When I was young right up until the summer before seventh grade, I didn't know much about rock. The stuff being played on the radio gave me a headache. I was aware of the Beatles although I didn't understand why the girl around the corner was swooning over them. I hated opera music that had too many high notes although I liked the "E-vee pai-ah-chi. Laugh, clown laugh" stuff that my mother was obsessed with. I liked "Oklahoma (with the wind rushing down through the plains)" and the West Side Story album. The classical music I was exposed to in music appreciation classes was alright. Thanks to my step-grandparents, I appreciated Lawrence Welk and his bubbles. I loved the Shel Silverstein tunes my dad sang to me. My mother's father was a Johnny Cash fan. I could sing "I Walk the Line" and "A Boy Named Sue." He watched Bonanza too and so I knew the theme music from that show. Glenn Campbell crooning "See the tree how big it's grown and friend it hasn't been been too long since you've gone..." was what qualified as a love song for me. I knew all the songs that my father's first girlfriend liked. I sang "Fool on the Hill" with feeling, stumbled through "Quanta la mayra" or whatever it was, and wailed through "Leaving on a Midnight Train for Georgia." Tons of jingles written for commercials rounded out my musical repertoire. I liked elevator music too-- that tuneless stuff most people refer to nowadays as dentist office musak.
I think it was the summer before seventh grade when I became convinced that I had to start liking rock or else. I forced myself to listen to the tinny stuff on the radio. (Or maybe the radio was tinny). I spent Saturday in the Park, grooved on a Sunday Afternoon, memorized Steppenwolf's "I'm not your stepping stone," and did a passable rendition of "The Monster Mash." I tap-danced to "Singing in the Rain," solo'ed the Beatles "Yesterday" on a stage, and wished they all could be California Girls much to the disgust of my friend the Beatles fanatic. W-ABC became my mantra. Later, it was 92-FLY. I was a quick study. A couple years of piano lessons had me eager to learn "Moon River," "The Swanee River," and "Shenendoah." Underneath the plastic hippie exterior, I was anything but.
In high school, I learned to play guitar. I had a few lessons and then I picked it up on my own. I liked to play folk music-- Peter, Paul & Mary, Simon & Garfunkel-- and I fooled around with things like "Dueling Banjos." I was in the Liturgy group and learned a bunch of perky little Roman Catholic post-Vatican 2 songs. I discovered John Denver and Bob Dylan. I fooled around with flamenco and old protest songs. One of my favorite memories was playing guitar along with a guy playing his mandolin on the train. After the five dollar bag of oregano came pot. One of my daily get-high buddies introduced me to The Allman Brothers, Aztec Two-Step, Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa, Chaka Khan, Rufus, Purple Haze, Jethro Tull, David Bowie. There was more I am sure. Those are the ones that stood out and I still love them today.
In college, I had some get-high buddies who were into Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmy Buffett, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, New Riders of the Purple Sage. I got into Walt Disney's Fantasia, The Moody Blues, Santana, Black Sabbath, Maria Muldare. There was also blues for the first time, jazz for the first time, and German Beer Drinking Songs. I liked the German Beer Drinking Songs. I didn't know any German but that didn't stop me. More folk music, more rock, Chick Corea, Disco and House, Grease. I was a music whore. The student radio station contributed to my madness. A bunch of old records were being discarded and I got to have them free. And there were Polkas. And fun little Polish songs like "In Heaven There is no Beer" and "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Ice Cold Beer." Old songs, new songs, obscure songs, stuff no one else wanted to listen too-- I wallowed in all of it.
After college there was the Bob Marley and the Wailers concert, the blues fest featuring Z.Z. Top, the jazz fest featuring Chick Corea and me jamming in the park with a guy who said he played with Larry Correalle who played with Chick Corea, two Marshall Tucker concerts, Tina Turner concert, Bob Dylan concert, Fred Small in concert, The Hooters concert, Two Nice Girls at an old hall, The Indigo Girls twice or maybe three times, Jimmy Buffett (he was drunk and so were we!), the bluegrass fest, and Steve Marley at the Golden Gate Park. I found John Prynne, Long John Baldry, Joni Mitchell, B.B. King, R.E.M., The Clash, Talking Heads. I was introduced to Phillip Glass, Hikari Oe, Holly Near, Ronnie Gilbert, Jeff Ampolsk.
Then came Sirius satellite radio. I listen to Jimmy Buffett's station Margueritaville, the alternative station, the punk station, the techno station, two jazz stations, the non-vocal classical station, and blues, along with Raw Comedy, Blue Collar Comedy and the electronica spaced out stuff. I don't listen to opera except for once in a great while (I still hate really high notes and fix my stereos so that the bass is loud and the treble is hardly existent), haven't watched Lawrence Welk in years, and have left the post Vatican 2 ditties and Glenn Campbell in the past. The rest of it I still like. And there is more. I've got lots of music, although I lost the stuff that the college radio station gave me in a bad house fire. I haven't picked up the guitar much since that house fire. Perhaps I will now. I still got the music in me and my hands are itching to play much in the same way that my feet itch to dance.
spike
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