As I listen to music driving down the road, I got to thinking about how music is an integral part of our lives whether we realize it or not. I am always quoting lines from songs and from sitcoms. In an email or text I will write something like: I’ll be there! Michael Jackson 1970.
I recently signed up for a year of Sirius XM Radio where they have any genre of music you want plus sports and news and more. One of the liners they use on The Bridge, a channel devoted to light rock from the 70’s and 80’s, goes like this. You can’t go back to the past but you can rediscover the soundtrack. I thought that was profound. I know for me, probably you too, that songs from our high school days or college days are indeed the soundtrack of our lives from that time in our life. Country singer Clint Black has a chorus in the song ‘State of Mind’ that goes like this:
Ain't it funny how a melody can bring back the memory
Take you to another place in time. Completely change your state of mind.
Clint Black is one of several country artists I’ve seen in concert. In my years of working in radio stations, many were country stations so I got hooked on country music from the 80’ and 90’s. I got to meet a number of these country artists too. Alan Jackson, Kenny Rogers, Lee Greenwood. I did not see the Michael Martin Murphy concert when he played in Kansas City at the American Royal, but he did come and party with us farm broadcasters in a hospitality room at the Westin Crown Center during our convention. There are a lot more country artists that I’ve not met but seen them in concert. Dolly Parton, Reba McIntire, Garth Brooks, Charlie Daniels, Travis Tritt, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Terri Clark among them. I’ve also been to the Grand Ole Opry a few times.
Marilyn Sellers did a song called One Day at a Time. When I was at KDHL, I got to do a half hour interview with her and then later at the Rice County Fair, she recorded a music video where I was in the crowd. So I put that on my resume that I was part of a country music video. I also did a half hour interview with Dan Seals. Dan started his career as part of the soft rock duo England Dan and John Ford Coley. Then Dan went solo and changed genres to country where he had 11 number one hits. There was another duo called Seals and Crofts. That was Dan’s older brother Jim Seals.
The first country concert I went to was when I was working at KOWO radio in Waseca. Rob ‘the Beav’ Henry and I went to Minneapolis to see Waylon Jennings and Don Williams. The first rock concert I went to was in 1971 to see the group Chicago at the old Met Center. The second rock concert I saw was also at the Met Center when I saw Joe Cocker. The opening band for him that night was Dr Hook and the Medicine Show. In the mid 70’s I also saw Elton John at the Met Center.
Beav and I saw the Eagles when they were not the headline act. They opened for a group called Yes. The Eagles went on to be headliners, in fact still are today. They are headlining their farewell tour. When people ask me what was your favorite concert you attended, I always say Harry Chapin who played in Mankato when I was going to college there. David Bromberg opened for him and that, for me, was the best one I saw.
The best concert I did not see, even though I had a ticket for it, was the Moody Blues. I still have the ticket, a $5 ticket that was not used. This would have been the fall of 1975. It was a Sunday night. We were harvesting corn and drying corn and just couldn’t get away to go party at a concert.
There are some artists that I wish I had seen in concert. Among them; Dan Fogelberg; John Prine; Crosby, Stills and Nash; and Toby Keith. Toby just passed away recently and I was sorry I never got to see him in concert. He recorded 21 albums with 69 singles, 20 of which were number one on the charts. He had one of the most profound lines I’ve ever heard in one of his songs called ‘Who’s That Man’. The line is a twist to an old saying but Toby’s line goes like this: ‘I guess the less things change, the more they never seem the same. You have to think about it but after a while, it makes sense.
