Here many of us are. In our 60s. Children of the 70s. Long before music videos, but in the realm of yet another great music generation, perched upon the shoulders of music that came before. Grandchildren of bluegrass and gospel and country and blues and R&B and jazz and then the young one , Rock and Roll, smashing their way onto the scene, behaving badly - wailing away our adolescence .
It was a time of movement and change and relinquishing staid and fearful acceptance, with The Civil Rights Movement and Women's Rights and The Vietnam War; and then other wars. Of a new wave of awareness of class oppression and sexual violence and so much more.
Of the Pill and then the rash of predictable STD's . And fueling everything, that new wild child, Rock and Roll.
And of course it doesn't end there. But there was that time when we were 15 and 16 and 20 and 23, when Otis Redding and Tina Turner and Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, and Jefferson Airplane , and Lou Reed and Marianne Faithful and Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix burst upon the scene like so many firecrackers, each a bright unbelievable flash .
We then were seriously at work, questioning authority, believing in something new and being yet another generation added to a very long history of people who learned to flex their political muscles. True believers for a while that so much may be possible.
It was yet another time of music greats. Add to that the advent of the capacity to record, and finally, film and ultimately, give birth to multiples of videos that race about the globe instantly.
There has been much great music produced, even in the last several years. But that was yet another very unique time. Which gave birth to a continued lineage of music that was so great it lasted and lasted unto newer and newer generations.
The interesting thing is that with the introduction of recording and better and better sound systems, many of us discovered , when kids were not around, that we would hustle the guilty pleasure of playing the music SO LOUD as to feed the soul. Be it Dvorak or Prince or The Pretenders or Carole King or Bessie Smith or Laura Nyro or Joni Mitchell or Brian Eno or The Beatles or Traffic, it evolved into something best tasted with room rumbling volume.
Where the depth of the meaning and the resonance of the song shakes our very neutrinos , as they silently flow through the universe, through our living room, slipping through our organs and cells and closed eyes and smiling faces;
through our gently exhaled CO2, and on beyond, endlessly, that changed all forever , and cradled us ....whatever music has come and moved us.
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