top ten albums - no. 1

Dear Sheddists,

one of my friends has issued a challenge, via Facebook, to post the top ten albums that have influenced me most.  I thought I would post my replies here as well so I can go back to them at a later date and see if my tastes change with the passing years.

First up, I find it very difficult to choose just ten albums!  I've been exploring music for over forty five years, during which time a significant part of my children's inheritance has been invested prudently in the accumulation of sundry records, cassettes (remember them!) and CDs.  No MP3s here, thank you very much!

So where to start?  Should it be a hard-hitting collection of popular top-ranked albums or a more gentle meander down a path less traveled?  I've sought to take a middle-line between the two in the hope you may encounter something unfamiliar in these ten postings you might want to explore further yourself.

Let's kick things off with the self-titled debut from The Doors, one of my favourite bands of all time. I first became aware of them from the film, 'Apocalypse Now!' The soundtrack featured 'The End', the legendary tour de force which brings their extraordinary debut album to a tumultuous climax. If you're unfamiliar with the song it's an acid-tinged exploration of the Oedipus myth.

Censored for its initial release, catch the unexpurgated version in more recent remasterings to hear Jim Morrison in all his majestic foul-mouthed pomp!

The band created six very different studio albums during their brief existence, each of which has something to offer. They had it all - blistering blues, funky jazz chops, existential poetry and, in Jim Morrison, a front man who on a good night could take the music anywhere he wanted. A plethora of live albums have been released since his sad, premature death. Some are badly recorded cash-ins, but the best match anything the band did in the studio.

The Doors played an important part in the soundtrack to my wife and I falling in love as teenagers. The regular DJ at the University discos we attended was a huge fan of their music and winding back the years I still have very, very fond memories of embracing on the dance-floor to classics like, 'Light my Fire', 'Roadhouse Blues', 'LA Woman' and 'Riders on the Storm'.

So let me close my eyes for one moment and let the music carry me back ..



 'There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors'.

James Douglas Morrison

Dance on fire as it intends ...

… is a line in the lyrics to, 'When the Music's Over' one of the cornerstone compositions of the mighty Doors.

So why am I dancing?

A week or two ago I bought a Doors' compilation CD called, 'Weird Scenes inside the Goldmine'. Nothing unusual about that - there's a veritable tsunami of such compilations out there, a witness to the premature death of yet another ill-fated rock star. But for me this has special memories. I bought it, in double-disc vinyl format, aged seventeen during my first year at University.

I'd heard the rough-edged 'Roadhouse Blues' erupt from the speakers of the Student Union disco-floor like some mad bar-room brawl, danced with increasing fervour to the cries of 'Mr Mojo Risin'…', the anagrammed Taoist puzzle tucked deep in the heart of the lyrics to 'LA Woman' and embraced passionately with the love of my life to the draining drizzle that presages the arrival of 'Riders on the Storm'.

And now I had to have some for myself!

My very first Doors' purchase, but certainly not the last, 'Weird Scenes' was the perfect introduction to the dark magus of James Douglas Morrison and his intrepid band of fellow travellers.  With each new song I became more and more entranced and during the thirty nine years that followed it has occupied a very special place in my music collection.

The history of the Doors is by now a well-trodden path and there is little I can add other than to observe it was a unique place in time that brought together a dark, brooding and self-obsesseed Neitzschean disciple with three musicians of impeccable standing capable of negotiating hair-pin turns between the colliding worlds of blues, jazz, rock and the classics with seemingly effortless ease.  The plentiful supply of cheap alcohol and psychotic drugs probably helped some, too.

Two weeks ago the long-deleted 'Weird Scenes' re-appeared on the racks, for the first time ever in CD format. How could I resist?  It would be like ignoring a long-lost friend travelling the other side of the street. And so it comes to pass that today the windows of my car are cranked down, the music is cranked up and I'm screaming through Spaghetti Junction with Big Jim as we near the denouement to 'When the Music's Over'.

Let me tell you, brothers and sisters, I am indeed dancing as it intends ……...