Tuesday, November 22, 2011

30 x 30: Day 26 - Records Are Made to be Sorted

30 x 30 Challenge is taking me places I seldom go. Like into the shelf in one closet holding a shelf-worth of semi-vintage vinyl. One stash among several, but an easy one to tackle.

Let's see who might be hiding in their jackets. Hello, Johnny Cash. Hi, Steve Goodman. Hey, Steve, thanks for making our college Metals studio time so much easier to survive. Karen of NZ & I could still harmonize on a bunch of your fine tunes. Don't worry - all your big old platters are safe here for some while. Same with your singer/songwriter compatriots, John Prine & Neil Young. Cat Stevens and Gordon Lightfoot, too. Can't get rid of the words or the tunes. Got me through the many days of old teenage and young twenties. You were all doubled up on 8-track or cassette tapes; some munched by the '66 Metallic Blue Mustang, sorry, but still in fine form as records.

Cat and Gordon accompanied me on those daily trips back and forth from Gurney to Hurley. And Bill Withers, too. Holiday Inn maid days. Years and years on northern Wisconsin's part of U.S. 2. Could push the 8-track tape buttons just so - repeat, skip, skip, repeat. The interior of a Ford Mustang is not very big and the speakers really could fill the air with solid sound. No, I didn't speed much... but the engine was always whispering that it was able if I was willing.

But back to the reality of records. With the invention of CDs, well, our large vinylly buddies starting showing up at garage sales not in small stacks but often in large boxes. Kind of like their friends the complete set of whatever encyclopedia your family could afford. (Our family never afforded any, but that's a whole other story.) Well, if I could get a box of records for almost free or FREE it was time to ad to the collection. In fact, the availability of wide types of music led to my increased interest in same. I had heard of Lionel Hampton and Buddy Guy and Charlie Parker but our family's taste ran to Johnny Cash, Andy Williams, and a children's version of "Robinson Crusoe" that right now is playing in my brain. We were brought up on Kitty Wells and Eddie Arnold. Now I can listen to lovely Ella and Duke and Pete Fontaine. But also Winnie the Pooh and The Point and many many Miles Davis and Dave Brubecks. Thank you, thank you, garage sale folks.

Anyway, on to the sorting..... "Christmas at Liberace's" with a lovely piece by his mom, Frances, on the back cover - keep. "Christmas with Colonel Sanders" - go. All the Dire Straits - keep. Most of the Bill Cosbys - go. Duplicate Blues Brothers? One can stay, one can go. Every albun touched, moved, sorted, debated. About twenty have been chosen to go. And yet I have mixed emotions. Maybe a semi-hoarder's sense of history, or potential use, or, heaven knows...... Gotta fight the hoarder that is hiding for a moment. Gotta cultivate the organizing get-rid-of-er.

Total Challenge Stuff be-goned to date: 888

Then to chose another Challenge or continue to the end of the 30 days or over-lap the two.
We shall se what we shall see.

Fare-thee-well,
Enjoy some tunes!
Sue

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