Musical Roots

Contrary to the somewhat popular belief, I did not grow up listening to Classical Music, which I came to appreciate as an adult.  When I was growing up, the music I remember hearing the most of around the house in the 1950's was Gospel (of course), Tennessee Ernie Ford and the Platters as well as the infamous Elvis Presley.  On Saturday nights, that was a whole other story with the evening reserved for the Saturday night country music shows such as Porter Wagoner and the Grand Ole Opry which features many artists including Hank Williams Sr. and Patsy Cline.   I started playing clarinet in the fourth grade and when I got into Junior High and its marching band in the early 1960's, I fell in love with the marches of John Phillip Sousa.  The 60's also spawned a great deal of wonderful folk/protest music from such artists as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Paul Simon (of Simon and Garfunkel).  I was reminded of my musical roots when I saw the You Tube video of Paul Simon at the Ground Zero 9/11 Commemoration yesterday afternoon.  I was definitely in love with his music and I must have owned every record album Simon and Garfunkel ever produced at one time or another. After watching the 9/11 video, I went looking for more of Paul Simon's music as Paul Simon is one of the great song writers of our time and heavily influenced my life in many ways. In this retrospective for today's musical interlude, I begin with a rare recording (in two parts) of his Queen's College performance in 1964 which encompass many of his earlier writings, note in particular his iconic "Sound of Silence" which was my class song when I graduated from high school in 1969. After this archival recording I have the 1975 Saturday Night Live performance of "The Boxer" with his longtime singing partner Art Garfunkel who is also singing with him on the next video which is the Grammy Award winning "Bridge over Trouble Water" from the album of the same name which came out when I was a freshman at Baylor University. I conclude this play list with Paul's evocative rendition of "Sound of Silence" at the 9/11 Memorial Commemoration at Ground Zero in New York on 9/11/2011.  All of the above links and the videos below will give you a glimpse of the music that influenced me as I was growing up.  As an adult in my mid 20's, I listened to and fell in love with the classical music I share with you on a regular basis here at Nichevo.  Last but certainly by no means, least is this week's edition of Monday's Undies with all those marvelous men  in minuscule bits of cloth guaranteed to get your heart to pumping and your heat to rising.  Thanks for stopping in for this trip down memory lane, come again tomorrow to see where I head then.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!