Yesterday, April 21, was "National Record Store Day", a day to celebrate the place where so many of us music geeks spent much time, browsing, hanging out, & talking music with the clerks. I used to love flipping through the "stacks of wax", & still do (please support your few remaining record stores--they are treasures.) (Photo courtesy of amazon.com)

loading...

I thought back to the very first records I bought with my own money as a kid. Surprisingly, for a top 40 radio singles guy like myself, my first record was an album. But what an album! "More Of The Monkees", the band's 2nd LP, out just 4 months after the first. It was even better, impeccably crafted pop-rock written by great artists such as Neil Diamond, Carole King-Gerry Goffin, Tommy Boyce-Bobby Hart, Jeff Barry, The Tokens, & Carole Bayer Sager/Neil Sedaka, played by some of the best musicians in the world (the legendary "Wrecking Crew", or, "The Clique", did much of it), & sung by the severely underrated Davy Jones, Micky Dolenz, Mike Nesmith & Peter Tork. They may have been hired for, & brought together, for their TV show, but they soon became an excellent group, a real one, that FAR transcended their teenybopper idol status at the time. The album includes their biggest single, "I'm A Believer", which still sounds great to me, even after playing it 10,000 times as a DJ (trade secret: we DJs can get tired of songs a lot quicker than you listeners--it's an occupational hazard). But it also includes hidden gems like "Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrrow)", lead vocals by Davy, which SHOULD have been a single. When I interviewed Jones a few years ago, he agreed with my view. He told me it was his second favorite song to sing (after "Valleri"). "Mary, Mary", with Micky in the lead, written by Nesmith...a killer. "Steppin' Stone"---whew, I still crank it up. For me, it still doesn't get any better than "More Of The Monkees". Next up: Part 2....the first single I ever bought. What's the first record YOU ever bought?

More From New Jersey 101.5 FM