Ten Albums That Changed My Life

I received a book a while back called “Satisfaction: Ten Albums That Changed My Life”. The book was a series of chapters where famous recording artists would list the albums that influenced them and inspired them to become professional musicians. Artists as varied as Art Garfunkel and Henry Rollins (from the hardcore band Black Flag) weigh in with their picks.

I thought it would be fun to list the ten albums that changed my life and led to my lifelong love affair with music. Picking ten is tough. I went through this before when I wrote my “Desert Island Ten” post. The ground rules for these picks are “game changing” albums as opposed to “great” albums. Records that changed the way you thought about music and life. Also after you read this post, I would be interested in knowing about the albums that changed your life. Each entry will also mention other albums that followed from these influential records (Gateway to…). In chronological order, here is my list.[1]

“Aqualung”, Jethro Tull (1972). When I was a freshman in high school I bought my first stereo. A little all-in-one thing with small speakers. Until then all my music listening was in the living room on my parents stereo. Not sure why I didn’t abscond with it but I got my own. The only records I had listened to up to then were Beatles albums (White Album, Sgt. Pepper, Concert for Bangla Desh)[2].

I needed to get an album for my new stereo. I asked my sister (eight years older than me, a child of the 60’s and all that) what I should buy. She recommended this record which in hindsight was not a conventional pick. Anyway I got it and loaded it up on my new stereo. Not sure at first but the record grew on me. Hooks galore with the flute and guitar interplay on songs like the title track, “My God”, “Hymn 43” and “Wind Up”. Took me a couple listens before I picked on the religious theme of the record. For a while it was the only record I owned until I started going through my sister’s record collection. Gateway to: “Passion Play”

“John Barleycorn Must Die” (1972), Traffic. Which brings us to this record which I lifted from my sister, on her recommendation. Discovering Steve Winwood  and this band is the reason it is on this list. “Glad”, the opening instrumental (who opens a record with a six minute instrumental?) that segues into “Freedom Rider,” was a popular song for female gymnastic routines at my junior high school. I was taken by Winwood’s voice[3] and the jazz voicings of the group; Chris Wood’s sax and flute, Jim Capaldi’s minimalist drumming and Winwood playing all the other instruments. The closer, “Every Mother’s Son”, with its lengthy Hammond B3 organ solo, was a particular favorite. The album hangs together as a piece. It was the band’s high water mark.

Gateway to: “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys” and “On The Road”.

“At Fillmore East”, The Allman Brothers Band (1973). My actual introduction to the Allmans was another record I took from my sister, the band’s second record, “Idlewild South”. However, it was their third, this live album from March 1971, that changed things. Hearing the opener, Statesboro Blues, for the first time, with its clipped introduction, “OK the Allman Brothers Band”, and then the band thrusting itself into the song as Duane Allman’s slide guitar cuts a hole through it all, changed me forever. “Wake up momma, turn your lamp down low”.  I’ll never hear it like that first time again.[4] The extended workouts (“In Memory of Elizabeth Reed”, “You Don’t Love Me” and “Whipping Post”), that make up the last three sides of the record, showcase the band’s blues and jazz influences. There have been various reissues of Fillmore East including more songs from the set (including the complete “Whipping Post/Mountain Jam”, only heard starting at the end of “Whipping Post”). There is even a reissue of all shows recorded during that March 1971 stand. Somehow the original still holds the most charm. “Gateway to: “Brothers and Sisters”.

“Close to the Edge” (1973), Yes. I owned this record for a while before I listened to it. I got it as part of one of those ten albums for a penny offers from the Columbia House Record Club.[5]  This ten record purchase was on 8-track tapes! When I finally got around to listening to it I was in the comfy chair in my room with my headphones on. I was blown away at the extended intro to the title song.  I had never heard anything like this. “Close to the Edge” was half the record! Songs within a song, ebbing and flowing from section to section. Then there was the obtuse, fantasy-like lyrics; not sure what they were talking about but it sounded cool. This album made me a Yes fan for life. Not that I ever came close to being able to play any of this stuff. Way above my musical abilities, but still a ground shifting record. It is considered the best prog-rock album of all time.

Gateway to: “Yessongs”, “Tales From Topographic Oceans”

“Houses of the Holy”, Led Zeppelin (1973). My high school friends and I were all on a Zeppelin kick Sophomore and Junior year of high school. I had this on cassette first. I remember listening to “Dancing Days” on a boom box in the high school locker room after intramurals.  The opening song, “The Song Remains The Same” with Jimmy Page’s incredible layering of overdubbed guitars that just kept building was orchestral. The “Rain Song” folIows with its hypnotic drone of guitar and keyboards that makes you feel like you’re out in the rain listening to the song unfold. It is a one-two punch album opening for the ages. I still play this album to this day.

Gateway to: the rest of the LZ catalogue and seeing them in February 1975.

“Quadraphenia”, The Who (1973). I liked “Tommy” and “Who’s Next” a lot, but this album really spoke to me. The opening song, “The Real Me” has so much space with Keith Moon’s drums and John Entwistle’s bass swirling around Pete Townshend’s power chords. It’s an album about adolescence, love, the ocean and madness from songs like “Sea and Sand” and “5:15” and best summed up by the closer “Love Reign O’er Me” (“the way the beach is kissed by the sea”). One of the great double albums of all time. For me, the last great Who album.

 “Late For The Sky”, Jackson Browne (1975). I’ve written so much about this album that anyone who had read my essays knows what this album meant to me. The definition of a musical epiphany.

Gateway to: “For Everyman”, the 1975 Main Point bootleg, etc.

“Zuma”, Neil Young (1975). I waited a long time for this album. I first got turned on to Neil with “After The Goldrush” another one of my lifts from my sister. I picked up “Harvest”, the first two records and a bootleg called “Live From Sugar Mountain” from his 1971 solo tour. Now that I was caught up, I was waiting for my first purchase of a new Neil Young record. Then came a trio of very dark, obscure releases, two of which are now considered classics, but at the time were a bit of a departure from the Neil I knew. I soldiered through and found the best in “Time Fades Away”(1973), “On The Beach”(1974) and “Tonight’s The Night” (1975)[6] (the last two, the aforementioned classics). Then in the fall of 1975 comes “Zuma” with Crazy Horse backing him up for the first time since 1970. The album was an electric guitar tour de force culminating in the epic, seven minute-plus “Cortez The Killer”. The dark period was over and Neil just wanted to rock. The album’s closing song “Through My Sails from 1974[7], features Crosby, Stills and Nash. I remember sitting in my room thinking, “at last”.

Gateway to: Everything Neil until things got very weird in the eighties.

“Wish You Were Here”, Pink Floyd (1975). I didn’t own this album so I must have borrowed it from someone. I remember putting it on in my room one night. The album opens with the first half of the 25 minute suite, “Shine on You Crazy Diamond.” The song builds slowly with various keyboards until guitarist David Gilmore enters with that now iconic four-note riff that repeats as the rest of the band kicks in. It takes about nine minutes before Roger Waters begins his vocal about the Syd Barrett’s, one of the band’s founders, drug induced descent into madness. The song then fades out with a sax solo over Rick Wright’s keyboards. Very cool stuff. Similar to “Close to the Edge” with it’s lengthy instrumental passages but differing in its lyrics.  CTTE is more opaque fantasy, while WYWH mostly deals with the tragedy of Syd, the stresses of the music business (“Have a Cigar”, “Welcome to the Machine”) and the malaise of success (the title track). I have always preferred this record to the more famous predecessor “Dark Side of the Moon”. I got away from this album for a while but picked up a vinyl copy about ten years ago. I still play this one regularly today. Gateway to: “Animals”.

“Waiting For Columbus”, Little Feat (1978). I was very late to this party. Little Feat had been around since 1972 but I only discovered them with this late period live album in the fall of 1978. They were more of a cult band, as the title of this album cleverly implies. A guy I worked with in college recommended this album.  At this point I was very into the southern California rock scene (e.g., Eagles, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt), but this was something altogether different. The opener, “Fat Man in the Bathtub”,  with its polyrhythms and Lowell George’s piercing slide guitar, at first  sounded kind of chaotic. However, on repeated listens it all fell into place (George even described their sound as a “cracked mosaic”). Much of this sound was due to Richie Hayward’s frenetic drumming and Sam Clayton’s percussion. Lowell George’s singing and sideways songs (“Mercenary Territory” and “Dixie Chicken” to name just two) were original and at times, hilarious. Much of this album was recorded at the Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC, a Little Feat stronghold. Alas by the following June, George was dead from an apparent drug overdose while on tour for his solo album. Little Feat was an obsession for the rest of my college years. Gateway to: the rest of the Little Feat catalogue and George’s solo album, “Thanks, I’ll Eat It Here”.

“Reckoning”, REM (1984). There was a buzz about this band on the radio in the early 1980’s. I picked this album up and it hooked me immediately. I fell in love with Peter Buck’s jangly guitar sound and it influenced my own guitar playing for the next few years. You didn't understand what Bad Bunny was singing at his Super Bowl halftime show? I defy you to tell me what Michael Stipe is singing about on this album (or any of their early records). It didn’t matter, it sounded right. This album was on my turntable all the time in 1984. I haven’t played an album this frequently since “Late for the Sky”.

Gateway to: Every REM album and bootleg I could get my hands on.

If you have been counting, that's actually eleven albums. I told you this wouldn't be easy. This list stops here in 1984, over forty years ago. Strong influences come in your early years. The age of discovery, uncovering so many different types of bands and artists that shaped you in ways you never imagined possible.

[1] When I first listened to the album, not necessarily when it was released.

[2] I got the White Album for Christmas when I was ten. When I brought the single of “The Ballad of John and Yoko” to my 6^th grade music class, the teacher pulled the record when Lennon got to the line “Christ you know it aint easy”.

[3] And his look. See the post about best hair in rock and roll (“Let Them Brush Your Rock and Roll Hair”)

[4] I remember we were on a class trip to see something in a local theatre. I had a small boombox with this album on cassette and we were listening to it on low volume before whatever show we were at started.

[5] You had to buy four more albums in a year at record club prices that were $14.99. Not sure who paid for these “committed” records.

[6] The album was recorded in August 1973.

[7] Including older unreleased songs was something Neil started doing in the mid-seventies. Some songs, like “Too Far Gone”, showed up decades later.