Photo/Album: Post 6

Welcome to the winter solstice 2009. It arrived at 11:47 a.m. CST today at Leech Lake. Therefore, for this installment of the Photo/Album series I thought I'd use a winter photo and an album that the band began recording in December, 1966.

PHOTO


This is a view of Sucker Bay looking north as a mid-winter's storm is brewing. The photo was taken on February 25, 2007 during a trip when my son Joe and I spent some wonderful time on the ice fishing, digging ourselves out of a massive winter blizzard and inside our warm house playing games and listening to music.

The Northwoods is a great place any time of the year, but there's something almost magical being there in the winter. The first thing that I always notice is how peaceful and quiet it is at Leech Lake during the winter months. This photo seems to capture that feeling for me.

ALBUM


I still remember hearing The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for the very first time. I had purchased the album at the record store at the local mall, came home to my parents' house, went into my bedroom, removed the shrink-wrap plastic from the LP and placed it on my turntable. Although I'd been listening to The Beatles since I was in kindergarten, nothing had prepared me for listening to Sgt. Pepper in its entirety. Wow!

There is a very good reason that Rolling Stone magazine named Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band the #1 album of all time -- it's simply incredible. From the method the LP was recorded to the breakthrough artwork on the cover to the stellar music itself, there's nothing lacking in this record.

Recording for the LP started in December, 1966 and the album finally hit record stores in June, 1967. I purchased it years later, but to me it was as fresh and incredible as the day it was released.

In case you need a refresher, here's the first song on the album, the title track. Enjoy.

Photo/Album: Post 5

For this installment of my Photo/Album series -- where I post a picture from Leech Lake and highlight one of my favorite albums -- I've decided to go back a ways in history for both. The photo comes from a guided muskie trip we took back in 2003, and album goes back to 1965.

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This is a picture of my friend Rick, who was visiting Leech Lake from his home in Brisbane, Australia, legendary Leech Lake guide Al Maas, my son Joe's shoulder, and a 50 1/2-inch muskie that was taken on a safety-pin style jig in 3-feet of water at the south end of Sucker Bay.

I had hired Maas to guide us on our hunt for muskie because at the time I was relatively unfamiliar with the lake, had never really fished for muskie in a serious fashion, and because it was Rick's birthday present I wanted to up the odds that he caught a fish. He did, and it remains to this day the biggest fish I've seen come out of Leech Lake.

ALBUM


Back when I was in high school I got a turntable for Christmas one year which finally gave me the ability to switch from cassette tapes to LPs which sound infinitely better, in my opinion.

As I started out compiling my album collection I knew I needed to add some Bob Dylan to the mix. Since I was unfamiliar with any of his albums in detail -- although I knew many of his hit singles -- my selection of his fifth studio album Bringing It All Back Home was made as much by chance as it was design. Boy, did I luck out.

It is not only one of Dylan's most celebrated albums, but one of the greatest rock albums of all time. In the 2003 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, where it listed the Top 500 rock albums of all time (see Photo/Album 4 for the #7 album on that list), Bringing It All Back Home ranked 31st.

Here is the studio version of Subterranean Homesick Blues, the first song on side 1 of the LP, which many people say foreshadowed the invention of rap music some 20 years later.

Photo/Album: Post 4

This is installment 4 of my Photo/Album series. I again selected a photo from my most recent stay at Leech Lake. For the album, I selected what is generally considered to be one of the greatest rock 'n' roll albums of all time. Enjoy.

PHOTO


October, 2009 was the fourth coldest October on record, and for Minnesota that's impressive. It was also one of the wettest and snowiest months on record in Minnesota. This photo was taken from the dock looking back at our harbor and house. You can see that most of the leaves on the trees haven't even fully changed color, yet there is snow on the ground. It would snow at least a few more times before it finally warmed up at the very end of the month and into November.

ALBUM


Soon after graduating from high school I moved into an old house in downtown Lansing, Michigan located just a couple of blocks from the state capital building. One of the guys that lived with me in the house -- Marcus Cafagna -- turned me onto, among many other things, the Rolling Stones album Exile on Main Street.

I was, of course, very familiar with the Rolling Stones at the time, but for some reason I had not yet discovered this particular album. It was released in 1972, and was the first 2-LP studio release from the Stones. Every song on this album is a gem and I never tire of listening to it.

Some years back, Rolling Stone magazine put out a special issue listing the Top 500 albums of the 'classic' rock 'n' roll era -- from 1964 through 1983. Topping the list was the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, while the Stones' Exile came in at number 7.

If you're unfamiliar with Exile on Main Street, check out this studio version of Sweet Virginia -- it might surprise you.

Photo/Album: Post 3

I went back to a photo from this past June for today's installment of my Photo/Album series, and went all the way back to 1959 for my album selection. Enjoy.

PHOTO

This is a photo of Sucker Bay on the afternoon of June 19, 2009. You can read more about my fishing success that day by visiting this link. I will tell you that I caught one walleye during an afternoon trip on the water, and two more that night while trolling. I also witnessed an incredible sunset during my evening trip onto Leech Lake.

ALBUM

From his late-1940s album The Birth of the Cool to his seminal work with his famous quartets of the 1950s and 1960s to his groundbreaking album Bitches Brew that gave birth to jazz fusion, no musician of the 20th century had more influence on music over a longer period of time than jazz legend Miles Davis.

I don't recall the first time I heard landmark LP Kind of Blue, but I do know that during my college days at Cal Poly I must have listened to this album hundreds of times with my friend Vince alone. John Coltrane and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley provide the dual saxophones on the set and are joined by Detroit native Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums. Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly split the session on piano.

Many music critics consider Kind of Blue not only one Miles Davis's best, and not just one of the best jazz albums ever produced, but one of the greatest albums ever recorded. If you've never heard this album, start hear with the album version of the unbelievable tune, So What.