It is the first day of the
A-to-Z Blog Challenge of 2016! My theme is The Music of My Life.
My mother took me to a
Neil Diamond concert before I was born. When I was still in her womb, she
discovered that the singer was coming to Johnson City, Tennessee—the next town
over from my small hometown of Kingsport, Tennessee. She told me she had hopes
of meeting the man himself and hung out after the performance
(groupie-style) with that end in mind. In actuality, he never showed,
and my mom and her friends ended up hanging out with the roadies instead.
I have always viewed
this backdrop as the introduction to my love of music. All of my life, music
has played a crucial part. Some of my earliest memories are connected with
music—all kinds of music. My tastes have always been varied and eclectic, and
music has played different roles at different stages of my life. There are some artists and
song selections, however, that will always remain ageless.
As Maria sings in The Sound of Music, the beginning is the very best place to start, so I will start
there.
One of my earliest
memories involving music: me standing in front of my grandparents’ fireplace
in their living room, holding a candlestick like a microphone, and belting out
the tune, “You Light Up My Life” by Debbie Boone.
After that,
my mother played music on her stereo turntable and in the 8-track cassette
player in the car. As Mom drove me to preschool in the mornings, I remember
singing along to Barbra Streisand’s “Evergreen” from A Star is Born (still one
of my favorite albums of all time).
My mother had every,
single Barbra Streisand album ever sold, and her flawless, powerful voice shaped
my love of powerhouse singing.
A couple of years
later, we were in the car on our way to Jackson Elementary School listening to
Donna Summer’s “On the Radio” and Barry Manilow’s “Copacabana.” Staple tunes of
my childhood.
Although marked by
style and era of music, these are tunes I consider ageless in their capacity to
move me (sometimes with tears, other times with smiles of joyous nostalgia).
But I never tire of listening to them.
What tunes are ageless
for you?
