I grew up listening to all kinds of music – classical, folk, Armenian, Greek, church, and eventually rock. My instrument was violin. I remember driving with my mother in 1965, when one of my practice pieces came on the radio – “Hey Mom, it’s Bach!” It was The Toys singing “A Lover’s Concerto” (in 4/4, not the original 3/4).
My father constantly listened to classical radio (WQXR, New York) and knew the themes to most of the standard repertoire. On Sunday, we would go to church, where I felt the power of the organ and the beauty of the old hymns – “Faith of Our Fathers”, “For All the Saints”, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”. My mother sang alto in the choir and rang bells. She played piano at home – Bach, Mozart, old French songs, folk music – and my sister also studied piano.
Like everyone else, I heard AM radio everywhere I went (“77 – WABC!”); and I knew who The Beatles were (I think I had “Rubber Soul” at the time). Naturally, Motown was huge. But it wasn’t until the late ’60s when I opened my ears enough to try to find out what I really liked in pop music. Someone gave me the “Sounds of Silence” LP, and I beat time to the songs with pencils on empty oatmeal boxes. I got a copy of “Blonde on Blonde” in ’67 or ’68 – it was such a change from “The Times They Are a-Changin'” I could barely understand it; but I heard it.
A friend’s older brother had us listen to “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in ’68 (late as always), and I found it fascinating. I had no point of reference for the sounds, except the orchestral elements, but something about the guitars grabbed me, and the vocals seemed miraculous. The virtuosity of the arrangements, and the playing and singing, made sense to someone who had been into classical music: obviously, this was the good stuff.
Then came “Blind Faith”, “Abbey Road”, “Crosby, Stills & Nash”, “Déjà Vu”, “Layla” – all beautifully made, including the sounds, and played by people with obvious chops. “Plastic Ono Band”, “All Things Must Pass” and “McCartney” cemented my love of The Beatles in different ways: the first with feeling; the second, ensemble playing; and the third, purity of sound. I listened to Joni Mitchell a lot – “Blue”, “Clouds”, “Ladies of the Canyon” – and Neil’s “After the Gold Rush”.
By 1972, I thought I’d figured out what I liked in pop music. Everyone in high school was listening to hard rock, which overlapped with The Who (I had “Live at Leeds”, the first record I heard over headphones). T. Rex, Alice Cooper and Slade. Then Zeppelin. I’ll never forget first hearing “Black Dog” over the car radio, Mom driving me back from somewhere at night; the initial delay effect came out of the silence, then that vocal – then that band! The power of the sound. I couldn’t put it together with anything else I’d heard. Of course, I had somehow missed their first three records . . .
For a brief period, I tried to like prog rock, almost as a way to save my allegiance to classical. Yes (“Time and a Word”, “The Yes Album”, “Fragile”), ELP (even though they massacred Mussorgsky), Jethro Tull – these guys could play, so my sense of quality was preserved; my 15-year old ego felt safe. I felt secure in my tastes, with classical at the top of the hierarchy.
Sometime in the spring of 1972, Channel 5 (WNEW TV, New York) rebroadcast “Gimme Shelter”, which had been shown at Cannes in 1971. This was part of the hype leading up to the Stones’ summer 1972 American tour, but I didn’t know this – in fact, I barely knew who the Rolling Stones were. They fell outside my categories, I guess: if I heard one of their songs, as I must have in the ’60s, it was just part of the background music for our strange movie, the rough bits between scenes maybe. No polish, no virtuosity (“No good leads!” a Stones-hating Clapton fan once said to me), no singing (“I’m no Frank Sinatra, and I couldn’t give a fuck” said Jagger). I couldn’t hear it.
I sat partway up the staircase, watching the TV through the railings. As if I needed protection – and actually, I did. Because almost from the moment “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” began, my whole musical world started to collapse. Not just musical. Within minutes I realized that I didn’t know what I liked or who I really was, just that I was overwhelmed by what I was hearing and seeing: the lights, the movements, the vocals, the playing. Most immediate, the sound of the guitars – a screaming, resonant drone, so distorted it was clean, a tone I had never heard from any instrument before. This sound just destroyed my musical fortress.
The rest of 1972 was an intense retrospective. I had to buy Stones albums, working my way back from “Sticky Fingers”, “Let It Bleed” and “Beggars Banquet” to the early records. I listened constantly, trying to see how they led to the performance I’d seen, marveling at the beautiful looseness of the playing and loving the sounds (especially in the Jimmy Miller era). This was what I had missed: music as life, improvised within a framework, not perfect. Not safe. In the summer, I joined the Columbia Record Club to get a free copy of “Exile On Main Street” – then pored over every note for months. Years. Then back to their influences: Berry, Richard, Bo Diddley, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed . . .
Since then, friends and fellow travelers have pointed me to one revelation after another: Janis, The Velvets, “There’s a Riot Going On”, Leo Kottke, Ry Cooder, “Sweethearts of the Rodeo”, Gram, Hank, Merle, Stax, Bacharach, on and on (shout out to Jon, Chuck and Rockin’ Ron). I’ll never be able to do more than touch what these people did, but I want to see how it’s all connected, even to the classical music I still love. Most of the time, when I’m battling some riff, or yelling at a verse, or hitting a drum in anger, I feel it’s impossible.
But maybe, as it says on the back cover of “The Last Whole Earth Catalog” . . .
“We can’t put it together.”
“It is together.”