( This is a self indulgent walk down memory lane which you might have no interest in - feel free not to proceed further ).
I enjoy listening to all kinds of music,with the exception of Western classical. I like rock, blues, jazz, country, folk, gospel, blues , country , blue grass,sufi, quali, and some Bollywood numbers. I rarely listen to the modern rock groups or rap singers as they all appear to deliver the lines in the same monotonous style . Even singers such as Usher seems to sing all his songs in the same style. If you have heard one you have heard them all.
My earliest memories of listening to music was that of Elvis Presley ,Cliff Richard and Ricky Nelson while in middle school in Rangoon. Even better was seeing Elvis in movies such as Jailhouse Rock and King Creole.The school which I attended required us to go to the chapel twice a week where we sang hymns and other songs which I found out much later were American gospel. While I mouthed the words ( since I am close to tone deaf) , I did develop a liking for gospel music which surfaced again when I went to the United States in the early seventies.
It was the early sixties and soon after the Beatles phenomenon started. I remember that my father brought me the full set of the Beatles albums from London in sixty-four or sixty five. Must have listened to the Hard Days Night, Please Please Me and the others over and over again. Apart from Elvis, most of the exposure till then was to the British pop stars. In high school and undergraduate school, the list broadened to include Jimmi Hendrix, The Doors, Steppenwolf, Ike and Tina Turner, Rolling Stones and some esoteric names such as Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass which for some reason was quite popular in Chandigarh. In 1970 my brother went to London and came back with a modern turn table, amplifier ,stereo speakers and a couple of dozen albums. Among others they included names such as The Grand Funk Railroad, Isaac Hayes ( of Hot Buttered Soul fame ), two Canadian groups, The Guess Who,The Band and other names which we had never heard of . I became very popular and almost every evening our living room converted into a informal music room with friends listening to this extremely loud music. Fortunately my mother was very tolerant . My Grandmother who was in her eighties would occasionally sit in a corner seat with an amused look on her face. The Guess Who ( and their American Woman ) is still on my all time list of my all time favorite albums.
In Dallas in my first year year at graduate school, I bought a really cheap music system and remembered one of my favorite albums was Carole King's Tapestry. A year later I attended my first open air live rock concert by The Grateful Dead in a open air stadium on one of the coldest days ever in Phoenix. That however did not stop the Deadheads from having a good time. People were smoking grass, some discreetly sniffing coke, a lot of them stripped to the waist and some totally naked . It was quite a experience. While I do not mind their music, I am not a particularly big fan of theirs.
After finishing graduate school I ended up job hunting in Los Angeles. I stayed in Westwood Village across the street from UCLA. In between sending out my job applications to kill time I would hang around the book and record stores. Since funds were limited, I would always sort through the bargain bins and pick up blues recordings such as Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim, Lightning Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and BB King with his electric guitar.Also gospel singers such as Mahalia Jackson , Aretha Franklin and The Staple Singers.
I would also visit the UCLA campus and remember a particularly memorable performance by the New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The players were mostly in their seventies and eighties,but it was a joy to see them perform as they really seemed to have such a good time playing.They came into the aisles and got everyone on their feet.That was my first exposure to jazz. I saw the band again in Hong Kong in the late eighties.Recently watching a TV series Treme', I was pleased to see the Band is still around but obviously must be a newer generation.
In the late seventies Jean Michel Jarre came to Hong Kong . According to Wikipedia he is" a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and new-age genres, and known as an organizer of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays and fireworks."There were no fireworks in the indoors Hong Kong show, but it was quite a performance overall.I was fascinated.However these days at weddings when I walk by or pop my in head to the party after party for the younger generation and hear the techno music, I do not find it appealing.
To me the hey days of modern music was from the fifties to the early eighties. My favorites both solo and bands are mentioned below .I have tried to analyze my preference for these singers and have come to the conclusion its because of the variety of their musical styles. Its not just straight rock and roll. You have a mixture of rock & roll, you have blues, you have ballads, and occasionally you might have a hint of rap . Their chameleon like ability to change and adapt is what makes them most interesting.
Unsurprisingly in my mind the best band was the Beatles. They took the traditional rock & roll and as they themselves got exposed to the world their music changed as well. They experimented with the sitar, they added orchestra . Their Sergeant Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band was supposedly under the influence of drugs.Their lyrics were original and amazing, not just about love and broken hearts or blues. Their creativity and their gradual widening interests showed in their solo albums with George Harrison and John Lennon going down different paths, whereas Paul McCartney sticking to his " silly love songs" but which are still loved .While Bob Dylan's lyrics are interesting, his monotonous nasal delivery can be boring after a few songs unlike the Beatles who you can hear all day long.
The other bands ( or solo artists with back ups ) which I like are The Doors,Queen, Prince and Micheal Jackson. I found The Doors fascinating because their music and lyrics were so different. Jim Morrison the Lizard King was such a different performer and was the soul of the band.Queen's music was also so varied with Freddie Mercury at the center of it all. I like some of Micheal Jackson's later years performance. In the early nineties as my children were growing up, we went to a live concert in Singapore. He was a incredible performer.The Who could be classified as great performers specially with Pete Townshend's guitar smashing act, but their music never appealed to me. I remember taking my ten year old son to their Rock Opera Tommy in London, but have to admit wanted to leave after about 30 minutes.
Among the female singers apart from Carole King, Judy Collins and Joan Baez are names are I like. I love Judy Collins Amazing Grace being sung without any music backing her .Her voice is just fascinating. Sheila Chandra is another person who I have heard singing without any musical back up.
There are numerous others in all categories such as Simon & Garfunkel, Peter,Paul & Mary, John Denver, Check Berry, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Otis Redding, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Harry Belafonte, Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdinck, ( I could keep going on ) whom I enjoy listening even though they might not fall in the category of favorites.
With regards to South Asian music ( broadly including Bollywood, bhangra, quali's ghazals. sufi etc ), I enjoy it all. The Bollywood actors /actresses were way ahead of some of the recent rock stars in terms of lip synching, but there some songs which I remember Mera Joota Hai Japane, Budha Mil Geya,Junglee, Eena Meen Dikka, Tere Ghar ke Samne. Nowadays of course ever movie has to have a hip shaking , bosom heaving "item number " which are titillating and extremely peppy.
I remember taking some Punjabi records by Ramta for my host family in Dallas. While not understanding the words they loved the bhangra beat. Today's bhangra interpretation seem to have a even faster beat. In the mid-nineties,I was introduced to sufi/quali's at a dinner at a Citibank Pakistani colleague The first time I heard Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sabri Brothers and others for the first time and immediately went and got their CD's.
My music collection started with long term playing records( I still have a case full in my store room ). I then replaced them with cassettes and starting in the nineties, replaced them again with CD's. I have drawers full of music CD's. Now of course with the continuing change in technology, I find that I no longer need to buy and build up a library. Streaming music sites such as Spotify for a nominal charge per month, will stream my favorite music any time I want.
I shut my musical clock in the eighties . Perhaps there some present day groups,bands, singers whose music is just as good as the ones I like, but like older people I feel its not as good as when we were young.
I enjoy listening to all kinds of music,with the exception of Western classical. I like rock, blues, jazz, country, folk, gospel, blues , country , blue grass,sufi, quali, and some Bollywood numbers. I rarely listen to the modern rock groups or rap singers as they all appear to deliver the lines in the same monotonous style . Even singers such as Usher seems to sing all his songs in the same style. If you have heard one you have heard them all.
My earliest memories of listening to music was that of Elvis Presley ,Cliff Richard and Ricky Nelson while in middle school in Rangoon. Even better was seeing Elvis in movies such as Jailhouse Rock and King Creole.The school which I attended required us to go to the chapel twice a week where we sang hymns and other songs which I found out much later were American gospel. While I mouthed the words ( since I am close to tone deaf) , I did develop a liking for gospel music which surfaced again when I went to the United States in the early seventies.
It was the early sixties and soon after the Beatles phenomenon started. I remember that my father brought me the full set of the Beatles albums from London in sixty-four or sixty five. Must have listened to the Hard Days Night, Please Please Me and the others over and over again. Apart from Elvis, most of the exposure till then was to the British pop stars. In high school and undergraduate school, the list broadened to include Jimmi Hendrix, The Doors, Steppenwolf, Ike and Tina Turner, Rolling Stones and some esoteric names such as Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass which for some reason was quite popular in Chandigarh. In 1970 my brother went to London and came back with a modern turn table, amplifier ,stereo speakers and a couple of dozen albums. Among others they included names such as The Grand Funk Railroad, Isaac Hayes ( of Hot Buttered Soul fame ), two Canadian groups, The Guess Who,The Band and other names which we had never heard of . I became very popular and almost every evening our living room converted into a informal music room with friends listening to this extremely loud music. Fortunately my mother was very tolerant . My Grandmother who was in her eighties would occasionally sit in a corner seat with an amused look on her face. The Guess Who ( and their American Woman ) is still on my all time list of my all time favorite albums.
In Dallas in my first year year at graduate school, I bought a really cheap music system and remembered one of my favorite albums was Carole King's Tapestry. A year later I attended my first open air live rock concert by The Grateful Dead in a open air stadium on one of the coldest days ever in Phoenix. That however did not stop the Deadheads from having a good time. People were smoking grass, some discreetly sniffing coke, a lot of them stripped to the waist and some totally naked . It was quite a experience. While I do not mind their music, I am not a particularly big fan of theirs.
After finishing graduate school I ended up job hunting in Los Angeles. I stayed in Westwood Village across the street from UCLA. In between sending out my job applications to kill time I would hang around the book and record stores. Since funds were limited, I would always sort through the bargain bins and pick up blues recordings such as Muddy Waters, Memphis Slim, Lightning Hopkins, John Lee Hooker and BB King with his electric guitar.Also gospel singers such as Mahalia Jackson , Aretha Franklin and The Staple Singers.
I would also visit the UCLA campus and remember a particularly memorable performance by the New Orleans Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The players were mostly in their seventies and eighties,but it was a joy to see them perform as they really seemed to have such a good time playing.They came into the aisles and got everyone on their feet.That was my first exposure to jazz. I saw the band again in Hong Kong in the late eighties.Recently watching a TV series Treme', I was pleased to see the Band is still around but obviously must be a newer generation.
In the late seventies Jean Michel Jarre came to Hong Kong . According to Wikipedia he is" a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and new-age genres, and known as an organizer of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays and fireworks."There were no fireworks in the indoors Hong Kong show, but it was quite a performance overall.I was fascinated.However these days at weddings when I walk by or pop my in head to the party after party for the younger generation and hear the techno music, I do not find it appealing.
To me the hey days of modern music was from the fifties to the early eighties. My favorites both solo and bands are mentioned below .I have tried to analyze my preference for these singers and have come to the conclusion its because of the variety of their musical styles. Its not just straight rock and roll. You have a mixture of rock & roll, you have blues, you have ballads, and occasionally you might have a hint of rap . Their chameleon like ability to change and adapt is what makes them most interesting.
Unsurprisingly in my mind the best band was the Beatles. They took the traditional rock & roll and as they themselves got exposed to the world their music changed as well. They experimented with the sitar, they added orchestra . Their Sergeant Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band was supposedly under the influence of drugs.Their lyrics were original and amazing, not just about love and broken hearts or blues. Their creativity and their gradual widening interests showed in their solo albums with George Harrison and John Lennon going down different paths, whereas Paul McCartney sticking to his " silly love songs" but which are still loved .While Bob Dylan's lyrics are interesting, his monotonous nasal delivery can be boring after a few songs unlike the Beatles who you can hear all day long.
The other bands ( or solo artists with back ups ) which I like are The Doors,Queen, Prince and Micheal Jackson. I found The Doors fascinating because their music and lyrics were so different. Jim Morrison the Lizard King was such a different performer and was the soul of the band.Queen's music was also so varied with Freddie Mercury at the center of it all. I like some of Micheal Jackson's later years performance. In the early nineties as my children were growing up, we went to a live concert in Singapore. He was a incredible performer.The Who could be classified as great performers specially with Pete Townshend's guitar smashing act, but their music never appealed to me. I remember taking my ten year old son to their Rock Opera Tommy in London, but have to admit wanted to leave after about 30 minutes.
Among the female singers apart from Carole King, Judy Collins and Joan Baez are names are I like. I love Judy Collins Amazing Grace being sung without any music backing her .Her voice is just fascinating. Sheila Chandra is another person who I have heard singing without any musical back up.
There are numerous others in all categories such as Simon & Garfunkel, Peter,Paul & Mary, John Denver, Check Berry, Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Otis Redding, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, Harry Belafonte, Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdinck, ( I could keep going on ) whom I enjoy listening even though they might not fall in the category of favorites.
With regards to South Asian music ( broadly including Bollywood, bhangra, quali's ghazals. sufi etc ), I enjoy it all. The Bollywood actors /actresses were way ahead of some of the recent rock stars in terms of lip synching, but there some songs which I remember Mera Joota Hai Japane, Budha Mil Geya,Junglee, Eena Meen Dikka, Tere Ghar ke Samne. Nowadays of course ever movie has to have a hip shaking , bosom heaving "item number " which are titillating and extremely peppy.
I remember taking some Punjabi records by Ramta for my host family in Dallas. While not understanding the words they loved the bhangra beat. Today's bhangra interpretation seem to have a even faster beat. In the mid-nineties,I was introduced to sufi/quali's at a dinner at a Citibank Pakistani colleague The first time I heard Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Sabri Brothers and others for the first time and immediately went and got their CD's.
My music collection started with long term playing records( I still have a case full in my store room ). I then replaced them with cassettes and starting in the nineties, replaced them again with CD's. I have drawers full of music CD's. Now of course with the continuing change in technology, I find that I no longer need to buy and build up a library. Streaming music sites such as Spotify for a nominal charge per month, will stream my favorite music any time I want.
I shut my musical clock in the eighties . Perhaps there some present day groups,bands, singers whose music is just as good as the ones I like, but like older people I feel its not as good as when we were young.
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