It was 50 Years Ago Today

The Album Renaissance of 1972

—Yesterday brought to today so lightly!
(A yesterday I find almost impossible to lift.)

Elizabeth Bishop probably wrote these lines around 50 years ago.  I say this because they were published by The New Yorker in February, 1974—in “Five Flights Up”—and sent in a letter to a friend in December, 1973.  It could have started in 1972, or it could have been an idea waiting to hatch.  The past is heavy lifting, and the longer you live, the more baggage you accumulate, the more of a struggle it is to get to the next day and to revisit yesterdays and all the yesterdays that keep accumulating. And what costume shall the poor girl wear?All todays become all tomorrow’s parties in the end.

But there can also be a thing of beauty and a joy forever to revisiting the good stuff of the past, decanted like a fine wine. I spent a few days in Genoa, where the superb jazz violinist Regina Carter was playing Paganini’s favorite Guarneri. I spoke to a violin maker named Pio, who told me that wood never dies, and that the sound on the violin in 2003—when I was there—was even more exquisite than it was in Paganini’s time. (This is why the violin had the security detail worthy of a head of state and a $40 Million insurance policy.) And if the masters don’t burn down, the same can be true of recordings.

But we are not wood. 50 is a big number.  It’s half a century, and it’s also the age you become when you’re still middle aged, but when the actuarial odds have to be optimal enough to have you celebrating your 100th on The Today Show.  I’m telling you this because I am currently clinging to the last years of my sturm und drang 40s.  My beard’s salt is plotting a takeover of its pepper.  On January 1, 2023, I will turn 50, but before that happens, it is well worth noting that when I was in utero—I was like that Elizabeth Bishop poem—1972 was a truly remarkable year for albums.  A deep breath: David Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main St., Nick Drake, Pink Moon, Neil Young, Harvest, Lou Reed, Transformer, Steely Dan, Can’t Buy a Thrill, Stevie Wonder, Music of My Mind AND Talking Book, Todd Rundgren, Something/Anything?, Big Star, #1 Record, Al Green, I’m Still in Love With You, Joni Mitchell, For the Roses, Aretha Franklin, Young, Gifted and Black, Curtis Mayfield, Super Fly, Randy Newman, Sail Away, Paul Simon, Miles Davis, On the Corner, Van Morrison, Saint Dominick’s Preview, Sly and the Family Stone, There’s a Riot Goin’ On, Roxy Music, Sonny Rollins’s Next Album, and Marvin Gaye, Trouble Man. (I’m sure I missed some masterpieces that you may love.) And imagine that in that year, all solo Beatles and Bob Dylan were around, Pierre Boulez was conducting the New York Philharmonic, Charles Mingus had a major concert at Carnegie Hall, Judee Sill was between two masterpieces, and the Best Picture winner at the Oscars was The Godfather.

Some of these albums were appreciated right away.  Stevie Wonder emancipated himself from the Motown hit factory and would win a string of Grammys and Paul Simon showed the world all the things he could do without Art Garfunkel.  But no one, except for Nick Drake’s mum and a few others, knew about Pink Moon.  Steely Dan were new and had two hits out of the chute, but no one could see how they could unfold.  And then Big Star, well-loved now, were just too ahead of their time, and being ahead of your time sucks when you have to live in it.

2022 will turn into 2023, and there is nothing I can do about it. And as the time moves faster, and I am rushing into whatever period of my life this will become, these albums will take us to a time when Ziggy played guitar, Stevie was superstitious , Lou was having a perfect day, Nick was watching a Pink Moon, and I was waiting to happen. And perhaps, if there is a future, someone will be reading this, remembering a time when 50 years felt like a crisis for me, but the splendors of these albums were just beginning to be appreciated.

So Trouble Man will revisit the year of Trouble Man for a little while. I was born on January 1, 1973. I completely missed out. But I will make up for it with you.

Next January 1, I will get a tap on the shoulder. I’d better make the most of my time while I have it. Stevie Wonder made the most of it in 1972 making not one, but two extraordinary albums that will resonate as long and as beautifully as Paganini’s Guarneri—all when he was 22. And I know this is all finite, but when I hear Stevie sing it, I always have a shock of recognition and I cry, because it continues to resound as I age, and it echoes like Paganini’s Guarneri: I believe when I fall in love with you it will be forever.