Like everythng else in my life, this all started innocently enough, when my new and old friend from high school years, Bob Noftle, sent me a CD of some pretty cool music, circa 1969-71. A little too laid-back for my liking, perhaps (if you don’t mind me saying, Bob), but there was some great stuff on it. More importantly, however (and to this I have to admit that, more than three decades on, Bob still seems to have that uncanny ability to fill the role of an older brother), what it did was to kindle in me a desire to immerse myself completely in the music of those years where he and I grew up (primarily, the years of 1966 through 1972) and create a series of CDs I could claim as my own musical heritage.

And what marvelous music it was! Music that (if you don’t mind me sounding like some old fogey) puts the whatever-you-call-it popular music of today to shame – The Doors, Canned Heat, The Chambers Brothers (their “Time Has Come Today” remains the epitome of everything that was psychedelic music), Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Monkees, The Beatles (of course), all those San Francisco bands, etc. Over $100 later (courtesy of Napster) and six CDs of music later (coming to you, Bob, and whoever else wants it!) I think I’ve finally incorporated all of the music of my adolesence into a single place where I can crack open a beer or two and simply thank God for allowing me to be born when I was.

Look, I love and can appreciate the doo-wop music of the ’50s as much as anyone else (and I make that a regular part of own listening habits, BTW), but it was friends like Bob and Ken Sandler that made all of that late ’60s/early ’70s stuff come to life in all of its adolescent glory. And listening to it today, I realize just how lucky I was to have grown up in an era where there was such a wide variety of music – psychedelic, pop, soul – there for the listening. It’s a testimony to the transcendent quality of music and the age that a listen of a certain cut from any of those years transports one back to a time when life as a hell of a lot more simpler than it is today. And that in itself is a great thing.

One final thought: Are there better cuts than The Chambers Brothers’ “Time Has Come Today” or Grand Funk Railroad’s “I’m Your Captain/Closer To Home” when it comes to those fabulous years?