I'm a firm believer in "trying things". How does one know if they'll succeed or fail if they don't try? I've tried lots of things -- songwriting (succeeded!), novel writing (succeeded in my mind, if not in sales), and now podcasting (failed miserably).
But now at least I know.
I don't mourn the demise of my podcast, Hitsvilly. There probably won't be any new episodes forthcoming. I tracked my "listens" and found that my original concept didn't resonate with anybody. So I tweaked it and still it didn't catch on. I guess the subject matter is only interesting to me. That's okay. I'm more of a written word girl than a conversationalist. What matters is pleasing oneself, and my writing pleases me. I'm pretty good at it. If I want to talk about country music (and I do) I'll put pen to paper, or more accurately, tap it out on my keyboard. I'll leave podcasting to the experts.
But, see, I no longer have to wonder. Wonder if I can make a go of it. Now I know -- I can't. I've failed at plenty of things I tried, and I succeeded at plenty of things I've tried. Life is a crapshoot. And I learned something from every success, every failure. That's how life goes, unless you don't even bother to try.
I'm pretty convinced there's something I gleaned from the demise of Hitsvilly. I'm not yet sure what that is, but it'll hit me sometime. Something I can pluck from the detritus and use. Every single experience, even the absolutely most devastating, embarrassing failures, are nitrogen for something yet to come.
Failure doesn't cause the world to end. Lack of trying shrivels the soul.
My life has changed in the last year and a half. I'm not a fan of the nine-to-five, but I will say that having a schedule isn't necessarily a bad thing. I retired in June of 2020 after spending three scary months telecommuting. The telecommuting wasn't scary -- in fact, I enjoyed it -- but the outside world was scary. I recall being afraid I would run into another human on my morning walk, and -- gasp! -- what if I caught Covid from them?? We weren't even calling it Covid then. It was "corona virus", or the shorthand "corona". Covid elbowed its way into our vernacular sometime in the summer.
I retired in June of that year, sans a going-away party, because, you know, we weren't allowed to interact with other humans. I dutifully ordered our groceries online and dealt with some surprise items -- like two tomatoes magically becoming two dozen tomatoes. I even had liquor delivered. I went stir crazy, only ever interacting with my PC. I think it was September before I ventured out to get my hair cut, and that in itself was a drama -- wait outside -- not too close to any other loiterers -- lather up with the supplied sanitizer, complete a Covid questionnaire, have my temperature read, adjust my mask, and finally settle into a chair six feet away from the other customers. It was an existence of pure fear until my husband and I at last secured our vax appointments in April of this year.
I didn't see my grandchildren until July.
So now I've settled into my new routine, which consists of "What day can we go out and get groceries?" We don't go anywhere except the supermarket, the convenience store, the liquor store (now), and fast food drive-thru's. I can't even imagine eating a meal inside a restaurant. I look forward to seeing the friendly cart-wiper at Target, though I don't even know her name, but she's nice and she knows us now. She's my new best friend.
Friends. I miss seeing them, gossiping with them. Texts have their limitations. My friendships are slipping away. It might have happened with or without Covid, but at least we might have been able to share an occasional lunch and catch up.
I guess I'm lucky in that I'm an introvert. I don't mind sharing my life with my computer. I have the news streaming while I pursue my directionless hobbies. But, in actuality, the days are long. Thus, my sentimentality for schedules.
Of course, everything isn't dreary. Though we lost both of our babies during the height of the pandemic, we did adopt a new baby -- a kitten we call Sasha -- in March. She's no Ragdoll, believe me. I was used to my Bob, who basically did his own thing (sleep) most of the day. Of course, he was eighteen years old. Sasha is go-go-go, always searching out new adventures. Wondering why we're asleep at night when the whole world is there for us to explore. She often finds herself trapped behind closed closet doors and requires rescue, but she takes it in stride, viewing her temporary incarceration as an opportunity to analyze new phenomena.
So Sasha makes my list of things I'm thankful for.
I'm, of course, thankful for my grandchildren, Asher and Ollie, who are now two and have revealed their quirky personalities. I'm not one to brag, but I do have the smartest grandsons in the known world.
I'm thankful Dementia Joe hasn't completely depleted our checking account yet and we can still pay our bills. (And I'm mostly thankful that we don't have to make a twenty mile round trip every day, or I'd be looking for a second job.)
I'm, in fact, one of the lucky ones. I have a little tiny nest egg, I can manage to cover our monthly expenses, and I have my wonderful husband and Sasha.
I used to be so fastidious about updating my blog. Now I realize my last post was on October 3. So, where've I been?
I've taken a lot of winding roads. I started a new novel that I realize I don't care about, I started a podcast that no one listens to, and mostly I've been making playlists on Spotify. It started innocently enough -- my podcast was going to feature a particular year, so I began compiling hit songs from each of those years. Then when I realized (finally) that no one cared, I started making playlists for myself.
Here is mine for nineties country:
It's really good, if I say so myself. And quite comprehensive -- 215 songs, 12 hours and 19 minutes of really good.
Of course, I couldn't stop there, so I created a playlist for the eighties:
Then the seventies:
And who could forget the sixties?
What the heck? The fifties weren't my time, but I was familiar with several fifties hits, so dang, why not?
Where does it end? Well, I can't do the 2000's, because it would be a paltry list of maybe twenty five songs. Sorry, I gave up on country the first time I heard "Breathe" on the radio and realized everything had gone to hell.
You may think this was a needless exercise -- the ultimate time-waster -- but believe me, it wasn't easy! I don't have much to be proud of, but at least I can say I created better country playlists than 99.9% of all the Spotify users who created country playlists.
So, you see, I haven't been wasting my time after all.
Just say no to drugs -- unless the drug is caffeine.
My handy Mister Coffee slowly died over the last couple of days. I didn't want to believe it was true. After all, it dripped approximately a tablespoon of tepid coffee into the decanter after about an hour. I tried smacking it, unplugging it, repeatedly punching the "brew" button on and off, but I finally had to accept the sad fact that Mister Coffee had passed away.
Thus, I was marooned on a sad island bereft of sweet, sweet mocha beans. I thought I could fight through it. I had some Diet Dr. Pepper in the fridge, so I guzzled a couple cans, but my surly disposition told me Diet Dr. Pepper was a woeful substitute for the real stuff. (How much caffeine is contained inside a twelve-ounce can of soda, really?)
I finally had to admit the truth -- I am an addict. A caffeine addict.
Step 1 -- I admit I am powerless over caffeine. My life has become unmanageable.
I need go no further than Step 1.
Being without (currently) a mode of transportation, I scraped Amazon for coffee makers I could afford, and most importantly, one that could be delivered TODAY. Nobody could guarantee same-day delivery, so I went to the Target site and paid an extra ten dollars just to get a sleek carafe deposited on my doorstep.
And I got it! Same-day delivery is phenomenal!
So, when I awake in the morning, if the heavens align, I will have a steaming cup awaiting me.
And life will once again make sense.
Everybody's got their vices. Everybody.
This is one that doesn't hurt anybody. Except perhaps my pocketbook.
I moved away from my hometown more than twenty years ago. I live in a leafy suburb that has nothing but houses and a store scattered here and there. As I write this on July 4, I am sitting inside my house, listening to the air conditioner kick in. Independence Day is just another day. It could be a generic Monday, or a Wednesday.
In celebration of the holiday my suburb features live orchestral music on July 10. July 10. Why not July 23? Or August 17? They do things differently here in Minnesota. They also outlaw fireworks, so only the outlaws set them off, generally at two o'clock in the morning outside my window. I'm still perplexed by the irrational fear of fountains and Roman candles -- but then, Minnesotans seem to be afraid of a lot of things. Maybe it's because my big brother sold fireworks from a home-constructed stand for years that pyrotechnics are simply everyday life for me. My little brother and his friends blew all their savings buying bottle rockets and spinners they'd nail to the wall; then beg Mom and Dad for "just five dollars" so they could buy more. Sure, one might have to dodge a wayward rocket shot from a pop bottle occasionally, but so what? No fires ever ensued. Life isn't necessarily risk-free.
The Fourth of July was always my favorite holiday back home. My town did it up right. It didn't matter if the holiday fell in the middle of the week and I'd need to get up for work the next day. Everyday life stopped for the Fourth. The highlight was the parade, a procession that went for miles and miles -- my high school marching band, lines of farm implements, floats upon floats populated with waving riders. Clowns on stilts throwing handfuls of candy to the little kids. Polka bands. Military vets. THE FLAG, which every parade-goer reverently stood for. And every single cheesy display one's imagination could conjure. In fact, the cheesier the better. My family would laugh and mingle, my sister and I parked on the curb, within reaching distance of our kids so they wouldn't wander too close to the action. Snapping action photos with actual cameras. Getting sweat-drenched and sunburned, and not caring. Then, once we were certain the parade was over, peering down the long street to ensure no one else was actually coming, gathering up our kids and our blankets and our lawn chairs and trudging in the hot sun back to our cars wedged in a supermarket parking lot (By the way, business owners were completely, patriotically on board with people claiming their parking spots. They, too, were off attending the parade.)
We'd head back to Mom and Dad's and plop down on tufted chairs in their COOL living room, a couple of the guys stretching out on the carpet. Mom would be in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on her potato salad and arranging her relish tray. Once everyone arrived back at the meeting spot, we'd eat and eat and eat. And drink tons of iced tea.
As the sun set, we'd gather on the front steps and await my brothers' home-crafted fireworks show. They'd take turns running out to the middle of the street, touching a punk to the latest pyrotechnic. And we'd alternately marvel and continue our gossip session, careful to ensure our kids didn't wander into the dark street.
Then we'd finally head home and flop into bed, red-burned and exhausted.
THAT was the Fourth of July.
As I glance out my window today, my street is deserted. Everyone is either at the mall or still sleeping. Hard to know. I don't know any of my neighbors. We're not real cohesive here. "Minnesota Nice" is a nice catchphrase that native Minnesotans utter to obviate their true, insular nature.
When it came to music, my dad liked what he liked. He wasn't a musical explorer. In the sixties and seventies, Dad could pick from the the offerings of AM radio...and that was it. My dad was a guy whose notion of success was buying a new car every two years. He had graduated from a used Ford Model A in the forties to the subsequent automobile upgrades of Galaxys and ultimately to the boxy casket of a gold Lincoln once his ship came in. My dad's ultimate success symbol was a shiny new car.
His seventies-era Lincoln came equipped with the newest advent in sound -- a built-in eight-track player. He bought approximately three eight-track cartridges -- surprisingly, Ray Stevens and Jerry Reed -- and Tony Booth. Every local destination he drove me to, which consisted of junior high school choral concerts he never hung around for, featured one of the three tapes, which inexplicably managed to stop smack-dab in the middle of a song and he'd have to eject and flip the cartridge over for the song to continue. I was dubious about this new technology, but everyone said it was "the thing", so I played along. It wasn't as if I had any say in the matter. I was a passenger hostage. I don't know how many times I heard Jerry Reed's "Another Puff", and it was humorous the first three hundred times my dad played it, but the sheen wore off by play three hundred and one. Dad was essentially a cheapskate when it came to laying out money that didn't involve cars, so those three eight-track tapes became imprinted on my brain pan.
Tony Booth was one singer among Buck Owens' new coterie of Capitol artists, which included Susan Raye and Buck's son Buddy, who was an even paler version of the pasty vocal talents of his father. I was a bit suspicious of this new cabal. Buck had been the premiere country artist of the sixties, but then as the decade turned he veered off into his own personal talent agency, plugging his latest finds and using the Buckaroos to cement the gaps in his artists' ability.
Dad also possessed the Capitol Records' orange and red single of this track, which he spun on his console stereo in the living room, and which sounded suspiciously like the phenomenal Don Rich was singing background vocals on (he was).
I was reminded of Tony Booth one afternoon when Willie's Roadhouse spun him. I'm not sure that Tony Booth ever recorded an original song, but Dad liked him a lot. Tony Booth is like one of those luminary bodies that pops up in the sky on a late night when one happens to awake and peers out their bedroom window. By dawn he's gone.
That's not a bad thing, necessarily. It's just the way of the music world. It would take me more than ten fingers to list the artists, many of them extraordinary, who flamed out simply because the musical universe had changed.
In honor of Dad's three eight-track tapes, here's the Jerry Reed song that eventually brittled my nerves. DISCLOSURE: Dad was a lifelong smoker, and I guess one could now say I am, too. Maybe that's why it's not really that funny.
In honor of Dad's good taste, and mine, here's Ray Stevens:
I don't give a flying F what any of the country sites say to denigrate Ray Stevens. The album Misty is a masterpiece. Anyone who's not an imbecile knows that Ray Stevens is more than "The Streak".
So, Dad was essentially two for three. I never cared for Jerry Reed, but Tony Booth was (is) pretty good, and Ray Stevens is a treasure.
I wonder if heaven has an eight-track player, or for that matter, a Lincoln town car. If it does, Dad is happily cruising along, a Belair filter-tip balancing in the ash tray.
My parents were excellent Catholics. They didn't stop having kids until God told them it was time to stop having kids. Thus my sister Carole was eleven years older than me and her firstborn son was only a year younger than my baby sister. Mom and Carole were raising babies together -- that's how it worked. Mom was a grandma at age 38.
Carole got married and moved out of the house while I was still a gap-toothed adolescent. She and her new husband rented an apartment in our tiny town, a couple of blocks away from my elementary school. Sometimes I'd chill at their flat after school. My brother-in-law was attending school after work to enrich his job opportunities. I don't recall what he was studying, but I remember seeing his leather-bound books on their apartment shelf and being mightily impressed. Carole and I would listen to AM radio while she scurried to get dinner ready. Carole's place was comfortable and homey.
Being the oldest child, she bestowed upon me my nickname shortly after I arrived home from the hospital. Thenceforth I was Shelly and only used my formal name for school (because it was required).
When our mom set forth on her short-lived restaurant venture, taking me with her, she left my little brother and sister in Carole's care while our dad worked the fields. Carole had two kids of her own by then, but what were two more?
Carole was full of ideas, not all of them necessarily good, but she approached each one with gusto. She approached life with gusto -- wide-eyed, ready for the next adventure. She was by far the most optimistic person in our family and the most jovial. Nothing seemed to get her down and she was always quick to laugh. I think she got that trait from our dad, who was naturally happy-go-lucky, although he had his demons, too. I marvel that either Carole didn't let things get to her or she was the world's greatest actress. She also wasn't a scold -- if someone in the family did something everyone else frowned upon, she just shrugged it off. Life was too much fun for negativity.
Dad, Mom, my youngest siblings and I traveled to Fort Worth for a visit and Carole lamented that she missed spending time with the family. We commenced the two-day drive home and pulled into the driveway only to spy a car with Texas plates pull in behind us. Carole and her family had decided to pull up stakes and move, just like that. (Her husband was a notoriously fast driver, so they probably had a little time to pack their belongings.) I'm certain it was her idea and she had made it sound like so much fun, every member of her family thought, heck yea!
That was Carole. Whereas my second oldest sister and I were cautious and my big brother was calculating, Carole could talk all of us into abandoning our inhibitions and darting off on a new quest. And it was fun. I don't think I ever laughed as much in my life as when I was around her.
My sister died today. She was seventy-six. Her four sons were with her. Life wasn't especially easy for her after her divorce. She worked long past the time she should have been home enjoying her grandchildren. I bet she never complained, though, and simply thought of it as another of life's adventures.
Bye, Carole. Please share a laugh with Mom and Dad when you see them.
Around the time I finished eighth grade in May of 1969, life at home spiraled into chaos. For two years I'd dealt with my dad's blackout drunks and my parents' fighting over it, to the point of fingernail slashes and pummeling fists. I was a wreck; but loathe to let it show (a prime characteristic of a child of alcoholism). I have pushed many of those days from my mind -- all the days tended to melt into one anyway; but my pre-high school summer was not one of fun and frolic.
Mom's doctor prescribed tranquilizer, Miltowns, to help her cope; thus, she slept a lot and wasn't especially coherent when she was out of bed. My two older sisters lived with their families in Fort Worth and through second-hand feedback, became alarmed about the situation. Thus, my sister Rosie and her husband flew up to assess. I don't know if I ever learned how it was determined that my seven-year-old sister and I would return with them to Fort Worth to "stay a while". Why my eight-year-old brother wasn't included, I cannot explain. Of course, I was ignorant of the entire plan until it was sprung on me, so I wasn't privy to those conversations.
The four of us took the train from Bismarck to Fort Worth, with lots of little adventures along the way; some odd; but all of them fun for a newly-minted teenager who'd never ridden a train in her life. My other sister Carole had four boys and a husband, so we bunked with Rosie and her husband in their apartment and slept on a fold-out couch in their living room. I had no inkling how long this experiment would last; all I knew was that I needed to get back in time for the start of school in the fall. In the meantime, I had fun...especially without that ninety-pound weight of dread crushing my chest.
The two couples loved the night, maybe because it allowed them to escape the oppressive Texas heat. Thus the gaggle of us attended a lot of drive-in movies and otherwise stayed up late and played board games; my sisters drinking Dr. Pepper and their husbands chugging Dr. Pepper plus...something. In the background always was the radio, tuned to the hottest country station in the south, WBAP.
That's when I first heard the voice of Bill Mack. I'm not sure if it was circumstances; being lonely for home, yet afraid to go there, or my tiny mixed-up emotions, but Bill Mack's voice was a comfort to me. He just talked. Disc jockeys today, if any remain, love to fake it. Big booming radio voices; super-jazzed all the time over virtually nothing, even partly cloudy skies! Bill liked to have a conversation, albeit one way, with his listeners. He also liked to spin good country music. Bill didn't play much Glen Campbell; he did play Faron Young and Johnny Bush. Night after night, above the laughter and ribbing, we all listened to Bill Mack talk to us.
Summer's end closed in and sure enough, my little sister and I were sent home. Tears ensued. We flew this time, Mom or Dad having sent a check to cover our flight. Miraculously, everything at home was different! No, actually nothing was different. Life went on; I started my new life as a high schooler. My little brother and sister skipped on to their next grades. That may have been around the time that Dad entered rehab for his second shot at it, and I think Mom kicked her pill habit. I never believed any changes would last for long, and I was right.
On nights when I didn't have to kick back early, however, I tuned my portable radio to try to capture either WHO or WBAP, and I lay awake long past midnight just listening. On an occasional lucky night, through the static, I got to hear Bill Mack talk to me.
***
I would be derelict in my duties as an unknown blogger if I didn't talk a bit about Bill Mack the songwriter. I honestly had no idea that this giant radio voice could also write songs until I bought a Connie Smith album and perused the liner notes. In parenthesis beneath the song title, Clinging To A Saving Hand, I read "Bill Mack". The Bill Mack? What the hell?
In 1968, Cal Smith recorded and reached number thirty-five on the charts with "Drinkin' Champagne". And here you thought it was an original George Strait track (silly!) Of course we don't get to "see" Cal performing the song:
Nor do we get to see George sing it:
We do, however, get to watch Dean Martin's version. Not many country songs lend themselves so readily to easy listening (I guess you'd call it). This one does. I'll take the country stylings, even though I like Dino a bunch. Drinkin' Champagne is apparently just a versatile as Yesterday, only a better song.
No, I didn't forget. LeAnn Rimes had a nice little career going before she abandoned it, and it was all thanks to Bill Mack. By 1996 country music had long begun its subtle shift toward pap. Oh, there were stone country hits certainly, "Blue Clear Sky", anything Alan Jackson recorded; but too came the nauseating drivel of Tim McGraw, John Michael Montgomery, Faith Hill. When "Blue" came pouring out of the radio, out of nowhere, I wasn't sure what decade I was in. This was indisputably a sixties country song. In fact, Bill wrote the song in 1958, and no, he didn't write it for Patsy Cline, but that's a nice story.
Rest in peace, Bill Mack. Thanks for the conversations.
I last created a post yesterday and ta-da! I find today that the Blogger interface has changed. I'm not saying everything should remain static forever, but I've been blogging since 2007 and I knew my way around.
I'm sure the tech guys worked hard on these changes, so kudos, I guess. And I'll get used to them. The reason I use Blogger and not WordPress is ease of use. WordPress is a quagmire...and ugly. I have a blog there that I created after Google ate my blog and sent me on a dizzying tangle of links that never once solved my issue. I created one post on WordPress and then bit the bullet; created a completely new Blogger account and lost all my previous followers, alas. On the plus side, I'm now followed by approximately 73 bots. (Bots don't leave comments, by the way.)
From what I've ascertained so far, the updates are largely cosmetic; simply more confusing to find. And the addition of emojis is rather superfluous. What am I, five? 🙄(had to do it once)
I browsed Blogger's delineation of the changes and found statements like this:
A fresh Comments page helps you connect with readers more easily by surfacing areas that need your attention, like comment moderation.
I was an educator in my previous life ~ don't talk like this! I'm guessing the writer consulted a thesaurus. I do it, too; but make sure the synonym makes sense in context.
The new change that
rankles me is the inability to embed a video the old-fashioned way. Now I
have to rely on a search within Blogger and hope that the video I want
is listed as an option. Bad, Google! Major faux pas.**
**UPDATE: I found by opening the video search box and pasting in the address of the video, voila! (duh; sorry, Google.)
An enhancement I've longed for but still doesn't seem to exist, is a means to find other blogs in my areas of interest. If no one can find a blog, what is the reason for its existence? (I actually know someone who printed up business cards with his blog address ~ c'mon!) I obviously don't blog for followers, since I have no "real" ones, so I've given up on anyone finding me; but I would still like to read other music (or other) blogs. This is one area in which WordPress excels.
What's missing from Blogger is the human connection. Maybe the developers know this. Maybe they intuit that most of us are composing with the quixotic notion that somebody, somewhere will read it. Maybe blogging is dumb and antiquated. If it is, so be it. Rich Farmers has turned into my personal diary anyway; a means of preserving memories and milestones and musings.
To be fair to Google, the changes aren't really confusing. They're actually straightforward; just different.
But since this is a music blog, after all, I must go with a "confusing" song:
Ever know someone who's a collector? These are guys (and trust me, they're always guys) who relish the hunt, not the plunder. Of their approximately 978 record albums, they probably play five, tops.
That's how it is with collections. I'm guilty. I've collected thousands of individual tracks and full CD's through the years, but I mostly surf over to SiriusXM to be surprised. I recently retrieved my personal PC after months of working on a loaned company computer (thanks, COVID), and today I decided to remind myself of all the tracks I'd ripped.
After hours of deleting duplicates (one of the joys of retirement is infinite time), I decided to bestow stars upon the songs I like best...today. The dilemma is choosing between three and four stars. "I really like this track, but does it deserve a superior ranking?"
Five stars can be intimidating as well. Do I go with songs that are classic or just honor my gut and choose the ones I love? I went with love.
The interesting outcome of this experiment is the number of really mediocre tracks I ripped. I think I just wanted to own them. In case. In case a nuclear incident transpired and all I was left with (remarkably) was my personal computer. In the ragged aftermath I might have a hankering to hear Barbara Fairchild.
I own hundreds of physical CD's, but if I ever chose to pop one into my disc drive, I would need to be suffering from one-song withdrawals.
Instead I rely on my uploads.
My Windows Media Player is a really fun app -- it no longer allows me to rip CD's, so if I don't have something on my computer I really really need, I am forced to purchase it from Amazon, even though it's here, sitting on my shelf. Microsoft rocks. Today, in fact, I purchased "Dreaming My Dreams" by Waylon. I have no cognizance of why I never ripped it when my WMP worked, but clearly I did not. However, it was vital that I added it to my collection, because it is a five-star single.
The results of my star ratings? Well, there are approximately three Beatle tracks that merit five stars, although not the ones anyone but me would pick. Elton, too, represents. California Girls shows up as first on the list. Otherwise, I'm stone country. George Strait has at least three; Gene Watson is a treasure. Then it's an eclectic mix, demonstrating my superior musical taste. Jerry Lee, Gordon Lightfoot, Johnny Bush, Highway 101, Mark Chesnutt, Marty Robbins, Ray Price. Roy Orbison.
The names are a bit faint in the photo, but this is my new "family" project. In keeping with the "smaller is better" theme, this is only 5 x 7, perfect for both my patience and my wall.
While Josie is no longer with us, it was vital for me to include her because she is my heart.
My crafting obsession continues. Sure, I'm retired, but that doesn't mean I'm idle. Few hours go by without finding me with a needle in my hand.
Why? Why not? TV is so much more tolerable when one is occupied with something that actually lasts.
My first project back, after a twenty-year layoff, was large -- too large. I'm now into miniatures. I want something that is petite and doesn't take three months to bear fruit. Plus, where am I going to display all this stuff? That's always the conundrum. Counted cross-stitch is enjoyable for the doing; not so much for the inevitable framing and finding an appropriate hanging spot. And frankly, frames are expensive. And why do all of these kits come in odd sizes? Per chance the designers have a side deal with picture frame manufacturers. I'm on a fixed income now; I'm going to go with pics that come complete with their own frames (hoops) and stick the finished products somewhere in a bare corner.
However, my second project was nine by twelve inches, and I'm rather enamored with it:
Like all children of the sixties, I lapped up all the music on top forty radio. I was in love with The Beatles and oh so many other pop acts ~ The Beach Boys, The Righteous Brothers, The Dave Clark Five, to name but a few. Had my parents not uprooted me when I was eleven, I may have continued on my merry pop ways, although music was changing by 1966-1967; becoming less fun and more angry. As the new kid in a new town and an excruciatingly shy kid to boot, transitioning to my new life was agonizing. I had no friends and I didn't even know who the best friends to cultivate were. I rode the city bus every school day from home to a worn hotel, then hoofed it the remaining three blocks to my turn-of-the-century schoolhouse. Everything in my new town smelled old. We'd moved in the middle of December, so my panorama was dirty snowbanks.and grey gloom. Back home I was a cool kid. I was a leader; I could be counted on to play a major role in any and every school pageant . I'd had the same school friends since first or second grade. Here I was nobody. I kept my head down and dreaded walking through my sixth grade classroom door, sure everyone was staring at me. I could only remember three or four classmates' names, though it rarely mattered. At recess. I hugged the brick wall until the bell rang. I tried to scheme a way to move back home, but all my plans had kinks. We'd sold our house. Who would I live with? Would my best friend Cathy's mom let me move in? Would my parents allow it? Of course not. I hated my parents for putting me through this. And they were so nonchalant about it all. I inhabited a teeny-tiny bedroom that I shared with my little brother and sister ~ they cocooned in the bottom bunk while I claimed the top. The narrow torture chamber had recessed shelves behind a walnut door, and I kept my battery-powered turntable on one of them, along with my paltry collection of 45's. When the little kids were out and about, I played records or listened to AM radio while scribbling my homework. Perhaps the worst part of my new existence was the suffocation. On the farm, I'd inhabited a capacious pink bedroom on the second floor. The breeze wafting through the chiffon curtains was exhilarating. My world was vast. Here five people hunkered, piled atop each other in near-windowless rooms. It may have been January or February when I exchanged a smirk in Miss Haas' classroom with a girl whose name I didn't know. One of the boys had uttered a ridiculous response to a question. That smirk commenced a six-year best friendship. It's funny how friendships happen. I think you just know. Her name was Alice and she turned out to be a kind, down-to-earth person with a wicked sense of humor. Suddenly my torturous existence transformed into a new-friend lifeline. Inevitably our talks turned to music. "I like country music", she said. "I'm in a band with my brother and my uncle." I wracked my brain for country music references. Country wasn't alien to me ~ it was my parents' music of choice and I'd spent most of fourth grade living one closed door away from a country bar with a country jukebox. I knew who Buck Owens and Ray Price were, and Roger Miller. I'd heard a twangy girl named Loretta on the Wurlitzer. I also knew Bobby Bare. Turns out a true country fan was required to have a much more in-depth acquaintance with hillbilly. I was ready to take the leap. "Snoopy Versus The Red Baron" wasn't cutting it for me anyway. Frankly, some of the artists my new friend introduced me to were too cheesy, even for me. At twelve I could appreciate George Jones' music, but not venerate him. In Alice's defense, she had to rely on her parents' albums, which were from a bygone era ~ Carl Butler and Pearl, Grandpa Jones, Porter Wagoner. I gleaned as much knowledge as i could from those LP's, and Alice and I discovered a new girl singer together ~ Porter's new duet partner; a tiny bee-hived blonde named Dolly Parton. I went home and tuned my FM dial to the country station. Alas, it only played deep tracks by Willie Nelson and Glen Campbell. In 1967 I hated them both. This was not the country music I was supposed to be learning! In short order, Alice and I heard some new singers on AM radio ~ Waylon Jennings, Charley Pride...and Merle Haggard. Once I heard Merle, I was a goner. Suddenly everything fit. All the corny tracks I'd sat through, cross-legged in front of Alice's parents' hi-fi made sense. I was no old-time music girl. I was a soon-to-be teen and my music needed to match my surging hormones. It took no time at all for me to purchase that twenty-five-dollar red acoustic guitar hanging in Dahmer Music's window. I wanted ~ needed ~ to play along with Merle Haggard songs.
Alice came over every Saturday for a few weeks to teach me how to chord. I learned how to change broken strings and how to tune. Eventually I stopped dropping my pick inside the soundhole and having to turn my guitar upside down and shake it out. I immediately learned about burning fingers. My thirst for guitar-playing knowledge stretched as far as learning the chords I needed in order to strum along with my favorite hits of the day -- primarily A, E, D, G, C, B flat, and the sevenths.I stumbled into some minor chords -- but country songs didn't use minors. The first country LP's I bought were:
Yes, I knew Waylon Jennings before he was Waylon Jennings.
Once I adopted country music, I embraced it with my whole heart. The truth is, it wasn't just peer, or best friend, pressure. I am able to go along...for a while...if going along assuages someone else's feelings; but eventually I'm going to alight on what I like and stay there.No, there was something about country that felt comfortable; something that was lacking in sixties pop hits. Soul; truth. A weeping steel guitar riff pierced my gut; twin fiddles made me cry with joy. The thumping bass guitar was a pulsing heartbeat. Even in sadness, country had so much joy...the joy of pouring out one's guts.
I met country at an opportune time. The mid-to-late sixties was rife with promise. Merle, Waylon, Tammy Wynette, Lynn Anderson, Faron Young, Connie Smith, David Houston, even Buck Owens and Ray Price. Had country and I been introduced a mere ten years later, I would have laughed disdainfully and quickly abandoned it. As it was, I became a country snob. I knew what was good and what was pap, and I took great offense at the pap. I resented interlopers. Fifties country artists weren't my cup of tea, but I shared their appall when someone like John Denver came along and started winning country awards. This pipsqueak folk singer? I was so adamant in my principles I refused to acknowledge I actually liked "Let Me Be There" by Olivia Newton-John. Sure, there were country elements to the tune, but a pop singer? Sorry. My all-time favorite moment from the CMA Awards:
Like many things I've obsessed over in my life, in my teens I became rabid. I stayed up late just to tune into clear channel, real country stations like WHO in Des Moines, with overnight DJ Mike Hoyer, who actually, around 2 a.m., played complete new albums. It was a rare night when WSM in Nashville pierced the static, but sometimes I actually had the opportunity to listen to Ralph Emery, who'd have artists like Marty Robbins perform live in the studio. More often I got to listen to Bill Mack on WBAP in Fort Worth, whose preferences were stone country, a revelation for me.The seminal country disc jockeys were Mike Hoyer, Ralph Emery, and Bill Mack ~ when DJ's actually mattered. Though Alice and I were essentially conjoined twins, I had my own musical preferences and she had hers. We agreed most of the time. Rarely did one of us fall in love with a song when the other didn't like it. True country has a genetic code that those who share it feel in their bones. I don't think she was ever crazy for Faron Young, but I was. Some voices resonate, and his did with me. I usually cringe when I watch his live performances ~ Faron was a recording artist foremost; his live shtick was too hammy for me. This one is pretty good, though:
For years and years when someone asked me who my favorite country singer was, the answer was Faron Young. I remember traveling with my family somewhere when I was sixteen. We decamped in a motel and I knew that Faron was going to appear on Hee Haw that night.. My ultimate quest was to get that black and white rabbit-eared TV tuned to CBS in time to watch him. Flipping through my LP's from those years (alas, some of them have been lost), my tastes ran from lots and lots of Connie Smith and Lynn Anderson, practically every album Merle Haggard released, Faron (of course), The Statlers, reams of Porter and Dolly, Tanya Tucker, Johnny Rodriguez, Mel Street, David Houston, Tammy Wynette, Conway and Loretta, Mel Tillis, Barbara Mandrell. Buck Owens and Susan Raye, Bobby Bare, Johnny Paycheck. Even one-offs like Kenny Price, LaWanda Lindsey, and Tom T. Hall.
By the time Alice and I graduated from high school, along with the predetermined rock songs that blasted out of her car radio, we sang along with:
I wasn't always wedded to the classic country sound, but that's what stirred my soul.
Finding it, however, became more difficult for me as country began to change. It wasn't as if country went to hell just like that as the seventies rolled around. Some classic acts emerged mid-decade: Ronnie Milsap, Gary Stewart, The Oak Ridge Boys, Larry Gatlin and the Gatlin Brothers, Eddie Rabbitt, GENE WATSON. And a girl singer who tipped country on its ass. Her name was Emmylou.
I still purchased mainly singles, and there were some classics scattered here and there: "Rose Colored Glasses" by John Conlee; "Heaven's Just A Sin Away" by The Kendalls; "Party Time" from TG Sheppard; most any Johnny Rodriguez release.
The trouble with the seventies was that so much bad country dominated the airwaves. Producers chased the latest fad and created monsters like Sylvia and Billy "Crash" Craddock.
Ronnie Milsap and Gary Stewart knew what country was about, but their battle was ultimately lost in the record companies' drive to get "acceptable" artists on The Midnight Special.
It hurt my heart to abandon country, but I was driven to it. I'd lost Alice as a friend sometime in the mid-seventies. We mutually, albeit unspokenly realized our life paths had diverged. We simply stopped pretending. I don't know what her life became, but mine morphed into a a hard-fought adult; and most importantly, a mom. Music never lost its sheen for me, but it assumed a lesser importance. I was supremely poor and could only afford an occasional LP. Had it not been for a hand-me-down console stereo, music would have only streamed from a battery-powered radio or my car.
Thanks to network television, I still knew what was going on in country and it wasn't pretty. Urban Cowboy wasn't even that good of a movie, much less the fad it spawned. It was soon after that Kenny Rogers appeared and dominated country with his Lionel Ritchie-penned tunes. I did not regret my decision to turn away.
I've recounted this tale before, but it bears repeating. Visiting my parents on a Friday night, I found that instead of their usual Friday fare of JR Ewing, they'd popped in a VCR tape of some white-hatted cowboy singer. "Who's this?" I asked derisively. Mom answered George somebody. I was less than impressed. Granted, this guy had all the right instruments in his band, but I didn't know any of the songs. What George Whoever did, however, was pique my interest in checking out this "new" country. It didn't happen immediately. On a lazy Saturday I stopped in at Musicland and picked up a couple of cassettes. As I ritually circled my house with a dust rag, I listened. This was the first tape I bought:
This was the second:
I didn't even know why I'd picked these two. I knew nothing about current country. But I played those tapes over and over. My conversion was gradual. As I waited outside the elementary school for my kids' classes to dismiss, instead of Y93, I took the leap and twirled the dial to the local country station. I knew none of the names of the artists. So I just listened. There was this one guy with a nasally voice and a kick-ass band ~ I didn't know who he was, but I liked his songs. Some sisters, Forrester, I think the DJ said. And some other family group; Judds maybe? That George guy kept popping up, too. The local station played him a lot.
This new country was like the old country, except the instruments were upfront and the bass thumped louder. And damn, the songs actually said something! I was suddenly hooked. I wasn't giving up my MTV, but I was suddenly home. I discovered new artists named Randy, Dwight, Steve, Wynonna and Naomi, Clint, Alan, Patty, Rodney, Earl Thomas, Highway 101. My musical existence became a cornucopia of revelations. I chastised myself for giving up so easily. But somehow I knew that had I not surrendered I wouldn't have unearthed this wonder. While I was gorging on Huey Lewis and The News, country had sprouted and bloomed.
And this guy (the one with the nasally voice) stands alone:
As a country fan since the nineteen sixties; as someone who'd simply given up, I was now granted my due. I'd waited the requisite amount of years and my award at last arrived. It was as if I had to give up in order for country to catch a clue. And that George guy? I now possess twenty-three of his albums and a boxed set. Mom and Dad were onto something.
As the eighties rolled into the nineties, the delicacies continued to slam the airwaves. Patty, Vince, Joe Diffie, Kathy Mattea, Pam Tillis, Mary Chapin, Marty Stuart, Tracy Lawrence, Diamond Rio, Brooks and Dunn, Travis Tritt, MARK CHESNUTT, Restless Heart.
Before even the halfway mark, however, country began to slide downhill. The songwriting became less crisp. Established stars were calling it in. I hung on until 1999; then I stopped listening forever, never to return. This time I meant it. I don't know what "country" is like now, but from the bits I've heard, it's no longer country. That's okay. I had forty years, with some stops in between. I don't need new music; I've got more old music than I could listen to for the rest of my life.
(And that's after filtering out the ones I will never again listen to.)
It's a funny thing about music: I've held onto my albums from the sixties, even though I'll probably never play them again, but when I pick one up, I'm holding my history in my hands. Seeing my maiden name scribbled on the back reminds me of the person I was then and the emotions I experienced lo those eons ago. Music is so impersonal now. Even my CD's don't evince the raw emotion that an LP does. It's impossible to sum up my life with country. So much of it is tied to where I was, who I was, where I was going. A glimpse of my musical heart (draw your own conclusions) can be found here:
The two songs I remember hearing for the very first time on the radio and swooning over:
It's been a great run. I'm not sorry for any of it.
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