And people at the UCLA ethnomusicology department, kind of like me, would ponder universal truths.

Like, which came first?

Elmore James "Rattlesnake"

http://www.amazon.com/gp/recsradio/radio/B000002O90/ref=pd_krex_dp_001_010?ie=UTF8&track=010&disc=001

or

Mae Thornton's "Hound Dog"

http://www.amazon.com/Hound-Dog-Big-Mama-Thornton/dp/B000002OM2/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1294019665&sr=1-1

(written by Leiber & Stoller)

http://www.amazon.com/Leiber-Stoller-Story-Vol-Angeles/dp/B00028FL40/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1294019979&sr=1-2

(We already knew it wasn't Elvis Presley's)

But the students there had access to better record libraries and many times could figure things out a little faster than I could sitting in my crappy low rent apartment. This was long before the days of too many collections on long playing records, or if there were collections, you had to wait a long time and hope the right one arrived in the mail.  ¶ 1/02/2011 05:50:00 PM