My Music History

I've waxed poetic many a time about how my childhood was a solitary one. (I have, seriously ask anyone who knows me!) One of the side effects of growing up that way is I had a great deal of time to fill with my own brand of entertainments. I don't remember when, but I think it was somewhere between my 8th & 10th birthdays ('84-'86) that two big events, musically, happened to me. I was given my stepfather's hand-me-down stereo system complete with tape deck & record player. (Yes, that's how old I am.) The second event was finding my mom's old collection of 45s.

During one of the greatest era's of music, the 80s, I was getting my musical experience expanded by being exposed to artists like Smokey Robinson, The Four Tops, Ray Charles, The Doors, David Bowie (old school Ziggy Stardust style at the same time as 80s Bowie, how AWESOME is that!!) other artists from the 50s, 60s, & 70s. I learned what a REAL power singer is from the likes of Aretha Franklin, Patti LaBelle, Luciano Pavarotti, and Placido Domingo. I learned the power of lyrics from the likes of Simon & Garfunkel, the Eagles, and The Who.

Four years later, during the 90s birth of the Grunge music phenomenon, I joined the LHS Lancer Marching Band and went FURTHER back in time musically to the 30s & 40s where I learned of jazz music from the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan, and my search for other artists who played my instrument (the trombone) got me into big band swing with Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman & Glenn Miller. Being in my high school marching band also exposed me to the high school choir. Before you ask, my high school had over 1500 students in it, no one cared enough about choir to make it a Glee-like experience. Through the slight overlap choir had with band, I was introduced to acapella music. Plus throughout all of this I was also being exposed to a wide variety of spanish music as well.

In college ('94-'98), I tried to reconnect with current popular music and got into dance, club & techno music which took me back on a tour of the music released during my lifetime and became more aquinted with the various forms of the 80s music pantheon and the 90s re-emergence of R&B. From that point forward, I just soldiered on, so to speak, picking up new music as I encountered it.

Writing this down, I've suddenly realized that my musical life is just as strange & out of whack as the rest of my life. It's amazing that I've never really considered it until now.