What is your Musical Heritage?

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Fred Maslan
Date: 05 May 13 - 04:44 PM

What is my musical heritage? My mother and grandmother sang nursery rimes. My grandmother was born and raised in Wisconsin and she was known as the "animal trainer" she taught us "Patacake" and "Yon Yonson" . Friday nights, we would sing Zemirot around the Sabbath table. And in the days before Television we would gather around the piano and my mom or my oldest sister would play and we would sing from the great American song book. My dad, who was raised in Manchester England would sometimes come up with songs from the music hall tradition. At school from the first grade till the ninth grade our principal staged choral productions and that was where I picked up harmony. (I am a wild harmonizer). When I was eight I started two years of piano lessons. Summer time brought summer camp and "Picture a Cowboy" and "A Peanut Sat on the Railroad Track" In the late fifties, my sister would host hoots in my parent's home and we would sneak downstairs and listen. In high school I got into Folk dancing and learned Israeli, Serbo-Croation, Russian, French etc. dances and songs. This introduced me to Electra Records which I proceeded to memorize. As a human being, I claim the world's music as my heritage. So much music to love, so little time!

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: GUEST,Tulip
Date: 04 May 13 - 06:20 PM

Wow ,   I}}}}}}M so GREEK
22

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: SouthernCelt
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 07:03 PM

My aging brain seems to recall that I already posted something on a thread like this before, but I don't see anything in the post list so here it is again.

I grew up in SW Mississippi with little entertainment except the Saturday matinees at the local theater and country music (the good kind, e.g. Hank Williams) on the radio. My parents faithfully listened to the Friday Night Frolic (a rehearsal show of sorts for the Grand Ole Opry)and then the Opry on Saturday night. That continued until we got a TV in '58. At the same time, I had an uncle that was an aspiring singer-songwriter who did both live and taped shows on a local AM radio station. He taped a show at our house one night and that might have been the trigger event to make me want to take up an instrument (this was about 1952 or 53). My parents got me a cheap archtop guitar with f-hole cutouts but since it was so large, I had trouble handling it (but I did try). Still have the Mel Bay "Learn to Play Guitar" instruction book from that short-lived "hobby".

I listened to a whole variety of music and liked most of it (including that invention of Satan himself, rock 'n roll). When I went off to college in the mid-60s, I took a fancy to a young woman who was a classmate of mine that was heavy into folk music. As a result of getting involved with her, I really got into that genre of folk/trad/old time, whatever you'd like to call it, and bought a "folk" guitar (a nylon string classical that has no luthier name on it whatsoever). The relationship with the young woman ended before I graduated so I turned to the guitar and my new "love" of folk music (Pat Sky, Ian and Sylvia, and others of that era) with more of a devotion to learn to play and sing that type of music.

I've gone on since then spending what time I could on music while trying to otherwise work at a reasonably good (non-musical) job, maintain a happy marriage and raise my two sons. Now that I'm nearing retirement, I'm devoting more time to the music side of my interests. Found time over those years to create some folk-type music of my own and try to work those songs into my non-pro performing along with other true folk songs.

SC

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: GUEST,The Molecatcher's Apprentice
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 02:51 PM

Surely this is a very pleasant discussion with no arguements, for a change. :-)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 02:34 PM

Surely all this is at most about parentage and not heritage.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: kendall
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 07:20 AM

My earliest memories are of a radio station in New Brunswick. CHSJ St. John. They played old time music, fiddling, piano and some sort of sticks for rhythm. The program was called Suppertime Frolic. No one was allowed to speak while Don Messer and his Islanders were on!

Later on, a neighbor had a record player and a collection of all kinds of folkie type music such as, The Weavers, Buryl Ives, Wilf Carter and I was hooked.
We finally got a real radio and one of the stations we got was WWVA in Wheeling West Virginia.
In Grammar school I was exposed to classical music, and I fell for that too. Rossini, Beethoven etc.

I got a cheap guitar for my 16th Christmas, and that has taken me down a very interesting road. In 1959 I met Gordon Bok and we became very close friends. That opened another door, and because of him I met Pete Seeger and the Patons at Folk Legacy. One of the highlights of my life was the day Gordon asked if I would lie to make a record on that label!

Since then I've had the pleasure of meeting Tom Paxton, Rambling Jack and Utah Phillips.In 2000 I started having problems with my voice which led to surgery and the last paying gig I did was with Utah in California in April of 2006.
I hardly ever touch the guitar anymore, but I'm in therapy for the voice, so Jacqui won't let me give it away. (Sorry Bernie)

Not sure where my interest in singing comes from, my Mother sang a bit my Father never sang, but he did whistle dirty songs. There was never an instrument in the house until my Brother and I got those guitars for Christmas.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Johan_from_Sweden
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 04:54 AM

Hello every one! I'm new to mudcat, and this is my first official post here...

I grew up with swedish folk music, mostly polska (NOT, I repeat NOT polka!!!) and Bellman, a famous swedeich composer frpm the 16th century. My mother played the violin, and my father comes from a very active musician family, even thugh he newer played any instrument.

I started by playing the recorder, went on to play bass in a heavy metal band, from there I got to play guitar in several blues bands, and finally, today, I play tinflute, guitar and mandolin in an Irish folk music band in Sweden.

Why Irish music? It was Josh White who got me on the track, by singing Molly Malone and The Ballad of Sam Hall. Then, I bought a vinyl LP with the Grehan Sisters, and I was caught by the rythm and the feeling of Irish music.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: polkadots
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 02:37 PM

I too am sad that I haven't continued down the musical path...for so long music was my life. Although i do spend alot of my time listening to all different types of music, singing folk songs when I was younger was my absolute love. I don;t think a day could go by without music being in it...I would be lost without it.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 01:37 PM

Music has been in my house, in my ears, and in my blood and genes since before I was born.

Rough timeline?

My father's people helped found the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; one forebear (my great-gandfather) was a well-known Swedish composer who emigrated to the US and became dean of the school of music at Northwestern University. A cousin of my father's played french horn for the CSO and recorded widely-- you may have heard them on classical music stations.

1950's
My dad also had the music gene in his generation; he sang in a vocal jazz quartet and had a huge, eclectic record collection to which I was introduced at an early age. He taught me how to listen intricately to melody, harmony, rhythm, phrasing, and how to choose material and make a set list. From Rachmaninoff to Porgy and Bess to Sinatra-- we heard it all, and often.

1950's- '60's
In my generation I caught the gene. From an early age I sang; when people wold ask ne what instrument I wanted to play my answer always was "the orchestra." People thought it was funny. By the time I was in my teens I knew it was merely accurate: I had a conductor's ear for what was happening in large ensembles from Big Band to choral works to symphonies. Our branch of the family could not afford to support this; I grew up more ear-taught than note-taught.

When Dr. Zipper (real name) brought his orchestra to play for elementatry school special afternoons, I knew most of the music they presented. I'd whistle along, especially on the sonatas and piano concertos.

Late 1960's
Folk? In high school John Prine, Fred Holstein, and Jim Post happened to have gotten on the HS-assembly circuit. They were fun young adults-- had not even started to make names for themselves. As a teenager I also listened to Herman's Hermits, the Beatles, Joan Baez, and the classical repertoire the radio could bring me.

1970's
As I got older I widened my tastes into the rock and blues popular in the 70's. WFMT's Midnight Special radio program of folk and fol-de-rol came along eventually-- can't recall just when. A chance invitation to the taping for a public TV folk music show introduced me to Odetta, Josh White, Jr., and Bob Gibson.

Later in my young adulthood, the No Exit coffeehouse in Chicago happened to be on the way home from work, at night. I'd hear folk music pouring out the door and one night I stopped in for a grownup cup of cappucino. Art Thieme was playing his weekly house gig, featuring the musical saw and the puns. LIttle did I know he was already a legend. Other Chicago folk legends played there, too, and I heard them all.

I got a terrible crush on one of the local luminaries, and learned that he tended bar and sang at a downtown bar/listening room. So I wandered over there, too, and played backgammon with the bartender/singers and whoever was booked.

1980's
I'm short on posting time at present, so "the rest is history."

~Susan

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 12:38 PM

"Potato Fingers!?" If you have lived in Bakersfield, or know much about Kern County, CA, that name sure makes sense. I spent a lot of time in the area in the mid-1960's, but traveled up and down Hwy. 99, from Fresno to LA, from the early 1940's on. My parents tried to get me into piano lessons when I was around 8 or 9, but they didn't take. Too confining. I heard big bands, country, western swing, traditional jazz, folk songs, show tunes and classical music at various times. I was a lonely kid living on a ranch six miles from a small town, so the guitar was a portable answer to the solitude. I started hanging out in a coffee house in Fresno in 1958/59, while at Fresno State. My horizons expanded while in the Army at Ft. Lewis, Washington in '61 and '62. I did some singing off-base at a coffee house in Tacoma and did a lot of weekending in Seattle, during the World's Fair, listening to some talented folks, some of whom are Mudcatters. I was with a trio during the mid-sixties, but Viet Nam came along just as we were to do a USO tour. I dabbled in music, off and on, until an accident in 1975 severely damaged my left hand. I am able to play again, thanks to a great hand surgeon, but not at the former level. Now, its just for fun. Mudcatters have stirred a lot of great memories, for which I am very grateful.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 10:55 AM

........& also not about awards or peas!

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 10:51 AM

Precisely. But it is not Darwinian or Mendelian.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 10:23 AM

No reason why memetic inheritance shouldn't be Lamarckian, Richard.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: GUEST,The black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 28 Nov 07 - 07:49 AM

I was surrounded by a lot of classical music when I was small as my father was the choir-master for the church and both my parents played piano. My mother's mother and her sister were both church organists. My father's mother gave singing lessons and several other relatives were singers as well. somebody played concertina in the 19th century but I don't know who it was and the instrument has long gone. I have been told that way back in the family tree there is a court musician.
I was never inspired by classical music but I remember that I would sing myself to sleep at night.
My first real interest in music came not from the classical concerts that I ws taken to (lots of people that aquaintences of my would give their eye teeth to have seen), but from "America" by the Nice. I think it was to do with the realisation that improvisation really could mean that no two performances were alike. So I was then into Cream, Led Zepplin and Soft Machine.
Then when I went to the University of Bradford I thought I'd try the Folk Club to see what that was about... Swan Arcade were on. Need I say more....

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Joe_F
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 08:14 PM

My mother taught me a lot of songs. There is a list in my baby book of 17 that I knew when I was two. Later on, I learned songs from records and from Burl Ives's radio program "Wayfaring Stranger". In my highschool there was a strong singing tradition, and I learned songs from my fellow students as well as the officially organized singing.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Jim Krause
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 07:26 PM

My mother sang all her life, usually as part of singing groups; at school, with extended family, and friends too, probably. When I was growing up, she, her sister, and their two cousins who were sisters, formed a women's gospel quartet called The Friesen Sisters. Their inspiration for vocal arrangements came from the Andrews Sisters.

Dad also came from a musical family. He had six brothers. Once he told me that as long as there were four of the boys at home, they always had a men's quartet.

I don't remember a time when I didn't sing. I sang in school programs, at church in youth choirs, and later in the adult choir. At age 16 I got a guitar for Christmas. Now I could accompany my own singing. I sang in the college choir, and ended up majoring in voice.

Somewhere in there, I heard of the New Lost City Ramblers, Pete Seeger; Peter, Paul, and Mary; John Denver, Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan, and I suppose a few others. Fell in love with folk music, but kept listening to rock'n'roll. The Beatles were my all time favorite British group. And then there was The Byrds, blending folk & rock.

Time passed, and I had a whole backlog of songs that I wanted to perform in public, but couldn't make them go, so to speak. And I heard this guy at a folk music gathering play claw hammer style banjo. And I thought if ever I learn to play another instrument, that's going to be it; the banjo. By and by, I did just that, too.

Formed an old-timey string band with two friends, and did a few gigs.    Started playing fiddle thinking that I may as well play the instrument that all those tunes we played in the string band were written for.

More time passed, joined another string band, and they needed a jack of all trades guy. So I learned to play mandolin. Been playing old-time music for the best part of 30 years, I guess.

And now, I'm thinking I want to plug in, too. I remember Roger McGuinn and the Byrds' recording of "The Bells of Rhymney," "Mr. Tambourine Man," and Pete Seeger's "Turn! Turn! Turn!"


I guess I have sort of a musical multiple personality disorder, of sorts.

Jim Krause

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 06:56 PM

Got 2/3.

Here's explanation for the other:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarck


BTW, what big hits did your trio have?

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 06:47 PM

This is rather Lamarckist than Darwinian or Mendelian....

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: topical tom
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 05:33 PM

My uncle played the fiddle at square dances and we used to take turns playing together.He taught me a couple of tunes to start me off.
    My mother used to sing songs all the time.She and my father used to quote poetry as well.My father was a wonderful man but he couldn't have carried a tune for his life. He used to love hearing my mother and I sing though.My mother played a little on the mouth organ and I learned to play a few tunes as well.
    I grew up on country music but switched to folk music upon hearing the artists of the day, i. e., Pete Seeger, The Weavers, Oscar Brand, etc. etc.
    I have never truly mastered an instrument but love to sing.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 03:17 PM

Growing up through the 1950's, 60's & 70's meant experiencing many diverse musical styles.

Part of the reason I've resurrected this thread is that lots of old 'pop' songs are re-emerging in singarounds all over the place.

Me & chums included have recently been doing Kinks, Stones, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Orbison, as well as the odd Bleats number.

Lots've other folkies are indulging in this behaviour too, d'ye think it maybe a continuing part of the 'folk' process?

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Ely
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 04:58 PM

My father was a good cello and recorder player years ago (as in, when he was in high school). My mother has played the piano, recorder, and a little violin, and picked up some guitar in grad school. I guess they didn't play music so much as they always had records on. They played tapes in the car and sang songs so my brother and I wouldn't kill each other (one of the first I learned was "Joe Hill"--good stuff for a 5-year-old). And they insisted we both take piano lessons; I think the idea that I might one day be able to play Scott Joplin was the only thing that got me through (I can't yet). A lot of it was blues and folk music, and 1960's stuff: Bob Dylan, the Moody Blues, CCR, CSN&Y, Iron Butterfly, the Doors.

My brother and I went our separate ways musically when we got older; he likes Metallica and I like Norman Blake. We both still like Arlo Guthrie. Dad was thrilled to hear I'd pinched his Bessie Smith tapes to bring to college. I love old-timemusic (I'm the college floor-mate from Hell--addicted to banjo music).

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Davey
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 11:04 AM

Well, my parents weren't too musical. I did listen to their Platters records over and over (not always by choice), and Johnny Horton's Greatest hits (over and over, the lyrics are firmly etched in my memory.
As a teemager, listened to a lot of country music on my transistor radio while I delivered newspapers.

Introduced to folk music, and guitar, by a friend I met after I left home and was working my first job. Haven't looked back...

Great to see the variety of experiences here.. Banjo B, you always manage to inject such feeling into your posts.

Davey... (:>)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 10:40 AM

Ah! Catters who are bikers as well! Sounds like a good subject for another thread!

mcmoo (Yamaha Virago)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Allan C.
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 10:26 AM

BarbaraLynn is a special friend with whom I have been recently reunited in cyberspace. I am glad to see her here at last and promise to teach her at least one more chord!

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: jeffp
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 10:19 AM

BarbaraLynn, welcome to the asylum run by the inmates! You'll find it's an odd lot of people (or a lot of odd people) who share more than music. I'm a fairly new member myself, and I haven't regretted it for an instant.

Jeffp

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Bill in Alabama
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 09:59 AM

Good Morning, Barbara Lynn--We're proud to have you join us.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 09:39 AM

BarbaraLynn, welcome! T.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 04:21 AM

A churchwarden is a sort of pipe, but was named for the elected officer of a church or parish. One of our many jobs was to carry the wardens pole (or wand as we call it) that had a crown (for the state) or a mitre (for the church) on one end and a dirty great spike on the other. This was to escort dignitaries, like bishops or royalty/dignitaries into church, and the spike was for 'driving the dogs away from the door' and waking people up in the sermon. It was also a duty to go round to people's houses and find out why they weren't at church.....

I am not a pipe, neither do I have a hairy chest...... but I did have a rector who had a 950cc Suzuki and wore black leather riding gear under his cassock (long black dress that vicars wear.....)

There is a lot of traditional church music in my heritage, having been sent to Sunday School to get me out of the way of mother cooking dinner, and stayed to join the choir aged 9. Prefer Mozart and Holst to Graham Kendrick, but have performed both in front of Prince Charles.....

LTS

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: BarbaraLynn
Date: 07 Dec 99 - 12:04 AM

I am quite new to Mudcat, have been reading here a lot for about a week, and thought this thread might be the right place to introduce myself as a new member from North Carolina.

My mother would be the person to credit with my early interest in music. In the 1940's, she sang for a while with Tex Beneke, and when I was growing up she sang with the church choir and always soloed at the Christmas service with "What Child Is This?"

Our family sang in the car when driving literally anywhere, songs like "The Old Oaken Bucket", and "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" were popular favorites. And it became a nightly ritual for my two younger sisters and I to sing together while we cleared the table and washed the dinner dishes. We still sing together when we actually are together in one place, we favor an Andrews Sisters type of harmony and will apply it to anything we can think of.

When I was in high school, I had the pleasure of knowing Allan C. (now of the Mudcatters), and it is he whom I must credit for inspiring in me a love of folk guitar. I have been playing the same 6 chords now for over thirty years (not Allan's fault I only know 6...).

In the 1970's while living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, I was part of a trio for a while, The Trinity Singers. We did a couple of weddings, sang special music for various churches when the choirs were out for the summer, and put on a half-hour program for a senior citizens center. Although a number of the songs we selected were familiar ones, we liked to set up our own arrangements or use "different" arrangements we found out about...one of the most powerful of these that I recall was singing the words of "Amazing Grace" to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun."

In more recent years, a military nurse friend and I had the privilege of leading a group of Vietnam Veterans in that same rendition in the midnight dark and hush at the Wall in Washington, DC.

I think of myself more as a singer than as a guitarist, although I do play some and have written a little sheaf of songs. As a singer, my voice is better suited to groups than to solo work...I love to harmonize.

The guitar has been in a closet for a few years. As of last week, I took it out, dusted it off, and after a few fumbling attempts to tune it from the third fret, my wits came back to me as well as my 6 known chords.

Thank you all for a wonderful Café site, it is a great pleasure to be here and to learn. And thank you, Allan C., for inviting me to check it out.

BarbaraLynn

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Pixie
Date: 05 Dec 99 - 09:35 AM

Musical Heritage? My paternal grandmother came from Scotland to PEI, and was a singer of the operatic persuasion (she died before I was born), and my mother also possessed a wonderful singing voice, which only my oldest sister inherited. What happened to the rest of us kids, I don't know, but we all love music of a wide variety. My passion is Celtic, bluegrass, vocal harmonies, acoustic, but also like blues, ethnic music, etc. Learned to play basic guitar to feed the hunger, and its been downhill since then......

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: lloyd61
Date: 05 Dec 99 - 01:23 AM

TO LATE! Phew....

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Dec 99 - 11:04 PM

Aw lloyd, it could still be great. Imagine youself behind Squeaks. She's dressed in black leathers astride a Phalloblaster 1000, speed shifting thru the gears at ten grand, the pavement slices past in a blur, the scream of the wind in your ears and its force is ever widening the grin on your face, her long, blonde hair flowing out to your left, her chest hair flowing out to your right......DAMN. Better go get another shower lloyd.

Spaw

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: lloyd61
Date: 04 Dec 99 - 10:49 PM

OK, Liz I think understand, but what is a churchwarden?, and Sex on bikes? At my age (61) you would have to draw me a picture. I guess I have lived a very Boring sheltered life. In younger days I rode a little, and always wanted to ride behind a Gal. Boy, I would have hung on tight. Liz, you got me thinking! I think I'l take a cold shower and watch the new on TV.

Good night

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Dec 99 - 10:15 PM

By the way lloyd, greasy biker chicks also have hairy chests....very interesting phenomena.

Spaw (Honda Sabre 1100)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 04 Dec 99 - 09:53 PM

There are so meny different things I think of as familey insperation...As a kid my grandmother was a concert pionist.retired by the time I was around but her passion is still in the air...My father was a Chicago man born in 1905 and had a true love for New Orleans jaz and what happened in CHICAGO IN THE 20'S AND 30's and he was lucky enough to be in New Yourk for the 40's and 50's..Also we had some friends who had sanba parties every Christmis eve that went on long into xmas morning {I got to play conga from 7 years on} Music and dance were sanonimus {SP?} But I would say my awakening came when I started trying to keep up with Tude Tanguay and Art Carlson who had the most wonderful square dance band here in north western Connecticut..They were as close as you could find to indiginus or truly local music... They had played here for almost 30 years by the time I was a youngster following them aruond..They would start of in G or C and for the fun of it end up falling through F to B flat just to see if you would keep up...They were true to thier county and their audience and will never be fogotten as long as any of us who knew them are alive... All the best , Guy

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Dec 99 - 07:04 PM

Way way back, reply to Lloyd61 (is that age or chest measurement....) a greasy biker chick is one who would rather be on a Harley or Goldwing than sitting in the folk club/classroom/office/wherever.... I used to ride on a Suzuki 500, and dreamt of going out with the vicars' son who had a Vincent.... Saw a Valkyrie a few months back and damn nearly ploughed the car into a crash barrier, because I was drooling at the Valk. Altime ultimate dream is to do a ride in the states with the wind in my hair, but only for a little while, because a) I'm a wuss about wearing a helmet, they really are lifesavers, and b) it would take HOURS to comb my hair out again!!!

Greasy Biker Chick music was anything with a skull or other bones on the record cover (I suppose that would include my present copy of 'Danse Macabre' then....)or that had more bass than lyrics. Oh, and the lyrics are about sex, bikes, death, sex on bikes, death on bikes, death after sex, sex after bikes, sex, bikes and sex. With the odd bit of drinking thrown in. Any group that used y instead of i in its name, or were known by only one syllable - 'Quo, Zepp', that sort of thing.

And me a churchwarden.....

LTS

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Terry Allan Hall
Date: 03 Dec 99 - 08:01 PM

Well, my Mom was Concert Mistress of the Ft. Worth All-City Orchestra (violin).

My dad is a very good whistler.

My Paternal Grandfather, who put me on the "Road to Ruin" by encouraging my muse, played very good tenor sax and Dixieland banjo in the 30's and 40's with people like Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman.

When my Aunt Cathy married my Uncle Jack, along with him came all his brothers, dad and uncle, who play bluegrass and "string swing" and always wanted to show me what "real music" was!

I was truly blessed by being able to be around ALL of these good folks.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Laura
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 10:12 PM

From my dad: Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash, George Morgan and old time fiddle tunes From my mother- Andrews sisters From my oldest sister- Black Sabbath From my brother- Eagles, Alleman Brothers, Lynrd Skynrd From my other sister- Little River Band From my piano/voice teacher- all classical.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 07:30 PM

Don't be silly MTed, your postings aren't long & drawn out (had to look up protracted in my dictionary).
Why, I bet you could test me on some of your postings. Many of you've contribution on music threads I've printed for future reference.

BB

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 06:33 PM

If I had played the music I heard from my family I'd be a mute ! I did it myself--with a lot of help from my friends---the people I made my mentors.

That said, mom did play piano a bit. Nothing else. Nobody else in the family was at all musical.

One other thing. Someone here said that Pete didn't talk tu HUAC. Well, he DID talk to HUAC. He answered some of their questions and then told them that they had no right to ask him some questions where he thought they violated his (and others) privacy. Then he refused to answer those. That went against the rules. You are not allowed, supposedly, to pick & choose which ones you want to answer. If Pete had taken the 5th ammendment on everthing, he would've been within the rules as laid out by HUAC. Instead he was held in contempt of congress---jailed---and later exhonerated.

Art

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 06:24 PM

That was a joke too--my "Ed Grimly" impression--

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 06:22 PM

That was a joke, there really is no test on Friday. I mean, there would be, but, like who would care enough about me to actually study? But then again, it's hard to say--possibly everyone has been eager for tidbits about my life and times, because through my little postings, they have developed a genuine fondness, and interest, but on the other hand, perhaps people have become tired of my protracted responses--it's difficult to say--

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 06:18 PM

BB,

I'm glad you read it all the first time, because there is a test on Friday.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 04:55 PM

I hope you realize I was just kidding Ted. I read your entire posting the first time I saw it. I really did.
BB (who was born drenched in guilt)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 04:50 PM

M.Ted, who says you dragged me through your protracted account. I just slid down to the bottom of your posting to get to the good stuff.
You have captured my interest, so I'm going to go back and look more closely at your musical biography.
Thanks for thinking of me.
I understand what you saying. Your advice makes good sense
BB

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 03:35 PM

I lived in Naples when I was small, it wasn't long after the war had ended, and the streets were still full little street bands and mandolin orchestra, as well as those little club bands with electric accordians and twangy guitars, playing that peculiar Italian tango music--The men working in the streets sang, the fruit vendors--and the radio and TV full of "Arrivederci, Roma", and Pesca, Pesca, Pascual" and "Marcellino Pan E Vino"--

My father's job with the State Department ended, so we came back stateside to a cold, grey, midwestern auto town, filled with automotive factories, a lot of the workers were from the South,the music that people listened to was hardcore country, or hardcore rhythm and blues--

I loved any kind of music, as long as it was fun, and learned guitar to play in a Beatles/Rolling Stones inspired garage band, only to be waylaid by The Weavers, Pete Seeger, Dylan, etc--

I played cornet in the marching band, and one of the drummers turned out to be an organ player in a James Brown copy band, he snagged me, and I ended up learning the horn parts to all of that mid 60's R&B stuff, SoulFinger, I feel Good, etc.--

They all went to Nam, but I went to college, studied music composition and started a heavy rock club band--it broke up, and I went back to folk music, playing coffeehouses and bars, with an odd combination of original humorous and parody material, old folksongs and old country and blues songs--

Got caught in the country rock craze, moved to California, fell in with a a bunch of jazz/latin musicians. some of whom also played (and were) Hawaiian--Started a little group that played with a group of Polynesian dancers--

Went from there to the stage band for an International Folkdance Ensemble--and learned how to play all the kinds of folk music that I hadn't played already--

Came back East, started another Folkdance band--then started teaching guitar, because I knew how to play a little bit of just about any dammed thing anybody wanted to play--

My father's side of the family were musicians, back as far as anyone could remember(Irish and Italian)--

I've dragged you all through this protracted accounting because I believe there is a message in my life for all aspiring young musicians, (Banjo Bonnie, please take note!!) When you hear something you like, concentrate all your energy and every waking hour into soaking it in, and learning to play it--join or start a band, hustle gigs, play, and then, just as it is starting to fall together, diump it all completely and start from scratch with some other kind of music that you like--it's worked for me!!

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 02:39 PM

My dad played clarinet in his youth and then got responsible. Mom played piano and accordion, had her own radio show in the 40s and led "Dottie and the DEBS", Canada's first "all girl" big band. Don't think either of them thought much of Woody or Leadbelly!
Rick

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 02:25 PM

My grandmother used to sing..."If I had the wings of an angel, over these prison walls I would fly...."....over & over & over! That's all, just those two lines. I took up clarinet in the 6th grade and played in school bands, but never found my 'place' till the folk scare of the 60s

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Vixen
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 01:39 PM

My dad plays harmonica, and used to write songs for me when I was little. My mom liked all the folk music from the 60s, as well as a lot of other kinds of music. She made music tapes for our boys in Vietnam under the name of "Stateside Suzi." Two of her sisters played guitar and sang. I always had music around, even though I have bad ears.

V

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Rex
Date: 02 Dec 99 - 12:19 PM

My mother played hawaian guitar but that was before my time. She would still sing around the house. I of course got started in the usual rock and roll garage band and played at the county fair. In time I found out about many folks from two generations earlier that played barn dances in the 40's. While the barn dances were done they were still going playing in their homes. I would track them down and join in. One fellow, a scotsman named Lloyd Weddell took some time and showed me how to play the fiddle. He would make log cabins, was a good blacksmith, made a few fiddles and mandolins and taught me quite a bit about traditional woodworking and metalworking. In later years I got to know a fiddler named John Clendennen. He came out of Texas and played with a group called the Lone Star Playboys that toured around the West and were on the radio in the 40's. Anybody heard of them? (Not the other Playboys with Bob Wills.) Well John was pretty ill with cancer but I was fortunate to come around for a couple of years and work on tunes he knew. I wish those two were still around.

Rex

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Potato Fingers
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 11:23 PM

Growing up in Bakersfield means Merle Haggard. Buck was the bubblegum of country: Merle reached deep down the dark recesses and pulled out some gems.When the Dead covered Momma Tried, it all made sense. Although we were too young, we knew the Blackboard, Tex's Barrel House, and Trout's, still a stone cold working class bar in Oildale. Both of the local legends logged time in said dives. Clarence White came to town to record on the Guitars of Bakersfield LP put out on Jasico Records. Put this together with my mom and grandmother's stride piano playing, my brother Mike's late night acid ramblings on the B3, a harp guitar case full of kilos from Santa Cruz, and seeing Jimi at the Civic Auditorium when I was thirteen, it's a wonder I can remember how to play Music for a Found Harmonium. The guitar made it happen for me, and still does.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Gary T
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 10:59 PM

Mom played piano, and I took lessons for 2 years starting at 10 years old. I always loved "Peter and the Wolf"--still do. Born in '51, heard a fair amount of 50's rock from my older brother and sisters playing records and the radio. Didn't take to the Beatles at first, but slowly grew to appreciate them--a lot! They're still my favorite band and I still think highly of many of their songs. Unlike some Beatles fans I know, I don't feel the White Album is their "best". I'm quite taken with many of the songs on "The Beatles Second Album", "Beatles 65", "Beatles VI", and "Rubber Soul" (note for our overseas friends--these are the U.S. album names, for some reason Capitol Records here felt they had to group the songs differently from the European albums). In the 60's I loved British rock, tolerated soul music, and enjoyed oldies (50's rock). You couldn't have paid me to listen to country music. Towards the end of my college days, I started thirsting to hear the folk music my sister had been listening to in the 60's--Ian and Sylvia were her favorites. A little later, I heard Kris Kristopherson ("Silver Tongued Devil" album) and liked it. Lost interest in rock of the era and gravitated to country music. Got frustrated on camping trips when the person with the guitar didn't know the songs I wanted to hear, and got a cheap used guitar. It was pretty crappy and really cheap, but I was so motivated I played it anyway, learning chords from diagrams in a book. Realized if the book had a song in a key I couldn't play or sing in, I could transpose--thank God for those piano lessons! I'm not much of a guitarist, I strum chords to accompany my singing. Repertoire includes an odd mixed bag of folk (traditional, 60's style, Irish, etc.), 50's and 60's rock, country, pop, old standards, and stuff you don't know what to call. Singing is my main hobby. If I had to choose between losing my sight or my hearing, I'd have to give it some long, hard thought.

Oh, and I never give long-winded explanations. (Hah!)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Marion
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 09:59 PM

One more thing... my natural sister and I both at least dabble in several instruments, and consider music an important element in our lives, whereas the sister who plays nothing and the sister who plays recorder once every blue moon are adopted from Korea... coincidence? Ancestral memory? Maybe their ancestral musical memories got confused by hearing Western music rather than Korean music in their childhoods... interesting thought.

Marion

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Marion
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 09:54 PM

Mom plays piano, bell choir, and used to play accordion. Dad sings and does music therapy in nursing homes (though he'd never dream of calling it that). One sister plays piano, recorder, pennywhistle, and fantasizes about bagpipes. One sister plays recorder. One sister has no interest in making music. I now focus on fiddle on guitar, and intermittently play piano, pennywhistle, and guitar, and sometimes contemplate playing the bagpipes.

Our parents bought piano lessons for the two of us who were interested for as long as we were interested. Our family actually never played together much in the living room, though at various times the hymn-sings in old folks' homes would be a family outing (with Mom or one of us daughters on piano).

Unfortunately dancing was a sin in my parents' home, so my sister and I are late discovers of Irish and other folk dancing.

There's a fiddle under my grandma's bed I dream of getting my hands on someday. My grandma and great-grandpa were fiddlers, and great-great-grandpa was a violinist, so it's my ancestral instrument, but unfortunately I have the wrong last name so my uncle is the heir apparent. The miserable thing is that my uncle doesn't play, and when he tried to learn once, he PAINTED fret lines onto its neck, and he GLUED the tuning pegs to the head ("so they wouldn't slip"... they're supposed to be adjustable dammit!) under the apparent belief that the fine tuning pegs were all he'd ever need. Sigh... what a vandal...

Good idea for a thread,

Marion

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 09:20 PM

My musical background consisted of............
Listening to the ballerina in my jewelery box go round & round.

My Dad's 8 Track playing Johnny Cash over & over.

Oh ya, my Dad sponsored a band called the Silver Dollars. They played in local bars & occationally played at penitentiaries.
My Dad loved country music
I miss my dad

BB

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: jeffp
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 06:53 PM

I was fortunate to be born into a musical family. My mother plays the piano, teaches recorder, and is about to retire after 10 years directing the handbell choir at her church. She also has sung in church choirs as long as I can remember. My father played baritone horn in school and when I started playing the trombone, he bought a trumpet and we would play duets in the living room, accompanied by my mother on the piano. He has been playing in Mom's handbell choir for the last several years.

My sister started playing the guitar in high school, in the early 60's. She played folk music (PP&M, Kingston Trio, that sort of thing) with friends. At the time, I was heavily involved with classical music and hardly even listened to rock. Now she teaches guitar and piano in West Virginia.

As for myself, I played trombone from 4th grade until my 1st year of college. In high school, around 1970, I started learning guitar because it was tough to get girls carrying a trombone to parties. I tried to get into rock at that time, without much success. In college, I was introduced to John Prine's music and found that not only did I like it, I could play it, working it out by ear. What a revelation! A few years after I left school, I was introduced to a guy who played incredible 12-string guitar, wrote some of his own music, and taught me to play rock and roll. I still play in a band with him after 15 years. In return, I have provided him with some bluegrass and folk influence, making for an interesting blend.

My sister introduced me to traditional irish music several years ago, and I've added that to the mix. I now play guitar (electric and acoustic), bass, pennywhistle, bodhran, and fiddle. I also sing.

I can't imagine what life would have been like without music, and I don't want to try.

jeffp

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Mudjack
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 06:29 PM

My folks listened to a lot of radio in my earliest memories that aired Hank Williams, Lefty Frizell, Hank Thompson, Hank Snow. My folks were Okie transports to California. Rock and Roll fifties were a peer pressure thing and I always had a yearning for early C&W. Then the sixties hit me with FOLK, protest songs, meaningful songs, and I just can't seem to shake the stuff.
Mudjack

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: bunkerhill
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 05:01 PM

I'm very new to Mudcat (and thankful for the serendipity that led me here) and had forgotten until reading other threads how much a part of my musical heritage are Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Homer & Jethro, the Rooftop Singers. Thanks for the reminders. Burl Ives occupies a less than major, but recurring place. I'm fairly sure my parents were fans of his radio program. I sang along to "Big Rock Candy Mountain" in grade school years (picture the reaction if a 2nd grader today joined in on "the buzzin' of the bees in the cigarette trees..") and from teen years remember "Mr. In-between." In my 20s, read something somewhere that implied he had been a snitch for Joe McCarthy, which inspired a two-decade Burl boycott that segued into soul-searching when I saw a picture of Pete Seeger (who didn't talk to HUAC and paid for it) performing with Ives not too long before Ives died. If there's some lesson here about separating artists from their politics, I'm not sure that I've fully come to grips with it.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: MMario
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 04:51 PM

I found out this summer, that my Dad's branch of the family tree includes several opera singers a wee bit back...course that hasn't really influenced me because I didn't know about it for 45 years....The only music I REMEMBER from that side of the family is Dad whistlin' while he worked.... Gram played piano and a bit of organ, my mother was an excellent audience, and spun a mean platter....most of the music I remember as a child came through them. But we also had public concerts a LOT as I grew up, and people were expected to sing along....

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: sophocleese
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 04:09 PM

I learned recorder at school and at home. For a while our whole family would play. My parents always sang hymns in the car but played classical, Beatles and other contemporay stuff on the stereo. As a teenager I listened to Chris De Burgh, FM, Led Zeppelin and the Sex Pistols as well as some radio stuff. I always went to the festival of Friends in Hamilton and loved the music there. My first experience of choir singing was when I was 17 and joined a Madrigal Consort. Somehow out of the confused influences prevalent in our family three of us are following music to some degree. One plays Medieval music for fairs in Germany, one plays afro-cuban percussion and I sing trad. English and Scottish tunes with any other tune I like. If I'd had the confidence as a teenager I would have loved to be in a rock band.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Llanfair
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 03:53 PM

My ancestors were Welsh, it's genetic.
I don't know how you explain that I'm tall and blonde, perhaps the vikings were responsible.
Whatever, I love to sing. Hwyl, Bron.

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Lady McMoo
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 03:46 PM

My grandfather was a Sligo fiddle player (contemporary and neighbour of Michael Coleman and co.), my dad played the mandolin and mouth organ, Irish and many other things. I grew up in London in an Irish household and heard both the Irish music round me and the pop music of the 50s and 60s. I first started on the guitar at about 10 and shortly after on the banjo and mandolin, a mixture of Irish, folk and rock right from the start. Nearly 40-odd years on I'm still playing exactly the same sort of eclectic mix with other gathered influences thrown in for good measure! Guess I'm a pretty mixed up type of guy altogether!

mcmoo

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Michael K.
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 03:31 PM

No one in my family is musical. Not my parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents.........so I guess I get mine from ''the man upstairs''. ('must have taken a shine to me when I was still in the womb.)

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 03:07 PM

My parents were into regular ol' Top 40 stuff, but my father had a penchant for Oldies, even in the 70's when they weren't that old. When I was about a year old, my father who was attending mechanics school in the USMC, through a friend, got hooked on country music. This was in 1980, and "Urban Cowboy" had caused a boom in country music popularity. When my father heard "A Country Boy Can Survive" by Hank Williams Jr. on the radio when I was 4, he bought the album because of that song. The album was a great success, and now my mother became a Hank Jr. junkie, and we have his albums from 1980-1989. So Hank Jr. and subsequently Hank Sr. came into play, as well as Ronnie Milsap, C.W. McCall, Buck Owens, and Johnny Horton. Also the great country music on the radio in the early 80's had a huge influence on me.

When I was 8, I discovered classical music, had a falling out with it, and finally returned to it as a fanatical classical nut when I was 16. Ragtime & dixieland & swing music followed later when I was 17.

When I was 18, I discovered Andrew Lloyd Webber, and instantly became enamoured with musicals (but only the more modern ones). Later that year, the "Flash Gordon" soundtrack by Queen launched me into rock music, which I had never listened to before. 70's rock is still my favorite period in musical history. It was there that I fell in love with The Electric Light Orchestra, and I have all but 4 of their albums. They are my favorite music-makers in all music.

When I was nineteen, my passing interest in bagpipe music exploded with "The Thistle & Shamrock." Now I am a total Celtic fiend, looking for Celtic music anywhere & everywhere. Now I am writing my own Celtic songs and tunes, my catalog number is up to 58 pieces.

Well, that's my musical heritage, and I still haven't forgot the earlier music I liked, so now I can enjoy music more, and have a grander scope of the world of music.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: lloyd61
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 02:43 PM

LTS..

What is "greasy biker chick stuff"?

Lloyd

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 02:30 PM

Well, Dad only liked brass band music (army career mainly) and mother likes Country and Western, and Adge Cutler and the Wurzels.. They did start to get a bit towards the barn dance stuff, but dad died last year and mother emigrated, so I can't ask. I guess I went for greasy biker chick stuff, as a kick back..... My heritage I suppose is a mix of Meat Loaf, Status Quo, Mozart and the Wurzels.....

No wonder I turned out the way I did.

LTS

Subject: RE: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 02:24 PM

Dad, mom, sisters and brother; all came before me, all made music of all kinds. Aunties and uncles, grandma.

Grade school, junior high and senior high piano, violin and orchestra teachers.

More later, Lloyd. Glad you started this one.

Subject: What is your Musical Heritage?
From: lloyd61
Date: 01 Dec 99 - 11:58 AM

Musical Heritage

As I look back over the years I can see how my passion for music has been fostered by adults in my life. To start with, my dad, who played a mandolin, in a Scandinavian church String Band. The leader of the String band Jennie Reese, was my mentor. I wrote about her in "A Gig to remember # 4". Next was a Fiddle Player in Ferryville Wisconsin by the name of Fey Allen. His daughter is still playing his music in that area.

I played Bass in an orchestra and in a Bluegrass band, but my first love has always been the acoustic guitar.

Last but not least, growing up in Chicago I was raised on Blues, Soul, and Classical Music with the Old Town School of Music thrown in the mix.

My regret is that I have not develop the playing skills that I should have. But, as I look back I am at the skill level of the my mentors, so that must mean I did not reach high enough, or it was not in me. My advice to young people, reach high and TAKE LESSIONS.