I know there's this notion that you're supposed to hate your parents music. No real hip-hop head could follow that model. Our music is built off the world around us--we sample the cartoons we loved as kids, random conversations about Sweet Pea Whitaker, and of course our parents music. My folks had amazing taste--Ko Ko Taylor, BB King, Gil Scott, The Drifters. I forgive my Moms for hating Sade and swearing she can't sing.
When I think of being in the car with my Dad, I think of NPR and Bob Edwards, but that's not really fair. My Dad was a music-head too, and really still is. In my book, I talk about him going into the service, hopped up on soul, (the Otis Redding and Stax stuff) and how the white boys used to tease him about his music. So once, when he was back on leave, he picked up a Bob Dylan record, because he thought it was typical "hillbilly music." His plan was to play the record and get back at that white boys by mocking them with some old, "Well here's what your people listen to." Well they were offended alright--but not in the way Dad planned. The response was basically, "Get that hippie shit out of here!"
You gotta remember where my Dad was coming from--he really didn't know who or what Dylan was. But here's the kicker: He started playing this Dylan record that he'd bought as a joke, and he started to dig it. ("Masters Of War" I think) Not only did he dig it, but Dylan (along with a lot of his reading) started to radicalize him. There's this long tradition of soldiers coming home radicalized (veterans of the French and Indian War fighting in the Revolution) and my Dad fit right into that pattern. Basically, a few years after he discovered Dylan, he was in the Panther Party.
When I was kid, We used to take these long car-trips--to Atlanta, Chicago, New York,
Philly, whatever. If there was something going on with books and black
people we would find our way there. We used to wear Joan Armatrading out on those trips. I mentioned this last week in that thread about Mike, and got some e-mail about it. Well here she is in all her glory. I think this is a great song for young girls. Young boys too, I guess.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
He couldn't have been that stunned Dylan could play. Hell, Sam Cooke covered Blowin in the Wind back in the day.
Dude I thought "Yesterday" belonged to En Vogue.
Damn I loved me some En Vogue! It took years for me to stop hating Omar Epps after I saw Juice. Then he led the Steelers to a Super Bowl, now I hate him again...
I'm pretty sure Sam Cooke claimed that 'Blowin' in the Wind' inspired him to write 'A Change is Gonna Come.' He couldn't believe that a white boy was writing songs like 'Blowin in the Wind' while he was doing songs like 'Cupid.' I think he was probably being a little too hard on himself, but it might be a good thing that he was. For the record, I LOVE Sam Cooke's big hits like Cupid.
Was it "Blowin' in the Wind" or "The Times They Are A Changin'" that inspired Cooke? The latter, by the way, sounds likes it was written last year.
"I know there's this notion that you're supposed to hate your parents music."
Yeah, but I think it just depends on whether or not your parents have good taste in music. If your parents like good stuff, like yours did, it goes a long way in shaping your own musical tastes. And sometimes, you don't even realize it until later. My Mom used to play Joni Mitchell's 'Blue' all the time. Needless to say, as a young child, I thought that girlie music sucked. I didn't realize until about 6 years ago that that album is as good as my Mom thought it was.
I always found it rather gutsy/politically stupid that Obama listed Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" as one of his favorite songs.
"I know there's this notion that you're supposed to hate your parents music."
I was born to Silent-Generation parents, and had similar rifts as Boomers and Silents. Only problem was, I was born in 1970 (a gen-xer) and was having these conflicts fifteen years after they had become passe'. My dad liked Mantovani strings, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and patriotic pops. We didn't even cross over when I started listening to his generation's music. I was blasting The Who and Led Zep to annoy him, even as most of my class was listening to Madonna and MJ.
Your pops wasn't alone. There was a pretty interesting passage in 'Acid Dreams' (good book by the way) about how a number of the Panther's used to listen to "The Ballad of a Thin Man" repeatedly.
Joan Armatrading never really fit into a genre-sort of folkie, sort of Caribbean, that big booming voice of hers and those great lyrics--everything about her, woman, flesh and blood, heart and soul; maybe she was the prototype for indie music.
Dylan of course another breed of cat and way ahead. In his wake, the 4 Tops changed their style and delivery. And what can hip hoppists really say about "Subterranean Homesick Blues" (1964) or "It's All Right Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" (1965). Beats, rhymes, all there. Guy had a voice that was reedy at best and really never got better, but his phrasing is uncanny, and he reminded popular songwriters everywhere that history, tradition, and lyrics matter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vhNCRlXm1s
"When the Ship Comes In," one of his very greatest from the pre-electric years, sung on the Mall before Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. I've been thinking a bit about this song in light of recent events in Iran.
I think that Dylan's voice was significantly improved for the "Nashville Skyline" LP which came out around 1968. His voice on "Lay, Lady, Lay," for example, is considerably different from any of the earlier 60s albums.
"When I think of being in the car with my Dad, I think of NPR and Bob Edwards."
This is my children's image of me in the car, with no cool fallback. I even require that the music station be changed if Britney Spears comes on.
I inflicted my taste in popular dance music from Africa, especially the Congo, on my kids. No one they knew, nor any of their parents, no one else among my friens or anyone they had ever heard of had such tastes. Sometimes they put up with it, liked it, sometimes not so much, especially as they became teenagers. One time driving, we heard someone blasting soukous (Congolese dance beats from the 70s-90s) out a car, and they started yelling and waving at the woman driving; we were all shocked to hear it coming out of anyone else's car radio. Now that they are grown, they will barely tolerate it if I put on such a tune when they come to visit, and I have to put on earphones if I am visiting them.
Joan Armatrading is one of my favorites, and has been for over 30 years (I can't believe it's been that long).
When I was growing up in the late 60's - early 70's my parent's music was simply irrelevant. Big band music simply wasn't a factor (Although I'm now into it somewhat through my interest in jazz).
When my kids were growing up 90's to now, the music I listened to still is present in popular music, from Beatles, the Rolling Stones to James Brown.
While my kids play music I don't like (I've never really appreciated rap), my kids generally find my taste in music eccentric but interesting.
My son applied for a job at a CD store when he was in college. He was required to complete a quiz to test his musical knowledge. He called me and said he was asked to name one album by Miles Davis other than Kind of Blue. He said "can you imagine being limited to one album by Miles Davis"?
Joan Armatrading is one of my favorites, and has been for over 30 years (I can't believe it's been that long).
When I was growing up in the late 60's - early 70's my parent's music was simply irrelevant. Big band music simply wasn't a factor (Although I'm now into it somewhat through my interest in jazz).
When my kids were growing up 90's to now, the music I listened to still is present in popular music, from Beatles, the Rolling Stones to James Brown.
While my kids play music I don't like (I've never really appreciated rap), my kids generally find my taste in music eccentric but interesting.
My son applied for a job at a CD store when he was in college. He was required to complete a quiz to test his musical knowledge. He called me and said he was asked to name one album by Miles Davis other than Kind of Blue. He said "can you imagine being limited to one album by Miles Davis"?
My mom is deep into gospel and all the great voices I love til this day. My dad is a jazz head, i knew Coltrane licks before I knew who Coltrane was. Now my boys howl with Howling Wolf and seem to really dig Van Morrison. Great post.
Last Xmas, we don't celebrate in the classical sense, my father put on this guy below. My father looks like the last person who would. But he knows oppression and everybody knows real. It was perfect.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci7r_ayacVc
"I don't have prejudice against meself. My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don't dip on nobody's side. Me don't dip on the black man's side nor the white man's side. Me dip on God's side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white."
How I love this song. I bought the vinyl on a lark when I first moved to New York. I wore this album out. I was listening to this song today! It's just about perfect, one the first songs that ever felt real to me.
No Bootsy? George Clinton?
Thank you for the Joan A. God, she's beautiful. I haven't heard her music in twenty years. Need to find some now.
Damn, you all had parents with good taste. I was the daughter of a dad who had kids later in life, so there I was in the 1970s and '80s with this dude whose chosen music was opera, followed by Mario Lanza Sings the Songs of Napoli! And sentimental Irish ditties. And Barbara Streisand. And Neil Diamond. And old Sinatra and Tony Bennett.
So yeah, I bought the whole "you're supposed to hate your parents' music."
But what I now appreciate was that at least he *loved* him some music. When he and my mom were newlyweds with barely any money they made a deal to each pick out one thing they really really wanted, damn the torpedos. Mom got a swell mahogany dining room set, dad got a big cabinet hi fi. It didn't matter that the house was otherwise empty. She set up her classy dinner, he blasted the opera and the Sinatra. If you love that music so much it's the one thing you gotta have, it's good, it's great. Parents and kids should appreciate that about each other.
Have you heard The Staple Singers's version of Masters of War? It's absolutely bone chilling.
here:
http://www.rhapsody.com/the-staple-singers/great-day
[it's the last song]