I've always enjoyed music. My parents always had a radio playing or an album on the turntable. Whenever we stopped in at the Valu Mart my dad would end up in the record department shopping for some kind of album that caught his eye. Although I didn't much care for the stuff I was subjected to back then, some of it stuck. For example, I love the song, Apache by Jorgen Ingemann. Some of the stuff by the Ventures come to mind also.
The fact that we kids were subjected (forced) to take band all through school really doesn't fit into the picture. Sure, I learned music, played music, and was immersed in music. I'm not talking about that kind of music. I'm talking about popular music. Real music. The kind people spend money on.
When I was in school, it was not acceptable to listen to Motown. At least within my circle of what I perceived as cool it wasn't. Looking back on it, I believe it was all in my mind. I had no role models or older brother to look up to. I had to forge my own path. Back then only rock music was cool. I didn't want any potential friends to know that I liked watching Soul Train as much as I liked watching Where the Action Is or American Bandstand. The truth is, I blew a lot of years living with my head in the sand. The Temptations singing Papa Was a Rolling Stone is one of my favorites and has been for years. Ditto anything by Tower of Power. I could go on and on. I think part of me was ashamed. I totally loved rockin' out to Jimi Hendrix, Grand Funk Railroad, and Led Zeppelin and other total rock music of the era (and still do). The "Motown Sound" just didn't fit with that line of thinking. I must have had myself thinking I had to choose between Yin and Yang.
I was not a leader--I was a follower. I was not a free thinker--I was a copycat.
When I bought an album I didn't buy it for the album. I bought it for a song on the album. I would find myself listening to that song and nothing but that song. I didn't even care to listen to a live version of a hit song because to me it was not the hit version everybody was supposed to love. It wasn't just right.
I don't know where I got all that thinking. Maybe it was my parents--I dunno.
At some time in my life I saw the light. I pulled my head out of the sand and held it high. I admitted to the world, "Screw you--I listen to only one kind of music: GOOD music." Anyone that knows me knows that my perception of 'good music' is all over the map. At some point I stopped caring what people might think if they heard me listening to certain things. It was during this awakening that I learned how much I really like Crazy by Patsy Cline, Sweet Dreams (or anything else for that matter) by the sweet voice of Roy Orbison. So many years.
I've found that this is why I like listening to Radio Paradise. It plays and eclectic mix that I like. It plays the obscure, the unknown, and the unappreciated. It also plays plenty of hits--don't get me wrong. I just love it when I "discover" something that was there under my nose all these years and I gleaned over it because it wasn't 'cool enough' for me to appreciate it.
Well, I appreciate it now.
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