We´ve all discovered great music through a variety of ways. This is a list of the 10 all-time best artists I was fortunate to capture live in concert. While all are not still alive, the music lives on and maybe my list will inspire a new iTunes purchase or even better, the purchase of some tickets to see them perform their magic. Let me know if you are going to go. ¡I may have you pick up a ticket for me! It would be impossible for me to list them in a top ten order so I present them to you in more or less a chronological order of when I first saw their performances. I also added a little background on how I discovered them.
Jimmy wins the award for most times seen live. One day I will count up all the ticket stubs but I know when I lived in San Diego we could often see him as much as three times in a year if you knew when he was doing the smaller concerts. I estimate I have seen him in concert no less than 25 times. The discovery came in college as a buddy and I struggled to find an appropriate graduation gift for our newly minted grad. We thought he was into Buffett so just bought the latest Buffett album and when he peeled away the wrapper and put it on the turntable, I realized I needed a copy for myself. I credit an old college buddy with turning me onto Asleep at the Wheel but my favorite story about the band comes from the U.K. I was taking a course on music history at Richmond College in London and the instructor was simply a master of all things musical. After and before classes we would chat about all things music and one day I asked him if he had an all-time favorite band expecting him to name some obscure English group or avoid an answer with the usual ït´s hard to say¨ but without hesitation he belted out ¡Asleep at the Wheel! We had been talking music for weeks but surprised each other with the discovery that we both loved the same band and had both seen them live. They tour frequently, ¡go catch them! I discovered Katie through a friend of a roommate who was in town visiting and slipped on his Swamp Boogie Queen cassette on the stereo. I bought the CD the next day but Katie was one of those artists that I could never capture live due to my travel for work. So only fitting that I was in Portland, Maine, on my way to a bike trip when I discovered we were both spending the night there. I managed to score a ticket and due to the festival seating nature of the auditorium, I also scored a front row seat. I have Katie´s signature on both a CD purchased at the show and my journal which I had brought along for my travels. ¡Pick up her Swamp Boogie Queen CD and you´ll see why she was the Queen! When living in Washington D.C. I had my appendix explode. It was such a nasty event that I was in the hospital for a week before they would spring me. Recovery time was painful and I challenged myself to walk just a little further each day once I was on my feet. Not too long after my walks were picking up some distance I saw an ad in the Post for a CD release party for Mary Chapin Carpenter at the local Tower Records. Although I had never heard her music before I thought this would be a good destination and although it was a very short music set, it convinced me to buy her first commercial CD. I´ll bet Mary doesn´t remember talking to me after the show but I was understandable sitting on a piece of her band´s music equipment to get my rest for the journey back home when we traded a few words. 6. Marcia Ball Marcia is another one where I can't tell you exactly where I found her. It may have been at the same New Orleans Jazz Festival as the Blind Boys (see below) but definitely she is one of those performers that can not recreate the power of one of her shows on a CD. After her shows she always sticks around to sign CDs and delights in talking to her fans. I've met her twice this way and she is absolutely delightful. ¡So catch a show and then have a chat with her! (Tell her Lance sent you - "You know that shiny headed guy at the Triple Door in Seattle...) The Blind Boys are the number one reason you should go to a musical festival. You never know what you are going to find. I was at a New Orleans Jazz Fest and was wandering through the venues marked on my program but wasn´t getting any satisfaction so wandered over to the gospel tent which can be inspiring if you catch it at the right time. The place was packed, standing room only and the music was electric. I fought my way through the crowds to get closer so I could see better what I was hearing and before you knew it a Blind Boy was blindly walking in the audience belting out his song within spitting distance. There are some groups that simply can´t recreate their passion on a taped recording. This is one of those groups. 8. Lyle Lovett Admittedly it was a college buddy who first played a Lyle song for me (If I Had a Pony) but it didn't stick until I caught a version of his "I've Been to Memphis" tune on the radio. (The piano intro is very cool.) I ran out and bought the CD the same day and then became a fan. I've seen Lyle in concert more than a handful of times and the only time he disappointed was when he was married to Julia. My most recent concert was a Lyle Concert and it was the best yet. Even if you don't buy a Lyle song from iTunes and just show up at a concert you will have a great time. I can remember singing Belafonte songs in grade school but I clearly got the bug after listening to his Live in Carnegie Hall album probably in the basement of my aunt´s home. I made that musical note that I have to catch this guy live and it took a lifetime to make it happen but I made it happen at a Seattle winery-sponsored concert and it was even better than the old album. I still recommend the Carnegie Hall records if you want a taste of how great a performer Harry really is but better yet, catch him in concert. ¡Ever go to a concert just because you liked the concert write-up preview in the newspaper? That´s how I discovered Riders in the Sky. Yes, they are talented. Yes, they are funny. And yes, they put on a great show. They are country/western but don´t let that scare you if your are not a fan of that genre. Odds are good you will become a country fan after attending one of their concerts. Honorable Mention Beausoleil, Billy Joel, Bob Seeger, Dr. John, Billy Vera and the Beaters, Emmylou Harris, Wylie and the Wild West and El Vez.
Before I share this list I have to preface the process. If you haven't discovered this feature on your iPod its pretty cool. It automatically tracks the 25 songs you have played the most. You can also sort your entire music collection by how often you've played each song. It may or may not show a pattern in your listening habits but its fun to look at the data. In my case my iTunes library is shared with my wife so iTunes includes her listening habits as well as mine. I also have used my iPod in numerous professional settings so a class or presentation that repeated often will push a tune higher than it might have been in my normal listening habits. Also, my iTunes does NOT include two other significant music sources for me, my car stereo and the stereo in my bedroom, both of which are huge music sources for me. So in order as listed on my iPod here are the top ten with a little thought as to why I think the song is listed so high: 1. Somewhere I Belong - Linkin Park First caught this song at an ASTD Conference (American Society of Training & Development) presentation by the U.S. Coast Guard. The soundtrack was used as a background for a homegrown video by a Coast Guard junior officer and was the intro to the world of the Coast Guard ahead of the presentation. Love the music, love the words and it is one of the songs on the top of my Rock and Roll Playlist which gets a lot of air time on my Green Lake runs. i wanna heal i wanna feel like im close to something real. 2. So Nice (Summer Samba) - Andy Williams Andy Williams was often heard on the family stereo while growing up so I am an old fan but it wasn´t until I was looking to find the CD version of that old family LP that I discovered an Andy Williams CD that contained both that old album plus a second album. While discovering the songs on that second album on the CD I (re)discovered a song I had heard before and really liked. When I met my wife to be it seemed the perfect song to make an "Our Song" and I sang it at our wedding as a part of the ranson required to get my new wife back after her kidnap (Romanian wedding custom). So nice, life would be so nice 3. Toes - Zac Brown Band More than a year ago someone gave me a gift subscription to the Rolling Stone magazine. I hadn´t read it regularly since my college days but I really got back into it and even renewed my subscription when the gift portion expired. I was reading a review on the Zac Brown Band and the review hooked me when they described one particular song (Toes) as reminiscint of a Jimmy Buffett tune. That´s all it took for me to download it and add it to the library and the whole album quickly became a favorite. I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand 4. Calling Elvis - Dire Straits I´m a Dire Straits fan but this song makes the top ten on the merits of how I used it as a "Call back to the Classroom song" during my tenure teaching leadership topics for Holland America Line. In other words, I clued in my participants that when they heard this song it was time to start ending their break and make their way to their seats. So the tune got a lot of airplay particularly when I was in the classroom. Well tell him I was calling just to wish him well 5. Don´t Rock the Jukebox |
1. 
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
