Did you listen to your parent's music as a child?

By the way, My Dear Ukranian Witch, the line above was delivered by the character Captain Barbossa, who was played by Geoffrey Rush, an Australian actor. He turned in the best performance in the movie, in my never humble opinion.



Geoffrey Rush



Mr. Rush as Captain Barbossa

msolga, I feel I'm mind melding with you....polkas....ugh...

interesting question pene, for the first time I've thought my general, at best ambivilance to music, and most of the time downright aggitation over music began with my parents.

My parents had both been born in the 1920's so I cannot even imagine them knowing who fleetwood mack or led zep was.

When they were feeling particularly frisky, one of a dozen or 20 polka records would be put on the turntable. There was a period when they decided it would be sophisticated to listen to music during dinner. I can clearly remember trying to finish my meal as quickly as possible to get away from Stan and the Kielbasi Kings singing the "She's Too Fat" or "Who Stole the Keishka" Polkas.

Round, firm fully packed,
It was hanging on the rack.
Stashu stole the keishka,
Someone call a cop!

Other than that, I can remember my mother marking with coral colored nail polish 2 spots on the radio dial to help her find the stations she liked. Those were both instrumental elevator music.

The same elevator music played on the radio whenever we drove in the car together. Particularly I remember the violins...oh god....Do you still wake up at night and hear of screaming of the lambs, Clarice?

Ah, & here I thought that you'd been tortured!

I agree, Geoffrey Rush is a terrific actor, Set. (Have you seen Lantana? Brilliant!) I can't think of too many bad performances.

I'm not alone!
I hear you (boy, do I hear you!) Sister Chai!

It's a wonder we got out alive!

hold me msolga.....suddenly, I'm so cold.....

My parents listened mostly to "old" Cuban music. Mostly Ernesto Lecuona and Barbarito Díez. But also some mambo and cha-cha-cha. Also to Mexican boleros (specially Yucatec) and American big bands. I enjoyed the Cuban music and Glenn Miller; was bored to death by boleros.

Did I listen, or did I listen willingly?



hamburger and I have quite different musical tastes - one of my least favourite childhood memories is waking up to John Philip Souza music on Sunday mornings. hamburger's got an overdeveloped love of military music.

aaaaaaaaaaackk




polkas I enjoyed
old blues and jazz I loved

but music for marching? not so much

My mother listened to Ray Charles, Dinah Washington, The Five Blind Boys, The Swan Silvertones and much of the popular music during the fifties and early sixties. Jerry Butler, Muddy Waters, Charles Brown, Rosemary Clooney, Johnny Mathis, blues, R & B, a little jazz from Charles Earland. It was a glorious introduction.

<Grabbing hold of Chai in solidarity & bursting into a few verses of We Shall Overcome ....>

Oh I would have loved that, fbaezer! Wonderful!

Growing up poor in northeast Kansas in the '50's left few choices. Since we didn't own a record player, the only choice was to listen to the radio, which consisted of an hour of Guy Lombardo and the Royal Canadians for an hour every morning before everybody left for school or work. I'm not sure that it was my parents' music, but we all listened anyway. Sort of.

I love that music.

Original post question=No

Yes, we listened to records a lot. On the weekends mostly. Theatre plays, cabarets, Mahalia Jackson, Louis Armstrong, old Czech and Slovak jazz.
Many many fond memories.

I really loved la musica cubana, and do to this day. I liked the rhythms and the energy, despite the fact that it was "big band" style (the generation of my parents, and the parents of my friends, was WWII, so we heard the big band music until it was positively tedious). This lead me to check out music from the islands, including some of the "recitation" songs which eventually lead to rap music, many years later.

What the music of the Islands and Cuban music had in common, which i didn't understand, being just a young white boy in an almost exclusively white world, was the African influence, the rhythms and the beat. The Cuban music always seemed more "polished" than the Island music, and perhaps that is because it combined classical Spanish styles with the African beat. I also liked the greater use of intricate and sophisticated guitar performances in the Cuban music.

I've kept up with the Cuban music, although i lost interest in the Island music, which came to be dominated by Jamaican reggae, which doesn't particularly appeal to me. Cuban music seems to have "returned to its roots," although it is more likely that they were never abandoned, and i just become more aware of the folk music aspect which remains important in Cuban music. Cubamar is excellent, and their song Cantinero de Cuba is a hauntingly beautiful song, with three singers over the playing of a single guitar. When all other musical influences have changed, lost their attraction for me, or simply become boring, Cuban music continues to fascinate and entertain me. Ten years ago, i picked up an album, Rhythm and Smoke, which was a compilation of songs by popular Cuban artists of the 90s. It brought back so many wonderful memories, and at the same time, "re-introduced" me to Cuban music as though a new experience.

From the Rhythm and Smoke album, here is Cantinero de Cuba for you to listen to.. I really loved the Cubamar song, and learned that they had issued an album entitled Cantinero de Cuba, which i highly recommend.

Rhapsody is only available to US users (or so it says)

But, have I said that my parents were a phenomenal dancing couple?

Neither me or my brother or my sons inherited their "sugar in the hips", but my daughter sure did.

I'm actually very light on my feet . . . but 'Mericans don't do that kind of dancing . . .

Some can.

"Sugar in the hips". I like that, fbaezer!

...sugar hips baby...I know you got em