Constant reader, but have never written to you before. I’ve been on New York rock radio for 47 years now- and sure remember when that Boston album came in. I was doing evenings on WPLJ,/New York’s Best Rock where we were a Monolith in ratings- Boston was a no-brainer- right up our alley- and of course, we played the hell out of it. Tom Scholz- wow- we heard he did the whole thing in his basement!

And yes, for Boston, and so many of the well-produced bands that came after—the derogatory term ‘corporate rock’ and accompanying disdain were coined and fostered by detractors of Boston. At WPLJ, our primary competitor at the time was WNEW-FM, where Boston and ‘corporate rock’ were not favored, and didn’t receive anywhere near the airplay we gave them.

So it was with a certain subversive glee that I remember purposefully playing Boston on my first show when I moved over to WNEW in late ’83. Since WPLJ had gone CHR–well—now I humorously had the monopoly on playing Boston during the evenings on ‘NEW, where I remained until that format change in 1999.

Fast forward to now- in 2020- where I’ve been happy to, yes, be able to play the hell out of Boston on Q104.3 “New York’s Classic Rock” -doing evenings for the last 16 years–and am also happy to play Boston on SiriusXM Classic Rewind.

That’s a lot of Boston—because they sound that good , and the listeners love them!

Now, if anyone can remember the details of the New York radio promotion for Boston, involving a limo ride for us DJ’s, maybe to somewhere in Jersey—-can you please fill me in?

Thanks!—-Carol Miller

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hey Bob…two things I want to say about Boston. They were the first concert I ever went to…December of 1978. seats were behind the stage but that didn’t make the experience any less awesome. the opener was this dude who ran around the stage so much it made me dizzy…..Sammy Hagar

Secondly…..I also remember trying to play those Boston songs as an aspiring lead singer/guitarist. I could pick up pieces here and there but pretty much all I could really master were the chords in the choruses of More than a Feeling and Peace of Mind. trying to play those lead parts was futile. also Brad Delp had a sick range that I could come nowhere near. Have you ever noticed that there are no Boston cover bands? or cover bands that even attempt those songs? I know the production is insane but the rest of it is so original it can’t really be duplicated

Mike Farley
Michael J. Media Group LLC

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During Boston’s ’78 tour, they played the Pontiac Silverdome with Sammy Hagar opening. In conjunction with it, they played a basketball game against the crew of WABX radio in Detroit. While sitting in the bleachers with my dad watching Tom Scholz, Sib Hasheen, and Sammy’s bass player Bill Church(noted he has a bum leg. Polio?) on the court along with crew members vs. the DJ’s. A nice-looking older lady with a younger boy and girl sat behind us and struck up a conversation with my dad. “That’s my boy Tommy out there playing. I’m his mother, and this is his niece and nephew. We came up from Toledo, and he doesn’t even know I’m here. Would you be nice enough to let him know, young man?” I of course ran down to one end of the court and flagged him down, and pointed them out to him, to which he was very appreciative.
Meanwhile, I scanned the bleachers, and out comes Brad Delp with his girlfriend. He got mobbed, mostly by girls, but seemed to be very gracious about it. I turned and looked over my shoulder, and there was Barry Goudreau with his gal. Alone. I quietly walked over and had a nice, short chat with him. Told him I loved his electrifying solo on Long Time. Nice guy.
No idea who won the game.
Tom Moore
Oxford, Michigan

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I love cover songs and have a playlist for Boston. Some good, some obvious and some obscure. Enjoy!
CoverSNGS:Boston, a playlist by sdbruns on Spotify

Steve Bruns

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I got my driver’s license about the same time that the Boston debut album came out. I inherited a 1964 Pontiac Tempest that my father bought when I was two feet tall. It was rusty and I had to put a 2×4 under the hinge of the driver’s seat to keep the seat upright. But I didn’t care. That summer, my family was vacationing in Wildwood, NJ, as we did every year while I was growing up.

I had a part-time job and spent a huge amount of money installing the best Pioneer under-dash stereo system (with separate dedicated amp!) my money could buy at the time. Jensen 6×9 speakers mounted into the rear deck that I cut the holes for myself with a jigsaw.

I got to drive there myself for the first time that year. As I was driving over the causeway, through a small fishing town called Anglesea, Foreplay/Long Time was blasting on my stereo, having listened to the whole album at ear-splitting volume on the ride down.

I can still vividly remember the goosebumps, excitement, ocean scent of the summer air and sheer life-force that was in me that day as I bridged the gap between childhood and adulthood on my way down the shore.

Memories that I still conjure up today as a happy place. One of the most important albums of my life, and they just don’t make ’em like they used to.

Thanks for bringing it back for me.

Stay healthy.

KEVIN DREXLER

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BG (Bob Greenberg) was a sound system engineer/inventor at Werlein’s Music in Boston. He visited me and my girl for dinner one evening around 1977. At the dinner table, my girl mentioned once seeing the Beatles at Boston Garden. I questioned whether the Beatles had ever played the Garden. BG said he could settle the argument, picked up the phone and called the biggest Beatle fan he knew-Brad Delp. Brad confirmed that the Beatles indeed did play Boston Garden, and the he had sneaked into the show by finding an unlocked fire door. He also mentioned that one of his biggest thrills was to eventually meet George Harrison in person.

Stephen Gavigan

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Bob, that ultimate game-changing rock album touched my life as well as my heart and my ears. As it was told to me, Paul Ahern’s vacated Capitol promo post was filled by Dom Silvi , whose Capitol sales post was filled by Paul Crisostamo, whose Capitol merchandiser slot was filled by a local bar band guitarist (me). I spent 30 years at Capitol. My friend and ex-bandmate, keyboardist Neil Miller, designed the Rockman circuit board. His signature is on it. Paul Lanning

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“We saw them a few weeks later at Aerosmith’s rehearsal facility — I think it was in Waltham, a Boston suburb.”

It was indeed Waltham. I worked at Moe Black’s department store, right next to Aerosmith’s “Wherehouse”.

Joey Kramer was a regular visitor for car detailing supplies.

Tom Quinn

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I credit Boston with jumpstarting my career as a television producer. In 1978, I just graduated from NYU and started working at Gotham Advertising, the in-house agency for CBS Records. I started as an assistant producer, but within two months was given the assignment of producing a spot for Blue Oyster Cult. That went well, and the execs at Epic were pleased. Around the same time, the VP of creative services prepared a :30 spot for Boston 2. This was high priority so the label spent more than usual for :30 of beautiful animation of the spaceship coming down from the mountains and landing and transforming into the album cover. Everyone seemed pleased so they sent the spot to the band for approval. And the guys from Boston HATED IT. They vehemently hated it and stated that the spot said nothing about who they were as a band, and that as far as they were concerned, it was :30 of wasted time. So there was a crisis. The label had already bought the ad time on television. One of the Epic execs suggested that they give me (the kid) a chance to salvage it. The band had no music videos to use. So we talked on the phone with the guys, and evidently the band members loved to take photos from the stage of the audience. They sent what they had, which was about a hundred murky black & white slides of the audience. Though the photos lacked in quality, they showed coliseum sized crowds going crazy. So I went into the edit studio and blasted these images rapid fire, around six per second. “Don’t Look Back” starts building and you see crowds going wild. People screaming and going crazy. At :24 we cut to the slick spaceship animation and the voice over delivers the message – “Boston 2 arrives August 26.” And the band LOVED IT! They said that’s exactly how they saw Boston – a group of guys playing music for the people. Giving fans a great time. I felt very relieved, as was the label, that everything worked out and that we were able to convey their vision of who they were as artists. They honed their sound in the studio, but felt their purpose was to engage with a live audience.

After that experience I went on to produce the TV ad campaigns for Springsteen (Born in the USA, The River, Nebraska, Live Box Set), Michael Jackson (Off the Wall, Thriller, Bad), Ozzy, Journey, Cheap Trick, etc. I don’t know if any of that would have happened without that opportunity that Epic and the guys from Boston have me. Huge thanks to them.

Ken Schreiber

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Tom Werman, BELMONT HILL SCHOOL ’63… A friend and soccer teammate…Ron Druker,BHS ’62… Small World…

Also,played on same “law firm”( neither of us were members of the firm!) basketball team in a Boston( not the band!) LAWYERS LEAGUE in the early mid eighties with Tom Scholz as my cousin, Steve Simon, was/is his friend and lawyer…more small world!

Ron Druker

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I remember going to my first concert ever in December, 1976 (Foghat, Rush, and Mother’s Finest at the Palladium in NYC) and sitting in the back of my friend’s Camaro when “More Than A Feeling” came on the radio. It is still a memory that gives me chills me to this day.

A couple of months later in February we saw Boston headline at the Nassau Coliseum along with Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes who were booed out of the building, and Starcastle. Boston played almost the entire first album and two songs from their second album which had not come out yet. Surprisingly they were able to sound good in a 20,000 seat arena.

I last saw them at Whitman Auditorium at Brooklyn College in 1979. They were on a college tour and while they were still an arena act but for some reason played smaller venues doing a college routing. They killed in a smaller venue. Later that summer, they came back to headline Giants Stadium in front of over 50,000 people.

Adam Gerstein

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I was 11 when the first Boston album came out. This was in the spring of ’76 in Australia. What an album! When I first heard ‘More Than A Feeling’ on the radio, it was like the heaven’s opened up. I instantly became a fan and when I picked up the guitar a few years later, I sat down and learned a lot of those solos from that album by ear. ‘Hitch A Ride’ solo is king! I learned that note for note. Over the years I’ve bought multiple copies of that album, first it was the vinyl, then the cassette, then the CD and every re-issue after that. More than 40 years later, that album still gives me the same feeling (no pun intended) as the first time I heard it. It takes me back to that time, every time.
Both Boston’s Barry Goudreau and Brad Delp went off and formed RTZ in early ’90s (another fine and under rated band in my opinion) and I was lucky enough to interview Barry Goudreau in the early 2000s. To hear some of the stories behind some of those guitar parts that he and Tom put down on that first Boston album, to me, it was a guitarist’s wet dream. He and Brad Delp had just released their ‘Delp And Goudreau’ album. Brad was one of the finest singers of our time. Was very sad to hear what had happened to him. He was one of a kind.
Joe Matera, Australia

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The best goddamn tip from the mailbag of all time. Thank you Mike Flanagin. Hindley Street Country Club is the real deal. I’d go see them anytime. They killed it and I got excited and that’s from someone who was there in the beginning.

John Brodey

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Hi Bob, loved your passionate piece about Boston and it took me back to my own first encounter with the band.

In September 1976, I was a young agent visiting Los Angeles trying to build a good roster for my fledgeling agency ITB and woo some USA rock acts over to Europe.

I was amazed by the eclectic range of radio in the States compared to my native UK, and I was especially drawn to KMET (the mighty Met) of Southern California. I listened to that station all the time, in my hotel room and in the car driving around. I even made many hours of cassette tapes from the radio to take back and play in England.

When Boston’s ‘More than a Feeling’ blasted out for the first time on KMET I was just knocked out by the amazing experience; totally arrested by Brad Delp’s soaring vocals and the sound of that visceral guitar.

The song was on regular rotation and I just knew that somehow I HAD to sign this phenomenal band. I tracked down their manager Paul Ahern in LA, and hounded him to give me Boston for representation in Europe. By then I’d heard the whole debut album and every track was a winner, especially ‘Foreplay/Long time’ and ‘Rock & Roll Band’ etc.

PA (as he was known) and I became great friends and still are to this day. He invited me to New York on my way back to London in order to see Boston perform. In New York he took me up to CBS records where he (jovially) harassed Walter Yetnikoff and Lenny Petze (who had signed the band to Epic) about their new, huge selling artist. PA had broken his ankle so was hobbling around on crutches from office to office in the CBS building.

At the Boston show in New York I met the late, great Frank Barsalona who had signed the band for touring to Premier Talent Agency. I learnt a lot from Frank over the years so, to a young agent like me, the NY Boston experience also gave me a stepping stone to meet some industry greats.

Eventually PA gave me Boston for agency representation in Europe (Frank and Barbara Skydel at Premier Talent kindly agreed to release the band from a worldwide deal). Well, I was as proud as punch.

Boston came to Europe in October 1979 for their only appearances and played five spectacular nights to great acclaim at London’s legendary Rainbow Theatre. All the shows sold out well in advance. They were lovely guys and despite their massive success they were humbled to be so enthusiastically received overseas.

That’s my Boston story.

Rod MacSween
International Talent Booking, London

Yes, through the miracle of technology, starting tomorrow, Tuesday, November 17th, Lefsetz Live will be once again, with the ability to call in and discuss tomorrow’s topic which is:

Best Comeback Record (Album or Single)

Tune in tomorrow to Volume 106, 7 PM East, 4 PM West.

Phone #: 844-6-VOLUME, 844-686-5863

Twitter: @lefsetz or @siriusxmvolume/#lefsetzlive

Hear the episode live on SiriusXM VOLUME: siriusxm.us/HearLefsetzLive

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app: siriusxm.us/LefsetzLive

“Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story”: https://bit.ly/3nluv2q

There may not be any skiing this year, they’ve already closed down the ski areas in Austria, France and Italy, as for social distancing, I link you to these pics: https://bit.ly/3kzwUVw Sure, you can stay apart on the slopes, but in line…never mind the village, restaurants, hotels and..? That’s blind optimism for you.

In case you don’t know, ski areas were hotbeds of Covid, one of the biggest hotspots in the nation last March was in Ketchum, Idaho, home of Sun Valley. Yup, you get people from all over the world, never mind the country, and  you’ve got a Covidfest. Hell, I was in Vail the first week of March, I arrived there just after the U.S. Open snowboard competition, and in about two weeks…not only did they shut down the mountain, there were infections all over the world, just not the United States, especially amongst the elite in Mexico, Vail is their favorite skiing spot. We were ignorant, we escaped. But, everybody thinks they’re immune and two weeks later…BOOM! So, I’ve got my passes, but I ain’t going until it’s safe, which may be never this year, assuming the ski areas open and stay open. But although I have skied in October on a number of occasions, and certainly November many times, the fall ritual was always the new Warren Miller movie, when that was the only way to get your desire satisfied, you see most skiers are fickle, they stop going to the mountains in the spring, when conditions are excellent, Mammoth is often open to July, but in the fall they’re jonesing and will endure the white ribbon of death just to scratch their itch.

So, every fall you’d go to an auditorium, not a usual movie theatre, and sit amongst thousands as Warren Miller narrated his annual production, which continues to this day, albeit without Warren himself, however ski porn is available at one’s fingertips, just a click away online, and just like with music the barrier to entry is so low that the morass of product is overwhelming and it’s hard to discern what is good and what is bad, and although all skiing is good, some productions are much better than others, assuming you can find them.

But they’re all standing on the shoulders of Warren Miller. Who stood on the shoulders of John Jay, who created this paradigm, I was even briefly in a John Jay film, skiing at Squaw Valley at summer race camp, and I’ve even been shot for Warren Miller, but never made it into the final cut. And in the sixties Warren had a competitor, Dick Barrymore, who focused more on the narrative, his peak being “The Last of the Ski Bums,” but Barrymore burned out and left the scene, yet Warren soldiered on, but it was a grind.

But this is not really a ski movie. Sure, there’s a lot of skiing, but it’s a deep dive into Warren’s life. And a lot of it is covered in Warren’s book, “Freedom Found,” which is surprisingly readable, writing is a skill and most people don’t have it, irrelevant of how interesting a life they led, but “Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story” has the advantage of an outsider’s viewpoint, an outsider who misses a number of highlights, however it’s hard to fit a lifetime into ninety minutes, but the director does an excellent job of analyzing Miller the man, his life and…

The Boy Scouts kept him sane, because his parents were oblivious. And then his family betrayed him and…I don’t want to give too much away. But, Warren essentially raised himself, and didn’t really know how to raise a family, because he had no role model, his father was an alcoholic.

And sure, to some degree this flick is hagiography, but Warren was far from perfect, not a saint, but he had a vision and he pursued it, and it was DIFFICULT!

It always looks easier from the outside, outsiders only see the peaks, they’re unaware of the struggle to get there. To get there you’ve got to work 24/7, oftentimes alone and without compensation, it’s a grind, and most people give up. And if you do the work and make it, something has to suffer, in this case Warren’s family, there’s just not enough time in a day, a year.

Now it was a different era. Skiing was new, there was a boom in the sixties, and now it’s a mature sport, and despite season passes being rock bottom cheap, cheaper than ever, the overall cost of skiing is not, the equipment, the hotels, and therefore the business is stagnant, even though the equipment is now so advanced that it’s easier than ever to learn. Unlike in the sixties, the middle class has shrunk, few can afford to take their family skiing, and therefore they’re missing out on its essence, FREEDOM!

Yes, it’s a thrill to slide down the hill. But you can go wherever you want, and if you think about anything else you fall, skiing requires total attention, not that you have to tense up and focus, but there is no room for everyday problems. I don’t want to denigrate video games, but there is nothing like a breath of fresh air in the mountains, whether it be blue skies or dumping prodigiously, you feel so ALIVE!

So Warren didn’t want a straight job. He pursued the “other” his entire life, he lived by his own rules, and therefore had to make his own money, and it wasn’t always easy, he got his big break with network TV and desiring to get it so right lost a ton of bread and there was no aftermath, it was one and done, you get your big break and then it…isn’t.

And unlike Bruce Brown, with his “Endless Summer,” Miller could never make it theatrically. Turns out he could only do what he did, which he did better than everybody else.

And then the generations changed. His humor was out of style, it became about marketing…

Yes, there is an arc to this film, like with all lives, but most people don’t focus on one pursuit so long that they become an icon and can profit off their status alone.

Amazon has a unique philosophy. ANYONE can get their project streamed on Amazon, therefore you see endless unknown films that require payment to view and are therefore dead in the water from the get-go, but “Ski Bum: The Warren Miller Story” is free with Prime, and if you’re a skier, you must see it, and if you’re not a skier, you’ll still get it, because of the human story, but you’ll also be infected by the scenery, the daredevil antics, the pure joy of those doing it, and…those who chose to take the path less taken, who devoted their lives to skiing. It’s a sickness, you catch the bug and the only way to cure the pain is to keep trekking to the mountains and skiing, to the point where you have to live in the mountains so you can ski every day, that’s why I went to Middlebury  College, it had its own ski area, and was located near Mad River Glen, and Stowe and Sugarbush, even Killington, were not far away. And ultimately I spent two years in Little Cottonwood Canyon, in Utah, but then I realized if I didn’t leave soon, I never would, so I did, and it was so painful I rarely skied thereafter, there’s a fine edge you get skiing every day and when you don’t it hurts, mentally. But the infection is just dormant, and now I’m as into it as I ever was, I cannot read enough about it, I cannot go enough, usually fifty days a year, with a laptop and smartphone you can be anywhere, even overseas.

You just can’t get it unless you do it. But Warren did it, he dedicated his entire life to skiing, one time was enough to turn him into a lifer. And I know people who’ve “thrown away” their entire lives to skiing, they’ve woken up, especially today, and realized they’ve got no 401k, little cash, but they couldn’t help themselves, it’s akin to an opioid addiction. Watch this movie, you’ll understand.

https://spoti.fi/2IHupDJ

“Blue” is the best,” “Court and Spark” was the breakthrough, and in between lies “For the Roses.”

I didn’t hear most of “Song to a Seagull” until the advent of Napster. Oh, I knew “Michael From Mountains,” not that I can remember exactly why. Must’ve been underground FM radio, for I knew no one who owned the LP. And, of course, I knew “Cactus Tree” from “Miles of Aisles,” but “Night in the City,” “Nathan La Franeer,” “Sistowbell Lane” and “The Dawntreader,” the best other cuts on Joni Mitchell’s debut, were new to me, even though it was the turn of the century. The best is “Nathan La Franeer.”

“I hired a coach to take me 

From confusion to the plane

And though we shared a common space

I know I’ll never meet again

The driver with his eyebrows furrowed in the rearview mirror

I read his name and it was plainly written ‘Nathan La Freneer'”

The mood of the song is reflective, you feel like you too are riding in the backseat of the car worried if you’re going to make it to the airport on time and…that was Joni’s magic, by being utterly personal, she ended up universal, but at this point only true insiders knew her and her music.

That was March of ’68, “Clouds” came out in May of ’69, it contained her versions of “Chelsea Morning” and “Both Sides Now,” but the reason I had to purchase it, after the fact, was to hear the original version of “That Song About the Midway,” which exquisitely opened Bonnie Raitt’s disappointing album “Streetlights,” the one that contained one of her signature recordings, a cover of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery,” but producer Jerry Ragavoy smoothed off all the rough edges of Raitt’s sound, possibly her signature element, Raitt was a woman of the soil speaking to the people, not a crooner. But the best song on “Clouds” is “I Don’t Know Where I Stand.”

“Telephone, even the sound of your voice is still new

All alone in California and talking to you

And feeling too foolish and strange to say the words that I had planned

I guess it’s too early, ’cause I don’t know where I stand”

If you haven’t been here, you’ve never been in love, in a relationship. You’re wondering, do they feel the way you do, can you express your feelings honestly or will they be overwhelmed and run?

But the first time Joni was fully realized, banged the gong, truly established her place in the firmament, was with April ’70’s “Ladies of the Canyon.” It seems to have been forgotten, no one ever talks about it, but listen to the trio of “The Arrangement,” “Rainy Night House” and “The Priest” and you’ll find all the questions we used to ask ourselves that no one ever does anymore, used to be selling out was anathema, now it’s de rigueur, you don’t do what’s in your heart, but what’s expedient, you tamp down your inner flame, for fear it will steer you off track.

And then came “Blue,” in June of ’71. “Blue” was different, despite the title it was at times upbeat, full of exuberance that emanated from the disc right into your heart, if you weren’t already headed to the Golden State as a result of the Beach Boys, “California” sealed the deal…that’s where you could be free, where all your problems would be solved, and despite all the denigration, it’s still true, California is the land of freedom, three hours behind New York, no one’s in your business, you can be you. And unlike what came previously, there were no originals that had become famous via covers, “Blue” was brand new, yet you had to be on the trip to appreciate it, and there weren’t that many on the ride, dedicated followers of fashion knew who Joni Mitchell was but we were still licking our wounds from protests against the Vietnam War, we were just starting to become introspective, therefore possibly the best introspective album of all time took years to take hold, to the point when Prince covered “A Case of You” I was stunned he knew it, and appreciated it, then again, once again, you were either on the bus or off the bus, and obviously Prince was on, but not everybody was. Until, of course, “Court and Spark.”

It was slicker than had what come before, smoother, there were fewer rough edges, but who knew it would connect not only with Top Forty radio but seemingly every woman in America.

By this time the hype machine was firing on all cylinders, the press was focused on “Raised on Robbery,” which stiffed in the marketplace, and “Twisted” turned out to be a curio, who knew “Help Me” would become a monster? Even more of a surprise was “Free Man in Paris,” which cemented David Geffen’s image in the populace, before he dated Cher. But, once again, it was the darker, unheralded tracks, like “People’s Parties” and “The Same Situation” that truly resonated.

If “People’s Parties” doesn’t go through your brain every time you go to a Hollywood party… Then again, maybe you never have. In Los Angeles, image is everything, that’s the currency, your bank account is secondary, even today, it’s about fame and how good you look, and most people don’t look that good, but they do in L.A., because it’s one of the few places where you can build a whole career purely on your punim. And you walk through the door and you get anxious, you scan the room for someone you know and you make a beeline to them and get deep into conversation, trying to make it sustain as long as possible, for you know it won’t be long until you’re sipping your drink alone by the wall, wondering if you can hang in there, whether you have to leave, or whether serendipity will deliver what you came for, what you want, but what you too rarely get.

What happened after “Court and Spark” is an entirely different discussion. Of course there was the aforementioned cleanup double live album “Miles of Aisles,” but thereafter there was experimentation, at least in the minds of the audience, Joni kept moving and for a while the audience stood by her, but ultimately it peeled off, even though ’76’s “Hejira” is one of her best, with some of her most insightful lyrics.

But, once again, “For the Roses” came between the twin peaks of “Blue” and “Court and Spark,” and except for the single, it was dark, as if California hadn’t solved all Joni’s problems, she’d retreated to Canada, to lick her wounds, soothe her soul, to plumb her insides to make sense of where she’d been. “For the Roses” was an LP a fan immediately got, but also one that revealed more and more insight as you peeled the layers back. The best track is “Woman of Heart and Mind,” which you can listen to many times before its message truly penetrates, whereas “Barangrill” was more lighthearted, those three waitresses wearing black diamond earrings…Joni was caught up in the starmaker machinery, the waitresses were not self-conscious, they had hopes and dreams like us all. And “Blonde in the Bleachers” jumped out of the speakers, because of the viewpoint, insight into the male rock mind by someone who played in that world, who was doing her best to stay true to herself as opposed to being caught up in the maelstrom.

And then there was the single, “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio.”

It was a hit. Joni’s first. But she was on a lark, she was going to show the bigwigs who demanded one that she could deliver one, and it was, a hit, not that it was the best song on “For the Roses,” far from it, but you needed something light to break through on Top Forty in those days when it was a backwater, all the action being on FM, but some people still didn’t have FM in the car, or were completely out of the loop.

“If you’re driving into town

With a dark cloud above you

Dial in the number

Who’s bound to love you”

It sounds like a radio commercial. Self-congratulatory, even though at this point radio was the heartbeat of America, TV only had a few channels, radio had a cornucopia of them, you could find something that aligned with your identity, or at least close thereto.

“Oh honey you turn me on

I’m a radio

I’m a country station

I’m a little bit corny

I’m a wildwood flower

Waving for you

Broadcasting tower

Waving for you”

It sounds like the bottom of the barrel scrapings purveyed on today’s country radio, bland, giving everybody what they want, with absolutely no soul, we’re all good here, isn’t life loverly.

But then…

“And I’m sending you out

This signal here

I hope you can pick it up

Loud and clear

I know you don’t like weak women

You get bored so quick

And you don’t like strong women

‘Cause they’re hip to your tracks”

Wise words, known by all boomers as a result of airplay, exacting wisdom is contained in what heretofore seemed like a mindless ditty. That’s what men want, especially as they become more powerful, a woman who gets all the jokes, who knows what they talk about, but who will be submissive and obedient, but they’re almost impossible to find, it’s a fruitless search, so they settle for the photo beauty, but they don’t want to marry her, and if you’re not good-looking enough you’ve got no chance and the guy thinks he will always be on top of the world but in most cases after his brief window of power and fame he finds himself kicked out of the game. Must be tough to be a woman. Your sisters berate you if you employ your feminine wiles, but if you act just like a man that serves no one. And it still is a patriarchy, we’ve got a long way to go.

“It’s been dirty for dirty

Down the line

But you know

I come when you whistle

When you’re loving and kind”

Women can hear a song once and digest and understand the lyrics, whereas many men think they know a song by heart but…if they even remember the lyrics, they’ve got no idea what they mean.

So I was upstairs, in the club above the Rainbow, it was the fall of ’74, I’d sold a punching bag to the doorman so I had free access, and this was before I was worn down by rejection, I was still game, so I struck up a conversation with this blonde-haired woman, there was no physical intimacy, but I figured if we started with intellectual intimacy I had a chance, and in the middle of our banter she slips in…”dirty for dirty.” I was wowed, speechless, there was a deeper point of connection than I believed, this woman was sharper than I’d previously thought, we shared the same reference points, but we never shared the same bed.

“But if you’ve got too may doubts

If there’s no good reception for me

Then tune me out, ’cause honey

Who needs the static

It hurts the head

And you wind up cracking and the day goes dismal”

Wait a second, in this seeming ditty, all over the airwaves, is buried insight, gravitas and darkness. Then again, if you don’t like a strong woman, sending you a strong signal that they’re game, they’re going to move on, they don’t have the time.

On “Court and Spark” Joni would be more direct, she didn’t have to speak in metaphor, she succeeded on her own terms, not that it was foreseen, but it’s hard to keep this level of talent down, after all it rarely comes along, we’ve never had a new Beatles and we’ve never had a new Joni Mitchell.

That’s where our wisdom used to come from, songs, made by artists. That was enough. There was no penumbra of perfumes and privates, no branding. And it’s funny how it’s these acts that have survived and those who played the game did not. You see credibility is everything, but you’ve got to have the goods to get in the arena.

So Joni Mitchell dropped pearls of wisdom so profound that her words and music never go out of style, they’re continually picked up by subsequent generations, because where else are you gonna get this honesty and depth.

“If you’re lying on the beach

With the transistor going

Kick off the sandflies honey

The love’s still flowing

If your head says forget it

But your heart’s still smoking

Call me at the station

The lines are open”

Follow your heart, not your head. This is what true artists do, which is why we resonate with them and their work, they channel truth, and no one has ever done it better than Joni Mitchell.