50 Years of Music - January, 1969

In 2019, I will write a monthly feature of music released 50 years ago from that month in 1969.

I'm going to use 1969 in music from Wikipedia as my primary source as you can see by the January list here. If I (or Wikipedia) miss a big album, please feel free to write a comment, and I'm sure I will correct that in a re-edit from that blog.

I also plan to feature an entire album deemed 'great' (by me of course) from a month in 1969. Abbey Road and Crosby, Stills & Nash are just two albums that come to mind.

In January, 1969 I was in Mr. Richard Ziegler's 8th grade homeroom class. During that year, I became President of the Antique Bottle Club and certified nerd. Mr. Ziegler formed the club after his passion for finding and collecting old bottles in the creeks and old dump sites around the central coast of California. I did the same for a couple years and to this day still have boxes of antique bottles that I've carted to every apartment or house that I have ever lived in.

Looking back, I remember one Jr. High dance where a local cover band of high school students performed the song, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida while I watched from the sidelines as kids tried to dance to it. As a side note- the album also titled, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida released in 1968 was the biggest selling album of 1969.

If you follow Monday Monday Music, the real content is listening to the weekly YouTube playlists that I put together. And I thought it was my fantastic writing. No dummy, you just began the last sentence with, "And."

Ok, so one of the keys of life is making the time to do the things YOU want to do. If you've followed me this far, listening to music is one of those magical things of life.

So strike a match, light the incense and get back to a little 1969 in music.

New music July-September, 2017

Here is a playlist of new music from the third quarter of 2017. I made this list last night after a long week. Music soothes the soul. Enjoy my friends.

The songs playing in our heads this week

The past couple of days, Mary Kit has been singing,

"Standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona
Such a fine sight to see
It's a girl my Lord in a flat-bed Ford
Slowin' down to take a look at me" (from Take it Easy)...

So this gets me singing in my head one of my favorite songs, actually the final medley from the Eagles 1973 album Desperado, Doolin' Daltons/Desperado (Reprise). This album came out when I was a senior in high school when themed albums were still being done by bands. If you didn't get a chance to see the History of the Eagles tour from 2013 to this past July, the band shows video of their old west shootout scenes featuring Jackson Browne and JD Souther who contributed to the concept and song writing on the album. I was especially thrilled to see Bernie Leadon join the stage with the Eagles on this tour. Glenn Frey wished Randy Meisner well and if you know anything about the Eagles recent history, Don Felder wasn't even mentioned. I do recommend seeing the documentary film, History of the Eagles (Netflix, Showtime), where you can learn many tidbits like the Felder feud and other back stories.

Next up and in my head this past week, a couple of songs from Neil Young's 1970, After the Gold Rush. I absolutely wore this vinyl record out on my bedroom record player. It is a classic with Tell Me Why and Only Love Can Break Your Heart as two more favorites of mine since I was a sophmore in high school. I remember once writing my first girl friend a letter (whom I had broken up with as a freshman) and included the lyrics to Tell Me Why. She wrote back and said she didn't understand what the hell I was trying to say to her. Well, being a 16 year old kid, I probably didn't know what I was trying to say either. So who better for me to quote than the brilliant and often abstract Neil Young.

I'll take these three gems and include them in My 100 Songs playlist and enjoy your music Monday!