Posted by Last night as the snow fell and school kids everywhere rejoiced, I lazed on the couch and channel surfed through the weather report, an episode of Friends, and finally one of those infomercials on an off channel we usually ignore. TimeLife is selling a multiCD set of “Great Country Hits of the 50s and 60s.”
In a mixture of pride and horror, I slowly realized that I recognize/know 90% of these “hits” from bygone years. Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Marty Robbins, Jim Reeves, Patsy Cline, Buck Owens, Tennessee Earnie Ford, Glen Campbell — this music formed the canon of my dad’s listening and guitar playing. His Hank Williams Sr record collection survives in my old house in PA, now in the possession of my brother (who hates country music but recognizes the collection value of a vintage LP). Our house was full of music both old and modern (but notsomuch rock, that traffic of sex and Devil). Now MY house is full of music, iPods, hundreds of CDs, two pianos, and a player piano roll collection that includes ” Ring of Fire” and “First Date” and “The Green Green Grass of Home.”
Today I am awash in mild embarrassment, waves of nostalgia, memories of my father, and a deep desire to see whether iTunes has a legit recording of Marty Robbins’s “El Paso.”
Just:Words 