Music and Family

Welcome back to this special blog. For this interview, I have decided to interview my grandma as I think she has an interesting history with music and likes a lot of bands that I do. My family grew up in Binghamton, New York which is a small town in the upstate region. She has a lot of cool experiences from childhood that will be shared in this blog.

Me: What is your earliest music memory?

Grandma: The earliest significant music memory I have is watching the Beatles on TV in the 1960s. Everyone was going crazy about them, especially the girls. They would cheer them on like crazy almost to the point of the band being inaudible.

Me: Tell me more about the Beatles.

Grandma: The Beatles music was revolutionary. We used to know the lyrics to all their songs. They played so many songs and we just memorized them. That era had a lot of good music, that's why I listen to it all the time here.

Me: Who was your favorite Beatle?

Grandma: Paul McCartney was my favorite, but Ringo Starr and I share the same birthday (July 7), although he is a little older than me.

The Beatles performing "Yesterday" on TV

Me: What was music like during your earlier years?

Grandma: We used to go to dances all the time. They were very dimly lit and everyone dressed nicely. We would go with out friends and wait until guys would ask us to dance with them. The music there was 60s-70s music and hard rock. It was fun.

Me: Being a Catholic, how was music like in church?

Grandma: It was very solemn. In the early days we weren't allowed to sing along if we were not in the choir. The choir was in the loft and we listened to them sing with the organist. As time went on, they lifted the rule and let us sing along. The organist would lead and play solos during service. I grew up in a church called Saint Anthony of Padua and switched to Saint Mary of the Assumption which felt like home to me. 

Me: What can you tell me about the music of that time?

Grandma: Kids loved music from Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Diana Ross, The Monkees... I thought Jefferson Airplane had a lot of good songs and a song called Maggie May was popular when I was in college in 1971.  A lot of music was during the Vietnam era and there was a lot of war music.

Me: What was the war music like?

Grandma: During the Vietnam War, people were rebelling. I remember the Temptations' song War. "War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing..." They were very different times.

Me: Did you go to any concerts?

Grandma: One concert I remember was going to Syracuse to see James Taylor at the War Memorial in 1971. We thought Carol King would play with him but he didn't. He had a lot of female background singers. It was very relaxed and he played for a long time. He was sitting in a chair barefoot playing his guitar.

Me: Do you have any interesting experiences with music?

Grandma: I knew these guys in a very strange band called Gary Wilson and the Blind Dates. They grew up in the same area and played locally a lot. Gary Wilson was an odd person. He would walk around downtown with his pet duck on a leash. They started off playing in the basement. They would all dress up really weird with lipstick and bathrobes. They wanted to be different and be noticed. They were brilliant musicians and Gary could play anything... drums, guitar, piano. He would try to come up with different sounds and put things inside drums to make them sound different. I remember once they played at Binghamton University and refused to leave the stage. Gary plays in California now and travels around the state to perform at different places.

Gary Wilson's appearance on Jimmy Fallon