Part II: Or maybe it was in the closet.

My earliest recollection of musical memory formation would be the closet next to Mom and Dad's bedroom, built within an enclave nestled into the slant of the roof. That's where the records were kept. The stairs would creak with my every step, and I would wait until the sound passed before taking another, lest I get in trouble for waking Dad up too early. I'd pull back the sliding door, and the rush of cedar and mothballs smacked me in the face. And I'd crawl in, pushing mom's wedgie shoes and dad's plaid sport coats away from my direct line of mission.

Record covers enticed me like candy, each one an entirely different world into which my little suggestible mind could discover. Stacked haphazardly in a pile, one on top of the other (which today, I consider a mortal sin with inexcusable consequence), they piqued my interest. Usually I wasn’t allowed to listen at such a young age - not due to lyrical content, but for parental fear I would run a scrrrraaaaatch across the surface. But I didn't even have to touch needle to groove to be fascinated - I wasn’t even sure I was always allowed to touch them at all. I just wanted to look at them. Smell the collective fragrances of dust and cardboard. Read the crazy song titles. Look at the ads on the inner sleeves.


Pulling stacks out in clumps, I set them in the hallway to gaze in wonderment again at the artwork I'd looked at tens of times before.

Like Santana - the one with the crazy lion drawing.

Or Elton John - the cover that reminded me of blue jeans.

How about James Taylor (or was he named Mud Slide Slim?).

The Allman Brothers Band - that's a damn big peach on that truck, and what is going on in that gatefold sleeve? They might as well have included some seed residue in the spine grooves.

But most of all, who was this Isaac Hayes, the one calling himself "Black Moses", and doesn't he get a chilly breeze wearing only gold chains?

And let's not even dig into the box of 8 Tracks.

Wait - somebody tell me what's a "Superfly", and what's was it doing next to Lynn Anderson, The Kingston Trio, and Jethro Tull? One of these things is not like the other. Better yet, as I would wonder in later years, what are they doing next to Curtis Mayfield?