Family Taste in Music

Public television is having another of its interminable fund-raisers by selling collections of older music on DVD. I hear songs that predate me, but that have lasted so long that they are familiar never the less:  "Tuxedo Junction," "Chattanooga Choo-choo," "Heart and Soul" which is really "Chopsticks" with words, and that real toe-tapper, "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B." I asked the family what they recalled and got this set of replies:

Hi Sue,

Ah yes, the musical memories (if only they were clearer). Elvis was just breaking onto the scene when I was a frosh as Siuslaw Hi, with "Hound Dog" and "Blue Suede Shoes." I also used to listen to Paul Anka ("Diana," " Put Your Head on my Shoulder," etc) while trying to lose the butterflies before football games – I was only about 100 lbs as a Frosh/Soph. Frankie Valli was also doing well a bit later (mid 60’s) with "Can’t Take My Eyes Off You," "By the  Time I Get to Phoenix" [actually that one is Glen Campbell] "Sherry Baby"… I was into the early 60’s rock and roll with its many “super stars” like Bill Haley and the Comets, Fats Domino, Roy Orbison, …. A couple of years ago when Pat and I were in Wash. D.C., we got to see the then-new musical about Frankie Valli – it was a great production.

Dean

Susan Adams Buckhart adds: There are so many: First (when we were really little), is  Mario Lanza's "Be My Love" - my dad was a great fan of opera and Mario Lanza was one of his early favorites. My dad had a great voice and he would stand in our bedroom doorway at night and sing "Be My Love" before we went to sleep. My dad was brought to tears many times listening to music. Other favorites were Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" and Sam Taylor and his orchestra's "Blue Mist" album. Then came The Platters, The Four Tops, The Temptations ( "My Girl"), Sam Cooke (anything he sang), Elvis ( I especially loved "Return to Sender "), the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Crosby, Stills and Nash (and Young), The Righteous Brothers ("Unchained Melody"), Chicago, The Beach Boys, a little Creedence Clearwater Revival, Ike and Tina Turner and Jefferson Airplane - whew - I think this pretty much takes me through high school........Almost every song or group holds some meaning: First real boyfriend, the year we spent having a foreign exchange student live with us, friends going to Vietnam - not all coming back. Music is emotional and my dad's love of music has passed down through us and to our kids. Cole is a music fanatic - everything from Frank Sinatra to serious Hip Hop. I'm now listening to Edith Piaf and Paula West.

David: Sue,right now I am pretty busy, but I would like to write up a little essay about the rock and roll dances and stars we went to, mostly in Coquille at the Community Center.  This included everybody from Wild Bill Haley to Fats Domino to Little Richard to Bobby Darin and more.  As memorable as the dances were, the trips down and back to Coquille from Coos Bay are legendary!  It is a wonder we survived.

Additionally, I actually played tennis with Ricky Nelson back in the summer of 1955 up in Portland at the Oregon State Championships held at the Irvington Club, the oldest tennis club in Oregon.  More on that later.

Dave

Sandy Sampson Jones:

Mom used to sing in the car: " My name is Abdul Abulbbo Amir," " I love to go swimming with  bow- legged women, and dive between their knees...." 

"Day-o (Banana Boat Song)" by Harry Belafonte - Mom liked it so much she ordered a copy, supposedly for me because I liked it too, but really, I think, for her.  

All the usual Christmas Carols - Jingle Bells, Silent Night, Hark the Herald Angels..., Frosty the Snow Man, etc.

Dad's western music, the Sons of the Pioneers,"All day I trace the barren waste without a taste of water, cool clear water...."

Kid's songs: "Are you Sleeping Brother John (the French words I cannot spell)," "Row Row Row your boat...."

When I was in high school the boy's basketball team came back with "Cherish" - it was big in San Francisco but didn't hit Oregon big for another several months

 Our neighbor Randy Hoberg came over to our house with the Beatles' album that had "I wanna hold your hand."  Mom [Milly] was pretty receptive to new music, but she didn't like that album, and later, one Beatles song she really disliked was Eleanor Rigby, probably because it paints a pretty bleak and depressing picture.  She did, however, like Janis Joplin -  "Oh lord won't you give me a Mercedes Benz, my friends all got Porsches, I must make amends."

When Brook showed up with some early rap, Mom didn't like that either.  

I am not a good person to ask about songs of our day, though, because I never really listened to much and remembered even less.  The radio reception was so-so and Mom always had KUGN or KPNW on.  

            [KUGN was country and western format. I had to ask Sandy, "What about 'Kentucky Babe?' " Sandy took piano lessons, and the teach Miss Bray would not allow a student to advance to a new song until she had mastered an old one. I think she forgot how long Sandy had been stuck on that thumping rhythm. When Sandy moved to Seattle and was living in my basement before she got an apartment, she had a Country Joe Cocker album, and Elton John's "Yellow Brick Road."  That one has worn pretty well.]

Sue adds:  The table-top radio in the kitchen was always playing. I knew the lyrics to "Tennessee Waltz" before I started school, and listened for "How Much is that Doggie in the Window."At school, we were taught Steven Foster tunes like "Camptown Races," and all the American patriotic songs, and Patty supplied the alternative lyrics, "Oh, say can you see/ any bedbugs on me/if you do, take a few/ cause I caught them from you," and "God bless my underwear," and "Be kind to you fine feathered friends/ 'cause a duck may be somebody's mother...." Elvis hit the big time when I was a fourth-grader, "Love me Tender," and the schoolboys announced that they were going to grow sideburns like his. Ricky Nelson was the next rage: "Hello Mary Lou," "Lonesome Town," "Travelin' Man," "Poor Little Fool," and "Dream Lover," each running about 2 minutes, 30 seconds. We got television in 1961, and saw "American Bandstand" that brought all the pop tunes from the doo-wop and girl groups. "Hootenanny" brought the return of folk music with the lyrics displayed on the screen, just follow the cursor, a bouncing ball; then Ed Sullivan brought us the Beatles, and Jim Morrison with the Who. I drove off to college with the car radio playing the Brothers Four, "Try to remember that kind of September..." and "Hang on Sloopy." Patty's neighbor, our classmate Denny Weaver, joined the Wailers, whose big hit was "Louie Louie."  After college, in Seattle, I discovered jazz and blues and rock-n-roll. The last rock concert I went to (in 1999) was Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. I met Jerry the next year, and he added his choices to the music cabinet: AC-DC, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. And when I visit Florence, OR, I have to go down onto Bay Street and find Sandy's boys busking, toss some money into their guitar case, and ask for Creedence, "Have you seen the rain?"