Listen: Salt Of The Earth / Johnny Adams
Salt
Save your money for a rainy day, an old wive’s tale. It was one of my parent’s commandments. I learned well and let it spill over to records too. In the busy peak years of focusing on work and career, I’d just blag or buy tons of singles, on road trips around the US and UK, as well, out of other people’s collections. By the eighties, even pre-CD, most industry folks were dumping their 45′s, an apparently embarrassing possession. Never understood that one, but certainly was happy with the trend.
Likewise with label sales and promotion reps. They couldn’t unload 7′s from their trunks fast enough. Well I advocated a no single left behind policy, and hoarded every last one, tucking them away in parents attics, in-laws cellars and various garages for years. Finally consolidated them into a couple of locations with all intentions to organize the lot. That was twenty years ago.
So on the occasional Saturday, like yesterday, I undo the locks, and dig deep, going back in time, opening boxes whose contents are complete surprises. One such surprise: ‘Salt Of The Earth’ by Johnny Adams on Atlantic.
Don’t even ask me how this single, or for that matter, Johnny Adams slipped past me all these years. I have no answer. It was amongst a box of untouched, unplayed WEA promos from ’72. I know exactly where they came from too. The local sales guy, Jack Riehle. The heavens above walked me into his life, and I think I became his human recycling bin. Jack would dump trunk loads on 7′s my way regularly. The senses would throttle into overload each time. I’d pull out the obvious ones then box up the rest, for a rainy day.
