Old Enough to Forget

Here we were chugging along into August, and I have to admit that my self imposed schedule of cranking out two of these a month may have been a tad ambitious. It's likely I'll take a step back and go to once a month. I mean, I'm spending a lot of time jotting down my meandering thoughts that frankly for the most part are just on this side of being coherent ... I'll let you pick a side. I have to admit that I was probably a little ambitious when I decided to crank out two of these a month. With everyone home, or the kids parking themselves in the basement, I had to sneak my record playing in when I could. Not that I'm complaining, really. If this is all I have to bitch and moan about, things are pretty good.     Still, I've been grinding my way through my pile of records. Up for grabs this time out are another gaggle of odds and sods and repeat offenders. Let's get right to it ... are you seated comfortably? Chilliwack – Look In, Look Out (1984) Neil Diamond...

Neil Diamond was one of those anomalies that thrived in the '70s. The '70s were weird. I may have been a little kid when this came out, but I knew weird, and this was weird. My dad was a voracious reader and our family room was full of books ... from floor to ceiling there were books. I remember people talking about Jonathan Livingston Seagull like it was some great insight into the human condition. I mean, for me at that age, the human condition amounted to trying not to get bullied in school and what time was Star Trek on? As a kid my parents didn't load up the car to take us to the movies very often. I still held a grudge because they wouldn't take me to see The Poseidon Adventure ... and frankly having to sit through Song of Norway as a kid was awful, but I have to admit something must have sunk in because I have a soft spot for Edvard Grieg. It was a couple years after the movie came out that it was showing at our little theatre, and we loaded up the car and wen...

Like any kid growing up in the '70s, you'd have had to be living under a rock to not be inundated with Neil Diamond songs. The cover for Hot August Night was the epitome of what a rock star was supposed to look like. Although I never heard the album in its entirety until fairly recently. I was dragged to the theatre by my parents to watch Jonathan Livingston Seagull  (and yes, I have indeed read the book). Despite his many earworms, I never had any Neil Diamond records growing up. He was too safe and, well, kind of boring. A little while back I was watching The Last Waltz, and amidst a who's who of rock royalty, up steps Mr. Diamond to sing "Dry Your Eyes," and I thought it was okay, but he was pretty commanding from the stage. He may have known he was the odd duck there, but he didn't seem to give a shit. I didn't realize that the song he played came from an album produced by Robbie Robertson, and that Garth Hudson was featured on keyboards on the track...