There is a challenge going around Facebook right now in which people are invited to post album covers of the 10 record albums that have had the biggest impact on the person's life.   No explanation, just a different album cover each day for 10 days.  The challenge has not been sent my way yet, but it did get me thinking. Words like 'impact' or 'influence' are just broad enough that they could be taken several ways.  Do you mean impacted my musical taste? My world view? Has given me the most joy? Helped through hard times?  Is associated with pleasant memories?   There's so many ways to go about this, and I've been pondering this lately as I've been doing my spring yard work.  Although there are still some of which I'm not completely certain,this is the list I have tentatively come up with of the 10  albums that have had the biggest influence on me.  And unlike the Facebook challenge, I'll include a brief explanation of each.

In order from earliest to most recently discovered:

1.  "Hot August Night" by Neil Diamond.  This two record live recording is one of the first records I ever bought.  I listened to it repeatedly from 8th grade through early high school, imagining being there in the audience at Hollywood's Greek Theater.  I began contemplating the performance itself, and saw how Diamond drew his audience in quickly, when he spoke between songs and when he didn't, how he fit 'filler' songs into the show without losing the audience's attention, and how he moved his audience through many emotions: celebration, reflection, humor, romance.  I saw that it was more than just a series of songs, but one complete concert that was tied together from beginning to end.  When I started doing performances as a juggler and illusionist, I attempted to apply to my craft what he did on that record.  To this day, "Hot August Night" is a model I look to when planning a full length performance.

2.  "The Pye History of British Pop Music" by Donovan. This album is actually a compilation of songs from Donovan's first two releases: "What's Bin Did and What's Been Hid" and 'Fairy Tale", but when my older brother, David, brought this home from the record store during my Freshman year of high School, I was hearing something new and life changing.  In fact, one of my very first blogs nine years ago was about what Donovan and his music has meant to me for the last five decades.  Days after hearing this record for the first time, I bought a cap like Donovan wore and a Hohner harmonica.  For the first time, I saw the power of song lyrics.  While "Hot August Night" had a couple of songs whose lyrics made one think (specifically, I Am, I Said, and Done Too Soon) most of it was just very good pop music.  But Donovan sang about war, freedom, equality, and youth's struggle for identity.  This album was my gateway album to the 1960's folk revival, even if Dave didn't bring it home until 1975.

3.  "Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger Together in Concert":  After discovering Donovan, I jumped full-fledged into contemporary folk music:  Joan Baez, Eric Anderson, Phil Ochs, early Gordon Lightfoot and Bob Dylan, and these two guys.  Another two record concert album, I used Arlo's version of Leadbelly's "On a Monday" as a juggling routine my senior year of high school.  In fact, instead of going to my senior prom, I performed that routine to that song at the Burlington, Vermont mall as part of an inter-high school  arts festival.  I wouldn't have wanted it any other way.  A few months later, as a Freshman in college, I remember one bout of homesickness that I spent listening to this record, and it brought a little of the familiar to me when I needed it.

4.  "Melanie at Carnegie Hall":  This, The third two record live album on my list, I bought in my college bookstore my Freshman year of college.  Unlike the issues based folk songs of Baez, Guthrie and Seeger, Melanie's songs were and still are much more introspective.  She became a quick favorite, and the fact that our youngest daughter used Melanie's "Beautiful People" as her dance competition song as a high school senior means I've passed this on.  And, upon hearing the news of the Sandy Hook school shootings in Connecticut, all I could do for quite a while was play and replay Melanie's "Peace Will Come" claiming it as a hymn of hope.

5.  "The Live Concert" by Don Francisco:  Hmmm.  I clearly have an affinity for double live concert albums.  This was the first contemporary Christian album I ever bought.  If "Hot August Night" showed me how to put a show together, this record showed me the value of performing Bible stories.  Well over half of Francisco's songs on this album are story-songs.  The best cut "Too Small a Price" about the thief on the cross next to Jesus runs almost seven minutes.  When I was just starting the Supreme Court Jesters ministry, Don Francisco's ability to turn these familiar stories into entertaining songs was my inspiration to spend most of my show just telling that old, old story.  And, more importantly, his "I Could Never Promise You (On Just my Strength Alone)" was Sue's and my wedding song.

6.  "Jesus Commands us to Go" by Keith Green  I wasn't sure whether to include this one or not.  Keith Green was a legend in contemporary Christian music when a private plane he was on went down, killing him and the pilot.  He left behind a lot of excellent music and lyrics that never compromised.  The thing is, this album is by no means his best.  It's actually a compilation of previously unrecorded cuts that were released posthumously.  That said, the topic is albums that have influenced me, and this one has. The title song includes a homily part way through in which Keith speaks of the importance of missionary work.  This song was really the first thing that got me thinking about doing missionary work, and my family and I have experienced several short term missionary trips.  This is also the album that includes his version of the hymn "Create in Me a Clean Heart", a song that I used very early on in my Christian performing.

7.  "Only Visiting this Planet" by Larry Norman. Released in 1973, this is another one of those albums that, when I first heard it, I knew I'd never be the same.  "Only Visiting This Planet" is considered by many the best and most influential contemporary Christian album of all time.  A little Dylanesque, and a little Allmanesque, with some profound thought provoking lyrics.  Every cut is outstanding, and no CCM album before or since comes close, including all of Larry's other works.

8.  "The World's Greatest Gospel Singer" Mahalia Jackson.  Some time in the late 80's or early 90's, Sue and I rented a video tape (remember those?) documentary about Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson.  I was blown away by my first exposure to Black Gospel music.  Shortly afterwards, we saw a promo for a two cassette (remember those) recording entitled "The World's Greatest Gospel Singer": a compilation of Mahalia Jackson's music.  I ordered it immediately.  Her song "Didn't it Rain" is proof positive she well deserves her place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influencer.  Typically, I open my show juggling to her version of "When the Saints Go Marching In", and my father was alive, this was one album I knew I could put on when he was over that we could both enjoy.  

9.  "Meltdown" by Steve Taylor. This was the "bad boy of Christian rock's" first full length recording, and it seemed like every time I listened to it, I got something new out of his clever, convicting lyrics.  At a time when almost all CCM artists were safely singing praise music or songs with evangelistic themes, ST called out sin in the church world at least as vigorously (and comically) as he did the secular world. The example of this that stands out above all the others on the album is "We Don't Need No Color Code", which addressed Bob Jones University's ban on interracial dating.

        "Bumper sticker on his Ford

        Says 'Honkies if you love the Lord'"

It was Taylor's music, and this album in particular, that showed me that ministry doesn't stop at preaching to a secular world.  The church needs to hear and apply the Word of God and let the searchlight of the Holy Spirit convict and change us first. And to learn that from this quirky, no-holds-barred pop/punk album was a lot of fun besides.

10.  "Live at Montreaux" Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Like most of the world, I was introduced to this South African acapela choir on Paul Simon's "Graceland" album.  Then they did a concert at the Rockland Opera House, and Sue and I were able to get tickets.  Although leader and founding member Joseph Shabalala died recently, they are still together and performing live, and if you get a chance to see them it is well worth the ticket price. Like so many others on this list, the first of their recordings that I owned was a live album recorded at the Montreaux Jazz Festival. For a while I was so fed up with the cheesiness of the lyrics to songs I'd hear on the radio, this was the only album I listened to.  Perhaps their lyrics were no better, but it's hard to tell when most of the songs are sung in Zulu. and it is the album I'll always associate with playing on the slip and slide with Rose on our days off at camp.  

HONORABLE MENTION:

"From Every Stage" by Joan Baez

"Sweetheart of the Rodeo" by the Byrds

"Rehearsal for Retirement" by Phil Ochs

"Antlers: A Christmas for True Believers" by Melanie

"Justice" by Steve Camp