I was reading about a movie that will come out called "Blinded By the Light". About a young Pakistani kid in England who has an epiphany when he first heard Springsteen.
It made me think of myself and everyone else. That we all had that moment sometime early in life when music hits you like a sledge hammer. In 1956 I was nine. The only music I had heard was from tv shows mostly and some radio. The music was from my parents generation. Crooners. Sinatra, Bing Crosby, The Kingston Trio etc. It did not affect me much. My sister was four years older than me and she got a 45 record player for a present. And she brought home some records. It was the first time I really heard Elvis. I had heard about him. At nine I didn't care much. But when that music came out that box it hit me.
It was nothing like anything I had heard. Heartbreak Hotel. It grabbed me. From that point on. We had all the 45 hits of Elvis. I memorized every song. Later came Motown and then the Beatles. But it was Elvis that first rang the bell. The Vegas Elvis didn't do much for me. But damn when he first came out. Later Hendrix "Purple Haze" hit me like that.
I am sure everyone all born at different times remembers that first time when music hit you like a slap in the face. That was a awakening.
For me, it was the Huntley/Brinkley Report (NBC Evening News). The sign-off.
From the time I was about 4 years old, I would play in my room, ignore the TV until 6:58, when I'd come racing into the living room and plunk myself down as close to the speaker as I could. The sounds that came from the end of the show were like a foreign world, full of magic and mystery. I lived for the nights when there was a lot of foreign coverage, because that meant more credits... and I get to hear more of that incredible music.
It was fast and energetic. It was serious, yet rollicking. It had weight, yet ran like the wind... and I couldn't get enough of it. I was 7 or 8 before I ever read the credits, and even then, the words left no imprint on me. It was years later that I learned what I was hearing:
I've been lucky enough to have played it about a dozen times over the years, and it never fails to give me gooseflesh and childhood flashbacks every first rehearsal. ps- it lays very nicely on the instrument and is a blast to play.
Glad it was made-to-order. I have several others that correspond to specific artists/albums/genres, but I want to step aside to let other Dawgs have their days.
It's a bit difficult to identify one specific song or moment because I grew up in a house where there was almost always music playing. I always enjoyed the music and it was a big thing for my relatives to watch me dance to songs from Sinatra, Ella, Tony Bennett, Nancy Wilson, etc.
I do remember hearing My Girl on the radio for the first time. I was around 7 or 8 years old, so it must have been 1964 or 1965. That song sparked something in me and I danced like I never danced before.
I quickly became infatuated w/the Motown song and I couldn't get enough of artists such as The Temptations, Four Tops, The Supremes, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Martha and the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, The Isley Brothers, etc.
I went through different phases over the years where particular songs and/or albums were truly huge moments, but I've never lost my love for Motown and still listen to it all the time.
One last thing about My Girl. I have never met anyone that did not like that song. Seriously. I always played music for my students before class would start or during quiet times and that song never failed to put smiles on their young faces and invoke a marvelous case of toe-tapping. That never changed from generation to generation.
Take one more listen and tell me that this song doesn't put you in a good mood...
King Crimson - The album "In the Court of the Crimson King".
The story behind my epiphany upon hearing this album isn't really for public consumption, and there's no use in watering it down. So, I'll leave it at that.
Though I will say - in a strictly musical sense - it changed my ideas about how a drum sound could be produced, how a bassist using a pick could shred, how a mellotron could be used in THE ominous way. And who was this cat "Robert Fripp"?
Still trying to find a way to see them this September. The 'KC@50' tour. Work may intrude- and that would be a shame. You only turn 50 once, after all...
Still trying to find a way to see them this September. The 'KC@50' tour. Work may intrude- and that would be a shame. You only turn 50 once, after all...
I saw them in 1995 on the "B'Boom" tour. They were still a four piece then with Belew. Definitely a sitting down, watching, listening, mouth agape type of deal. It blew me away. My head hurt for two days afterward.
They are an even bigger monster now, just having listened to their live "Orpheum" CD. Good luck.
Motown was huge. That sound was a hit when when I was in jr.high school and started going to dances. Gilmore Hall in Mayfield Heights.
Leo's Casino was happening and the house band was the O'Jay's. I went there and saw Little Stevie Wonder. I was a huge Smoky Robinson fan. Today I have my Motown list on spotify. Barry Gordon made the Motown sound into a hit machine. There were so many great artists that came through Motown and really brought black music into white America.
Right after that the Beatles hit. And of they changed the course of music.
But Elvis really brought me to music. After that I was always looking and listening.
Man, this isn't an easy one. I would have to say that you can't really point to a single "musical awakening". At least I can't. I am the oldest child by eight years in my family. So there was no older sibling to hear new music from. My parents only listened to country music which I had very little interest in at the time. So it kind of left me searching on my own.
So I have awakenings of different types of music at different points in my life. Things I found along my musical journey.
Of course I liked a lot of the Motown sound, the Stones and things I had heard a lot of. But in my community I really hadn't been turned onto a lot of black music other than Motown. Until I found Sly & the Family Stone.
In 1970 they came out with an album of their greatest hits. I was 12. Once I heard that I was hooked on Sly!
The same thing happened when I first heard Jeff Lynn and the Electric Light Orchestra.
The Allman Brothers Band caused me to study the roots of Blues, which caused me to discover Robert Johnson and the very origin of where the music I listen to comes from.
So as you can see, breaking it down to one moment, or one group is impossible for me to do. I think you'll find that to be the case with many music lovers.
I was like the opposite of Pit above. I was the youngest of 4.
So until I reached ~ 14, I listened to my older sister and brothers music (‘60s and late ‘50s rock & roll).
I’ll call “my awakening” when I split off and started listening to music I liked without the sibling influence.
Oddly, I’d say My Maria by B.W. Stevenson was certainly one of those songs.
(odd because My Maria is like a Country/Rock&Roll crossover and I'm not a huge country fan)(there's exceptions - mainly crossovers; crossover - songs that would be played on both types of radio stations)
I, like Pit, have a hard time narrowing down an exact moment that music clicked with me. I grew up with a dad that had a big record collection. CSNY, ELO, ABBA, Sly and the Family Stone, Phoebe Snow, Heart, Pink Floyd, The Who... mix in some classical, and some 40’s and 50’s era gospel like Tennessee Ernie Ford, or The Browns... the list could go on. My father’s fairly eclectic taste in music gave me a solid platform to move with beyond my childhood.
As I got a little older much of the popular music at the time started sounding hollow and vapid. The rise of ‘arena rock’ was giving way to hair metal. Yuck. Bands like Def Lepard and what not started dominating the airwaves. It just didn’t resonate with me. I ended up instead taking a deep dive into early rock and roll. I was drawn to searching out where it all came from. Buddy Holley became my go to. The real King of Rock and Roll in my mind. Then I learned that the guy that actually changed everything was Bill Haley and the Comets. His 1954 hit Rock around the Clock changed popular music forever. Yet Elvis gets the accolades. So I guess 50’s era Rock was my first true musical love affair.
Then one night in about 1991 I was at my 4th Grateful Dead show. A band I came to find through a roommate. I had listened to a few albums and such with him and decided to see some shows. They were all a good time... but that 4th show... as I stood there in the crowd while the band meandered musically in and out of noise and music... something within me clicked. Suddenly I knew the language that they were speaking. I understood the noise. I understood the band was taking me on a sonic journey. Sometimes the journey was weird and dark and unstructured... but they always returned you to safety. I fell in love with the Grateful Dead that night. Changed me as a person. Helped to heal my broken heart. Gave me my ‘tribe’. For that I’ll forever be grateful.
One of my best friends older brother went to Berklee college of music. And played baritone sax with Buddy Rich's band.
At the time 1964 music was on the move. But Joe and his friends were jazz guys. We would drive to Boston to visit and hang with the older cool guys. And I got turned on to all the jazz heavyweights of the 50's.
Coltrane, Miles, Parker, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young and many more.
These guys played notes straight from their minds. Pure musicians. Communicating on a non vocal plain. It was a whole new thing for me to interpret. It opened a new world of music to me.
To this day I am grateful for that exposure. Because when I need that; it is there.
Funny Dead story. I was in college in the late sixties to 71. A friend of my worked at a record store in Kent. He was trying to tell me about the Dead. And for some weird reason I associated their name with different music than what they played.
Then I moved to Berkeley in 71. And of course that changed things in many different ways.
I saw Jerry play with others around Berkeley before I saw a Dead concert. Blew me away.
Then moved to Atlanta and saw the Dead at the Fox theater which is a great venue. The single most perfect blend of sound I had heard.
I have a very strange musical awakening. I was 5 years old, just had my firt piano lesson and was learning the keys on the keyboard.
That evening, I noticed that this metal hinge on our back door made a musical sound when you twanged it. I told my parents that it sounded like a G sharp.
My parents thought I was crazy but my mom checked it out on the piano and I was right. The very first time I knew I had perfect pitch. Definitely a strange awakening to music.
Yeah I can't think of one single moment either. Our first taste of music is when we are in the womb and mom-to-be is playing whatever she wants to hear.
In our early years we are introduced to a lot. When I was four-to-seven years old roughly, I listened to a lot of music by Stompiin' Tom Connors, who is a Canadian musical icon. If you've ever watched a hockey game and heard The Hockey Song, that's him.
1986: David Gilmore's guitar solo in Comfortably Numb. Me and a buddy smoked, put on that song and it changed my guitar playing.
1977 or so: I'd hear Boston and KISS on the radio, started getting into harder rock after hearing a tonne of AM pop, disco and my mother's country albums (born in 67).
1986: David Gilmore's guitar solo in Comfortably Numb
There is simply no one else out there who can use the minor blues scale in a solo like David Gilmour. Clapton comes close, but Gilmour has this inexhaustible catalog of motives and gestures that he can plug & play at will. His solos always soar, without ever possessing a hint of 'shred.' Which is funny, because he shows ample finger chops when he transitions back to the top of the form.
His solos always tells a story, with a beginning, middle, and end. And he routinely does it in a 2- or 3- rep cover of the form.
Eloquent. Concise. No wasted notes.
This is the measure of true artistry.
When Jazz Guys talk about their colleagues' solos, a term always comes up consistently: note choice. It's appropriate here, because improvised solos over chord-based form set the foundation of Jazz, which was the primary influence for R&R. Gilmour's note choice is as clean, precise and incisive as possible. It gets to the point, adds its voice to the song's narrative- and never gets in the way of the overall story. It's never about David. It's always about The Composition.
As a symphonic playa who has been fortunate enough to learn how to play a backup role and also get up-front and jam, I will always deeply respect soloists who understand and love form/architecture.
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Even with a youthful bzzz... you had enough going for yourself to appreciate the genius that fried your brain that night.
Players get it.
Nothing beats putting one's fingers on wood and string... and delving into the mind of a genius. Your contact with the guitar gives you direct, physical access to David Gilmour's brain.
I can only feel his solos through 4 strings and a distillation of the richmess of his guitar prowess. You get to explore him uncut.
1986: David Gilmore's guitar solo in Comfortably Numb
His solos always soar, without ever possessing a hint of 'shred.' Which is funny, because he shows ample finger chops when he transitions back to the top of the form.
This is true.
Another great example of this is on the "Pompeii" version of his first "Echoes" solo. Gave me goosebumps first time I heard it.
