MOMMY

Not a parental unit but the Music Of My Misspent Youth.  Like many people my age, The Beatles and the British invasion changed everything.  Before those musically halcyon days of 1963-1964, I simply listened to the radio.  After, music became part of my life, intertwined with my growing consciousness, politics, and a few etceterae that I needn't detail.  It wasn't that "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was miraculously better than "Hats Off to Larry" but somehow there was a dividing time when my musical consciousness awoke. 

And yet the music before 1963 was no "vast wasteland," to quote the FCC chairman of the time. We had Elvis.  We had Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly.  We had the Kingston Trio.  I just don't think about them much any more, and "classic rock" isn't quite that classic.  The radio stations I tend to listen to do play "oldies" but not, I guess, fossils.

The reason I bring this up is that I just became, almost accidentally, reacquainted with some of these old, ignored, but well-remembered songs.  My attention was called to a web site on which someone had painstakingly placed hundreds of songs from 1956 through 1960.  I couldn't resist!  So, while I'm wallowing in auditory nostalgia, I'm going to list a few of the songs that I found there.  I can't guarantee that this web site will exist forever; get 'em while you can.

1956 Carl Perkins - Blue Suede Shoes Chuck Berry - Maybelline Gogi Grant - The Wayward Wind Johnny Cash - I Walk The Line Sonny James - Young Love Patience and Prudence - Tonight You Belong to Me

Not a Beau Brummel or a Led Zeppelin anywhere, but if you can read those lists without a frisson of recognition and memory, you probably were born yesterday.

NP:  "El Paso" - Marty Robbins

Yesterday  |  Tomorrow