Sonic Rites

100 Albums That Shaped Life's Soundtrack

I came of age largely without grandparents. My paternal grandfather passed away in 1927, my maternal grandfather in 1931. Though my father’s mother died when I was only two, my mother’s mother lived nearly a century, reaching 98, which meant I knew her well into my adult years.

Summer meant trips to visit Granny Cox at her home outside Atlanta. Every visit followed the same cherished ritual: a shopping excursion to Lenox Square that we all anticipated with excitement. I was seven years old in the summer of 1968, and we made our usual pilgrimage to Powder Springs and the inevitable stop at Lenox. While my grandmother, mother, and sister browsed through clothing racks and shoe displays, I drifted toward the record store, Franklin Records, if memory serves.

My saved allowance was practically radiating heat through my pocket. I needed to buy an album. And there it was: a Beatles record with a mesmerizing cover; a psychedelic collage crowded with faces. I knew the Beatles represented everything cool, and I desperately wanted to be cool too. So, I made my purchase.

That first album bought with my own money became the one I treasured most, the beginning of a relationship with music that would span my lifetime. It was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. What seven-year-old walks out of a store with that as their inaugural album? This one did.

At sixty-five, I still turn to that record (and countless others) for comfort and connection. For years, I’ve contemplated assembling a book about the albums that have shaped my life, but I always held back. I feared that the moment I finished, some transformative new release would upend everything, forcing me to start over. But after witnessing a half-century of upheaval in the music industry, that concern feels quaint now. The album as an artistic statement, and as a snapshot of where a musician stands at a particular moment, seems to have faded into history.

For the past year or so, I’ve been working on this project in whatever spare moments I can find, and I’m approaching the finish line. This isn’t your standard catalog of “greatest” or “most important” albums. Instead, it’s a deeply personal collection of records that have left their mark on me at different points along my path. I expect to complete it by year’s end, and I hope you’ll find as much pleasure in reading it as I’ve found in writing it.

Watch for Sonic Rites: 100 Albums That Shaped Life’s Soundtrack in early 2026.