Leanings

LEANINGS

Road music

Peter Egan

WHILE NOT MOTORCYCLING THIS WEEKend because of a blinding snowstorm, I decided to reorganize my record collection. Or I should say my record/CD collection, now that I’ve been replacing old battle-damaged vinyl classics with compact discs. As my brother Brian, who’s in the radio business, says, “You have to give the music industry a lot of credit for figuring out how to sell Baby Boomers the same record collection twice.”

Okay, so I’m a sucker. But at least the new CDs don’t sound as though I’ve been skating on them, and their undersized jackets lack that subtle aroma of spilled beer, storage mildew and cat pee.

Anyway, in the course of this reorganization I came across a couple of vintage Peter, Paul & Mary albums, the first two released. Ah yes, the famous PP&M set. A little cache of history here.

Seems that in 1962, my parents gave me my first guitar for Christmas-a Japanese-made “folk” guitar from Penney’s-and it came with these two Peter, Paul & Mary albums literally stuck to the varnish on the back of the guitar, tightly vacuum-wrapped in plastic. The whole package cost about $22, so you can imagine the fine quality of the instrument.

The idea, of course, was that these were the kinds of records the buyer of a folk guitar would want to listen to. They were selling a little piece of lifestyle here (although no one used that dreaded term in 1962), marketing the music that went with the product.

Even then, it struck me as a funand funny-idea, and I commented to my family that it would be nice if all important purchases came with a small but spiritually appropriate record collection stuck to them. Cars, books, houses, motorcycles, airplanes, etc. would all be supplied with their own soundtracks, tailored to the character of the object.

This idea has occurred to me many times since, especially regarding motorcycles. It seems to me that significant bikes, more than any of the other things we buy, suggest their own theme music, a background swell of subliminal sound that follows you down the road.

My 1967 high-pipe Triumph 650, for instance, has always seemed to me a kind of archetypal Woodstock Generation motorcycle. It’s dual-purpose nature and semi-knobby tires give it an added goin'-up-the-country counterculture flavor. So if I had to put together a small album package to go with the motorcycle, it would likely be a mixture of Canned Heat, Arlo Guthrie, early Dylan, The Band and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Youngwith the accent on Young.

I’ve always secretly believed the song “Long May you Run,” with its line about a “chrome heart shining in the sun” is Neil’s tribute to a Triumph motorcycle, specifically an image of its heart-shaped timing-case cover. If anyone tells me otherwise, I’ll be very disappointed.

Nortons call for a harder-core soundtrack, perhaps a little more blues-tinged. The Rolling Stones are more of a Norton group (with considerable spillover into BSA and Harley-Davidson), as are Janis Joplin and maybe John Lee Hooker, J. Geils or the Allman Brothers. Like the blues, Nortons are simultaneously blatant and subtle.

A café-racer Triton or Commando decked out in rearsets and megaphones might have a couple of fairly disparate musical interpretations, possibly from either the Clash or one of Charlie Parker’s rapid, staccato sax solos.

Harleys, of course, not only suggest certain albums, but they’ve actually had music written just for them. Virtually any song from the Easy Rider soundtrack will forever summon images of Fonda and Hopper cruising toward disaster in Louisiana. And then there’s the classic instrumental, “Blue’s Theme,” from an earlier Fonda effort in Roger Corman’s Wild Angels. Other bands and musicians I would put in the Harley camp are Bob Seeger, Steve Earle, David Allan Coe, Hank Williams Jr., George Thorogood and ZZ Top.

Finding the correct album to go with any Harley, however, demands some attention to model and era. Anyone selling an old Knucklehead or a Harley 45 might consider including a selection of Hank Sr. material, or for a WLA (Army) version, a few Glenn Miller 78s. Panheads are Elvis country, but they go well with virtually anyone who ever recorded on Sun Records, such as Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. Chuck Berry and Little Richard could be Panhead guys, too, but they also have a Sportster-like leanness about them.

What else? Certain Japanese Fours, someone once pointed out, have the character of a Dennis Brain solo on French horn, though some also suggest the fusion guitar of John McLaughlin-seamless and complex at the same time. Italian bikes, as I mentioned in another column, are a natural for a collection of Pavarotti arias, but maybe that’s a little too obvious. Wagner works just as well for large-bore Italian bikes as he does for big German Boxer-Twins.

What about the new Ducati 900s and 851s, or the BMW K-bikes? Horn music, I think; not much guitar. Maybe Red Garland playing piano behind John Coltrane and Donald Byrd on “Soul Junction.” Dexter Gordon also comes to mind. Goodnatured sophistication with an energetic sense of history.

I’m still waiting for any motorcycle as good as Miles Davis and John Coltrane on Kind of Blue, or a touring bike that cruises as serenely as Stan Getz playing “Desafinado.”

When these bikes finally show up, they won’t have to vacuum-wrap any CDs to the seat cover. I’ve got them already, standing by. Art occasionally precedes technology, and is then rescued by it. Just when the old vinyl is completely worn out. □