janis joplin |

‘1969 was an interesting year.’

How to kill an entire Sunday. Let me tell you how I did it. Yesterday my better-half was scheduled to work and I was looking forward to a day of peace and quiet and time to work on MY projects. How could I even dare to imagine something like that, I should have known better.

‘Who loves you Janis’

Unfortunately some months ago I made a commitment to her concerning the laptop she’d just purchased. I promised I’d help her setup the new laptop by transferring all of her photographs from the old to the new. This should teach me a valuable lesson for the future. Never volunteer for something unless you’re absolutely sure you know what your getting into. I thought I knew but apparently I was once again clueless.

‘The spooky Doors.’

I cleared off the kitchen table, fired up both computers, made a pot of coffee, and settled in for what I thought would be an hour or two of work. Oh how stupid I am. Little did I know just how many photo’s she had scattered throughout that hard drive of her old computer. She had pictures from multiple cameras going back six years. There were videos from both her IPhone and IPad and I kid you not . . . more than ten thousand pictures taken with an assortment of past and present cell phones. She apparently has never discovered the use of the delete button. It was a trash dump of photo’s placed on that laptop with absolutely no attempt at organization whatsoever.

‘Jumpin Joe Cocker’

As always I fall back to the old adage “When someone gives you lemons, make lemonade.” I found my own IPod and plugged it in, put on the headset and spent the next seven hours having a 60’s Flashback Sunday. I started out by listening to the entire three days of Woodstock with the original recordings. That required me to immediately switch from just coffee to coffee laced with Drambuie. I then cranked up Joe Cocker, The Band, The Yardbirds, The Hollies, Janis Joplin, The Doors, and even the Greatest Hits of War.

‘My favorite band, The Band. ‘RIP Levon’

At the end of the day I’d transferred no less than twenty-five thousand pictures to the new laptop and was suffering from a serious coffee buzz overlapped with a Drambuie buzz. There’s nothing better than Drambuie so after I finished transferring all the files I stopped drinking the coffee. From that point on it was Drambuie, Amy Winehouse and me. What a great way to spend the day and complete a tiresome project.

‘Sweet Amy’

‘Even sweeter . . . Drambuie on the lips.’

Today I’m back to what I’d call normal but still showing signs of a rather interesting hangover. For some reason my first cup of coffee this morning tasted strangely like Drambuie. How odd! I guess that’s one of the effects of time travel back to the sixties. Along with rocking out, a sore throat from all of the singing along, and being able to return home with no arrests or STD’s to show for it.

That’s what I’d call a good day in any decade.

I started collecting music at a very young age. I didn’t just collect everything because that would be impossible. I have my musical likes and dislikes but as everyone else the music of my twenties and thirties holds the biggest attraction. I collected first on eight tracks, then cassettes and later on CD’s which resulted in a collection of more than 400 albums of what are now called classic oldies. Ten years ago I decided to make the move to digital and spent months with a software package called Audiograbber and converted all of my CD’s into MP3’s. It was a massive job but it permitted me to take my entire collection and install it on my first 80 gig IPod. It was one of my better purchases because I’m still using it today, 11 years later, on the original battery.

Most of my music is from the late 1950’s through the early 1970’s. Only a few albums and artists have been added over the years because I only collect what I really like. I could sit here and attempt to razzle-dazzle you with song titles and artist’s names but what would be the point of that. We all love the music we love and some of us don’t like much of anything. Some people only enjoy the music for its ability to create an atmosphere that will lead to social gatherings at bars and clubs, drinking, dancing, and the occasional bout of recreational sex.

I’m fairly eclectic in my music tastes and enjoy quite a variety which doesn’t include Hip Hop or Country & Western. Only a very select few from those genres made the cut. Salt & Pepa, En Vogue, Delbert McClinton, and Bonnie Raitt are just a few that did.

Every so often when I’m alone for a few hours or when I’m working on the computer I’ll crank up certain selections and rock the house down. One day last week I decided to celebrate some of my favorite artists that had tons of musical talent and died before their time. I spent two hours listening first to my two favorite balladeers, Jim Croce and Harry Chapin. Then I moved on to the Big Bopper, Richie Valens, and Buddy Holly. I saved the best for last with Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, and ended the montage with Jim Morrison and Freddie Mercury. Wow. . . it was more than just a little wonderful. I’m still humming and singing those songs in my head and will be for quite some time.

After two hours of that music I found myself extremely sad to have lost them before their time and could only imagine all of the fantastic music that died with them. The only positive thing I can think of is that they and their music will outlive us all and be enjoyed by millions in future generations. They found their immortality albeit in a most unpleasant fashion.

I look toward to many more special moments listening to their songs as I’ve enjoyed doing in the past. With that:

R.I.P.

Archive for the ‘janis joplin’ Tag

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11-26-2014 Journal–The Music Never Dies! Leave a comment

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