Fifty Years Since Buddy Holly Died and I Was Born Part 1
I'm Back. Not that I expect there are many of you waiting for me - I haven't yet become a very persistent blogger and have no reason to expect that I have earned anyone's loyalty -but here I am anyway. It's been a long winter, fighting winter colds, stuck cars - and turning fifty.
Fifty. A half century. A friend of mine is calling me a "Mid-Century Modern." I feel like a classic old chair.
It's been fifty years since I was born in New York City. It's also been fifty years since Buddy Holly died when his plane crashed in an Iowa field. He died on February 3. I was born about a week earlier, on January 25. As his life making music ended, my life listening to music had just begun.
To celebrate reaching this milestone my wife threw me a party. It was great to share this day with my friends. Wonderful food and drink and music. Lot's of music.
Two of my friends, Theresa and Christian, gave me a blue ipod shuffle - the beautiful little tiny one - that had been pre-filled with fifty years of music, one song for each year I've been alive. Thanks, guys. Wow, what a project. It is an absolutely fabulous sequence of songs, very eclectic, from cool jazz to hard rock to reggae and many other detours in between. I absolutely love it. All from their own collection of music, too. Quite impressive, and full of what Theresa called 'recursions.' So, I had to look this up. What is a recursion? A recursion is a
"process a procedure goes through when one of the steps of the procedure involves rerunning the procedure. A procedure that goes through recursion is said to be recursive. Something is also said to be recursive when it is the result of a recursive procedure."
Okay. Here is the playlist. Can you help me find the recursions?
A Half Century of Paul Rosenblatt: The Evolution of Cool
1959: Miles Davis: So What
1960: John Coltrane: Giant Steps
1961: Ben E. King: Stand By Me
1962: Charlie Mingus: Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul
1963: Johnny Cash: Ring of Fire
1964: Mose Allison: Everybody's Crying Mercy
1965: Wilson Pickett: In the Midnight Hour
1966: Ennio Morricone: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
1967: Aretha Franklin: Respect
1968: Otis Redding: (Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay
1969: Frank Sinatra: My Way
1970: Stevie Wonder: Signed, Sealed and Delivered
1971: The Rolling Stones: Brown Sugar
1972: Jimmy Cliff: The Harder They Come
1973: Stevie Wonder: Higher Ground
1974: Eric Clapton: I Shot the Sheriff
1975: Bob Marley and the Wailers: No Woman No Cry
1976: Mose Allison: Your Mind Is on Vacation
1977: Parliament Funkeadelic: Wizaed of Finance
1978: The Ramones: I Wanna Be Sedated
1979: The Clash: London Calling
1980: The Beat: Stand Down Margaret
1981: The Rolling Stones: Hang Fire
1982: The Beat: Save It For Later
1983: Elvis Costello: Everyday, I Write the Book
1984: Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah
1985: Lou Reed: September Song
1986: Paul Simon: Graceland
1987: Manhattan Transfer:Soul Food To Go
1988: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: The Mercy Seat
1989: k.d. lang: Pullin' Back the Reins
1990: John Prine/Bonnie Raitt: Angel from Mongomery
1991: Richard Thompson: I Feel So Good
1992: Annie Lennox: Legend in my Living Room
1993: The Cranberries: Dreams
1994: Johnny Cash: The Beast in Me
1995: Cassandra Wilson: Memphis
1996: Buckwheat Zydeco: I'm On the Wonder
1997: The Mighty Mighty Bosstones: The Impression That I Get
1998: Bjork: Gloomy Sunday
1999: Smashmouth: All Star
2000: Bruce Springsteen: American Skin
2001: Rufus Wainwright: Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk
2002: Wilco: I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
2003: Warren Zevon: Knockin' on Heaven's Door
2004: Green Day: American Idiot
2005: Plain White T's: Hey There Delilah
2006: Gnarls Barkley: Crazy
2007: Patty Griffin: Heavenly Day
2008: Robert Plant & Allison Krauss: Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)
2009: Barack Obama: Inauguration
Sum.: Sandra Bernhardt: Is That All There Is?
Oh, and Barack Obama! Hooray.
Paul;
If we knew that you had this blog-it would have made your birthday song cycle a bit easier to do. While we weren't expressly trying to come up with your 50 favorite songs--it is funny to see that some choices are spot on.
So--in thinking about music and recursions in this list--the simplest recursion to see is the many artists who are covering an earlier artist's work. They "go back" to repeat a song, but in a way that makes something new. (My personal favorite--Warren Zevon covering Dylan's "Knockin on Heaven's Door"--recorded three weeks before he died).
There are at least two other recursions that are intentional on the list...
T
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