Old Enough to Forget

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...

I am very late to the party with Frampton Comes Alive! Not that it's an excuse but I was just thirteen when this came out, and it really wasn't an album any of my friends had at the time, so I never had a chance to hear it. It also didn't help that for whatever reason the big hits seemed schmaltzy. Peter Frampton looked like a rock star who didn't really seem to play rock but played smokin' guitar. At the time I liked Kiss, Alice Cooper and BTO and this wasn't on my radar. Of course the album was huge, and Peter did play that really cool Les Paul. If two pick ups were good, three would put you over the top. But still, aside from the radio hits I didn't know anything about the guy or the album. Of course by the time I had enough money to buy things I never really felt this was anything I'd ever want or even listen to. Then a couple of years ago I was in a music store and got to talking with the guy behind the counter about players we liked. This young gu...