Vinyl Records
Vinyl Records
It's a beautiful summer day in Maine today. The leaves and lawn are lush and green, birds are singing everywhere. In the barren cold of winter it's hard to believe July will ever come, but it did, and it feels like a miracle.
All last night I listened to Julian Lage's album "View With a Room." On vinyl, of course. I keep putting the needle back to play the track "Tributary" over and over again. I'm a guitar player. I love listening to guitar players who are in love with the guitar, as Julian and Bill Frisell are on this song.
I bought the album at Moody Lords Vinyl/Vintage in Portland, Maine. Everywhere I travel in the world I rummage through the record shops seeking rare treasures. Moody Lords is a favorite, right up there with Balades Sonores in Paris, Concerto in Amsterdam, and Honest Jon's on Portobello Road in London.
I do, quite simply, enjoy listening to music, and the tactile pleasure of taking an album from its sleeve and placing it on the turntable, but there is a lot more to it than that. It informs me of so many things. The history of the artists, both in the world and in my own personal history. I lived in a townhouse on West Street in Portland, Maine. My first love would play Boz Scaggs singing "I'll be long gone, by the time you make up your mind..."
as if to prophesize things to come.
I write songs constantly. I have at least 8 in progress right now, and I'm always listening to how others have written theirs, stealing guitar riffs and ideas for song bridges. One thing I have in common with Bonnie Raitt is that we both like acoustic folk music as well as funky R&B, Blues, and Jazz. My recent record purchases are Sandy Denny from Fairport Convention, (she wrote the old Judy Collins' track "Who Knows Where the Time Goes."), the 45 of James Brown singing "King Heroin", still relevant, and the 45 of Howard Tate singing "Ain't Nobody Home" also recorded by Bonnie Raitt on her "Streetlights" album.
Write back to me and let me know what you're listening to this summer.