………. And so begins a project I may never complete. For about three years I shared the driving for the two hour round trip to and from work, one week I would be driven and the next week I would drive and after only a short time we decided to embark on another journey, a journey in music where we would listen to every song, in order, from the 1001 songs you must hear before you die list, which we completed even though it was at times not the most enjoyable listening experience. After that we listened to every single NOW! That’s what I call music compilation from number 1 all the way to the latest release which was 90 ish double CD’s worth. This was actually a much worse listening experience. We were about to go for the big one, the 1001 albums, when my co-driver found a new job and our car sharing days were over. I did the list myself and, even though it was long, sometimes torturous to the ears, sometimes joyful, I was left unsatisfied at it’s completion.
In the intervening years I have often listened to an album and thought it should have been in the 1001 albums list, or at least that it would be in mine, if I ever made a list, but compiling such a list of my own seemed like a lot of effort so I never bothered and, anyway, who would care? On the latter point, that’s never really stopped me before and on the former, it is a lot of effort, but the current global pandemic and being in various levels of lockdown over the last 4 months has given me just enough motivation to grasp the nettle and see what happens.
The way I am going to do my list will also be by decade, but I may jump around a little so they won’t necessarily always be in order but they will be tagged so that should make them easier to find. I will also not be including any albums that appear in the original list, so even though I may well have chosen Led Zeppelin II or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, I can’t.
1950’s
- Yma Sumac – Voice of Xtabay
- Les Baxter – Ritual Of The Savage
- Various Artists – The Anthology Of American Folk Music
- Peggy Lee – Black Coffee
- Moondog – Moondog and his Friends
- Sarah Vaughan – Sara Vaughan
- Bill Haley & His Comets – Rock Around The Clock
- Otto Luening/Vladimir Ussachevsy – Tape Recorder Music
- Charles Mingus – Pithecanthropus Erectus
- Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong – Ella & Louis
- Billie Holiday – Lady Sings The Blues
- John Coltrane – Blue Train
- Ray Charles – By Ray Charles
- Miles Davis – ‘Round About Midnight
- Sonny Rawlings – Saxophone Colossus
- Nina Simone – Little Girl Blue
- Howlin’ Wolf – Moanin’ in the Moonlight
- Frank Sinatra – Come Dance With Me
- Jimmy Smith – The Sermon