It was 44 years ago that...

Bongo knows my take on the place of rap, hip-hop, or whatever they are currently calling lyric poetry set to someone else's music, but I whole-heartedly agree with Innervisions and What's Going On. Both are genre defining. Innervisions is just mind-blowing from an originality and artistic standpoint. It's one of those "Where The F___ did that come from" moments. The only thing that comes close to those, and it's for me, prob not for everyone, was Nirvana. I remember the first time I heard "Smell's Like Teen Spirit" in the car. I was driving down Shepard Dr in Houston, and I was about at W Alabama midway through the song. I pulled into Cactus Records and bought the CD. Cactus is still around, thank God, even though I'm moving to Oklahoma. Going to miss Houston.

Owned a lot of 45's when I was a kid (I'm 57), and of course handled and heard my parents LP's but MY 1st 3 LP purchases were The Supremes Greatest Hits, Vanilla Fudge, & Sgt. Pepper's. It's hard to explain growing up with the Beatles to people that didn't. And I understand there are some folks here that aren't fans but the Beatles music was a world-wide phenomena for a reason.

Perhaps you've heard (I know I Have)the expression when speaking of a different artists particular recording; "...this was their Sgt. Pepper's...". I think that pretty much says it all!

MacDad

Sorry to hear you are pulling up stakes!!!!! You got to stock up on those pecan pies from Goode!
I also just had about the best steak ever in Houston last week at Churrascos. As for the Nirvana and Stevie, I totally agree.

Montejay

I have been in the concert biz for ages and we kind of hold up U2's Zoo Tour as the "Srgt. Pepper" of live tours for originality and scaling.

It's interesting that no one mentioned the period when Dylan and The Band were noodling around in the basement. Eric Clapton disbanded Cream after hearing what The Band produced during that time i.e. Music From Big Pink. Lots of musicians claimed that Music From Big Pink changed their lives and the way they thought about music.

The Beatles moved sharply away from the sound of SP as Dylan continued to influence John Lennon and George Harrison. I think he had little influence on McCartney because he walked out of the room when Sir Paul tried to play it for him. I do believe there was a lot of friendly competition between The Beatles and Dylan, but Paul has really done very little noteworthy music since losing his foil in Lennon.

The Beatles influenced Dylan to go electric, Dylan influenced the Beatles to write real songs as opposed to the drivel they did on their early LPs.