Rock-tober 18, 2017

There's a 10 year age difference between Andrea and her older sister. This lead to some interesting interactions like the time her teenage sister brought home the album from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In their room, they played the album over and over, singing along the whole time. Soon, 6-year-old Andrea was skipping happily around the house singing "Sweet Transvestite" and "I Can Make You a Man." When she was old enough to realize what she was singing, she was utterly shocked her older sister let her listen to the album. She laughs about it now but also wonders what her mother must have thought about her youngest daughter.

Being an only child, I didn't have to worry about running afoul of sibling mischief. This was especially true in the music department. Mom and Dad's collection had a smattering of Elvis, but there were loads of reel to reels, albums, and 8-tracks of The Platters ("Harbor Lights") and guys like Jim Reeves ("Welcome to My World"), Eddy Arnold ("Make the World Go Away"), and Engelbert Humperdink ("Can't Take My Eyes Off You"). This was some serious, old school stuff. I found a few selections that turned out to be gems for me. There was Red Sovine and his trucker stories set to music, a full collection of Marty Robbins and his cowboy ballads, and an aforementioned Roger Whitaker 8-track that prepared me to sing along with Metallica a few decades later.

One 8-track in the entire collection was particularly intriguing. It stood out among all others and got plenty of play time on the many road trips we took. This was the self titled Commodores album released in 1977. This thing sounded like nothing else I'd heard previously at the house and was my unknowing intro to 70's funk. Two singles came off the record.

"Easy," featuring Lionel Richie, went to #1 on the US R&B and #4 on the Hot 100. "Easy" was about as easy listening as you could get. For the funk, you had to step over to the other side of the house. "Brick House" charted almost as high as "Easy," reaching #4 and #5 on the respective charts. I enjoyed the really cool groove while the lyrics, like Andrea and Rocky Horror, went completely over my head. "The lady's stacked?" "She's a brick house?" Somewhere, mid-song, the lead belts out, "36! 24! 36!" I remember thinking, "Man, that'd be an easy padlock combo to remember." It would be a few more years yet before I figured out it wasn't about literal stacked bricks at all.