For some reason, Stairway to Heaven has been popping up in the jukebox of a mind of mine. It’s a song that I heard quite often growing up in the 1970s and at some point I learned how to play half of it. And by half I mean I would pluck the strings while someone else did the fretwork. That lasted for a few weeks in the summer, probably 1975 or 76, almost 50 years ago.

I did play Stairway to Heaven as a YouTube video the other day, but it was the Ann & Nancy Wilson Kennedy Center Honors version with Jason Bonham on drums. I saw the original broadcast and Ann and Nancy and Jason did a very good job.

Shane Fontaine played the Jimmy Page solo part. I met Shane Fontaine back in the 1990s at Right Track Recording. He may have been doing something with Bruce Springsteen at the time. I also met Shane’s then wife Mackenzie Phillips.

During the televised Stairway song, Robert Plant seemed moved to tears while Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were grooving along nicely to it. I guess the televised version was more interesting and exciting compared to the original song that I must’ve heard at least once a week while growing up.

Stairway to Heaven did become a cliche, so much so that it became a pop culture joke, music instrument stores supposedly hanging signs implicitly stating ‘NO STAIRWAY’. I never saw such things but then again, how often did I hang out in musical instrument stores, besides Guitar Bar in Hoboken?

Back in the day, when in Manhattan, if my brother and I found ourselves on West 48th Street, what used to be Music Row, we would go into Manny’s and gawk at the photos of famous musicians that visited the store. Then years later I was a few doors down, working at Right Track Recording, for I think what may have been 4 years.

I don’t really remember the dateline but I did have a crush on Barry Bongiovi who was the studio manager and may very well still be a very handsome cigar-smoking man. Now all of those studios and musical instrument stores have been razed. As far as I know, there are very few, if any top tier recording studios in Manhattan these days.

Bill is currently in LIberty State Park, having driven a group to a wedding reception. I know exactly where Bill is as I have ridden though that parking lot numerous times. I have even taken photos of various buses and sent them to Bill, partly as a way for him to investigate bus companies and for the bus porn that he so enjoys.

I picked up yet another book from the Bibliotheque. This latest book is as thick as the Michael Palin 1969-1979 diaries, it’s called 1966 and it’s by Jon Savage, a British music writer that I enjoy very much. Michael Palin’s book is 650 pages and Jon Savage’s book is 653 pages.

And I’ve started Michael Palin’s book and I figure that where I used to announce the things in this here blog 9 years ago, nowadays I don’t do that. I write and if people know about it fine. If they comment on it, even better. If they don’t that’s fine too. I reckon it is a diary. Read if you will.