Music is something that moves us all. I don’t care if you belong to a biker gang, a knitting circle, are a star football player or Marine drill sergeant, you get moved by music.
My only regret in life is not learning how to play an instrument and maybe learning how to sing properly instead of what I hear of myself in the shower.
I’ve heard that musicians are historically good students, but don’t quote me. Come to think of it, when I was in high school, most fellow students that were in music were good students.
You and I probably have been singing and dancing to music ever since we could remember or at least verified by your Aunt Sarah.
I’ve even seen video clips of animals groovin’ to a tune.
There’s just something about the beat of music that gets us moving. Could it go as far back as the Neanderthals communicating before language was invented?
This past week I moved with emotions by two musical artists, Joni Mitchell, who is alive and kicking and the late, great Harry Chapin.
Mitchell made her way back to the stage after suffering from a brain aneurysm in 2015. At the time, it was unknown whether she would live or be taken by the aneurysm.
It’s been a long road, but she’s back, but before that happened, she had to learn how to walk all over again, she had to re-learn how to play the guitar and piano, and of course, she had to remember the lyrics she’s written of most iconic songs ever in the history of modern music.
Some of those songs have been recorded on 43-recorded albums with her 44th album to be released on Sept. 23, 2022.
If you’ve been around long enough, you may remember Both Sides Now, Help Me, Woodstock, Free Man is Paris, Carey, You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio, River, and Big Yellow Taxi, her biggest hit.
She was a special guest of Brandi Carlile at the Newport Folk Festival last Sunday, July 24, when other fellow artists appearing at the festival surrounded her in a sing-a-long of her songs.
Joni sang solo, she sang with background singers and she sat and listened to other singers perform her songs. It was wonderful.
Having to be aided walking on stage, she and everyone else sat in chairs like she did at her own home while rehabbing from the aneurysm.
She did stand up at one point to play one of her guitar instrumentals. There wasn’t a dry eye on stage or in the audience as she performed and smiles were from ear-to-ear.
Joni will be 79-years-old on Nov. 7 and you can see it in her eyes as she performed that she loved every minute being on that stage once again. She also felt the love and admiration from audience and fellow performers.
Joni is a national treasure to her native Canada, her adopted country, the U.S. and she’s a human being of the world. Her and her music belongs to all of us. Her songs are woven into the fabric of all of our lives.
Harry Chapin, a native New Yorker, was one of the greatest song storytellers whose life was tragically halted on the Long Island Expressway on July 16, 1981 in a terrible fiery car crash ending his life at the prime age of 38.
My first recollection of Chapin was his famous song, Taxi, in 1972 followed up by Cats in the Cradle in 1975.
I got to see Chapin perform live at Rocky Glen or was it called Ghost Town in the Glen at the time? It had to be between the years of 1975 to 1980, if I’m correct.
I really enjoyed the show, it was basically him and his guitar and maybe his backup band. He always performed seated and it was no different at this show.
He sang his famous hit up until the time of the concert, but there was one song he released that I never heard up until then. It was called Mr. Tanner.
The song about Mr. Tanner is about a man who worked at a dry cleaning store in Dayton, Ohio. While working, Mr. Tanner would sing aloud with an incredible baritone voice. Everyone encouraged him to leave the cleaning business and head to New York City to find fame and fortune.
Finally, a concert hall was booked in NYC and he played in front of a half-filled audience and some music critics.
Needless-to-say, the night did not end well for Mr. Tanner.
He returned to his hometown vowing never to sing in public again, except very late at night, he would sing softly to himself.
I may not remember the fine details of Chapin’s concert that day in Moosic, but I will never, ever forget Harry singing Mr. Tanner. By the end of the song, I had tears streaming down my face and trying as hard as I could to hide them but when I lifted my head and looked around, I wasn’t the only one with tears streaming down my face.
That was the first time I was ever moved to tear listening to a song and it just wasn’t the song, but it was the way Harry presented it to the crowd.
Quote of the week
“You wake up one day and suddenly realize that your youth is behind you, even though you’re still young at heart.” – Joni Mitchell
Thought of the week
“To know is to care, to care is to act, to act is to make a difference.” – Harry Chapin
Bumper sticker
“I want the fact that I existed to mean something.” – Harry Chapin
