Eric had started off as a Ventures fan, but by ‘67 or ‘68 was becoming a major Dylan fan, to the extent that the news that the players who became known later as The Band were in the process of recording Music From Big Pink was met with the memorable statement I’m not interested in Dylan’s backing band. I’m interested in Dylan.
Those were the days. Snap judgements ‘R’ us ....
Unlike Jim, who was also shelling out for mod clothing, Eric had no interest in fashion and was soon following his nose into the sources of the people we were listening to, so the room under the house with the panels from Marvel comics copied by his arty sister covering the walls was where I first heard Muddy Waters and Miles Davis.
Not that I really got Muddy or Miles at the time, but about a year of listening to a wider range of music meant that I wasn’t dismissing things quite as offhandedly.
When Eric dropped the needle into the electric half of the Taj Mahal double album I thought it was the best blues album I’d heard. Eric mentioned that the other half wasn’t bad either, and on went the second disk, which was Taj solo, playing country blues and other odds and ends.
The benefit of an extra twelve months listening meant that I was able to appreciate this was the sort of stuff that would have been played on the front porch of a sharecroppers cabin, and to this day it’s one of my all-time favourites.