Shadows Touch the Sand
A sampling of the music I grew up with plus three jokes about strawberry wine
I grew up in a part of Kentucky that was a transitional mix of rural and country-suburban, with neighborhood developments rubbing shoulders with pastures and crops, and suburban tracts sometimes making room for cows and horses. Although an interstate would later connect with relative ease to Louisville and its more populous suburbs and shopping malls, for most of the 1970s, it was a haul to get to a place where you could do something like buy a record. A half-hour drive to the nearest Ayr-Way (precursor to Target) was the closest jaunt, though eventually, we got a Wal-Mart. On special occasions, we might trek to the mall, where there was a Musicland. But for the most part, music shopping was slim pickings and often involved Slim Pickens albums.
My parents were products of their time without being particularly invested, as far as they’ve let me know, in any one youth culture. They became parents early in life and had to deal with a kid while living in married student housing. Mom was sort of a nerd who knew some arty hippie types, and my dad mostly ran with the stoner jock crowd that was particular to the very early 1970s. Long hair and pot and rock ‘n’ roll, but they still made football practice. I know from the occasional story that my mom had a thing for the Rolling Stones when she was in high school, and that buying the single of “Let’s Spend the Night Together” got her in a lot of trouble with her dad, the man I knew as Grandpa Harley.
Grandpa Harley who, as far as I can tell, only ever listened to a single song his entire life: Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “Sixteen Tons.” Though Grandpa Harley was a World War II vet, so he must have heard Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” at some point, it being one of only two songs that existed during WWII (the other was “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”). His wife, my Grandma Tommie, was fond of Loretta Lynn’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” having grown up the daughter of a coal miner in Wheatcroft, Kentucky. It’s the only song I remember her listening to, though I have seen some photos of what looks to have been her pretty wild youth (hula skirts and motorcycle leathers, among other things), so I’m guessing there was more to her playlist than I ever knew.
On the other side of the family, I don’t remember my dad’s parents listening to much other than Lawrence Welk, though they did log plenty of hours watching Hee-Haw.
Although I know they had more, I remember my parents owning five particular albums: Poco’s Rose of Cimmaron, Pure Prairie League’s Bustin’ Out, The Eagles’ Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975), the Beach Boys’ Endless Summer, and the Bing Crosby Christmas album. I’m sure there were others. I have photographic proof that my dad had a secret stash of at least a couple of stoner rock albums, including Jethro Tull’s Aqualung and Uriah Heep’s Demons and Wizards. You know, albums full of songs in which a haggard yet magical stranger drinks the singer’s strawberry wine.
In the 1980s, they expanded their collection a little to include the Urban Cowboy soundtrack, Billy Joel’s 52nd Street, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors, and Waylon Jenning’s Greatest Hits. I had also added a few records to the pile by then, singles mostly: the Greatest American Hero theme song and that Star Wars disco song by Meco. We also got a car with a tape deck, so my mom added a couple of tapes to our strange musical menagerie, the ones I remember being ELO’s Time, which I went nuts over because robot voice, and a recording of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris.
MTV and a driver’s license, not to mention exposure to punk rock courtesy of the USA channel’s Night Flight, led me to expand my musical tastes beyond the albums with which I’d grown up. But still, selections from all of these albums still make their way into my playlists to this day, none more frequently than “Rose of Cimmaron” and Pure Prairie League’s “Amie.” Growing up where and as I did, there’s a ton of music that, when it was current, I didn’t hear. Bit by bit over the subsequent decades I’ve been filling in the blank spaces and discovering a lot of great stuff I missed the first time around. It’s never really bothered me to have missed so much, because it means now, later in life when one might fear there are fewer new things to experience, I have a massive back catalog of culture still to discover.
But new discoveries don’t come at the expense of old friends. They keep hanging out on the front porch, having brought over their guitar and a case of cheap beer. And they’re always welcome, even when they drink all of my strawberry wine.
First Concerts
The first concerts I attended reflected what was going on around me. Eddie Rabbit at the Kentucky State Fair (they pulled his stage out by tractor) and Crystal Gayle (with fireworks at the end). The first concert I asked (begged) to go to, and that my dad came through on despite what a chore it was, was Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” tour. We had nosebleeds, but fuck it. We were there. The second, again at the Kentucky State Fair, was Weird Al Yankovic’s “In 3D” tour.
The first punk concert was Fugazi, Kingface, and local heroes Kinghorse. They played in a conference room with no stage at the Thunder Sports Center, a training facility for Louisville’s professional indoor soccer team at the time.
The sad thing is, and I attribute this to age, I can remember those but I’m having a hard time remembering what my most recent concert was. Oh yeah—Mingus Big Band!
The Playlist
Consider this one a sort of ambient sample of the music I heard as I grew up in the 1970s and ‘80s, as well as some more recent tracks to keep things jumping. Not necessarily the deep cuts, but a pretty fair sample of what was around me and good for driving down to the river to make out or just lying on the hood drinking with your friends. You’re bringing your own strawberry wine, though, you weird old vagrant magic man.