Music Down At The Base- Community Sings

 

 

I have spent a lot of cyber-ink in this space going through the litany of the musical influences that I have hitched onto in my life starting with a rejection, for in the end no other reason than it was their music, the music of my parents’ generation, the stuff from Frank Sinatra, Vaughn Monroe, Peggy Lee and the various sister groups that got them through the hungers of the Great Depression and the anxieties of World War II. Naturally as a child of the 1950s I was immersed in the now classic rock and roll music of Elvis, Chuck, Bo, Jerry Lee, and a huge cast of others. Later, in the early 1960s when there was a drought in rock land I gravitated to the new breeze coming through youth nation, folk music, mainly the urban protest stuff from Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and their comrades. From there I naturally began branching out to the more exotic roots music, country and electric blues, mountain music, and little be-bop jazz before heading back to post-British invasion rock when it got acidified and super-electric.         

All of this introduction to the ups and downs of my musical tastes only to show that I have spent the vast bulk of my sketches and reviews highlighting professional performers working the various genre of the American Songbook. But that is merely the tip of the iceberg of how the traditions stay alive even after fashions change. The music stay alive down at the base through “community sings” done many ways from church basement coffeehouses and formerly smoky bars to uniting in choruses, choirs, and ensembles to make “people’s music.” And not badly either as the program from one such effort attests to. No question trying to make a niche for yourself, or your group, in the professional musical world is a tough dollar at best so many very talented performers make a decision at some point to veer off that road. But they still love the music, still want to play and sing, and along the way keep the traditions going. So although these may be “amateur” performances they still remain of high quality. If not then they can do as I do and go upstairs in my house and be a “third floor folksinger.” Enough said.