Mason Williams

That name may not mean very much to a lot of people out there, but all will be revealed in time. Stay with me! I must admit, it meant nothing to me until I delved further! Intrigued? I hope so!

Mason Williams (Thanks to Google)

Music is the one thing that can take me back to the past with one single note or chord. The opening chords of The Beatles 'I Feel Fine', send me back to the early 1960's with my mum saying 'and don't think that you are bringing one of those records home!' and then buying me their first LP for my birthday in 1964! I remember my sister and I going to watch the Beatles LIVE at the end of 1964 at the Hammersmith Odeon and screaming right along with everyone else! My aunt had a friend who had a nephew who was working backstage at the Odeon and he managed to get the Beatles to autograph my programme! Or so I thought! I carried this with me for over thirty years until my daughter was going overseas and offered to take it to have it valued at Sothebys. With threats of dire things happening to her if she lost it, she went on her way. I was by then spending the thousands of rand (even then the exchange rate was pretty high) that would come my way.

The original Programme, look at the dates!

Alas, that was not to be. The autographs were all fake! Good ones, but fake, worthless, valueless! I still have the programme though, it means too much to throw away!

Fakes, how sad!

We listen every weekend to the local radio station that plays Golden Oldies and every now and then one will stand out and stop me in my tracks. My mind goes back and I can picture exactly where I was when it was a hit. That really impresses me when sometimes I can't remember where I am when I wake up!

But I digress, as usual!

In thirty years when the Golden Oldies are played, will the rap of today be played? I try never to listen to it, but some people want to share their music with the world. Every second car with a speaker has rap blaring at full blast while the driver slouches behind the wheel driving as slowly as possible with all the windows down as far as they can go. I often feel like playing Barry Manilow at full blast to prove a point!

So, back to Mason Williams. Give up? He composed one of the very best guitar pieces that I have ever heard. Called 'Classical Gas' it hit the charts in 1968 and if you have never heard it (or even if you have heard it) do yourself a favour. Google 'Classical Gas original recording', turn up the volume as high as you can, open the windows and play it! And then play it again. And a third time.

Memories are made of this! 

I promise you, you will cry with emotion. I did, I found it again this morning and played it about five times. I stopped when I saw that Rob was ready to cry too!!