I guess my first realization that music was more important than learning the words to the carols for the school concert of Christmas is seen my Dad's collection of 78s'. He was a man with unusual tastes in music. Contemporys my parents' hear American singers like Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and the like, or the big band sounds of the day.
But my father had individual tastes which included Eastern European folk music, ballads, bagpipes Scottish and Welsh miners choirs, plus my first introduction to classical and interesting pieces, as Aram Khachaturian's "Saber Dance".
My Mother, a devoted fan Crosby, did not like these sounds strange to the extent that banished any interpretation of "meows" to our stable, a large wooden structure at the rear of the house. This suited my dad and I, very well.
He repaired bicycles and play with a machine in a corner, while curled into a battered leather sofa looking at pictures of old movie magazines, laughing at the jokes in the back issues of Lilliput and reading books type Girlie (Little Women, Black Beauty, etc), while the haunting strains of Bulgarian women's voices, broadcast or sound Highland Welsh overwhelming and provide its emanated from all winds up gramophone age, memories are made of this.
Musically I've come full circle. With the growing popularity of 'world music 'I am, once again, enjoying the harmony of women from Bulgaria and Welsh folk songs, along with exciting newcomers from Africa and Latin American roots.
Each generation, in most cases, believe they have experienced the "best" period of music now but I feel that the sixties were a special case. Consider this, every weekend my friends and I had a difficult decision. Are we going 'up town' Colliers to see Ken American blues stars like Big Bill Broonzy or jazz giants as Dizzy Gillespie, or perhaps to the Marquee Club or 100 to listen to the English and coming as Paul Weller in the Jam, Eric Clapton and the Yardbirds and Georgie Fame with the Stars.
Or do not we stay closer to home and go to the Riki Tik Windsor and suffocation risk in the small room listening to an exciting new group called the Rolling Stones. And that was just the beginning, what Osterley where you could hear John Lee Hooker, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee and any number of blues stars of the American South, Windsor, Drill Hall, where, on a Friday night you can enjoy the best Cyril Davies and the Stars, which usually begins one of my favorites, Long John Baldry.
And if you were willing to risk the wrath of parents who had to be Eel Pie Island in Twickenham, a den of iniquity where you can hear the best new rhythm and blues, smell strange substances in the air burning and where he first found psychadelia as Pink Floyd whose innovative programs lava lamp light color and creating bubbles emerging in different ways each time were the forerunners of the big screen today. To say that is spoiled for choice is not to overwork a phrase.
I have not even mentioned the many folk clubs sprinkled on top of that I have visited my friend Lucy as a singing duo guests, where he shared the stage with the likes of Bert Jantz, Duster Bennett, Cat Stevens. . We travel to remote locations in the heart of the Berkshire countryside and find ourselves on a farm somewhere, with people sitting on hay bales and listen to the voices agitation and lyrics by Sandy Denny, Davy Graham and John Remborne, or even the Wurzels (bring your own cider!).
If you wanted to dance, but not strictly ballroom, you could walk on the night a selection of "traditional jazz" clubs. Bands of various styles were always on tap, Dick Morrisey, the aforementioned Ken Collier, Acker Bilk, really was a time gold for the live music of all kinds. And it did not cost an arm and a leg to pamper yourself. If you pay more than a couple of pounds to enter feel hard done by. Even special occasions like seeing the WHO or cream at the Hammersmith Odeon were cheap in price.
Wherever we went with our colleagues there was music. This was the age of the bar coffee, always with a juke box in the corner belting out classics such as "Dock of the Bay ', from Buddy Holly, or the latest or Aretha Franklin, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Biaz, where to stop! Before the fashion of 'Personalized music' (seen at first, the Walkman, and now it is more new incarnation, the iPod), brought the latest songs like minds. A normal Saturday walk was the local music store where friends crowded into a booth to listen the last of the 'charts'.
Maybe it was 'cool', but as the race for year, sixties music has passed the test of time. Many of our heroes are still household names. Our children still appreciate giants like Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix and Otis Redding. In size by Paul Weller, Rod Stewart, the Rolling Stones still touring all over the world. I'm showing my age when I find it difficult to appreciate the offerings today? Of course I am, but no more than any other person who has made music his life.
From the moment the first cave man (or woman) found how to make musical 'sounds' of reeds or rocks, water or wood, we have enjoyed the privilege of a great gift. How to explain the capture in the back of the throat when we hear a familiar song or melody? How to describe the pure feeling of joy and happiness, as many human voices come together to sing particularly edifying work. I dare anyone to say I have never felt that. And if some insist that the case hardened souls, and I feel very sorry for them.
Ukulele for It Had To Be You 1924
