Rockin

Okay, I'm bringing this to y’all and y'all can tell me if I'm crazy, and if I'm making this up. I'll start by telling you that every time I do a search for this particular genre of music,

no matter what program, radio station, internet search engine I go to, I get something stupid that doesn't sound anything like what I'm asking for. I grew up in a time that there were at least four or five different genres of music being played on the top 40 stations at any given time.

I had two specific favorite genres of music that I truly loved. The first one was flower power music, of course I could be wrong, it could only be in my brain, but I swear I understood this music came from people like Donovan, Arlo Guthrie, Sonny and Cher and groups like the Lovin’ Spoonful, the Mamas and Papas, the Byrds, and many others. In my mind I can remember it being war protest music, some folk rock and mixed into it some psychedelic music and it came from a specific time in the 60’s. Please don't tell me that I'm crazy. I know this genre of music existed in my time, I'm sure of it.

Then from that flower power music there came a renaissance of folk music in the form of folk rock that not only started in the 60’s but lasted on into the 70’s. I put searches in for these genres of music in Slacker, Pandora, Jango and other streaming music services and it comes back with some of the strangest stuff imaginable that had nothing to do with the 60’s. I think it's because most of these music streaming and music search engines are done by young people that have no clue what any other kind of music besides rap, hip-hop and all of that crap is. So if you search for anything that was done before 2010 you're just basically out of luck. The radio stations of today play a total of 20 different songs and from one day to the next they're playing the same exact things over and over again.

I know if you had a radio station you could play every hit song from 1956 up until 1999 and you would not have to play the same song again till next year. There are so many songs that were in the top 10 that were great pieces of music. Why are we not hearing this on the radio stations today? I personally think payola has taken over the music industry of today. I remembered a time when you could turn the radio on and feel happy with what was being played for a whole day. Now I turn the radio on and I turn it back off or I turn it to NPR or I turn it to a news station.  I can't get over how these kids of today are listening to songs that sound exactly the same as every other song that's recorded today.  No one today has their own sound, all the artists sound exactly the same and the reason is because most of them cannot sing and you can tell who they are by how much echo is being produced so that you can't hear their mistakes.

I did recently though have an extremely pleasant surprise when Lady Gaga actually sang a medley from the Sound of Music and she did an extremely good and almost flawless performance. Lady Gaga (and I certainly hope that wasn't the name that her parents gave her) was overwhelmed with the standing ovation she got and she deserved. I think a lot of what is going on today is that the artists are afraid of the criticisms that would come their way if they miss a note in a live performance and that is wrong, because it is sometimes the flaws that are in our voice and in the things that we do that makes us pleasantly different.

This reminds me of the time when they were making the Canadian version of We Are the World called “Tears Are Not Enough” by Northern Lights and it came time for Neil Young to sing his solo part. After he did so and he was asked to do it over again because he was flat, he simply replied “that's my sound man”. I laughed so hard because I knew that, that was what made Neil Young so special was his particular sound.

I am a music lover and I love to hear someone that can sing, sing, but if you're going to recite poetry like the beatniks did back in the coffee shops in the 50’s, don't dare call it rock 'n roll and don't expect me to honor your achievements in the rock 'n roll Hall of Fame, because it ain't rock. Some of the things that they have to say are poignant and very well written, but for it to be a song in my opinion, you have to sing it not speak it. I'm sure I'm like everyone else.

I like good poetry, but I am also like the Beatles when they were asked about their poetry, Paul McCartney comically replied “I ain’t writ no poetry”, and I'm sure that was because they were songwriters and they sang the words that they had written for their music. I can listen to opera, classical music, gospel music, blues and soul music, not to mention other genres of music. Why is it I can't find my favorite types of music, folk rock and flower power music anywhere anymore, or did the music really die?

All of these young people that have never heard the great lyrics and music of our day have no idea how great music can really be or what they’ve missed by being born too late. The streaming stations need to hire a couple of old hippies to program their music for those of us that still love it, even in our late fifties, sixties and so on. I’m available. Call me.