...and these don't necessarily have to be the first time you heard the band/player/singer/whatever (in other words, not necessarily "the first cut is the deepest", if you will).
Truth be told, the inspiration for this notion is an old friend of mine who admits he was, er, more into the mushrooms back in the '60s and '70s than I was. He'd never heard "Tubular Bells" but caught a "live" performance of it on "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" in '74, where the musicians were sitting in a semi-circle, and would get up and walk over to different instruments at different times during the performance (anybody else remember that?). Well, he was blown away, as might have been expected.
I can think of at least two songs that had a similar effect on me, admittedly later on. In '85, there was a Phil Collins concert on HBO (it later came out on video), and there was a tremendous extended work therein called "Hand in Hand" which started off with an almost African vibe---rainstorm effect, Collins singing something that sounded like an African dialect, response vocals from the Phoenix Horns, kalimba-like noodling by Chester Thompson on some instrument that was sort of like a mini-xylophone (from what I could tell)...following by a great horn arrangement kick-in and double drumming. It almost came off like a John Barry soundtrack number, and I was so entranced I was catatonic during the entire song. Bassist Leland Sklar said that the band used to open the show with "Hand in Hand" and he was pissed that it showed up later in the concert video, on accounta opening with it really started things rolling in the right manner, he said.
In '94 I first heard the 28-minute version of "Rattlesnake Shake" from Fleetwood Mac's Boston Tea Party recordings. I'd heard other material from those live sessions (they were beginning to appear on cut-out type cassettes) but someone in Washington state sent me some bootlegs that included the effort which segues into the "Madge" jams and "Underway". Peter Green's Les Paul was absolutely screaming. It was about 30 degrees outside, I was in my car, and I didn't have the heater running, but I stopped after about 3 minutes of the song, stayed still 'till it was over, and I was sweating like a mofo at the end. It was (and is) the most ungodly extended jam track I've ever heard.
Any other songs have such an immediate first-time effect on anyone else? I may think of others later on...
Truth be told, the inspiration for this notion is an old friend of mine who admits he was, er, more into the mushrooms back in the '60s and '70s than I was. He'd never heard "Tubular Bells" but caught a "live" performance of it on "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" in '74, where the musicians were sitting in a semi-circle, and would get up and walk over to different instruments at different times during the performance (anybody else remember that?). Well, he was blown away, as might have been expected.
I can think of at least two songs that had a similar effect on me, admittedly later on. In '85, there was a Phil Collins concert on HBO (it later came out on video), and there was a tremendous extended work therein called "Hand in Hand" which started off with an almost African vibe---rainstorm effect, Collins singing something that sounded like an African dialect, response vocals from the Phoenix Horns, kalimba-like noodling by Chester Thompson on some instrument that was sort of like a mini-xylophone (from what I could tell)...following by a great horn arrangement kick-in and double drumming. It almost came off like a John Barry soundtrack number, and I was so entranced I was catatonic during the entire song. Bassist Leland Sklar said that the band used to open the show with "Hand in Hand" and he was pissed that it showed up later in the concert video, on accounta opening with it really started things rolling in the right manner, he said.
In '94 I first heard the 28-minute version of "Rattlesnake Shake" from Fleetwood Mac's Boston Tea Party recordings. I'd heard other material from those live sessions (they were beginning to appear on cut-out type cassettes) but someone in Washington state sent me some bootlegs that included the effort which segues into the "Madge" jams and "Underway". Peter Green's Les Paul was absolutely screaming. It was about 30 degrees outside, I was in my car, and I didn't have the heater running, but I stopped after about 3 minutes of the song, stayed still 'till it was over, and I was sweating like a mofo at the end. It was (and is) the most ungodly extended jam track I've ever heard.
Any other songs have such an immediate first-time effect on anyone else? I may think of others later on...
