The first time I heard Sammy Hagar I was in the stacks of the Temple University library in 1996. I had my old-style, drug store, $6 dollar headphones plugged into my imitation Walkman, and his voice took me by surprise when it bore itself into my brain that fall. You see, back then I listened to the radio a lot, but I did it in unconventional ways. There were no podcasts, no digital radio like Pandora, and no satellite radio. There was just good old AM, good old FM, and an antenna to listen to either.
I wouldn’t often get the chance to listen at home, so I would get out blank audio cassettes, put them into the stereo, and press record. Then I would go back later and listen to them, trying to figure out who the singers and bands were that sang the songs I liked. There was no Shazam back then to figure it out, and the DJ didn’t always give the information, so it was a fact-finding expedition that often led to dead ends since I had no contacts to explain it all to me. But it didn’t stop me from loving the songs I loved from those tapes, from those radio days, some of which I still have no idea who sang to this day.
In those days I would also get caught up with those radio concerts, you know the kind that were edited so they could be on the radio, so they cut out all the good parts and a lot of the crowd noise too, plus even some of the show so it would fit in the alotted time the radio had planned for it. But back then it was the only way I got to listen to shows so I would copy them too. One time I found out there was an STP concert coming on, so I set the tape to copy it. I found out later, though, that it was one of those back-to-back show nights where they played two concerts in a row. The first show was STP, and the encore was a Sammy Hagar concert from 1983.
At first I almost stopped the tape after “Wicked Garden,” and the ensuing crowd noise that faded into the DJ announcing the next concert, but I listened to it anyway. I had nothing to lose, after all, since I was shelving all afternoon anyway and I needed something to keep me moving. Sammy Hagar fit the bill, and I had never heard anything like him before. Never having heard a lick of Van Halen I had no basis on which to base any opinion, so I was a clean slate. And he rocked my world.
From “Love or Money,” to “Heavy Metal,” to “Rise of the Animal,” the songs just kept getting heavier, harder, and more explosive. I was so mesmerized that I even sat down for a few minutes in the BS section (religious books) instead of shelving, just closed my eyes and listened intently. I knew then and there that I had to get my hands on every single thing that Sammy Hagar had ever produced. That’s how I am with everything that interests me. I go in full bore and I leave nothing out there on the table when I’m done. I went right out and got Van Halen’s “5150,” as well as their Greatest Hits, Volume 1 album, and I wore out both tapes.
It was love at first listen, and it hasn’t changed in the intervening years. Every time I hear “Heavy Metal,” or someone mentions Van Halen, or I think about that fall of 1996, I can’t help but smile. Because music is an integral part of my life, and every single artist, every single song has a story that I love to read over and over again. Hearing Sammy for the first time is one of those stories that keeps on gaining in each telling.
Sam
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