MY LIFE IN RECORDS
Bill Bricker
| THE RECORD OF MY EARLIEST MUSICAL MEMORY | THE RECORD THAT DEFINED WHAT'S FUNNY | THE RECORD THAT ESTABLISHED "SEXY COOL" | D@MN! | LONG PLAYERS |
 Mary Poppins Soundtrack (1964) Various Artists |
 Wonderfulness (1966) Bill Cosby |
 Whipped Cream & Other Delights (1965) Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass |
 Jonathan Edwards (1971) Jonathan Edwards |
 American Pie (1971) Don McLean |
| This entry exemplifies a commonality similar to all here: a hard choice between many possibilities. MARRY POPPINS wins out over MY FAIR LADY because of the chronology, but also due to the fact that "Feed the Birds" resonates with me much stronger on an emotional level than any song Audrey Hepburn pretended to sing. Every note and every lyric of both musicals is etched into my brain as I listened endlessly to my mother's record collection. Oddly, unless I looked it up just now, I never would have been able to name the writers Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman. So hat's off to them. Another commonality you will see is comments such as this: Julie Andrews is hot. | "The chicken heart was kept in a vat, in a special solution, half blood, half sodium silicatate. Da-dump, da-dump, da-dump. One day a careless janitor knocked the vat over. The heart ate him up. Da-dump, da-dump, da-dump. It moved out into the hallway, rang for the elevator. "Fourth floor, AAAAGhh" Da-dump, da-dump, da-dump. The chicken heart grew." If I have to put a music record here, it would be THE SOUND OF SILENCE. |
You can blame my brother for this purchase and the introduction of sex into my psyche. The sequence here is out of order from release date owing to the time I discovered the albums, not when they first came out. So it's more like 1968 or 69 before this one hit my radar. I had no idea what sex was... but this was it. Add to this the utter coolness of the musical style and it's a home run in my memory of how to produce and sell music. Alpert's influence on production for the Carpenters and movies such as Casino Royale (with Sellers not Craig) spread the level of input sources for me. Horns rule. |
SUNSHINE represents a phase of my life that can be described in two words: AM Radio. Endless car rides to places only my parents were interested in and long hours of nothing to do on vacation at my grandparents house were made bearable by tuning in and listening until sign off time. Remember when stations actually went off the air? This song stands out for two reasons. One, it's a freaking great folk song evoking a heavy "get off my back" theme. Big stuff for an army brat with an authority complex. And two, I remember how stations bleeped "damn." Snicker. Another contender for this slot was BOY NAMED SUE by Johnny Cash. But what I recall was how I understood censoring "son of a b!tch" but not something as nothing as "damn". | Here we continue the theme of music discovered on the road. I can distinctly recall the anticipation - and resultant joy or angst - when the DJ would decide to play the LP (read: REAL) version or determine it was time to torture us by cutting it short with the just the single. LAYLA could easily have taken this spot since Clapton would reappear on the soundtrack to high school years with songs like BELL BOTTOM BLUES and I SHOT THE SHERIF. But McLean's crazy lyrics and my marked recollection of hoping I could record the whole song on my combo radio/cassette recorder before it ran out of tape... Ya!!! |
| MY FIRST CONCERT AND TODD RECORD | THE RECORD THAT REVEALED THERE'S MORE TO LIFE THAN TR | ANOTHER SOUNDTRACK OF THE SEVENTIES |
THE 8-TRACK THAT SAVED MY LIFE | THE ALBUM THAT PROVED WOMEN ROCK |
|
 Brain Salad Surgery (1973) Emerson Lake and Palmer |
 A Night At The Opera (1975) Queen |
 Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren (1971) Todd Rundgren |
 Little Queen (1977) Heart |
After my friend Mitch introduced me to Rundgren's A Wizard/A True Star (AWATS) and took me to my first rock concert, my world was forever changed. Having no money of my own, I relied on gifts for ownership. So although this is not the first record I bought, it is the first and most notable I remember receiving. My mom got it on a trip she took to New Orleans. It was many years before I could recreate the play list from that first show. With only two or three songs known to me at the time, I had only "fake names" in my head and fleeting memories of the set list. Much joy was brought to my life when Frank Bubnick made available the actual recoding of the very event. Lately, I have noticed how much the snyths and production match Edgar Winter's FRANKENSTEIN. How is it that gets played still today, but UTOPIA THEME was considered too weird to make it on radio? |
At some point into my world obsessed view of all things Todd, I decided I should expand my musical horizons. ELP's BRAIN SALAD SURGERY was a choice most worthy. Can't believe I never saw these guys live. Notable impressions from this adventure include the stunning gate-fold reproduction of HR Geiger's artwork, and the expansive epic tale in three parts that is Karn Evil 9. The lyrics from the Third Impression are the best combination of Sci-Fi and bombastic rock ever. The battle between man and sentient computers he created. "I am all there is/ Negative! primitive! limited! I let you live!/ But I gave you life/ What else could you do? / To do what was right/ I'm perfect! are you?" The Sci-Fi connection continued and got further emblazened in pop culture when Geiger's art was used as the basis for Ridley Scott's ALIEN. Other possibles here were Bowie's ZIGGY STARDUST or FOXTROT by Genesis. |
I love how young folks today think BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY is from Wayne's World. The culture owes a debt to Mike Myers for keeping the '70s experience alive by resurrecting one of the anthems of my senior year. In truth, FRAMPTON COMES ALIVE was the album I liked more than this one--although why anyone needed to buy something that was on the radio 24/7, I don't know. Both albums got plenty of play including most of the other tracks from each. This was still before corporations completely controlled the airwaves and stations would spin discs in their entirety. It's hard to say if WE WILL ROCK YOU completely usurped Queen's landmark opus. A prime contender for this slot was Fleetwood Mac's RUMORS or the debut album from BOSTON. I stuck with RHAPSODY because it is another of those that prove conventional radio rules are fer crap. |
Here the sequence remains akilter and the choice of star album difficult. The obvious pick is to place SOMETHING/ ANYTHING? here. Or the afore mentioned AWATS. But if you want the obvious, you get the obvious, so I'm going with the record with the best personal story. Owing to legal battles never told, RUNT and BALLAD were not available for purchase until released on CD in the '80s. However, ever-vigilant fans (and their families under precise instruction) could score the albums in cut out bins and used record stores. The result for me was I did not own BALLAD until the summer of 1976 when brother George found and bought it for me on 8 track tape. Adding to my frustration, I did not possess the equipment, and therefore could only listen in his car. It was there, after a night of repeated plays, that I decided I would live following the news from my girlfriend that we would now be "just friends." | Nancy Wilson, I love you. |
