Rock and roll on aisle nine.

The other day I was in a grocery store and their intercom music service was playing Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Jefferson Airplane.

We are officially over the hill when our music becomes the centerpiece for MUZAK.

But I found myself shopping with easy and having a good time and rocking out just a tad. It was great. I didn’t have to suffer through Frank Sinatra singing off-key (sorry if you think he’s great, I have never thought they recorded him on key. Kind of like Taylor Swift.)

I like big bands. Jazz. Country (more the western than the country) and I love bluegrass. But give me blues and rock anytime. And give me good solid rock and roll, not that big hair stuff that came out of the late 70’s and early 80’s. Give me Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers . Give me Roy Orbison…give me the Traveling Wilburys. Give me Keith and Mick and the gang. I’ll take the Kinks or the Dave Clark Five or the Byrds. If I like the Byrds I gotta like me some Tom Petty. And I was wild about Creedence Clearwater Revival. I adored the Band. Was never big on the Beach Boys, but my gosh they had good harmonies, as did Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Plus I love the group that spawned them and so many, Buffalo Springfield.

That alone would make a pretty good MUZAK list in anybody’s grocery store. Throw in some Luther Allison, BB King, Steve Ray Vaughn and his Brother Jimmy, not to mention a little Cream along with Led Zeppelin and you’ve got yourself a pretty good line up. Oh yes, Mississippi Queen by Mountain could play every other song…fine by me. Super Session with Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield was a huge album in my life. As was King Crimson.

That’ll have you humming in the aisles, while you buy the milk and bread for the gang back home. They don’t make rock and roll like this anymore. Just like they don’t make country and western like they used to. Too much formula. Too many boy bands. Too much plastic and glitter and not enough substance

But here’s the catch. The Classic Rock radio stations have forgotten, we listened to the entire albums. All they want to play is the veneer of top five hits. It gets boring. It gets trite. It gets old very fast. The music we listened to in the 60’s, 70’s and part of the 80’s had depth. The seventh cut was as good as the first three, in many cases. And we knew the words to all twelve songs on the album. (Although we probably couldn’t recite them today – too much smoke and loss of brain cells???)

Our music, like every generation’s music – was the best. I’m just sorry the record companies had to get involved. Like all big businesses, they ruined it. They gave us Dance Fever and Euro-electric groups. Sorry if you like Abba. Not my cup of Swedish tea.

I saw Joe Cocker the other night in concert. He’s gotta be pushing 75 if a day. And he’s still got it. His band kicked and he was right there with them.

Rock isn’t dead. It’s living in retirement homes in the Simi Valley. It’ll come back. Back to your favorite grocery store.

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