Letting the Sunshine In
Receiving kindness and honouring it
I’m back in your inbox a little earlier than usual to share my responses to several writers here who were kind enough to nominate me for the Sunshine Blogger Award. Answering the below questions is a way to share just a little more about myself and while it’s a bit outside of my comfort zone, it's about time I took the opportunity to get personal.
Regular programming here resumes on December 6 with an essay on the Christmas music of the Carpenters and then there will be more two pieces before the end of the year: one more look at the sounds of season on December 20 and then a round-up of 2025 on December 30.
Until next time, may good listening be with you all!
Letting the Sunshine In
By: Robert C. Gilbert
I’ve written quite a few times before that the best music writing is here on Substack. No matter what kind of music you dig, someone is writing about it here and writing about it with passion, knowledge and love. What makes being here so rewarding is not necessarily the convergence of talent on Substack, but that the MusicStack community is a collegial one full of the best kind of people. We cheer each other on and we celebrate each and every success. I guess that’s why it’s been gratifying reading over the past week many pieces related to the Sunshine Blogger Award, in which writers nominate others to recognize their work.
It was with deep pleasure then that
of the Vinyl Room, a publication about the passion of recording collecting and listening, , a writer of deeply perceptive and eclectic essays that you can check out here and of Analog Encounters, a writer and publication I’ve just discovered, all nominated me for the Award and posed a series of 11 questions.As I’m a naturally shy person who sometimes is uneasy with getting too personal here, the prospect of answering these questions is daunting but I thought, in order to honour kindness, that I would get out of my comfort zone. So here goes…
Andres’ Questions
What’s your earliest musical memory?
It must have been when I was very, very young—I guess no more than three. I am eating ice cream in a Scarborough apartment and out of the corner of my eye is the cover of Elvis Presley’s soundtrack to G.I. Blues which my father was either in the middle of playing or had just played.
Was there a specific artist, band, record or event that inspired you to start writing about music?
Reading liner notes, especially those by Nat Hentoff, Ira Gitler and Ralph J. Gleason, as I began to collect jazz recordinsg in my late teens as well as listening to Gary Giddins throughout Ken Burns’ PBS documentary on jazz were both inspiring. I did a little bit of music writing back in 2002 and 2003 but didn’t really do it with any seriousness until 2021 when I launched my newsletter here.
What’s an album you could write treatises on?
Part of the fun of writing here is to go deep on albums that haven’t received that level of attention. One album I hope to write a long-form essay about is the Blues Project’s Projections, released in 1966, a deeply eclectic album that symbolizes, to me, why that year was the beginning of a golden age in music- and record-making. It’s not a perfect album but its range is daunting.
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I’ve ever received was indirectly through watching an interview of writer and critic Nelson George. He discussed his writing process and that he writes by hand, the reason being that writing by hand forces him to take his time and really think through what he wishes to write, and then doing an edit when tranferring it to the computer. My writing process comes directly from that.
What’s the most unusual place you have ever written from?
As I was walking from a bus stop to my parent’s place earlier this year, I grabbed a seat in the shelter to jot down the beginning of a paragraph that I needed to get down before I did anything else.
If you could go on tour with one artist or band, current or past, dead or alive, who would you choose and why?
The Beatles, either the shows they gave in New York and Washington, D.C. in February 1964 or their first full tour of the United States and Canada later that year. It would be been exhausting but unforgettable. A chance to see history up close and the glory of Beatlemania before it got tiresome and wearying.
Name a concert you were lucky to witness and one you regret having missed.
I was lucky to be able to be at one of the performances by the New York Philharmonic of Leonard Bernstein’s 3rd symphony, Kaddish, with Leonard Slatkin conducting and with Jeremy Irons as the speaker in 2017 as part of the Philharmonic’s tribute to the centenary of Bernstein's birth. It was a deeply moving experience, especially as it took place in the hall where Bernstein conducted the orchestra during most of his time as the Philharmonic’s music director.
In terms of a concert I regret missing, I wished I had gone to see Simon and Garfunkel when they played Toronto in 2003. The concert would have been on the last Sunday in November of that year and I decided not to get a ticket because it was the night before the start of another work week. What made the decision sting was just five days before the show, I was canned from my job.
How would you define success?
I would paraphrase Joel McCrea from Sam Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country here. Success means being able to walk into one’s own house justified.
What’s your main guilty pleasure?
I don’t necessarily believe in guilty pleasures but I suppose some would feel my affinity for singers like Jerry Vale, Dick Haymes, Robert Goulet, Vic Damone and others of that ilk is something to be feel bashful about.
A hill you’ll die on?
That Elvis made his best recordings in Nashville from 1960 and 1968. They are the ones that most clearly and persuasively express his ambition to be an artist for everyone. He was at peak voice and accompanying him were the most accomplished musicians he worked with during his whole career. I wish Sony would reissue them so they could be re-discovered.
When all is said and done, how would you like to be remembered?
A flippant answer here would be to say that I hope to be remembered as a Renaissance man. An honest answer would be how I think most would answer: a good husband, brother, uncle, son and friend that tried his best and succeeded more often than he failed.
wordsworthesq’s Questions
What one thing do you think largely influenced who you are?
My father, who inspired me to be curious and to love music, movies, books and sports, and continues to do so.
What is the one thing you are passionate about that you feel loneliest in loving (like a song or movie no one else seems to love)?
Cannonball Adderley’s recording of ‘74 Miles Away’ from 1967. It was written by Joe Zawinul, who held the piano chair in Adderley’s band for most of the sixties, and is one of the most important and prescient jazz performances I have ever heard. The first, big bold step forward in jazz fusion, jazz-rock or however else you wish to term it.
What one question do you always want to answer but are rarely asked?
I’m a fairly reticent guy so I often appreciate when I’m not asked a lot of questions. I suppose I wish I was asked more about what I have been listening to that’s good.
You find a $5/10/20 bill on the ground and can do whatever without feeling guilt about whose money it is. What do you do with it?
I’m heading to the local thrift store with the bill in my pocket to see if there are any used records I can buy with it.
You are your own nation. What is your national anthem?
Ray Charles’ 1960 recording of ‘New York is My Home.’
You can build any house you like. What piece of art (album, painting, poem, movie) do you give to the architect and say ‘“draw on this for inspiration?”
I would suppose Carole King’s Tapestry not only because of it appears to be a loft where King and cat are photographed on the cover but there’s also a comfort to the music on the album that I think should be present in a home. It should be a place to relax, unwind, and to pursue one’s hobbies and passions.
If you ate Oreo cookies as a kid, did you eat them as is, licking the middle or, like me, starting with the wafters and combining the centers up into one ginormous ball and eating them that way?
My method was twisting the top and bottom wafer free and then gnawing off the center before eating the wafers.
What one childhood show, song, movie, PSA, etc. can still give you goosebumps if you think of it, either good or bad?
The Sesame Street of my youth in the eighties: a beautiful, wonderous place with people and monsters who all felt very real to me. If I’m being honest, they still do.
When you are listening to music, how do you typically do that?
I am either in my record room listening to my vinyl and CD collection or streaming Spotify on my phone while working, walking, commuting, reading, etc. My day is a constant soundtrack.
What’s your favorite word, or words, and why?
As the son of a teacher, appreciating language was instilled in me daily. I like words that are expressive, unique and direct.
Why did you accept this nomination and these questions anyway?
Because it’s important to recognize kindness and to try to return it in kind.
Howard Salmon’s Questions
What album changed how you understood yourself?
A big turning point for me was hearing Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue after being obsessed with it for months wondering what it sounded like (this was way before streaming) and discovering it was every bit as good as I imagined. It made me realize I was bound to go my own way and follow the beat of my own drum, in my musical taste as well as life in general.
What is one piece of art you return to when you feel lost?
Listening to Elvis’ sixties recordings in Nashville never fail to cheer me up and made me feel better when I feel lost or blue. They are that foundational to me.
What is a musical opinion you hold that almost nobody agrees with?
Perhaps that Frank Sinatra was at his peak in about 1965.
Which childhood memory still shapes your creative life today?
Listening to my father’s records. That set me off well for a life-long cultural education.
What artist do you wish more people would give a fair chance?
Johnny Mathis, whom I consider one of the finest interpreters of popular song since the beginning of the LP era. He has yet to be honoured at the Kennedy Center which strikes me as a glaring omission. He only retired from performing earlier this year and is one of our last living links to a golden age in music. We should celebrate him while he is still here among us.
If you could preserve one cultural space forever, what would it be?
Smalls in New York. It’s an intimate, kind of dive-y jazz club in the Village. It’s one of the places I must visit every time I go to New York.
What song feels closest to “home”?
Any song that reminds me of my father’s records such as the Mills Brothers’ recording of ‘Basin Street Blues’ from 1958 or Tennessee Ernie Ford singing a spiritual with the Jordanaires backing him.
What’s one belief you outgrew — and what replaced it?
That appreciating jazz imparted a sense of superiority over the rabble. Replacing it was that jazz is a music for everyone.
When do you feel most like yourself?
When I’m out and about, whether that be on a date with my wife, at a coffee shop reading or on one of my solo trips to New York. I am a city guy who enjoys being on the move.
Which book or album would you place in a time capsule for the future?
Leonard Bernstein’s sixties cycle of the symphonies of Gustav Mahler. If I had to pick only one of them, I’m picking his 1966 recording of Symphony No. 7.
What made you decide to participate in this community in the first place?
I started my Substack in May 2021 after Ted Gioia shared that he was starting a publication here. It seemed like a good platform to use to see if I could fulfil my dream of writing about music.
Robert, thank you for taking the time to participate in this and for sharing so much of yourself in the process. Your answers carry the same sincerity and care that run through your music essays, and it’s a privilege to see the experiences and memories that shaped the voice so many of us admire. What comes through most strongly is how deeply rooted your love of music is in family, discovery, and connection—exactly the qualities that make this community feel alive. I’m grateful you stepped into this with such openness, and even more grateful you’re part of this space.
"Cannonball Adderley’s recording of ‘74 Miles Away’ from 1967"
I love this one too- thanks for getting it on my radar!