Changes in the Relationship Between Music and People (since the 1960s and 70s).

Changes in the Relationship Between Music and People (since the 1960s and 70s).

     If you are at least as old as me you will remember when middle class people could afford real pianos. People would come over and play and sing for each other, too, although the practice had been slowly dying out since records and radio took over what had once been the market for sheet music. I remember going over to a friend’s house and finding a treasure trove of old sheet music singles in their piano stool. I have never been a good sight reader, but I learned “As Time Goes By” from a once-glossy folio with Bogart and Bergman on the front. The first “gospel licks” I learned were from the folio for John Lennon’s “ Plastic Ono Band,” which had a reasonably good transcription of what Billy Preston played on “God” ( is a concept by which we measure our pain, yeah, pain, yeah, pain.)
     There were also pianos everywhere at school. There was one on the stage in the cafeteria/assembly room of the public high school I went to that was a focal point at lunchtime. There were musical factions then too of course, like the kid who only played Bacharach and had a coterie of swooning girls surrounding him. I could play things other people couldn’t because I either made them up or there was no accurate sheet music for them. My feeble by-ear attempt at “Linus and Lucy” or the piano groove to Joe Cocker’s “Feelin’ Alright” were frequent requests from my audience, which consisted only of another self-taught piano player. He was a rather tough guy, and we weren’t friends outside of meeting occasionally at the keyboard, but I won his respect because I could play some rock and roll. He taught me a boogie-woogie he knew and we played four-hand blues together. This was before I really started hitting it at the piano and was just messing around, but it was how many of us learned the basic blues.
     It was all so different from today’s nation of I-Pod earphone wearers. When I was a kid if someone asked “What are you listening to?” it was usually a parent trying to figure out what we heard in Frank Zappa that made us smile. The fragmentation of the “markets” for music has made us more consumers of product and less involved in the way music reflects the culture. And the music doesn’t reflect the culture in the same way either, but in shards and fragments. Outside of these smaller audiences, we are aware of some popular artists only through the applause heard coming from an unseen adjacent theatre.
     We listened to records in groups, too. We sat in cars in school parking lots for the purposes of listening to and playing new music for our friends. You had your choice of vehicles and cliques to hang around whenever a new Zeppelin album came out. The top 40 radio then included a mix unheard of today: Aretha, Streisand, the Beatles, the Jackson 5, Jimi Hendrix, Credence Clearwater, Marvin Gaye and Tom Jones. It was possible to hear the Doors and Frank Sinatra on the same station, or Ray Charles and Roger Miller. 

     Our culture’s relationship with music hasn’t changed in at least one respect though: whatever pop music was new and hip when you were young will always seem to be better than what these kids nowadays are listening to.

Recent History Lessons about War, Politics and Art

In today’s culture, History Lessons are more often shouted down than Ideological  Rants. Here is a little of both for you to dismiss or engage with:

The witch hunting during the Thirty-Years War in the 1600s seems parallel to the persecution of Communists between the World Wars and during the Cold War. The obvious similarity is that in both cases, the ruling class was distracting the people with an enemy besides starvation, religion and rulers. But that is not the most interesting parallel. When a prevailing system has failed most of its people, they will turn to other ways and worldviews. Thus there were many Americans of conscience who “became Communist” or had socialist sympathies during the Depression, and there were probably Christians who turned back toward paganism and its wise women when the male leaders of the Protestant and Catholic factions were obviously screwing things up pretty badly for the vast majority. The Church repressed the theatre in the 17^th century and the Republicans in the 1930s shut down the leftist leaning Federal Theatre project for similar reasons: The theatre and music have power and speaks to the people directly. Art makes people feel and think, and it can either be used to pacify or agitate. Thus, whoever censors or controls access to the Arts has a powerful tool of persuasion or distraction.

     Now to the Iraq War, which lasted longer and killed more people (including more American soldiers) than Vietnam.: http://www.viewzone.com/wardeaths.html

 Remember how artists who came out against the Iraq War were booed by the “with us or against us” faction, who saw themselves as the only patriots because they “supported the troops”? People walked out and protested Neil Young’s show in Atlanta, and booed Michael Moore when he called Bush on his bullshit at the Oscars. But it is telling that the mass media chose the anti-war protestations of the Dixie Chicks as the story, and not because they were more popular at the time, either. As long as you are going to put down the anti-war artists, why not take a shot at feminism as well?

Divisiveness between the anti-war left and the pro-empire right was of course nothing new, although it seemed new to people not old enough to have lived through the Vietnam Era. In Georgia, even in the academic oasis of Athens, my anger toward the war-mongering Bush administration was immediately shot down when I dared to express it.  I felt like a “whore in church” to use a Southern expression. More than one incident was sparked by the “Impeach Bush” sticker on my old car. A man in a brand new Lexus rolled up next to me at a stoplight after sitting behind me for a second. He rolled down his silent electric window and shouted at me, “You are not a real American!”

I replied calmly, “So half the population of the country are not real Americans?” noticing that he was not listening and did not care what I said anyway.

“He’s protecting your freedom!” shouted the redneck in the 3-piece suit and the Lexus.

“He stole the presidency, and now he’s a war criminal!”…. is what I WANTED to say, but I was afraid he would get out of the car and challenge me, so instead I repeated that I was not alone, that “ at least half of the country doesn't agree with you, either.”

He drove off hurriedly cursing me. Such was the public discourse over that War in Georgia. Atlantans who enjoyed the music of Crosby Stills Nash and Young walked out on and booed Neil’s song “Let’s Impeach the President for Lying.”  Did those people assume that because there was a down-home white country tinge to the music of CSN&Y, that old, hippie rock musicians would be sympathetic to ignorance?

Everyday Life in the Late 50s for 8/5/14.

2.  The Dentist Bites

     One of the signs of aging for me is that the dentist seems very serious and concerned about the future of my teeth these days. 

     I always choose female dentists and so far have not encountered one with large hands. Small hands help in feeling less “probed.” Lying on your back with your mouth open is beyond supplication and into the area of submission.

      The technology and presentation at the dentist have improved drastically since I was a kid with problem teeth.  But when you get old, you don’t really want to see the digital close-ups and x-rays of your worn, decaying teeth on a big screen pulled down in front of your face. The dental profession knows that on sight of these images you will exclaim in horror, “Just do it! Whatever it means, whatever it costs….fix that!”

1. Everyday Life in the late 50s with C.B. Davis, Ph.D. for 8/4/2014

 The Aisle of Incontinence

     I used to be young. It wasn’t that long ago. Today I am pushing a loudly rattling grocery cart through Target, doing some shopping for dinner. I always seem to get the loudly rattling or squeaky cart or the one with the wheel that does not  turn at all and cuts you short in the belly when you try to change direction. Maybe I should mark them with permanent color markers. Red for rattle, sapphire for squeak, blue for wheel. This is my life now.

     Suddenly I find myself in an aisle I’ve never been down or even seen before. The shelves seem towering with stacked boxes and plastic packages of….incontinency supplies. Is this a sign? Just as I am thinking about getting old I turn down an entire supermarket aisle devoted to “Depends” and its competitors. Is the sheer in-stock volume of these senior diapers due to the Baby Boomers all getting incontinent at once?

     My speed leaving the Aisle of Incontinence made the cart squeak not only faster but louder. Trying to forget about this incident, I looked around in sporting goods and realized that I really needed to find the restroom.

Below this title is a link to an article I wrote for an issue of the web journal Parapluie.  I will expand on these thoughts further with the research I have done since then. The article was also translated into German, available through the link.

Habitual Spontaneity The Improvisational Paradigm in Jazz and Comedy

by C.B. Davis

Habitual Spontaneity Part One.