Michael’s Musical Musings: Early Music
The world of music for me, and for many others in my generation, was a medium that could be shared with friends or a personal refuge from the world at large, and to a certain extent, day-to-day family life. It was something I could nurture on my own terms whether I was listening or playing guitar. As a kid I had what would be considered ‘normal’ activities: street ball with the neighborhood kids, joining the Cub Scouts, going to school and church. But having an inner emotional life enhanced by reading or music, although solitary, was very satisfying, a place where I could feel like myself (like the Beach Boy’s song ‘In My Room’). The importance of developing one’s imagination cannot be overstated yet sometimes easily overlooked.
One of the first albums I embraced in my early years was the eponymous Kingston Trio’s first album released in 1958. I was only 6 at the time, so I must have started listening 4 or 5 years later. I do vividly remember learning my first song on guitar, their version of the famous murder ballad from the 1860s, ‘Tom Dooley’ (‘hang down your head and cry…’). Other songs included: ‘Saro Jane’, ‘Wreck of the John B’, and the jazzy ‘Scotch and Soda’. One reviewer remarked how they played ‘with youthful spring, exuberance, freshness, and a number of song choices that spoke to a new generation of folk enthusiasts’. I would listen to them and a few others repeatedly and do nothing else but bask in the music, listen to the stories they told, and wish I could play and sing like them someday.
By chance I heard a new song, ’Crying in the Rain’, composed by Carole King and sung by the Everly Brothers. The song’s incredibly tight vocal harmonies absolutely floored me. I had no idea two voices could sound like that! The lyrics, of course, are very melancholic, supported by a few deftly placed minor chords. The music would envelope me in a wash of emotion that was new and powerful, and although I didn’t know what to do with this new experience, I trusted it was just part of growing up.
I can’t emphasize the importance of Peter, Paul and Mary in my musical life, and most of the burgeoning folk world at the time. Their early albums sold in record breaking numbers. Soon, an amazing array of talented folk singers appeared on the radar, including Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, Ian and Sylvia, and Judy Collins, many composing their own songs. Needless to say, I began to expand my folk song repertoire beyond measure. ‘Tom Dooley’ was soon replaced with ‘If I Had a Hammer’. In 1966 I was thrilled to see PP&M in concert at the Yale Bowl. My sister, Michelle, purchased tickets with her boyfriend and, not wanting to have a ‘third wheel’, fixed me up with one of my classmates. I knew Debbie from school, she was an A+ student, on the cheerleading squad, and had a ‘great personality’….in other words, she was way out of my league. I felt a little uneasy in her presence even though she was genuinely friendly. The whole live concert scene was new to me as Yale Bowl was large and crowded (they even handed out deluxe concert programs before the show). It wouldn't be until 1969 when I attended my next concert, Jefferson Airplane, also in New Haven. A lot happened in those 3 years.
