Record Collecting

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Even though I had withstood attempts to get me interested in rock and pop, it was impossible to avoid hearing it all over the place. The soundtrack of "Top 20" radio inexorably worked its way into daily life and eventually got comfortable. My sisters bought LPs and played them, a lot. Evelyn liked the top hits of rock and roll: Beatles, Animals, Crosby Stills & Nash. Kathy liked dreamier, introspective artists like Simon & Garfunkel and Donovan ("First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.") My eldest sister Carol had eclectic tastes and played records constantly, over and over, for hours a day when I wasn't practicing: Diana Ross, Carpenters, Jim Croce, some Sinatra, some Elvis Presley and many Broadway show soundtracks. I don't remember which sister(s) played Carole King and Carley Simon, but I heard a lot of them. Since Carol stayed in our parents' house well into her 20s, I must have passively heard the "Hello, Dolly!" soundtrack a hundred times (and “Lost Horizon" a bunch of times too). It never annoyed me. It was basically all fine, even the "Wizard of Oz" LP. Now and then I'd linger at the bottom of the stairs and listen.

There were still almost no classical recordings in the house other than what Mrs. Kent had given us. The only exception was an LP with Mozart's Sonata K. 545 recorded by Walter Gieseking, and bought at the time that I was learning it. It included the larger C minor Sonata and Fantasia, and that would spur me to work on those pieces later. Most buyers of that record would have been more interested in the Schumann Carnaval on the flip side, since Gieseking was an expert Schumann interpreter -- it may come as a surprise to some that he even recorded any Mozart.

Dad accumulated a shelf-foot or two of "easy-listening" and some Americana. My favorite of these was, and remains, Tennessee Ernie Ford's Civil War Songs. Ford recorded an LP of Northern songs and another for the South. We had no jazz at all (unless you count, say, Tom Jones' rendition of "Georgia on My Mind" on an album purchased for a different song). Dad, I would guess, didn't care for jazz, while I and my sisters hadn't discovered it yet, though Kathy and I would, later.

One day when the single "Indian Lake" by the Cowsills was all over the radio (1968) I figured out the notation of the melody in my head, and was astonished to realize how complicated the rhythm was -- chains of tied-over syncopation of the sort I'd never had to play on the piano. (Of course any number of pop songs had this characteristic rhythm, but I happened to land on a corny bubble-gum specimen for my epiphany.) Eager to share my excitement with someone, I expressed it to Evelyn, who may have been bemused with me but was definitely not interested in the subject.

I think the height of my radio-listening was during 1969-1971, because I can hum most of the songs of the "Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles" from those years just from reading the titles. "A Song of Joy", by Miguel Ríos, based on the well-known theme from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, arrived on pop radio the summer after seventh grade (June 1970) and I was rapt. That started an interest, apparently not so much in Beethoven per se at first, but in the songs on WLS-FM, the Chicago Top 20 station. A time or two I even sat (or lay) for an afternoon, listing the songs with pencil and paper and seeing how often they repeated -- about every two hours. I told Dr. Kooiker about the song with Beethoven's 9th in it, and he checked out the recording and a full score for me from the department's music library. That was the first time that I followed a music score while listening to a recording -- an entire unbroken hour's worth in the listening booth. I was stunned and fascinated by the Beethoven, and before long was hanging out regularly in the music library (while my parents were shopping, fixing TVs, or whatever), plowing through the canon of western music, starting with the other Beethoven symphonies and piano concertos. Before long I found a partner in exhibitionist goofiness by the name of "PDQ Bach."

"Joy" by Apollo 100, which was a pop version of Bach's "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring" refitted with a back-beat, came on the radio in '72. I wanted it! For the first time ever, I sought out a record to buy for myself. The first attempt misfired somehow, and what the salesman gave me to take home was Wendy (a/k/a Walter) Carlos' Switched-on Bach, which had a "straight" version of "Jesu" for Moog synthesizer. I kept this LP anyway and still treasure it. Immediately after this fortuitous first purchase I managed to correctly peg the Apollo 100 album. My third purchase was Beethoven's Ninth.

One bright summer day Dr. Kooiker arrived at our front door announcing that he had some music books for me. He theatrically plopped them one by one into a tall pile in my arms. (Note to self: Presentation makes the moment). They were the Well-Tempered Clavier, the Beethoven piano sonatas, and a few other staples of the repertoire.

Mom gave me a stereo system for Christmas (of '72, I assume). The new machine quickly accumulated new LPs around it, and some 8-track cassettes for good measure. I bought the complete Beethoven Symphonies from Deutsche Grammophon's bicentennial series, and the huge 21-disc budget "Vox Box" of his piano music recorded by Alfred Brendel. Through junior high and high school, when the house was quiet, I'd put on records and follow along reading the scores that Kooiker had given me, sometimes while sitting on the grate of the forced-air heating vent closest to the basement furnace. That is as nice a memory, perhaps, as anything else from that time. 

I was well on my way to becoming a classical nerd, though, unfortunately, a lonely one. By eighth grade my friendship with Johnny was playing out, my neighbor friend Jim was moving to Colorado and I was left more socially isolated than ever right as puberty as hitting. My parents put me in Little League on of those summers. I’ve mentioned my obliviousness to conversations that I wasn’t directly involved in. That also meant that I didn’t understand team sports (despite all the games in the back yard). The first base coach nagged me repeatedly to steal second. I was just annoyed that he was telling me what to do, and stayed put. That was my first and last day of Little League. Hey, it lasted a bit longer than the attempt at guitar did.

As with my starting the guitar, I’d say we as a family were pretty easily daunted by a first-attempt failure, although at least in this case I can’t say that I regret it terribly.

Dad’s life, however, was improving. After building up a TV repair business on the side, and getting a cheap used jeep-like vehicle, he quit the Sears service department and struck out on his own. He remained independent for several more years until he retired.

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