I was addicted to records. Even though I had no stereo, I went to the record store. It was a religious pilgrimage. And then, finally, I had to convince my sister to come with me. To charge up a bunch of the new releases on my father's credit card, so we could listen to them in her apartment.
We got Linda Ronstadt's "Heart Like A Wheel". ELO's "Eldorado". Loggins & Messina's "Mother Lode". And the Average White Band's debut.
Lord only knows why we bought that. I was aware of the fact that the band's drummer had O.D.'ed just before the record was released. But this was BEFORE "Pick Up The Pieces" was ubiquitous. Could I have heard the track on KMET? Or maybe KNX? There must have been SOME radio play, otherwise I wouldn't have partaken. I must have heard SOMETHING! But I can't remember it.
There's nothing wrong with "Pick Up The Pieces" but it's not my favorite track on the album. That's "Work To Do".
Some people have R&B in their blood. But I wasn't even in love with the Motown singles. Until maybe the Four Tops. I was angry that they were keeping the British Invasion bands off the Hit Parade. But this record, wow, it was INFECTIOUS!
Because it swung.
Do you have the music in you? Can you lock into the groove? The Average White Band had this soul. They could lock in and SWING! "Work To Do" is a MASTERPIECE! From the horn intro to the falsetto vocals. I had to download it P2P. But to my amazement, I never got the rest of the album. I realized this when I went into somebody's hard drive looking for Brian Auger tracks and found a slew of AWB tracks. I cross-referenced them against my iTunes library and found out I had HOLES! So I set out to complete the album. I went to Amazon. Found the track listing. And started searching. And when the titles came down, I started to sample them. And that's when I heard the album's opening cut, "You Got It".
Have you ever driven cross-country? Have you ever gotten behind the wheel and gone out of cell range?
Today we've got XM. But in the seventies, we were reliant on cassettes. We'd sit in front of the deck for HOURS transferring our favorite albums to tape. That's what I did before I left my sister's apartment in Brentwood for Salt Lake City. I spent two days transferring all those albums we bought on that Sunday night at Licorice Pizza onto Maxell.
And it must have been somewhere between Las Vegas and Salt Lake that I got hooked on AWB. When I realized it was just me and the landscape. For endless HOURS! In those circumstances, you give albums a chance, you play them again and again until the album cuts EMERGE! Until you're HOOKED!
"Well you're making a big mistake girl
Tryin' to hold back your love from me"
Oh, "You Got It" has got this resonant bass. The kind that's like a tuning fork. The kind you lock onto. But, it's the way the intro tears and then they settle into a GROOVE that kills you, that convinces you. It's like the girl in the bedroom is swinging her hips, and then in one fell swoop removes her top and drops her bottom. You go from zero to sixty instantly. You know something's going to HAPPEN! With ABANDON!
And cassettes were not like CDs, or MP3s. It was hard to play the same track over and over again. You just couldn't find the sweet spots between songs that easily. So that's how I discovered track 2, "Got The Love". Oh, hearing it now brings me right back to Snowbird.
I used to keep my cassettes under the seat of my 2002. The ski day would end, I'd pop in a tape and drive back to Sandy, at the southern end of Salt Lake City. When you're worn out from a day on the hill, music resonates. "Got The Love" is a song of darkness whereas "You Got It" is a song of light. "Got The Love" is after you've laid down and done it. And are caressing each other on the way to doing it again.
And then there's "Pick Up The Pieces". Which I started fast-forwarding through as the season wore on. To hear "Person To Person". Which is the flip side of "Got The Love". It's the ANXIETY after the act. When they're gone. And you're wondering whether you're going to connect again.
"Person to person
Face to face"
Yes, it was a type of telephone call. But it also represented connection. There's nothing like being together.
And then came "Work To Do".
Talk about a first side!
Funny what motivates you to see an act. The people who e-mail me are just trying to get ahead. Believing I'll capture the energy of their act and write about it. But I was NEVER about going to hear unknown bands. Hell, I didn't even want to SEE the band unless I had their record and KNEW IT! That's the joy. Hearing them play the songs you KNOW!
So when I heard on the only AOR in Salt Lake that Average White Band was coming through to play the ballroom I got in my car and drove to the box office and got a ticket.
I got to the gig early. That's what you do when you're a fan. You've got to be in the perfect location. Centered, but not too close, so you can hear the vocals through the PA, back when ONLY the vocals went through the PA.
And I'm milling around the venue feeling lonely. Not knowing a soul in the building. Killing time till the band hits the stage.
How many times did I have that experience. In venues ALL OVER THE WORLD! I gave up convincing people to come with me, they were only going to trample on my good time. They wouldn't be into it enough, they'd want to leave, I'd get uptight, I wouldn't be able to CUT LOOSE! And that's what I lived for, to CUT LOOSE! Not get fucked up and rage, but let the music enter me and transport me, leaving this world I couldn't quite figure out behind me.
I listened to that cassette on the way to Sun Valley. To Mammoth on May 1st. All over the west. But I haven't played it in eons.
And it's not about the band's complete oeuvre. They peaked with this record. After their success they were different. They played it safer. "Cut The Cake" was a remake of "Pick Up The Pieces". It had no adventure. But for that one moment, that one album, they got it EXACTLY RIGHT!
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