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LOVING NON NATIVE MUSICAL TRADITIONS



Stephen Goodman wrote:
"In a kind of balance, I spent the mid-to-late 60s with a transistor radio 
under my pillow every night (even at summer camp in Vermont, where Cousin 
Brucie on WABC wasn't hard to get), and so my nocturnal appetites were fed 
a 
combination of Motown, Brit Invasion stuff (including four chaps), and pop 
psychedelia like "Pictures of Matchstick Men and You" or "Red Rubber 
Ball". 
"


I fucking loved 'Red Rubber Ball'  when I was a young teenager (that and 
the 
aforementioned Motown, Stax Soul, James Brown and Brit Invasion with a 
smattering
of folk music (Joni Mitchell, Dylan, etc.) and later,  liberal doses of 
Psychedelic music and what was then called Hard Rock (Zeppelin, Free, 
early 
Tull, James Gang, Cream, et. al.).   My sister's musical tastes had a huge 
impact on me except for her love of novelty songs.    I still can't abide 
the combination of humor and music
for some odd reason................................it's sacrilege on this 
list but I just never got Zappa until I heard him play instrumental music 
with George Duke, Jon Luc Ponty,
the Underwoods and the Fowler brothers----dont' ask me why,  I just don't 
know.

Anyway,  I digress...............I got the single of Red Rubber Ball and 
played it over and over and over.  I must have been 12 years old.
Music was all around me (my family were all musical) but I didn't 'get' 
music in a personal way until I discovered the top 40 and got my first
cheap transistor radio.

I suppose you all know the trivia about who penned that tune originally?
If not,  I have a sweet surprise for you.

I've never heard anyone else profess that they listened to it.   I feel a 
little less existentially lonely
reading this post, Stephen.  Thanks!.

 Now,  who else was in love with the song 'Sunny"  by Bobby Hebb?
I'll really feel like I belong to the human race again if someone was into 
that one.............lol.

It was the very first song I learned how to play on
Christmas night 1966 after getting my first snare drum and pair of sticks. 
I ran over to my best friend Bob Murphy's house
and his parents had purchased a  Cappa Minstrel (sp?) electric guitar  and 
a 
Fender Champ amp.   I went to his house
every single day for three straight months and we learned songs for our 
first band,  the Concave Image <blush>
My dad finally broke down and rented me a drumset at that point and all 
hell 
broke loose in my life.



************************************

I, too, spent two or three years listening to a tinny mono earphone under 
my 
pillow in the mid sixties.   That ended when I quit playing clarinet and 
started playing in bands as a drummer.

For some odd reason I was playing in a band before I even knew how to 
play...........all the beer we could drink at San Jose State fraternity
parties.  I was so insecure that I didn't let anyone in my high school 
know 
I was playing those shows.   A very successful casuals musician, Joe 
Sharino,
was my sophmore 'gofer' when I was the Senior editor or our school 
newspaper.   He also played other frat parties and neither of us knew that 
the other
were playing rock and roll on the weeks.    Later I played the same stage 
Elvis played in Vegas with Joe...........staying at a five star hotel and 
being
paid oodles of money for a single show..

God, I was horrible in those days, but a very hard hitter and 
minimal..................guess I did something 
right...................way, 
way too angry to take lessons from anyone.
Didn't take my first serious lessons until after I had already started 
making all my living from drumming but that's another long winded story, 
I'm 
afraid.
I was so afraid of double strokes and rudiments like paradiddles that I 
played only single stroke rolls for the first 15 years I played.   I was 
making all of my
living as a solid groove drummer, using only single stroke rolls 
completely 
unable to read music.     It wasn't until I developed the rhythmic system 
that I use to this
day that I taught myself to learn how to read and changed my whole 
drumming 
life forever.    It was starting to teach that made me see how important 
it 
was,
but I digress.........................

(((((((((()(((((((((((((()))))))))))))))))()))))))))))))



yours,  Rick