Tomorrow, July 25th., marks the 40th anniversary of the release of AC/DC's Back in Black. It was their first album with Brian Johnson on vocals. Johnson replaced Bon Scott who died in February of that same year. The first time I ever heard the album, I was at a place where you would never expect to hear AC/DC.

I was just two weeks away from turning 12. I went to a Catholic grade school in Carbondale PA. Our church had a youth group where are the kids from the Catholic school, as well as the Catholic kids that went to public school, would get together one night a month and take part in fun activities as well as learning a little bit about our religion.

We would all get to the school early and hang out outside talking before entering the school. The week AC/DC's Back in Black was released, one of the kids from our group, John Caporali, who tragically died just months later in a motorcycle accident, showed up for youth group with his huge boombox. He told us all to quiet down that we had to hear the new cassette that he just bought.

So here we are standing in the parking lot of a Catholic school when he pushed play and the bells from Hell's Bells start echoing all around the parking lot. I literally got chills on that first listen and was worried the nuns would come out yelling at us because of the lyrics of that song.  We listened to the first three songs or so before it was time to go inside. I knew right then I had to get that album.

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When my birthday arrived the following week, I used some of the money I got as birthday presents, rode my bike to the store, and came home with the Back in Black album. I was so excited to hear it that I was pulling the cellophane off the record before I even walked in the house.

I put it on the stereo and listen to the whole thing and its entirety. Over the years, I think I purchased that album four or five times. The initial time on album, a couple of times on cassette because it either got chewed up or melted in a car, and twice on CD.

After hearing the entire Back in Black album many times, I started buying older AC/DC cassettes. I have their entire library on CD and a few still on cassette somewhere.

According to Business Insider, Back in Black is still the 7th best selling album of all time. I would still rank Back in Black as one of my favorite albums of all time.

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