Two Good Decades

 I listen to a lot of music from both the 60’s and the 70’s.  I love to watch reaction vids of Gen Z kids listening to the music I grew up with for the first time.  Everyone knows the Beatles, but not so much The Beach Boys.  The Beach Boys were America’s answer to the British Invasion, as it was called.  The Beatles were the first of many from England.  The Rolling Stones came on the scene about the same time and they are one a few groups holding concerts still.  

But many groups and artists came from Britain.  It was the best time for music, in my thinking.  I hear these old songs and I’ll recall the first time I heard a song from this period.  It’s great to see young kids today wowed as much as we were back in the day.  But as Willie Nelson turns 92, I am reminded of old rockers who have passed and many are up in years.  Some stopped performing for health reasons but are still alive.  

It certainly was the best of times for music.  Peter Yarrow was the last of Peter, Paul, and Mary to go from us not long ago.  Linda Ronstadt quit performing, but her voice remains.  Noel Diamond has quit performing for health reasons.  But if I started listing people there would be no end as there were so many.  

Some protested the Vietnam War.  Many were social commentators about injustice.  Dylan was the voice of my generation.  But there were so many, mostly in the folk genre.  Paul Simon’s Sound of Silence is a song that remains to this day.  He wasn’t sure he wanted to capitalize on why he wrote it.  His struggles with money from his music is what broke him up with Garfunkel.  But they might be the best duo from that period.  

Oh yes, I could go on and on about music from the 60’s and 70’s.  And before the Beatles, the 50’s gave us Buddy Holly.  Some experts say the Crickets started Rock and Roll before Elvis was the king.  But really, the 50’s were the springboard for what was to follow.  It was both the best of times and maybe the worst of times.  A lot of social upheaval in the 60’s.  But the music remains to this day.  

I’m just an old guy looking back.  But around the 90’s I lost interest in pop music and hung on to two decades of music.  I didn’t want it to die.  The music was just too good to let go.  Maybe I celebrate a second childhood with the music from these two decades.  But in my thinking it’s music worth keeping.  

I’m smoking my Savinelli St. Nicholas pipe this morning with some Gold and Maple tobacco.  My coffee this morning is a blend of coffee from Guatemala.  Thank you for your time and Peace to each one of you.

Dave