Her ’76 Gold Ford Elite was top of the line, in my opinion. It had a cream leather hard top, cream leather seating, really nice shiny rims that had the spokes, white wall tires and an AM/FM radio complete with an EIGHT TRACK CASSETTE PLAYER! Yeah, real top notch. I think that was the only luxury car my family owned up until the red Ford Taurus circa 1990. LOL.
On to the music…
My mom’s car music consisted of Gospel (think: Mahalia Jackson, Shirley Caesar and James Cleveland) and Easy Listening a/k/a “Elevator” music (think: Nat King Cole, Barbra Streisand, The Carpenters). That’s how she rolled. Her eight track collection didn’t contain all the Easy Listening artists, but there is one in particular that I clearly remember…Engelbert Humperdinck. Good ole Engelbert. I used to ogle that cassette tape case because he was so very cute to me.
And my favorite song was “Release Me”. Such mature lyrics to be singing for a little girl that was about 5 or 6 years old who knew absolutely nothing about breaking up with someone, but I used to belt those lyrics each time the song came on.
Not only were the lyrics mature, I saw the video on You.Tube when looking for the song.
Kind of racy for 1985, isn’t it? LOL
I really wish I had this memory 2 weeks ago. Engelbert is still performing and he was in Bethesda, MD on Oct. 7th. I would have gifted my mom some tickets for her birthday. It would’ve been a hoot for sure.
Question: What kind of music did your parents to listen when you were young?
My dad played drums in high school and college, even had a little jazz group that he and friend started. So, music surrounded me everywhere. I grew up listening to mostly Motown, 70's Disco and jazz. All of those genres are still my favorites.
ReplyDeleteMy dad was/is fond of jazz, so we heard lots of variations of that genre from Miles Davis to Sun Ra to Count Basie.
ReplyDeleteMy mom likes all genres but when I think of "her music" I automatically think of Natalie Cole, Dionne Warwick and Lou Rawls.