Three Rights Make a Left

by KEN LEONARD

It was the summer of 1972 and I was between my freshman and sophomore years in high school. It was kind of a musical awakening for me as I transitioned from listening to pop music and settled in to a lifelong love for album rock. To be sure, I still loved and appreciated pop, but it had made a transition. It was the year everyone was talking about Don McLean’s American Pie and America’s A Horse With No Name. Was it ever a year to love albums? My iPhone and iPod are still dominated with albums that came out in 1972. Many are masterpieces in their own right and several are hints of the greatness that was to come. Here are a few of the albums that came out that year: Eat a Peach by the Allman Brothers, Saturate Before Using by Jackson Browne, Thick As A Brick By Jethro Tull, Can’t Buy A Thrill by Steely Dan, Neil Young’s Harvest, Randy Newman’s Sail Away, John Denver Rocky Mountain High, Mac Davis’ Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me, ZZ Top’s Rio Grande Mud. I could just go on but Suffice it to say it was a very good year for music.

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