Rockin’ To the Classics

I’ve got some editing and polishing to do, and I’m thinking of having a classic rock day while I’m doing it in honor of my late brother Jeff, who passed away on January 30th. Jeff was a big classic rock fan, or, as he would put it, he was a big rock fan.

After all, when we were teens “classic” meant a bunch of people in formal dress, playing music by dead old guys while another old guy stood in front of them wildly waving a stick.

When I’m writing it’s those old dead guys I like to listen to, or movie scores composed and conducted by people who are still alive, but also waving sticks. (These days most people who see an orchestra assume the stick-waving people are casting spells.)

John Williams is my movie score hero, but he can be dangerous with that stick.

That’s because I find singing to be a distraction while writing, so it’s John Williams or Beethoven for me. Or Holst: “The Planets” is great to write science fiction by. But while editing, voices are fine.

I have an eclectic taste in music; that’s a term that means “I can’t make up my mind”. I like rock, pop, country, jazz, and even have a Charlotte Church opera CD around the house somewhere. I find classical to be relaxing, unless I’m not paying attention and accidentally put on the 1812 Overture, which makes me want to invade Russia. Our Dad used to sing us old novelty songs, like “The Battle of New Orleans”, and I also grew to love musicals.

Jeff generally stuck to good ol’ rock and roll, but there’s plenty of rock and roll out there. We didn’t have all those weird band names, like they do these days, either. We had normal names, like Blue Oyster Cult, Thin Lizzy, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, ZZ Top, Styx, Led Zeppelin, and, of course, The Eagles.

Our rock stars looked normal, like this.

Okay, so The Eagles isn’t all that strange of a name. We also liked Foreigner, although I never did find out what country they were from. Since those appear to all be guys, I’d add Janis Joplin, Heart, Blondie, and Stevie Nicks.

I’ve heard The Rolling Stones, Queen, and The Beatles were pretty good, too.

So I’ll probably seek out a YouTube or Pandora channel, and see where it takes me. There was a lot of music we both loved, back in the day, with my favorite being the self-titled Boston album. But I haven’t even begun to cover all the great rockers, so what would you put on the list?

Beethoven was happy to lose his hearing before rap came along.