Earth, Wind and Fire; life and guidance

Over the year-end I read the Maurice White, Herb Powell penned autobiography, “My Life With Earth, Wind & Fire”. It was both an interesting read, and revelatory. While my early teens were heavily influenced by David Bowie, my late teens and in some respects the rest of my life was heavily influenced by the sound, and especially the mystical guidance that seemed to be coming from the group, led by it’s founder and bandleader, Maurice White. White’s spiritual approach gave endorsement to my own uncomfortableness with my Christian upbringing and doubt that a single “God” existed. I never met White, … Continue reading Earth, Wind and Fire; life and guidance

Music (was my first love)

was the title of a great John Miles track from a 1976 John Miles album called Rebel. Strangely although I loved that track, it was one of the many I for the most part gave away, or sold for next to nothing in the Spring of 1983 when I moved to New York. I can remember to this day renting an estate car(American: “Station wagon”) for the day and loading up the vinyl I wasn’t going to keep, and driving down to Kentish Town in London and offloading it all at some used record shop. Of the some 2,000 albums … Continue reading Music (was my first love)

Secret Agent: Top-10

I’ve spent the last year plus digitizing my vinyl collection for personal use. I’ve done all my general soul/jazz/jazz funk and disco artists from A-K. Which in total is only about 1/4 of the collection. My passion though is collecting albums made by, former A&M  producer/A&R manager Creed Taylor.  CTI was initially a sub-label on A&M Records in the late 1960’s. There were a number of classic albums released including Paul Desmond – Summertime We Montgomery – Road Song Soul Flutes – Trust In Me 10-Years earlier, a 28-year old Creed Taylor, was working with a small orchestra on a series … Continue reading Secret Agent: Top-10

What is old is new again

One of the things I’ve had most fun with since going into “semi-retirement” or as I call it, retired-until-further-notice (RUFN), is being able to spend time getting back to the music and sound editing that I so much enjoyed at the end of the 1970’s. MixES on tape 70’s stylE Back then, doing dance music mixes, for they were true mixes using the technology available to me then, meant recording a series of tracks from vinyl albums and vinyl 7-inch and 12-inch vinyl to a cassette. Reel to Reel tape would have been easier, but wasn’t affordable. I would then … Continue reading What is old is new again