Having been born in 1962, and liking and listening to music from the early sixties onward, I thought it might be fun to attempt a listing of my favorite albums each year since birth.
I didn't really begin to listen to a lot of music until the early '70's, and I began buying records around 1974 or 1975 I guess. I can still recall many of those first albums I bought. Many, I still enjoy.
Many of the early 1960's records I found later on in life, some just in the last few years.
I had a period of time from early '90's until the late 2000's that my listening was mostly jazz. This means a couple of things... (a) there will be a decent selection of jazz records in my list, and (b) many of the "rock" albums from this time I might have caught later on (a decade or more) from when they first came out.
So, this isn't really a list from any sort of time-machine, of what was #1 during that year. It's looking at sixty years of music that I can say I enjoy or have enjoyed. I listen to each of these, even still.
I am sure I'll fine-tune my thoughts, but, that is for another day...
I present my favorite albums of 1963...
Albums released 1963
1. John Coltrane Impressions
2. The Beatles Please Please Me
3. Bob Dylan The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
4. The Beatles With the Beatles
5. Charles Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus
6. Roy Orbison In Dreams
7. Rashaan Roland Kirk Reeds and Deeds
8. Jackie McLean Let Freedom Ring
9. Link Wray Jack the Ripper
10 Bo Diddley Surfin' With Bo Diddley
Honorable Mentions
11. Joe Henderson Page One
12. Charles Mingus The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
13. Art Blakey Caravan
14. Ike & Tina Turner It's Gonna Work Out Fine
15. Dick Dale Checkered Flag
16. Ike & Tina Turner Don't Play Me Cheap
17. Dick Dale King of the Surf Guitar
On this day from the Archives:
Marathon Archives:
On this day in 1996 I participated in the annual "Fat Ass 50" in North Adams, Massachusetts.
This event consisted of many loops on the road, on a cold, gray day, and I believe there was a pretty bad snowstorm on the drive home.
I have a time listed of 5:32:35, and I think that was for 26.2 miles - not 50k.
This was my 8th marathon completed.
2024 Unsupported Trail Race Unofficial Challenge #02
Day After New Year's Day 20k (12.5-miles)
Drove out to Adams to spend the afternoon with the folks, celebrating the upcoming "New Year".
Yearly running total for 2023 wasn't good, but at least ended decently...
611.7 Total Miles made up roughly as follows:
83.2 - January
70.7 - February
58.0 - March
42.7 - April
19.9 - May
00.0 - June
11.8 - July
62.2 - August
58.3 - September
27.4 - October
80.6 - November
97.9 - December
Poisonous Words and the Massacre of Wounded Knee
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An iconic photo of the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee of a dead and frozen Big Foot. (Photo/Public Domain)
Today marks the 133rd anniversary of the Massacre of Wounded Knee during the wintry week between Christmas and New Years back in 1890.
Nine days before the massacre that left hundreds of Sioux men, women, and children dead, an obscure weekly newspaper in South Dakota ran an editorial about the death of the Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull. In the opinion piece, L. Frank Baum, publisher of the Saturday Pioneer, wrote:
“The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent, and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled.”
Early in the morning on Dec. 29, 1890, across the state of South Dakota at Wounded Knee Creek, the Sioux, who were captured the previous afternoon by members of the US 7th Cavalry Regiment, were surrendering their weapons. A shot was fired. The Calvary proceeded to shoot unarmed and innocent Sioux elders, women, and children. While an accurate account will never be known, it is believed between 250 and 300 Sioux were massacred that day.
Snowfall was heavy that December week. The Sioux ancestors killed that day were left on the frigid wintery plains of the reservation before a burial party came to bury them in one mass grave.
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After the mass killing of Natives, Baum picked up his poisonous pen again and wrote another editorial for his Saturday Pioneer newspaper. This time, he wrote:
“The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.”
Ten years later, Braum wrote a children’s book called The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Yes, that one. It was eventually made into one of the most famous movies of all time. When I was a youth, my siblings and I would make popcorn and sit and watch the movie when it was broadcast yearly. As an adult, I discovered Baum’s hatred and poisonous racism towards Native Americans. Suffice it to say, I stopped watching the film.
Now, I realize Braum did not single-handedly cause the genocide of Native Americans. But, he contributed to it with his editorials and his calls for the extermination of Native people. His family later apologized for Baum’s racist editorials.
This is why history matters. If you know your history, you know your place in this world.
I believe that most Americans would agree that racism has been a true poison in our country throughout the last two centuries, though it’s not something we’ve been able to eradicate.
That’s why it’s important we remember the Massacre of Wounded Knee, as well as the rhetoric and words used to justify it. Because it’s a potent reminder of what racism has led to in this country: the death of innocent Native people whose ancestors lived on this land since time immemorial.
Thayék gde nwéndëmen - We are all related.
About the Author: "Levi \"Calm Before the Storm\" Rickert (Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation) is the founder, publisher and editor of Native News Online.
