Managing Editor
When it comes to music, I know what I like and avoid listening to bands and singers I don’t particularly care for. This has been the case for me since I was 9 years old and first tuning in to popular rock n’ roll radio stations on a transistor radio.
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| Avril Lavigne performs during a concert June 30 at Glastonbury, England before 100,000 people. COURTESY PHOTO |
Yet lately, I seem to have had a change of heart or a reversal of my personal feelings about some music.
Back in 1979, I was serving in the U.S. Air Force in Germany and was thrilled that the base exchange store offered many of the newest releases and at a discount for military members too. Every Friday, if I saved my money up during the week, which wasn’t always easy as I was earning $360 a month back then, I could find new albums priced between $4.99 and $7.99.
Soon I had built up quite a collection of vinyl records that included many new artists that I took great pride in introducing to my friends and some better-known bands and singers from the 1970s.
Before I had enlisted in the Air Force in 1977, like many other young adults my age, I had become a fan of the band Fleetwood Mac and considered myself fortunate to have included 1975’s self-titled “Fleetwood Mac” album and the 1976 Fleetwood Mac “Rumors” album in my vinyl collection.
But being overseas and working long shifts, sometimes it was hard for me to keep up with music news from the United States. Therefore, in October 1979 I was shocked when a friend told me he had visited the base exchange store earlier that day and purchased Fleetwood Mac’s newly released album called “Tusk.” He asked if I wanted to join a group of friends at his apartment that evening to listen to the new album for the first time and I readily agreed as I hadn’t even heard the band had been working on a new album.
But from the very first song he played on the “Tusk” double album, some of us were taken aback. It was music quite different from the “Rumors” album and I left that apartment that night saying that the new “Tusk” album would take some getting used to. Through the years it never happened for me, and “Tusk” became one of the Fleetwood Mac albums I never bought.
A few years before that in 1975, I had been driving in my 1974 Mercury Capri when a song called “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” by a singer named Elvin Bishop came on the radio. I wasn’t crazy about the song the first time, the second, or the third time I heard it while driving. In fact, it seemed every time I turned on the radio, no matter what station I selected, it would eventually end up playing “Fooled Around and Fell in Love.”
It was played so many times and in so many different places that I grew to detest the song and it became an automatic reflex action of mine that if the opening refrains of Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” appeared on the radio, my fingers were ready to hit the buttons to choose another radio station. If I was shopping in a store and heard the song, I’d search immediately for the nearest exit.
By 2002, I would watch MTV on television to stay current with new performers and bands. Some of the newer singers and bands I enjoyed, while some just didn’t do it for me. Such was the case with Avril Lavigne. I thought her voice resembled what I believed was close to sheer caterwauling. I just found her music irritating and all her hit songs sounded the same to me. I told some of my friends that in my opinion she was sort of a poor man’s version of Alanis Morissette.
Like Elvin Bishop and Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk” album, Avril Lavigne became just another performer on my personal dislike list, and you may think that’s the end of the story.
But since I have redone my stereo system at home and started listening to vinyl and CDs from my personal collection again, something remarkable has happened.
I saw the “Tusk” CD in a record store for $6.97 and decided to give it another listen. It’s truly amazing music and I now consider it the best of all their albums. I’m lucky to own a copy of it.
A month ago, my wife Nancy and I were driving somewhere and “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” was playing on the radio. We listened to it, and we both agreed that it’s an awesome tune.
Then last weekend I watched Avril Lavigne’s performance of “I’m With You” during a televised concert in Glastonbury, England. Her voice was truly incredible, and I must admit I was wrong about her after all.
I suppose that one is never too old to have a change of heart when it comes to your musical tastes.
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