Good Company

My son leaned his head in the bedroom late last night to say he had enjoyed the “Loopified” album by Dirty Loops!

Cool.

That was one of the albums I had recommended he listen to as he pursues his recent quest for continued musical enlightenment. He’s deliberately exploring different sounds and expanding his musical breadth, partly to complement the musical writing he’s doing and partly to connect the dots from a musicological point of view.

A couple of days ago, he was listening to Coltrane!

Cool.

I would have hesitated to recommend Coltrane for my son, but one of his friends had suggested it, and Tristan was open-minded enough to take the legendary jazz saxophonist for a spin!

Cool.

He told me he listened to The Isley Brothers because Kendrick Lamar samples them in his music.

Cool.

About two weeks ago, out of the blue, Tristan asked my wife and I for the names of some of our favorite albums.

I surprised myself when the first album name I blurted out was “Led Zep 4”! I’m sure the choice of that 1971 rock classic says something deliciously insightful about my musical and social influences, not to mention my demographic identity, but I have no idea what those might be.

My wife, on the other hand, offered Billy Joel’s “Glass Houses” and Journey’s “Escape”. Tristan had already listened to “52^nd Street”, which would have been one of my top choices for Billy Joel.

It’s quite a question to ask of one’s parents; at the same time challenging and flattering. For me, it ranks right up there on the fun quotient with those hypothetical “desert island” questions, only this time, there was a real reason for us to scramble for favorite album names.

Cool.

First album I recommended when my son asked

I have too many albums to suggest; jazz, rock, funk, folk, pop, blues, classical; it's terribly confounding!

Susan and I both agreed on Van Morrison’s 1969 “Moondance”. The title track is such a classic song, a version of which I performed during a show in Dorchester Square a few years ago and which you can listen to on my SoundCloud account.

Susan also suggested “Breakfast in America”, while my first choice for Supertramp was “Crisis, What Crisis”.

I offered the first album by Boston, “Minute by Minute” by the Doobie Brothers and “Brother To Brother”, the great album by Gino Vanelli, who I pointed out to my son, was from Montreal!

I thought “Dark Side of the Moon” might be too dreamy for him. I only liked a few tracks off “Back in Black” and Tristan was already aware of some other gargantuan albums like “Hydrid Theory”, “Thriller” and “Jagged Little Pill”.

If you're interested, on International Music Day 2010, I listed some of my favourite songs in a blog published October 1st of that year. By now, I've got many more songs to add!

Susan told Tristan he might want to listen to “Hotel California” by The Eagles. I have no Eagles on my ipod! I heard too much of them and The Beatles growing up, admittedly, reason enough for my son to lend them attentive ears.

I thought about mentioning “The Joshua Tree”, but decided against it, since I have a U2-credibility issue, having climbed onto their bandwagon for the 1987 album only to climb right off again.

Whaaaaaat? My legs just about buckled when my wife recommended Bad Company’s self-titled 1974 album! I had no clue she had ever heard of the band, who I had always liked. Who knew?

As my son learns something new, so am I!

Uber-cool.