Old Enough to Forget

Here I have Stranded , the second album by Edwards Hand, released in 1970. I never knew this existed. For decades I had been curious about the duo of Rod Edwards and Roger Hand. I first saw their names listed in the credits for Larry Norman's Only Visiting This Planet, and his follow up So Long Ago the Garden . Those two albums were recorded in England and produced by Edwards Hand along with Jon Miller. To say those albums were foundational to me is an understatement. I'd again see the same team behind a pair of albums by Malcolm & Alwyn: 1973's Fool's Wisdom and their 1974 follow up Wildwall . The two Malcom & Alwyn albums I discovered in the early '80s and while both are very good, I was especially drawn to their first album. This is a rather long preamble, but through these early albums I became aware a number of rather stellar musicians. John Wetton would of course go on to be a member of King Crimson, and later Asia, while others I wouldn't really...

"Short People" was the first song I'd heard by Randy Newman when I was a kid. It was also one of those songs far too many people took at face value based on the title, who didn't even bother to listen to the song. I still remember the tempest in a tea cup and even then it was perplexing. Dang, even Billy Barty wasn't very happy about the song.  I know there were a lot of people who seemed to pride themselves on not listening to the lyrics of a song as a way of defending themselves when listening to "questionable" music. At least that was a defence a lot of "Christian" kids used to defend listening to secular music. The ability to be tone deaf and easily offended isn't something new ... The problem with satire is to some folks it's just truth wrapped in humour as a way of sending in a Trojan horse filled with hate and bigotry. Randy Newman's affinity for first person narratives that cut deep can be a little on the nose, and with ...

I'll admit that this kind of music wasn't my cup of tea back when I was a teenager. It was generally balls to the wall rock or nothing ... unless it was a power ballad. Of course even back in '78 you'd have had to be living under a rock, with a rock on top of it not to have heard Nicolette's version of "Lotta Love" when it came out. It was a slick syrupy masterclass in soft rock ... the song was a big deal and it pulled the album along with it, peaking at #15 in the States, and #1 here in Canada. The album would go gold in both markets. It was a strong debut. This was all I knew about Nicolette Larson. I was okay with that. Then a couple of years ago right around the time Eddie Van Halen passed away there was a rash of Edward stories. There were more than a few about Ed's turn as soloist on Michael Jackson's "Beat It" and people were talking about it like it was the only time Eddie had played outside of Van Halen. I knew he had been on ot...

As a kid I was enamoured with the movie Yellow Submarine . I don't remember the year I first saw it on our tiny black and white television, it was maybe 1969 or 1970, My parents were having a party and I got to stay up late and as long as I wasn't seen or heard I could do what I wanted. I'm not sure if this was the night I watched Hitari! with John Wayne and Red Buttons (tell me again about the monkeys ...) and Yellow Submarine but those two movies are intertwined in my memory as a double feature. I always loved the songs Ringo sang. It was 1973 and Ringo was having his day in the sun. Songs like "Photograph" and "Oh My My" were a big deal. Although "You're Sixteen" was huge it was always a little creepy sounding even to my ten year old ears. Go figure. Over the years I maintained my soft spot for Ringo, although I never got any of his records. I did of course pick up a greatest hits CD, but my fandom never really translated into sales. So...

Like a lot of casual fans, I'd heard of Harry Nilsson much like I'd heard of Ernest Hemingway. I knew the name more than anything he's actually written. Over the years I knew of a couple of songs, particularly the beautiful "Without You" and of course "Everybody's Talkin'" from Midnight Cowboy. He had also covered songs by others, most notably Nilsson Sings Newman and others would cover his songs, from the Monkees to Three Dog Night. That was it. As a result of this depth of knowledge (sarcasm alert) I had pigeon-holed him into the '70s pop singer slot where soft rock went to die. One of the albums that was on my radar was Nilsson Schmilsson from late 1971. It was the album that had "Without You" and the truly odd "Coconuts" but as fate would have it the album I found in the dollar bin was his 1972 follow up released while his previous album was still on the charts. It was called Son of Schmilsson so it was probably li...