Turner Classic Movies, my favorite TV channel, showed The Music Man the other day. It is Meredith Wilson’s tribute to John Phillip Sousa the “March King,” an old classic and I dropped everything to enjoy it again. Robert Preston and “Trouble in River City.” His best part ever.
Growing up in rural South Texas we had music aplenty from various traditions. Phonographs (is that now an archaic word?) and two-sided records. My grandmother’s Edison (now, that IS archaic) and those thick, heavy disks. Classical, music, popular, country, we had it all.
Especially regional music – I guess that’s what you’d call it. Bob Wills, of course. And Czech bands like Adolph Hofner and his Boys. I could get WOAI from San Antonio – 120 on the dial on my refurbished Atwater Kent radio.
Swing band music, the big bands, intruded on us small-town Texans starting about 1940. It reached us in the movies and then in the record shops. We shoved aside country music to make room for the big bands. Those arrangements soon appeared in local groups, such as The Lamplighters over at A&I College. Real dance music, and dancing like they did in the movies, not that country stuff.
Have we circled back to our roots now? My little city here in Georgia is full of musicians of all types, youngsters with energy and talent and ambition. Old country music and bluegrass, new jazz and some old. Music is local again, even with downloads and iTunes.
What are they playing in South Texas?
Dac Crossley
July 21, 2011.
“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to recreate oneself endlessly.” – Henri Bergson.
Luella - I'm a sucker for good barbershop quartets, like the Buffalo Bills there in The Music Man.
Posted by: Dac Crossley | July 21, 2011 at 02:33 PM
Celia - my late wife insisted it was "beautiful, beautiful GREEN eyes" and that's the way I always sang it to her.
We sing/play some Hank W. - like 'Kawliga." Red Foley. Earnest Tubb.
Posted by: Dac Crossley | July 21, 2011 at 02:27 PM
Bob and I spend much time on TCM and we also watched the Music Man a few nights ago. Loved it!
Posted by: Luella Wheeler-Bell | July 21, 2011 at 01:18 PM
Hi, Dac--I can't keep up with the country music world. I'm still stuck on "Beautiful, beautiful, brown eyes, I'll never love blue eyes again." My Daddy sang this to Mother a lot and I used to know all the words.
I stil enjoy the forties and fiftes old-style country Western songs, Hank Williams, etc.
Thanks for the memories--Celia
Posted by: Celia Yeary | July 21, 2011 at 12:14 PM
Not sure about Texas, but when we visited North Carolina during the week of July 4th, the town of Manteo had musicians playing everything from country to jazz to classic rock.
Posted by: Cheryl C. Malandrinos | July 21, 2011 at 11:48 AM