Rant #2,446: Things

OK, today we are going to go much lighter in our Rant for the day.

I have said what I was going to say, and unlike others, at least for now, those are my final words on the subject ...

Unless something else comes up that gets my goat--and with everything going on today, there will probably be something that I want to comment on here that isn't all flowers and nice colors.

But for today--

Let me comment on how I am spending my time away from this blog.

I have a lot of family related chores to do--about once a week I have to take my parents to whatever doctor they need to go to, and I have laundry and shopping and other tasks to do--but as far as when I have time that needs to be filled, I always go back to my hobbies.

I have had hobbies since I was probably two or three years of age. I was an early reader, so at one time, comic books were my passion, and they pretty much were my main collecting avenue--along with baseball cards--pretty much for the first third of my life, up to my early days of college.

Through this time, I also collected records, 45s and LPs, but that mainly happened during my younger years, where my sister and I--egged on by our mother, who loved show tunes--would buy the latest and greatest hits.

I kind of fell off that wagon in high school, but by the time college came around, I was back in the saddle with that record collecting hobby, and since probably 1975 or so, I have been whole hog into record collecting.

But how do you further your hobby when you are out of work like I have been for nine months as of tomorrow?

Have I been to my local record store? Yes I have, not often--they were shuttered for a few months related to the pandemic--but I have been there to spend a few dollars.

But I have mainly kept up my collection through the generosity of my wife and son and parents, who for any occasion that gets a gift--from Hanukkah to my birthday to Father's Day--they have brought me either gift certificates to my local record store (see above), or eBay cards so that I can order records online.

Honestly, I have so many records in my 10,000 record collection that there isn't that much that I really need, but like any record collector will tell you, you don't know what you really need until you see something that you don't have.

So I have used eBay cards to purchase a load of stuff to add to my collection, but when I get one of these cards, I vow that I will only make a purchase of something that I would not necessarily buy myself with my own money.

This has led me to purchase a vast amount of records that would never have entered my collection under normal circumstances. I look for the unusual, and I can usually find it, whether I am in the record store or shopping on eBay.

One such eBay purchase was a record by Don Grady, who you probably know best as Robby Douglas on the long-running "My Three Sons" sitcom, first on ABC, then on CBS, and in perpetual reruns seemingly since it left the air as a first-run show.

Grady, who passed away a few years ago, had a substantial recording career as a member of a few different West Coast bands such as the Palace Guard and the Yellow Balloon, and as a solo artist, beginning as a teen and through his last days.

He often was listed as his stage name, Don Grady, but he also recorded under his real name, Don Agrati, and as an unknown player in a few bands, covered up so you would not know who he was, probably due to contractual reasons.

And he had a few hits, both on the charts and in our consciousness. "Yellow Balloon" was a top 20 hit by the same-named band, and on the old Phil Donahue Show, he wrote the theme song for that talk program.

I have a few of his singles, and the latest of which is "Let It Happen"/"Out" on the old Challenge label.

Grady had a "spunk" to his music that was well beyond his then-young years, and it was his passion even when he was acting on that classic TV sitcom. In fact, he left the show after completing its next to last season to pursue music full time, and while he wasn't a household name as a musician, his music did touch a lot of people the right way.

If I get any more gift cards, I am definitely going to pursue more of his records. They can be kind of pricey, but I will stick with the ones that are being sold for about $5 a piece or so. That would fit into my eBay card budget.

Another such record that I purchased with an eBay card was one that I had actually been looking for for a very long time, but whenever I saw it, it was overpriced and out of my budget, with or without an eBay card.

"On the Road to Mexico"/"Glory Train" was by someone by the name of dRAKE, and yes, spelled just like that, and no, this is not the current singer that I am talking about.

Anybody who is into classic rock from the 1960s knows that dRAKE was actually Drake Levin, the guitarist for Paul Revere and the Raiders when they first became a national sensation through their music and almost constant TV appearances.

The Raiders had a constantly changing membership, anchored by bandleader Paul Revere and lead singer Mark Lindsay, and their musical output can often be broken down by different stages in their career: the very early years, the "Where the Action Is" years, the "Happening" years and the "Indian Reservation" years.

Levin kind of had one foot in the early years and one foot in the "Where the Action Is" years, and he remains a major figure in the band's history.

And like other Raiders during their hitmaking years, he also had his own solo career, as did others like Lindsay, Jim "Harpo" Valley, Phil "Fang" Volk, Freddie Weller and Keith Allison.

Drake, or dRAKE, had his own solo career, but unless I am missing something--he did appear with numerous other bands on record and in concert--his only solo recording was the one I finally purchased with my eBay card not too long ago.

Of all the solo projects, this single is without a doubt, in my opinion, the best release of the lot, better than anything Lindsay released as a solo--including "Arizona"--and it really is a great reeord that kind of got lost in the shuffle way back when.

It is not rock, it is not country, it is not rhythm and blues ... I would call it sort of middle of the road pop, but with a bit of an edge.

Whenever I hear it, I know that Levin was a major talent who needed just the right break, and this should have been it, but it wasn't.

I guess sometimes even your best isn't just good enough, something I have seen so many times with certain recordings, and something that I can even related to my own personal life.

So there you have it.

Record collecting is a fun enterprise. It can take you away from life's doldrums and ups and downs and put you in a good frame of mind, making you ready for the next challenge.

Nothing political about it, but with all the acronyms bandied about today, I would like to add one more to the list:

VRM (Vinyl Records Matter).

That is a movement that I would have no trouble joining up to in a minute.