I bought 'em - but why?

The mystery of my vinyl record collection

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a chance to take stock of my extensive collection of vinyl records. And I don’t get it.

It wasn’t like I went flipping through the stack of them the other day and found a bunch of artists I didn’t like. But there were so many albums I had by performers that, well, I liked at one time and all but looking at it now, I’m just a bit surprised.

Nobody ever made me buy them. Once I bought ‘em, I’ve held onto them with a death grip even though I haven’t bought a new vinyl album since Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Ragged Glory” in 1990. (I have bought CD’s ever since but not many.)

Looking back at my collection of vinyl and wondering what I was thinking!

But as I went through the albums, there were some I honestly don’t remember playing. Now sure, I liked the Kinks, especially “You Really Got Me” and “Waterloo Sunset” and “Victoria.” But six Kinks’ albums? Huh? How did I end up with so many albums.

I do remember one thing about the Kinks’ album “Low Budget” was it had the song “Superman” on it. I remember Charles Laquidara as his Saturday alter ego Duane Ingalls Glasscock playing that song over and over one Saturday morning, asking listeners to call in to decide whether or not it was disco. ( I didn’t think it was.)

I also wondered how I ended up with so many albums by The Animals. I remember really liking “Monterey” by Eric Burdon and the Animals (he changed the billing) and “It’s My Life” which Bruce Springsteen used to make a scene-setter in concert and “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place.” But I had four Animals’ albums! I honestly don’t remember listening to them very much.

There’s no doubt that in the film “The Concert For Bangladesh,” keyboard wizard Leon Russell was one of the stars. I really enjoyed the movie, especially the Dylan and George Harrison songs and Leon’s “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” was indeed a gas. Yet I also have “Leon Live” and “Carney” and “Leon Russell.” I don’t remember spending much time listening to them. I guess I did. But three Leon Russell albums?

I got to see a sensational show from Graham Parker and The Rumour at a small Boston club. It was such a good show, they even singled it out in Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the best of the year. They did the Jackson Five song “I Want You Back,” too! And his first two albums, “Howlin’ Wind” and “Heat Treatment” were first-rate. But somehow, I kept on going with “Stick To Me” (good album!) and “The Parkerilla” and “The Up Escalator” and “Another Gray Area” and Graham Parker and The Shot: Steady Nerves.” albums that made no impact on me whatsoever. And, of course, there was “Squeezing Out Sparks,” which did. I even bought “The Rumour” —the album by Parker’s backing band? Huh?

I even bought a CD set of Graham Parker’s “Passion Is No Ordinary Word.” Four more Graham Parker CDs. Odd. Those first two records are great. But why did I hang in so long with him?

Or Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. Of course, the Springsteen connection led to that. Bruce wrote a few songs for them and they weren’t a bad band. But I was surprised to see that I had - “The Jukes and Southside Johnny” and “Hearts Of Stone” and “Southside Johnny and the Jukes Live” and “Love Is A Sacrifice.” Four albums? Surprising, isn’t it?

Or I was surprised by my loyalty to Ron Wood, the ex-Faces’ and Rolling Stones’ guitarist. I have “I Have My Own Album To Do” and “Now Look” and “Gimme Some Neck,” none of which are especially memorable, despite Ron’s famous friends. Why did I get them? I’m not sure.

Now, I loved The Faces and saw them three times but their live album “Overtures And Beginners,” well, the title is the best thing about the record.

Another discovery that was, in retrospect, a bit surprising was all the Steely Dan albums I had. From “Can’t Buy A Thrill” to “Katy Lied” to “The Royal Scam” to “Aja” to “Pretzel Logic,” they were terrific albums and certainly critically acclaimed. But now, sorry to say, they leave me cold. I know how good they are but…

In looking through all these old albums, almost none of which I’ve played in years, I can only conclude that by my religiously reading the record reviews in Rolling Stone and maybe Spin or Creem and Robert Christgau in the Village Voice, I wanted in on the conversation. Even if Greil Marcus or Mikal Gilmore or Christgau or any of the other record reviewers wouldn’t have the faintest idea what I thought about these records.

I remember how excited I was to see John Rockwell of the New York Times’ Top Ten list in 1975. I had seven of the ten selections and couldn’t agree more with his choice as Bruce Springsteen “Born To Run” at No. 1, Bob Dylan and The Band’s “The Basement Tapes” at No. 4, The Who’s somewhat subdued “The Who By Numbers” at No. 5.

At the time, I wasn’t really into Neil Young and even now, I’m not a huge fan of “Tonight’s The Night” but it was and is a critical success and earned the No 6 spot. The Band’s “Northern Lights, Southern Cross” was their last gasp, really and was a good album, he rated as No. 8. I got to see them on that last tour preceding the famous Thanksgiving show, The Last Waltz. And I was especially delighted that Rockwell, like me, really loved Roxy Music’s “Country Life” album which he ranked 10th. It’s probably still my favorite album of theirs.

I was finishing up my college years when I saw this, I had all these albums and I felt like I was really on top of popular music. Why that was so important to me then, I’m not really sure.

The New York Times’ John Rockwell’s taste and mine coincided perfectly!

While I did write some record reviews for the Rivier College school newspaper “The Perspective” but it wasn’t like I sat there and began writing out record reviews on all this stuff. But I had to know what was out there and what the critics were saying. I don’t know why getting those albums, keeping up with everything was so important to me at that time, but it was. How else can I explain these record purchases?

When I worked at the Middlesex News some years and three newspaper jobs later, I did get to do some record reviews. I got to cover a bunch of shows at Great Woods concert center and did a bunch of feature stories for the Arts pages. That was fun. As I mentioned earlier, I sent a review of a Joe Ely album to Joe Ely. He sent me an autographed album back. That was cool.

I also remember reviewing a rap record by a guy named M.C. Shan — IN RAP — which included my memorable lines: “Some rap’s good. But not this here. Words and a beat. Without an idea.”

Looking back at that, maybe it’s a good thing that I spared the world and didn’t get to write record reviews for all these albums. But now, I’ve got all this vinyl. What I don’t have are the memories of listening to all of it. Maybe that’s a good thing?

Author John Nogowski has written ten books, including two about music. In 2022, he published the third edition of “Bob Dylan: A Descriptive, Critical Discography and Filmography 1961-2022” and a forthcoming book about the career of Neil Young, due in 2026. His most recent book is “Diamond Duels” a baseball book that looks at some of the game’s great all-time matchups and “Last Time Out,” a collection of stories about the MLB finales of all of baseball’s all-time greats. He’s also written about his experience as a teacher at a minority school, teaching Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and a book on the 1980 New Hampshire Republican Presidential primary as seen from my front-row seat at my first newspaper job at the Nashua Telegraph. “Nashua: How Ronald Reagan led us to Donald Trump.” All these books are available on Amazon. I’ll be doing a book signing of “Diamond Duels” and “Last Time Out” at Tallahassee’s Books A Million on Saturday from Noon to 3 p.m. Stop by and say hi!