American_Music

American Music Winter semester 2010/11 Eva Hamplová AMUSED AT AMERICAN MUSIC If I think about music and how it has influenced my life, I realize that most of the music bands or artists that I like or liked to listen to, come from America. There were several stages in my discovering of music. I was born in the beginning of the 1980s, in the time in which the American songs were unwelcome due to the political situation in the Czech Republic. Maybe that's why I remember hearing Michael Jackson for the first time. It was, as I learned later, a tape that my uncle, a 1980 emigrant, brought from Germany together with a brand new cassette recorder. I remember all our family 'stuck' upon the recorder and listening to the Thriller. Although none of us understood a single word, we were deeply impressed and we all knew that that was something special. Hearing "Billy Jean" and "Beat It", I always remember that moment. Later the Velvet Revolution came and American music has become easily accessible. There were many groups and singers me and my friends listened to, mainly to those which appeared in the ESO music chart, moderated by Tereza Pergnerová by that time and broadcast each Sunday morning. We listened to nearly everything that appeared in the chart. We recorded songs from the radio (RUBI mainly). The recordings created in that way were of a very poor quality; sometimes we caught the song in its half, sometimes the moderators voice intruded the song (I was feeling like killing him or her in such moments) and when we finally heard our favorite song and didn't miss much of its beginning, there was not recording time enough on the tape. We were young girls so it is no wonder that our favorites were the boy bands, e.g. East 17 (oh, Brian and Tony were so cute!; their "Stay Another Day" was definitely on one of my cassettes), No Mercy ("Where Do You Go") or The Hanson's ("Mmm Bop"). Each of us had an idol in each band and we were arguing at brakes at school whose favorite was more handsome. We were eagerly defending our personal idols; there were even fist fights, or rather scratch-and-pull-as-much-hair-as-possible fights between the girls. At that time we were reading around the teenage BRAVO magazine. There were the lyrics to the popular songs with the Czech translation too in each issue, so we knew what the boy bands' songs were about. Despite this fact we remained faithful to them, for some time at least. BRAVO was also a great source of posters for us. There were even several series of posters that were issued one by one, one in each magazine. I remember it took me several months to collect The Kelly Family series, as there were too many members in the band, but finally the twelve life-sized long haired heads peered at me from above my bed, the poster of Peddy being closest to me. My tape collection was enlarged when I attended the high school. With the new classmates and friends came a new music style, hip hop. To be honest, I rather followed the hip hop fashion, I have never been a hard-core fan of this style. It was simply cool and fashionable to listen to the Californian Cypress Hill ("Insane in the Membrane") or the Beastie Boys ("Sabotage") and to go to the hip hop concerts. There were no mp3 players or iPods by that time, we played the music on walkmans (the first ones were so big that you nearly needed an extra bag to carry it! I remember how happy I was finding a pocket-size walkman under the 2001 Christmas tree). There are two albums of my high school period to which I remained faithful. The first one is The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by the eponymous singer, who early in her career established her reputation as a member of the Fugees. The second album is Jagged Little Pill by Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette. I often play those when I am driving. To be honest, the only time I listen to music recently is in the car. My school and working duties consume much of time. However, I love listening to music when I am driving. If you ask me what my favorite music is in the present, I would not be able to answer a single artist or a single music band. But I would definitely tell you that I fell in love with the American music of the 1950s and 1960s and I am a great fan to even the earlier periods. I love those songs because most of them are very optimistic and happy in tone. Judy Garland has been one of my much loved front-seat passengers on my ways to the job or school. Her song "Get Happy" always makes my day. She is the original singer of "Somewhere over the Rainbow", which's frequent cover versions were for me never as good as in her interpretation. Besides the two already mentioned songs, I consider her "Give My Regards to Broadway", "Ol' Man River", "Smile" and Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm" as her best pieces. What I love about her music is the fact she is accompanied by a great orchestra, which gives some extra power and energy to her songs. Sometimes Aretha Franklin goes with me and sings her "I Say a Little Prayer", "I Will Survive", "Natural Woman", "Bridge over Troubled Water" and many others, however I ask her to sing "Angel" most often as the song brings kind of relaxed atmosphere after a hard day. Sometimes The Temptations jump in the car and we sing "My Girl", "Stand by Me" or "How Sweet It Is to Be Loved by You". Some other day I give ride to Marvin and Tammi, who in return sing their "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". Tammi then gets out of the car and Marvin goes on singing "Let's Get It On", "Sunny" and adds some more. The description of my experience with American music would not be complete without mentioning country and bluegrass music. I was introduced into this music style by my parents who are members of the DC Vocal music band. My Dad plays the guitar and banjo, my Mom is a singer. There are three other musicians in the band (guitar, contrabass, resonator guitar,) and one more singer. They play songs by various American country singers, such as Dolly Parton, Rhonda Vincent, Joan Baez and recently by Brad Paisley. Most of their songs, however, are taken from the very famous bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler Alison Krauss. Every day, my father practices playing the guitar or the banjo. Even now, when I am writing this paper, the sound of his banjo penetrates into the room. Although they are amateur musicians, they are very good. The band practices once a week and they have regular concerts (in May and December) in the Music Theatre in Olomouc (Divadlo Hudby Olomouc) and some other concerts on the scale of the region. There is going to be the traditional Christmas concert on December 8 at 19.30. I am really looking forward to go as it has become part of our family Christmas tradition and it somehow opens the Christmas time and atmosphere to me. That reminds me I have to go and find the Motown Christmas album and take it into the car and let the Temptations sing "Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum; A new born King to see, pa rum pum pum pum"...