Do you remember your first album? Tape? CD? Digital download? Heck, I had a car with an 8-track.
Where in your life does that first album cover and listening to the music take you?
I’m in our townhome second floor bedroom. Unit 610. The window looks out at a big mound of warn grass – perfect for dinky car playing – and a nut-shifting playground in front of my best freind Brent’s, in the center of the complex.
The album? Chilliwack’s Breadkdown in Paradise. My great-grandfather Croft bought it for me for my birthday in 1979. I have no idea why. I didn’t know who this band was with their long hair, handlebar mustache, and chest hair (or lack there of), in partial monty. It was memorable in many ways from the Mushroom label, to what I assume to be a variety of 70’s exotic bird fridge magnets.
Freelance music publicist/Sirius XM host Eric Alper, asked his followers this the other day:
My first response was Born to Run and it wasn’t untrue. I’ll share a story about my life-long love of The Boss another time, but Breakdown in Paradise also fits those criteria for me. Perhaps it’s sentimentality as my great-grandfather, my grandmother and grandfather – all on my dad’s side – would pass away within a few months of one another three years later? Maybe it’s the place and time the music takes me? It’s likely a little bit of both but midway through side two as I write this, this album is just as enjoyable to listen to at 49 as it was at 6.
The smell of my great-grandpa’s pipe, his horse voice, his thick-rimmed glasses and suspenders, are vivid within my senses tonight.
On a Road to Paradise.
