Digging into Musical History

Browsing in the Rough Trade Shop (Photo credit: Lee Jordan)

         
             The Battle of the Bands posts that I've been doing at my blog Tossing It Out have been dredging up memories for me.  I discussed some of this in the two posts preceding this current post.  Most of us attach personal memories to certain songs from our past.   Finding songs to use in my "Battle" posts have prompted me to do some research on the backgrounds of the songs and the artists performing them.  Since this musical history coincides with much of my personal history, a virtual mixtape of memories starts playing in my head to help me write my blog posts regarding this topic.

            This week for example I've used a Carole King / Gerry Goffin tune called "Snow Queen" which you can listen at Tossing It Out.   I had known this song from an old cutout album that I had bought back around 1971 or so.  I usually paid forty-nine cents to ninety-nine for albums on sale.  I didn't buy many albums at full record store cost back then.  I was always rather frugal.

           Sometimes I'd find albums by bands I was familiar with, but mostly there were artists that I didn't know.  Sometimes I'd recognize a name associated with other albums I owned and that would make me more interested in the mystery album that I was considering to buy.  Most of my album collection was probably purchased from the cut-out bins. Most of it was music that I liked.

            For one version of the Battle of the Bands song I used a cut from an album by Roger Nichols and the Small Circle of Friends.   This is an album of mostly cover songs with a couple of originals.   The group sounds a bit like Brasil 66, the Carpenters, Fifth Dimension or other groups in that vein.  I enjoyed the album when I was in college, but forty years later listening back I think I more greatly appreciate what the Nichols Trio was doing.  It's an album lushly orchestrated with some very nice vocal work.

            But don't let me digress.

            My point as far as memoir goes is that by digging these old albums out and listening to them closely I can recall times when I heard this music before.  The melodies and sometimes the words swirl through my head as a wash of memories flood my mind.  The music stretches from my past into the future of that past time.  I remember prompted by the tracks on the vinyl.

           I suppose I would compare listening to a once familiar album to paging through a scrapbook or photo album looking at the images and remembering.  

            You might want to check out some of the videos on YouTube by Roger Nichols and the Small Circle of Friends.

             Here are links to a few of their songs:

I'll Be Back

Cocoanut Grove

Don't Go Breaking My Heart


            Did you buy cut-out versions of albums?    What interesting albums have you found in the cut-out bins?     Do you have memories associated with buying record albums or listening to them?

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Music Memories

Gramophone and records (Photo credit: GB_1984)

           Ever since I started participating in the Battle of the Bands event on my blog Tossing It Out I've been reminiscing about music.  Listening to the tunes I used to listen to back in younger days puts me in a different frame of mind.  When I pick out albums from my collection to spin on my record turntable it's like listening to an oldies station where I get to choose the playlist. 


            I may have purchased a few LP's in the 1990's and several in the 80's, but most of my records were bought in the 70's and 60's with most of those acquired prior to 1975.   My record collection would probably be considered vintage.

             There's something to be said for having old vinyl.  This probably accounts for a big part of the popularity of owning old records.  Some audiophiles will insist that vinyl sounds better than any other medium of music recording.    Having spent many hours listening to LP's I can agree with that as long as the records are in good condition.  For me, the memories evoked by vinyl records make them like gold when digging back for memoir material.

            I've got my turntable hooked to a small sound system in the bedroom across from my writing office.  Most weekdays I've been listening to one to a half dozen or so records.  With something like 200 to 300 albums in my  bedroom closet it takes a while to get through listening to them all.  And I tell  you, this listening has been bringing back many memories.

             In the weeks to come I'll be posting more often about records and music in general.  Some of this will be in correlation with the Battle of the Bands posts.  Other posts will be for reasons that will become evident in a few weeks.  I hope that you readers enjoy music as much as I do and will share your own memoir memories in the weeks to come.

            Does music stir memories when you hear it?   Is there a special era of music that taps into your past more than others?   Do you think the sound of vinyl is superior to other mediums of recording?  

             

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Sugar Shoppe: A Confused Aural Memory

         When it comes to writing memoir or just reminiscing about one's past, the internet is hard to beat for putting things in perspective in a quick and convenient fashion.   I've been able to trace obscure parts of my lineage, look up places I've been in the past, or pinpoint dates I was confused about.

          A case in point is when I was looking for information regarding my current Battle of the Bands post at Tossing It Out.   And let me stop here for a moment while you click over to read that post if you'd like.  For those who don't know about the Battle of the Bands posts, they are part of a blog event that occurs on the 1st and 15th of each with a handful of bloggers participating.   Anyone is welcome to join in if they like.   If you join us, let us know and we will add your link to our list   My Battle of the Bands post today includes a song by the group The Sugar Shoppe.

         Now back to the story.  Somewhere in my hazy past of younger days, I seem to recall having heard The Sugar Shoppe's rendition of an old song from the 1920's called "Poor Papa".  I was certain that I had heard the song very late one night (or more probably in wee hours of the morning) sometime in February 1966 as I was traveling with my parents to Rochester, New York.  As we neared our destination I listened to the radio station that my father had tuned into.  They were playing some great tunes.  I thought "Poor Papa" was one that I heard during that cold snowy night of driving.

          As it turns out this could not have been possible.  According to all the information I've uncovered on the internet, the vocal group was not formed until 1967 and the album that "Poor Papa" appeared on came out in 1968.   There is no way that I could have heard that song on that night in 1966.

          It would have been in the summer after my junior year of high school when I heard "Poor Papa" played on some radio broadcast that I no longer remember.  I doubt whether it was played on the regular top 40 AM radio station that I would have normally listened to back then.  By this time I was usually finding FM stations that were broadcasting occasional pop and rock music.  Most of the FM radio in Knoxville, Tennessee was Muzak--FM had not particularly caught on at that time.  Still a few FM stations were experimenting with their playlists.

         Wherever it was I had heard "Poor Papa", the song captivated me.   It put me in mind of the New Vaudeville Band hit "Winchester Cathedral" that had come out a couple years before.   I liked the old timey sound.  And it didn't hurt that the production value of the record was very fine.  I discerned that The Sugar Shoppe was probably a very fine group on the basis of hearing that one song.

            Once Christmas neared, I turned in my gift wish list to my mother.   This was a tradition for me.  Each year I'd make a sensible list of things I wanted for Christmas and since I prudently kept the list within a modest budget, my mother usually got everything that I had put on the list.  By high school my lists consisted almost exclusively of record albums that I wanted.   For the Christmas of 1968 my list had selections like The Beatles White Album,  Iron Butterfly's In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Creedence Clearwater Revival's debut album, and The Sugar Shoppe's album.

           I'm almost surprised that my mother was able to locate the album by The Sugar Shoppe in East Tennessee.  But somehow she found it.  She was good at that.  Rarely was there an album that I asked for that she didn't find.   As I had predicted the Sugar Shoppe album was as good as the one song I had heard--even better in fact.  There was a nice mix of modern music done very well by an outstanding vocal group.

          I still have the album in fact.  It's in excellent condition and plays very well.  In the past few months I've hooked up my turntable in the bedroom across from the room that I use for my office.  I've been digging back into my vinyl collection and listening again after decades of those records sitting dormant on a shelf.  Listening to the Sugar Shoppe album is what prompted me to include a cut by them in one of my Battle of the Bands posts.   I began investigating YouTube and found that the song "Privilege" had videos for versions by two artists.   I had my song and now I could share the music of this great neglected group with my blog readers.

          We'll find out what the response is in this episode of Battle of the Bands.  If you haven't visited the post I'll give you another chance.   Click here and take a listen.  What did you think of the song?   Which version did you like best?   Did you vote?

           Do you use search engines to jog your memory about things in your past?   Was there ever a time when you heard a song and decided that you just had to have the album it came from?   Do you still own any recordings that you owned in high school or before?

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The Ultimate Roller Coaster

English: The 1/500 scale model for the Euthanasia Coaster, a hypothetical roller coaster that kills its passengers, made by Julijonas Urbonas, on display at the Trinity College in Dublin during the HUMAN+ exhibition. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Low-resolution photograph of the scale-model of the Euthanasia Coaster, a concept by Julijonas Urbonas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

          Julijonas Urbonas has designed a euthanasia coaster which is a roller coaster that is designed to kill its riders. Perhaps going out with a thrill might be better than being hung, electrocuted, or shot, but this is certainly a crazy concept for someone to sit around and concoct. Who in the world would come up with such a crazy idea as this? Well, I suppose I might.

        When I was young I feared riding roller coasters. At about age six I would watch my younger sister, who was four or five, ride amusement park coasters with my mother while I cowardly stayed behind with my father who was no fan of thrill rides. I felt equal parts of embarrassment and envy as I looked on as she seemed to have no problem with the big scary looking rides. Maybe she was too young to be afraid. Keep in mind this was in a time when there were more lax attitudes toward safety issues. No height or age restrictions on roller coasters and no seat belts in cars.

        By the time I was nine or so I felt brave enough to venture onto the Giant Dipper Coaster at Belmont Park in San Diego. After that I was hooked on roller coasters. I would face each ride with a sense of trepidation, but would leave with the exhilaration of the accomplishment after the ride was over. Riding roller coasters and thrill rides became something I would look forward to when summer came each year.

         After my family moved to East Tennessee when I was starting high school, roller coasters were essentially a memory for me. There were no amusement parks nearby with a big roller coaster. But my memories often took me back to the fun I had riding that coaster in San Diego--the only coaster I had ridden so far in my life at that time.

         When I was in college and often spending leisurely mind-meandering hours with friends, our conversations would at times go off into crazy thinking and my imagination could easily wander into the realms of the absurd. A roller coaster pipedream was one of the wilder thoughts my mind would revisit many times.

         My friends and I would spend a great deal of our free time driving and hiking through the nearby Great Smoky Mountains. I developed a real love of those mountains and the spectacular scenery. Somehow at sometime I began to envision a roller coaster that would be built through the Smokies--a ride that would combine thrills with beautiful scenery and go for forty miles or more and last for a couple of hours. This would be an ultimate roller coaster unlike anything humankind had ever known. A wild and crazy yo-yo of a trip up and down mountains through a seeming endless expanse of forest.

        Of course I was only focused on the thrill involved and not taking into consideration ecological issues. I was seeing no incongruity of a roller coaster traversing one of the more visited and more beautiful of the national parks of the United States. It was one of those deranged notions of youth.   Essentially unproductive conceptually, but promising a great deal of jolting speedy excitement.

        Or would a roller coaster like that kill you? Thinking back on this fantastic notion I realize that a roller coaster ride lasting for an hour or more could be very taxing to the body and the mind. There would be no getting off a ride like that once it got started. If the riders didn't die from that sort of a ride they probably would be in great pain.

       On the other hand there have been people who have participated in marathon coaster experiences in order to win a valuable prize. If those people survive that experience, why couldn't people also survive a multi-mile coaster through the mountains of a national park?

        Oh, the crazy dreams we have sometimes. Some of you might say, "Dreams you have!" pointing at me. Okay, I concede I get some crazy ideas at times. But a euthanasia coaster? I never thought of that.

         Not intentionally at least.

         Do you like roller coasters and other thrill rides? What is your favorite coaster or thrill ride? Had you heard about the "euthanasia coaster"? If you were going to be executed would you rather ride the death coaster or would you prefer another method? What do you think about a roller coaster ride through a national park or some other extended coaster experience?


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In My Life with the Beatles

Rubber Soul (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 
        Anyone in my generation who was not affected by the Beatles must have been living on a desert island or something of that nature.  The past 50 years have been so acutely touched by the influence of Beatlemania and the drastic culture quake that shook up the world with its coming.   In the future historians may even label our time as the Beatles Era.

           Who could miss all of the attention the media has been giving the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the Beatles to America?   We'd just gotten past the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy--the date that anyone with an awareness of what was going on at that time has indelibly etched in their memory.  Since the arrival of the Beatles came so soon after the assassination of JFK, the two events seem to be somehow tied to one another.   We moved from sorrow and disbelief to elation and anticipation of things to come.

           Most in my age group probably saw the Beatles when they debuted on the Ed Sullivan Show.   Some of you may have been somewhat cynical about those mop topped boys from the UK.  I know I was.   My younger sister was totally caught up in the fervor of the fad.  I made fun of her for getting so excited about it all, yet I watched with a curiosity.  It was hard not to like the Beatles and the music really was kind of catchy.

           After their films A Hard Day's Night and Help! came out I started counting myself as a fan.  My sister still was the one who owned their albums, but I was now listening to them as much as she was.  I was bitten by the bug of the whole British Invasion and began to keep track of which groups were doing what songs.    So much good and intriguing music was pervading the airwaves and starting to end up in our record collections.

           I was still in junior high school and living in Northern Indiana.    I began to listen faithfully to Chicagoland AM radio station WLS and was buying 45 rpm records of the hits that appealed to me.  Not the Beatles though.  This group still belonged to my sister.  I listened to them, but my sister owned the records, fan mags, and other memorabilia.    She even went with one of her friends to a Beatles concert in Chicago.  She said later that she couldn't hear the music for all the screaming in the audience.

          Then something happened to turn things topsy turvy.  As Christmas approached in 1965 there were reports that the Beatles next album would be a radical change from anything that had come before.   I was there by my radio on the day they began debuting songs from the album.  The reports had been right.  This was now a new sound--a deeper, more complex Beatles.  The song "Michelle" received repeated airplay.  The new album Rubber Soul was my top request on my Christmas list for that year and my mother got it for me.  

          I was now the boss of the Beatles in our household.  My sister grew out of her infatuation with the boys.  The pictures came down off her walls and she became interested in other music.  From that album on,  every Beatle album thereafter became a revered part of my ever growing collection of vinyl LP's.  So many fond memories are connected with the hours I spent listening to that music.

         Today the music of the Beatles still sounds good to me and holds a special place in my heart.   My tastes have expanded far beyond the Beatles and I have a much more diverse range of musical interest.   The Beatles impacted so many others in the same way as they did me.   The nature of music and entertainment still remains influenced by their music.   The adjective "Beatlesque" has often been used to describe certain musical styles that are reminiscent of what the lads from Liverpool did in their time.

          Like them or not, the Beatles impacted history in a notable way.  And they certainly influenced me and the way I listen to music.

           Were you around when the Beatles arrived on the cultural scene?   What did you think of the Beatles?    Do you like their music now?     How much do you think the Beatles and their music will be remembered a hundred years from now?

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Attention Stonewall Jackson Relatives and Fans

English: A portrait of Stonewall Jackson (1864, J. W. King) located in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     
         All of us have some claim to fame with a celebrity or historical personage in our family trees.  We might hear an allusion in rumors or detailed stories and pictures of a famous person who preceded us or even might be still living.  It can be fun and even a source of a certain amount of pride to have bragging rights about so and so who did such and such.   Especially when that person has a fairly reasonable amount of fame.

        Among my familial precursors have been an officer in the Revolutionary War, a U.S. congressman, a federal judge, a state governor, and many other influential men and women who shaped the destiny of the United States.    The city of Jackson Hole, Wyoming is named after one of my relatives.   One of our greatest claims to fame is our relationship to the famous Confederate general Thomas Jonathan Jackson who is best known as "Stonewall" Jackson.   A DNA test has verified that I descend from the same descendant as Stonewall.

         The Jackson Brigade is a genealogical and historical organization that was founded in 1992.  This group is open for membership to any descendants of John and Elizabeth (Cummins) Jackson and other interested persons.  Anyone who is a Civil War buff or a fan of Stonewall Jackson is welcome to join at a nominal charge of $20 per year.

         Members receive four issues of the historical and Jackson news publication Jackson Brigade Quarterly.  They also receive free queries concerning genealogy and history.   Members are welcomed to attend the Jackson Brigade Reunions which are held every two years.  This year's reunion will be at Jackson’s Mill, Lewis County, West Virginia and the Surrounding Area on Friday July 25 and Saturday July 26, 2014.   If you are a member of the Brigade you must register before June 20th.

You Don't Have to be Related to Stonewall to be a Brigade Member

         Anyone one is eligible to join.  This is a genealogical and historical organization. 

         If you are interested in becoming a member of this organization or would like more information, you can visit the Jackson Brigade Website.   We'd like to see new members join the organization.   If you know or think that Stonewall Jackson is somewhere in your family tree please check out the Jackson Brigade.  If you are interested in the Civil War or just want to support a good historical organization then become a member.

         I hope we hear from you and most of all we hope you will join the Jackson Brigade.

         Are you or do you suspect you are related to Stonewall Jackson?   What famous people are in your lineage?   Do you belong to any genealogical or historical organizations?

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Do I Dare Tackle the #atozchallenge on This Blog?

   
       The title question is one that I posed on my dream blog A Faraway View--should I enter the blog into the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge?   For those who don't know what I'm talking about you can click on the link for complete information, but in brief the Challenge entails blogging every day in the month of April except Sundays using daily prompts of each successive letter of the alphabet.

        And now I pose the same question for this memoir blog that you're currently reading.

       Yes, the Challenge is fun, but it's a bit of work if you're keeping up four blogs in the Challenge like I've done over the past couple of years.  Then on top of that I'm the one the started this Challenge.   I've got a fantastic backup A to Z Team of support so that alleviates a lot of the work for me, but still since it's a networking Challenge, it can be rather time-consuming if done right.  Like all of you, my time is limited.

       One of the main points of participating in the A to Z Challenge is to build up blog following and gain new readers.   Each year I've added the following on my secondary blogs, but it doesn't appear that I do much in gaining readership.  What I may be doing in actuality is diffusing readership among my multiple blogs rather than keeping a focus on one primary blog.   This could have its advantages, but I'm not sure those advantages are worth the efforts I put into my blogs.

       So I'm pondering where to go with this.   I'm preparing my posts at Tossing It Out--that blog stays in the Challenge since that is my anchor blog.  Perhaps when I finish those posts I'll do posts for another blog and so on.  Ideally all my blogs would be in the Challenge and I would find ways to grow all four more efficiently.

       Don't get me wrong in what I'm saying here.  The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge is one of the best ways I've seen to attract an audience to ones blog and network into a strong community.  If you are interested in building your own blog and have never tried the Challenge I encourage you to do so.  Thousands have participated so far and many have done so repeatedly.   There is a very strong A to Z following.    I think all bloggers should try to complete at least one April Challenge to see what it does for them.

       The 2014 Challenge will be the 5th year.   If you want more information about it then visit the official Blogging from A to Z April Challenge Blog.   You'll find a sign up list there.   And if you want to sign up to do more than one blog you won't be the only one.  Many have entered multiple blogs and finished.  As one of those who has done so I assure you that it can be done.

         If I keep this up I'm going to talk myself into entering more than one blog again.

         Have you signed up for this year's Blogging from A to Z Challenge?    Have you participated in the past?   If you aren't doing it, what is it that keeps you from doing so?    Do you have more than one blog?

       

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