The blusty month of May and the Progression of the Audiofile

In the musical a song in the musical but not in the movie version sings of the blusty lusty month of may. The weather outside today with its 78 degree temperature and 15 mile an hour wind is certainly blustery.

Camelot was one of the first really good records to darken our house in the 60's. We did not grow up with great sound systems. Stereo was considered very pricey at the time. We bought "Hi Fi". Those records were a dollar cheaper than stereo. A few, very few records were purchased to listen.

A new teacher friend of my dad's invited us over for dinner one night. My dad knew him well. He was a relatively new teacher with no children of his own, but with a new wife. He was most proud of his new "stereo" component system.

"Can't you just hear all of the quality of the sound?" he said to my dad and myself. We nodded to ourselves but had to admit to each other later that we really couldn't hear the difference between a cheap set up and an expensive one. To maintain harmony we both agreed that it was the best sound that we had ever heard, and well worth the expense.

It may have been with a sense of rebellion that our generation bought a stereo system before they bought a nice couch when they were setting up housekeeping. We grew up as independent listeners. Our parents were more likely radio listeners.

A big Christmas gift for me one year was a reel to reel tape recorder. It was a beauty. A General Electric model was wrapped under the christmas tree. I was sure that it was a stereo radio. That was something that I simply lusted over. But no it was reel to reel tape recorder in a lovely walnut box. Our family friend (another one) worked for General Electric and got us this great deal along with a wonderful toater overn and 3 cases of pop tarts (another story). The family also got a General Electric record changer turntable from our General Electric friend.

There didn't seem to be a provision to tape from a record player. I went into the city with my friend Earl and and we bought some reel to reel tapes of recorded music. Some of it was the TJB (Tijuana Brass), Sergio Mendez and the Brazil 66, and a couple of others. They were available at the same price as records at Tower Records at their North Beach store. Price.. 2.50 each. They were selling all of their records for that single price as well.

One of the family records was the musical Camelot... yes I am sure that you knew that I would eventually get back to the lusty may part of the beginning of this post. In the livingroom we played that poor record until there was nothing left of it.I knew every word in every song and could sing it with its accompanied nuiances. We even went to see the musical when the original came to the city. We had upper balcony seats at the opera house and part of the scenary was not visiable from our seats.. but.. Camelot has always been a favorite musical of our family.

West Side Story was another family favorite. It had a bit of a raunchy reputation.

Enjoy your "lusty month of May"

Pat