Drift Away...

So I was sitting in front of my computer looking up recipes for spagetti carbonara which I decided I am going to make tomorrow and then "Drift Away" by Dobie Gray came on the 70s station. More on that later.

I was actually going to make the carbonara for a late snack tonight but I don't have any bacon or panchetta in the house. I don't think I have had any in the house for a year or so. I didn't feel like making a food store run given that it's almost 11pm. I was looking at some family pictures earlier today in my neverending quest to bring some order to my life. Why do I say that? Well I've been in this house for two and half years and I still have boxes that I haven't unpacked. Anyhow one of the pictures triggered the spaghetti carbonara inkling in me. My Mom used to make huge batches of it every once in a while and I wanted to live that memory once again. Kind of sentimental these days. Hmmm. Hopefully it turns out okay. It doesn't seem very complicated to make.

Back to Dobie Gray. As I said the 70s station was playing in the background and all of a sudden one of those all-time classics came on the station. That being the Dobie Gray version of "Drift Away" released back in 1973. If you don't like this song, you don't like music. Simple as that. An absolute northern soul classic. I first heard this song back in the day on CKGM and from the get go this was one of the songs of my youth.

Back then I would head up to the shopping center at the corner of Notre Dame and Labelle and browse the 45s in the music departments that were in the stores at this mall. I would usually end up buying some at Miracle Mart. Now that's a blast from the past. LOL.

One of those 45s that I bought was "Drift Away". I used to play this on this box record player. It was a must-have for a kid back then to have a record player of our own because our parents would surely not let our music pollute their stereo players. It would play 45s, 78s and 33s with the crappiest sound ever. I think these box record players shared the same speaker technology as transistor radios. I would play the 45s over and over until I knew the lyrics backwards and forwards.

The songs that got this treatment were what I consider classics like The Jackson 5's "Rockin Robin", Eddie Kendricks "Keep On Truckin", The Stylistics "Make Me Feel Brand New", William Devaughn's "Be Thankful For What You Got". I wonder if you see the pattern here. All classic soul songs. Man they could sing. I don't think it's possible to compare the stuff from these days next to these songs. I know I am showing my age. Whatever this was, is and will always be the music of my life.

To quote the late great Dobie Gray: "Give me the beat boys that frees my soul I want to get lost in your rock'n'roll and drift away."