Category: Music

Reading History Books About Events I Originally Watched on Television

by James Wallace Harris, 12/8/24

The 1960 U.S. presidential election is the first one I remember, but just barely. I was eight years old. My father was for Nixon and my mother for Kennedy. I decided I liked Kennedy because he was younger, more dynamic and had a good-looking wife. Even at eight, good looking women were often a deciding factor. I remember getting in a fight in the school playground because I was for Kennedy and the other kid was for Nixon. Neither of us got to decide the issue because a teacher pulled us apart.

During the Kennedy years I didn’t watch TV news. I would sometimes stay home from school to watch the Mercury space launches. Back then the TV news departments of each network would take over all broadcasting. In the first half of the 1960s, the space program was about the only real-world activity I paid any attention to.

I did pay some attention during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, mainly because I lived on Homestead Air Force Base, and everyone talked about it constantly. I remember having duck and cover drills at Homestead Air Force Base Elementary, but I was disappointed when there were no real A-bombs dropped. (I was very immature for my age.)

I didn’t become a news watcher until Kennedy’s death. I remember that weekend, my family watched the news constantly, and the following week too. That’s when I started following Walter Cronkite. I turned twelve three days after Kennedy was shot.

The news also became exciting in February of 1964 when The Beatles came to America. It was during 1965 that older boys I knew began worrying about being drafted, and I started paying attention to news about Vietnam.

The CBS Evening News was my main source of information about life beyond my own little world during the 1960s. I sometimes got to see The Today Show on NBC because my mother watched it while making breakfast. I liked that show because I found Barbara Walters hot. (Okay, I’ve already said I was a weird kid.) Sometimes I would watch news specials or documentaries. While in the ninth grade (1965-66) I had a civics course. But for the most part I just wasn’t that aware of what was going on in the world except for Top 40 AM music.

I don’t remember reading the paper, The Miami Herald, until 1968. I did start to read magazines in 1965, but that was haphazard. People would give my parents copies of Life, Time, Newsweek, Look, Saturday Evening Post, and National Geographic from time to time, and I found them fascinating. On my own, after 1965, I would buy Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and MAD Magazine. During twelfth grade (1968-69) my English teacher got me interested in literary fiction, and I subscribed to Saturday Review with money I made from working in a grocery store. I really didn’t understand it though. In late 1968 or early 1969, I got hooked on Rolling Stone magazine and sometimes bought Creem when it started publishing.

A whole lot of what I knew about the counterculture came from Life Magazine.

If you think about it one way, television and magazines offered a fairly diverse view on what was happening in the world, but squinted at it another way, it was a rather limited view.

In December 2024, I’ve been reading three books about the 1960s that explore events I encountered in two minute stories on TV, or read about in a few pages in a magazine when they first happened. Some of those short snippets of current events made huge impressions on me as a kid. They shaped who I thought I was. The history books makes me realize I was mostly uninformed.

The reality of the 1960s is I was a kid going to school every day except for long summer vacations. I started 1960 in New Jersey but moved to Mississippi then to Florida then to South Carolina back to Florida, then Mississippi again, and back to Florida. I went to thirteen different schools during the 1960s. The only newsworthy event I saw live was the launch of Apollo 8. I had a chance to see Kennedy in 1962 when he came to Homestead Air Force Base. They let us out of school to see him, but me and my friends went fishing instead. My sister was at Dinner Key Auditorium when Jim Morrison flashed the crowd. I got to meet an astronaut in 1968, but I’ve forgotten which one. And this is hardly newsworthy. I got to see Cream play during their farewell tour in 1968. Oh, and I attended one SDS rally.

In other words, I experienced the legendary Sixties mostly via AM radio, television, and magazines. I did have long hair sometimes, and I sometimes messed around with drugs, but I was hardly a hippie or a radical. I did get into the counterculture more in the 1970s, but that’s another story.

The point of this long-winded essay is I’m now reading history books about years I lived through. I can contrast my memories to behind the scenes accounts of things I got from soundbites. That’s quite enlightening.

We live with the illusion that we think we understand what is real and true. We delude ourselves that we make decisions on relevant information. But we don’t. If I could have read the history books about the sixties I’m reading in old age when I was young, I could have gotten closer to seeing reality.

Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley, two heroes of my youth, claimed that LSD opened the doors of perception, and that might be true on a nonverbal level, but a deep reading of history books is far greater at revealing reality that we can comprehend on a verbal level.

Lately, I’ve been reading that reading is going out of fashion with young people. That’s a shame. Even back when I was a teen, and only got superficial understandings about the events around me from superficial news sources, it did make me more aware.

The three books above are filling in details on things happening around me as I was growing up. I’m reminded of Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of the Thin Man.”

I realize I’ve been Mr. Jones my whole life, and I’m still trying to figure out what happened.

JWH

Meditating on a Meme

by James Wallace Harris, 11/28/24

Seeing the above photos as a meme on Facebook made me think about how much people, society, and pop culture changed in the 1960s.

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then are two pictures only worth 2,000 words? I don’t think so, I think it’s 1,000 words times 1,000 words, or 1,000,000 words. I could easily write that many from all the ideas my mind has generated since I began meditating on those photos.

Here’s the original meme from Facebook:

I was eight on 1/1/60 and eighteen on 12/31/69. I have always thought the longest years of my life were from 1963 to 1969 because so much happened to me and the world I lived in during that time. For folks who didn’t grow up in the sixties, it was much more than what you can learn from watching Grease or American Graffiti and contrasting it with Hair or Woodstock.

When I first saw the meme above I instantly thought about how rock and roll music of the 1950s ended up becoming the rock music of Woodstock. I’ve tried several times just to write an essay about that, but after typing over 5,000 words, I realize I’ve barely hinted at what I could say. That’s too long for a blog post.

I recommend that you find two photos that bracket your adolescent years or the decade you identify with the most and meditate on them. Start with remembering every place you lived and what you did each year. Remember your family and friends, your pets, your homes, your schools and workplaces, the clothes you wore, all the activities you pursued, everything you wanted to buy. Then write the shortest essay that makes it all coherent. You will then feel the mental anguish I am feeling right now.

Then branch out in your meditations. The easy and fun things to contemplate are the changes in pop culture — how music, movies, books, TV shows, games, and technology evolved over ten years. But then move on to the political and social changes. That’s when things get heavy. Can you connect your firsthand experiences with all those external events? Have you ever compared the life you lived to what you saw on the TV news every night?

Every one of us has the life experience to write a Proust-size novel and has lived through enough social change to write a series of history books about the formative decade of our lives. If you don’t think so, meditate more on the two photos you have selected.

I turned seventy-three on Monday, and getting old has made me more susceptible to memes about the past. My memories are fading away so I desperately want to cling to them. Emotions gnaw at me to make sense of everything I’ve experienced. The urge is to put it all down in words, but I don’t have what it takes to do the job and do it precisely.

There is an undefinable mental barrier that keeps me from organizing my thoughts into coherent histories. And I’m not talking about writing something worthy of publication for others to read, but just producing a narrative that makes sense of things for myself about myself and what I’ve learned. The older I get, the more I want to understand.

This essay started out about when rock and roll music became rock music. After several drafts and much contemplation, I narrowed it down to the summer of 1965 when I first heard Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” on the radio. As I kept trying to document my theory, I realized I could write a whole book on it.

Then as I was researching the subject, I found that Andrew Grant Jackson had already published the book I wish I had written, 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music. His book is what I wanted to write in this essay when I first saw the meme above.

The Kindle edition is currently $2.99, and it’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about when I suggest we should chronicle our lives. Even if you don’t buy the book, read the sample at Amazon. I feel the format of organizing the narrative around a month-by-month description of what was happening is a great template to use for writing about memories.

JWH

I’m Finally Happy with Hi-Res Audio

by James Wallace Harris, 7/20/24

Ever since I learned about Super Audio CDs decades ago, I’ve been on a quest to hear high resolution music. I bought a Pioneer SACD player to go with a 5.1 AV receiver, but I wasn’t satisfied with what I heard. If I listened intently, I thought I heard more details, but only if I really concentrated. Later, when they started selling hi resolution music files, I spent $25 on a 24bit Van Morrison album. It sounded good, but not dramatically better. I also tried Tidal, Amazon Music HD, and Apple Music hoping to hear more. Even after getting MQA set up, it just didn’t wow me. I was never sure if my equipment was completely compatible.

I then bought a Fiio K5 Pro ESS headphone amplifier and Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro 250-ohm, open back, headphones and resubscribed to Tidal Music. This finally impressed me. I was easily hearing far more detail in the music, and it was very enjoyable. I’ve never really liked listening to music on headphones or IEMs, but this sound was different.

However, reviews of the DT 990 Pro were not completely positive, and I was impressed by several reviews of the Sennheiser 560S, which claimed these headphones were great for hearing hi-resolution clarity.

Not every song was a night and day difference, but some songs were. I thought “Whipping Post” by the Allman Brothers was a different recording. Ditto for “I Feel Free” by Cream. And my favorite new group that I’ve been playing for months, Prefab Sprout, also sounded far more detailed and much more appealing. When listening to oldies from the 1960s I felt like I was hearing them better than anytime in my life.

I think these songs were dramatically different because I heard a lot of separation between the instruments. It felt like I could hear each individual instrument clearly, and I heard instruments I hadn’t noticed before. Plus, vocals seemed different too, more textured.

I don’t necessarily recommend chasing after hi-resolution audio unless you’re already anxious to hear more from your favorite music. And I can’t guarantee that any equipment will get you there. Or if you can hear a night and day difference. I’ve been long frustrated in trying to find a system to play hi-resolution audio.

Now that streaming services like Tidal, Apple, and Amazon HD are offering files in hi-res formats for the same price as a normal subscription, it’s kind of obvious to want to hear that hi-res sound. But a lot of equipment can’t play hi-res files, or if they do, they down sample the music. Even Apple which makes a big deal out of offering hi-res music, doesn’t play it on all its devices. You even need to go into the settings on your iPhone to turn on hi-res music. And then it’s Bluetooth headphones and Air Pods won’t play it.

Wired headphones can produce a wider range of music resolution, even more than speakers, even speakers with subwoofers. And if your ears are old like mine, you’ll have hearing loss in some sonic ranges.

I’m happy with the Fiio K5 Pro ESS and Sennheiser 560s. I hear a lot more, and it’s very enjoyable. And my setup is very modest, only about $375, not counting the Tidal subscription. I have no idea how much of its potential range of sound I’m hearing, but it’s more than I was hearing before. Even with CD quality or Spotify compressed music, the combination of the Fiio and Sennheiser made the music sound better. But I now hear a difference with Tidal, and I’m going to switch to it since Spotify is dragging its feet with offering hi-res music.

Eventually, I’ll crave better headphones (Focal Clear?) and a better headphone amp (WA7 Fireflies?). I’m already looking forward to the Fiio K11 R2R because I’ve always wanted to hear a R2R DAC. However, I’m happy enough for now, and maybe for years. I love playing whole albums and listening intently. I’ve done that with my floor standing speakers, but I feel like I’m getting a new experience with the headphones.

I don’t know why hearing more details is so enjoyable to me. I especially like the separation of instruments because I can concentrate on individual performances. It’s like hearing music new again.

If you only listen to music casually or play music in the background while you do other things, hi-res audio isn’t important. You must focus on music like being at the theater watching a movie for hi-res to matter.

JWH

The Best Albums Lists I Wish Apple/Spotify Would Give Us

by James Wallace Harris, 5/27/24

During May, Apple released the Apple Music 100 Best Albums list. This is always a controversial thing to do because few people ever agree on Greatest of All-Time lists. Such lists are fun to study, but hard to make. I wish Apple had given us the exact details of how they curated their list. Let’s just say, if you were born in the 20th century, you’ll probably won’t agree with Apple’s list. But that’s cool. All the streaming services offer lists that reflect current popularity.

I’d like to know more about which older albums are played the most.

Wikipedia offers a quick way to look at Apple’s new list. Over the years I’ve bought 34 of the 100. And through Spotify I’ve heard several others. But there were quite a few that I never heard of the album, or the album/artist.

I continually look for such lists to help me discover new albums to listen to on Spotify. Music streaming services offer a tremendous bargain that few subscribers take full advantage of. I try to listen to as many albums I’ve listened to in hopes of finding new favorite songs for my playlists. And I think that’ the intention of Apple with their 100 Best Albums list.

I wish all music streaming services would offer lists that would help us find older albums. I really don’t care if they are ranked. It only stirs up trouble claiming some albums are better than others. What I would like is a variety of lists that were constantly updated that revealed the attention that older, forgotten music was getting.

Top 100 Albums That Are Played Since 1948

Give us a monthly list based on which albums are played the most. Limit each year since 1948 to no more than two albums. Cut the least played albums from any year so the list adds up to 100 albums.

Sales for vinyl records began in 1948, but it took a few years before they became regular sellers. There have been 74 years since then, so we could have one record from every year, and 26 years could also have the next most played album for that year. The bonus 26 could be determined by which were the most popular.

This would encourage subscribers to try out old music. As they explore new albums each month, the list should change. Over time, the solid favorites will be revealed.

Top 10 Albums by Year That are Played the Most

Then for every year, offer a monthly update for which ten albums were played the most. This will help subscribers find albums by year to listen to. Over time, it will reveal which albums from every year are the most popular.

Right now, the website Best Ever Albums does this the best. They aggregate lists to reveal the rankings. But I’d love to see streaming services reveal their statistics by what’s being played every month. Here’s an example for 1965.

Top 100 Albums by Genre That are Played the Most that are Over 1 Year Old

Keep statistics on each genre of music and list the albums that are currently played the most but exclude recent albums. There are plenty of charts for current hits.

Streaming services tend to promote listening to hits. But if you’re a real music lover, you want to listen to whole albums. If each streaming service offered these lists they would promote album listening, and album history.

There are sites that give more statistics on streaming, such as Chartmasters.org, but they focus on current music and popularity. What I want to learn about is old albums. I imagine that lots of great old albums are mostly forgotten and get very few plays. That doesn’t mean they aren’t worth discovering.

Wikipedia offers List of Spotify Streaming Records which charts the songs that have been played the most on Spotify. It statistically breaks down the most played songs in numerous ways. It’s great for understanding what is popular now. Of the 100 most played songs on Spotify, only “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen, “Every Breath You Take” by the Police, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana, “Wonderwall” by Oasis, and “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen are from the 20th century.

JWH

Why Do My Cats Ignore Loud Music?

by James Wallace Harris, 5/20/24

My cats usually freak out over sounds. If the yard guys come and start mowing outside, they run and hide. If they hear a tiny noise, they will run around until they find it. But if I play my loud rock music, they don’t even wake up.

I worry my music will hurt their ears. At times, I’ve thrown them out of the room and shut the door to protect them, but then they beg to get in. They are very insistent, scratching furiously at the door until I open it. They want to sleep on me while I listen to rock music at 85 decibels.

I just read this report, and it says 120 decibels will damage their ears, and long exposures at 95 decibels will cause harm. I’ve read that I can safely listen to loud music at 85 decibels for eight hours, and at 88 decibels for four hours, and 91 decibels for 2 hours. Well, I listen one to two hours a day, and try to keep it under 85 decibels, although it sometimes peaks at 90. (I have an app on my phone that measures loudness.)

I guess we’re okay. But why do the cats just completely ignore my music? It doesn’t even faze them. Even when I first turn it on, or when a new song plays. They never jump or startle at the stereo.

How do your cats react to music?

Maybe my cats are like me. Music puts me into a meditative state, even kinetic rock music. So, we all rock-out to the tunes for an hour with our eyes closed.

If you’re curious what kind of music we listen to, here’s my standard playlist.

That’s Ozzy above and Lily below.

By the way, Ozzy and Lily don’t seem to have any musical preferences.

JWH