1950s music

While I listened to ‘50s music, I entertained these thoughts.

Radio – company for the only child or one who thinks she’s alone.

I could not have been luckier growing up in the 1950s. Mother had a radio in the kitchen. That is where women spent most of their time. Fortunately, my dad was a musician – what else would he be in New Orleans? There was another radio in their bedroom. Between the two of them, I was always within the sound of music.

I was a Boomer with dancers in the house. My dad taught me how to Two Step and Waltz. I never forgot how to waltz. Now it’s my favorite dance, but growing up, square dancing was my favorite. They used to bring me with them to barn dances at the lodge on Harmony Street. If I wasn’t with them, I was with my godmother and her husband. My godmother Louise and my mother Ethel were besties from the early 1920s. Louise and my dad were the same age and somehow rescued my mother at her first party when she was fifteen. My godmother was married to Freddie and soon Mother married his brother Willie. Dad was already married to Ida. They had a daughter and another on the way when he met Mother at that party. It was 1935 before they finally got to live together because Willie refused to give Mother a divorce. Women had few freedoms,

With radios in the house and their love of dancing, I grew up listening to music from the roaring 20s, the depressing 30s, and the big bands of the 40s – the music my dad played. He played several instruments, but he was a drummer in all the bands in which he played, including the Algiers Navy Band during WWII. In high school at Saint Augustine, my brother played clarinet in the band and often my dad broke out all the instruments and taught my brothers to play. He did try to teach me to play the drum, but I refused to hold the drumsticks they way he told me to, so he quit.

Listening to music without seeing it. The first time I saw people singing was at St. Aug’s talent show when I was five. Two girls sang All I Have to Do Is Dream. I thought they were the radio singers for years until perusing a copy of Hit Parade and saw the song was credited to the Everly Brothers.

The first song I ever remember hearing was Mr. Sandman, perhaps my parents sang it to me before bed. They explained that the sandman was the person that put us to sleep.

WHAT!? Didn’t know until now that the Coasters Poison Ivy was about stds.