MOM AND MUSIC
Some of my earliest memories of my mother are tied to music. During the 1970s and 1980’s, our home was filled with music every day. If Mom heard a song on the radio she liked, she urgently wanted the album, cassette, or CD. I’ve seen this urgency in me.
If you are reading this and have only been exposed to acquiring new music by tapping your finger on your phone, you’ve missed a moment in time. It was an experience to walk into a major record store to purchase a recording, return home, and listen to it in its entirety while reading liner notes. If you never did that, I feel sorry for you. LOL. But let me get back to Mom.
I remember the day she sent my eldest brother to Swallen’s to pick up the latest album by Roberta Flack featuring Donnie Hathaway. She just heard the title track, “Back Together Again,” on the radio and obviously had to have it. He brought the album, and when he returned, she listened to both sides. For those who live outside of Cincinnati, Swallen’s was a store for everything; like a Walmart but community-friendly.
There were other albums Mom purchased quickly after hearing their newly released singles: Quincy Jones’, The Dude, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, We Are the World, and others. She would buy the album and the12” single, if there were one.
I inherited that urgency to own music. As a teenager and young adult, I couldn’t wait until payday to catch the bus to Globe Records Downtown to buy a cassette tape or compact disc of a song I heard at the club or on the radio. This is a generation before the internet, streaming music, and MTV. And even MTV was limited to the artists you saw and heard.
From the earliest days, music has been a part of my life. During the disco era, my parents took dance lessons at Arthur Murray Dance Studios and danced in the house all the time. When they danced together at parties, people cleared the dance floor.
When I close my eyes, I can hear the songs from different memories: the playlist on an 8-track tape Dad created for a New Year's Eve party my parents hosted and the Carpenters playing on our kitchen radio as we ate breakfast before school. I can see the component set that played albums and tapes of holiday music as Mom decorated the house and cooked while Dad drank eggnog. I can hear Mom at home vacuuming the landing at the bottom of the stairs to the bedrooms upstairs while music played in the background, signaling us to get up from our slumber.
Because of Mom, my appreciation of music extends across genres. My vinyl and compact disc collection can confirm it. So will my Spotify library. Music is my refuge and my balm. It makes me happy when I need it and heals when nothing else can reach me.
When my parents’ health began to fail, I created a personalized playlist for each of them to help me cope. When they passed, these playlists were, and continue to be, a healing balm. I laugh and sometimes cry as these songs bring beautiful memories with love. Dad’s playlist is mostly blues: Faye Adams, Ray Charles, Bobby Bland, B.B. King, Barry White, etc. Mom’s playlist is a bit more contemporary: The Crusaders, Bill Withers, Sergio Mendes, Jackie Wilson, and of course, Robert Flack, and more. These singers' music was part of the soundtrack to my childhood.
When I reach for my collection of vinyl and grab albums by Roberta Flack, Sylvester, George Benson, or Al Jarreau to play, I’ll nod to Mom and thank her for one of the many appreciations she’s passed on to me.
Music.
