Ron Holden

I’m wondering how long I can continue to use cassette tapes. I have no choice really, I can’t possibly replace all this stuff with MP3 equivalents because my best guess is that 70% of it isn’t available. I don’t have the money to buy what is available, and if I start now and continue for the rest of my life, I won’t have time to convert the stuff manually, however efficient the software.

There was a column not long ago in the Gazette by someone who told of his inability to throw anything out, and among useless artifacts in his collection was a Sony Walkman. And the book I’m reading now, called Where Were You When … The Music Played? Features a picture on page 131 (year 1979) of the original Walkman, clunky looking thing, and asserts that it has been “superseded by the diginal iPod and MP3 player.” Indeed it has, I suppose, but I still have a Walkman (3 actually, one of which I have yet to open) and I still use it. And it’s getting so I feel ridiculous every time I have to switch tapes. But what can I do? People on the bus, they stare at me, or, actually not, they look away in embarrassment.

Ron Holden is on tape number 175.

Ron Holden

• Love You So – A generic love song but decent early 60s soul. Very early 60s – the summer of 1960. This was Holden’s only hit, credited, according to Whitburn, to Ron Holden with the Thunderbirds.