Road Trip! – http://shar.es/yVcl
Monthly Archive for July, 2009
In a few weeks, I plan to drive my little Prius across the country (starting in North Carolina’s Outer Banks) to visit friends and family in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. In some ways, this will be a recreation of the drive I made in 1987 when I moved from L.A. to New York. Except it’s a round trip. And in a better car. And I’ll have a cell phone. And an iPod. And a laptop with Internet. And I plan to blog and Tweet along the way…
Come to think of it, I really do not miss 1987.
The upcoming Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Celebration has got me to thinking. In the history of popular rock in the 20th century — let us say from 1950 to 2000 — what will our great-grandchildren still be listening to an 100 years? And of those musicians, how many emerged after 1975?
Am I being too provincial to suggest that the enduring legacy of Rock and Roll comes from 1950 to 1975?
Make your own list of musicians that you think we’ll still be listing to in a hundred years. Now, how many of those acts formed after 1975?
The first list is easy:
- The Beatles
- The Kinks
- The Rolling Stones
- The Who
- Pink Floyd
- Led Zeppelin
- Bruce Springsteen
- Billy Joel (I think he is our generation’s Cole Porter)
- The Talking Heads (forming just under the wire in 1974)
I could go on and on and on…
Now, name groups that came on the scene after 1975.
- The B52s (1976)
- U2 (1976)
- REM (1980)
- Dave Matthews Band (1991)
Any others?
Currently in the Twitterverse, everyday people are posting succinct messages about their encounters with celebrities using the hashmark #lameclaimtofame. Hence, my recollection of riding an elevator with Ruth Buzzi, hoping that she wouldn’t hit me with her purse.
However, this brings to mind a much better story that I could scarcely detail in 140 characters or less.
In the early 1980’s, when I lived in Los Angeles, I was friends with a young lady who was the personal assistant to Stella Stevens. I met Stella a few times and she was always cordial and lovely. My friend Joyce confided in me that Stella was secretly dating musician Meat Loaf. This was all very hush-hush because Meat Loaf was still married at the time, but separated from his wife. Also, Stella Stevens was a glamorous movie and TV star, and Meat Loaf was, well, Meat Loaf, an overweight has-been whose own biggest Hollywood claim to fame at that time was a bit part in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Meat Loaf
Even though I knew their secret, I was still not prepared for the scene that greeted me when I went to pick up Joyce from Stella’s house. I rang the bell, and when the door open, there stood Meat Loaf in a bathrobe (and, from what I could see, nothing underneath), unshaven, unkempt, and holding a can of beer. It was probably 4:00 in the afternoon.
“Yeah?”, he asked. For just a moment, I was utterly speechless, then I finally blurted out “Um … I’m here to get Joyce.”
Joyce bounded out wordlessly past me, and I turned to see Meat Loaf staring at us from inside the house. I think I must have woken him when I rang the bell. I said “Nice to meet you…”, and stopped right there, because I had no idea what to call him. “Meat”? “Mr. Loaf”? He just waved his beer can at me and closed the door.
The Other Meat Loaf
I’m happy to report that Mr. Loaf’s career has since had several revivals, and his seminal album, Bat Out Of Hell, continues to sell copies even more than 30 years after its release. I think I just caught him on a bad day.
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