When You Wishbone on a Star . . .

I'd heard of Wishbone Ash, but I'd never heard any of their music. But when I saw a double album at a certain book store (hint: the words "half" and "price" are both in the name) I was tempted to buy it. Don't know why. Maybe because I'm always looking to expand my musical horizons. Maybe because I'm anxious to fill in holes in my knowledge base. Maybe because I needed to buy something. But I ended up not buying it--mostly because I didn't know anything about it, partially because I thought I could probably get some free listens on the internets.

And then I forgot about them until this morning, and as I sat down to have a little read with Trenton Lee Stewart I thought I'd have a little musical background, and I Googled "Wishbone Ash." And there were quite a few hits, so I settled on "Wishbone Ash [1970] FULL ALBUM," thinking that that would probably be the starting point. And it was almost immediately groovy. You should give it a whirl. 

I continued to listen as I read, sometimes pausing in the read to have a really good listen, and when I put my book down to move to the kitchen to make breakfast and pack lunches for the little Js, I took my playing-Wishbone-Ash-Wishbone-Ash-Kindle with me. It was somewhere close to the end of the album (and the start of breakfast #2: pancakes) that it hit me: not only was this groovy music . . . it was joyful music. Y'know? Maybe we get so used to music that's not joyful--and is often mean, nasty, or just plain disturbing--that we forget that music can be joyful. And I don't even know what the lads were singing about--it was just the tone of the music. And most certainly not in some circus-y music way. This was quite the guitar-driven sixties rock . . . though it seemed to me that it was devoid of the usual cliches that can date that music.

So hey. Wishbone Ash. I think I'll have another.