PRAIRIE DUST, chapter 7

An Ocean, A World, A Universe (MUSIC, part 4)

Explosion

Once again my musical world exploded. From listening to dad’s classical records (and soon enough my own), I found the references to Johann Sebastian Bach in this classic track to be intoxicating.

I was enchanted by the Hammond organ and piano backing, the melancholy vocal delivery, the stately cadences gorgeous.

This song was released in May, 1967. I’d turned 14 the previous November.

The infamous ascot tie and me.

Songwriter

After hacking away at the guitar awhile, I began to realize I could write songs. I’d written poetry before, and saw that I could put music to them. The first music group I joined, “Transient Souls”, I was to play bass guitar.

But having written my first song, “When I Am Weary”, I introduced it to the band:

WE called it “Transient Souls”- PHIL called it “Tennis Shoe Holes”

Lowell Byler, the conductor of the Hesston College Choir, encouraged me to keep writing, when I first played it for him. Since I saw him as a musical giant- he demanded musical excellence from his choirs- this affirmation meant a lot to me.

And I kept writing songs, a lot of them.

Stately cadences and classical influences weren’t the only enchanting qualities I was hearing on the radio, on our newly acquired TV in shows like The Smothers Brothers and The Ed Sullivan Show, and on record players around town.

In fact I first heard “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” in the large living room of Cameron Yost- he was playing drums, and some other fellows were on guitar, bass, and keys. Doug Smith was belting out the lyrics- normally taciturn, he was wired up and singing like a mad dog.

Entranced! (And yes, I do believe the Paul Revere and the Raiders’ version came before the Monkees’ version did)

Mind Blown

Yes, I know I’m using superlatives here. But it’s hard to overstate the impact this music had on a repressed Mennonite FK (faculty kid) in a repressive small Mennonite-dominated town in a repressive and conservative Bible Belt state…

*Rock music is a sin.

*Dancing is a sin.

*Music is not a legitimate career path.

*Bars and nightclubs are sinful.

And the list went on… It reminds me now of a joke I cherish: Q:“Do you know why Mennonites hate sex?” A: “Because it reminds them of dancing.”

WOODSTOCK

I fell in love with Woodstock (the movie) when it first came out. I’m pretty sure movies- and maybe especially drive-in movies were sinful. But Brent Yoder and I made a habit of going to the Starlight Drive-In over in the big city of Newton, relaxing on the enormous, elongated hood of his gigantic station wagon, backs to the windshield, sniffing the intoxicating scents of popcorn and hotdogs, imagining ourselves as two studs on the hunt for hot chicks (and at least one of us- me- was way too insecure to even approach a cute girl even if she came and landed on our adolescent laps), and watching Woodstock in the cool night air.

Maybe six or seven times that summer of 1969, when I was 15, and too far away to have gone to New York anyhow, we watched the performances, dreamed about bathing nekkid in a running stream with nekkid girls, pretended we were actually in that throng of total coolness.

JIMI and ALVIN LEE and CARLOS

Jerome, next door neighbor, bassist, and sometimes pal, asked if I’d heard Jimi Hendrix. He handed me “Are You Experienced?”

Bit by bit, my musical tastes and leanings became louder, heavier, more complex, and harder-driving.

Looking back, I think the progression pretty well fit some of the repressed feelings I’d squeezed inside for so many years. I found freedom and some of those inhibitions that kept me inside myself, afraid of rejection, and lonely, were somehow released when I was listening to, and later, playing rock music.

I’ll stop here. For now, I’m still and always Mose Lee Gropin’, AKA Steve Conrad.