Music and Family

This is my interview with my dad!

Me: What kind of music did you listen to as a child?

Dad: I listened to R&B, Gospel, Country...and some rock.

Me: How did you listen to music?

Dad: We had 45 records and -

Me: What? Forty five records?

Dad: Yeah. Albums. That's what they were called.

Me: Oh, okay.

Dad: We listened to the radio too, and 8-tracks.

Me: Okay...Was there any dancing involved?

Dad: Yeah. Uh...the twist. We mainly danced at home around the house.

Me: What sort of enviornment did you listen to music in? Like was it at dances or something?

Dad: It was mostly around the living room. It was more of a family enviornment. I used to go in my room and use it to mellow out.

Me: Why did you listen to music?

Dad: I've always enjoyed music. The words, the meaning of the words. I was fascinated by the types of music.

Me: Hmm. How did your parents feel about your choice of music and what happened when you became the parent?

Dad: Well, they enjoyed the music too. We could only listen to it at certain times of the day. I don't mind the types of music listened to today.

Me: Were you exposed to any music outside of your culture?

Dad: Yes. Country, rock and roll...and big band. Do you want to know why?

Me: Why?

Dad: There were no black radio stations back then. All there was to listen to was country and stuff like that.

Me: Really?

Dad: Yeah. The first black station was The Big DM in 1974.

Me: Whoa. I didn't know that.

Dad: Yep. We could sometimes hear a couple of stations from other states, but it was hard to catch them. They were on a.m. stations, so we had to wait for the f.m. stations in 1974.

Me: Oh. Hey, we learned about the blues yesterday!

Dad: The blues?

Me: Yeah!

Dad: What kind of things did you learn?

Me: Oh, uh...we talked about Bessie something...it was a clip from a movie in the 1930's. We learned about the roots of it and stuff. We talked about Robert Johnson some.

Dad: Yeah, Robert Johnson. I have a few of his songs. He sold his soul to the devil.

Me: ....What?

Dad: Yeah, it was rumored that he actually couldn't play guitar, but he sould his soul and was amazing the next day.

Me:...Oh. Well he did talk about the devil a lot. You know what that sounds like? Supernatural! In the show they had these crossroads demons and you would go to a crossroad and bury something there, then the demon would show up and give you anything you want if you sold your soul. They'd give you like ten years to live with your wish and then they come for you and then you die!

Dad: He died young -

Me: Twenty seven.

Dad: Yeah.

Me: Okay, so...did you play any instruments or anything?

Dad: I had a bass drum and Aunt Cynn (short for Cynthia) had an organ. She played flute too.

Me: She did? Wait, what? She had an organ?

Dad: Yeah. They would sell them like keyboards. They were about the same size.

Me: Wow.

Dad: I could only play 'Lean on Me' on the organ. It was easy.

He then began to sing. I now see where my singing skills come from...or lack thereof.

Me: Well...I don't really have more questions...is there anything else you want to say?

Dad: It's amazing how much music has evolved. When I came up everyone was a band and everything was live. Now there's fake voices and fake instruments. You can never duplicate real instruments and live bands. Yeah, I love music. Music makes the world go round and it transcribes life. Coming up in highschool, they'd have dances in Batesburg and bring local bands like Green Ice and Brown Ice.

Me: Well...I do agree with you on the fakeness, haha. You don't really need a lot of talent now. As long as you look good.

Then we sort of just talked about random things. This was very interesting for me. My dad and I never really talk about music, so it was interesting hearing his point of view on it. It also made me appreciate aspects of how music was back then and now. It's much easier to come across now, but I feel like it was an entirely different experience all those years ago. I know how some young people say how they'd kill to go back and grow up in the sixties or something (I would probably sell my first-born to see Queen in concert), but now looking at what my dad said, I'm not sure if it would be that great. Think of the technology gap. No iPods, less radio stations...it was a much larger world in musical terms. Plus there was all the crap going on in the world. So I am very happy that I had this experiece with my dad.