Of the many fond memories of time spent with my father, taking road trips and the music that he would play often sticks out in my mind. One particular trip was when we went to Atlanta to go to Six Flags Over Georgia. This trip pre-dated the opening of Disney World and Six Flags was the closest amusement park to us. This particular trip was with a group of Girl Scouts, of which my mom was one of their leaders. I remember it rained all the way up to Atlanta as I rode in the back seat of our station wagon. That station wagon was equipped with every modern kind of amenity available at the time, including an eight-track tape player. So, during the four or five hours it took to travel from Perry, Fla. to Atlanta, Ga., my sister a couple of girl scouts (I remember one them was an absolutely gorgeous girl named Marie. Her last name will not be used for the sake of protecting her true identity.) and I, were treated to a seemingly endless virtual concert of Henry Mancini, Ray Conniff, Bert Kampfert and others. My dad called it "good music." I just thought of it as "elevator music" or worse, "dentist office music." At that time, I wondered why any dentist with an ounce of humanity would subject someone to that music in addition to drilling into a molar.
Of course, as I have grown older, my musical tastes have developed to a point closer to that of my father than that of my early-teen nephew. I would much rather listen to my father's old "good music" than almost anything to which kids today are listening. Sometimes I am struck by the question of when the music of my youth or early adulthood will be considered "elevator music?" It does hit me as a bit humorous to think of a dentist performing a root canal to the tune of Ozzy Osborne's "Crazy Train." Or listening to AC/DC's TNT while waiting for your elevator to reach your floor, all performed by The 101 Living Strings, of course. The possibilities are endless. Have a "head bangin'" groovy kinda day, here on the Sunny Side.