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The only thing worse than being a snob is to
realize you are, and having to admit it. It makes it even more painful to look back in
later life and realize you were a snob about something as important as
your heritage. Music My mother’s father, Charlie Hayden, could play
anything with strings on it. Beyond
that, he built or repaired many instruments in the small shop in his
backyard. A smashed fiddle
went in and a shiny new, mellow sounding instrument came out. There were eight children in the family and each
played some instrument. My
mother was proficient on a guitar or a piano.
The youngest boy, more interested in sports than music, did at
least play spoons for a family session. The recesses of my memory still hold the sight
and sound of Pa Hayden playing a steel guitar before the glowing fire at
our farmhouse. The Hawaiian
music painted pictures of beeches and palm trees. Pa Hayden and his group played on the radio at
times and for many neighborhood barn dances.
Each fall there was a stew cooked around the tobacco barn and
their music blended in with the night shadows cast by the fire under a
huge black pot. The fiddle was the most attractive instrument to
me and my father offered to buy one from Pa Hayden if I would lean to
play it. The song he tried
to teach me was “Home Sweet Home.” This was in the days of Crosby-Sinatra-Como.
If he had tried to teach me “Paper Moon” or “Sue City
Sue,” I could have known the tune and might have learned.
It made me self-conscious and about the same time my elementary
school teachers decided I should skip the third grade, go from the
second to the fourth. It
was in the third grade kids were learning to use the shiny flute and to
read basic music. I was so
far behind I managed to “misplace” my flute and avoid looking
foolish among the accomplished musicians in the fourth grade. Bennie Goodman’s dazzling woodwind notes were
more enticing than the twang of strings on a banjo.
Once I played a Goodman 78 record for Pa Hayden and told him it
was called “Benjie’s Bubble.”
He said, “Humph, that’s ‘Under the Gold Eagle’ just
played a little faster.” College carried me the final step toward turning
my back on “hillbilly music.” Classical
music caught my fancy. It
was accepted by my friends and I fell in step.
A music appreciation course introduced me to the flowing beauty
of Debussy, to the heart-pounding avalanche of chords from Wagner or
particularly Tchaikovsky. To
this day, I pause in awe at his “First Piano Concerto” or the somber
“Pathetique.” Beethoven,
Mozart filled my heart with music.
I was even fascinated by the weird unmelodic music of Schoenberg. Since I was a small child, I had listened to
Dixieland like “St. Louis Blues” and didn’t know it was considered
classic. But I met
Gershwin’s sound and that was classic. But people didn’t dance to “Afternoon of a
Faun” or “An American in Paris.” Some guys were making some “hillbilly music”
that wouldn’t let your feet be still.
Guys like Red Foley, Ray Price and Hank Williams wouldn’t let
you sit still, and the lyrics burned in your memory.
If you wanted to dance close to your girlfriend, nothing was
smoother than Jim Reeves, Eddie Arnold or Patsy Cline. Then along came a fellow doing a shaky dance
while he sang. I did my
best not to like Elvis Presley. But
he was irresistible. No one
before or since has had quite the same effect with sound and song. When I worked with Lee Stoller on Cristy
Lane’s “One Day at a Time” biography, I marveled at how such a
beautiful powerful voice could come from such a tiny lady.
She could have been a Broadway show vocalist and her voice would
have reached the upper decks. There
were those in the country music field who would have been stars in any
type of music. I was fortunate enough to meet Ray Price once
when he appeared at the Cristy Lane Theatre in Branson. He taught me very quickly I couldn’t drink tequila with him
and chase it with chocolate liqueur.
He may have stutter stepped a bit on stage, but nothing was wrong
with that voice. Whether you call it hillbilly music or country
and western music or bluegrass, it has its place in the ranks of sound
and melody. They say it’s
not of genuine American origin, that it goes back to the ballads of
Europe and other countries. No
point arguing that fact. But
no one else has come up with a Hank Williams or Willie Nelson.
No other country has a singing balladeer like Tom T. Hall. So, I went full circle and survived a period of
snobbery to come back to my roots of the music of my ancestors. Right now, I may put a CD on while I work with
the computer. It could be
Merle Haggard or it might be Enrico Caruso.
Maybe it will be Pavarotti or Johnny Cash.
I can enjoy most any kind of music. But—rap will never be music. If that means I’m still a snob, so be it.
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