One of the earliest concerts in my repertoire was Three Dog Night at the Chemung (N.Y.) County Fair, sometime in the neighborhood of 1975. I had yet to know cool from corny but, at 13, thought I was getting there, sitting in the stands with my parents, who had cotton in their ears. Yeah, I knew cool.

The three best songs by Three Dog Night, subject to your agreement or otherwise.

Three Dog Night – The Family Of Man
Three Dog Night – Let Me Serenade You
Three Dog Night – Sure As I’m Sittin’ Here

It is the 25th 35th anniversary of the Summer of 1973. I was 10-years old during that particular summer.

I have a 10-year old of my own today. He’s sometimes sweet, often petulant, always inquisitive. In short, he’s a lot like his father.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that summer over the past several months, how much the music will always be a soundtrack to that time.

I was going to write a week long series of posts about my summer as a 10-year old, riding our banana-seated bikes around the lake where we camped (predecessors to the mountain bikers of today), catching crayfish in the creek, fishing for blue gills in the lake, burning piles of wood in the fireplace (because we could), singeing marshmallows and eyebrows over the campfire and listening to the jukebox in the campground rec room. Especially the jukebox in the rec room, where we dropped quarters on the pool table and the pinball machine in a freshly built space that smelled forever like concrete and sawdust.

But, I’m off on a business trip tomorrow (a few hours after school starts) and, like the summer of 1973, the opportunity for a long list of reminisces has largely passed.

I did get as far as making a CD of these songs for car listening. Grandmom immediately identified them as “songs from the lake” and my kids immediately wanted to hear Smoke On The Water several hundred times (which they promptly renamed Barbeque On The River).

In a way, I managed to pull my summer and his summer as 10-year olds together. Briefly, which is always the way life is…

And say goodbye to summer…one more time.

The Carpenters – Yesterday Once More

Not written by Paul Williams, but should’ve been.

Seals And Crofts – Diamond Girl

Great piano part.

McCartney And Wings – Live And Let Die

Maureen McGovern – The Morning After

Shelly Winters. Need I say more?

Mac Davis Clint Holmes – Playground In My Mind
Jim Croce – Bad, Bad Leroy Brown
Helen Reddy – Delta Dawn

Dr. John – Right Place, Wrong Time

Spent the entire summer of 1983 learning these lyrics.

Deep Purple – Smoke On The Water
BW Stevenson – My Maria

Like Croce, we wonder what would have been if he’d stuck around.

Paul Simon – Loves Me Like A Rock

Bette Midler – Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

Stories – Brother Louie

CDB – Uneasy Rider

Doobie Brothers – Long Train Runnin’

Paul Simon – Kodachrome

I had yet to have my first schoolboy crush (Stephanie Turk, 7th grade math class) but I got it.

Indeed…

The Original Fusion 45 (Gotta Get Me A TV Special)

I launched Fusion 45 almost two years ago because I wanted to spend more time with my record collection (and less time with my kids!) in the studio I’d spent a lot of time and money building. (OK, the part about my kids is not exactly true; but when the going gets tough, it’s certainly an attractive refuge. My wife, the nurturer, understands.)

What I’ve gotten is more time with my computer. Damn, another plan foiled.

The very first Fusion 45 post was a mix of songs that happened this way: I took 12 records off the shelf, numbered them 2 through 12. I rolled a pair of dice to determine the record (2 through 12) and then the cut (2 through 12) that I would play. Unfortunately, Cut #1 never got played (poor, sad Cut #1).

Today, Mr. Peabody is setting the Wayback Machine for December 2006 for the first Fusion 45 mix in a mighty long time. A couple of changes: no dice, baby, just a random stack of records sitting on the studio floor and the tunes are set up individually (not in one big ole MP3).

John Stewart – Midnight Wind

Maria Muldaur – Any Old Time

Stephen Stills- Song Of Love/Rock And Roll Crazies/Cuban Bluegrass

Laura Nyro – Blackpatch

Linda Ronstadt – Up To My Neck In Muddy Water

Allan Sherman – Shake Hands With Your Uncle Max

Three Dog Night – Southbound

Marty Robbins – Foggy Foggy Dew

Steve Miller Band – Going To The Country

Robert Gordon And The Wildcats (with Link Wray) – Red Hot