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!

Soul Satisfying Sunday ~ Grateful List #2

1. Genuine help.
2. Good television.
3. Great music.

Coming to the finish line of a wonderful weekend.  I really wish it didn't have end.  Such a satisfying two+ days and there is much for which to be grateful.

Friday night was Parents' Night Out at my church.  When I worked there (during my second tour of duty as Christian Ed Director) we started having Parents' Night Out once a month.  For a couple of dollars parents could leave their kids with me and teenagers and go out.  We did it from 5:30 until 9:30 when I worked there so that folks could do dinner and a movie if they'd like.  After I "retired again", PNO carried on.  It's a bit shorter of an evening now but still very popular.  And now, after a couple of years off, I'm back, hanging out with our kids once a month on a Friday night.  It's an important thing to me.  I know how precious time is to moms and dads and it's hard to get away together or alone to decompress or have grown-up conversations sometimes.  I'm thankful for the teenagers in my parish who help with childcare for these evenings.  They genuinely like being with little children and are so helpful and kind.  They know just what to do for each one and truly enjoy one another's company on these evenings as well.  It's a joy to be there--a privilege really.  Really, really young ones and young almost-adults coming together and parents getting some well-deserved time to themselves.

I played "hooky" from church today.  Or as my neighbor puts it, I was a heathen today.  After all, I'd been there all night Friday night and then again yesterday morning for the celebration of the life of a woman who was filled with grace and an example of a life well lived for all.  I'm so grateful to have known her.

Instead of church I went to Super Soul Sunday.  That's Oprah's Sunday morning show that exposes all different types of spiritual living, spiritual authors, directors, people who have found a level of peace in their lives and have the ability to talk about it.  The first hour is a rebroadcast of the previous week's interview.  That happened to be Rob Bell today.  It was followed by an hour with Mark Nepo.  Rob Bell has been a favorite author of mine for several years.  I used his radical teaching videos, Noomas, in my work with teens, and sometimes adults, at church.  I love his way of thinking about God.  Read Love Wins.  It will change your life.  I've had a couple of Mark Nepo's books in my house for a few months now.  I've been reading the entries from The Book of Awakening, a daybook with the subtitle, Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.  Here's a bit from today's reading:

...we shed our many ways of seeing the world, not that any are false, but that each serves its purpose for a time until we grow and they no longer serve us." 

Thoughts about continuing to grow, whatever your age and stage.  His latest book is called Reduced to Joy.  Can you imagine?  What if we were all reduced to joy.

This program, Super Soul Sunday, is amazing television.  Oprah and her guests live tweet during the broadcast.  It's like being in a discussion group at the same time and really enhances the experience of watching.  During the commercial breaks there is a lot to read and remark on.  I think this is what television and twitter were really created for--to gather groups of people together to learn and share with one another.

From the sublime to the fangirl.  The GACTV network produced a show that chronicled Garth Brooks' amazing 3-year run in concert in Las Vegas a few years' back.  Garth Brooks was my first adult singer-songwriter crush.  I've never seen him perform live because he hasn't really been performing since I came out from under the baggage pile.  This show, Garth Brooks:  Blame It All On My Roots brought me back to my twenties. He was the first singer-songwriter whose music made me cry.  And laugh.  And dance when no one was looking.  I'd have given a lot to have seen his Vegas act I think.  I hope there is film of it somewhere that eventually makes it to market.  During this solo, acoustic performance he took the audience through a list of the folks who influenced him from his mom and dad to "the Georges" (Jones and Strait) to James Taylor.  It was said there will be a boxed set of these covers and his songs.  I really hope so.  He's an incredible human being with so much love and talent to share.  I'm grateful to have stumbled on this show.

Original artwork by my twitter friends
@Lindsay_Gal and @CourtSusanne.
Lindsay (Lindsay Gal Designs) did the lyric
graphic and Courtney (Painting A Memory--look
for her on Etsy) did the portraits.  The top one is
autographed by the musician.  Two autographed
CD covers complete this fangirl corner.

While spending too much time with my television today, I straightened out a year's worth of piled up paperwork in my office and hung some pictures that mean a lot to me in "my room." It's the room where I listen to music, write, try to keep up with bill-paying (not overly successful with that) and do my girl scout thing.  It's the room that sort of makes a sort of statement about me.  The books, the girl scout stuff, the pictures, the CD's, my music box collection .. all here with comfy chairs, computers for working and keeping in touch and eight, count them, eight windows.  I love this space a lot.  Tonight I'm watching Christmas movies on Hallmark Channel (confessions about that in another post some day soon).  I'm grateful for the time spent nesting in here a bit today.  I'm grateful for this space.

I'll probably stay up too late in an effort to keep a little more of this weekend to myself.  There's a busy week ahead but for tonight I'm grateful for teens who genuinely care about helping, television that makes me think and music that moves me.

My cup runneth over.