Music in the olden days

While I was very young kid, my dad was away in the South Pacific WWII war from 1940 to 1945 and it left me and my brother Don living with our mother and grandmother in Chattanooga. Mother was working in a downtown department store as a salesperson. There was not much money, barely enough to afford a radio. I was not much interested in music until we visited with our Uncle who had a record player, which played the 78s. It was a single disk player and usually had only one song per record on the 10-inch plastic. I believe it would have between 1948 or 1949 when I was 14 or 15, that dad and mom would visit with her brother. He had a good job with the TVA and had gotten one of the new 45 rpm players that held many small thin records, and it was great to listen to the better high fidelity music. His interest was in the big time bands, like Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and Glenn Miller and dozens of other really good musicians. I would listen to them for hours at a time while the parents visited.

Musical likes and dislikes

After joining the Air Force and getting training to be an air traffic controller, I was stationed in Tucson, Az. with an upcoming drummer, who was also interested in the jazz of Gene Krupa, but he also liked Elvis while I liked Pat Boone and Sinatra. I learned, though, that Elvis was almost the same age that I was and started listening to his music and found he was really great.

Paul Anka was born in 1941 and first achieved success in the 1950s as a teenage singing star (and, for the times, an unusual one in that he wrote many of his own songs.

He started singing at age 12. "My Way," the song he wrote for Frank Sinatra, is tagged as the "Killer Song" in the Philippines. It's the top pick of drinking buddies in karaoke bars, and almost any club there is someone who sings the song "My Way" to its fullest bravado.

Frank Sinatra was one of my and millions of others favorite entertainer. I recently found out Sinatra was the only child of Italian immigrants and was originally known as Frankie.

Despite the fact that he never served in the war, he was classified 4F not acceptable for military service., He was the only child of Italian immigrants and was vastly disliked by those soldiers, who did he became one of America's favorite love song entertainer. I do not know of anyone in my circle of friends who was aware of this background

A favorite revisited

Tom Jones one of our favorite singers of the '50s and '60 was highlighted on 60 minutes this past Sunday evening. It reminded me of my interest in music from those days of my late teens when rock 'n roll was just beginning to come into our lives along with Elvis Presley, the Beatles and the love songs of Pat Boone and the Platters, and Johnny Ray was singing "My Prayer" and" Cry."

I really liked the voice of Tom Jones; he is particularly noted for his powerful voice, and still has a great voice at age 70. Jones has sung nearly every form of popular music - pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country and dance. Most will remember his "What's New Pussycat? and "It's Not Unusual" that became international hits.