The Silver Screen Oasis

Dan Fogelberg. I think he is a wonderful composer of music. When he writes there is often a touch, if not a feeling of melancholy to it. Songs like "Beggar's Game" and "Hearts and Crafts" and any number of others are poignant. He also has no problem doing very uptempo things like "Phoenix" and recordings of other's works i.e. "Tell Me To My Face" and so on. I didn't always care for his country flavored music but I really liked the two contemporary jazz flavored albums he did with Tim Weissberg. (sp?)

He is a really good musician. So many of the tracks on his albums list the drummer and then he does everything else.

He is the one, along with Justin Hayward, I thought I'd most like to write like but it requires talent.

I'm late to the party. Sorry! Sometimes I miss threads.

Yes! The Beatles! I don't mean YES and then the Beatles, although I like YES. Really what I mean is, I AGREE with all that has been said about the Beatles. They influenced everything we knew and did at the time, and as little kids we didn't even know how good we had it till they were gone. I guess I thought all future bands in my short life at that time would be like them, but I was wrong. I always go back to them, and marvel that no matter what the buzz is on a new band, they never really are another Beatles. They don't even say it anymore, because they now realize there can never be another group that was so open to change and able to leap into new sounds without ever losing their own personality.

Except for XTC. Just kidding. sort of.

I find it incredibly strange that at least 4 of us were influenced by Groucho Marx as kids.

I've probably made it far too clear on this site that George Harrison, Cat Stevens and Harry Nilsson are my favorites, though I have a broad spectrum of music that I love. Those writers/musicians all have a searching, yearning quality to their music that suits my personality, and I grew up with their songs, which seemed very meaningful to me. Nick Drake is another I can always listen to. I prefer late sixties/early 70's music in general as far as rock and roll goes, probably because that was when I first started to listen to music on my own and break away from my parents' musical tastes. The Staple Singers' I'll Take You There is probably the single most influential song I ever heard - It was my first record, after Bouncy Bouncy Ball-ey.

I also love early jazz, have trouble with fusion, really like funk, enjoy any hummable classical music (for a long time I knew that if I liked a classical piece on the radio, it would be Mozart), love bluegrass, adore yodeling, and have even come to appreciate classic country. I grew up listening to pop music and tin pan alley songs by greats like Irving Berlin, Hoagy, Hart, Gershwin and Frank Loesser.

I am not crazy about songs that have no beginning or end, unless Jerry Garcia is playing them, and even then I'm not sure.

It's about time. I started this with you in mind. After our conversation about George I thought it interesting to find out what others had to say. Then Kevin thought I had a good idea about starting a Beatles thread. You better be active there. Need to know favorite songs, albums, lyrics and why...

I remember "I'll Take You There." Why did it influence you so much?

Yodeling? You don't hear that one too often. You have a wide spectrum of taste. Good for you.

When I was 8, my mother and I moved to Kankakee, Illinois, which is about 50 miles south of Chicago. I had grown up in Oklahoma before that. What I heard as a little kid (besides the Beatles, who were my first eye opening) was really bland music (some of which I still love) like Downtown, Strangers in the Night, Call Me, etc. Other than that it was country music. So when I got to the suburbs of Chicago, and heard this incredible beat, and the voice of Mavis Staples, it was like something calling from deep within someone's soul right to mine. It sounded like nothing I've heard before or since. It's just a great song, I still get a thrill when I hear that drum thwak at the beginning - thwak da duh da duh daaaaa da dadadada Dum Dum

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I remember on my fifth grade birthday having a dance party in my basement - we learned all the cool dances from a couple of my more inner city friends - and that was the song we all wanted to dance to, over and over again.

The meaning of the song is so amazing, I am quite sure this was a part of the thrill for me. I'd never heard a song that actually talked about race before...it had that yearning that I seem drawn to. The music in Chicago was so radically different from the music heard in other parts of the country at that time, and I thank goodness I moved there. My sister stayed in Oklahoma and is still all locked up in her white bread bland world. My parents were very broad minded people, extremely liberal, but there is no way that that can truly come across until you are in a school with kids of every ethnicity. I LOVED it.

Mi hermana. Yes. I've been reading.

Thanks for sharing that Wendy. That is the kind of thing I never experienced so it is very interesting for me to read.

So what are your musical influences, Maven? Is there something you heard that changed your life?

Let me give that one some serious thought.

okie dokie.

My sister stayed in Oklahoma and is still all locked up in her white bread bland world.

That's been my experience as well. I'm proud of my Kentucky childhood. Happy to have returned after a long absence. But the things I learned in Chicago, the awareness I acquired, can ONLY come in person. My brother knows everything in the world about mainstream movies. Never heard of Mike Leigh or Jim Jarmusch. My sister with the advanced degrees didn't know MEET THE PARENTS was first a small film with a no name cast. I did. It was a hit at The Chicago Film Festival!

You have to be there.

People should send their kids to Chicago for broadening instead of Europe.

Hey, we're broad enough in Chicago.

Kankakee is pretty eye-opening. Our older daughter's first job out of college (2000 or 2001) was teaching high school English at Kankakee H.S. The first thing the Vice Principal showed her was the security call button under her desk. She stayed for one school year.

RedRiver wrote:My sister stayed in Oklahoma and is still all locked up in her white bread bland world.

That's been my experience as well. I'm proud of my Kentucky childhood. Happy to have returned after a long absence. But the things I learned in Chicago, the awareness I acquired, can ONLY come in person. My brother knows everything in the world about mainstream movies. Never heard of Mike Leigh or Jim Jarmusch. My sister with the advanced degrees didn't know MEET THE PARENTS was first a small film with a no name cast. I did. It was a hit at The Chicago Film Festival!

You have to be there.

That might have been true before we had the ability to document art and make it available to the masses, but in the years I grew up (70's/80's) music (and film starting around 1978 with the advent of VHS) was always readily available. I personally invested a lot of time (and still do) researching, reading, and investigating different forms of music and artists when I was younger, from tracking down OOP stuff and imports, networking with others who would often recommend new groups or artists I was unfamilar with, to studying various musicians and their personal styles. While things have become much easier with the internet, the bottom line is still the same--it's up to individuals to educate themselves and the unrelenting seekers are the ones who reap the rewards.

the bottom line is still the same--it's up to individuals to educate themselves and the unrelenting seekers are the ones who reap the rewards.

Yes, it is the unrelenting seekers who reap the rewards, and it is up to individuals becoming educated (via being inquisitive), but self-education has its limits. Being a part of a community makes the quest easier and more fulfilling. And while online communities are better than no communities, face-to-face interaction for most humans will always be better.

So, it's being individually amendable to being educated plus having a supportive community to assist. It takes a village....(or a metropolis, sometimes).

I went back to Kankakee when my mom passed away, and it was eye opening to put it mildly. Bars on my old school doors and windows, where we had walked to school every day through the woods by ourselves..... it was so strange. There must still be good areas around there....I hope.