YOU TUBE CAN TAKE YOU TO SURPRISING PLACES.

     I discovered YouTube three or four years ago. I still haven't really discovered how it works but I've found many very interesting things. Some of the things I've blundered into have been a complete surprise and I sometimes say, "How did Youtube know I liked or wanted that."

     Okay, here's what happened. I like to look for things in music that I haven't heard before. So I do some searching. Something comes up and that leads to something else and suddenly there's a whole lot of surprising sites just waiting for you.

    Some of the bands I've listened to lately have an accordion.  So I checked out accordion and found a few sites and listened to them.

    All of a sudden I was surrounded by music that I had seldom heard. The sites youtube gave me were Austrian folk music videos. So there were many videos featuring people doing Austrian folk music. The singers and dancers were in traditional costume. Settings were mostly in the Alps with some concert halls and street scenes. Bands were quite different but feature several instruments. So the most common instrument was the accordion. I didn't know that there were so many types of accordions. Then other instruments were guitar, violin, the odd percussion, harp, a few horns. There were a few instruments that I had never seen before. These were put together for many different sounds. It looked like a few people got together as friends. If there were three accordions well that's fine. Most of it included singing. It appeared that most of these performances were amateurs.

     Many of these groups were kids.

    It was all very lively and joyous.

    So I'm listening to music that I've rarely listened to and it's most enjoyable.

    Find some of these sites and give a listen.

AND NOW FOR SOME MUSIC.

      I like listening to music. There's very little music I don't like. After that all bets are off. Some music I like a lot and some not so much. I don't listen to Rap or modern country. So when I go through You Tube I will take a listen to things I've never heard before.

      I spend time on You Tube looking for good things to listen to. This week I spent a lot of time searching on You Tube for videos to  go along with my posts.

     Well, I did have time to look for music. I wanted to find some bands like Billy  Vaughn, Ray Conif, Bert Kaempfert  James Last and anything else that would crop up.  I liked listening to these  bands when they were popular.

    Well wouldn't you know it. I bumbled into a very entertaining band that  I'd never heard  before. It plays typical band music in a very entertaining fashion. It's energetic and very entertaining to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lzGxoUhA4c&list=RD7lzGxoUhA4c&start_radio=1 Go and have a listen to it. I'm sure you'll like it.

     Then there were rock groups that were only instrumental...no vocals. I can't even remember one name. So I have something else to look for when I've got some time.

PERRY COMO

     With my discovery of You Tube a couple of years ago , I've been able to revisit some music that I used to listen to at one time.

    My music tastes and listening have certainly changed over the years. When I was young. When I was very, very young we did not listen to much radio. Much of radio was programs rather than the station playing music. Some of the programs were country and western music. Other programs were like Lux Presents Hollywood. Fibber Magee and Molly and many more.

    Anyway when I was younger I listened to country and western music. But in there somehow I listened to singers like Perry Como . Perry Como popped into my brain the other  day and I checked you tube. I listened to his songs for a couple of hours. I'd forgotten how good the guy was. Perry Como picked good songs. He sang with a full  orchestra. No wonder I like the guy. I put this on face book and was surprised how many friends had their memories of Perry Como.

     Like any teenager in the fifties I was attracted the rock music. Elvis and many more performers caught my attention. At the same time I found some classical music that I liked to listen to. 

    One day as I was leaving the local library with a fist full of CD's someone said, " you have an eclectic taste in music." I had to come home and look up the meaning of eclectic. 

    Mr C started singing in the mid thirties . He had a long and varied career with bands , radio and television.

   I enjoyed listening to him the other evening.

   So do you remember Perry Como? Did you like him?

BLUE SKIES OF ALBERTA

     Well, apologies to Hawaii for stealing a little of their song. Apologies to Webley Edwards for borrowing from his song. 

     But I just started thinking about "Blue Skies " as song titles or "blue skies" in the lyrics.

     Ella Fitzgerald did a super job on "Blue skies Smiling at Me" Many other people sang "blue skies smiling at me"

    Many other songs have a blue something or other in them such as "Blue suede Shoes", "Blue Moon in Kentucky"

    Well, today I'm not blue. I just happen to have got some photos of our blue skies. We are an oil producing area and our sky can get pretty grungy. Sometimes we get a big wind and there is a complete air change and we end up with blue skies. I happened to stop and get some blue skies on my camera.

     Now can you think of a song with "Blue Skies" in it.

Behind in Music

     I seem to be listening to music 20 or thirty years after it comes out and is popular.

     I like music. To be more exact, I like listening to music. I am not a musician. I listen to a wide variety of music. It would be easier to say what I don't listen to. I have only one problem and that is not enough time to listen to all the music I like.

     Now it always seems that I am years behind on the music scene. I've never heard Justin Bieber, the Dixie Chicks or 101 other modern groups. I have heard the Spice girls but they are an old group. I don't listen to rap so that makes many artists I've never heard of. 

    I guess I find some music that I really like and enjoy. So I don't pickup on any new music. 

    It goes like this. when Elvis hit the scene. I was listening to Pat Boone, Perry Como, Country and Western and Folk music. I did pick up on Elvis and all the 50's rockers fairly soon after they hit the big time. The Beatles were out for some time before I began listening to their music. It took me a long time before I listened to Neil Diamond, Bruce Springstien, the Rolling Stones, Bob Dillon and many more. 

   Along the way, I discovered   Blues music. In Blues there is a huge variety of different classes. I also made an acquaintance with jazz. All this time I listened to classical music. For each of these I found that there were always sources that provided interesting information on the music. Radio stations I listen to not only play the music but talk about it. 

   I suppose that I was discovering so much music that I didn't have time to listen to new music that was coming out. 

   However, I have been able to find more than enough music that provides listening pleasure.  

    How about you? Are you years behind in listening to new music? What's your favorite type of music? What has been some of the best groups you've listened to? 

Pete Seeger: A Long Influential Life

     
With the death of Pete Seeger last week, I began thinking about my music listening experience and what influences he had on me. 

     Listening to music for me, started when radios became more common and radio formats changed . So as a kid most of what I listened to was country and western. However, I did hear Pete Seeger. I was becoming much more interested in music when folk music became popular in the fifties. I have old reel to reel tapes of the Weavers. I can't play my tapes anymore but I won't throw them away. So folk music grabbed my attention. I was aware of Woody Guthrie ,but didn't hear much of his music. Joan Baez was a biggie.

    Then rock and roll came along and grabbed my attention. I was a teenager when rock came on the scene so I fell heavily for rock and roll. I still like rock and listen to a lot of it.

    Along with these influences I was exposed to classical music and so called popular music. 

    My music listening didn't change much until I retired and had time to explore other genres. I also found a radio station, CKUA, that programmed all types of music along with much information about the music. So I was exposed to jazz  and blues of all kinds and began to listen to these two. This station also has programs that concentrate on very specific types of music. One example would be "Voices in Jazz." One type of music that I enjoy is bel canto which is choral classical. It's very beautiful. So here's a plug for my favorite station which is on the Internet.

    So Pete Seeger was one of the major influences on me. I liked his slant on social justice and how his protest songs influenced society. Pete Seeger was active and influential in the music world until just recently. In 2012 he cut his last record. Pete Seeger was on the music scene long before I was born. His influence will carry on long after I am gone.