Resurgence of a Love Affair

This past weekend I wandered into EAR-X-TACY on Bardstown Rd. in Louisville to kill some time. I ended up purchasing three CD's. It easily could have been 30. I walked around the store hanging all my selections on my arm and when I was finished I allowed myself only three. It was tough to narrow it down.

While driving down south earlier I picked up a handful of CD's to make the ride with me. I choose them without too much thought. I think I just grabbed! One happened to be Wilson Picketts Greatest Hits. I remember buying this CD, maybe in 1999. Bridget and I had been listening to the radio, the terrific college station out of G.-town Ky (station no longer exists much to EVERYONES sorrow). We sat in the parked car listening to the very end of his version of HEY JUDE with Duane Allman adding the most unforgettable guitar! Right up there rivaling the Beatles' version. (snicker and eye roll...yea right, but it is very good).

I have been a Wilson Pickett fan since I was in the 6th or 7th grade. I had his album, I believe it was called "The Exciting Wilson Pickett". It contained much of what is on the greatest hits album! Funky Broadway, Midnight Hour, Mustang Sally...

I played that album over and over and over. I believe Judy, my close friend from down the street, tried to teach me how to Boogaloo and Shingaling to those songs. She was a terrific dancer. I am strickly an Irish Jig dancer!

I played that album until it turned gray.

I had this tiny little record player, solid black, that I could put an attachment on the spindle and play 45's. And man, did I have a lot of 45's. Most my Beatle song's were in that format.

Driving down the interstate this week end I thinking about all those albums that I owned, collected and loved. Trying to remember them. The Beatles Second Album was my very first LP. Quickly followed by A Hard's Day Night. Judy had Meet The Beatles, so I did not want to waste my money duplicating what we already had. I won sergeant Peppers Lonely Heart's Club Band in a drawing at the downtown record store in Lexington. I passed it everyday on my walk to the Greyhound Bus station to ride the "greasy bus" home. It almost made those two years of bus riding worth it, but not quite.

I had the Monkee's. For some reason, I think it may have been being 12 years old, I adored the Monkees.

I had Paul Revere and the Raiders. Same reason.

I had Wilson Pickett. I had the Temptations and the Supremes album from a TV show they did. It was wonderful and I played it a million times too.

I had Rubber Soul.

I had the McCoys' HANG ON SLOOPY. Once again, I was 12!!

My collection of LP's was small. Yet, I remember those albums and their covers as if they are in my hands and I am preparing to slide the albums on the drop spindle so I could lay on my bed in my pink room and day dream listening to all that, what is now, classic music.

For 15 years I collected records. My collection was so large that it was a gigantic hassle to move it. And that is precisely the reason why I lost it. Lazy. Too heavy to carry down from the third floor. I left it in storage at the apartment building and when I went back to reclaim it, I was told that it was gone. That there was nothing up there. The neighbors across the hall had moved, and obviously they took it along with all their things in storage.

I was torn up. I had only myself to blame. In the back of my mind I suspected that the record collection sat in the managers apartment rather than taken away by the innocent family who lived across the hall.

It was one hell of a collection. From 1964 - 1978. Probably worth a small fortune in 2006 dollars.

I collected albums again from 1979 till I sold my whole collection at a yard sale in 2003. It ranks up there with one of the stupidest things I have ever done. Once again, I was so tired of moving it around!!!

As punishment, I had avoided buying music for years. I had a handful of CD's. Sort of re-collecting my lost stuff. Allman Brothers, Todd Rundgren, Eric Clapton, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Guns-N-Roses, Neil Young.

Last year, I discovered purchasing used CD's via the internet, and Oh My God have I ever started collecting again. Like Gang Busters. Crazy stuff. I buy it having never heard it! So far, I have been very lucky. Only one or two I have cringed when I push it into the player in the vehicle.

Ear-X-tacy is like a candy store. Used CD's along with the new stuff. No one can beat this place for finding off the wall stuff. It ranks right up there with Amazon.

I picked up Macy Gray for $5 and I only this morning have taken her out! It is a terrific album. Now I have "Cuba Cuba" in there. And "Oh Brother Where Art Thou" is on standby.

I have an Ashley McIsaac album on the way too.

It is out of hand!

And absolutely terrific!!