{"id":6635,"date":"2023-09-03T09:11:28","date_gmt":"2023-09-03T13:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=6635"},"modified":"2023-09-03T09:11:33","modified_gmt":"2023-09-03T13:11:33","slug":"missing-margaritaville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2023\/09\/03\/missing-margaritaville\/","title":{"rendered":"Missing Margaritaville"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This is a Sunday Story.  Not much politics here – just the impact of music on my life, and the loss of Jimmy Buffett this weekend.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Country<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When I was growing up, Country music was \u201cnot cool\u201d.  It was the sixties, and Country-Western was unavoidable.  It was on \u201cregular\u201d  TV twice a week!  The national Grand Ole Opry Show <\/em>was on, and locally, WLW-T  had the Midwestern Hayride<\/em>.   There were twangy fiddles and whiny singers, guitars and banjos.  It was early Saturday evening; us kids waited for it to finish so we could see \u201cSaturday Night at the Movies\u201d.  It was definitely not our kind of music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom and Dad had an extensive record collection, though they really didn\u2019t listen to that much music at home.  When they did, it was the singers from the Big Band Era; Sinatra, Williams, Como, and Tony Bennett.  Or it was the jazz pianists like Peter Nero, or Broadway show tunes.  What I didn\u2019t know was that in their younger days, Mom and Dad loved going to the Big Band shows downtown and dancing; shows like the Dorsey Brothers, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, and even our cousin, Tommy Lee (Levine).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rock and Roll<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But upstairs, my sisters were playing rock and roll.  I still have the \u201cmono\u201d version of \u201cMeet the Beatles\u201d, permanently borrowed from their collection. My own first record, a \u201c45\u201d, was James Taylor\u2019s \u201cFire and Rain\u201d on one side, and \u201cAnywhere Like Heaven\u201d on the other.  Next came Simon and Garfunkel\u2019s \u201cSound of Silence\u201d album, then Blood Sweat and Tears.  They\u2019re all still stacked on the shelf underneath a new turntable today (the band drive wore out on the old one). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I grew up in the folk rock of the late sixties, with some Beatles on the side, and a little jazz-rock mixed in.  Then I \u201cdiscovered\u201d Crosby-Stills-Nash and Young, wearing out two copies of their live album, Four Way Street<\/em>.  They were acoustic and hard rock, a combination that opened me up to a lot more music.  What I didn\u2019t realize was there was \u201ccountry\u201d in CSNY\u2019s work as well.  One of their most popular songs, \u201cTeach Your Children\u201d, opened with a \u201ccountry\u201d pedal-guitar segment.  I later learned that Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead sat-in to record it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then there was the other California \u201crock\u201d singers; the Eagles, Jackson Browne, and Linda Rondstat. There was always a \u201ccountry\u201d element to their work.  And once you liked the Eagles, how could you not like \u201cAlabama\u201d, a real country group.  So \u201ccountry\u201d was working its way into my consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Southern Rock<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But I still avoided \u201ccountry\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0So when I first heard the Allman Brothers \u201cEat a Peach\u201d album with their rock and country mix, the slide guitars from Opry fame and long instrumental sets like Blood Sweat and Tears, I had to overcome my \u201ccountry fear\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0But those long sets fit right into driving through the night on empty highways, something I did a lot of in my twenties.\u00a0\u00a0And my introduction into \u201cSouthern Rock\u201d was furthered when I was working on the Carter Presidential campaign in 1976.\u00a0\u00a0Carter\u00a0\u00a0himself was an Allman Brothers and Charlie Daniels friend and fan, so of course, their songs became \u201cthemes\u201d of the campaign offices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, like it or not, Southern Rock slipped into my playlists.  There was the Marshall Tucker Band (\u201cCan\u2019t You See\u201d), and Lynyrd Skynyrd\u2019s, \u201cSweet Home Alabama\u201d (though the Neil Young reference always annoyed me).  And who in the world didn\u2019t like \u201cFree Bird\u201d?  Crossing the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the dark, nothing got my 1967 Volkswagen Squareback moving like Skynyrd at full volume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And somewhere in all of that, a country song from an \u201cunknown\u201d named Jimmy Buffett slipped in.  I doubt it was on the \u201cPirate Rock\u201d stations I usually listened to on the radio, like WEBN in Cincinnati or WLVQ in Columbus.  But I heard \u201cCome Monday\u201d, and related to wearing Hush Puppies shoes.  And I got the theme:  get through this, and there will be a better day.  It will be all right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changes in Attitude<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As an adult I went through phases.\u00a0\u00a0There was the eighties, were I reverted to psychedelic rock:\u00a0\u00a0the Doors and Jefferson Airplane, in response to the \u201cHair Metal\u201d I heard from the kids I coached.\u00a0\u00a0And, even though I grew up in a \u201cBeatles\u201d house, I also \u201cdiscovered\u201d a group called the Rolling Stones.\u00a0\u00a0Then my brother-in-law introduced me to another side of \u201cCountry\u201d, Bluegrass music.\u00a0\u00a0All of a sudden, I was listening to the descendants of those \u201ctwangy\u201d fiddles and \u201cwhiny\u201d vocals I dodged as a kid.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Now I\u2019ve heard folks like the Steep Canyon Rangers, Bela Fleck, and Sam Bush, live on stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it wasn\u2019t until I retired that I started listening to more from Jimmy Buffett. He was a \u201ccountry\u201d singer, who crossed out of country to create a whole new genre of music.  He first called his style \u201cDrunken Caribbean\u201d but later settled \u201cGulf-Western\u201d.  It combined the typical country ballad, with the rhythms and instruments of the islands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Jenn and I spent a \u201csnowbird\u201d winter in Florida, hanging out on beaches and in  \u201cTiki Bars\u201d.  Buffett music poured over us like the afternoon sun on Wabasso Beach and the Atlantic waves lapping on the shore. Instead of the anguished protests of CSNY, or the frenzied \u201ctrips\u201d down the rabbit hole with the Jefferson Airplane, Buffett was about laying back, \u201cchillin\u2019, with the next Corona (or Landshark) cold in your hand and sand under your feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His music symbolized a lifestyle \u201cinverse\u201d for me.  The eighty and ninety hour work weeks of decades turned into songs of the sea, and the beach, and the nearest bar with live music.  Just as the protest music in the early seventies fit my life, so did Buffett\u2019s call to relax and enjoy fit in the twenty-teens.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jimmy Buffett passed away this weekend.  I can\u2019t say I was a \u201cParrot Head\u201d, and I never got to add him to my \u201cbucket list\u201d of live concerts.  But his music still themes this segment of my life.  We \u201craised a glass\u201d to Jimmy last night.  It was a Margarita.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sunday Story Series<\/h4>\n\n\n\n