Back in 1975 or so, I got my very own eight track tape player, which meant that I could, if I had the cash and a ride, buy my own music. The sound quality sucked, but to have my own music without interference from anyone was magical. Who are you, really, if you cannot pick out your own music?
When riding in a car with an adult, kids listened to whatever the adult was listening to, and no other option was possible, or thinkable. If it was good enough for your parents it was good enough for you. Rock and Roll was garbage, just like the rest of a child’s opinion if it wasn’t the parent’s.
It was Christmas when I got the tape player and my parents were divorced. My parents offered up milder music in hopes that I wouldn’t continue to get weirder than I already was showing, but a man named Johnny gave me Edgar Winter Group’s “Shock Treatment” album, and it was far and away the best music an adult had given me. Johnny would be my mom’s second husband one day, and he was the only adult who treated me with any respect at all. He didn’t act like I was in dire need of repair. He also was there when I tried to kill Jimmy Carter,in 1974, and I’m glad he stopped me.
I had never heard of Edgar Winter, but I liked the music, but eventually, the tape broke.
For some reason, I never replaced it, so after a while I forgot about it. I woke up this morning and sang, “Sundown, see the magical feelings of the day at sundown
Chase all my worries away at sundown.”
What, I asked myself, in the hell was all that about? I knew the song was from the deep past, and couldn’t remember who sang it. “Easy Street,” flowed into my mind next, and I sat and smiled. The door had opened with music. You were who you were with your own music. This was mine. Edgar Winter’s name popped into my head, and after that Google took over.
I found “Sundown,” then hit play.
I chased the album down on Amazon Music. I sat there, eyes closed, remembering what it had felt like to taste freedom for the first time, to play music when I wanted, the music I wanted, and listen to music I never knew existed.
After decades, the lyrics were still there, safely locked away in my mind, and it was like seeing an old friend.
Johnny died years ago. Jimmy Carter died two days ago, and Edgar Winter is almost 80.
Yet the music, even with its terrible recording, lives. I never was any better at being normal, and my music has always reflected this. Or perhaps, my music is normal, for people who see the world as abnormal, and our music is freedom from that world, who sees sundown as the end of the day, not the beginning.
What piece of music will always mean Freedom to you?
Take Care,
Mike
BTO You Aint Seen Nothing Yet. Roll on Down the Highway was another. I was 13. Not Fragile was my first cassette purchase. I moved on the Alice Cooper but thats a story for another time.
Erin, Takin Care of Business rocked, and I would love to hear your Alice Cooper story. “Welcome to my Night Mare” was the first album I bought on vinyl.
Normal? What is normal? Is normal what some executroid in a suit says is normal. Screw that, be yourself. It fits you better.
Mr. Happy, I am rediscovering my weird late in life, but I’m still me.
I am trying to remember the albums I had in my 71 VW Bug. I wired speakers that filled the little space in the back window plus a headphone jack. I had a small suitcase that held maybe 30 cassettes. I wore out Aqualung and Benefit. I passed a trooper on the road to Daytona, headphones on and a doobie in my mouth. I watched the brake lights come on and the trooper doing a U-turn. Stash went out the window, headphones flew under the seat and I became the best driver in the world. He followed me to the coast where I drove on the beach and he turned left on A-1-A. Good times. Take care Mike. I’ll wave as we pass through Ga. next month. Brian
I had a ’62 with a ’66 motor snd that back deck fit four 6×9’s beautifully.
Yes it did…
Brian,
Aqualung drove people crazy, especially Hymn 43. The song itself was far too much for most of the people in a small town in SW Georgia. But to me, it was freedom from that.
Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues”, in an era when I wasn’t usually listening to the lyrics too closely, it fit me as an awkward misfit…
KD,
Omg what an awesome song, and so much more than it touched you. Steely Dan’s Midnight Cruiser fit a friend of mine who died at age 50, 13 years ago.
I mentioned before one Christmas I got a record player.
On occasions my folks had company for the evening they would pull rank and use it to play big band albums.
However, in the car/truck my father listened to rock and roll or pop, what ever was on the top 20 station. So whenever I used the car or truck I never had to change stations, or remember to change it back when I got home.
That sounds like a minor perk in my life but I was aware it was unusual from listening to peers, and appreciated it
One kid in our neighborhood had a radio, a small one, with batteries and we would listen to a rock and roll station while hiding in the woods.
Music was that thing that defined who you were, a follower or a free soul.
My first 8 track and first music of my own was KISS Rock and Roll Over. I got this in about 1977. I have no idea where it came from. My mother does not listen to that genre at all, my dad was gone, my grandparents were the greatest generation, obviously that was not their style. If I had to guess, I would think maybe someone gave it to my mother and she didn’t like it. I loved it! That was the best thing I had ever heard!! Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy other types of music. My grandmother turned me on to Nat King Cole and Nina Simone, I love them both to this day. I have a varied array of tastes.
In my family though, hard rock and heavy metal are all mine. If I’ve had a hard day at work I put on something loud and hard on the way home and by the time I pull into my drive, I’m zen. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Amon Amarth. That is literally music to my ears and my calm and happy place.
Chick, the album version of that tape came with a sticker that read, “Rock and Roll over” in a jagged circle and I stuck it on top of my turntables dust cover, that I used to clean the seeds out of my pot.
I’ve been trying to find a song from the early-middle 1970s that’s maybe not called Mr. Nobody, but the end of several verses goes quietly and gently, “He’s Mis-ter Noooo-body.” Here’s the problem: I can easily imagine it in any voice of any performer of the time, however different. Neither Google nor ChatGPT has a clue. The top candidates are Dave Mason, and Stevie Wonder. Help.
I got a Radio Shack cassette/FM stereo in 1975 and bolted it up under the dash of my first car, a green ’71 Nova with three-on-the-tree standard transmission and a 250 cu. in. straight six with a one barrel Rochester carburetor the size of a softball. Two 6-by-9 speakers in the back dash. I drove home from work at Pizza Cellar at 11 at night with KZAP all the way up and all the windows rolled down, which could be done without stopping, by contorting, but it was a trick because they were all hand cranked. That stereo box was so cool and futuristic, with a radio dial that was a back-lit green plastic tape that rolled back and forth inside. And it was the first electronic device in my life that, when it broke and I took it apart and tried to fix it, actually worked again and stayed fixed.
Janis Joplin, Three Dog Night, Melanie Safka, Bob Dylan, Crosby Stills Nash and Young…
Marco, the cars were much cooler than, too. The sound system you had in your car was also a sign you had escaped the gravitation pull of normal. I had someone tell me they didn’t understand Janis Joplin and i told them they didn’t understand life.
About 33 years ago, a friend of mine had an old Ford LTD with an 8-track player. He and a friend of his took a road trip. My friend had an 8-track to cassette converter and that friend had a cassette to CD converter–so yes, they listened to CDs through the 8-track radio. My friend, in a moment of obviousness, said the sound was not good.
I did not have a car with an 8-track player, but with a cassette player.
My music interest is very eclectic. I mainly listen to oldies, classic rock, and novelty. Think Motown, Pink Floyd, The Who, Spike Jones and His City Slickers, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Jethro Tull, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Allan Sherman, the Eagles, the Clash, and yes, even the Winters: Johnny and Edgar (the Albino brothers, each with their own bands) plus others.
Songs of freedom to me are the travel-related songs, like “Turn the Page” by Bob Seger, anything by The Who (even non-travel related), and others.
Tim, I had a roommate in the 80’s who had a converter. It was odd, even, then to see one. 8 tracks were going gone by that time, CDs ruled the world, but vinyl was making a come back. Seems like the older music was about finding your true self and these days music is about, hmmmm, I don’t know.
It just occurred to me I didn’t mention one of the great revelations in my life was discovering FM radio. In the garage working on my car and accidentally flipped the garage radio to FM searching for something to listen to. This was in the late 60s and there was a whole new world out there.
The down side was it cost a fortune to keep modifying the car to be in the garage rather than watching TV upstairs.
Philly had great concerts at the Spectrum but the Tower theater in Upper Darby was the ultimate. About 3500 seats and Bowie, Jefferson airplane and starship, Jethro Tull, Genesis, and dozens more. What, tickets went up to $6, outrageous!
https://venue.thetowerphilly.com/venueinfo
Bruce, we listened to an AM station out of Dothan Alabama when I was a kid, and then there was a station out of Panama City that cranked up rock and roll, but the conditions had to be right. We were furtive listeners, like the French Resistance, our headphone pressed to one ear as we searched the airwaves for a signal, hoping we didn’t get caught. The penalty was to lose the radio, and therefore the freedom.
I dream of a day, this very day, this moment, I could listen to anything I wanted.
my parents had an 8track in their beater of a station wagon – green with wood panel siding… we used to have to sit in the backward facing rear seat on most road trips. this was before seat belts and safety glass.. the music was dreadful mostly; lawrence welk ; bing crosby, glenn miller etc. i can still remember “in the year of 2525” playing more times than I can stick a shake at.
my first “non parent” road trip was a cross country drive from Atlanta to the Grand Canyon with my explorer scout group – we had an uber fancy cassette deck in the van and the music was significantly upgraded; led zepplin; jackson brown; lynyrd skynyrd; Boston; Bruce Springsteen; The Who;… all the stuff my parents would never let us listen to when they were driving. that road trip included three stops in Mexico (Acuna (near Del Rey Texas) and Juarez (near El Paso Texas); plus we went hiking in “Big Bend” and hung out at a natural hot springs on the edge of the Rio Grande river; took a hand pulled ferry across the river to “Boquillas” (a very tiny speck of a town in northern New Mexico) and went over and had some tacos at the only restaurant in town. We also spent 2 days hiking in the Weminuche Wilderness Area (north of Durango Colorado) and 2 days in the “Land between the lakes” area (south of St. Louis).
Speaking of Carter: Jimmy Carter was president at the time of that trip… I’ve met Jimmy Carter a few times… the first was on a school field trip when he was still the governor of Georgia; we went to the state capitol and have a class photo with him by the big stairs in the center (underneath the dome). The second time was a bit more meaninful; I had just gotten home from school and was flipping through the 5 channels our massive chassis tv set could receive when I passed by the news with a live newscast and was shocked to notice that it was at my next door neighbors house… Channel 5 (currently a FOX network channel but it was a CBS affiliate at the time) had a news van parked right out in front of my house and were broadcasting live. Jimmy Carter was there; it was while he was shortly after he was elected (before taking office) and he was there because he had just picked my next door neighbor to head up a division of H.E.W (Health; Education and Welfare). I got to meet the next president that day… I ran into him one other time on a flight back to Atlanta (from Salt Lake City I think); we were already boarded and delayed for about 15 minutes… he then appeared and came down the aisle to greet everyone on the flight. This was ~1999. We got to see him one time (2004 I think) when we visited Plains and attended the church where he would teach. (didn’t get a chance to talk to him that day but we got to hear him teach. Saturday we went out to watch his funeral procession pass on his way to the events in Atlanta.