music, music, music

I was given an iPod as a birthday present last year and it is a truly great toy.

Mine is the 6-gig capacity model, just before they came out with the skinny model. I've been haunting public libraries in the county, checking out CD's so I can "rip" songs from them. I've actually bought some from iTunes, too. One of my daughter sent me a CD with some of her favorites on it. Right now I've got something like 1,100 songs in mu iPod, more or less, not counting 101 FM radio frequencies that iTrip uses, and it is barely half full.

I've collected an amazing variety of songs - rock, blues, jazz generally, Dixieland, Cajun, country, Christmas, folk, inspirational, and even bagpipes.

Now, the question facing me is, what kind of music do I really like? I like most of the songs my daughter sent me even though they are new to me. I still like most but not all of the rock 'n roll "oldies." I have too much country, not enough Dixieland.

My music tastes reflect a life spent listening to radio starting back in the late 50's, when the hits of the day were from Rosemary Clooney and Tennessee Ernie Ford. . . speaking of whom, "16 Tons" is in my iPod (but not Clooney's "This Old House"). Music on the radio evolved from that kind of stuff to early rock to Elvis to the Beatles, the hair bands of the 60's, and from there. . . I lost track of it. The DJ's rarely announced the artist or the song title, and the social groups I ran with didn't spend the day talking about the hits. I'm surprised at how much of the music of the 80's I like, because at the time I thought most of it was dreadful.

I learned one lesson a few weeks ago - when you are getting drowsy behind the wheel, put on some bagpipe music and turn it up. It is impossible to fall asleep when a band is playing Highland music.

I've also begun to reach this conclusion: My favorite genre is the blues, and my favorite artist is B.B. King. I picked up some blues songs going back into the 1940's, and let me tell you, those old boys knew the score. Between the singing and the black-key piano playing and the harmonicas, I gotta hear more.