My Sick Mind

OK, so I decided I wasn't done writing about Keith Emerson. One of the things about being a fan of the so-called prog-rock movement of the 1970s was that it opened me up to other forms of music, specifically jazz and classical. It took me out of my little world of Top 40 radio junk and thrust me into a realm that I would not have otherwise been exposed to. It was fun.   A time before sampling and massive overdubs, there was an adventurous quality to it.  From one day to the next, you'd never know what was coming.  One day, Yes was interpreting Paul Simon's " America ," and another day, Focus was yodeling " Hocus Pocus " all over the place. Part of it was the innocence of the time, and another part of it was the necessity to find the stuff.  We had to hear about it though word-of-mouth or (God forbid) the radio, and then, travel to a local record store and hope that they had the damned thing.  Part of the fun was tracking it down. By the w...

I think it was 1972  - I was 15, and visiting a distant cousin in his family's Southampton, PA home.  Bored with the adults, I had wandered out to their garage, where there was a stereo system and a stack of albums. I remember listening to Thunderclap Newman's "Hollywood Dream," and Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick" (thumbing through the newspaper that was inside the album cover) and ... Emerson, Lake, & Palmer's first album - the one with "Lucky Man" on it.  I'm not sure where the adults were, but I was having quite a time listening to some wonderful music. Perhaps that's where it started, I don't know; but at some point I decided that I loved the adventure of music.  Prior to that, I had been spoon-fed "pop music" on our local radio stations, and buying whatever records were available in the local W.T. Grant's record department - that is to say, the Top 40. If your musical tastes only go as hi...