I had to put The Moody Blues in.

I was actually sitting here warming up my laptop and I thought, I have not listened to my one Alice Cooper CD is ages.  I put it in and got through 5 of the ten songs and it did nothing to help me write.  But now you know the Moody Blues fan who likes listening to Barry Manilow (if you have read earlier posts) also has Alice Cooper on the shelf.

The music collection is pretty wide.  Travis.  Train.  Fastball.  Willie Nelson.  Bill Anderson.  Frank Sinatra.  Davis Gilmour.  The Byrds. The Platters.  The Drifters.  Boz Scaggs.  David Foster.  Alicia Keys.  Dusty Springfield.

Here is the teller…which music artists are represented most on my shelf?

The Moody Blues:  I have everything they have released.  After The Moodies the top ten include:

Bob Seger, Paul McCartney, Merle Haggard, Asia, Huey Lewis and the News, Jimmy Buffett, Bruce Springsteen,  The Beatles, Gordon Lightfoot, and Billy Joel.  I probably have more Chicago than I think.  Tim Krekel is also well represented, as he should be.

What is not on my music shelf that you might think may be there?

There is no Led Zepplelin.  Won’t be. I have no Fleetwood Mac, though I enjoy hearing them on the radio.  I have no REO Speedwagon.  I have no Bon Jovi.  I have no Journey.  I have no Def Leppard (sp?).  Aside from Hotel California, I was never a great Eagles fan.  I really get a kick out of Joe Walsh though.  I have no Bob Dylan,  I have heard he is genius.  I’d rather listen to Alice Cooper.  I do stop in my tracks when I hear Dylan sing the song “Jokerman” and his songs “My Back Pages” by The Byrds and “I Don’t Want to Do It” by George Harrison are tops.  But that is all the Dylan I want to listen to.  Don’t tell me about a genius writing a line like “the sun’s not yellow it’s chicken”.  I don’t want to hear that.

Bob Seger is my American Rocker poet.  I listened to him in a football locker room as a kid and I got it.  “Against the Wind” is pure poetry.  No one brought more personal sounds to the lyric like Bob Seger did.  The sounds don’t seem to be looking for lyric approval.  They  fit .  They are perfect together…Seger’s words and the music he puts together.

John Mellencamp?  I got a couple of his CDs but I don’t reach for them often.  I don’t need to listen to Indiana when I am sitting here.

Those are my musical thoughts tonight.

Speaking the RIghts…

Danny Johnson