1. Read Dress – Jonatha Brook (Steady Pull)

2. Groovin’ – Aretha Franklin (Lady Soul)

3. C.C. Rider – Grateful Dead (Dick’s Picks)

4. Something Real – Indigo Girls (All That We Let In)

5. Lucky Ball & Chain – They Might Be Giants (Flood)

6. Marx & Engels – Belle and Sebastian (Push Barman to Open Old Wounds)

7. Opening – The Kinks (One for the Road)

8. Best of My Love – The Emotions (Boogie Nights)

9. Not Fade Away – Grateful Dead (Dick’s Picks)

10. Civil War Trilogy -Gibson & Camp (Live at the Gate of Horn)

CD I bought because I needed it for an assembly during high school: Aretha Franklin’s Lady Soul.  During my junior and senior years of high school, I was the assembly commissioner at Lincoln High School in Portland, OR.  This meant that I was responsible for planning and executing all the school assemblies (a fact that confirms Mara’s assessment of me as a bit of a geek in the PW article this week).  This included setting up all sound equipment and providing the music that would play in the gym while the students came in.  My senior year, our school theme was “Respect” (it was actually an acronym, although I would be hard-pressed to come up with the different statements that went along with the letters of the word at this juncture) and so we played Aretha’s rendition of that song on repeat at the beginning of every assembly.  I still cringe just a little when I hear it.

Two degrees of separation: From way back in his hippie days, my dad knew a guy named Hamid Camp.  Hamid had several names over the course of his life, some days he went by Hamilton and when he was born, he was known as Bob (his parents were probably going for Robert, actually).  Bob grew up and became a folk singer, at the time when folk singers were breaking ground and shaking the music scene pretty thoroughly (think about the time when Bob Dylan was first making music, long before he went electric).  He teamed up with a guy named Bob Gibson, and they made an album called Live at the Gate of Horn.

For most of my life, I was only aware of Hamid a friend of the family, occasional cameo-maker on Startrek: Next Generation and member of another band, a thing called the Skymonters.  My dad’s friend and former business partner, Lewis Ross, had also been part of that group, and the album was always on the shelf when I was growing up.  Hamid died a couple of years ago, and I happened to be out in Portland right around when it happened and got the opportunity to hear Lew talk about Hamid, the music he made and how hearing Hamid play music was in large part what had propelled him into music.

I continue to be a big fan of the Skymonters (several years ago, my dad took the time to record the vinyl album into the computer so that I could have it digitally) despite the fact that they broke up long before I was born and only made one album.  The story of that band is a good one, filled with intrigue, hardwork and downfall brought on because David Geffen didn’t like Hamid (I believe they went to high school together).  It would make a really interesting piece of writing (if anyone is interested in paying me to put it together, let me know).

Anyway, enough of that!  On to the links…

Ellen
Howard
Jeff
Rachel