Music in the Key of Pappy: My Musical Memoirs

Music in the Key of Pappy: My Musical Memoirs.

“My life goes on in endless song above earth’s lamentations. I hear the real, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation. Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear its music ringing. It sounds an echo in my soul. How can I keep from singing?”  (Traditional Irish Lyric).

It’s impossible for me to fully understand how blessed my life has been, and continues to be. The list of blessings is pretty much endless, and it includes the unspeakable gift of music in my life. I agree with C. S. Lewis in his Narnia tales that God sang creation into existence, that those creative words He spoke had a melody and harmony and rhythm. It’s also clear in the Word that music is the language of heaven right now. On top of that, that last book in Scripture reveals a number of times that music will also bring in the new creation. That’s kind of the way I see my life as it developed… music in the beginning, music in the middle, music at the end.

I’ve always loved music, all kinds of music, and for whatever reason it’s been a major part of who I was and am and will be. I never learned to play an instrument, though, except a few years ago I learned how to play the G, C, and D chords on an old acoustic guitar. Maybe I was hesitant to pick up an instrument after an early attempt in elementary school to learn piano with a well-meaning but rather grouchy piano teacher. She would sit next to me on the piano bench with a wooden ruler in her hand, and proceeded to whack me hard on which ever of my hands made a mistake as I played. It didn’t take me long to figure out that I’d rather be outside playing baseball, basketball, or anything else at the local park, as opposed to sitting in misery with welts all over my hands. Perhaps I can thank my misguided piano teacher for my athletic career.

Here are some memories and reflections as I look at my life with music:

1. Nighttime Radio. I had learned in my elementary grades that I just loved music, so I remember listening to my little handheld transistor radio every night and listening to the excellent music stations as I drifted off into sleep. Since I would usually drift off to sleep with the radio playing and the batteries draining, my awesome parents (thanks, Willy and Lucy) eventually got me a cheap little electric radio that had a timer on it. It would shut off automatically after a few minutes, and no one had to worry about it. I loved having music as the last thing I would remember each night. Elvis was a little ahead of my time, but I do remember, by the time I was ten, I really liked listening to a lot of his stuff, especially “Hound Dog” and ”Jailhouse Rock.” If there was a good baseball game on the radio, that would be my usual alternative to WLS-Chicago.
2. Middle School. By the time I hit 13 years old, the Beatles hit it big, and I loved every minute of it. They pretty much provided the soundtrack for my middle school years (what we called Junior High) with songs like “Love Me Do,” “Please, Please Me, “She Loves You,” and a million other upbeat, relatively innocent songs. I had by then purchased my first record, a little ‘45 single recording of ”I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” In 9^th grade, right there in Lincoln Junior High School, I gathered three friends of like mind and we staged an act for our school’s big Talent Show. We donned Beatle wigs, put on a suit and tie, and we lip-synched “She Loves You” and “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” The theater was packed, and our performance brought the house down. We didn’t win first place though, because the judges told us they loved the act, everyone in the audience loved it, but it actually didn’t take a lot of talent. We had so much fun it didn’t matter.
3. High School. We are now talking about 1965-1967, when there was an international explosion of really creative popular music. I took full advantage of it. “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones hit the charts in ’65, and I really grew to like the bluesy songs of the Stones. I would attend concerts of some big-name bands coming through Rockford, like the Byrds and the Amboy Dukes. And we had a fellow student who was obviously very gifted on the guitar. His name was Rick Nielson, his father owned the music store on State Street, and Rick was a bit of a prodigy. He formed a really great local group named the ‘Grim Reapers,’ and they were pretty amazing, right here in Rockford! So we would often go to see them on weekends in concert or when they played for local dances, and it was outstanding. Rick eventually formed a group that hit it big called ‘Cheap Trick,’ and Rick is now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. All through high school I would love to attend all the school dances, especially when they had live bands doing the music.
4. College. The renaissance of popular music reached its zenith during my years at Wheaton College (1967-1971). We would sit around in our dorm rooms and listen to albums by the hour. We would have our speakers turned toward our open windows and blast it out for everyone to enjoy. We loved the British bands, like the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton. And there were many, many excellent American bands as well… Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Credence Clearwater Revival, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, Steppenwolf, and of course Bob Dylan. And we all were nuts about Motown music as well, with Aretha Franklin, The Temptations, Sam Cooke, Stevie Wonder, etc. There was a stupendous number of really outstanding groups that have been lost and forgotten… Procul Harem, Jethro Tull, The Kinks, The Animals, The Band, and about a hundred others. There were a number of individual artists we liked as well, like Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, Paul Simon. During one weekend in college, I went with a friend to a Woodstock-type gathering in Wisconsin where we camped out all weekend and watched/listened to great groups like The Black Crows, Deep Purple, and Blue Oyster Cult. That was really fun as we dozed off in our sleeping bags listening to this great music being played live. At Wheaton, there was a very talented student whose voice was uncannily identical to Bob Dylan’s. He formed a band and played nothing by Dylan music, giving concerts all the time on campus. Fantastic! I took a date a couple of times to Chicago (sorry, Sheri) to see Three Dog Night, and also Janis Joplin when she was with Big Brother and the Holding Company. She was very unique in her bluesy, raspy voice, and I really liked her music.
5. Jesus Movement. I had been a devout believer in Jesus for a while by this time, the later 60’s-early 70’s, so I was ready to dive into this exciting time of revival in the youth culture. I traveled around locally when there were “Jesus Concerts” held, with really good music focused on Christ. I really loved most of that so-called “secular” music up to this point, and I still do, but there was something special when the same creative juices were invested in Jesus songs. During the summer before my senior year at Wheaton, I was the director of our church’s inner-city community center, and we established a coffeehouse for Rockford’s youth, especially those who wouldn’t darken the door of a church. We invited various musicians (acoustic groups or individuals), and we would basically just hang out, sit around old wooden spool-tables in an empty warehouse in town, and talk, drink coffee, and listen to the music. That was really fun. My favorite Christian musicians during this time were Larry Norman, Barry MacQuire, and a few others, especially some awesome gospel singers like Andre Crouch, Marvin Gaye, and Al Green. Even Kris Kristofferson and Johnny Cash were an important part of that era with me.
6. California. Between ’71-’73, I lived in LA and San Franciso. The Jesus Movement was in full swing there, so I would travel around and enjoy those concerts. In San Franciso, I lived down the street from a big old house that apparently was the place where the Jefferson Airplane (another outstanding American group) hung out and practiced. It happened one time that I walked by that house, and the Airplane were on the front porch, jamming to their heart’s content. I didn’t see Gracie Slick (the premier woman singer in rock at that time) on the porch, but I may have missed her.
7. Detroit. Sheri and I were privileged to be a part of a street church called the Fellowships, which had very talented young men and women coming in off the street who wanted to sing about Jesus. And it was terrific! Amazing music. What a blessing to listen to that music and then absorb the best Bible teaching ever. I still have a recording or two of some of the music, and we still listen to it once in a while at home. During this time, Sheri and I went to an unforgettable concert at Michigan State University by Jesse Winchester. We love his music, and he performed to perfection.
8. Concerts in DC. I really enjoyed taking whichever of our kids wanted to attend a concert around DC. We went to Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys, and John Prine. Great fun, all of them. We went to the Dropkick concert right after the 9/11 tragedy, and the band got everybody to quiet down so they could play Amazing Grace with just a bagpipe. I’ll never forget it. Everybody there held onto each other’s shoulders in total silence with just the plaintiff sounds of the bagpipe, and it was very moving and powerful. Of course, immediately afterward the mosh pit went into high gear.
9. Rivendell School. I would inevitably have a soundtrack of songs woven into my multi-disciplinary units of study. For example, during the Middle Ages unit, we would start each morning listening to Benedictine chants. My favorite unit was the “Cultural Revolution of the 60’s.” Every morning, we would listen to a song that was popular during that era and which characterized that time in American history. We would listen to and discuss songs like: Buffalo Springfield singing their classic, “For What It’s Worth;” Bob Dylan singing “With God On Our Side;” Jimi Hendrix playing his historic version of the national anthem; the Byrds and their biblical beauty “Turn, Turn, Turn;” Mahalia Jackson singing at the MLK March on Washington; and various protest songs by Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, after which I brought in a local folk singer from that era who taught the students how to write their own protest song. It was a fun way to teach American history, and from what I hear it was a fun way to learn as well. I always said that if the teacher doesn’t enjoy what s/he teaches, the students won’t enjoy learning it.
10. Annapolis Area Christian School. I taught there only three years, but I made them count. In my Bible classes, I would generally have my boom box ready to go, and I wanted to play some music to help the students be relaxed and not be tensed up like a lot of them seemed to be. So I would put on my Best of Bob Marley CD as they were walking in at the start of class, and I think it made for a good atmosphere. When I was in charge of the chapels, it was pretty much a stereotyped, all-white, evangelical Protestant high school, and I rightly suspected they didn’t have much exposure to black worship music, to some soulful gospel and righteous blues music. So as the students were filing into the gym for chapel, I would always have a Blind Boys of Alabama, a Mavis Staples, or a Donnie McGurkin song on the sound system. They actually really loved it, because it was not what they were used to, and they grew to appreciate that style of worship music. During my last year there, I wanted to go out with a bang, so I put together a Battle of the Bands that included all the student rock bands that were in the high school. We had 5 surprisingly good bands. So I reserved the gym on a Saturday night, charged a little admission to raise money for a charity, and gave equal time to each band. The gym was packed, they all loved seeing their friends on stage, and then everyone voted for their favorite band. That was really fun, and I hope I started a tradition with that.
11. My Beloved Record Collection. As one would imagine, and as all my family is well aware, I collected vinyl all through the years. It was quite an eclectic collection since I really do love a wide variety of music. There’s a good chance I may have overdone it a bit on the records. Anyway, my vintage collection included… Americana like John Prine; Irish folk like the Chieftains and the Waterboys; outlaw country like Johnny Cash, Kristofferson, and Waylon Jennings; Motown; reggae; New Orleans jazz; Scottish bagpipes; gospel blues like Blind Willie Johnson; progressive rock like Steely Dan and Emerson, Lake and Palmer; Benedictine chants; funk like James Brown; bluegrass; slavery-era spirituals; lots of blues like BB King; classical like Handel, Bach, and Baroque in particular; lots and lots of classic rock by all the groups mentioned above as well as the better more contemporary albums like U2’s Joshua Tree, and Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions; lots of Bob Dylan; some Christian artists like Michael Kelly Blanchard. I’m sure I left out some of the collection with my faulty memory here. But since the lake house didn’t have the room to store this album collection, I had no choice but to sell the entire collection to a nice young man who owned a used record store in Durham. As soon as I walked into his store with one armful of vintage records after another, he knew he hit the jackpot. He was tickled pink to display them on his shelves as soon as I left the store. That was painful, but on the other hand I did get some money out of the deal to help pay for moving expenses. I have a strong suspicion that we’ll be able to call up any record we want in heaven and have all the time we need as we sit on the front porch and listen to our heart’s content.
12. My Blog. I have continued to focus on my love of music as I write about things like… All the Songs in the Bible (28 articles); Sing a New Song (10 articles); Reviews of my favorite gospel songs (50 in total, and counting); The idea that the Lord IS the Song (how Jesus fleshes out all 12 elements of a song); The Songs of Refuge in the Psalms (55 songs to use as meditations). I also have many of my articles that include its own soundtrack of relevant songs. Yes, YouTube is my friend, as I pick out some music videos every night before hitting the sack.

Eva Cassidy – How Can I Keep From Singing

Who said ‘Dog is man’s best friend?’ No, sorry, but after God, family, and friends, music is man’s best friend, along with books and sports of course. No question about it. Thank you, Lord, for granting us the unspeakably great gift of music. And thank you, my dear bride Sheri, for putting up with my musical inclinations for over 50 years now, including my current CD collection. And to prove my affection for music, I composed this sonnet a few years ago:

To Musica – A Love Sonnet.

Who designed your soundscape wheel? Earful bliss,

As color to sight, and smoothness to touch;

For in combinations fresh, angel-kiss

Of rhythm, pitch, scale, note.. Simple as such.

Maestro eternal, bring echoes from Home,

Conduct the stars again, symphony King;

So ripple it out on joy’s slipstream.. Come!

Lo! Mel’dy flows, harm’ny floats, soul takes wing.

Thus Hell’s darkest curse, in horr’fic fire-light:

Babel noise, clashing clamour, banging gong;

Infernal, tone deaf to love’s hot might.

Sad spirits there lost to Heaven’s sweet song.

Oh! Beauteous waves of passion unbound,

Composer’s promise, a rainbow of sound.