Update: I corrected some wording that said something other than what I meant it to say.
It hasn't hit Wikipedia yet*, but the word is that Sean Tyla has died of a heart attack at age 73. Actually, according to what I read he died in May but his family and friends were keeping it quiet. I don't know why, but that's their prerogative. Tyla isn't exactly a household name. But he was a huge influence on my musical taste and interest. Ducks Deluxe, the band he led in the early 1970's, is what I call my rock and roll ground zero.
When I was in high school -- I think it was my sophomore year -- I had a job on Sundays working for Shari's Place, a newstand and candy store near the subway. Every Sunday afternoon, after I was done working and got paid, I would run down the block to The Record Stop. The Record Stop was a small (the term "hole in the wall" could have been invented to describe it) record store with a few racks of new records and a whole lot of crates of used records. I was just getting interested in music, but I was, oddly, not really into listening to music on the radio. Actually, I'm still not into listening to music on the radio -- I have always preferred to hear music from my collection. So my choices reflected what I heard at home -- Peter Paul and Mary and early Beatles, The Monkees, The Partridge Family. And some other groups that I thought I should like since I liked those. Chauncey and Stu, the guys who worked at the store, had somehow convinced me that I had to get every Donovan album I could.
Then, one Sunday, while I was browsing the racks I heard something that would change my life. Bahm! Bahm! Bahmmmmm! "All right kids! are you ready?" I had never heard it before. I had never reacted to any music that way before. To this day I don't know if there really is something special about that recording or if it hit me at just the right moment, but I suppose it doesn't really matter. That little bit of music captivated me and seared itself into my brain. I stopped browsing the crates of old vinyl and listened. And I had to have that record. That record, Don't Mind Rockin' Tonite, was a compilation covering the short career of Ducks Deluxe, a British pub rock band that had broken up in 1975. I brought it home and played it over and over and over. And my whole perception of music had changed.
I became a huge fan. I read anything I could about Ducks Deluxe. I bought used copies of their two studio albums at auction. This was 1981 or so, and if you wanted a specific out-of-print album it was not an easy task. That goes double if the specific out of print album had never been released in the US. In case anyone is interested, I compared the two albums here. When my girlfriend went to England, the souvenir she brought back was a vintage magazine with an article about Ducks Deluxe. During these years one popular fashion was to wear denim jackets with band names or album covers painted on the back. I got a denim jacket and had the back adorned with a painting of a big duck wearing a crown and name, "Ducks Deluxe." It wasn't any kind of official band logo, but it was good enough.
But more importantly, the album served as kind of a trailhead for my musical journey. The liner notes listed the members of the band and named bands they had been in since. So I was able to seek those out. And then I sought music by members of those bands, and then by members of those bands. As an aside, I note that that compilation album had a picture of Dave Edmunds on the back, even though he wasn't in Ducks Deluxe. Presumably the fact that he produced their second album was enough. At any rate, he had a new album, D.E. 7th, out. So I bought it and it quickly became another favorite. And as I started looking for used copies of his other albums, Chauncey said "if you like Dave Edmunds, you might like Nick Lowe" and sold me a used copy of Labour of Lust. Then, the next week, it was "If you like Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe, you might like Rockpile" to get me to buy Seconds of Pleasure.
And so it went, Most of my favorite bands and singers are ones I learned about by just following leads and branching out from that first Ducks Deluxe album. And so, Ducks Deluxe is my rock and roll ground zero. And I always come back. There's something about their classic recordings that will never grow stale for me. I've read that the records never quite captured their live energy. Based on the video above, which is the only live footage I know of from their heyday. I wish I could have seen them. Too bad they had broken up when I was ten years old.
I continued to follow Sean Tyla's career. buying and digging his music. I read his memoir, and loved that as well. I never did see Tyla perform in concert -- whether solo, with the reformed Ducks Deluxe, or with any of the other bands he's been in. One of my favorite tracks of his post-Ducks career is the single, "Breakfast in Marin." I share it here because...well, because I want to.
My condolences go out to Sean's family and friends...those who knew him and loved him. I am felling a sense of loss. I never met the man, and never knew him personally. But he played a huge role in shaping my musical taste. And through his music he provided my hours upon hours of enjoyment.
Sean Tyla, rest in peace.
*At least, not as of this writing
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