Random Grandma-ness
My paternal grandmother just moved out of her house in Cresaptown, MD, in which she has lived for nearly 60 years, and into a much smaller apartment. So, she's got lot's of stuff to get rid of. My Dad dropped in for a visit this weekend and delivered a box of about 40 7" singles that my aunt (his sister) had picked up while in Md. She asked if I could put them on CD for her.
Here are the first couple of sets. It's a mixed bag of stuff from the 50's -70's - mostly Grandma's country, but some of her second husband Bill's swingin' lounge stuff (he sang weekly at the Elks Lodge, or someplace similar, so there's an abundance of Dean Martin, Sinatra, etc. in his collection), a bit of easy listening, some Ramsey Lewis-like piano combo stuff, and some early rock via my uncle Ron, who has a few singles in this set. There's also a really cool rockabilly-ish "Danny Boy", Roy Clark rockin' "My Baby Loves Spooky Movies", Freddie Fender swearing to be there "Before The Next Teardrop Falls," and a completely out-of-place single from The Kingsmen.
No set list this time (maybe I'll get around to posting it eventually, or maybe not - mystery is good) so if you're feeling adventurous give it a shot.
Grandma Discs Set One
Grandma Discs Set Two
Here are the first couple of sets. It's a mixed bag of stuff from the 50's -70's - mostly Grandma's country, but some of her second husband Bill's swingin' lounge stuff (he sang weekly at the Elks Lodge, or someplace similar, so there's an abundance of Dean Martin, Sinatra, etc. in his collection), a bit of easy listening, some Ramsey Lewis-like piano combo stuff, and some early rock via my uncle Ron, who has a few singles in this set. There's also a really cool rockabilly-ish "Danny Boy", Roy Clark rockin' "My Baby Loves Spooky Movies", Freddie Fender swearing to be there "Before The Next Teardrop Falls," and a completely out-of-place single from The Kingsmen.
No set list this time (maybe I'll get around to posting it eventually, or maybe not - mystery is good) so if you're feeling adventurous give it a shot.
Grandma Discs Set One
Grandma Discs Set Two
posted by senormedia at 8:38 AM
2 Comments:
Man,
I've been so nostalgic lately, for sensations, ways of thinking and being that are gone irrevocably...singular moments that don't get to be recycled, ephemeral things like needles on vinyl, department stores with tea rooms on the top floor and a grill and soda fountain in the basement. Cocktail culture when it was fresh. The notion that rockabilly could be the latest thing and that blue jeans and chrome and the wind in your hair and sun on your knuckles were fresh and new like transistor radios by the beach.
It has swept me away, and I've been reading about Dean Martin and the Rat Pack, about all kinds of cocktail culture turning into the Beat-fueled rebellion that ended the 50s and started the 60s, and these transcriptions of these miraculous old...45s(?)...into digital versions is such a mind-numbing synchronicity. The quaint imperfection of a needle on vinyl made the world around the music more real, unlike today when so often it seems the power of encompassing media takes you out of your present reality.
Old vinyl was in YOUR space. It was fallible and human and temporary and life size...heart size. Dear God, I miss that smaller 60s and 70s world sometimes.
It's childhood I miss, I suppose, but it's also all those smaller, simpler ways of living that made the world seem so much larger and mysterious and magical. The knowledge of that simpler 20th century way of being will die with us. Accessible to other generations, but they won't remember the flavor...the slow breezes through the curtains while an old album of Holst's Planets plays Venus softly through the sunny quiet of a lazy summer Saturday afternoon as you lie on your bed with a new copy of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles.
Thanks for this.
Jonathan Parker
My pleasure, JP.
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