So last night we were watching a movie (all right if you must know, it was a tear-jerking romantic comedy from 2000 called Return To Me). Since The Movie Channel keeps you with your eyes glued to the screen as long as possible to maximize revenue, throwing in all these little interviews, mini-documentaries and what-have-you, I kept flipping channels waiting for the movie to start up again. And on one of my flips--to PBS in Buffalo--I came across another Blast From the Past, with a twist.
On the screen I saw rows of geezers in their 60's (I'm in my late 50's, mind you) agog and misty-eyed as they surveyed the stage. And up there stood three sixtysomething dudes singing into microphones and playing, respectively, a guitar, banjo, and string bass. There was about them a familiarity, though I'd never before seen them.
Coming to the break, when talking heads solicit funds, the mystery was resolved. The Three Old Dudes singin' their hearts out were The Limelighters. These guys were part of the U.S. folk music craze which started up in the late 50's and went to the mid 60's.
The way they impacted my life was on this wise: at age 13 I'd gone off to Hampden DuBose Academy, a Christian boarding school in central Florda with 200 students, and every Saturday night there was something called Campfire. We'd walk off in the darkness down sandy roads until we came to a place with a great fire burning and huge logs to sit upon. Tables were set up with the fixin's for artery-clogging (but delicious) hamburgers and students were all there in the reflected light talkin' and (hark!) singin'.
I was, you see, what you might call Pop Culturally Challenged in those days. I just wasn't into it. Watched little TV and listened to the radio less. I didn't "get" the then-current pop music when I heard it on the radio. But when I heard some students singing (one with a guitar) at that Campfire, I "got" it, even though I'd never heard the songs before. It was my kind of music. I related to it. It was the sort of music I'd sung all my life at camp, or while riding in the car with the family.
That night, the music of my life got a name: folk music.
By my sophomore year I'd learned to play the guitar. By the following year (I think) I'd gotten a Peter, Paul, and Mary album and was sticking my head between the speakers to drink in the harmonies. By my senior year I'd learned a ream of lyrics and songs, was buying other folk records, and playing at every Campfire and other occasion I could.
The Limelighters epiphany came my sophomore year while rooming with a blond-haired, one-quarter-Navajo, surfer boy from California named Bob. Bob also was a singer extraordinaire--I mean, a trained singer with a deep baritone. Anyhow, Bob and I hit it off and he introduced me to folk music properly, teaching me songs and singing along. (Bob was in the know and had actually heard Peter Paul and Mary in person at Disneyland near where he lived. "They have class," he said.)
Anyhow, one of those early songs he taught me--one I used to bang out with an adolescent ferocity and joy that's probably been unmatched in my musical life--was called This Train. And that song, Bob told me, was by The Limelighters--a group which in Bob's telling became to me a mythical, unknown, wonderfully talented band of musicians who unfortunately no longer made records and whose past albums I'd be unlikely to obtain. "Ah what a wonder and thrill it would have been," I thought, "to have been around to see and hear the Limelighters."
So, when I heard and saw the Limelighters on the tube last night--geezers all, but singin' their little ol' elderly hearts out--I had that great, unexpected shock of recognition. And when I learned who they were--"The...Lime...Lighters"--why I was just in Old Geezer Folk Music Hawg Heaven.
And now, I gotta run out into the freezin' cold and pick up MY NEW GLASSES which I just learned have been delivered FOUR DAYS EARLY at The Optic Zone, just around the corner and across the street, here in our cool and humanly-dimensioned little part of Toh-Ron-TOH...
On the screen I saw rows of geezers in their 60's (I'm in my late 50's, mind you) agog and misty-eyed as they surveyed the stage. And up there stood three sixtysomething dudes singing into microphones and playing, respectively, a guitar, banjo, and string bass. There was about them a familiarity, though I'd never before seen them.
Coming to the break, when talking heads solicit funds, the mystery was resolved. The Three Old Dudes singin' their hearts out were The Limelighters. These guys were part of the U.S. folk music craze which started up in the late 50's and went to the mid 60's.
The way they impacted my life was on this wise: at age 13 I'd gone off to Hampden DuBose Academy, a Christian boarding school in central Florda with 200 students, and every Saturday night there was something called Campfire. We'd walk off in the darkness down sandy roads until we came to a place with a great fire burning and huge logs to sit upon. Tables were set up with the fixin's for artery-clogging (but delicious) hamburgers and students were all there in the reflected light talkin' and (hark!) singin'.
I was, you see, what you might call Pop Culturally Challenged in those days. I just wasn't into it. Watched little TV and listened to the radio less. I didn't "get" the then-current pop music when I heard it on the radio. But when I heard some students singing (one with a guitar) at that Campfire, I "got" it, even though I'd never heard the songs before. It was my kind of music. I related to it. It was the sort of music I'd sung all my life at camp, or while riding in the car with the family.
That night, the music of my life got a name: folk music.
By my sophomore year I'd learned to play the guitar. By the following year (I think) I'd gotten a Peter, Paul, and Mary album and was sticking my head between the speakers to drink in the harmonies. By my senior year I'd learned a ream of lyrics and songs, was buying other folk records, and playing at every Campfire and other occasion I could.
The Limelighters epiphany came my sophomore year while rooming with a blond-haired, one-quarter-Navajo, surfer boy from California named Bob. Bob also was a singer extraordinaire--I mean, a trained singer with a deep baritone. Anyhow, Bob and I hit it off and he introduced me to folk music properly, teaching me songs and singing along. (Bob was in the know and had actually heard Peter Paul and Mary in person at Disneyland near where he lived. "They have class," he said.)
Anyhow, one of those early songs he taught me--one I used to bang out with an adolescent ferocity and joy that's probably been unmatched in my musical life--was called This Train. And that song, Bob told me, was by The Limelighters--a group which in Bob's telling became to me a mythical, unknown, wonderfully talented band of musicians who unfortunately no longer made records and whose past albums I'd be unlikely to obtain. "Ah what a wonder and thrill it would have been," I thought, "to have been around to see and hear the Limelighters."
So, when I heard and saw the Limelighters on the tube last night--geezers all, but singin' their little ol' elderly hearts out--I had that great, unexpected shock of recognition. And when I learned who they were--"The...Lime...Lighters"--why I was just in Old Geezer Folk Music Hawg Heaven.
And now, I gotta run out into the freezin' cold and pick up MY NEW GLASSES which I just learned have been delivered FOUR DAYS EARLY at The Optic Zone, just around the corner and across the street, here in our cool and humanly-dimensioned little part of Toh-Ron-TOH...
posted by Ted | 12:33 PM
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