Several years ago, I realized what a bummer it is that I will never be able to hear what Jimi Hendrix sounded like with fresh ears. I remember hearing him for the first time, and it was good, but by that time, Hendrix was a practically a genre and certainly a cliche. I can only imagine the joy of hearing him for the first time in the late 60s, before anyone was bored of Hendrix-pastiche, when was hearing him in the context of his actual time: Johnson in office and civil rights moving, The Beatles best records just out, and Blonde on Blonde, and Pet Sounds. It must have been shocking and amazing and wonderful to hear something so powerful and so different and so right.

And that’s just Hendrix. What about Duke Ellington, or Louie Armstrong, or Woody Guthrie, or the Stanley Brothers, or Sinatra, or Elvis?

I have this fantasy of creating something like those experiences for myself: A nutty music buff, or team of them, puts together a big playlist–maybe 200 songs–for each half-decade of the 20th century. I’d have the soundtracks of 20 impossibly hip Americans from different eras. I’d listen to them exclusively, immerse myself in them, one at a time for a few weeks at a time, in chronological order, for a year.

I think I’d stand a chance of really hearing the newness of Hendrix, and all the rest of them, in that context. I would love to try. Any nutty music buffs out there want to take on the project? I will put my ears in your hands.