Ever since I was born, music has always been a big part of my life. Both my parents were big fans of music, especially my Dad. My Dad was the proud owner of many record albums, tapes and CD's. He loved every style of music with the exception of rap, heavy metal, hard rock and opera. He loved many Big Bands as well as Show tunes, Bluegrass, 1950's doo wop and I'm sure I'm missing many others. He also owned a lot of those old 78 records (remember those) and spent a lot of time listening to music. Music was always played in our home and in our cars. As kids, we listened to AM radio stations such as 770 WABC and 660 WNBC. When we first moved to New York in 1973, my brother and sister and I liked going to the mall at a store named Sam Goody and buying 45's of our favorite 1970's songs we heard on the radio. We collected a ton of them and recently we tried to remember all the records we collected. Working at Home Depot, I have heard many of these songs playing over and over in the store loudspeakers. I never owned this record, but the song "Do the Hustle" was playing in my head all day long just yesterday! I couldn't get it out of my head!
One fond memory I have listening to music as a kid is something I will never forget. Our family spent a lot of time at the beach, a place called Long Beach (No, not California) and I will never forget listening to a song called "Rock the Boat" by the Hughes Corporation and bouncing around in the back seat of my Mom's Volkswagen Beetle in 1974 going down River Road in Smithtown singing that crazy song. I also remember in 1976 a song came out called "Afternoon delight" by the Starlight Vocal Band. I was in sixth grade and remember that song when I was playing little league baseball. Being very young, I thought the song was about a group of people just having a good time with each other just hanging out. I discovered years later that "fun" was a different type of "pleasure". Enough said! Another music memory I have is with my grandparents who lived in Ringwood, New Jersey in a place my family refers to as "The Lake." My grandfather also loved his music. He was the kind of guy who would see a commercial on TV for a record album and he would buy that album. I remember him buying off a TV ad a Mitch Miller record. More than that, I remember my brother and I spending a week there with our grandparents and my grandfather always played 50's music. Even to this very day, whenever I hear 1950's music, I think about them.
Growing up into my teen years, my music style changed. I really enjoyed rock music and loved many albums by groups such as Kiss, Paul McCartney and Wings, The Beatles, Peter Frampton, Billy Joel, Chicago and the Beach Boys. When I accepted Jesus into my heart, my music started changing big time. I realized at a young age that I shouldn't fill my mind with the garbage lyrics I was listening to. After all, how could I glorify God by listening to Kiss? Their music is downright evil! I was so happy to learn that their was Christian Music out there that had a beat yet glorified God. My first introduction to it was when my sister Paula came home from college after her first year and told me about an artist by the name of Randy Stonehill. One of his first albums was called "Welcome to Paradise" and I was sure to buy a copy of that record when she returned to school. To this day I still love that album. Over the years I collected many Christian artist records, tape and CD's including Daniel Amos, Larry Norman, Fireworks, Undercover, the 77's, Petra, Jerusalem, The Alarm, Edin Adahl, Mad at the World, Mark Heard...I can go on an on. To this day I still listen to classic Christian Rock on my IPod as well as amazing worship songs and Jazz. I will never ever listen to opera...just like Dad.
SEE YOU ALL NEXT WEEK! BE SAFE EVERYONE!!
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