"The roller-coaster ride we took is nearly at an end. . .
And I think it's gonna be all right . . .
The mornin' sun is shinin' like a red rubber ball."
Bruce Woodley and Paul Simon, sung by The Cyrkle, 1966
He gave up his collection of LPs.
Ben Beach is a college classmate. He is a mostly-retired writer and editor, now living in Alexandria, Virginia. He set a record for the most consecutive finishes in the Boston Marathon: 54. That record was broken in April.
Like many 75-year-old Americans, I have fond memories of flipping through racks of record albums at the store: the Byrds, the Beatles, Lesley Gore, Chad & Jeremy, Simon & Garfunkel, the Shangri-Las, and untold others. By my 25th birthday, I must have had about 60 or 70 LPs.
Today, I have none. My wife and I recently moved from a four-bedroom home to a one-floor condo, and that meant all kinds of prized possessions had to go.
As I pulled the albums off the shelves and said goodbye, a flood of memories washed over me. The Beach Boys’ “Little Deuce Coupe” had the song “409.” My older brother drove a 409, generally considered the fastest car in “My Little Town.” He used to take part in midnight drag races down on the parkway against Sonny LeJeutis (Corvette) and Craig Mottola (Ford Galaxie 406). I wondered if my parents ever found out.
By the way, when the Beach Boys first reached me on the radio, I thought they might be long-lost cousins. Then it became clear that they were really the Wilson boys and were just calling themselves the Beach Boys.
I looked longingly at a couple of Everly Brothers albums. I recalled the night at an amusement park named Playland. A music-loving 16-year-old taking guitar lessons, I wondered if I might possibly be the next Phil or Don Everly. I stepped into a booth and recorded “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” Once I got home and listened, it was clear that I was not going to be either Phil or Don. To put it generously, my voice was sub-par.
How about tunes that bring back driving memories? The first time I drove at night, I heard the Supremes singing “Reflections,” and that song still takes me back to Route 22 in Armonk, N.Y. Other tunes that transport me to specific places include “I Think We’re Alone Now;” “Donna,” “California Girls;” “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter;” and “I Fought the Law.”
Coming across my Buddy Holly album was doubly sad, due to his early death in that Iowa cornfield. Every February 3, I check in with college classmate John Goldrosen, author of Buddy Holly: His Life and Music. Maybe you saw “The Buddy Holly Story,” the movie based on John’s biography.
My wife made me a lifetime Fleetwood Mac fan, starting in the late 1970s. And the good old Four Tops were with us on March 11, 1978, when we had our first slow dance. It was what the Drifters would call a “Magic Moment.”
It turned out to be a stroke of genius. I had a large collection of 45s but rarely went to the trouble of playing them. The jukebox enabled me to put any 80 of them in the slots and just push buttons. I rotate them from time to time. Twenty-five years after the jukebox entered my life, our first grandchild arrived. There are now six, and all have loved punching the buttons and dancing to the music of my youth.
Back to the albums. A neighbor’s son carted them away and sold them to people who will actually play them. It made no sense for me to have them sitting on those shelves when they had the power to make others happy.
And we found room in the condo for our Rock-Ola 448, still going strong. It’s five feet away, and I think I’ll walk over there and have the Crystals sing “He’s A Rebel.”
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Guest Post by Ben Beach
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Today, I have none. My wife and I recently moved from a four-bedroom home to a one-floor condo, and that meant all kinds of prized possessions had to go.
As I pulled the albums off the shelves and said goodbye, a flood of memories washed over me. The Beach Boys’ “Little Deuce Coupe” had the song “409.” My older brother drove a 409, generally considered the fastest car in “My Little Town.” He used to take part in midnight drag races down on the parkway against Sonny LeJeutis (Corvette) and Craig Mottola (Ford Galaxie 406). I wondered if my parents ever found out.
By the way, when the Beach Boys first reached me on the radio, I thought they might be long-lost cousins. Then it became clear that they were really the Wilson boys and were just calling themselves the Beach Boys.
I looked longingly at a couple of Everly Brothers albums. I recalled the night at an amusement park named Playland. A music-loving 16-year-old taking guitar lessons, I wondered if I might possibly be the next Phil or Don Everly. I stepped into a booth and recorded “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” Once I got home and listened, it was clear that I was not going to be either Phil or Don. To put it generously, my voice was sub-par.
I was a Box Tops fan and had their album with “The Letter.” You remember: “I don’t care how much money I gotta spend. Gotta get back to my baby again.” I was a college freshman 200 miles from my first serious girlfriend.
How about tunes that bring back driving memories? The first time I drove at night, I heard the Supremes singing “Reflections,” and that song still takes me back to Route 22 in Armonk, N.Y. Other tunes that transport me to specific places include “I Think We’re Alone Now;” “Donna,” “California Girls;” “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter;” and “I Fought the Law.”
Coming across my Buddy Holly album was doubly sad, due to his early death in that Iowa cornfield. Every February 3, I check in with college classmate John Goldrosen, author of Buddy Holly: His Life and Music. Maybe you saw “The Buddy Holly Story,” the movie based on John’s biography.
My wife made me a lifetime Fleetwood Mac fan, starting in the late 1970s. And the good old Four Tops were with us on March 11, 1978, when we had our first slow dance. It was what the Drifters would call a “Magic Moment.”
Thanks to Carol, letting go of my albums was somewhat less traumatic than it could have been. In 1989, she had organized a surprise 40th birthday party and gave me a jukebox. Way over the top crazy! What was she thinking?
It turned out to be a stroke of genius. I had a large collection of 45s but rarely went to the trouble of playing them. The jukebox enabled me to put any 80 of them in the slots and just push buttons. I rotate them from time to time. Twenty-five years after the jukebox entered my life, our first grandchild arrived. There are now six, and all have loved punching the buttons and dancing to the music of my youth.
Back to the albums. A neighbor’s son carted them away and sold them to people who will actually play them. It made no sense for me to have them sitting on those shelves when they had the power to make others happy.
And we found room in the condo for our Rock-Ola 448, still going strong. It’s five feet away, and I think I’ll walk over there and have the Crystals sing “He’s A Rebel.”
6 comments:
“My generation came of age with a soundtrack of the greatest music of all time, the music of the 1950s,'60s, and 70s”
That’s funny. That’s the same way my parents felt about their generation’s music – the big bands and Great American Songbook. They didn’t like ours, but did let us play the Kingston Trio or Peter, Paul and Mary when they were home. I’m sure kids today probably feel the same way about their music, most of which we can’t stand.
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
The music of your youth didn’t just define an era of social change, it changed the way we engage with music; from a collective experience to a personal one. LPs were still mostly played on stationary platforms and could be enjoyed alone, but mostly at gatherings or “on the air”. It was a communal experience. Tapes and CDs made music portable and more individual, and have since been displaced with streaming on-demand, anywhere music. Earbuds and headphones are ubiquitous. These technologies allow individual tastes to evolve into sub-cultures that have their own stars. Music is now mostly a solitary experience, except for rare phenom’s like Swift. So many genre’s from Gangsta Rap to Christian “worship” music to Electronica. Also the low bar of entry to create and distribute music content has diluted the notion of a curated generational sound. Not good or bad- just is.
I keep meaning to digitize my 100 or so albums. Courtesy of my synthesizer rig’s audio interface*, I have all the equipment I need, but other things keep coming up higher priority.
But you don’t need anything as fancy as that unless you are an audiophile. They sell turntables now for pretty cheap that plug into a USB port on your computer and you’re good to go.
* a Focusrite Scarlett 8i6, which can convert analog audio into 24-bit/192 kHz digital audio, way higher quality than any mere mortal like me would ever need for just listening (CDs are 16-bit/44.1 kHz)
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) became the first sitting House Democrat to go public with a call for President Biden to step aside as party standard bearer in the aftermath of last week’s debate.
Doggett, 77, criticized Biden’s track record as commander-in-chief, and stressed that “many Americans have indicated dissatisfaction with their choices in this election” and implied that keeping him on the ticket threatens the possibility of Donald Trump winning.
“I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson. Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw. President Biden should do the same,” he said in a statement.
Good for Dogget.
Biden needs to face the music, end his long-playing career, stop trying to spin what we all saw last Thursday, and close his album.
Great piece, Ben. I often remember sharing a dorm room with you when you were a college freshman, 200 miles from your girlfriend. You must have played "The Letter" over a thousand times. I hope you kept the 45 for your jukebox
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