A year ago today, I embarked on a month-long road trip that took me through Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming and Alaska (that last one by plane). A few days before the trip, I posted a request on Facebook, asking people for recommendations of their favorite road-trip albums. Boy did they deliver, something like sixty albums in total. Except for the few recommendations that weren't available on Rhapsody, everything went into a single grand playlist that I loaded onto a portable music player. I put the player on shuffle much of the time I was driving, giving me a very eclectic personalized radio station.
I had no trouble remembering who recommended what, and I found that as each artist came up, it would bring to mind the friend who'd given the recommendation. I went on that trip in part to get some perspective on some heavy stuff in my life, and having friends come to mind through the music they'd recommended made me feel supported and loved. For that love and support, I felt--and feel--deeply grateful.
During the trip, I had the idea to write a piece about all the music I'd heard, how it affected me, and to thank each person in turn. Unfortunately, I didn't end up following through on it.
Now it's a year later. Sometimes ideas lose their impulse if you let them sit, but this one hasn't. Maybe it's because I still have all that music on my player--I listen to it all the time--that the idea has never stopped seeming like an important one. It's time to do it. It's gonna take me a while to write a bit about every album on that list, but I want each and every person who gave to me in that way to know how much it meant to me. Over the next few weeks, I'll be writing briefly about each album in turn. Watch this space.