--- Sez Kenneth Newman to David Marheine ---
 KN> On 01-30-97 DAVID MARHEINE wrote to KENNETH NEWMAN... 
 DM> Thanks for the kind words about _War Child_ a while back, too. 
 DM> Seems to be a better album than I remember...
 KN> That's right, it sounds better now than it did then. I'm 
 KN> finding lots of albums like that these days. Some that 
 KN> sound worse, too.
Got any examples of the latter?  The Three Dog Night albums I had in
junior high didn't sound as brilliant after hearing the original
versions of the Traffic, Free, Randy Newman, etc. songs they contained,
but after dumping them in college, I later reacquired them at rummage
sales, so I guess they sound good enough to allow nostalgia to
overcome the embarrassment.
I know I don't like ELP's _Pictures At An Exhibition_ as much as when
it first came out, but I like it more than I did 15 years ago...  I played
it before taking the kids to see an orchestral version last year, and
found that it didn't make me cringe the way it used to.  Not a paragon
of subtlety, that album, but I guess that's part of the appeal.  Then,
after twenty-whatever years I finally heard another Rick Wakeman album
besides _Six Wives_.  Had to buy it first, natch, but it's better than
I'd feared.  Neither excessive choral vocals nor obtrusive applause/crowd
noise, but bombastic and overblown without getting completely ridiculous.
Hey, and wossname from Wild Turkey's on there too, connecting the Yes
and Tull family trees!  Which makes a second path connecting Strawbs
and Fairport.  (Besides Sandy Denny, there's Strawbs to Wakeman to
Pickford-Hopkins to Glenn Cornick to Ian Anderson to Dave Pegg & Mattacks!)
Almost forgot, it's his second, _Journey To The Center Of THe Earth_.
I also bought a Joy Of Cooking LP several weeks ago which sounds better
than it probably ought to...  But since neither it nor the Robbs' mid
60's LP on Mercury are Prog, I won't mention them, even though _The Robbs_
cost ten times more than the Joy Of Cooking.
 DM> Also got my own copy of _TAAB_ finally, primarily for the St. Cleve 
 DM> Chronicle, but the vinyl's in better than average condition as well. 
 KN> I have two 8 track copies, one with the St.Cleve cover 
 KN> and one without. They sound surprisingly similar, though. 
What's on the cover of the other one?  Kenny Rogers' Greatest Hits?
Dave
... Okay, I'm weird!  But I'm saving up to become eccentric....
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