Insight: Buck and The Cro

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Several famous people I have met under different circumstances exhibited an uncommon trait called kindness.

Joe Crozier, left, befriended Ed Pierce when he was the
coach of the Rochester Americans in the American
Hockey League in the 1960s. Pierce met recording artist
B.W. Stevenson before a concert in 1973.
COURTESY PHOTOS     

As a representative of the Student Entertainment Committee at New Mexico Highlands University in October 1973, my mission was to ensure the bands we booked to appear in concert had suitable hotel accommodations and their equipment was on site and available for their performance. It also meant making sure the electricity and microphones worked and that band members were fed before each of the concerts.

One of the first performers I got to meet in person was a musician by the name of B.W. Stevenson. He and his band were touring the county promoting his new album. “My Maria” and his hit single of the same name from the album. Our committee had booked him earlier that summer, when his fee to perform was reasonable enough before his hit song rose to reach the Top 10 nationally.

I hadn’t listened very much to his music, but I had noticed his first album with his photo wearing a stovepipe hat the year before. I met his bus when it arrived on campus and told the band that once they looked over the gym where they were playing, we could get them checked into the hotel and then return for early afternoon sound checks and rehearsal.

Stevenson was slightly older than I was, in fact, he shared with me that this day of the concert was in fact his 24th birthday. He wasn’t very tall but was rather stocky and quiet. He told me that he was from Dallas, Texas and learned to play the guitar as a teenager.

When I asked him what the B.W. initials stood for, he laughed and said, “It’s Buckwheat, but you can call me Buck if you’d like.”

After dinner, Stevenson pulled me aside and asked what was going on in town after the concert. I mentioned to him that our fraternity was having a party with a keg of beer afterward and that he was welcome to come by our fraternity house with his band.

The concert was successful, and my job was done as other committee members made sure everything got packed up and stored on the band’s bus.

To my surprise, Stevenson showed up at the party with some band members and thanked me for inviting him. He shared a beer with us and some stories from the road and his life as a musician. I found him to be genuine and a regular guy despite his celebrity status.

While attending a professional hockey game in Rochester, New York in 1965, I asked my father if I could walk down to the player’s bench and see if one of them would give me a hockey stick. Most of the players were out on the ice warming up before the game started and so there was just one man standing by the bench and he was dressed in a business suit, so I decided that he wasn’t a hockey player.

I introduced myself to the man in the suit and he told me his name was Joe “The Cro” Crozier and that he was the coach of the Rochester Americans. He asked how old I was, and I told him I was 11. He pointed out onto the ice to a player warming up for the Hershey Bears wearing a jersey with the numeral 8 on it. He said the player’s nickname was “The Big Bear” and that his real name was Mike Nykoluk, pronounced Nik-O-Luck.

Crozier said that if I shouted “You Stink” at Nykoluk when he skated by and if he reacted to it, that he would make sure I received a hockey stick.

Sure enough, Nykoluk skated past where I was standing and I screamed at him, “Hey Nykoluk, you stink like a skunk.” Nykoluk stopped, turned around and smiled at me, shaking his stick at me first, and then at Crozier, who was laughing hysterically.

I returned to my seat but before the game ended, Crozier motioned to the usher to bring me and my brother to the bench where he presented us both with broken hockey sticks. Crozier told me, “Someday when you are grown up, you’ll remember this moment.”

Crozier went on as a coach to lead the Rochester Americans to three Calder Cup American Hockey League championships. He later served as the coach of the Buffalo Sabres and the Toronto Maple Leafs in the National Hockey League. Ironically, when Crozier was fired as the Leafs’ coach in 1981, he was replaced by none other than Mike Nykoluk. In 2012, Crozier was inducted into the AHL Hall of Fame and died at the age of 93 in 2022.

B.W. Stevenson continued to sing and perform nationally until 1988. In April of that year, he went into the hospital to have a heart valve repaired. Following the surgery, he soon developed a staph infection and died at age 38. Brooks and Dunn later had a Number 1 country hit with their version of Stevenson's "My Maria." 

Years later, when I think about meeting Joe Crozier and B.W. Stevenson, and that they each chose to be friendly to me when I was a total stranger to them, I am humbled. Their kindness is not something I will soon forget. <

Insight: The Stranger, Bookends and the Ring of Fire

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Every single day, in some way, shape or form, music touches my life. And I’m a better person for it.

Last weekend, my wife Nancy and I spent time visiting several thrift shops and antique stores and we each found something to bring home. She is into sewing and with the time speeding by until a new grandchild is born in March, she’s been busy accumulating fabric to turn into clothing and other items for the baby. As for me, I always find a record album or two during these excursions to add to my growing collection.

On this trip, I brought home Billy Joel’s 1977 recording “The Stranger” priced at only $5, and Simon and Garfunkel’s 1968 “Bookends,” also for $5. I also bought a “Peter Paul and Mary” album for $3. Considering those to be genuine bargains, you can only imagine my surprise when I noticed a pristine copy of 1963’s “The Best of Johnny Cash: Ring of Fire” for $12. I brought four all-time classic recordings home for just $25.

That Billy Joel album remains one of my favorites, and I am lucky to say that I saw him and his band perform it live during his “Just the Way You Are” tour at the Frankfurt Zoo in Germany in 1978. I was stationed in Frankfurt in the U.S. Air Force at the time and a friend called and asked if I wanted him to purchase tickets for the concert. I was able to scrape up the $20 and the next evening, my wife and I joined our friend and his wife to walk two blocks to the zoo for the show.

The Frankfurt Zoo Auditorium featured a small stage facing 300 folding chairs with 150 on each side divided by an aisle. We sat near the aisle in the third row, and I was completely mesmerized by how great the acoustics were there. At one point, Billy Joel stepped off the stage and ran up and down the aisle while singing and I certainly felt that he gave a great performance that night.

If you’ve watched the movie “Almost Famous,” you’ve probably seen the cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bookends” album. It’s a black and white image of the two singers and in the film, actress Zooey Deschanel brings the album home and her mother, portrayed by actress Frances McDormand, disapproves. Deschanel says that the music of Simon and Garfunkel is poetry, but McDormand says “Yes, it's poetry. It is the poetry of drugs and promiscuous sex.”

The “Bookends” album contains an interesting mix of catchy tunes including “A Hazy Shade of Winter,” “At the Zoo,” “Mrs. Robinson” (from the 1967 film “The Graduate”), and “America.” Deschanel plays “America” from “Bookends” to explain to her mother why she’s leaving home to become a flight attendant. At one time in the 1970s, I owned the Simon and Garfunkel album “Bookends” on 8-Track tape for my car, but that’s another story for another time.

Growing up in the 1960s, I loved listening to Peter Paul and Mary but have never previously owned one of their albums. This was their first album on the Warner Brothers label in 1962 and includes classic folk songs such as “500 Miles,” “Where Have All The Flowers Gone,” “If I Had A Hammer,” and “Lemon Tree.” I was on my way to the front of the store to pay for the other records I had found when I noticed the “Peter Paul and Mary” album. Its cost of $3 was less than a gallon of gas and it promises to be a much-beloved part of my collection, especially since it was the first folk music album to ever reach the top position in America on the Billboard Popular Music chart.

The weekend after the New Year’s holiday, Nancy and I went to the theater to see the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown.” Scenes in that movie depict the friendship between Dylan and Johnny Cash and although I’m not much of a country music afficionado, I am aware that Johnny Cash is truly a legend, and through the years I have come to appreciate his music.

Finding “The Best of Johnny Cash: Ring of Fire” album was indeed a stroke of luck. The distinctive purple album cover, and the LP inside it are in near-mint condition, and it’s a tangible piece of history now residing in my music room. Released in July 1963, sales for “The Best of Johnny Cash: Ring of Fire” grew over the rest of that year and it was the first #1 album when Billboard debuted their “Country Album Chart” on Jan. 11, 1964. Some new copies of the soon-to-be 62-year-old album are selling for $35 currently on Amazon.

With each passing day, I’m so grateful to have rebuilt my home stereo system last summer. I even have co-workers contribute albums to my collection. Over Christmas, Melissa Carter of The Windham Eagle was in Goodwill and found two old Neil Diamond albums which she purchased and gave to me.

For me, music rekindles past memories, it helps me travel to places I wouldn’t normally visit, and awakens my sense of creativity. <

Insight: A Change of Heart

By Ed Pierce
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.

Avril Lavigne performs during a
concert June 30 at Glastonbury,
England before 100,000 people.
COURTESY PHOTO

Through the years I have developed my own musical tastes and musical dislikes and as I’ve gotten older, I rarely, if ever, have a change of opinion about those on the wrong side of my preferences.

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.

Insight: Should’ve, could’ve, would’ve

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Last week I saw a list shared on social media that was compiled by a hospice nurse who spent her career dealing with individuals who were dying and later wrote a book about it. Knowing that their time on earth was dwindling, the dying passed on their regrets about their lives.

According to this nurse, the top five common regrets were not at all what she expected.

They included wishing they had the courage to live a life true to themselves, and not the life others expected of them by their family or friends. They also wished that they hadn’t spent so much of their lives working, wished they would have had the ability to truly express their feelings, wished they had kept in better touch with friends, and wished they had let themselves enjoy life more and be happier.

During a national study conducted in 2011, Americans were asked to describe a significant life regret, and the most common reported regrets involved romance (19.3 percent), family (16.9 percent), education (14 percent), career (13.8 percent), finances (9.9 percent), and parenting (9.0 percent).

It occurs to me that all the regrets mentioned above involve personal relationships and I can understand that.

As humans, we all share the common experience of living and interacting with others. Since taking our first breath, we all have been part of the routine of life, and everything associated with it. How we relate to others, however, is a choice, and so is how happily we live our lives. There are people we meet along the way that influence the decisions we make and shape our reactions and directly affect our happiness and lives.

By the time I was 15, I had already figured out what I wanted to do for a career but many adult figures in my life wanted to steer me to choices they felt were better for me. During sophomore English class, my teacher, Ruth Silverman, suggested I was a good writer and encouraged me to explore a career in journalism. Now 49 years into my newspaper career, I’ve never regretted that decision, but I do regret not being able to tell her what great advice it was.

She left the school for another teaching position after that school year, and I have no idea where she went. I’ve tried my best through the years to track her down and tell her about my life and career without success. I’ve asked the school system, former teachers at the school, and looked extensively online but have been unable to find her and probably never will.

For many years, I also regretted that I never had a chance to tell other teachers that helped me along the way how much I valued and appreciated them. However, I was able to tell my high school basketball coach Gene Monje that in 2006 and several years later, he invited me to give his introduction speech at the Section V Basketball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Rochester, New York.

I also had a long-standing regret when I was younger about my high school music teacher Giles Hobin. His chorus class was transformational for me when I reached high school. From the first day, he treated me like an adult and inspired me to appreciate music. I wanted to thank him years later but didn’t know where he was.

In the spring of 2001, my classmate Janet Howland sent me a newspaper clipping of a Letter to the Editor he had written, and it listed his home address, which was the same as it had been for years. I sat down and wrote him a letter saying that unlike other students on the first day of college, I felt totally prepared because of teachers like him and was ready for the challenge. I mailed it to him and expected to hear back from him, but months passed without a response.

As I was getting ready to fly to Rochester to attend a wedding in late October 2001, Janet Howland emailed me to tell me that Giles Hobin had died. I was crushed and saddened that I would never have an opportunity to speak to him again. I was able to attend his funeral service with some of my classmates and as I went through a reception line meeting my teacher’s family, something remarkable happened.

As I shook his son Shawn’s hand in the reception line, he turned and told his mother who I was. She smiled and hugged me and said that she wanted to tell me something.

“Of course, Giles was thrilled to receive your letter,” she said. “It meant the world to him, and he kept it on his nightstand. He wanted to write you back but couldn’t because of his illness. I offered to write it for him, but he insisted that he would write you back, but he never got the chance to do so.”

The experience of being human means interacting with many different personalities to chart your own path in this world. I’ve made plenty of mistakes over time and have made many decisions I wish I could regret, but instead I’ve chosen to be happy and continue moving ahead.

Insight: Rock n’ Roll everlasting

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Time marches on for devoted fans of the rock n’ roll music genre, that is, unless you’re a fan of the Rolling Stones or The Beatles. Both the Stones and The Fab Four are back on the charts with new music this month and paying no mind to the fact that the heyday of both legendary bands from Great Britain was nearly 60 years ago.

In February 1965, I was in seventh grade and was waiting for the school bus when a classmate walked up to me and asked me what I thought of the Rolling Stones. I informed him I had never heard of them, and he said if I had $3, he’d sell me their “12x5” record album. The next day I gave him $3 in quarters that I had been saving for a Hardy Boys book and he handed me a paper sleeve containing the vinyl album without its album cover.

After listening to the album, I liked the song “Time is on my Side” the most on the album and it made me want to know more about Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and Brian Jones of the Stones.

From listening at night to my AM transistor radio, I knew who The Beatles were. I saw their record albums for sale at Woolworth’s but never had enough money to purchase one. That all changed once I began my paper route on my 13th birthday in 1966 and I had limited cash of my own, usually in the range of $8 to $12 a week, to spend or save.

After hearing many of the songs by The Beatles on their “Rubber Soul” album and knowing the words to the songs by heart, I chose to make “Rubber Soul” the first album by Beatles’ members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr that I would add to my growing music collection that also included “Turn, Turn, Turn” by The Byrds, and “Let’s All Sing With The Chipmunks” by Alvin and The Chipmunks.

The “Rubber Soul” album happens to be among my all-time favorites and features such classic songs as “Norwegian Wood,” and “In My Life” and “Michelle.” My personal favorites on that album are “Girl” and “I’m Looking Through You.”

My fascination with The Beatles began in February 1964 when my father wouldn’t let me watch their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on television because he disapproved of their long hairstyles. To make it up to me, he offered a few weeks later to let me watch a rival band to The Beatles called The Dave Clark Five when they appeared on Ed Sullivan’s program.

By the time I was a sophomore in high school in September 1968, my record collection was thriving and filled with quite a few Rolling Stones and Beatles albums. When The Beatles decided to go their separate ways following the “Let it Be” album in 1970, I clung to the hope that someday the group would reunite for more music. At a college fraternity party in December 1972, I remember the crowd dancing to every song from the “Hot Rocks 1964-1971” album by the Rolling Stones.

I was watching a Monday Night Football game in December 1980 when sportscaster Howard Cosell announced to viewers that John Lennon had been shot and killed outside his apartment building in New York City. I was devastated and thought that the Beatles reunion would now certainly never happen.

Just a year later in December 1981, I attended a Rolling Stones concert in Tempe, Arizona and I thought that it might be one of their last shows ever in America. Was I ever wrong about that notion and about The Beatles.

In 1994, Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, gave the surviving members of The Beatles three tapes of songs John had written before his death. Using John’s vocals, two of the songs were recorded by McCartney, Harrison and Starr in 1995 and released as Beatles’ singles “Real Love” and “Free As A Bird.” But the third cassette’s quality was bad, and they abandoned the idea of trying to record it.

The Rolling Stones have kept on recording and touring and now after more than 70 years of playing together and despite the deaths of Brian Jones and Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood joining the band in 1976, they continue to make music, releasing a new album in October called “Hackney Diamonds” which is topping the music charts worldwide. Now in their 80s, Jagger, Richards and Wood will embark on a new tour promoting the album early next year.

As for The Beatles, McCartney never forgot about that remaining cassette tape from Lennon. Back in 1995, Harrison had laid down some guitar tracks for the song, but he died in 2001. Harnessing 2023 technology, John’s voice was finally able to be extracted crystal clear from the tape and McCartney and Starr were able to finish recording “Now and Then,” featuring Lennon’s vocals and Harrison’s unmistakable guitar performance. It was released last week.

Everything old is new again is truly more than just an expression. When it comes to the Rolling Stones and The Beatles, it’s a fact.

Insight: Revisiting a familiar soundtrack in person

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

Last December when I was searching for a great Christmas gift for my wife Nancy, I read an article about a concert tour returning in June to a venue close by in New Hampshire. It just so happened that the date for the “Happy Together” concert fell on June 11, which is also our wedding anniversary. Throw in the fact that my wife is a fan of singer Gary Puckett, and it convinced me to purchase tickets for the show.

Singer Gary Puckett performs during the 'Happy Together'
concert at the Hampton Beach Ballroom and Casino in
Hampton Beach, New Hampshire on June 11. In 1968,
Puckett sold more records than The Beatles.
PHOTO BY ED PIERCE 

Ticket prices were very reasonable, and I was able to quickly find great seats four rows from the stage in the middle of the Hampton Beach Ballroom and Casino for the concert. Everything was handled digitally, and the concert tickets were sent directly to my iPhone, making it easy to get into the show.

The musicians appearing in the 2023 Happy Together Tour were acts I had grown up listening to back in the 1960s and several of them have been inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. There were The Cowsills, The Vogues, The Classics IV, Gary Puckett, Little Anthony, and the Turtles, all backed up by an exceptional and versatile band led by Godfrey Townsend who played guitar on many classic top hits such as Mitch Ryder’s “Devil with the Blue Dress,” Merrilee Rush’s “Angel of the Morning,” and the Spencer Davis Group’s “Gimme Some Lovin.”

Standing outside in a short line waiting to get into the concert hall, I heard two women talking and they obviously were there to see Gary Puckett, saying they wished he would walk down the line to meet his fans. I’ve always been a fan of Puckett, who is known for such hits as “Lady Willpower,” and “This Girl is a Woman Now,” and “Over You,” and “Woman, Woman.”

The first group to appear on stage was The Cowsills, a singing family who were the inspiration for television’s “The Partridge Family” in the early 1970s. There are four surviving Cowsills band members, and three of them, Bob, Paul, and Susan, performed at this concert. They opened with “The Rain, the Park and Other Things” and if you closed your eyes, it was like being transported back through time to 1968. At one point, my wife said she was surprised by how good they sounded. They performed five of their songs in an energetic appearance, including my favorite, “Hair.”

Next on stage were the Classics IV and again, they sounded exactly like their hit records from the 1960s. Saxophonist Paul Weddle truly delivered on classic songs such as “Stormy,” and Traces of Love,” and “Spooky.”

Before intermission, The Vogues took the stage and their harmony and style shined as they opened with their 1965 hit “Five O’ Clock World.” They also performed “You’re the One” and “My Special Angel,” sounding much as I had listened to through the years.

The second half of the concert began with Gary Puckett coming out on stage wearing a double-breasted turquoise jacket very similar to the outfit he wore during his appearance on television’s “Ed Sullivan Show” in 1968. As he sang his hits, the audience roared with approval and shouted out the lyrics as he performed.

Puckett is known for his vocal range and dramatic performances and the crowd there to see him certainly was not disappointed by his showmanship. He reminded fans that they are reason that his career has been successful and how grateful he is people remember his songs more than 50 years after he recorded them.

I didn’t know what to expect from Rock n’ Roll Hall of Famer Little Anthony, who seemed a bit older than the other performers. But he can still sing and delight an audience. His renditions of his classic 1950s and 1960s tunes such as “Hurt So Bad,” and “Tears on My Pillow” showcased his golden voice and he received a standing ovation in closing his set with “Goin’ Out of My Head.”

The last band of the evening was The Turtles with original member Mark Volman, also known as “Flo.” Back in 1967, I owned the album “Happy Together” by the Turtles and I’ve always enjoyed their feel-good songs and up-tempo melodies. Because of illness, original Turtles’ lead singer Howard Kaylan hasn’t performed with the band since 2018 and his replacement for the “Happy Together Tour” is Ron Dante, former lead singer for The Cufflinks and The Archies in the 1960s.

Dante was great and besides performing Turtles’ classics “You Baby” and “Elenore” and “She’d Rather Be With Me,” and “It Ain’t Me Babe,” he also sang “Tracy” by The Cufflinks and “Sugar, Sugar” by The Archies.

The show closed out with all the performers from the concert on stage for “Happy Together” and encouraging the audience to stand and join them in singing this Turtles’ Number One hit song from 1967.

Days later, I am pinching myself to see if I’m awake and if our attendance at that concert really happened, or if it was a dream. Those songs and musicians are part of the soundtrack of my life and I’m grateful to have been with Nancy to see them performed in person.

Insight: Too much, too tune

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

My wife and I recently watched the film “Mr. Holland’s Opus” which contained a scene in which actor Richard Dreyfuss mentions that when he first listened to an album by jazz legend John Coltrane, he hated it. Then he listened to it again, and again, and again, and found he couldn’t stop playing it.

That’s exactly how I’ve felt about some music selections and artists a few times in my life and here are some examples:

In January 1980, a blizzard hit Washington D.C. and dumped quite a bit of snow on our nation’s capital. There was very little to do but bide my time in a barracks room at Fort Myer, Virginia and sit out the snowstorm one weekend while waiting to go to work at The Pentagon on Monday. I had planned on reading a Stephen King novel and watching the Virginia Cavaliers basketball team led by freshman Ralph Sampson take on the North Carolina Tarheels and their freshman star James Worthy.

Up until that weekend, I had only heard the song “Heart of Glass” performed by the band Blondie on the radio. I never paid much attention to them as I wasn’t much of a fan of what was known as “New Wave” music and I was more into more traditional rock n’ roll music such as Fleetwood Mac or the Rolling Stones.

Apparently, another Air Force sergeant in the room adjacent to mine had purchased the new Blondie album “Eat to the Beat” and picked that weekend to play it over, and over, and over again on his turntable in his barracks room. With the walls of the barracks being paper thin, I could hear everything he played, which usually consisted of older country songs such as “The Battle of New Orleans” by Johnny Horton or “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash. Therefore, it did come as a great surprise to me that this fellow had chosen a “New Wave” group to listen to non-stop that weekend.

At first, I became irritated and considered knocking on his door and asking him to turn down his music when he started playing the album early on that Saturday morning. I couldn’t imagine myself ever liking
“New Wave” music and then he played that Blondie album once, then twice and then a third time.

By the fourth time he played the album around noon, I found the first song on the “Eat to the Beat” album “Dreaming” to be catchy and started to enjoy the vocals of Blondie’s lead singer, Debbie Harry. Then the second song “The Hardest Part” came on and I found that was pretty good too. By the time the third song “Union City Blue” played, I discovered I liked that one as well.

The album must have played 10 or more times that Saturday and at least five times on Sunday and by the time that weekend was over, Virginia had beaten North Carolina, the snow had stopped falling, and I realized that I had become hooked and a fan of the band Blondie.

Several months later when I rented an apartment and moved out of the barracks, I purchased the “Eat to the Beat” album at the store and although I eventually got rid of my collection of vinyl record albums more than a decade later, I’m pretty sure that “Eat to the Beat” remains in a box of CDs stored in my basement right now, more than 43 years later. I also became a fan of more melodic “New Wave” bands such as Duran Duran, Nick Lowe, and Simple Minds.

Another performer that grew on me slowly through repetition was Marty Stuart. My brother, my father and I were driving from New Mexico to Florida in February 1991 and the only thing playing on the radio as we passed through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama was country music. My brother drove during the daylight hours and my dad during the late afternoon, leaving me to take over driving that night. As I slowly scrolled up and down the radio dial searching for something to keep me awake, several Marty Stuart songs were broadcast over and over again. The first song was “Tempted” and the second one was “Little Things.” I also learned from a DJ introducing the “Tempted” tune that Stuart was a skilled guitarist who had played at one time in Johnny Cash’s band.

I had never heard of Marty Stuart before that trip and then after hearing the song “Tempted” at least six times that night, like Blondie and the “Eat to the Beat” album years before, when I finally did get my own apartment in Florida a few months later, I went out to the store and brought home my own copy of Stuart’s “Tempted” album. Even though I wasn’t a huge country music fan, there was something about Marty Stuart I liked and hearing his songs aired repeatedly on the radio that first night has made me follow his career closely ever since.

It’s funny how repetition can change the way we think about music and can leave us wanting to hear more. Has this ever happened to you? <

Insight: Weighing my options

By Ed Pierce
Managing Editor

I admit it, there are times where I struggle with indecision. Faced with a dizzying array of options and choices for nearly every subject or issue, making the right selection has never been easy for me. 

It seems that I’m not alone in sizing up this dilemma. Results are in from the American Psychological Association’s annual survey of things that stress Americans out and about one-third of survey respondents listed “making a basic decision” as an issue they struggle with every day.

For those of us in this category, we can spend hours just perusing lists of television shows to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, Disney, or Apple+ channels. With that much content and programs to focus in on, indecision reigns supreme.

At times my wife has taken to reading a book while I scroll through the menu for Netflix. If I go over five minutes to choose something, she’ll stop and remind me that we’ve already watched a selection I’m pondering over.

Typically, I’ll fall into a routine of watching a television series to simplify my choice, but when we’ve watched all the episodes available, then once again I’m back to the indecisiveness of having to select another one.

The same struggle ensues when I hit the ice cream aisle at the supermarket. There are so many flavors, so many brands and so many options that come into play when I open that freezer door to make a choice of what to purchase and take home.

For my parents, the choice of what half gallon of ice cream to pick was always easy. My mother preferred vanilla and my father enjoyed strawberry while my brother and I liked chocolate. Therefore, when it came time for my parents to choose a selection for ice cream at the grocery store, they always picked “Neapolitan” with all three flavors included.

Through the years, I’ve found that opening the closet door to pick out items to wear for each day to also be a difficult task. I know enough to try and coordinate colors but have little fashion sense otherwise.

Between choosing a pullover sweater, a V-neck sweater, a button-down collared shirt, or a Henley collar shirt gives me the “Willies.” Do I wear jeans or pants, plaid or corduroy, long sleeve, or short sleeve?

No matter what clothing options are available to me, it is never an easy choice for me to make.

That’s why I preferred my clothing options when I served in the U.S. Air Force. There I had just two simple choices. If it was a formal occasion or I had to work indoors, I wore our blue uniform. For working outside, I wore our green fatigue uniform.

Imagine my indecision while driving and wanting to listen to music on the radio. My Hyundai Sonata came equipped with a Sirius XM radio system with thousands of channels available to me.

Early on, I chose to preset my car radio to avoid listening to thousands of snippets of songs or conversations and constantly fiddling with the radio dial to find something to settle on.

Even doing that, I’m torn between listening to commercial-free 1960s music, 1970s music, 1980s music, 1990s music, The Highway (country music), and an all-news channel or the Major League Baseball channel. There are only six preset buttons on my radio dial and during the summer, I’ve also been known to listen to live baseball games being broadcasted if I make a long drive somewhere.

As a newspaper editor, I have frequently questioned selections I have been forced to make regarding photographs that appear in the paper. Many times, it’s clear what choice to make for publication, but when it’s not, second-guessing can create genuine turmoil for me in wondering if I have chosen the right one or not.

No matter what the subject or the issue, having to make a decision on deadline for the newspaper is never easy when I have an assortment of great photographs to select from.

Every day the responsibility to make an immediate decision can be mind boggling when you are indecisive.

I had to get stamps at the post office and the clerk asked me which stamps I preferred, flags, sunflowers, squirrels, Women’s History Month, blueberries, or the Lunar New Year were available and a line half a mile long was standing and waiting behind me.

Imaging looking over the immense greeting card selection at Walmart or Walgreens for Valentine’s Day and trying to decide which card is right for this year? Or looking at a Chinese restaurant menu online and trying to select the right type of soup to go with my choice of meal.

As I’ve gotten older, a lot of my decision making is based upon experience or comes down to flipping a coin. I’ve also been known to take some time to think things over and weigh all the possibilities and potential outcomes when I have a difficult decision to make regarding a work situation. My inner voice always tries to convince myself that I’m confident in the choices that I must make no matter what.    

Now to determine what to fix for dinner tonight. Or not. <  

Insight: Did I just hear that?

I wonder if anyone out there is like me and sometimes has difficulty discerning exactly what words or phrases that a band or singer mumbles in a popular song.

This began for me decades ago, and I’m positive that my hearing is fine, it’s just that on occasion what I think I heard a musician sing turns out not to be the correct lyric after all.

Recently while driving to work, the 1970s song “Sister Golden Hair” by America came on the radio in my car. This is an example of one of those songs that always makes me wonder, what exactly did the singer sing?

The line in that song I stumble over goes like this: “I been one poor correspondent, and I been too, too hard to find. But it doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind.”

Every time I hear that song, I think America is singing: “I’ve been one two or despondent and I’ve been so so hard to bind.”

And I must confess, I actually saw America perform this song live in concert at some point in the 1970s and I still get the lyrics wrong each time I sing along when it shows up on the radio.

Here’s another one I’ve misheard for decades and it’s from the tune “Dancing Queen” by Abba.

The line I thought I heard them sing in that song was “See that girl, watch her steam, digging the dancing queen.”

Found out just last year that the actual lyric should be “See that girl, watch the scene, digging the dancing queen.”

When Nirvana first appeared in the 1990s, I scratched my head about their lyrics seemingly whenever singer Kurt Cobain opened his mouth.

In Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” I always hear this line: “Here we are now, in restrainers” when it should be “Here we are now, entertain us.”

When I was in college in the early 1970s, I belonged to the RCA Record Club and I signed up for it specifically for the initial offer to get 12 vinyl record albums for $1.99 or something like that. After receiving your first shipment, all you had to do was purchase eight more albums in subsequent months for the full price. If you didn’t like what the album that was shipped to you that following month by RCA was, you could return it and have another one shipped out.

Among the albums I received and purchased was one by Johnny Nash and it was the album’s title song called “I Can See Clearly Now” that I always got wrong.

I thought Nash was singing “I can see clearly now Lorraine has gone.”

After listening to that album constantly, a few years later I discovered the actual song lyric is “I can see clearly now the rain has gone.”

The song “Philadelphia Freedom” by Elton John is another one I have a hard time with.

When I first heard that song, I thought I heard Elton John singing “I used to be a hard-beatin’ photon one” and I wondered what that could possibly mean.

Turns out the actual line is “I used to be a heart beating for someone.” Go figure!

Another one that always irritates me is Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World.” If you’re over the age of 40, it’s almost certain that you’ve heard that song at some time or another in your life even if it’s just as the annoying background music played in the supermarket while you’re shopping.

For years I’ve thought a line to that song was “Joy to divisions that the people see,” when the actual lyrics are “Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea.”

Michael Jackson was the worst to decipher for me, especially his song “Beat It.”

I recall buying Jackson’s album “Thriller” in the 1980s and then listening to “Beat It” over and over again to try and understand what in the world he was singing.

In my mind, I heard him singing “Beat it, beat it, no one wants to beat a peanut” and thought it was very odd songwriting for such a popular song at the time.

The actual lyrics are “Beat it, beat, no one want to be defeated.”

Got a tune that you’ve gotten the lyrics wrong for years? Trust me, you’re not alone. <

—Ed Pierce