Around adolescence and the stubborn twilight which follows, I spent a lot of energy to cover the feeling that other people had far more prolific supplies of "their" music. Was the content richer? My opinion wobbled. Mostly I was taken by the exhibition of confidence others had I openly admitted I lacked.

Most prominent were people who based their musical existence around The Beatles. Then there were the fans of lots of notes and at least superficial complexity, the fans of Yes and of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Then I knew a Frank Zappa fiend; there was a genre and experience unto itself. What was for lonely me?

Recently, thanks to the sidebar phenomenon on the most prevalent video site, I ran into a band I never heard until the other night but which had held promise of "being something" for the likes of me. First, I was not a "Cream" person per se, but I was introduced to the bassist's first album after the breakup, very early in the 70's, and bought the second and third, "Harmony Row" and "Out Of The Storm" when they were released in the next two years. Bruc's wiggling, stutter step bass was prominent and he sang, played keyboards and a bit of cello while a guitarist would be brought aboard who did more dancing in the aisles, and meaningful nevertheless, than the out front in the pulpit superstar of "that band" everyone and his brother, even the Drake radio short hairs, seemed to follow.

The songs were melodic, playing on ellipsis' of the blues some of the time, and the lyrics by one Peter Brown were very arcane and often "crammed in". That was fine, I'd be a "musical tracks" person as an overly ifnluential friend had been for a long time. Overall, the main thing was I ran across just enough other people who loved this but it felt outside of the mainstream.

In the meantime the Rolling Stones had a guitarist for a while, Mick Taylor, who had done a solo on a song called "Time Waits For No One" which grabbed much attention with we snobs: the tone had an electrified but not hard rock flex and the phrasing floated over the beat quite far from the Chuck Berry and other cribbing the band had practiced.

A local FM station ran a syndicated show called "King Biscuit Flour Hour" which featured live performances not from official releases. Mick Taylor, on this and the last of the prolific bottlegs of Rolling Stones gigs, was playing lead and solos at a far higher level than the "progressive" people like John McLaughlin who often got sputtery tones and, face it, weren't "fun". Taylor left the Stones, and then----

----in 1975 the music papers announced Taylor and Bruce would be forming a band along with three other folks and maybe "my/our" time had come.