My Musical Origins

Calm down, relax... I've not suddenly become a musician, nor have I any degree in musicology or any other music related schooling or arts. I'm just your average Joe who believes the music in his life is part of who he is.

_{Image by geralt - source: Pixabay}

Two weeks ago I was present at @crimsonclad's radio show and was so pleasantly surprised. Not only because of the host's exceptional hospitality, wit, humor and wonderful laugh, but also because of the music she played, and usually plays as it turns out. You see, I've never been a fan of rock music, especially not the ones that have the word "metal" attached to their description. Yet she kept playing these metal songs that apparently agreed very much with me, since I was having a blast. I was very surprised at this and was once again reminded of how we continually grow and shape each others view on life, the universe and everything.

This got me thinking back to my favorite songs through the years. I always had a very good impression of how my favorite movies and books had an influence on the person I am today, but have never before given much thought to my, shall we say, musical development and how my taste in music has been influenced by what's played on the radio, what was played by my patents, friends and family and the songs I discovered all by myself during the days when I still visited music stores to spend several hours a week listening to new and undiscovered records.

So I decided, just ten minutes ago, to type down this "brief history of mine" about my earliest musical memories, by describing the my parent's record collection, the music they "fed" me during those early years of development, until around 1980. The order will not be chronological, but as I remember them while writing this post.

My earliest memories are the record collection from my mom and dad; boy did I nag my parents with constant pleas to "play it again!!" whenever a particular tune I liked ended for no reason at all. First in my mind is TI RORO, the Haitian drummer, or TI RORO and his Voodoo drums; my dad used to love that, and so did I. None of the records have survived, so YouTube will have to do. After one search in Google (yep, still use that shit), I found one I remember clearly, and I just fell in love with it again:

_{TI RORO (The haitian drummer) - La Misere Pa Douce}

Is it any wonder that later in life I became a lover of Reggae, Soul, R&B, Hip Hop, and not metal? I don't know, you tell me. We're in the early years now, the 1970s growing up in my patent's house. Funny thing is that my sister and I grew up with totally different musical preferences, when we only differ 3 years in age an had to listen to the same music at home, for years.

My mother influenced me in a totally different way: she wasn't a big fan of Ti Roro, and was more of a Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Evita person. Two of my all time favorite songs are the extremely melancholic "Send in the Clowns" by Frank Sinatra and "Don't cry for me Argentina" by Elaine Paige:

_{Frank Sinatra "Send In The Clowns"}

It was many years later before I understood this song is actually about a breakup between two lovers who had been together for years, when suddenly one of them decides to leave. I just loved the voice, the music, the dreamy pace.

_{Evita - Don't Cry For Me Argentina (Original London Cast)}

Okay okay, hold back those tears... These songs never made me feel sad somehow, instead their melancholic rhythms and somber lyrics still touch something deep inside, somehow make me feel butterflies in my stomach. As did the music from Ennio Morricone, another one of my father's, and now also mine, musical hero's. This one both my father and mother loved. It was used, in an old Jean Paul Belmondo movie about an assassin in which the protagonist tragically dies at the end of the movie, "Le Professionnel". This one did make me cry:

_{CHI MAI. Jean-paul Belmondo. Le professionnel}

And if you don't know the following, please go watch "Once Upon A Time In The West" now ;-)

_{MORRICONE-"Harmonica/ Man With A Harmonica/ Death Rattle" (1968)}

This was from the year I was born, still from my parent's record collection. There. I said it, now you know how old I am ;-) The entire record with the musical score from that great movie by that great composer was devoured by little, not even a teenager me. So was this record by Stevie Wonder "Songs in the Key of Live", especially a song you may know by the cover done by Coolio, decades later:

_{Stevie Wonder - Pastime Paradise}

That was dad again. Mam was a giant fan of Simon and Garfunkel, and through her I've come to love their "The Sound of Silence". Even as a small boy I was intrigued by that title and the eery opening line "hello darkness, my old fiend"...

_{The Sound of Silence (Original Version from 1964)}

Mom also had a spell, I remember, when she kept playing one song by the Righteous Brothers, I don't know if she and dad had one of their bad times together and she was heartbroken somehow, but when I hear this song, my heart cries a little:

_{Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody}

Through this song, my mother still manages to make me cry... She also had this album with the greatest hits by Al Stewart and we ALL loved his song "The Year of the Cat", dad, mam, sis and me:

_{Al Stewart - Year Of The Cat}

Also soul was a genre that was All in the Family (Archie Bunker... anyone...? Boy I'm old ;-) ), but mother was more in the Bill Withers camp while dad was more of a James Brown fan.

_{Bill Withers - Ain't No Sunshine (Official Video)}

"Bad Mother" is as evergreen as "Ain't no Sunshine" (warning: scantily clad babes in the video, as well as a kitten about to be shot. you've been warned ;-) ):

_{Bad Mother - James Brown - The Boss}

That's one of the funkiest guitars I've ever heard, to this day! The more I think back at those times, the more great songs from my parent's time keep popping in my mind... Earth Wind and Fire, Sister Sledge, Chic and... Curtis Mayfield!! "Move on up"!!

_{Curtis Mayfield - Move On Up}

I'm really just getting started here as so much more memories are being released by listening to all these wonderful old tracks. I can really recommend this to anyone, to just spend an evening with your own earliest musical memories, the songs you grew up with and inevitably will have helped shape the person you are now. I had so much fun, I'll definitely will do a follow-up sometime in the future, whether you like it or not ;-)

I'm going to leave you with something we didn't have in the record collection, but was from one of my mother's favorite TV series somewhere in the early eighties, called Harry's Game. The theme song from this show was by the Irish family band Clannad and both my mother and I were totally in LOVE with that song. It's all Celtic and I don't understand a word of it, but that doesn't matter, because who understands Angelic anyway; this song is like it's made by angels...

_{Clannad - Theme from "Harry's Game"}

Thanks so much, dear reader, watcher and listener, for enduring these antiquated musical memories with this old man ;-) I hope you enjoyed at least some of it and I'd be very interested in any of your earliest musical memories. I'll be back tomorrow with who knows what, and I hope you'll take a chance with me again. Until then, keep enjoying your memories and the music in them, and keep steeming!

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