Riders

Alice Coltrane has passed away and the world feels a little different without her. When I was a sophomore in college, I got myself in a little bit of trouble and ended up in a hojo's for a few weeks instead of a dorm-room. I had a room with some basic cable, a neighbor with a "slow" child who she yelled at constantly and a wake up call every morning to invite me back to a world that wasn't really doing me any favors. To say the least it was pretty unpleasant and more so I had no stereo and this was right before iPod's became widespread. I felt fucked.
I convinced myself that the cost of a boombox was nothing, especially when added to the the price of a Howard Johnson's for days upon days. So I went and got one but then had only the cd's in my car to play and I wasn't listening to anymore live versions of Darkside of the Moon so I hit up a local record store and purchased two albums that became the only albums I listened to for weeks in that room on the first floor. One was Love's Forever Changes. A little hint, if you are ever in a significant amount of potential trouble and living virtually on the run, this is not the best thing to have on repeat. The other album I bought was Alice Coltrane's Journey in Satchidananda.
It may have been fate or just luck or neither but me and that record clicked. I would lay in bed reading as her harp and Pharoah Sanders sax wafted around my motel room. For a change of scenery, I began taking baths and Coltrane kept me company. Sometimes it felt like she and Arthur Lee were the only ones and to that I am grateful. I've never learned the track names or really read the liners but I feel I know that album in the biblical sense. To me it's a warm and soothing record, with sounds like no other that I have ever heard and I vividly can remember the feeling of getting excited every time I pressed play to hear it one more time. On a shitty boombox it sounded perfect and I'll never forget it.
I haven't really listened to Journey all that much since that period in my life but it fulfilled its purpose and I got much more than the price of admission that I paid, more than with most albums that I own. I've also never bought another Alice Coltrane album but thinking about it probably should. Alice Coltrane was a woman I never met and now never will, but she made a real impact on my life in a difficult moment and I will never forget it and will never forget her.

The Doors - Riders on the Storm

Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson - (Ghost) Riders In The Sky