Music as a Salve or Mom, Why is Dad Crying in the Bedroom

A story about how my taste in music was formed, and, songs that made my dad cry.

Story written and narrated by: Glenn Vanderkloet

Tunes in this episode - “Lovesick Blues” - Cliff Friend & Irving Mills (Performed by Hank Williams) (Public Domain)

Photo Credit: Unknown Street, DT, Austin,Texas - Glenn Vanderkloet

Music as a Salve

or

Mom, Why is Dad Crying in the Bedroom?

Music was a big deal in the house I grew up in. Mostly from a consumption perspective as opposed to creation, but nevertheless, it was a huge presence. By the time I came along in the early eighties, my parents' record collection was reduced to soggy gatefolds and warped vinyl due to our perpetually water damaged basement, however they still had an impressive number of cassette tapes and were in the beginning stages of building their compact disc library.

Dad was a classic country and bluegrass guy, always extolling the virtues of Hank Sr., Jimmie Rodgers and Ralph Stanley, but was also a massive Bob Dylan fan. My mom's taste skewed more toward 70's and 80's country pop, some of her favourite artists being Conway Twitty, John Denver and Tammy Wynette. Just saying these artist's names out loud brings me back to the regular Saturday night euchre games my parents hosted. Me, as a nine or ten year old kid, would play bartender as my folks and their increasingly inebriated friends would fill the air with their shrill laughter and cigarette smoke. All the while, country music reverberating throughout the house.

I also have a sister and a brother who are eleven and eight years older, respectively, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention their influence on my musical upbringing as well. My sister had relatively conventional taste for a teenager in the 80's. Duran Duran, Culture Club, Cyndi Lauper. My brother didn't stray too far off the musical beaten path either. I remember his briefcase of cassettes containing such stone cold classics as Motley Crue's “Girls, Girls, Girls” and Def Leopard's “Hysteria” as well as everything Aerosmith ever put to tape.

Early on in my musical journey, it was my brother I looked to for recommendations. By the time I was ten or so, I had evolved out of my American Top 40 stage and was looking for something a bit more substantive. Enter my brother, armed with his newfound interest in grunge music. He had aged out of his hair band fandom and was now blasting the likes of Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, and Nirvana. Cobain, Novoselic, and Grohl turned what was a casual interest in music for me into an obsession, especially their “Unplugged in New York” live album. I remember with a mixture of fondness and embarrassment, singing or should I say screeching, the chorus of “Plateau” to my mystified grade seven classmates.

As I was getting my musical feet wet with the help of my brother, my dad was unabashedly assaulting every member of our family's ears with that “high lonesome sound.” Be it in the car on the way to baseball, on the truck radio as we cleared brush from the fence line, or coming out of our living room stereo as we got ready for church on Sundays. “Ya know, you won't listen to rock music forever. Give it a few years and you'll be listening to The Carter Family too,” he'd prophesize.

My mom, as I mentioned, was more into the pop side of country music and was none too thrilled when dad would commandeer the car's cassette deck on long car rides. “Why the hell is his voice so squeaky,” she'd say upon hearing Jimmy Martin or some other bluegrass falsetto.

Dad worked in a factory on weekdays and mom ran a daycare, so these car rides would typically take place on either Saturday or Sunday to blow off some steam from a stressful week. We'd go to a neighbouring city for shopping or we might just go on a country drive to get out of the house. The one thing that never changed, though, was the fact that we had to be home by 5pm on Saturday evenings and 7pm on Sundays. These time slots were reserved for my dad's radio shows. The Saturday program was broadcast out of Smith's Falls, Ontario and was essentially a bluegrass playlist with some commentary and introductions in between. Ditto for the Sunday show, however, it was transmitted from northern New York state.

It went like this. We'd arrive home from our day trip at either five minutes to five or five minutes to seven, depending on the day. Dad would brew himself a Maxwell House instant coffee, grab a couple Maxell blank cassette tapes and head into his bedroom. He'd flick on the radio, load the cassette deck, and proceed to lay on the floor in front of the stereo cabinet, trigger finger itchy and ready to hit the record button. The objective was to fill those blank cassettes with whatever songs he deemed worthy from those radio programs. He filled dozens of these tapes. On more than one occasion, I wandered past his bedroom during one of these recording sessions and tears would be running down his face. “Gathering Flowers for the Master's Bouquet,” for example, or another tearjerker would be playing. Our eyes would meet, he'd look slightly embarrassed and I'd continue down the hall, pretending I didn't notice. The power of music, indeed. His multiple bouts with kidney stones and country and bluegrass music were the two things that could reliably make my dad cry.

As time marched on and the internet became a reality for our family in the late nineties, dad began downloading MP3's and burning them onto CD's. He considered this technology to be something out of a David Copperfield magic show. No longer did he have to wait for a good song to play on the radio, he could simply google and download.

My taste in music shifted with the wind in those halcyon teenage years. I went from a grunge obsessed 12 year old, into a punk phase in my mid teens, and then settled somewhat ambivalently in the indie rock world by the time I was drinking age.

Something strange, however, began to occur in my early twenties. I realized that I was beginning to gravitate to more country and folk inflected music. It started with gateway drugs like Wilco and Son Volt and began to spread from there. By the time I was approaching my thirtieth birthday, I was fully immersed in the world of Texas songwriters. Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark had hooked me hard. As I sit here now, I feel like I've made a complete transition into full-bodied country addict. To be clear, I'm not talking about the slickly produced, pop country radio nonsense, but the classic artists my dad introduced me to in childhood, plus more. Haggard, Hank, Paycheck, Tom T. Hall etc.

He was right. I wouldn't listen to rock music forever. That being said, I still listen to and love all types of music but the country/bluegrass influence eventually caught up to me and is hanging on tighter than ever.

Dad passed away when I was 28, but I can thank him for, among other things, my deep passion for music. I don't know what happened to all those tapes. They might be buried somewhere in my house, or else at my sister or brother's home. If I do find them, and I hope I do, I'll listen back wistfully and try to hold back the tears.