I am thinking tonight in basketball terms.  Because tomorrow I may have a snow day and I’m going to risk it by staying up a little later, drinking a few Sam Adams Winter Lagers, and watching some NBA basketball.  The Pistons are hosting the Lakers, and TNT is playing the Boson-Dallas game, which also should be sweet.

And also, of course, I’m going to think some music, listen to some good music.  Not just music, but records.  You know, records take more time, they take more thought.  They take a little bit of concentration.  XM is great - don’t get me wrong.  I taped the Bob Dylan show yesterday - so good.  I listen to about an hours worth of XM every night and also on the daily commute. 

But records, records take a little time.  You gotta set some time for records.  Because first, you gotta pick one out.  You gotta decide what you want to listen to.  You gotta think about what you’re feeling at the time, what you feel like listening to.  You gotta pick the genre, outline the top five in your mind, then scan for one of those five.  I’m a record store owner.  I have a sweet collection.  Mine are seperated by genres.  My genres are these:

-Folk/Americana/Country/Bluegrass/Bluegrass Gospel 

-Soul Gospel

-Blues plus a little bit of Zydeco

-Reggae

-Old School Rap

-Motown/Soul

-Funk

-50s Rhythm and Blues

-Jazz

-Misc.

-World

-Rock

-Local

So what I was thinking about tonight, first, was what was my ONE prize out of my whole collection?  What would be the one I would pull out if I wanted to show off my crown gem?  The thing is, there’s too many characteristics that make up how sweet a record is.  They are:

-Rarity (IF I had a Charlie Patton 78, for example)

-Sweetness (many different factors that make sweet! perhaps Magic Sam, West Side Soul?)

-Obscurity (perhaps my Lee Osler, “Back To Ypsilanti”?)

-Cool Artist First Record Factor (example being my Johnny Cash, “Hot Blue Guitar” on Sun)

-Condition (my same Johnny Cash record)

-Overall combination of all factors (example being my Memphis Slim, “No Strain” on Prestige)

-Just My Favorite (SO many…maybe my Marvin Holmes and The Uptights, “Ooh Ooh the Dragon and Other Monsters”, or even Desmond Dekker, “Black and Dekker”)

-Local Ties (maybe The Stooges or MC5 self-titled, or something like The Sun Messengers)

So with all these factors in mind, what I was going to do was compile a list of my “Starting Five” in each genre, because this is sort of how my mind works when I’m playing records or even just thinking about records.  Of course, this could be broken into sub-genres, like instead of just Blues, I could do my Starting Five “70s West Side Chicago Blues”…and off the top of my head, Magic Sam - West Side Soul, Fenton Robinson - Somebody Loan Me A Dime, Luther Allison - Love Me Mama, Robert Jr. Lockwood - (can’t think of title - too lazy to get up), and uhhh….the last spot I would have to think about, how about JB Hutto and His Hawks - Hawk Squat.  The 1 through 5 are interchangeable, they just all work as a team to be as sweet as possible.  Maybe you could think of it as taking these five off the shelf and putting them by the record player in the to-be-played-next stack.   

So there you go - there’s a starting five.  I would even be willing to battle someone else’s starting five if someone could make a greater claim.  There’s tons of possibilities too - any sort of genre or subgenre - as long as you back it up.  I’m interested in seeing what some of you have out there - I know that some record collectors really get into certain subgenres or niches - like obscure 60s Michigan garage 45s or hotel resort calypso bands.