Don Bennett ‎– Don't Wanna Spoil Your High [full track] (1977)

The failing New York Times is good for some things besides spreading fake news about our fabulous president. (Sarcasm alert.) For instance, there was a lovely article in their Sunday magazine recently about a fire ten years ago at a storage facility for music master tapes. The article is highly recommended for patient music fans with time on their hands. (It comes in at about 10,000 words.) 

The Day the Music Burned, by Jody Rosen, published some time in June, 2019. I'm sure that you can still find it somewhere. It's the definitive article about an important subject, so it will be around for years. 

Of course it's terrible when masters for top stars are destroyed, but "top stars" are almost always identified by the money that they made for the company. Mr. Rosen is sensitive enough to notice that many real musical treasures do not make a dime for anyone, and in fact they may disappear without being heard by more than a couple of dozen people. This record by Don Bennett is Rosen's example of a record whose master was lost in the fire, and whose existence is now dependent on the loving care of the few record collectors who possess a copy of the vinyl release. 

I could go on, but that's enough to outline the problem. It's impossible to win the fight to preserve the entire cultural patrimony of the world, whether it is Buddha statues in Afghanistan or silent movies or recorded music. It's the same for the world as it is for us as individuals: one way or another, you lose all of your shit in the end. I was lucky. I lost all of my shit in a divorce, sparing myself the trauma of a big fire or the embarrassment of having ungrateful family throw it all away after I died. I've always been a lucky guy.