Old Enough to Forget

I was searching an online catalogue for some stuff and this popped up when I was looking for something by Randy Stonehill. Considering I had most of his stuff already, I have no idea why I was looking, but up popped an album by Kyle, no first name, or maybe it was his first name. Who knows. I know I don't. Turns out the song "If I Had the Cash" was also co-written by Keith Green. Now I was curious. The album cost me five bucks, and I will admit I was very curious. I was even more curious when I read the back cover. It was produced by Danny Janssen & Bobby Hart. So this was likely going to be somewhere between The Monkees, Josie and the Pussycats and The Partridge Family. That's okay, I liked The Monkees. I'm going to jot down my thoughts in real time, and then come back and see if anything makes sense? Are you seated comfortably? The first song, "Rescue Me," comes over the speakers and this sounds a bit like Neil Diamond, mixed with Andy Kim. It was ...

I knew Poco from "Crazy Love," a nice and easy radio-friendly hit growing up. As an Eagles fan, I knew about Poco because they seemed to leak bass players. First Randy Meisner, and then a few years later Timothy B. Schmit. Mr. Schmit had the distinction of first replacing Randy in Poco, and then doing so again in the Eagles. "Crazy Love" was a pretty cool song, and even though I liked some "country" rock I never got any of their albums. Now, to put this in context, this wasn't a snub. Back in 1978 I didn't have a lot of records. I had a small allowance and no job, so I didn't have the means to go out and indulge. However, in later years when I'd be making up for lost time by picking up the early Eagles albums and similar records, it never crossed my mind to look for Poco. I got lucky and found a decent, but very dirty, copy of the album in the dollar bin. As expected there was no insert, but everything cleaned up really nicely - except I we...

Well lookie what the cat dragged in from the bins today (I was going to say dog, but I have some pride). Three Dog Night's 1973 release Cyan . The record still had its original shrink wrap (mostly intact), and the heavy inner sleeve was almost like a second album cover. The vinyl was in need of a cleaning, but it looked good. Not sure why it was in the bin, but I wasn't complaining. The cover features seven dashing men in their early '70s finery. I was looking forward to sitting and listening to this one. "Shambala" remains one of my favourite songs and was the reason I picked this up - that and it was only a buck. Yeah, I am cheap. The first thing that jumped out at me as I held the sleeve, reading along as the band played, was that despite the lyrics and artwork, there was a distinct lack of actual credits. Half a page is used for the production and engineering credits, and equal space to the team who provided art direction and design. There is one small credit ...