Music Makes Memories

I found a treasure on You Tube tonight. Peter, Paul and Mary, that wonderful threesome of the sixties who sang harmony so beautifully they could bring us to tears, were there for me to download to this site, free for the taking. I'm sorry my blog isn't big enough to hold them all.


But click on the arrow in the top right corner and you can still hear them as we did on our stereos and Television sets back then.


When I think of music I most enjoyed in my life, I think the folk era was my favorite time. The Kingston Trio started it all, but thanks to Barry, my husband, who worked in a music and gift shop, we had albums by all the top groups and some who were not so well-known.


We lived in a mobile home on our family farm when we were first married, having been driven from our apartment by a lovely little pup's insatiable chewing habit. We cleared a patch of land to build our house. Those were happy times, filled with fun, laughter and music -- always music.


I married a music major, a musician who loved everything from jazz to classical to country. He had lived in California where the folk music scene began in the late fifties and early sixties. I was impressed when he told me he had been to the Hungry Eye and had seen the Kingston Trio live.





The sound of Peter, Paul and Mary takes me immediately to our little home back in the woods in south Georgia, surrounded by tall pines and massive oaks. Living a short distance from my parents and siblings, I was as sheltered as I had been as a child. My four older brothers continued to think of me as a "little sister" and Barry became a "younger brother" in many ways.


Weekends meant parties with friends in town, on the lake or at our house in the country. Barry played guitar and we all sang along when he played Leaving on a Jet Plane or Michael Row the Boat Ashore, or the one we all knew the words to, This Land is Your Land.


After awhile, Barry grimaced when someone requested Michael Row the Boat Ashore. He had played and sung it so often he was sick of it.


Harry Belafonte had made popular his calypso music and Barry and my brothers often sang his songs.


Music is a wonderful way to bring back memories. If you get stuck and can't think of anything in your life to write about, think of your favorite songs or performers. Try to remember how music played a part in your family or in your life as a teenager. Make a list of song titles and sing or hum each one. I'll bet you a memory will flash into your mind. Let me know if this happens to you. Leave me a comment or email me at writerlady21@yahoo.com