It's 9AM

Can You Turn It Up?

Chris Lowry

Jul 19, 2023

My Dad listened to rock and roll.

Heavy guitar riffs with a back beat that couldn’t lose.

My Papaw was a bluegrass man.

Lot’s of banjo and four part harmonies.

My Uncle only liked country music.

Waylon, Willie and the Boys.

My mom was a soft pop rock fan.

Mamaw only listened to old time gospel.

I love it all.

I had no choice really.

As a kid, I heard music from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s from two vastly different generations of people.

And as I came into my own tastes, we had Prince, and Rick Springfield and Journey, and a long list of names that would make you smile.

Names that would make you hum.

Snap your fingers and tap your toes.

One of Papaw’s tenants moved out of a rental when I was ten or eleven and he gifted me a stereo and one speaker they left in the bedroom.

The stereo had to be at least two feet wide, it was huge. Record player on top, radio, and eight track in the deck.

I spent hours in my room listening to KKYK and KOTN and sometimes could pick up stations as far away as South Texas when the weather conditions were just right.

Always searching through the commercials for the next song.

Laughing with Crazy Craig O’Neal or The Morning Zoo when I got ready for school. Spending nights wondering if I could call in with a request and get on the air.

Would I stutter as much as most of the folks getting through?

Whitney Houston, the Cars, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

REO Speedwagon and Heart.

I must have been the luckiest kid in the world to get to listen to so many great songs.

Thirty years worth of music ringing in my ears…

And then it got better.

The 80’s, when I could drive and came into my own.

So many love songs whispered on the bench seat of my Grand Prix made like promises and starlight wishes.

Hanging with my brother, or my best friend or alone, the soundtrack of a misspent teenage youth playing in the background.

I got introduced to alternative music, and then grunge and behind it all, West Coast Rap.

I may not have been straight outta Compton, but I got straight out the trailer pretty quick.

Kid Rock, Eminem, Dre, Foo Fighters, Everclear, Garbage, Cranberries, Del Amitri.

Another long list to add to a long list already.

More songs, more music, more notes and lyrics and snippets.

I never wondered how I would cram it all in my brain, music from so many decades.

And each song tagged with meaning, each with a memory.

There were waves of country music in it too, the Garth explosion, George Strait, and Alabama.

I worked a lot of construction sites and there were a lot of beat up boom boxes wailing with steel guitars about lost dogs, lost wives and lost trucks.

Is there a peak when our taste in music settles?

I can’t argue that the 90’s was the best all around decade for songs, because Morgan Wallen writes lyrics that are top ten most creative.

And have you heard Midland out of Texas?

Or Ryan Bingham?

I don’t listen to new school rap because of auto-tune, though I can sing a lot of Brittney Spears songs thanks to my kids.

Or hum them, at least.

The All-Father blessed me with a great love for song and dance, but denied me the gift of tone or rhythm.

Except in Pontiacs.

I wanted to be able to sing so bad, I joined a choir at Church when I was a young teen.

Got thrown in a quartet, and that quartet went to a National Competition in Nashville and won.

I’m smart enough to admit that the trio I was paired with carried me better than I carried a tune.

But the gift of song eluded me, and shouting over my early twenties turned my voice box solidly into the fan side of singing.

Though I can quote song lyrics like spoken word at least as good as Henry Rollins.

I try to tell folks how lucky we are, we who have lived through so many years of songs and singers.

They give me the shut up Grandpa look though.

I can’t really blame them.

Old Possom sounds a little different than Jason Aldean, and Earl and Scruggs might not make it on the radio today.

Or showing how Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley sang the same songs earns me eye rolls because “they’re both dead.”

Most of it’s my fault.

My problem.

I love music enough to be a passing fan of it all, but meet a true fan who lives it, and they can deep dive on a song and give you details on the B side.

I’m okay with just being surface level on a couple of thousand songs from the past 70’s years or more.

I can’t name that tune in three notes, Dick, but I like it because it’s got a good beat and I can dance to it.

Hop aboard the Soul Train, we’re headed to the American Bandstand.

What song sticks in your head the most?

9AM

It's 9AM

Can You Turn It Up?

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