If you happened to catch last Monday’s “Revolving Door” on 104.1 FM or KZSM.org, you encountered some poignant memories. Host Rob Roark recalled his mother, who left this life a few days before, by playing songs that evoked their time together. The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” and “Celebrate” by 3 Dog Night brought back driving through the streets of Chicago, listening to AM radio. The old jazz standard “Cherokee” took Rob and his listeners back to 1979 and a rustic cabin on Sugar Island in far north Michigan, with Sault Saint Marie Canadian Radio, the only station available, playing jazz classics.
Memory forms a regular feature of “Revolving Door;” Rob asks guests about the music they heard at home. The question always engages them.
“You can see it on their faces,” he explained.
Music is a powerful means of evoking past experiences and emotions, researchers have concluded.
Rob’s show sent me on my own nostalgia trip and put me back in the passenger seat of my family’s 1950 Ford, trying to sing along with my father and the car radio on “Clancy Lowered the Boom,” which I heard as “Clancy Lord the Boon” and never did understand. Later on, my teenage passion for pop radio intersected with my father’s fondness for sophisticated jazz — with a Stan Freberg parody. Freberg’s imaginary recording session featured a jazz piano player stuck playing the same chord over and over for “The Great Pretender.”
“I don’t dig none a that clink-clink jazz!” he protested. “My hand’s falling off!”
For once, my father and I laughed together.
What music evokes your parents? You might find it on KZSM 104.1/KSZM. org, depending on your vintage. If your parents go way back, “Make Believe Ballroom” offers big band jazz from the 1930s and 40s. If you grew up on the Beatles or Elvis, you’ll find abundant memories on “The Mop Tops and the King.”
There are more musical eras to celebrate. You can drop by “Vinyl Confessions” on Monday with a favorite record to share or consider creating a show of your own around the songs that hold your memories. You’d join Limey’s Lass, who celebrates her family heritage on “Celtic Corner,” and El Tío, who brings back his mother’s favorites on “Musica Con Ganas.” Contact us to share your musical memories, or just tune in and see where the music takes you.
