MAMA CASS - 1941-1974, WHAT THE FUTURE WAS DENIED WITH HER DEATH
THE "ROLLING STONE" MAGAZINE, OF AUGUST 1974 - CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG - ANATOMY OF A REUNION
I was scared sh____less! (Yea, shoeless). Honestly, I was out of my mind with fear, back in the late summer of 1974, working at Building Trades Centre, in Bracebridge, as a shipper, and thinking those nagging bad thoughts, about the coming first year's studies at York University. I wasn't worried about how I'd survive on campus, or the marks I'd get, (I knew I'd fit in, somehow). I was scared to leave my new girlfriend, with all the opportunist hustlers, the wolves, at the old school, who had no scruples about moving into another fellow's territory. Mine specifically. She had another year of high school left to finish. I think her male acquaintances even warned me, (I thought they were kidding), our relationship was in great peril once I left town. Fool that I was, I thought love was all-powerful, and you didn't confess it to one-another, without an iron-clad, almost blood-oath commitment. What I was to find out, was that confessionals like ours, made in the embrace of the sentimental Muskoka moonlight, weren't worth more than the lipstock smudge, on the tuxedo shirt's white collar, garnered at the graduation after-party.
The music of the day either made me nuts with jealousy, or made me want to embrace her soft angel-kind, and never, ever let go! Music, in so many ways, was "the decider," in good cheer, melancholy, or what was certain to inspire unspecified fear and loathing. Was I losing her? What was my girlfriend up to? To make sure our love was true, in my clumsy attempt at this relationship thing, I came home every weekend, even if it meant hitch-hiking through a snowstorm. I suspected she was cheating on me. How crazy was that? Well, gosh, not so crazy! I found this out many years later, from my buddies, who all of a sudden, over a pint of lager, thought I could handle the news, of their former liberalities, to my very real consequence. I had been right all along. As they pointed out, "Hey man, it's ancient history now." I found that a somewhat flimsy argument. The music played on! Abba made me cry. Grand Funk made me care less! Meatloaf made me crazy. Toto and Asia were only played on lengthy love seeking road trips with mates, to find girls who didn't know our failings. It meant we had to drive for hours.
It was, beyond this, one of maturity's great conquests. Forcing snotty nosed youth like me, against the tides of emotion, to move on, not just in musical taste, but to capably tame the resources of the big, beckoning, crazy old world. As I would find out, five minutes on campus, the high school experience hadn't prepared me for the independence of university study. But nothing open to me, as pre-therapy, at that time, could have prepared me, for the first lunch, outside of the Ross Building, on that sunny September afternoon, having my lunch with friend Ross Smith, also of Bracebridge; as without our notice for some time, first responders near by, were tracing a chalk line, around a jumper, sprawled to our right, who most definitely had expired quickly, as a result of a multi-stoy plummet to the concrete below. I couldn't understand how this hadn't seriously affected all the people, who, like us, were enjoying the sun, and open air lunches. We were the only accidental voyeurs to move away from the scene. First day, first suicide aftermath witnessed, and first serious regrets about why we had left small town Ontario in the first place.
Ross, the artist, and I, comfortably of the rural bumpkin class, but having copious amounts of small town smarts, soon caught on to the events happening around us! Once we figured out this wasn't a drama department project, about death and stuff, beat a speedy retreat, to gather our country-honed balance of composure. We were roughly-hewn blokes, who hadn't spent a lot of time in the urban jungle as teens. Obviously, we had to learn fast, what we might run into by happenstance, being residents of the big smoke. Music? At that time it was a little confusing, as to what would make us feel better about the challenges we faced in the coming years, to fulfill the good faith our parents had in us, to finish what we began. I will confess, that my room-mate at the boarding house, in which the three of us, Ross included, were staying, introduced me to the more intricate stylings of Elton John, and the Yellow Brick Road, and for gosh sakes, it worked to sooth the savage beast, rather pissed at being in the city in the first place. When truthfully, I kind of preferred being-loved in the rural clime, where my girlfriend was redefining our relationship without my knowledge. Yup, 1974 was a year of redefinition for a lot of things I thought were solid and consequence-free. Boy was I wrong. Here's what was going on in the music world, as reflected so astutely, in the pages of that year's Rolling Stone magazine.
I won't lie to you. I was turned-on by the majesty, the regal, silken joy power, of Mama Cass's voice, best known from her years with the Momma's and Papas. Her voice got hold of my soul, and flung it all over the place, like a rag doll. I came out of the experience feeling spent, but looking forward to the next time we got together. I always left our date wanting more. When I pulled the August 1974 issue of "Rolling Stone," out of the collection of magazines, son Andrew purchased recently, I felt that pang of sudden loss all over again, as if it had happened yesterday. So there it was, a full page story on page 20, topped by the bold print headline, Mama Cass' Elliot Dead." I was crushed for a second time. I might piss-off a lot of Elvis fans, but the death of Mama Cass was like losing one's personal pleasure-advisor; a larger than life guru of happy times. She lifted my heart, and wow, she still had so much to give us, and our generation.
"She was the queen of L.A. pop society in the mid-sixties. Her voice helped make the harmony that made the Mamas and the Papas; her house in Laurel Canyon was a gathering place for musician friends like David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton and Buddy Miles. Crosby, Stills and Nash, in fact, first joined their voices at Cass's; from there they decided to work together formally. On stage, she was 'Mama Cass,' the comic presence. And, as her former manager, Bobby Roberts, said, 'She was overweight, but she carried it off like she was a beauty queen'." (Rolling Stone article, August 1974)
The article continues, "Cass Elliot, 32, died in the early morning of July 29th, in the London flat of Harry Nilsson, where she was living with her friend and road manager, George Caldwell, during her stay in England. Death was ruled accidental at a coroner's hearing the next day; the post-mortem showed that she died as a result of choking on a sandwich, while in bed and from inhaling her own vomit. She had complained to friends recently of frequent vomiting, possibly the result of dieting. That evening, when her secretary, Dot MacLeod, failed to reach Elliot by phone, she went to the flat and found the body. Several persons, according to manager Alan Carr, had been in her apartment the morning and afternoon of her death, but thought she was asleep"
The same article reports that, "Cass had just completed a successful two week engagement at the Palladium, Saturday, July 27th. To play the Palladium, comparable to Carnegie Hall to the U.S. 'was one of her lifetime ambitions,' said Bobby Roberts. As she left the hall, she saw the picture of Judy Garland in the gold frame inscribed with the dates Judy had played there. Cass said, 'I know what it must have meant to that lady to be a hit here, because I know what it means to be me.' She had attended a cocktail party Sunday night at Mick Jagger's home, but did not drink and departed early in the evening." The observation was made, that, "Lou Adler, producer of the Mamas and Papas, saw Cass's Palladium opening. 'She was really up,' he said. 'She felt she was opening a new career; she'd finally got together an act she felt good doing - not prostituting herself, but middle-of-the-road people enjoyed it and she enjoyed doing it'."
One page back, in this same issue of Rolling Stone, flanked by the photograph of former Beatle, John Lennon, the sidebar story headline reads, "John's Legal Case: Few Options Left." The opening reads, "NEW YORK - On July 18th, the Justice Department announced that it had ordered John Lennon to leave the country (United States) by September 10th, after the Immigration Service denied Lennon an extension of his non-immigrant visa, because of his guilty plea in England on a 1968 marijuana charge. On the same day, a California state senate committee urged decriminalization of marijuana possession in the state, calling it 'no threat to public health, safety or morals'."
The article notes, "Four days later the New York Post, in an editorial said, 'The crime for which John Lennon was convicted in London in 1968 would not even land him in a New York jail'."
There is a huge, multi-page interview published, further back in the magazine, on legendary Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould, as a part two component, for an ongoing series. It begins, "A week after our initial talk, Glenn Gould called again from Toronto to finish up the interview. (Gould, who keeps in touch with friends around the world by means of the telephone, does not give personal interviews, at his home, or office) In the intervening period, he had gone to the studio to record the Prelude to Wagner's 'The Meistersinger,' the last three contrapuntal minutes of which required him to overdub another four-handed primo, and secundo dialogue. I asked him how his duets with himself had come out."
Gould answers, "It just went swimmingly, to be immodest about it. At the end of the Meistersinger Prelude, the chap doing the primo stuff kept indulging in all sorts of strange rubato conceits, which were hard to mate up with, and I had to study his rather eccentric tempo notions for quite a while until I got with it (laughing), but once I did, on my secundo part, it was enormous fun."
One of the real kickers to this story, is when he takes a shot at fellow Canadian, and media guru, Marshall McLuhan. The Rolling Stone thought the comment was important enough, to block and use as a heading for the story's continuation on another page. It reads, "I admire McLuhan very much,....but I always felt that, that sort of trend terminology that he got off on, in 'Understanding Media,' was a pity, that he would have been better off without it, and that we would have understood him better without it."
The main story of this issue, as relates to the front cover art, is the multi-page feature, entitled "The Ego Meets the Dove - The Reunion of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young," by Senior Editor, Ben Fong-Torres. It begins, "As Elliot Roberts, their manager, so daintily put it, they were pissing in the wind, these boy wonders of his who could make a million at the snap of four fingers. And yet, year after year, this all-time favorite group from out of the Woodstock era, these symbols of harmony in music, would try to get back together and would fail. 'We really did try, every year,' Nash would say. 'It just didn't f____ing happen, because it wasn't real'."
The Rolling Stone article reports that, "From the beginning, in the spring of 1969, Crosby, Stills and Nash had been preparing the public for their breakup. I first met them back while they were cutting their first album, and they were all saying, and this was the bottom line of my story, that they were not a group." Writer, Fong-Torres, reminds readers, that "From the Byrds, the Buffalo Springfield and the Hollies, the three men had had enough, they said of outsized egos. Now they said they would band and disband as they pleased, go solo or form various duos, for tours and albums, as they pleased. They have been true to their founding principle. And it makes no sense. After you've become the biggest in the biggest of all entertainment businesses, you're supposed to look the other way and slip right by those old principles, on the way to four-way easy street. And if the public wants a reunion, a manager's supposed to make sure it damned well gets one. Even if his wonders have to stay in different hotels, travel in separate curtain-drawn limousines, and sing from isolation booths."
Writer Loraine Alterman wrote the article, beneath the heading, "Foghat: Their Business is Rock & Roll," that begins, "So you want to be a rock & roll star. Well listen now to what I say. Just get an electric guitar and take some time to learn how to play'. NEW YORK - The song goes on to mention the agent man who sells plastic wares, selling your soul to the company and the general insanity of performing - touching the heart of the matter. During the past two years, Foghat, a four piece English band, has criss-crossed the U.S. five times, playing rock & roll pure and simple. Their first two albums each have sold in the neighborhood of 300,000. Their sixth U.S. tour opened July 23rd in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and their fourth album is due in October. Their label, Bearsville, has high expectations of turning Foghat into big-time rock & roll stars. Album sales of 475,000 earn $1 million - a gold record, - and Foghat is reaching for it, but the transformation from middling success to certified stardom, hasn't been accomplished by magic. The group and its retinue of managers, agents and record company reps, have tinkered, invested and calculated - mostly calculated - every step of the way toward the top rung."
An advertisement, toward the end of the magazine, reports that "More than a movie! An explosive cinema concert! Pink Floyd is making motion picture history with record-breaking engagements in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Detroit and Milwaukee. Now watch for it at a theatre near you." Below this is a promotion for the new book by biographer David Dalton, entitled "James Dean - The Mutant King," price, $9.95."
As it turned out, 1974-75 became a good school year, and I passed all my courses (by a hair's breadth), even the Humanities classes, that I couldn't bear to sit through. My relationship with my Bracebridge gal pal, would last for another four years, right into the heart of the disco craze, and arrival on the scene, of the Village People and the Bee Gees, her favorites. I would even, at one point, visit a disco, and dance beneath the glittering mirror ball, while feeling quite a lively, well-dressed dork. Music was as effervescent as it has always been, for me, and I loved it! I loved many genres of music, as I still enjoy today, for what they inspire in me; and how music has made the passage of time so much more pleasurable. "Music", the emotionally built bridge over troubled waters, some have said! Whether it was static-interrupted, from the tiny transistor radio that provided me with the weak signal of CHUM radio, during the day, and WLS of Chicago, at night, or a car radio blaring AC / DC, the home stereo skipping along with the Momas and Papas, or even the tiny one in my room, at Winter's College, belting out some Grand Funk, and of course, what the live band might have been playing at one of our favorite local and college pubs. I might like to say, if dreams really did come true, that I have lived the life of a musician, although I can't play anything more than the car CD player and radio. Yet, I have lived vicariously through so many thousands of talented musicians, that I feel like an invasive species. A tick who enjoys the excitement of music in all its forms, and from all its performers. Could anyone knowing my circumstance, blame me from burrowing inside the music scene.
Strange thing, you know; it's how I feel, sitting here in this 1960's circa armchair, in son Robert's studio, listening to music production, every day of the week. I suppose, for all intents and purposes, my dream has come true, finally. I can die a happy and contented man. Join me for more vintage stories, from these back issues of Rolling Stone, resuming again in tomorrow's blog. Don't miss checking today's "Currie's Antiques" Facebook Page, for another glimpse back at nostalgic and historic Bracebridge.
MAMA CASS - 1941-1974, WHAT THE FUTURE WAS DENIED WITH HER DEATH
THE "ROLLING STONE" MAGAZINE, OF AUGUST 1974 - CROSBY, STILLS, NASH & YOUNG - ANATOMY OF A REUNION
I was scared sh____less! (Yea, shoeless). Honestly, I was out of my mind with fear, back in the late summer of 1974, working at Building Trades Centre, in Bracebridge, as a shipper, and thinking those nagging bad thoughts, about the coming first year's studies at York University. I wasn't worried about how I'd survive on campus, or the marks I'd get, (I knew I'd fit in, somehow). I was scared to leave my new girlfriend, with all the opportunist hustlers, the wolves, at the old school, who had no scruples about moving into another fellow's territory. Mine specifically. She had another year of high school left to finish. I think her male acquaintances even warned me, (I thought they were kidding), our relationship was in great peril once I left town. Fool that I was, I thought love was all-powerful, and you didn't confess it to one-another, without an iron-clad, almost blood-oath commitment. What I was to find out, was that confessionals like ours, made in the embrace of the sentimental Muskoka moonlight, weren't worth more than the lipstock smudge, on the tuxedo shirt's white collar, garnered at the graduation after-party.
The music of the day either made me nuts with jealousy, or made me want to embrace her soft angel-kind, and never, ever let go! Music, in so many ways, was "the decider," in good cheer, melancholy, or what was certain to inspire unspecified fear and loathing. Was I losing her? What was my girlfriend up to? To make sure our love was true, in my clumsy attempt at this relationship thing, I came home every weekend, even if it meant hitch-hiking through a snowstorm. I suspected she was cheating on me. How crazy was that? Well, gosh, not so crazy! I found this out many years later, from my buddies, who all of a sudden, over a pint of lager, thought I could handle the news, of their former liberalities, to my very real consequence. I had been right all along. As they pointed out, "Hey man, it's ancient history now." I found that a somewhat flimsy argument. The music played on! Abba made me cry. Grand Funk made me care less! Meatloaf made me crazy. Toto and Asia were only played on lengthy love seeking road trips with mates, to find girls who didn't know our failings. It meant we had to drive for hours.
It was, beyond this, one of maturity's great conquests. Forcing snotty nosed youth like me, against the tides of emotion, to move on, not just in musical taste, but to capably tame the resources of the big, beckoning, crazy old world. As I would find out, five minutes on campus, the high school experience hadn't prepared me for the independence of university study. But nothing open to me, as pre-therapy, at that time, could have prepared me, for the first lunch, outside of the Ross Building, on that sunny September afternoon, having my lunch with friend Ross Smith, also of Bracebridge; as without our notice for some time, first responders near by, were tracing a chalk line, around a jumper, sprawled to our right, who most definitely had expired quickly, as a result of a multi-stoy plummet to the concrete below. I couldn't understand how this hadn't seriously affected all the people, who, like us, were enjoying the sun, and open air lunches. We were the only accidental voyeurs to move away from the scene. First day, first suicide aftermath witnessed, and first serious regrets about why we had left small town Ontario in the first place.
Ross, the artist, and I, comfortably of the rural bumpkin class, but having copious amounts of small town smarts, soon caught on to the events happening around us! Once we figured out this wasn't a drama department project, about death and stuff, beat a speedy retreat, to gather our country-honed balance of composure. We were roughly-hewn blokes, who hadn't spent a lot of time in the urban jungle as teens. Obviously, we had to learn fast, what we might run into by happenstance, being residents of the big smoke. Music? At that time it was a little confusing, as to what would make us feel better about the challenges we faced in the coming years, to fulfill the good faith our parents had in us, to finish what we began. I will confess, that my room-mate at the boarding house, in which the three of us, Ross included, were staying, introduced me to the more intricate stylings of Elton John, and the Yellow Brick Road, and for gosh sakes, it worked to sooth the savage beast, rather pissed at being in the city in the first place. When truthfully, I kind of preferred being-loved in the rural clime, where my girlfriend was redefining our relationship without my knowledge. Yup, 1974 was a year of redefinition for a lot of things I thought were solid and consequence-free. Boy was I wrong. Here's what was going on in the music world, as reflected so astutely, in the pages of that year's Rolling Stone magazine.
I won't lie to you. I was turned-on by the majesty, the regal, silken joy power, of Mama Cass's voice, best known from her years with the Momma's and Papas. Her voice got hold of my soul, and flung it all over the place, like a rag doll. I came out of the experience feeling spent, but looking forward to the next time we got together. I always left our date wanting more. When I pulled the August 1974 issue of "Rolling Stone," out of the collection of magazines, son Andrew purchased recently, I felt that pang of sudden loss all over again, as if it had happened yesterday. So there it was, a full page story on page 20, topped by the bold print headline, Mama Cass' Elliot Dead." I was crushed for a second time. I might piss-off a lot of Elvis fans, but the death of Mama Cass was like losing one's personal pleasure-advisor; a larger than life guru of happy times. She lifted my heart, and wow, she still had so much to give us, and our generation.
"She was the queen of L.A. pop society in the mid-sixties. Her voice helped make the harmony that made the Mamas and the Papas; her house in Laurel Canyon was a gathering place for musician friends like David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton and Buddy Miles. Crosby, Stills and Nash, in fact, first joined their voices at Cass's; from there they decided to work together formally. On stage, she was 'Mama Cass,' the comic presence. And, as her former manager, Bobby Roberts, said, 'She was overweight, but she carried it off like she was a beauty queen'." (Rolling Stone article, August 1974)
The article continues, "Cass Elliot, 32, died in the early morning of July 29th, in the London flat of Harry Nilsson, where she was living with her friend and road manager, George Caldwell, during her stay in England. Death was ruled accidental at a coroner's hearing the next day; the post-mortem showed that she died as a result of choking on a sandwich, while in bed and from inhaling her own vomit. She had complained to friends recently of frequent vomiting, possibly the result of dieting. That evening, when her secretary, Dot MacLeod, failed to reach Elliot by phone, she went to the flat and found the body. Several persons, according to manager Alan Carr, had been in her apartment the morning and afternoon of her death, but thought she was asleep"
The same article reports that, "Cass had just completed a successful two week engagement at the Palladium, Saturday, July 27th. To play the Palladium, comparable to Carnegie Hall to the U.S. 'was one of her lifetime ambitions,' said Bobby Roberts. As she left the hall, she saw the picture of Judy Garland in the gold frame inscribed with the dates Judy had played there. Cass said, 'I know what it must have meant to that lady to be a hit here, because I know what it means to be me.' She had attended a cocktail party Sunday night at Mick Jagger's home, but did not drink and departed early in the evening." The observation was made, that, "Lou Adler, producer of the Mamas and Papas, saw Cass's Palladium opening. 'She was really up,' he said. 'She felt she was opening a new career; she'd finally got together an act she felt good doing - not prostituting herself, but middle-of-the-road people enjoyed it and she enjoyed doing it'."
One page back, in this same issue of Rolling Stone, flanked by the photograph of former Beatle, John Lennon, the sidebar story headline reads, "John's Legal Case: Few Options Left." The opening reads, "NEW YORK - On July 18th, the Justice Department announced that it had ordered John Lennon to leave the country (United States) by September 10th, after the Immigration Service denied Lennon an extension of his non-immigrant visa, because of his guilty plea in England on a 1968 marijuana charge. On the same day, a California state senate committee urged decriminalization of marijuana possession in the state, calling it 'no threat to public health, safety or morals'."
The article notes, "Four days later the New York Post, in an editorial said, 'The crime for which John Lennon was convicted in London in 1968 would not even land him in a New York jail'."
There is a huge, multi-page interview published, further back in the magazine, on legendary Canadian pianist, Glenn Gould, as a part two component, for an ongoing series. It begins, "A week after our initial talk, Glenn Gould called again from Toronto to finish up the interview. (Gould, who keeps in touch with friends around the world by means of the telephone, does not give personal interviews, at his home, or office) In the intervening period, he had gone to the studio to record the Prelude to Wagner's 'The Meistersinger,' the last three contrapuntal minutes of which required him to overdub another four-handed primo, and secundo dialogue. I asked him how his duets with himself had come out."
Gould answers, "It just went swimmingly, to be immodest about it. At the end of the Meistersinger Prelude, the chap doing the primo stuff kept indulging in all sorts of strange rubato conceits, which were hard to mate up with, and I had to study his rather eccentric tempo notions for quite a while until I got with it (laughing), but once I did, on my secundo part, it was enormous fun."
One of the real kickers to this story, is when he takes a shot at fellow Canadian, and media guru, Marshall McLuhan. The Rolling Stone thought the comment was important enough, to block and use as a heading for the story's continuation on another page. It reads, "I admire McLuhan very much,....but I always felt that, that sort of trend terminology that he got off on, in 'Understanding Media,' was a pity, that he would have been better off without it, and that we would have understood him better without it."
The main story of this issue, as relates to the front cover art, is the multi-page feature, entitled "The Ego Meets the Dove - The Reunion of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young," by Senior Editor, Ben Fong-Torres. It begins, "As Elliot Roberts, their manager, so daintily put it, they were pissing in the wind, these boy wonders of his who could make a million at the snap of four fingers. And yet, year after year, this all-time favorite group from out of the Woodstock era, these symbols of harmony in music, would try to get back together and would fail. 'We really did try, every year,' Nash would say. 'It just didn't f____ing happen, because it wasn't real'."
The Rolling Stone article reports that, "From the beginning, in the spring of 1969, Crosby, Stills and Nash had been preparing the public for their breakup. I first met them back while they were cutting their first album, and they were all saying, and this was the bottom line of my story, that they were not a group." Writer, Fong-Torres, reminds readers, that "From the Byrds, the Buffalo Springfield and the Hollies, the three men had had enough, they said of outsized egos. Now they said they would band and disband as they pleased, go solo or form various duos, for tours and albums, as they pleased. They have been true to their founding principle. And it makes no sense. After you've become the biggest in the biggest of all entertainment businesses, you're supposed to look the other way and slip right by those old principles, on the way to four-way easy street. And if the public wants a reunion, a manager's supposed to make sure it damned well gets one. Even if his wonders have to stay in different hotels, travel in separate curtain-drawn limousines, and sing from isolation booths."
Writer Loraine Alterman wrote the article, beneath the heading, "Foghat: Their Business is Rock & Roll," that begins, "So you want to be a rock & roll star. Well listen now to what I say. Just get an electric guitar and take some time to learn how to play'. NEW YORK - The song goes on to mention the agent man who sells plastic wares, selling your soul to the company and the general insanity of performing - touching the heart of the matter. During the past two years, Foghat, a four piece English band, has criss-crossed the U.S. five times, playing rock & roll pure and simple. Their first two albums each have sold in the neighborhood of 300,000. Their sixth U.S. tour opened July 23rd in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and their fourth album is due in October. Their label, Bearsville, has high expectations of turning Foghat into big-time rock & roll stars. Album sales of 475,000 earn $1 million - a gold record, - and Foghat is reaching for it, but the transformation from middling success to certified stardom, hasn't been accomplished by magic. The group and its retinue of managers, agents and record company reps, have tinkered, invested and calculated - mostly calculated - every step of the way toward the top rung."
An advertisement, toward the end of the magazine, reports that "More than a movie! An explosive cinema concert! Pink Floyd is making motion picture history with record-breaking engagements in Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Detroit and Milwaukee. Now watch for it at a theatre near you." Below this is a promotion for the new book by biographer David Dalton, entitled "James Dean - The Mutant King," price, $9.95."
As it turned out, 1974-75 became a good school year, and I passed all my courses (by a hair's breadth), even the Humanities classes, that I couldn't bear to sit through. My relationship with my Bracebridge gal pal, would last for another four years, right into the heart of the disco craze, and arrival on the scene, of the Village People and the Bee Gees, her favorites. I would even, at one point, visit a disco, and dance beneath the glittering mirror ball, while feeling quite a lively, well-dressed dork. Music was as effervescent as it has always been, for me, and I loved it! I loved many genres of music, as I still enjoy today, for what they inspire in me; and how music has made the passage of time so much more pleasurable. "Music", the emotionally built bridge over troubled waters, some have said! Whether it was static-interrupted, from the tiny transistor radio that provided me with the weak signal of CHUM radio, during the day, and WLS of Chicago, at night, or a car radio blaring AC / DC, the home stereo skipping along with the Momas and Papas, or even the tiny one in my room, at Winter's College, belting out some Grand Funk, and of course, what the live band might have been playing at one of our favorite local and college pubs. I might like to say, if dreams really did come true, that I have lived the life of a musician, although I can't play anything more than the car CD player and radio. Yet, I have lived vicariously through so many thousands of talented musicians, that I feel like an invasive species. A tick who enjoys the excitement of music in all its forms, and from all its performers. Could anyone knowing my circumstance, blame me from burrowing inside the music scene.
Strange thing, you know; it's how I feel, sitting here in this 1960's circa armchair, in son Robert's studio, listening to music production, every day of the week. I suppose, for all intents and purposes, my dream has come true, finally. I can die a happy and contented man. Join me for more vintage stories, from these back issues of Rolling Stone, resuming again in tomorrow's blog. Don't miss checking today's "Currie's Antiques" Facebook Page, for another glimpse back at nostalgic and historic Bracebridge.
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