When we moved to Long Beach, Mississippi, I fell in love with small towns. Life was simple - one main drag, a couple of grocery stores, a McDonald's, and a Waffle House. The beach was a mere 10 minutes away on a bike, and all my friends' houses were even closer. It was idyllic, and I never felt restless or bored as a kid. You'd think all those years would prepare me for my time in the "Loveliest Village on the Plain" - Auburn, Alabama.
It did not.
Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed the years I spent there, but, man, Auburn felt constrictingly small and deafeningly quiet. If you took away all the housing geared toward students and all buildings associated with the University, you're left with a big ol' cow pasture. Honestly, with beaches and the ocean over 4 hours away, I think I was just too far from the water.
My wanderlust kicked into full gear there. I spent a lot of my idle time driving the highways and byways for hours to get away from the incessant sameness of the town. The nearest "big" city was Columbus, Georgia, right across the state line. Home of Fort Benning, good barbecue joints, and well-stocked comic book stores, Columbus was a common weekend destination.
On one of my first trips there, I discovered ROCK 103, Columbus's classic rock station. I was ecstatic when I found I could still get their signal back at my apartment in Auburn. The antics of the on-air DJs were amusing - "Hey, wanna win tickets to Bon Jovi? If you're caller 3, 8, 11, or 2,571, they're yours!"
I've previously written how ROCK 103 planted the seed for my version of Rock-tober. I looked forward to this annual event when the station would showcase specific artists each day of the month. Another ROCK 103 tradition was the "Ultimate Album Side". Listeners mailed in set lists of their half dozen all-time favorite tunes and if your list was chosen, it was featured on the air.
The one Album Side that sticks out was sent in by a guy who packed his with "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vidda", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", and "Whipping Post" among others. Astute readers will be aware that these are legendary for having some of the longest runtimes in classic rock. The DJs were standup guys and played the list in its entirety. What was normally a 30-minute show stretched on for over two hours.
To mark the epic 10th year of this little rock and roll blog, I decided to pull from some of the past 279 featured songs. Deciding on the entry for day 1 was easy. This was the tender, romantic ballad that kicked it off that fateful first fall day back in 2013.
So...with some new stuff and some old stuff, welcome to Rock-tober - the Ultimate Album Side.
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