Music to My Ears

Music to my ears. 

I have always loved music. Although, I never had confidence in my singing ability I would still find myself singing my favorite songs hoping secretly to be discovered some day.  My genre of choice was Pop, and during my early teenage years two of my girlfriends and I combined our 45 collection, and rotated it between the three of us. I've often wondered who actually ended up with that collection as it wasn't me, and it really was pretty extensive. 

I remember buying Carole King's Tapestry when it was on sale at Target for less than three dollars. I found her range easy to sing along to and listened repeatedly to her album. Other albums followed suite, and I found myself listening to The Best of Bread, Dan Fogelberg, and Cat Stevens. 

After graduating I became a huge John Denver fan, and spent many hours singing his songs along with a folk group that I had joined at church. The late seventies was all about disco, and in the eighties I listened to Lionel Richie, Celine Dionne, and Christopher Cross.  I side-tracked into country a little during the Urban Cowboy days, but didn't stay long. 

It was the nineties that found me "a man without a country." Rap music had begun to take over Pop, and I wasn't sure which station to listen to anymore. I do remember listening to The Spice Girls with my elementary school daughter, and even attended their concert. However, I found myself listening less and less to music. 

During the years of American Idol my CD collection grew with each new artist, but again I wasn't really too up on current music outside of the parameters of Idol. My presets were taken over by talk radio. Dr. Laura, Dave Ramsey, and conservative radio overshadowed my old reliable music stations. 

If I did find myself listening to music it was the "oldies" of the seventies and eighties that I would return to. I think it had more to do with knowing the lyrics, which is why I found myself drawn to Christmas music each year because I could always sing along. 

Just recently we were set up with Alexa at the house, and an on-line music streaming service through Amazon. Included in the package was a sweet sounding Sonos speaker which seems to rival our old Bose radio. Now with a simple command I can ask Alexa to play whatever I want.  

While watching this season's American Idol, with the duet feature, I was introduced to some current artists that caught my ear. I made a note of each name, and decided to try them out the next day. I'm convinced that my love of music never really left, it just took a really long hiatus.

I'm thinking with the ease of this new technology that music will once again become a regular part of my life, and that is just music to my ears.