The Album Thing: Cat Stevens, Tea for the Tillerman

Day “whatever” of the record album thingie. It’s a Facebook fad that’s going around. You’re supposed to post a picture of albums you especially love. Since I’m going to the trouble to share it on social media, I might as well share it here, too. I’m glad I was invited to do this, because it’s a fun way to reminisce about music that changed my world (at least, my musical world). I invite all my friends to participate in this one. The original rules said “no explanations,” but to heck with that. I want to explain.

I was five when Tea for the Tillerman came out. The hits from this album were all over the radio when I was young, but it was my older cousins in Michigan who really impressed me with this music. Sue Ann, especially, was an accomplished singer and guitarist, and she sang lots of Cat Stevens’s songs. Ohh I was so impressed by that! I was probably about twelve when I got a guitar, so this album was seven years old by then. I was immersed in acoustic singer/songwriter music while most my age were listening to KC and the Sunshine Band.

“Where Do the Children Play?” . . . I learned to play all the songs on this album, pretty much. The chords are easy, and a beginning guitarist can strum them and learn basic patterns. The singing parts are interesting, and the words thoughtful, even at times spiritual.

“Into White” is another favorite from this album. I love the simple, lovely pictures painted by these lyrics. I still sometimes play this on the guitar.

For anyone wondering what Cat Stevens (a.k.a. Steven Demetre Georgiou; now Yusuf Islam, “Joe Islam”) is up to now, here’s a fairly recent NPR Tiny Desk concert.

The Album Thing: Joni Mitchell, Hejira

I would share Joni Mitchell’s Hejira with you even if I wasn’t doing the Facebook album thing. I was nominated by a dear friend to post something like ten (ha ha ha) album covers of favorite or transformational albums, blah, blah, blah . . . who cares about the rules.

Hejira is the second Joni Mitchell album I ever got, and by then it was already about three or four years old. I bought it a few months after I’d gotten Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon, a folkie favorite. There’s only six years’ difference between the albums, but there’s a world of difference in the sound. Imagine my surprise when I set the needle down and heard this!

“Hejira,” the title track, is probably the best on the album. Every Joni Mitchell fan has a special spiritual place for this masterpiece of poetry, beat, and strings. Hear the lyrics.

Contributing in a big way to this album was Jaco Pastorius, who was Joni Mitchell’s bass player during this time. He was a brilliant, groundbreaking musician. Note his signature fretless sound.

The Album Thing: Joni Mitchell, Ladies of the Canyon

So I’m continuing with this album thing. On Facebook, I was nominated by a dear friend to post something like ten (ha ha ha) album covers of favorite albums over the years . . . or something. There were a bunch of rules, but I’m gonna ignore them and just post photos of several of my favorite (or formational) albums over the years. Because that’s the point. And since I’m doing this on social media, why not also share it here?

“Ladies of the Canyon” is the title track. I think I fell in love here.

Another favorite from this album is “Conversation.” This was the first Joni Mitchell album I bought, and I got it waaaaay after it had come out. Most of my classmates were listening to the Bee Gees or something at the time.

A lot of people know the song “Woodstock,” but they don’t know that Joni wrote it. Yeah, these were what she called her “helium voice” days. They wouldn’t last long . . .

The Album Thing: Chuck Mangione, Feels So Good

So I’m participating in this Facebook fad. On Facebook, I was nominated by a dear friend to post something like ten album covers of favorite albums over the years, or something. There were a bunch of rules, but I’m gonna ignore them and just post photos of several of my favorite (or maybe I should say formational) albums over the years. Because that’s the point.

Everyone used to say my trumpet sound was so beautiful. I think it was because I tried to emulate Chuck’s sound on the flugelhorn. I didn’t even know such a thing existed. I was like twelve. I just heard it on the radio and thought it was a trumpet. It was much later when I finally saw the instrument he was playing. No wonder I developed a round, dark sound.

The Album Thing: Carpenters, Carpenters

Okay, I’m participating in a Facebook fad. I was nominated by a dear friend to post something like ten album covers of favorite albums over the years, or something like that. There were a bunch of rules, but I’m gonna ignore them and just post photos of a bunch of my favorite albums over the years. Because that’s the point. So, we begin with something that should not be a surprise to anyone who’s known me for very long.

You know, I could fulfill this whole “favorite album thing” and with all Carpenters albums. That would be pretty funny, huh. Again, if you know me well, you’d know that wouldn’t be a stretch.

“Superstar” was one of the huge hits from this album. It’s a great example of the synthesis of the best of Richard Carpenter’s arranging and Karen Carpenter’s vocal magic. The story goes, he had to press her to sing it because she hated it at first.

“Rainy Days and Mondays” was another big hit from the album. And it was one of several Carpenters songs that was an exquisite study in depression. And no, no, in these days, there was no autotune in sight—this is all her (and their) real voices, painstakingly overdubbed.

Their famous Carpenters Bacharach-David medley is on this album—it was not a big radio hit, but as an arrangement it was a tour-de-force, featuring more amazing vocals. Here, I’m sharing a live version of it, in case anyone might think this virtuosity was all just “magic in the studio.” Actually in this live version, they use faster tempos than on the album. This kind of perfectionism might be one reason they ended up so burned out.

I would like to add that the last few years, I’ve read some really interesting stuff about Karen Carpenter. First, as a baseline, the Ron Coleman biography of the duo, which is the one Richard and the family approved of, so it tippy-toes around certain topics. Second, the book Little Girl Blue, by Randy Schmidt, is an unauthorized but respectful biography of Karen; it is the fuller, and focused treatment that she as an individual totally deserved.

But finally, I’d like to recommend a slim volume called Why Karen Carpenter Matters, by Karen Tongson, which really helped me understand that my young obsession with Karen Carpenter wasn’t ridiculous or sad and in fact was mirrored by many other people like me who stand outside the mainstream: “In Why Karen Carpenter Matters, Karen Tongson (whose Filipino musician parents named her after the pop icon) interweaves the story of the singer’s rise to fame with her own trans-Pacific journey between the Philippines—where imitations of American pop styles flourished—and Karen Carpenter’s home ground of Southern California. Tongson reveals why the Carpenters’ chart-topping, seemingly whitewashed musical fantasies of “normal love” can now have profound significance for her—as well as for other people of color, LGBT+ communities, and anyone outside the mainstream culture usually associated with Karen Carpenter’s legacy. This hybrid of memoir and biography excavates the destructive perfectionism at the root of the Carpenters’ sound, while finding the beauty in the singer’s all too brief life.” I highly recommend it.

We Begin Lockdown

The novel Coronavirus isn’t really in Missouri yet, but it seems like we oughta stop going out and fritzing around. You don’t know who might have it. Let’s stay inside and do things around the house, huh?

Exhibit A: Painting Under the Kitchen Sink.

It hadn’t been painted since about 1963, by my estimates. I recently saw a can of mismixed paint on sale at Lowe’s and got it. I thought it was rather pretty. Kind of lavender, just my style.

Part of the fun of repainting under the kitchen sink is throwing away all the old crap that had accumulated there, and arranging what’s left in a logical and useful order.

In case you’re wondering, the little shelf thingie was already there when we bought the house. It had been in the back, against the wall, but I moved it to be in front of the drain pipe. I choose to look past the fact that it’s actually just split, not sawed, on that one edge. You should look past it, too. It’s not your house, and it’s under the sink, for God’s sake. So let it be. Make do with what ya got.

Anyway, I gave it a nice coat of paint to make it feel better about itself.

So what are you going to do, now that you shouldn’t be going out in public so much?

Spring Peepers, Coats Lane

Yesterday we went on a little excursion, just to get out of the house. We drove around at Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area, south of Columbia, just to see what we could see. Since it was kind of late in the day, we didn’t see much. What we did see, we didn’t see very well. Like this bald eagle’s nest. You can see it, can’t you?

Still, it was good to drive around and look out the windows.

We didn’t go straight home. Our meanderings, starting in McBaine, led from South Coats Lane north to Gillespie Bridge and then to I-70, which we then took to get around Columbia and back on our way to Jefferson City.

Below, I share a magical few moments of spring peepers chorusing from a farm lane off of Coats. The music exhilarated me and filled me with hope. You can’t yet tell by looking at the world, but the sound of these peepers is the jubilant sound of spring.