Rainmaker - The Last Record Store

“Can you the one minute and take a good look around?” Last year I drove from Texas to Los Angeles to visit Tower Records. Not really, I went to see y grandson, but being as I was there anyway. . . well, let’s face it, old habits die hard. There were still addresses in the phone book, but the stores had literally disappeared. Tower Records had been the impetus for the loss of all the great mom & pop record stores. I used to work at Al’s Record shop on F Street, just one block over from the infamous E-Street of shuffle fame. I had done that shuffle myself, once having bricks thrown at a small group of us. There were sides of the street you just were not supposed to walk on if you were of one persuasion or another. But Al’s was a place of refuge where color didn’t matter. Janis Joplin has a home next to Otis Redding, and Alice Cooper lived safely with Sly and the Family Stone. Rainmaker has made a beautiful tribute to the fact these refuges no longer exist. “Sit and watch your long slow fade, all the promises that we made are disappearing by the day.” Kinda like the way I feel about many many things. My country is fading into an era I do not recognize, where the statue of liberty no longer has meaning. “What else are we willing to trade?” Shoutout for the Reprise, which neatly ties a bow on the themes expressed through the album. Rainmaker