Walking down musical memory road

Lately, I've started making a list of the 15 records that have had the most impact on my life and why. It's been so much fun, that the list has expanded to 20 and is still growing.

The list includes several moments where a piece of music hit me like a sledgehammer and made me rethink what I thought I knew about being a guitar player.

Here's an excerpt:

No. 5 -- Eat ‘Em and Smile – David Lee Roth

To this point, I’d thought Eddie Van Halen was the greatest guitar player EVER. And being that this was Roth's first solo effort since leaving Van Halen, I was anxious to hear what kind of guitar player Roth would recruit to – let’s face it, replace Eddie. I was skeptical. I mean, Eddie was my guy, right? He was like the tough kid in the neighborhood who the other guys feared and admired at the same time - partially because you thought no one could beat him.

I wanted to hear what this new dude -- this Steve Vai -- could do. I bought Eat Em and Smile at the Musicland in Southdale and put the tape in my Walkman. I’d heard the first track, “Yankee Rose,” and while the song was cool, I wasn’t blown away. I was walking home to the Edina Towers and was just crossing 66th on to Barrie Road when the second track came on, “Shy Boy.” I stopped in my tracks in the middle of the street and my jaw dropped. I kid you not. I laughed out loud. I couldn't get my teenage guitar player head around what I was hearing. Then I listened even more carefully and discovered that the bass player -- Billy Sheehan -- was matching Vai, lick by lightning-fast lick.

"That's not fair," I thought. "Bass players are NOT supposed to do this. God, I suck." But as tempted as I was to put the guitar down after hearing this, I soon discovered that Vai was much more than a shredder. The song "Big Trouble" is a slinky vamp that contains perhaps the most perfect guitar solo ever created. "Ladies Night in Buffalo" is also kinda groovy. And Vai's riffs in "Goin' Crazy" was a tip of his hat to Eddie Van Halen. And while I knew I couldn't reproduce what Vai was playing, I just learned to enjoy listening to his music - just for the sheer pleasure of it.

From there I listened to other Vai classics as Flex-Able Leftovers, Passion and Warfare and Alien Love Secrets. And I listen to these in the same way classical music lovers listen to Mozart or Mahler. Vai is a brilliant soloist, but an even greater composer.