Fred Schott’s Blog

Elton’s Peak: Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

More than any other non-classical piece of work, it has everything the cinema can offer: the big dramatic opening with Funeral and Love Lies Bleeding; the passionate highs of Saturday Night and Alice; the inevitable downfall and tragedy of Danny Bailey and the title song; the longing for love of Candle in the Wind and I’ve Seen That Movie; the comedy of Social Disease; and, of course, the big, happy ending of Harmony.

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THE BEATLES

The greatest cultural influence in my lifetime was The Beatles. Nothing else comes close. But…I was too young to appreciate them when they were together (although one of my earliest memories was hearing Eleanor Rigby on the way to YMCA Camp in the summer of ‘66, at 6 years old, and thinking, “This is really

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The Key of Life

I know we are a rock crowd. But growing up, Motown music had a huge effect on our musical tastes. And everyone from The Beatles and Stones to CCR and Doobie Brothers covered Motown songs. On this date in 1976, the stunningly superb Songs In the Key of Life was released. Thriller had the otherworldly

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AFTER THE GOLD RUSH

Quick…think of a famous singer-songwriter album. A few just immediately come to mind like Tapestry, Blue, Sweet Baby James, Highway 61 Revisited, and For Everyman. I would put another in that top tier that inexplicably is never part of the discussion, one released on this date in 1970, Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush. Tell

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Cinderella Story

On September 16, 1972, a relatively unknown guitarist played his first concert as a solo artist when he opened for the J. Geils Band. He had been the lead singer and guitarist in a pop band called The Herd and then for three years in a hard rock band, but none of either band’s studio

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