People Try To Put Us Down

As most of you know by now, I have a deep love for music. It makes me feel things like nothing else can. It speaks for me and to me in a way that I can't always express myself. But mostly, it is the oxygen for my soul, it is what allows me to breathe every day.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a house where music was playing all the time. I thought the only people making music were Andy Williams, Frank Sinatra, and Tony Bennet. That's who my parents listened to. Then I suddenly learned from my Aunt and Uncles in Chicago that there were others making music. Chubby Checkers, Elvis Presley, The Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison, and a few others.

In February of 1964, four young lads from Liverpool changed the world. Music then took over my life and shaped me into the flawed, tragic, misguided human I am today, and I love that it has. Like most of the world I was enjoying the new sounds coming from the Beatles. You couldn't go four minutes on radio without a song of theirs being played so it was pretty hard to miss what they were putting out. The Beach Boys were having a pretty nice run themselves on a parallel track and I was a big fan of their sound also.

The British invasion sent a huge wave of bands that I grew to enjoy and for me it was like eating at a smorgasbord of sounds every day. I was enjoying just about everything I was hearing on the radio.

Then in fifth grade my family moved from Chicago to the suburbs and for the second half of that school year I was in a new school, with new people, and a new life. Less than two weeks after I started another transfer student came in and it turned out he would end up as my brother from another mother. Jeff Beebe was his name and we became instant friends. He lived behind the house across the street from me and instantly we became inseperable.

One day in his family room we were listening to records, as kids of that day did, and he asked me if I had ever heard of a band called The Who. I said that I had not, and he said they're pretty cool. He then slapped a 45 on the turntable and I heard "I Can't Explain" for the first time. It was different than anything else playing on the radio and I kind of liked it. After it was over he then put another on and "My Generation" came blasting out of the speakers. I must have looked at him with my mouth open because he was smiling at my reaction. Right then and there I became a Who fan and I have remained a loyal fan ever since.

While the world was wrapped up in Beatlemania, and rightly so, I was a fanatical Who fan. I barely paid attention to what the Fab Four were putting out because I was devoted to the loudest band ever. "Substitute", "Happy Jack", "I Can See For Miles", and "Magic Bus", helped me grow to love them even more and then "Tommy" came out and I was lost in the world that Pete Townsend created for this rock opera.

Every song on the album was sensational. The story was engrossing. I couldn't listen to it enough. Yes I was still buying and listening to others at that time. "Every Picture Tells A Story" by Rod Stewart was a favorite. I also was enjoying Chicago, The Temptations, and others. But The Who were kings.

Then in 1971 they released something magical, "Who's Next", and every album that ever came out by anyone after that was measured against this album and nothing ever came close. As I've written here before, I consider "Who's Next" to be the finest album ever made and honestly there are many in the music industry that would agree. Townsend's second rock opera, "Quadrophenia" was another classic as The Who were suddenly one of the worlds most popular bands.

I saw them in concert at the Chicago Stadium in 1975. Our seats were in row eleven or so on the main floor and it was magical. I went with Jeff and my other brother from another mother, Tom Barnicle. I think my ears are still ringing. For only one of a handful of times in their history they did an encore that night. Tom and I were then invited to go back stage and hang with them but we thought the girl was kidding us so we passed. Turns out she was Keith Moon's girlfriend. Another bad decision by the two of us and sadly it wouldn't be our last together.

Anyway, by this time I was already deep in the world of The Who and this concert would be the last one I would go to for nearly twenty years since I knew nothing would ever top it. There hasn't been another one better but there have been some pretty good one's, Tina Turner for example was pretty sensational.

By the early to mid 1970's The Who were a pretty popular band, mostly because of the success of "Tommy" and "Who's Next", and as a fan from the early stages of their existence I was kind of pissed at the latecomers joining the bandwagon. I was very happy for their success but sorry that it took so long for others to hear what I had heard those many years earlier.

We all have our favorite singers/bands. The beautiful thing about music is that there is so much to choose from that everyone can find an artist or song they love and open up their hearts. Music is the timeline of our lives and every single one of us can remember a snippet of our lives from back in the day when we hear a song playing.

Extra credit to those of you that recognize the words in the headline of this blog. It is the opening line to "My Generation" and it is one of the anthems of growing up in the 1960's and 1970's.