Tagged ~ My Top Ten Favorite Albums

Here's the thing ... I just could do a list and leave it at that.  But I can't.  And you know why too; I'll be the first to admit it:  I'm a little verbose.  Or some days, a lot verbose.

I checked into Facebook on my lunch today and saw that I was tagged to list my top ten favorite albums (Hmmm, thanks Alexis!).  No time then to consider it and I worked straight through dinner until my evening meetings which ran until after 10:00.  That meant I had all day to ponder the question in the back of my mind and what could have been a list turned into a post.

Here's another thing ... I love everyone's lists on Facebook:  the albums, the books, the movies, the vacation spots, etc.  But what I really want to know is why?  Why is that book so important to you?  How did that movie affect you so deeply it made an indelible impression?

So here's my list ... plus a little more.  Feel free to read just the large print (the list) and skip my inevitable ramblings ....

These are in order--chronological order.

Pete Seeger, Children's Concert at Town Hall, 1963.  I actually wrote about this record recently.  A classic, the recording had a profound influence on my childhood and provided a framework, I think, for how my brain became wired for certain kinds of music--music that makes a statement or tells a story of some sort.

The in-between years:  The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Bobby Sherman, The Osmond Brothers, David Cassidy

John Denver, Poems & Prayers and Promises, 1971.  When I looked up the date of this record on line, I was surprised it dates back to 1971.  I think I listened to John Denver during my high school years (a little after 1971).  There are so many songs on this LP that I can still sing and that folk-rock-pop thing has stayed with me forever.

Seals and Crofts, Summer Breeze, 1972.  Love songs. Lovingly written and lovingly performed.  

Rick Wakeman, The Six Wives of Henry the VIII, 1973.  I played this album until the grooves were gone.  This is the first solo project of Rick Wakeman, a composer and keyboardist who may be best known as a member of the band, Yes.  It's an all-instrumental collection (in the classical world we would have called it a suite) of his musical interpretations of the personalities of King Henry VIII's wives.  As a pianist, my most successful performances were always of pieces by one impressionistic composer or another.  This album is very impressionistic.

Barry Manilow, This One's For You, 1976.  We played it to death on my floor of the dorm at my college--an all-female dorm.  On any given day some one (or more) of us was breaking up or making up with some guy (who probably didn't deserve us) and this was one of our soundtracks.

Willie Nelson, Stardust, 1978.  Thus began my love of both country singers and old standards ... an unlikely combination but if you listen to this record, you'll get it.

The other college stuff:  Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, The Eagles

The '80's:  Lionel Richie, Cyndi Lauper, more Bruce, more Billy

Garth Brooks, No Fences, 1990.  What Garth says about the 8th track, Unanswered Prayers: "sometimes happiness isn't getting what you want ... it's wanting what you've got."

My lost years:  Stephen Curtis Chapman, Soundtracks from Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail and not much else.

Gavin DeGraw ~ His Whole Catalog (2003-2014 but not discovered by me until 2012).  This is what I call a phenomenon in my life.  I can't explain it.  I just continue to ride it and go wherever it takes me.  And I can't pick just one record.  I play them all--all the time.

Michael Franti and Spearhead, All People, 2013.  I first heard of Michael in the context of a Gavin DeGraw concert and was immediately a fan of not just his music but his very ethos.  A force for good, a champion of justice, a poet ... when you hear him live, you fall under the spell and he makes you want to be a better person.

Sara Bareilles, The Blessed Unrest, 2013.  Every song reminds me of a prior chapter of my life or points me to the future I hope to have.

There are so many other recordings that belong on this list, chief among them the Horowitz live recording of the Rachmaninoff 3rd piano concerto with the New York Phiharmonic.  Unspeakably beautiful.  The Mozart and Durufle requiems belong somewhere here too.  And don't get me started on cast albums ... Les Mis, The Man of La Mancha, Chorus Line ...

I need to stop.  This was a fun exercise but I'm sure I'll never be tagged for one of these lists again.  Thanks for indulging me!

Memories and Memorials

It's September 11.  I live not too far from New York.  It goes without saying I suppose that this day is a sad one for all of us and maybe particularly for those who live or work in those areas of impact where the lingering scars in the landscape and proliferation of memorials from local structures to the larger nationally known monuments at the sites themselves are daily reminders from which we cannot run.

There are those empty spaces in the New York skyline that have yet to cease feeling like a punch in the gut when I get to that spot on the ride into the City and realize anew every time that the missing pieces are gone for good and how they came to be that way--what the significance of their absence means ... the monumental loss.  I'm continually surprised each time I see the new Freedom Tower in the skyline as though my brain can't accept it--how did that get there, it seems to wonder.

So like millions of others I've been remembering all day ... where I was and who I was with.  The collective television watching with the same horrific images repeating over and over.  The local reports of people who made it home, covered in ash, being hosed down at local train stations.  The local people who didn't make it home.  The gamut of emotions that raged over the course of the days that followed but mostly the extreme sadness and then the empty feeling after you just couldn't cry anymore.

After the news cycles eventually returned to normal and the events of September 11 weren't the sum total of the morning and evening broadcasts, those in the greater New York area still heard stories on a daily basis during the long recovery process.  We followed the debris as it made it's way out of the hole and went to stations for sorting.  Years later there were still stories almost daily about the aftermath of illnesses that befell first responders and those who worked in the pit, the reparations and donations.  The New York memorial services are still televised live on the 11th every year.  They still read the names of every person who perished.  If I am able to tune in, I still listen for the names I recognize.

I have other memories that really stand out:  twisted metal on trucks.  It happened more than once during the first years following the attacks.  I'd be on the highway going who-know-where and I'd pass or be passed by a flatbed truck carrying one or two or perhaps three lengths of twisted, rusted metal.  I didn't have to wonder what it was or where it was going.  It just took my breath away each time.  The beams, always lying tied to the trucks, appeared to me to be prostrate in a sort of twisted permanent agony as they traveled to the myriad communities that built memorials to honor the memories of those who died, the service of those who responded and the pain of the families left behind.

I see two such memorials fairly regularly and another almost daily.  There is one in a sports field complex in the town where I work.  Our county memorial is near a building where I sometimes have to attend meetings.  The one I see often--almost daily--sits along the road that I travel from where I live now to the town where I grew up about 10 miles away and where my mom still lives, where I go out to eat, shop, attend church, see doctors, spend much of my life.

Morris Plains, NJ

I don't pass one of these installations without remembering.  I saw landscapers tending to the Morris Plains memorial the other day--the day before the 11th.  I imagined that their chores, performed routinely elsewhere, took on something of the sacred in that small patch of green on that day.

I wonder about the children who play on the soccer fields in Boonton Township where I work.  Most of them weren't born when the planes hit the towers.  How do their parents explain the tall pieces of steel to them?  How can they ever understand?

Do we now even understand ourselves?  I'm pretty sure I don't.

But I'll never forget.

The Whole Shebang ~ Another Gavin DeGraw Weekend (A SummerFun Chapter)

I can't wait to visit this venue in Hyannis again.

 It was a rather epic weekend.  Road trip to Massachusetts, 3 concerts, visiting my daughter, meeting lots of friends.  Days later, it's all jumbled together in my head:  one whole shebang*.

The week had started out with some disappointing news ... my daughter (a restaurant manager) would have no time off while I was in Boston because it was restaurant week.  She would not be able to go to the concerts either.  She indulges me once a year.  And this year I'd purchased meet and greets for us both.  I had my heart set on her meeting Gavin DeGraw so she'd know first hand what I know--how genuine and lovely he is in person.  I called the hotel and cancelled three of my five nights and regrouped.  I knew Phyllis had tickets for some of the same shows and was so happy when she agreed to travel with me for the three days.  I was still hoping for a last minute reprieve for my daughter too ...

The drive was slow ... an hour to get over the George Washington Bridge alone.   Texting with my daughter as we went, she confirmed she was working at both restaurants until past midnight.  I told her we'd be drop in to The Marliave for a late lunch to see her and would miss her company at the concert.  And that is how Nicole came to join us at the Blue Hills Pavilion harborside in Boston.  Let no ticket go unused ...