A deeper shade of Music

Jodi was away in Chicago for a night, so true to my custom when she leaves, I ate a meal she hates but I love (mussels this time) and got lost in music over some wine until the wee hours of the AM. I really went retro this last jam session, digging out some of the old CD's I still worship such as:

Urban Dance Squad
I Mother Earth - Scenery & Fish
Steve Vai - Flex'able
Joe Satriani - Surfing with the Alien

I was AGAIN struck by how good Scenery & Fish is as an album...IMHO, this unrecognized band and obscure album is on the list of the top 10 rock albums ever burned. It never lets me down...It's that good! If you can remember the late eighties, you surely remember Urban Dance Squad's "Deeper Shade of Soul" single that got all the MTV play. Trust me when I say it is the weakest track on this otherwise phenomenally diverse album. How these guys blew it is beyond me. I think the world was just not ready for the UDS sound at that time.
Blame it on Matt Pinfield for digging out Joe and Steve. I had just watched "Sound off" on HDNet where he interviewed Joe Satriani. Did you know that Joe taught Steve Vai how to play, as well as Kirk Hammet of Metallica? I thought Steve Vai was born guitar in hand, capable of writing a tune honoring his own birth mere moments after popping out. Nope...he may be a virtuoso, but Joe S. taught him everything he knows! "Surfing with the Alien" remains THE definitive instrumental rock guitar album because it was such a risk...and such a passion for Joe. Steve's "Call it Sleep" track on the "Flex'able" album nearly wore out two of my CD players from overuse. Besides Pink Floyd's entire album "The Final Cut", it is the only music I own capable of bringing me to tears when I listen...and there is not a single word in the entire song! That is power. He wrote it in high school about the death of a friend, and at 37, I have yet to accomplish anything meaningful. Go figure.