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Ten Album Turning Points – Desert Island Discs

In Tom Stoppard’s play, “The Real Thing,” the lead character, Henry can’t figure out which songs to pick when he’s slated to appear as the castaway on Desert Island Discs. The problem is Henry likes mindless pop music, but he’s a snob who’s afraid to admit he like pop music, so struggles to find songs and performers those of his intellectual class should like. His wife suggests a more pragmatic approach: pick records associated with turning points in his life.

My list follows the turning point theory–– records that wormed into my ears during special moments experienced early in life. There are plenty of albums I grew to love after these, but none captured my heart and soul like those from my youth.

I compiled my Desert Island Discs during the early days of Covid-19 when the country was shutting down and a bored citizenry sought new ways to amuse themselves by posting lists of favorite albums. April Fools’ Day seemed a fitting day to start, so with thanks to Doug Geiger’s original Facebook invitation and Jim Olson’s posts of musical inspiration, I posted these favorites from April 1-10, 2020.

Day 1 – The First Family (1962): Though it’s April Fools’ Day, this is no joke . . . though Vaughn Meador’s First Family sure traded in them. It was the first record I listened to all the way through time and time again. It was my 9-year-old introduction to political humor, delivered with Kennedy-style Boston accents plus world leaders whose names I still remember: De Gaulle, Khrushchev, Ben-Gurion, and Castro among them. This spoken-word comedy album spent 12 weeks as #1 on the Billboard charts selling over 7.5 million copies. The Kombol family’s copy of the album, listened to so many times, was never played again after Nov. 22, 1963.

Day 2 – Modern Sounds in Country & Western Music (1962): “I Can’t Stop Loving You” was the #1 hit, and Ray Charles’ foray into C&W was what a nation listened to that year. The album spawned four singles and everyone liked it: kids, adults, even grandparents. I listened to it once again this morning. Its soulful, jazzy, easy-listening, country-feel, sounds just as sweet today as it did 58 years ago. This was one of the couple dozen albums our family-owned. My sister, Jeanmarie and I regularly rotated Ray Charles’ “Modern Sounds” with soundtracks from “Oklahoma” and “The Music Man” plus our own personal favorite–– the spoken-word soundtrack to the “Pollyanna” movie starring Hayley Mills.

Day 3 – Meet the Beatles (1964): From the opening notes of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” to the closing bars of “Not a Second Time” every song is a winner. Our family didn’t own the album, but my best friend’s family did. Every day after 5^th grade we gathered at Jeff Eldridge’s home across Franklin Street from ours. Jeff’s older brother, Ron was a junior at EHS, and his album; “Meet the Beatles” introduced four lads from Liverpool into our lives. Most afternoons were the same––listen to “Meet the Beatles,” followed by watching “Casper the Friendly Ghost” cartoons and Superman episodes starring George Reeves. When not playing the Beatles, we cued up Roy Orbison.

Day 4 – Sgt. Pepper (1967): It was the perfect time to be 14 years old. The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper the very week I said goodbye to 8^th grade. That Summer of Love was our summer of sun. It shined most every day in Seattle, setting a record 67 days without rain. Most days Mom drove us to Lake Sawyer with the radio tuned to AM 950. That June the Beatles held seven of the top ten positions on KJR’s Fabulous Fifty record survey, published Fridays in the Seattle P-I. Each song spawned new mental imagery––from tangerine skies to meter maids.

A month later the Beatles defined the spirit of the era with their follow-up single “All You Need is Love.” It all added up to the best summer of my life; not to mention more than a few hours staring at the album cover or studying the lyrics printed therein. To this day when anyone asks my favorite album of all time – there’s one quick answer: Sgt. Pepper.

Day 5 – Tommy (1969): By the autumn of 1969, most of us had driver’s licenses. Lester Hall drove his parent’s Ford Fairlane with an state-of-the-art stereo. We’d drive around Enumclaw from here to there but mostly nowhere. When doing so we listened to the Who’s “Tommy” so many times I’m surprised the 8-track tape didn’t wear out. We occasionally rotated Creedence, the Beatles, or CSN to give the Who a rest.

“Tommy” is generally considered the first rock musical. In late April 1971, our senior year of high school, the very first theatrical production of “Tommy” was staged at the Moore Theater. This world premiere featured a yet unknown, Bette Midler portraying the Acid Queen with show-stopping ferocity. A bunch of us saw it. I was in heaven.

Forty-five years later I gave the double album a long overdue listen from a remastered copy. How did “Tommy” hold up? It starts great. In fact, the Overture is perhaps my favorite number. At times the album soars with melodies flowing nicely. It’s an album in the best sense of the word. But, the story (book in musical-theater parlance) isn’t convincing. As smart and clever as Pete Townsend was, he’s simply not a great lyricist. The best songs still shine: “I’m Free,” “Pinball Wizard,” and “See Me, Feel Me.” The worst, “Fiddle About,” “Cousin Kevin,” and “Tommy’s Holiday Camp” remain clunkers. I can’t claim it stands the test of time, but back then “Tommy” was the height of musical fashion and evidence of our growing sophistication.

Day 6 – Every Picture Tells a Story (1971): “Maggie May” will forever be embedded as my first song of college. It was late September when I began my freshman year at U.W. Rod Stewart’s hit album was the soundtrack for initiation to college life – the picture of my story. While I’m particularly fond of the “Mandolin Wind,” “Reason to Believe;”; there’s no better song than “Maggie” to put a smile on my face and a song to my lips.

“Wake up Maggie I think I got something to say to you,
It’s late September and I really should be back at school.”

Day 7 – American Pie (1971): Don McLean has a special place in my heart. His performance at the Paramount on March 17, 1972 was the first concert I ever attended. I chose my sister, Jeanmarie Bond to be my date. It was her first concert too. We dined at Clinkerdagger, Bickerstaff & Petts beforehand. It was a swank and trendy restaurant on Capitol Hill.

When introducing American Pie, McLean mockingly mimicked some college professor who wrote a detailed analysis of its lyrics. The audience sang the words and chorus we knew by heart. The title song has never loosened its grip. The album’s second hit single, “Vincent” is a hauntingly beautiful musical evocation of artistry focused on the most stunning of paintings: Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. If it’s been some time since you last heard the entire album just say, “Hey Siri (or Alexa), play the album American Pie by Don McLean.” You’ll be rewarded.

Day 8 – Past, Present & Future (1974): My first introduction to Al Stewart came courtesy of FM radio’s penchant for playing extended-length songs like “Nostradamus” and “Roads to Moscow” in the early 1970s. Only later did I buy the album and discover Stewart’s lyrical genius runs through history. In fact, side one of this breakthrough album features a song for each of the first five decades of the 20^th century. My love affair with Al Stewart’s music played out nicely over the decades – I’ve seen him in concert five times, more than any other music artist.

Day 9 – All-American Alien Boy (1976): While in college I liked Mott the Hoople. Their lead singer and songwriter, Ian Hunter left the group in 1975, the year I graduated. The following year I was drifting without direction when Hunter released his second solo album. It struck gold in this listener’s ears. There aren’t many who feel the same way, but I stand by Ian Hunter’s “All-American Alien Boy” as an enduring work of musical art. “Irene Wilde” is a beautiful ballad of a true story, bus station rejection that inspired Hunter’s rise to stardom.

BTW, Doug Geiger and I had plans to see the Mott the Hoople reunion tour in November 2019, but sadly Hunter developed a severe case of tinnitus. He was advised by his doctors to discontinue performing until his condition subsides. Will we ever get the chance to see Mott the Hoople? Time may soon run out for the 80-year-old Ian Hunter, who I once saw in concert playing with Mick Ronson.

Day 10 – The Stranger (1977): This record changed the direction of my life. The album spawned four Top 40 hits: “Moving Out,” “Just the Way You Are,” “Only the Good Die Young” and “She’s Always a Woman to Me.” But two lesser-known tunes convinced me to take a giant step outside myself. When working as a management trainee at Seattle Trust & Savings Bank, I grew increasingly frustrated with my chosen direction. Repeated listening to “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant” and “Vienna” (waits for you) convinced me I needed a change.

Those two songs fortified my courage to quit the job with a month’s notice dated to the one-year anniversary of when I started. I left for Europe in February 1978 with no set agenda and a budget of $10 a day. I lived and traveled for the next five months and have never forgotten the debt I owe to Billy Joel for drawing out the courage I couldn’t find by myself.

Back in the Summer of ‘69

I didn’t get my first real six-string. And Enumclaw’s five-and-dime was the last place this teenager wanted to be. The allure of candy cigarettes and cheap toys had long since passed. They may have been the best days of Bryan Adams’ life, but for me the Summer of ’69 was a middling byway on a slow road to adulthood.

Summer started off with a bang! Literally! A Fourth of July bag of fireworks exploded on the front hood of my parent’s Ford LTD after an errant firecracker found its way in. The following Monday, the Ltd with tarnished hood traveled three blocks to Enumclaw City Hall for my driver’s test. Scoring 100 on the written and 96 in the car, I went home two days after my 16^th birthday with a license to drive.

The summer of ’69 sounds so moving in retrospect – astronauts on the moon, hippies at Woodstock, Charles Manson in L.A, Kennedy on Chappaquiddick. That wasn’t my summer. Mine was frankly boring. I didn’t have a full-time job. Well, I actually had two part-time jobs: Office boy at Palmer Coking Coal manning the telephone and scale earning the princely sum of $5 for my five-hour shift. The second gig, as high school sports reporter for the Courier-Herald, I inherited from my brother, Barry.

**I worked on July 5th, my 16th birthday earning $5, the cash receipt signed by my dad, Jack Kombol. It would mark the last time I ever worked on my birthday.**

In the slow months of July and August, that second job meant little more than tracking down the two Franks of Enumclaw’s summer sports: Manowski and Osborn, for league scores and standings. That took all of a couple hours before Monday’s deadline. During the rest of the week, tedium oozed.

I do remember going to the drive-in movies once at the recently opened Big ‘E” in Enumclaw and another time at Auburn’s Valley 6. We rode in Wayne’s car. I didn’t really see many buddies as most had jobs or played summer baseball, a sport I’d left two years prior. A very special thing did happen – one night Dad and I walked to the Roxy to see the film: “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” It was likely the only time I went to a movie, just Dad and me.

That summer our family’s traditional vacation of one week in Grayland, and a second at Beacon Point on Hoods Canal ended. The old-fashion cottage resort at Beacon Point shuttered and our joint vacations with the Cerne family were no more. Those trips were the highlight of every summer since I could remember. Barry graduated in June and headed to Alaska seeking his fortune. He returned soon enough finding out, that even in Alaska jobs don’t grow on trees.

Jeanmarie shipped out to Wilsall, Montana with her good friend, Cindy Johnson to help at her aunt’s cattle ranch. Jeanmarie’s stay was cut short when Cindy’s grandpa died suddenly. So the four remaining Kombols packed up and drove to Yellowstone retrieving Jean, coupled with a short tour of the park. It seemed anticlimactic compared to our summer vacations of yesteryear. The times they-were-a-changing.

**Bill, Jack, Jeanmarie, Dana at Yellowstone, July 1969. Mom as always was taking the picture.**

I clearly remember the Apollo 11 moon landing on July 24^th. I remember not watching it. It was an overcast day. I bandied about the neighborhood, over at Jim Olson’s home, then here and there. In the living room, Dad and Henry D. Gillespie, our Australian foreign exchange student sat transfixed on the sofa absorbed for hours.

Popping in that evening, I glanced at the TV then headed back outside. I wasn’t slightly interested and had no appreciation for the magnitude of that moment – to me it seemed little more than a grainy television experience that went on for hours. It turned out that Neil Armstrong’s one small step was viewed by more than 500 million across the globe. In retrospect, my lack of interest was one giant failure to leap.

Henry D. Gillespie was a foreign exchange student from Australia who lived with our family for a year, from Dec. 1968 through Nov. 1969. This photo was featured in the 1969 Enumclaw High School yearbook.

Nationally, the Manson cult murders were a minor headline in the Seattle P.I., the newspaper I studiously read each morning. Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick high-jinx was a much bigger story, which I earnestly followed. I’d become a news junkie, with alternating subscriptions to Time magazine and U.S. News & World Report. But, my perusal of the news was cursory – Woodstock in mid-August? It didn’t register for me. It wasn’t until the following year when Steve McCarty and I saw the movie that I even grasped what a music festival was.

What did register was a peevish, late-night, television personality named Bob Corcoran. He hosted a channel 13 talk show. Corcoran was the prototype for a mad-as-hell-and-not-going-to-take-it-anymore character, later seen in “Network.” Half his audience was bored teenagers listening to drunken adults who called in to converse with Bob. When teens placed a call – you could always tell – they’d make rude remarks, before the inevitable kill button and dial tone. Between callers, Corcoran offered screeds on controversial issues, then ceaselessly promoted Tacoma’s B & I Circus store.

**Bob Corcoran, our late-night TV fascination in the Summer of ’69.**

That summer, our family friends, the Hamiltons were staying with us, having just moved back from London. Their oldest son, Scott was a year older and we took over Barry’s bedroom in his absence. There Scott and I watched Corcoran, howling at the inanities Bob spewed forth each night. We giggled mindlessly at the mere mention of his name. His show was so bad it made perfect sarcastic sense to our teenage-addled brains. We even tried calling his show once but hung up after waiting on hold too long.

Corcoran later parlayed his quirky television stardom into politics by running for Congress in 1972. His shtick was rabble-rousing, stick-it-in-their-face, populist rant, but in the primary, he was soundly defeated by Julia Butler Hansen. How I ended up with the Elect Bob Corcoran to Congress ruler, I’ve long since forgotten.*

**Corcoran used his television notoriety to promote a run for Congress, but failed miserably.**

Night after night we tuned into Bob and played chess. I’d taken up the sport during my just-ended sophomore year after reading an article in the Hornet student newspaper announcing formation of a new chess club. My game improved quickly, landing me one of the top five boards.

**The student newspaper, Hornet announcement in the Sept. 28, 1968 issue that changed my high school trajectory.**

Scott Hamilton was a decent chess player who desperately wanted to win. Late each night, we played game after game, again and again – 49 straight losses before Scott finally won. But playing chess was just a way to pass time. Our real goal was to laugh at Bob Corcoran.

**Scott Hamilton in 1967, one-year earlier when our family visited theirs in West Byfleet, a suburb of London**

Amazingly, those memories are the most poignant of my summer of ’69. The summer I turned 16, during one of the most dynamic times of the Sixties, when all the world’s charms lay before me – staying up late to watch a goofball TV talk show host and playing chess were my highlights.

All the same, everything turned out fine. Returning to high school as a junior, my driver’s license landed me behind the steering wheel of the family’s second car, a 1965 Renault. Our winning chess team became an important cog in my developing personality. That semester I took an Economics class from Wes Hanson that ultimately directed my life (B.A., Econ, U.W., 1975). Second semester I joined the Hornet staff and learned how to write.

**Mr. Hanson at the lectern, a typical pose for the teacher whose Econ class led to my college major.**

Another favorite, English lit was taught jointly by Miss Thompson and Mrs. Galvin. Novels like “Catcher in the Rye” and “A Separate Peace” jolted a new sense of existential feelings through my all-to-logical heart. “1984” and “Lord of the Flies” called into question what that heart was made of. We read “Romeo & Juliet” out loud in class. Franco Zeffirelli’s movie version had recently captured the nation’s attention, so our whole class attended a special showing one night at the Roxy.

Life accelerated. The following summer, I worked 12-hour days selling popsicles, fudgesicles, and ice cream sandwiches. High school life gave way to feelings of liberation and control.

Looking back on things, that summer of ‘69 was a quirky way station on the road through life – no longer a boy, but not yet a man.

* One day a few weeks before writing this essay, I ruffled through my desk drawer and grabbed for a straight edge. Out came a Bob Corcoran for Congress ruler. I have little idea how it landed there. It came decades past from a Corcoran campaign booth brimming with swag at the Puyallup Fair. Only serendipity can explain how that ruler appeared while writing this essay.

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