If you make a music mix that is a reflection of your informative years, what would those dozen or so songs be, and maybe more interesting, why? You don't have to be proud of the song choices - they're not necessarily a reflection of taste, more about your history.First we need to dispense with "informative years," then get to the implied difference between relative value of my history, versus long term recognition of influence and inspiration. I will accept the construct "informed" to apply to inherent (and coherent) integration of this or that particular piece of music to my development of my personhood: personality, spiritual consciousness, aesthetic values, shared relations with the world and people around me, and so far forth. However, for this exercise, i will rule out the years of developmental relations with music, the pubescent and adolescent period, because, although that music underlies and seriously informs the constructs of one's life, i acknowledge that those influences were largely unconscious. Rather i would prefer to look at music that is representative of serious personal choices, and/or relationships to events through and with the music.
So, let's quickly dispense with the obvious. I contracted mononucleosis and hepatitis during my junior year of high school and spent 8 weeks essentially isolated in convalescence. That happened to be the Spring semester of 1964, when the British invasion hit the US, and all over all radio one heard Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Dave Clark Five, etc. So those influences, stripped as they were of social relations and interactions, were absorbed into my core developing adult consciousness, and remain to this day. I have seen most of Stones tours since, still greatly appreciate Ray Davies, and always enjoy anything by the Beatles. That isn't the music i want to talk about.
No, the most significant musical intervention into my life must have been Dylan songs played by the early Grateful Dead (1966/1967). It was a synthesis, under the influence of lots of legal (cough cough) koolaid (and thus opening my consciousness to undo nearly two decades of imprinting), of all of the forms of music i had previously found near and dear to me. From CA surf guitars and drums, through folk and doo-wap ballads, to british rock blues and R&B, all amalgamated with psychedelicized classical forms (i played in orchestras and concert bands from the age of six to 17). The Grateful Dead were, are, and will be the music that informs me. Thus, music that has come to me through my interest and experience with the GD, is also part of that which informs me.
Bill Graham made an effort to tie SanFran 60's psychedelic music with other forms at his Fillmore and Winterland shows. Introduced to that diversity of forms and genres played by the best of the best, certainly influenced and informed my life. Watching Miles (playing with his Algartha and Pangaea band) at shows, waiting for the Dead to come on profoundly changed how i viewed the jazz i had learned to play back in the early 60's. Same can be said for Weather Report and so many other legends. There was the time that the GD (who controlled what music was played through their sound systems) introduced the crowd at intermission to the music of the young angelic voice of Dolly Parton, and later to Olatunji and Baba Maal.
If i am asked to pick others i have to go with:
Country Joe and the Fish whose sound and voice are found now in Widespread Panic
Quicksilver Messenger Service (early days) carried into the 21st century with My Morning Jacket
Love and Kaleidescope preparing the way for Queen or Sting to Bardo Pond and Molehill Orkestrah
Massive Attack along with Portishead are in my collection because of my sensitivities to Joan and Joni;
but perhaps the most impactful of all is the single David Crosby solo album: If I Could Only Remember My Name that took all of the SanFran/LA psychedelia and moved it into the 21st century 35 years ago. Today i find Godspeed You Black Emperor and Explosions in the Sky still hovering in that space. Along with so many many others from Dave Mathews to the Shins, Killers, Pixies, Calexico, Tea Leaf Green, Scott Law Band, etc. et al and so forth.
Lastly my world is only complete because of Frank Zappa who took me back to my father's fascination with Ken Nordine, Spike Jones, Ernie Kovacs, and spewed it into the 22nd century and further. Without Frank i would never have fully appreciated rap/hiphop/poetryslam jam performances rooted in protest and angst and anger with the world. Frank was the master of that synchretic form spewing joy and humor across the worst of our species behaviors calling us out for all of our stupidities and arrogance. Frank was one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time....
