Some of the Best Music You May Have Never Heard Of

I've got music on my mind recently. The good news is that my music appreciation blossomed in the late '60s and early '70s, during a time of the rising popularity of what was known as "album rock". These were groups that rarely, if ever, cracked the top 40, and yet due to word of mouth and the popularity of some "progressive rock" stations, they were able to put butts into tens of thousands of seats when they toured. The bad news is that I can't help but note that the vast majority of bloggers out there are younger than I, and many of these performers faded to obscurity as quickly as they rose to popularity.

The good news is that the albums that I buy are more likely than not to be in the bargain bin or at the used CD store.

I suspect that there are going to be a lot of links in this post, and I hope I've picked good representations of the performers that I'll mention here.

As I've mentioned before, a significant portion of my income, disposable or otherwise, went to concert tickets in my youth, and this was back when the average concert cost $7.50. I've certainly seen my share of top-40 performers. My first concert, which cost me the grand sum of $5.50, was Three Dog Night. I think I can still name all 7 members and the instruments they played. I've seen George Harrison, Yes (three times), The Electric Light Orchestra (twice), Paul McCartney & Wings, Kiss, Queen, The Kinks, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, The Who, The Guess Who, David Bowie (three times), The Edgar Winter Group, Bad Company, Arlo Guthrie, Golden Earring, Eric Clapton, The Allman Brothers, Chicago, Don McLean, The Eagles, The Moody Blues (twice), and many more, some of whom I might be embarrassed to admit to. If you're reading this and you've never heard of some of these groups, let me tell you that packed out large venues in the early '70s.

I saw quite a few groups as opening acts before they were big enough to be on their own tours, including Styx (opened for Kiss, believe it or not), Kansas (Bad Company), Rod Stewart (Three Dog Night), Donovan (The Kinks), Blue Oyster Cult (Uriah Heep) and again, probably many others.

But here are some groups that I've actually paid to hear. How many of them have you ever heard of?

Uriah Heep (3 times)
Foghat
Deep Purple (Come on... "Smoke On The Water"? You gotta know that.)
Wet Willie
Robin Trower (would it help if I told you he was the lead guitarist for Procol Harum?)
Rory Gallagher
Pavlov's Dog (Yes, David Surkamp really sounds like that in person)
Leon Russell (Even if you don't know the name, I'll wager you know some songs he wrote)

Come on guys. Surprise me. Tell me that you know these groups. Tell me that you saw them in concert. That you got to go backstage and partake of illicit substances with them.

I have no idea whether or not you've enjoyed reading this, but I gotta tell ya I've had a blast putting it together (although it really took me a long time...).

I guess I'm all jazzed because we just got tickets to see Johnny Winter at The Birchmere in November. This'll be my second time seeing him. If you're not familiar with Johnny Winter, you may be more familiar with his brother Edgar ("Frankenstein", "Alta Mira", "Free Ride", etc.). Aside from the fact that they're both albinos (and I've read that the odds of that happening twice in one family are in the trillions), they have very little in common musically. Edgar plays everything from synthesizer to saxophone to drums to whatever else he can get a sound out of. Johnny plays guitar. Johnny plays amazing, blues, slide guitar.

If you're not familiar with Johnny Winter (or even if you are) and you'd be interested in seeing and hearing someone who is arguably one of the slide guitar gods of all time, I'd highly recommend that you get your tickets and come on down The Birchmere in November.

That's all. Maybe I wrote this more for me than for you. I'll try to get back to my regular lunacy soon.

Keith Emerson and The Situational Awareness Challenge

Way, way back when I was in high school, a very significant portion of my part-time job income went to the purchase of tickets for rock & roll concerts, and tickets only cost about $7.50 back then. I own about 600 CDs, many if not most of which are late '60s and early '70s hard rock.

I say that just to point out that the music from that era is very important to me. One of the first few concerts I ever went to was Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I believe that Keith Emerson is probably the greatest rock keyboardist of all time. If you're not familiar, check out this video of ELP's version of "Hoedown" from Aaron Copland's "Rodeo" from way back in 1973.

So when I read a while back that Keith Emerson was playing at The Birchmere in Alexandria, there was nothing for me to do but to cajole my wife into attending with me, even though it's not really her sort of thing. As an aside, both The Birchmere in Alexandria and The State Theatre in Falls Church are terrific venues for seeing artists from the era I love.

Anyway, a great show and, wonder of wonders, someone came out to the lobby of the Birchmere and said that Mr. Emerson would be coming out to meet people. Oh. My. God.

So I get in line. Within a few minutes, I'm standing in front of a small table and there, inches from me, is none other than Keith Emerson himself. It is no exaggeration to say that this was one of the top 10 moments of my entire life. While he was autographing my brand new CD, the conversation went something like this:

Me: Great show tonight!

KE: Thanks.

Me: Mr. Emerson, I really didn't want to gush when I got up here, but I just wanted to tell you how much your music has meant to me for, oh, 35 years.

KE: Well thank you very much!

Me: I first saw you in Atlanta on the "Brain Salad Surgery" tour in the early '70s.

KE: "Brain Salad Surgery" came out in 1979.

Me: I beg your pardon?

KE: Yeah, "Brain Salad Surgery" was the late '70s; '78 or '79.

Me: Huh.

He was wrong. I knew he was wrong. But I let it go. My wife took a picture of the two of us together, I wished him luck on the rest of his tour or some such, and we went home.

We got home, I went straight to the CD rack, and pulled out my copy of "Brain Salad Surgery".

In very small type at the bottom on the back, it said "Copyright, 1973".

Now, how does all of this relate to Situational Awareness? It's simply this: My first impulse was to stand there and tell Mr. Emerson why I was so sure the concert was in the early '70s (I saw it in high school and I graduated in 1975), but I didn't. I didn't because:

1. When someone has been churning out music that long, getting a date mixed up can reasonably be expected.
2. There were about 100 people in line behind me.
3. He's Keith-freakin'-Emerson, fergodsake.

Have I ever left my grocery cart blocking the aisle? I have. Have I ever said some extremely inappropriate thing given the circumstances and/or company present? You betcha. But that night my Situational Awareness Quotient was riding high despite being completely awestruck.

And most important: I was right and Keith Emerson was wrong.