It’s Turntable Tuesday because life is too short not to listen to great music! Turn that TV off! Everyone deserves some time to hear your favorite music on your local speaker and there is no better time than right now! This week there is so much going on in the vinyl world with the recent Record Store Day releases, the live music concert schedules that are updating, and best of all it is now Summer! Let’s crank it up and enjoy the Summer of Freedom!
If you would like to listen to my companion podcast you can listen here or subscribe for free on any of the streaming services you use. My podcast is easily searchable on any streaming service where you get your podcasts by searching “Andrew Talbert.” Look for the World Wide Music Media logo. I’ll talk to you on your mobile device!
September 4, 1999. I was headed down I-40 East to Raleigh to Walnut Creek Amphitheater to a show I was really looking forward to seeing. It was the seventh concert of a 21 date tour of Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Shawn Colvin, David Lindley, and Bruce Hornsby. The advance word was this was a collaboration show and this amount of talent on one stage was going to be incredible! I could not wait for this one to begin. I can remember the drive in like this was yesterday. Hurricane Dennis was hovering over the North Carolina outer banks in a stall pattern and blowing rain and warm tropical wind into the Raleigh area. The further I got east the worse the rain got. I was driving my mature Mercedes 300D which was very heavy and tracking pretty well in the deep rain on the interstate but honestly I worried about even making the show through the traffic and weather. This car had one large wiper that was working overtime. It was very grey and very bright as I stared at the highway ahead of me. It was the kind of day where it was hard to see with sunglasses off or on. After finally arriving at the parking lot for the show my stress level dropped a bit until I saw the depth of the water going across the parking lot that my old school athletic shoes were going to swim in to even get into the venue. I sat there for a while and studied the scene. The parking lot density was looking very light indeed for what should be a sold-out show. Finally a small break in the tropical storm overhead allowed me to make a run into the venue. I knew I had a covered seat if I could just make it there. So as the raincoat and now upside down umbrella which was a victim of the wind gusts on the way in provided some protection from the rain I did manage to make it to my seat well before show time. My feet were soaked in my leather shoes but I was ok otherwise. I was still wondering if this show was even going to happen. Hardly anyone was in the seats and the small crowd on the lawn was under clear plastic sheets trying to brave the on and off hard downpours of tropical ocean rain. As 15 minutes to showtime arrived a man comes out to the microphone and makes an announcement. “As everyone can see we have a weather situation.” I laughed. “For the folks on the lawn please move under the covered seating area unless the seat is occupied.” We were expecting a large crowd tonight but the weather has kept much of the audience at home.” “The show will start soon.”
I thought yeah so now I am moving from row 12 to row 1 because no one is there. Why not? Soon the entire hard core audience that had braved the elements were all clustered right in front of the stage! What a show this was! I still remember seeing rain blow sideways through the seated area as the show was happening but the music equipment stayed mostly dry. There may have been a hurricane coming but this show was on!
I have seen Bruce Hornsby perform many times. I am fortunate that he has played the southeastern United States area in many venues and invited guests to the stage which only make the night better. One of my favorites was at Koka Booth Amphitheater in Cary, North Carolina when Bruce invited his pal Wynton Marsalis https://wyntonmarsalis.org/ on to the stage. When Bruce takes the stage whether it is playing with the Grateful Dead or Ricky Scaggs he can play a piano and take you places. I am holding tickets to a show of his scheduled in the next 90 days and I cannot wait to see another set of his music.
So I will dig into the album details on my companion podcast this week to tell you more about the individual tracks and a story or two. One of my favorite tracks on this album is “Anything Can Happen” which was a demo track recorded in the home studio of Leon Russell in Hendersonville, Tennessee almost 30 years ago. Bruce wrote and recorded the music and picked the lyrics from a red notebook that Leon had chocked full of his writings. This is nice work so many years later.
That is most of what I wanted to share about this album this week. I just got back from being in Maryland and Delaware enjoying live music and it was great to get out with “vaccine freedom.” I am very hopeful that we can get doses of this vaccine to everyone who wants one across the planet. Everyone deserves to be free of this terrible virus and enjoy a normal life again. I am very grateful I have had access to this vaccine and am now enjoying some live music and travel again. Speaking of travel I just got back from New York City and visited Rough Trade https://www.roughtrade.com/us at Radio City and https://rockandsoul.com/ Rock and Soul DJ Equipment and Records.” I have some really cool June Record Store Day releases to share in some upcoming weeks. There are so many new releases coming out it will take a few months to catch up with all the news but it is coming as well as some live concert updates!
Until next time I’ll see you, down the road.