Even though the love of music has been my life, as I reflect, I'm thinking about times when an album entered my life unexpectedly.  There were plenty of times knowing an album was coming out and you just had to have it on that first day--Sgt. Pepper comes to mind.  But, today I'm talking about those moments in life when a piece of music just came your way either through another person or by happenstance.  Although it wasn't the first piece of music to do so, Ramblin' Man by Waylon Jennings was one of them.  I was working at the old Camelot Music in Saginaw, Michigan and we were working late at night because our store was being remodeled.  One of the guys from the home office in North Canton, Ohio came up and he was a guy who built shelves, moved things around--I guess you might say he was a "grunt."

Before he started working, he pulled Ramblin' Man from one of the bins.  "Mind if I crack the seal and put it on?"  And so he did. . .and right from the beginning guitar part, I was hooked.  This album defined 1974 for me--when the music of the '60's was fading into "wasn't that a time," college was over, and the life comes at you fast era of WORK was in full boom.

This isn't quite Dreaming My Dreams--the acknowledged Waylon classic. . .but, this led up to it.  If you don't have any Waylon in your collection, Ramblin' Man is a good introduction.