Presently, I am listening to a bit of Con Funk Shun. Just one of the coolest Funk, Soul, R&B, groups of the late seventies. I still have the vinyl pressings of my faves from back then. Have a phono-player on which to listen too. Listening to this mystery of the iTunes blows my mind!. I have a very sweet mix of genre on the iPod. Yes, I have kept the cassettes, albums and CD's too. Too many to even attempt a guess. So I won't and just say that yes, I have been a music freak from way back. This is a topic that I could talk about and share for on and on. There has been such a diversity in my listening pleasures that most Folk's wouldn't believe that I have been to the symphony and listened to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in it's entirety and have moshed while checking out Blink 182 and Green Day in concert. Have enjoyed Tori Amos to Stevie Nicks, Alan Jackson to Tanya Tucker. George Michael to George Strait and Chuck Mangione to Earl Klugh, Et Cetera.
I have experienced listening to music as a form of therapy and have included music in a therapeutic environment. A scented candle or stick or two of incense always added a nice touch too...
...hold it, just changed it real quick to James Brown, sing to me, "I Can't Stand Myself". I can remember when Mr. Brown, came to the Amory over here in West Tampa, three or four block from where I lived as a child. Folks, the music I would hear coming from this armory was immense. Everything from Blue Grass to Zydeco come from the windows of this hollowed ground. Elvis and John. F Kennedy were guests there too. My Great Grand Father Luis, got to shake that good Presidents hand not long before he was shot for no apparent reason. The Amory's still there, but the Army is 90% removed and now some Jews want to convert it into a Jewish meeting place...
...I can remember during the Anti-War and Civil Rights's movements someone threw a grenade at one of the watch towers there at the Fort. I was a wee little shit in the 1960's and that was a powerful protest message right there.
I'll never forget the first time I saw and watched Women 'grown ass Women', through their undergarments on stage at a show I ushered back at the old Curtis Hixon Convention Center in Down Town Tampa. The artist was Johnny "It's Cheaper To Keep Her" Taylor. Nope, never have forgotten that night back in what was 1972. I was twelve. Folks, didn't know, I had lied about my age to get hired. Millie Jackson, opened up for him I think. I remember working the venue when Miss. Jackson was in town either way, she may have been on her own though. Oh, she was so WOW!
The main reason I have brought up the topic of music and therapy, is that even while I was being harmed back in my childhood, there was always music associated with what it was going on in my life and on My Path even way back then. Good or bad. I am here forty-some years later, and remember music from my youth in the 1960's and 1970's, and remember actual songs going on while being raped or sexually abused. "Layla", is one of them.
Today, music continues to play a large roll in my War against Meniere's Disease, it's symptoms and the continuance of the loss of hearing. It is as if I want to maintain a record of every song I have ever remembered and enjoyed...
...my life's sound track.
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