So, first, I don't like the new EONS format. I'm already on Facebook. I don't need to be on Facebook, twice.
Meanwhile, we did some quality PBS watching, yesterday. Two separate documentaries with music that I love. It was TV worth watching, and music that took me back, even before my birth.
The first was a Big Bands show. I love music of that era, especially the girl singers. there's something so evocative about the harmonies and the lyrics, in particular. I am a dyed-in-the-wool Boomer, born well after the 2nd war (in fact, my birth coincided with the undeclared Korean conflict). Somehow, I always thought I was born too late, musically. I was never much for rock and roll. I loved the girl singers, in particular. I have several compilation albums with Helen O'Connell, Helen Forrest, Doris Day, Betty Hutton, Lena Horn -- all the ladies with the lovely low voices with whom I can comfortably sing. And their songs spoke of the boys overseas and their sweethearts at home. I know that it was a terrible time for the world and in this country, but it's an era I've always romanticized, when people pulled together for a mutual cause. "I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places," "I"ll never smile again," even "Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me," speaks to me in ways that rap never will. It is comparing apples and oranges -- I'm sure kids today will remember their alleged music fondly. For myself, I'll take the apples over the oranges, any day.
The second show was a celebration of Pete Seeger's 90th birthday. It was good to see Seeger, still moving under his own power, still singing and rallying the audience in a good sing-along. It was amazing to see gray haired Joan Baez and Arlo Guthrie, icons of my generation, now a bit wizened but still singing beautifully. I'm so glad that Arlo dodged his genetic bullet so that he could carry on his father's legacy of music. Baez still looks lovely, even with the camouflage scarf hiding what I expect is neck wrinkles. Ah me, we all have them. But she carries her age well and her voice is still good and true.
In the 60s, I was a very well-pressed folkie. Even in the hippie era, I never let the house without knife-pressed jeans and make-up. A contradiction, I know, but I did have my standards. Like other girls of my era, I idolized Baez, and Judy Collins, and Buffy St. Marie. I took guitar lessons and failed miserably. Like everything else my parents did when it came to music lessons, they overdid it. The got me a pricey Goya guitar that was the size of a small cello. The fact that I could lift it was the most impressive part of my music lessons. My very small hands did not span the neck, making chord movement difficult. The guitar (and the teacher) were right-handed and I was left handed. I expected to pick up the instrument and immediately be playing. I forgot that I am totally uncoordinated and not good at practicing. I think my nephew has the Goya, now. I have a memory of hauling the thing to my music lesson on 12th and Chestnut, in Philadelphia, and pretending to be what I was not, a folk musician.
However, to this day, the music of protest speaks to me. I went on dates to local coffee houses -- the Second Fret, the Main Point. I sang at hootenannies at the local library with my friends. I still have my collection of Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, of course, Bob Dylan vinyls -- just nothing to play them on. The grooves on the records are worn and skip where I played certain songs over and over, learning to lift the tone arm so that I could hear and re-hear my favorites. My father did not approve of my taste in music. For an immigrant, self-made Conservative in the Frank Rizzo era, Phil Ochs' lyrics were a bit outre ("And clean the john with a rag, if you want you can use your flag" -- even I cringe now to read the words). We used to get into some heated arguments over those songs. However, he also didn't like my sisters' Frankie Avalon records, considering them screechy and no-talent. Years later, we compromised on country-pop.
I still sing along, if not singing out. I have started doing story hours again, in my new library job, and one of the nannies (this is a nanny, not a mommy, community) told me that her little charge went home and excitedly described me as, "The new lady who sings") but I recognize my shortcomings. I'm strictly a capella, these days, or karaoke. And if my background tracks lean heavily to the past, you'll understand that that is where my heart truly lies.
