A Pilgrim’s Digression

The John Fogerty website is pretty cool. You can listen to the title song of his new album, “Deja Vu All Over Again,” which is an anti-Iraq War song. You can also hear him sing an acoustic version of “Lodi.” Good stuff.

I was introduced to CCR by my Dad. Dad had quite a record collection from the late sixties/early seventies, and CCR was his favorite. Most of the best records, such as those by the Beatles and the Beach Boys, are all gone now, either lost, stolen, or broken over the years; but I still have two of them, “Cosmo’s Factory” (CCR) and “Smash Hits” (Jimi Hendrix). I also have the Led Zeppelin boxed set that came out in the mid-eighties right at the tail-end of the vinyl era. I haven’t listened to a record in years. I have no record player, nor even a stereo system to which I could connect a record player.

Just yesterday, I heard two older co-workers conversing about their record collections. Both extolled the virtues of vinyl as a storage medium, claiming that music stored on well-cared-for vinyl albums sounds better than music on CD. I don’t know if I agree with that. Certainly, vinyl has its idiosyncracies-the pops and crackles-that make it a unique way to listen to music. But is it better than CD format?