Dad was a huge fan of music. From his involvement in the church choir to playing "his song" at the piano, he always had music around him in some way, and encouraged us to share in his enthusiasm. Not all of us had the skills to play our own music, but we've all made music appreciation a huge part of our lives.
His favorites were classical (Russian composers in particular) and jazz. Before us kids came along, he and Mom would go on dates to Chicago to catch acts at some of the many jazz clubs in town. His tastes adapted nicely to the evolution of music and even managed to enjoy some of the music that us kids listened to (although sometimes grudgingly—while working at the shop one Saturday he protested to Jack about the lyrics on a Jerry Garcia album we were listening to: "I like the songs okay, but why do they all have to be about smoking pot?"). But besides getting tips from us and listening to the radio, he had purchased very few albums during the time that he and Mom were raising kids.
The breakthrough for him came with the introduction of CDs. He read about the superior music quality they produced and bought one of the first consumer CD players available. We'd recently inaugurated the upstairs as the living room after 10 years of it being a bedroom and he set up his new system with new speakers upstairs and downstairs in the kitchen. The actual selection of CD titles was rather slim, consisting only of a 5' section of space at the local Tower Records. But the titles were mostly classical and jazz, so it was easy for him to pick some of his favorites. He'd turned the music up loud and smile as he sang along to the melodies. He was in his element. Of course, us kids purchased our own CDs to play. We'd buy a few titles here and there and add them to the ever-growing library of CDs. Dad picked up on a few and we'd find him cooking in the kitchen, singing along to The Eurythmics, or Eric Clapton.
I was returning home one Sunday afternoon when, from about a block away, I heard music cranking out of the upstairs windows. I ran into the house, furious that Lucy was playing my new CD so loud and without concern for Mom and Dad. When I got upstairs Lucy was nowhere to be found, but there was Dad, reclined in his lounge chair, lyric sheet from the jewel case laid open on his lap. His eyes were closed and he was grinning ear-to-ear. Dark Side of the Moon was playing at full volume and he was enjoying every moment of it. In a strange reversal of roles, I found myself turning down the music and asking him what he was doing.
He sat up, put his glasses on, and starting telling me about how great the album was, how amazingly deep the lyrics were. He gave me what is probably the most detailed and accurate assessment of the underlying theme of the album I've ever heard. He was on the second listen of the album and already he "got it." He asked, "Who are these guys? Are they new?"
I told him that no, it was not new, and, in fact, was released 13 years earlier. "Your older kids used to listen to this album when it was first released and you'd yell at them to turn it down."
"I did? But it's really good..."
Sure, Dad had his own likes and dislikes in music, but he taught me through example the importance of keeping an open mind and embracing new concepts...even if they're a bit old.
"Long you live and high you fly, and smiles you'll give and tears you'll cry, and all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be."
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Actually, Dad stayed very interested in music and broadcast technology even as his family grew. When I first got my own bedroom in Illinois (when Jenny arrived), it was the room that contained the stereo equipment (the speakers were wired through the wall into the adjacent living room). I remember, in addition to the Dave Brubeck records, albums by the Kingston Trio and Mitch Miller.
In the late 70s, a San Francisco radio entrepreneur tried an on-air "experiment" with quadraphonic sound: you'd tune one stereo system to one station, and another to another station, and they each aired two channels of the four channel sound. If the speakers were positioned correctly, you could hear the train choo-choo in circles around the room. Dad probably had one of a handful of correctly-assembled systems, in the living room on Citrus Avenue.
And then there was the day he brought home "Abraxas". I was a freshman in high school, and I'd never heard of Santana before he bought the album and brought it home for us to hear.
Interesting thing is that when we were shopping for his CD player, Dad had told me that he hadn't purchased new stereo equipment or new records since he and Mom first got married. So, he MAY have stretched the truth a bit...
Paula tells me that I'm extraordinarily good at justifying a purchase—I think I may have gotten some of those skills from Dad.
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