing in the checkout with a Garth Brooks CD then set it down at the last second. I mean that I have purchased music that in some instances comes very close to resembling what people may call country music. Some of that early Olivia Newton-John stuff has that country twang to it. Rhinestione Cowboy actually has the word cowboy in the title. Maybe I’m just fooling myself when I say “That’s not Country, it’s Bluegrass or Folk music.
I must admit that this Frankie Laine album has got me curious now. I wonder what it sounds like. I guess I may just have to break down and pick it up to see. I also wonder if we never dared to play this because it had Hell in the title and at our young ages we were afraid of what it might lead to. This is another examply of musical influence. I could buy Frankie Laine and really enjoy it then go back and collect more of his catalog. That backfill method has been employed on numerous occasions as you will see.
The 5th Dimension – Up Up And Away
Cher – Gypsys Tramps And Thieves
The Partridge Family – I Woke Up In Love This Morning
The Animals – House Of The Rising Sun
The Carpenters – We’ve Only Just Begun Karen Carpenter has such a great voice. It seems so natural and never forced or strained.
I hope the jumping around in time doesn’t bother you. As I stated early on, I wasn’t going to attempt to put all of mom’s 45’s into any kind of chronological order. They weren’t in any order when we found them. Even though the music that makes up The Scratchy 45 Days comes from three decades [50’s 60’s and 70’s] my association with with was really just about 7 or 8 years.
Ray Stevens – Everything Is Beautiful Kind of weird to see Ray Stevens sing this song when you consider The Streak and the other humrous songs for which he is famous.
The Partridge Family – I Think I Love You
Five Man Elictrical Band – Signs
Paul McCartney & Wings – Let ‘Em In
Jackie DeShannon – What The World Needs Now
The Stylistics – You Make Me Feel Brand New
Olivia Newton-John – Have You Never Been Mellow
Olivia Newton-John shows up several times in The Scratchy 45 Days but this was alwasy a favorite of mine. Staye tuned, she’ll be back.
I’m still not quite satisfied with the layout but I feel that I must press on. I don’t want to fall too far behind and yet i don’t want to do do too much just in case I end up starting over. At the moment, we are still in the period known as The Scratchy 45 Days where the source of our musical discovery lies in the large but still limited collection of mom’s 45’s. She really did have a lot of records and from what I have always felt a wide variety of artists and styles. The time window here is a fuzzy late 1960’s to late 1970’s. I say fuzzy because the entrance was when I was 3 to 4 years old and very difficult to remember with any clarity. afterall I couldn’t read at that time including clocks and calendars. The end of the period is also fuzzy but mainly because of a long overlapping of era’s as mom’s collection faded out and my own began with The KISS Age.
I’ve spent a good deal of time looking through my media library and trying to pick out the songs that fall belong to The Scratchy 45 Days. There really are a lot. It is difficult to put into words the musical explosion that took place at that time. I hope that you don’t find The Scratchy 45 Days boring as I spin these stacks of 7. I’m only trying to be thorough. So lets get to it.
Del Shannon – Runaway This was a favorite of my mother’s.
Remember a few posts back I told you that I was going to experiment with the format? I did a post of some random songs from The Scratchy 45 Days then I do a post focused on an Artist. I’m still not crazy about the results. One thing that comes to mind is the tag cloud at the bottom of the page. The more a particular tag is used, the larger it becomes. Looking at it now, I feel that the tag cloud might have been a valuable tool to demonstrate the presence of a particular artist. This is where doing a post on ABBA undercuts their presence in the tag cloud. 7 songs and only one tag.
I haven’t posted anything for a few days now because I’m trying to understand what it is I’m trying to accomplish and I’m wondering if I’m going about this in the best way. Second thoughts. While I don’t foresee a complete tear down and rebuild, there might be significant changes to the approach and I’m hesitant to keep building. While I think about this, you can check out this next stack of 7.
Bread – Everything I Own
Chicago – If You Leave Me Now
Creedence Clearwater Revival – Lookin’ Out My Back Door
Olivia Newton-John – If You Love Me Let Me Know
The Carpetners – Top Of The World
Paul MsCartney & Wings – Band On The Run If I give it a moment of serious thought. I think that I like Paul the most of the ex-Beatles. Then George and then John. John lennon had a couple of good songs that are firmly planted in My Musical Evolution but they weren’t ever as “beloved” as Paul’s or George’s. I wonder if that is something subliminally political. I really don’t care for “pop stars” who start to view themselves as “artists” that become “activists” because they feel that we must obey their opinions. John Lennon, Madonna, Prince, Bono, The Dixie Chicks and Lady Ga Ga are a few that have followed that disappointing path. Just do what you do best and entertain. Don’t use the stage as your soapbox. Maybe I take secret pleasure in knowing that it infuriated John Lennon to be outsold by Paul. Lennon chose message Paul chose music.
I could probably spend the entire year dissecting all these songs from The Scratchy 45 Days. They all seem to carry some memory or emotion that could be expanded upon. I’ve done some math. At 52 weeks per year, I can spend one week per year of my life with a few left over. Granted there may be some less remarkable years that may not require a full week to map out. For example, I summarized the first 5 years in about 4 days. If I stuck to one week per year, we’d just be finishing year two. I think the next big change in course happens when I’m 10 so that means we have until about March 4th to keep spinning these Scratchy 45s!
Paul Revere And The Raiders – Indian Reservation
Skeeter Davis – The End Of The world
Paul Mauriat – Love is Blue
R. Dean Taylor – Indiana Wants Me
Hamilton, Joe Frank And Reynolds – Don’t Pull Your Love
The song is good but the band name song like I should be calling them if I’ve been injured or need to file for bankruptcy.
Steam – Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye)
I thought that was Eric Raymond singing for minute there.
Mom had a few favorites like Andy Williams and Perry Como but the singer she liked the most was Neil Diamond. She had a couple of Neil’s albums including this one Hot August Night. During The Scratchy 45 Days, we stayed away from the albums and just focused on the 45s. We’d get the albums out from time to time mostly at Christmas, since most of them were Christmas albums or when we would do Spotlight Operas. I tell you more about them soon.
Again, this may be the nostalgia talking but there is something cool about Neil Diamond’s voice and musical style. He has so many hits and they all seem to transport me back to The Scratchy 45 Days. It always remind me of cruising in the car, it is always summer and it is always a Hot August Night.
Let’s drop a stack of 7 with Neil Diamond starting with my favorite – Sweet Caroline
I Am.. I Said
Song Sung Blue
Cracklin’ Rosie
Play Me
Stones
Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show
Kind of hard to imagine a Hot August Night on a cold winter’s night in January.
We’re still sorting through mom’s pile of 45 rpm records. For the most part, I’m just randomly selecting songs as they come to mind. My research tools are The Eclectic Collection, my media library, my memory, YouTube and the web in general. I’m sure this could have been planned out better. It could have had more production value, but I feel that there might be a little more free association opportunity by simply winging it like this.
I also realize that a major piece of My Musical Evolution is outside influences and so far there really haven’t been any apart from mom. More will appear. You have to remember that at this time, I’m still under 10 years old. I’m the oldest sibling and my friends at school aren’t really talking about music yet. That is about to change but for now I’m going to keep plugging away at the scratchy 45s. I feel it is important to try to represent as large of a sample as possible. Mom had so many records and as you might have noticed by the samples so far, they are all over the place. Well as all over the place as you can get while keeping to the rather flexible boundaries of popular music. Here’s another stack of 7.
Probably one of the most under rated groups of the 60’s, The Association – Never My Love
10 years before The Moody Blues appeared in my CD Collection, they we here in mom’s record collection The Moody Blues – Nights In White Satin
Another song that I really liked at the time was Dave Loggins – Please Come To Boston
During The Scratchy 45 Days, The Hollies were synonymous with The Air That I Breathe but like The Moody Blues, when I began to seek them out on CD, I found out that they had some other great songs as well.
There is something classic about Carly Simon – I Haven’t Got Time For The Pain
In 1982, I was really into David Bowie’s Little China Girl, in 1972 mom was into David Bowie – Fame
The last of this stack of 7 goes to my dear departed uncle George Harrison – My Sweet Lord
He isn’t really my uncle. Here I am again at the bottom of the stack and thinking what a bunch of great old songs. Mom really had it going on with her scratchy 45s. Is that really true? Can I be objective with material so closely associated with my childhood? What ever the underlying sentiments are, listening to these songs again give me great joy. I hope they do the same for you.
Osmond. What a strange sounding name. Osmond. It sounds made up like Engelbert Humperdinck. As odd as that name sounds, in the 1970’s, it was a household name. Mom’s Scratchy 45s had plently of Osmond Brothers records. We watched The Donny And Marie Show. Was it a simpler time? Were we more innocent? What would the world be like today if Donny had taken the stage with his nickname Ozzie Osmond. Would he have bitten the heads off of stuff? Who can say?
So let’s jump into our Osmond stack and see what happens. Here’s Yo-Yo
One Bad Apple I vaguely remember The Osmund brothers and the Jackson 5 each having their own Saturday morning cartoon. Maybe I dreamt it but this was the theme song.
Go Away Little Girl. When I was in first grade, I used to hold hands on the playground with a little red headed girl named Laurie. She may not remember, but this was our song. It seems funny to think about forty years later. The song says that he wasn’t supposed to be with her because he was already dating somebody else. In my mind the I’m not supposed to be alone with you was me recognizing that I was only in first grade and should be thinking about dodgeball and not dating.
Down By The Lazy River
Puppy Love
Too Young
I’m Leaving It All Up To You
OK That last one wasn’t really The Osmund Brothers but I threw it in to finish off our segment on Osmunds. Andy Williams pops up again. Interesting. I admit, The Donny And Marie Show probably had some influence on My Musical Evolution. I can remember my family watching it but apart from the ice skaters and the Little Bit Country, Little Bit Rock ‘n Roll section, I can’t remember much about it. I did think that Marie Osmund was pretty hot back then. She still is I guess.
