In the stack: Sticky Fingers, with the working zipper on the fly of the jeans, designed by Warhol, something that won't translate into a zipped file or a CD jewel case. Chicago, the Blues Today, which was my introduction to Junior Wells, on the Blue Note label. Fats Waller. Jimmy Page with Sonny Boy Williamson. A lot of these were bought for 99 cents in the bargain box at Jimmy's Music World on Fulton Street in downtown Brooklyn, during a time when most people were buying the Bee Gees and these records were unwanted orphans. I discovered Bessie Smith that way, and Muddy Waters, the London Sessions. I would stand there for hours and flip through endless awful albums, waiting to discover treasure. And discover I did. Clarence Gatemouth Brown, Lightnin Hopkins, Sister Wynona Carr. And I still have Jefferson Airplane's "Bless Its Pointed Little Head," as well as some KC and the Sunshine Band, Parliament Funkadelic, and James Brown. I also have Beethoven's collected symphonies, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, and some Erik Satie. There's no rhyme or reason to what's still there, something just stayed my hand during the purges. In retrospect I wish I could have kept them all.
I can't tell you what practical purpose those albums serve. A dedicated minimalist would have unsentimentally tossed such useless trash on the scrap heap of sentimentality long ago, but I cannot. I have too many fond feelings for them, they are my old friends who aren't on Facebook, they watched me grow up, made me think, laugh, dance, and cry. I can't part with old friends, they are a part of me, and every now and then I dust off a few and hold them in my hands, remembering the pop and hiss of ancient vinyl as it spun, remembering the days when music was something you could hold.
