Almost There

Way down inside. I want to give you my love. Who needs? You need. I ain’t foolin’. Way, way, down inside. Don’t need no schoolin’. Gonna give you my lovin’.

I totally remember the first time I heard this song. I must have been all of 14. I was entering ‘the record store’ in Cinderella City Mall, in (?) Denver, Colorado, in (?) say 1969. Cinderella City was, at the time, being promoted as the world’s largest mall. I wonder how many communities were being told this at the same time? This tune, Zeplin’s “Whole Lotta Love,” was cranked and the groove was making its way out into the molecules of all us teens and even pre-teens. I remember being transfixed. I remember hearing something cool. I remember buying the album because.

This musical track is a BC cupcake. BC meaning Jerry Farnsworth, Kenny Wright and Scot Halpin, this night joined by Mike Stigletz. Scot sang a lot that night, a lot in a similar key. I can remember crossing the country in our white shark of a GMC Sierra pick-up. Scot would rhapsodize when we’d get within range a standard mid-west town of less the 5,000’s, no holes barred, HEAVY METAL station. Scot had a standard lecture, which he would deliver, before breaking out into his own accompanying falsetto heavy metal shreak.

Here’s the secret James and I were told so many times, there in the front seat of our in motion truck. “A lot of those heavy metal guys actually sang at a whisper.” That’s the secret. Try it. You can really get into that kind of voice at low volume. Anybody who actually sang at the volume this kind of voice sounds like, either shredded their voice and retired early, or they continued on and because of their nodes, sound like a rag--tired, bleached out, and wishing someone had some respect.