It’s Turntable Tuesday because life is too short not to listen to great music! Turn that TV off! Power up your local speaker and dance to your favorite songs! Remember the clock is ticking and there is only so much time to enjoy another great album!
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1973. I can remember what music was popular and which albums were the ones I listened to quite a bit. This era is very clear in my memory as I can remember my very simple cassette recorder-player and how I had it plugged into my console “stereo” as we called them. Technically this was a wooden cabinet with a hinged lid and in my case the version I inherited from my Dad’s finance company repossession stock was painted black with simulated wood in places. I believe the designer of this furniture and I use that word designer loosely was intent on making this unit something that would match Spanish themed furniture from a house trailer. Don’t get me wrong, I thought this console was great and I spent a lot of time listening to it in this era. It didn’t match the “early American” oak finish as they called it of my bedroom furniture but free is free. I was happy to have music no matter what I had to crank up to hear it back then. It was a few years yet before I started my climb to acquire class A audiophile snob gear and in the meantime I paid my dues on some really entry level gear. I did have an AM FM tuner, turntable, and an 8 track tape player that I did not use. I have never personally never owned an 8 track tape as I looked at them as inferior engineering for music reproduction. The 8 track format worked and were great in their day but I would not buy one. Cassette tapes were the “new” thing in 1973 and the best metal tapes were coming from Japan via companies like TDK and Maxell. If the tape player “ate” the tape due to lack of cleaning the tape head residue you could generally salvage the tape by extracting it and winding the tape drive sprockets with a number two pencil. Can I get a amen on a number two pencil?
I was into so many types of music in 1973 but I was really wearing out early ZZ Top, Allman Brothers, Billy Joel, Robin Trower, the Doobie Brothers, and still learning about music that had released in the 1960’s. I was a teenager at that time and there was so much music to consume. We heard it on the radio and if we liked it we went to the record store to get a vinyl copy. I always taped my first play and really didn’t play the albums much to avoid wear. I still have some great records that are quite old and many have barely been played. Honestly I could have never predicted that the vinyl format would still be alive today. I thought records were history when the CD format arrived. I am glad I stored mine and did not let go of them.
There are some nice tracks on this album but the hits that got played in Mississippi on FM radio were “Captain Jack,” Billy the Kid,” and “Piano Man.” I first heard this music on cassette tape from my friend up in Greenwood. That town was full of music during this time and I bought the album as soon as I could earn the cash to buy it. This album recorded in 1973 in the photos is now eleven years old since this pressing was made and I have never opened it until now. I bought this album as a collector piece as it is something that reminds me of a time I vividly remember. I plan to play the vinyl one time after I as I write this article and then store it for another special play one day. This 180 gram Mobile Fidelity version should really sound great. Most of these original master recordings are getting very hard to get. I still prefer them when you can find them as you can hear things that you cannot hear on many original pressings. Are there differences in pressings? Absolutely. I want to do an entire podcast on that topic.
There are many reviews of this record on the internet but I want to mostly mention what I remember from 1973 and the couple of years after this album released. “Captain Jack” was such a hit the radio would play it constantly. Billy Joel at this point was starting to make a mark in music and these tracks were something very different from most music. It is likely that the closest thing in rock music during that time was Elton John who I called “the other piano man.” In later years I was fortunate to see both Billy Joel and Elton John take the stage twice with their bands as the “Face to Face Your” where “Rocket Man meets Piano Man.” These two bands and performers put on one hell of a show. They toured like this for a while so I was so impressed with the first show I went back again and all I can say is “wow.” I have zero photography from any of the shows I saw with Billy Joel and I was close to the stage at all of them through my various networks and ticket buying tactics. Much of this live concert timing was before cell phones were capable of even taking a photo and no cameras were allowed. One of my favorite memories was watching Billy’s band come out and just blow the audience away with 90 minutes of full on rock and roll. I thought to myself how can Elton possibly follow that? Elton came out and at times was even under the piano playing full throttle. That band rocked so hard it was like neither band wanted to lose the nightly battle of the bands. You know who won? We did. Those guys gave us our monies worth on those nights. I was totally blown away.
I later saw Billy Joel from about 8 feet way and I will never forget that evening. He sat at a grand piano complete with an air conditioning duct as he talked and played to the crowd.Towards the end of the show he stood up alone on the stage and started snapping his fingers. The sold-out house was so quiet you could have heard a mouse in the back corner. He sang “I am an Innocent Man” a cappella and I just stood there knowing how lucky I was to see something so cool that close. I could ramble on about these shows for a while but I am way off topic on terms of talking about the 1973 RIAA certified gold “Piano Man” I’ll tell you some more about this album on my podcast this week. Be sure to tune into “My Passionate Musical Journey” wherever you get your podcasts.
Until next time I’ll see you, down the road.