On The Fly

In this episode - Return to Vinyl . . . Can you name the tune from the introduction? Stick with me, and we will reveal it at the end of this podcast. You may have missed it - Saturday, April 22, 2023, was Record Store Day. It was news to me. By chance, to get a new cartridge for my turntable, I made a trip to our local store (Standards) in Vista, CA. The store was crawling with customers. What's going on? So I had to look it up. Record Store Day started on April 19, 2008, and was founded by Chris Brown, a record store employee in Baltimore, Maryland, and Eric Levin, the owner of Criminal Records in Atlanta, Georgia. The purpose of Record Store Day is to celebrate and promote independent record stores and the unique culture they foster. It has since grown into an international event, with hundreds of record stores participating worldwide. In 2022, 41 million vinyl units were sold compared to 33 million CDs, highlighting a "remarkable resurgence" of the physical music form...

They were one of the biggest-selling groups of the 1970s. “No fewer than ten of their singles went on to become million-sellers, and by 2005 combined worldwide sales of albums and singles well exceeded 100 million units.” This musical duo was the Carpenters, from 1969-1982 the rich full melodic voice of Karen Carpenter filled the radio airwaves. Recently a post on FaceBook inspired me to dig out my old vinyl LP record collection. Little did I realize that the pure joy of music would reignite a spark in my soul of innocent delight that comes from quietly listening and watching a record spin on a turntable. After purchasing a new turntable with a USB connection, and reconnecting my old Harman Kardon amplifier I played a record for the first time in over 25 years, it was Superstar written by Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell. This Richard Carpenter arrangement became the duo's third No. 2 single on the Billboard Hot 100. Like a warm, gentle rain in the springtime cascading...

“Captain Fantastic raised and regimented hardly a hero, just someone his mother might know.” - Bernie Taupin. In this episode - Captain Fantastic . . .   1975 was my first full year of college; like most teens, music was my world. The ideals of our small midwestern town of Cuba, Illinois, were being reshaped by a record, at least for me. For those who don't remember, 1975 was the year the album  Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy  was released; music by Elton John and lyrics by Bernie Taupin. Hundreds, maybe thousands of hours were spent with that album spinning on turntables while studying that grotesque album cover. During the 1970s, many records spun on home stereo systems and radio stations throughout the world that brought artists like Elton John to your town. LP Record albums with flashy covers were the delivery vehicle for music, lyrics, album art, and what parents considered wild ideas in the minds of the baby-boomer generation. In hindsight, music had...