Few things are as rewarding as getting one’s guitar and playing in a darkened hushed room until one’s son is fast asleep.
music
Play My Boy To Sleep
First Music
The first album I ever bought is one I’m almost loathe to admit to now. The second, less so: Boston’s Third Stage. I was in seventh or eighth grade when I bought those albums, and it was no small feat, for my father had made a rule that he had to investigate and approve any music purchase I made. At the time, I thought it was ridiculous. As a father myself, now I understand.
Recently, L made a discovery: portable music is highly convenient. She’s been taking my iPod about, listening to whatever she finds on there that strikes her fancy. That’s almost fine: most of my music I’d willingly play for her, but there is this and that which I don’t think she’s quite ready for. Fortunately, she was more drawn to jazz than anything else. Ben Webster’s “Late Date” was a particular favorite.
Still, there’s always the risk of accidental discovery of something she’s not quite ready for. So when L suggested she buy her own MP3 player with the money she’s saved up, it seemed a good idea.
It came Wednesday, and I loaded it up with Ben Webster, Sonny Stitts, Buena Vista Social Club, Beatles, and similar selections, and K bought her the Frozen soundtrack as a first album.
And yet, as I sit here listening to the newest John Mayer on Spotify, I realize that by the time she’ll be the age I was when I first bought my first album, iPods will even seem old-school. All music available all the time.
What will she listen to?
I’m not so much worried about what she’ll listen to as I am the music her potential suitors will be drawn to. A boy who listens to misogynistic rap will likely be somewhat affected by it — at the very least, his disregard for what the man is actually saying will be worrying. Of course with the prevalence of free online porn, what the young man might be listening to might be of less concern than what he’s streaming on his phone.
All of this flashed in my thoughts as I saw L dancing about, singing along as best she could to a song she barely knows, and I thought that perhaps Babcia is right: the nineteenth century was so much better…
Chris Smither
Joyeux Noel: The Christmas Miracle of 1914
When I was in college, I was not a Deadhead — I never even saw the Grateful Dead in concert — but I was something of a McCutcheon-head, if there be such a thing. John McCutcheon is a multi-instrumentalist folk singer who is equally at home singing his renditions of spirituals and his own songs for children. In college, I saw him in concert a number of times, and there was always one song that left me truly enchanted. He introduced it most times in a similar way, telling of a concert he’d given in the early eighties when an elderly man approached him and, speaking of his song “Christmas in the Trenches,” said, “Young man, I was there.”
This was pre-internet days. One couldn’t simply Google “Christmas miracle 1914,” and it wasn’t a story I heard in history class. And that’s really too bad.
After hearing that story, I thought, “This is a fantastic story — why hasn’t anyone made a film of it.”
Tonight, K and I watched Joyeux Noel, and as I read the Netflix disc-cover summary, I thought, “Is this about that thing John McCutcheon sang about?” Indeed, it is. Well worth viewing.
Side Note
John McCutcheon is best known for his mastery of the hammered dulcimer. I once saw him in concert in Asheville, North Carolina when the power went out in the middle of a hammered dulcimer song. McCutcheon literally never missed a note though it was pitch black for at least thirty or forty seconds.
Singing Kids’ Songs
One of the unexpected results of having kids in the house is the tendency I have of late to start whistling, humming, or even singing “The Wheels on the Bus” or similar songs out of the blue, walking down the hall at school, cooking lunch for the kids, driving to have my oil changed…
Cheese Cake
The Boy has discovered sernik, Polish-style cheese cake. And now we’re listening to Dexter Gordon’s “Cheese Cake” as accompaniment.
God Rest Ye Gentlemen
The Wexford Carol
Transformations
Forty years before this version was recorded, Led Zepplin was the epitome of hard rock bands. Drugs, women, private jets, utterly destroyed hotel rooms: they made the mold of 1970s rock star. With the death of drummer John Bonham in 1980, becoming so inebriated he choked to death on his own vomit in the middle of the night, the band collapsed.
And around thirty years after that, Plant teamed up with Alison Krauss, the greatest voice in bluegrass today (or any other genre), and among other things, resurrected some Zepplin classics, completely re-imagining them. Both the songs and the man, transformed.