...Tarkus was the first Emerson, Lake and Palmer album I ever owned...and I was hooked for awhile and bought 2 or 3 other albums of theirs....I did that sort of thing pretty often, get hooked on one band and listen to nothing else for awhile until I moved on to something else.
...I remember also getting hooked on Uriah Heep, Yes, Argent, Gordon Lightfoot, CCR, Heart, and many others too, not to mention the "biggies" like the Beatles, Zepplin, Floyd, et al...I had about 1100 albums at one time but whittled my collection down to 300-400, which is the collection I have now. Still have my old JVC and Marantz amps, Technics turntable, and Sansui speakers and use them pretty often. The newer digital recordings are better in some ways but they just don't capture that "warm" sound of the 60's and 70's vinyl records.
You and I have much the same music tastes for that era. I saw Gordon Lightfoot in 71 at the Hollywood bowl, my 1st hollyweed bowl show. Lightfoot was incredible. Listening to Lightfoot play his 12 string acoustic so much led me to begin to buy and listen to Leo Kottke's LP's, a 12 stringer mad man, with great picking fingers. Yes, I enjoyed every band you mentioned above, to add maybe a few more from that era, The Moody Blues, Cream, Blind Faith, Hendrix, shit you name it; Procol Harum, Foghat, Mott The Hoople, Bowie, shit you name it, we listened to them all it seems, eh?
The early 70s LA sound drew my attention immediately, with the Byrds break up creating many additional bands, from Little Feat, (who I had forgot, the founder of LF, was Llowell George an original member of The Mothers of Invention). Linda Ronstadt, her backup harmony vocalists, Wendy Waldman, Emmylou Harris, Nicolette Larsen, (who's hubby played drums for J.Browne for years).... The Flying Burrito Brothers (Gram Parsons), CSN then Y. The (Stone Poney's) aka-Eagles, Poco, Ricky Nelson and the Stone Canyon band. I saw Ricky play at the local fairgrounds just one month before he died in the plane crash, and what one helluva show Ricky put on. He could play Rockabilly or Country Rock with the very best. Jackson Browne, took over for Bernie Leadon at the CA.Jam, when Bernie's wife was giving birth to their first child.
Jackson I would go on to see more than a dozen times in the next 10 years, and another 7 since. His early works are still some of my favorite, in fact I once told my brother 14 years my younger, bury me to this song: "For a Dancer" when I go. My brother was a young kid, not even 10, when I wrote my 1st ever record review of JB's "Late For the Sky" LP. My opening review lines were those of "For a Dancer". "keep a fire burning in your eye, pay attention to the open sky, you never know what will be coming down". When my brother was about 18 he told me, to bury him to this same song, if he went 1st, and we both never thought that would happen. Yet, it did, and I buried him to that tune-"For a Dancer", broke my heart and still does to this day to listen to that fateful tune. I never knew that song would be my own life lesson, as the following lines from those already noted, followed as: "I don't remember losing track of you, you were always dancing in and out of view, I thought you'd always be around, always keeping things real by playing the clown, now your nowhere to be found".........Yep, my little and only brother always did keep things light by playing the family clown.......
Those days were bursting with great bands, IMO the real Golden Age of Rock n Roll....
We have much the same habits, with music 59. I got to see ELP in 72 at the Long Beach Civic Center with the new release of Trilogy. Saw them 2 years later at the California Jam, a time release with Brain Salad Surgery, when they headlined the show, kicking Deep Purple to 2nd billing.
I too bought ELP's first 5 LP's back then, beginning with their 1st LP of the bands name, with the incredible song "Lucky Man" on it. Onto 'Pictures at an Exhibition', 'Tarkus', then 'Trilogy', and 'Brain Salad Surgery'.
Much like yourself, I'd listen to approx half a dozen bands, go ape shit, buying up everything I could get my hands on. Then onto other great bands. NTM- what LP's I lacked, my buddies had, kind of a co-op music group of kids.
I tell ya' Carl Palmer's Drum Set, with 2 gongs, a wrap around Quadrophonic set up, blew my mind. I thought someone had spiked my punch like at a Grateful Dead show, but no, it was just the almost surround sound music.
I got up to approx 800+ LP's, 550 Cassettes, before CD's ever came out. One day during a weekend I had to work, while my Wife and her friend held a Yard Sale in our yard. I came home only to find out, she had sold my Ultralinear Speakers, a Pioneer Amp, Emerson turn table and Cassette player. For get this: $100 bucks. I came home, and my naive wife said, Hey I made 100 buck so far, in but a couple of hours. I asked her: "what did you sale", when she said your stereo, I about shit my pants, I think I asked WTF 100 times that weekend....yet, had to forgive her, even tho' her reason was "well you put your stereo in the garage, I thought you weren't going to use it", my reply: "God Damn it, I only moved it to the garage because you said you wanted the wall where it sat"...!! NTM- Each Ultralinear Speaker cost me $150 in 1971. I thought I'd never ever find another pair of un-used speakers of that brand.
Luckily for myself, I didn't hold a grudge long if at all. I new she was simply trying to do the right thing. An hour or so later, a crippled young man stopped by when I was out front, and asked me, do you have any records for sale. He had to climb out of his bet up Pinto car. His door wouldn't open and was held shut with baling wire. I really felt bad for this kid, who was living on Welfare, and a small mail order business of selling records. Since I no longer had my stereo, I felt generous to the kid. Made his day by giving him all but 100 of my LP's which I still have to this day. In that mix, was the 1st pressing of the Beatles Revolver, he told me was worth a fortune, and I didn't care. As much I gave him a bootleg very rare Bob Dylan double album, recorded by Dylan himself with a small reel to reel tape deck he had on stage, at the NY Bottom End Club. That one I knew was worth a fortune, but again didn't care....I made his day, to give him a few grand in free records, and gave myself a lift by knowing i had helped this kid live on comfortably for a few more months.
As young newlyweds, I didn't put to much strain on my conundrum, and new, I'd be getting a nice bonus check for Xmas at Rockwell back then. More than enough to upgrade to my current Onkyo system all around less the Speakers, which I eventually replaced with bigger and better Ultralinear Studio Monitors in lieu of regular UL- Speakers, then bought her a new washer/dryer, refrigerator, and a few toys of her own, more or less; which turned out to be Our 1st pair of German Shepherds from different blood lines to mate and begin our 28 year long Kennel Ops.
Anyway, I haven't bought a digital recorded mastered vinly LP since Ry Cooder's "Bop til you Drop' was the very 1st digital LP, which Cooder himself mastered, and produced, Cooder is still a genius. In LA who couldn't be a Ry Cooder Fan. I was lucky enough to see him play back to back nights at the Roxy on Sunset in 77, and again in 79. the single loudest concert out of 100+ I've been to, by far was Neil Young's Rust Never Sleeps concert indoors at the Forum, which was louder than Led Zeppelin in Chavez Ravine, or the Stones at Angels Stadium.
Anyway, touche Ron, I enjoy talking music, esp older music from our era, almost as much as MLB, well almost....!
