epilogue
Music & Literature
HUFFINGTON
09.23.12
tles, of course. Within a year or two, I had,
again through my brother, discovered The
Yardbirds, through their 45s, and by 1967,
when album (as opposed to singles) buying
really took off, we owned The Yardbirds’
Greatest Hits and Five Live Yardbirds. But
it was The Yardbirds Featuring Performances by Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page, a U.S. compilation on Epic featuring the best tracks from all three of the
band’s Guitar God lineups, released in 1970, that locked
me into a lifetime of listening to mostly blues-based and
virtuosic electric guitar. Emotions expressed in shockingly
visceral and slightly inchoate ways: what could be more
appealing than that, when I was thirteen?
Who’s Next
by The Who
The early British Wave seemed to me all
about anarchic joy, but being the sad figure I was, I was soon attracted to the darker
elements driving the adolescent fascination with rock, especially to The Who, who
seemed to have cornered the market on rage
in the service of self-pity. I played Tommy
so often and so obsessively I wore out two
copies of the double album and the one I
have now is the third I bought. Live at Leeds has to be one
of the two or three best live albums ever made. But Who’s
Next features that synthesized organ in “Baba O’Riley”
that constitutes one of the most electrifying openings in
pop music, and, of course, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” If you
don’t understand the greatness of that song’s achievement,
then you and I have nothing more to talk about.