For the Carnivores

This is one thing I like to do to relax. Give me a couple of slabs of ribs, generously seasoned, some hickory chunks, my smoker, and a few hours, and I'll give you a delicious, falling off the bone rib to delight your palate.

Twently five albums that shaped me, Stevie Wonder divsion

Talking Book
Music of My Mind
Fulfillingness' First Finale
Songs in the Key of Life
Hotter Than July

Twenty five albums that shaped me, bands division

Earth Wind and Fire, That's the Way of the World
Blackbyrds, Action
Hiroshima, Hiroshima
WAR, All Day Music
Maze, Golden Time of Day

Twenty five albums that shaped me, male division

Al Jarreau, All Fly Home
Bill Withers, Menagerie
Jackson Five, ABC
Earl Klugh, Heart String
Quincy Jones, Sounds and Stuff Like That

Twenty five albums that shaped me, female division

Labelle Chameleon
This album hit Christmas of '76. I was riding high, because our basketball team was playing in the first annual Palisades Malibu Basketball Tournament out at beautiful Pepperdine University. One of my teammates had some out of town friends, and we had a grand old time. Come into my Life moved romance.


Emotions Rejoice The Emotions had released a single or two in the early 70s under a label called Volt. They were sort of "rediscovered" by Earth Wind and Fire when they sang background in EWF's Boogie Wonderland. The next year, they released Rejoice, with the BIG HIT, Don't Ask My Neighbor. My favorite song from this album is Key to My Heart. What can I say, I'ma sucka for women singing me love songs. The Emotions toured with and opened for EWF during the Gratitude Tour, and they played several nights in LA at the Fabulous Forum during December 1976. I was wearing a brown, pin-striped, three-piece suit with brown faux suede and pleather platform shoes. My 'fro was long, red and tilted to the left.


Minnie Ripperton Perfect Angel Minnie sang ballads meant to seduce men, yet she was as sweet and innocent as she could be. This album's best known single was "Loving You" which was responsible for ushering in the conception of a generation of young americans, I'm sure. And the title song is great, too.

Roberta Flack Blue Lights in the Basement I always was fond of Roberta from the time I learned she matriculated at Howard U. at the same as my mother. This was another LP full of love songs sung to me. I mean, look at at the album cover and dig the name. You know what's up with the blue light in the basement. Love is the healing is the absolute jam of this album.

Angela Bofill Angel of the Night During my sophomore year, Angie Bofill visited the campus of Florida A&M for those once in a lifetime, short notice concerts. Lee Hall was packed even in the balcony. Angie jammed for hours. She didn't have a sax player with her that night, so on the sax solo in I try, she did an improvisation none of us had ever heard before or since.

Twenty five albums that shaped me, tenor sax division

Grover Washington Jr. is the man I wanted to emulate when I decided to take up the saxophone in the 7th grade. You see, I was already a fanatic about basketball, and if ever basketball has a soundtrack in my mind, it's Grover's Mister Magic. Back in the seventies, there was no state basketball championship in California, so the highest goal a Los Angeles high school basketball player could aspire to was to play for the city championship at Pauley Pavilion on the campus of UCLA. The very first LA City Championship I went to was so exciting, and when the teams, Crenshaw and Fremont, first broke out of the locker room, they came out to Mister Magic. Perfect! Plus, anyone who wore a beard was high up on the cool list in my books.

Ronnie Laws had a fantastic run of LPs, and did "Friends and Strangers" in 1976. This was right around the time I learned to drive.


Pharoah Sanders hooked up with Norman Connors to make "Love will find a way." Pharoah remade a Connors favorite "The Creator has a Master Plan" and Phyllis Hyman joined him in a romantic ballad, "Love is here." I wrote an award winning descriptive essay of the album cover for a Contemporary Composition class during my senior year


John Klemmer did a series of LPs beginning with "Touch" that were tailor-made for LAs emerging "smooth jazz" FM radio stations such as KJLH and the WAVE.


And, of course, all roads lead to Coltrane.

Working on those rehab blues

This is the inside of my right knee. Torn medial meniscus was excised.







Now is time for Rehab, and this is my home gym.











Rehabbing will give me the chance to reconnect with some of these old LPs.



Stanley Jordan on guitar...




Dig the liner notes...



What you know about Seawind?

Graduation at UTEP December 2008

Today, Lesley Erin Brown became part of the fifth generation of the Brown Family to graduate from college. She earned a Bachelors in Multidisciplinary Studies from the University of Texas at El Paso. Check out all the sights and sounds...

Inside Don Haskins Center...

The march in...

The moment of truth...

Visiting with family and friends afterwards...

Thanksgiving 2008 in Plano, Texas

You may have heard about a Fried Turkey, but never seen one actually done. Well, check it out...

Soul Train Lines

Jungle Boogie - Kool and the Gang


Live It Up - Isleys


I Love Music - O'jays


Doin' it to Death - Fred Wesley and the JBs

The Spring of 1982