Everyone is talking about great summer music (or maybe I listen to the radio too much). So I decided to make my own list of albums I’ve enjoyed in the various summers of my life.

Childhood Summers:

Getz Gilberto (1963) A classic introduced to me by my dad. It was often on the turntable during those hot (and un-air-conditioned) summers on Riverside Drive.

Tapestry by Carol King (1971) We created modern dance to this endlessly at summer camp in 1970.

High School Summers:

The Harder They Come with Jimmy Cliff and others (1973) This was the soundtrack of my summer before college in 1976.

Music From Big Pink: The Band (1968). I remember the day I got this album ( a gift from my dad). We called it Big Pink for short.

The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle: Bruce Springsteen (1975) Summer darkness and light with the E Street band.

The Hissing of Summer Lawns: Joni Mitchell (1975) Smell the grass on those LA lawns.

Tea for the Tillerman: Cat Stevens (19  ) Oh this brings back memories.

Loudon Wainwright (1970): I loved this album and will never forget running into Loudon at Matt Umanov guitars in Greenwich Village. He was wearing a seersucker suit jacket and seersucker shorts and I asked him if this album was still available because I lost my copy. He wrote down an address where I could send away for it on Edsel Records in London.

College Summers:

Hazel and Alice (1979) Tersely emotive singing by the Thelma and Louise of Bluegrass. This was the soundtrack of my summer of 1979 when I was working at IBM in Endicott, New York (and taking dance classes with Bill T Jones).

The Roches (1978) Songwriting sisters who blurred pop, barber shop, folk and fun. This was also my soundtrack of summer ’79.

Fear of Music: Talking Heads (1979) This was the soundtrack during the summer of 1980 when I was living on Beethoven Street in Binghamton, NY.

Spirit in the Dark: Aretha Franklin (1970 ) I remember dancing to this in a dance therapy workshop in Johnson City, NY circa 1978?

Joan Armatrading (1976  ) Oh the feeling, when you’re reeling, you step lightly thinking you’re number 1…

Adult Summers:

The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) Hip Hop meets confessional in this virtuosic blend of jazz, rock, soul, gospel, and R&B. My soundtrack running in Prospect Park….

Soul II Soul Club Classics (1989) This was the music blaring out of car windows on Ludlow Street during the summer of 1989.

Inside Betty Carter (1965) A friend and I used to hear her at Fat Tuesdays; once at Celebrate Brooklyn (in the 1980s) and once at BAM (with my father) where she did a master class where all questions had to be sung. Brilliant.

Adrian Hibbs Project EP (2007) A white man who sounds like Stevie Wonder, he plays a mean Wurlitzer. A discovery of mine last summer in Block Island where he performed on Fridays at the Spring House.My summer Soundtrack 2009.