Many people want to know why and how I have such an odd mix of music interests. One day I am driving down the road blaring Alabama's Dixieland Delight, the next I'm screaming Janis Joplin and loving the fact that we both have deep, scratchy voices, and the next I've turned up the bass and listening to what I call "radio rap." Then, throw in my obsession with Miley Cyrus, my favorite twang of Reba, and the sound of my favorite decade in The Beatles. I can see why one would be confused. I reckon' I am, too. Some people's life is in their music. Some people's music is in their life. I agree with this because at any moment of any day, I can relate a song to what I'm feeling, what I'm going through, and what I expect to happen next.
Some say that music, the lyrics within the songs we sing, define who we are. Some say that romance is impossible if two lovers have entirely opposing musical interests. And I say that there is a little bit of truth to both of those statements.
I remember my first CD I ever bought was Alanis Morrisette's 'Jagged Little Pill' when I was in the fifth grade. I can still see the astonished look on my mother's face when she heard some of the lyrics, profanity, and underlying meanings to some of the songs. I still listen to that same CD to this day, and only now that I have discovered a small dose of the truths and lies in this uncertain world do I really understand music for what it is, and that's where my appreciation and passion for my seemingly uncategorized music taste comes from. I believe that Alanis' edge on the 'Nineties Feminist Movement' is what really caught my attention to music outside the realm of honky tonks, love songs, and Carolina shag music. She, like Janis, Carly Simon, Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos, and Sheryl Crowe, sing in order to lift the heavy weight off of their body, minds, and emotions. I listen, interpret, and relate to their words for the very same reason.
Not to say that I don't love my boot scootin' country music, a good song that celebrates love and friendship, and the sounds of preppy, salty beach music. I could never imagine a life without those sounds - those are the sounds of growing up, family, home, and comfort. There is always a playlist on hand for whenever I need that comfort of my Daddy when I get homesick while 10 hours away from him. It only takes a couple listenings of Alan Jackson's 'Chasing That Neon Rainbow' that I can feel the presence of my father or see my sister and I, some twenty years ago, dancing to our first stereo in a small, cozy North Carolina living room with Mom's video camera in-hand to capture these moments. As if they haven't lived on in vivid memory ever since. When I need to feel my mother's strength during times of my own weakness, I know that Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn can remind me of the unconditional love that comes from my mother's strength. And when I need a song or two to lighten the load, give me a little comfort, or remind me of two decades worth of Jones family vacations, road trips, and general good times together, I can listen to The Temptations, KC and The Sunshine Band, The Drifters, and the other sounds of shag beach music. Even when my heart is broken and I'm tired of singing Janis' "A Woman Left Lonely" and "Take Another Little Piece of My Heart" I can seek relief in knowing that whatever tramp I was left for can't honestly sing one of the best songs to ever be born on the coast of Myrtle Beach because "California girls are sexy, and New York girls are too, but Carolina girls got good looks, and sweet personalities too, Carolina girls.... best in the world!"
But, after experiencing my own life-changing, definining moments in my 22-year old journey - some I'm proud of and some I'm ashamed of - I can relate them to songs and lyrics of other musical talents of today and of yesterday.
My generation, the young twenty-something girls, are inspired by the voices, trends, and attitudes of the bohemian, hippie culture. The 'southern girl' these days isn't required to adorn pearls, pastels, and lace like some GRITS (Girls Raised In the South) did before us. The southern girls I know are bold, brutally honest, and have traded in lace for suede, pearls for vintage silver or rusty golds, and skip the preppy look for a look that uniquely and individually clashes cultures. It's oddly not odd to find a pair of Daisy Duke cut-offs, Grease Lightening leather, Marsha Brady sleek or Farrah Fawcett feather type hair, cowboy boots with Easter Sunday dresses, and flowered halos and bohemian patio dresses, 1950's housewife pearl necklaces with Louisville debutante-like riding boots. In other words, my closet looks like Woodstock, mixed with a small-town Baptist church, mixed with Nashville, TN and San Francisco, California and South Beach, Miami, mixed with The Boston Marathon The 1999 Women's World Cup and a Cross-Country trail run through red Alabama clay. And I suppose that's who I am, in person and in my music, I'm bohemian, Baptist, Southern, and athletic. My music, in my opinion, depicts the same girl. So, that's where the Janis Joplin, Beatles, and Joni Mitchell mixes with 'The Old Rugged Cross', 'Standing On The Promises of God', and 'Blessed Assurance'. It's what mixes Kenny Chesney, The Zac Brown Band, Shooter Jennings, and Hank Williams, Jr. with the upbeat new-age 'jock-jam' sounds of The Black Eyed Peas, Beyonce, Flo-Rida, Kanye West, and Lil Wayne.
Then there is the music that defines you because it is what defines your friends. And, well, you're judged by the company you keep, aren't you? In Southern College Town, U.S.A. it is not hard to find the "jam-banders", also known as the Generation X "hipsters". The Widespread Panic "Spreadheads" and The Phish "Phollowers." A lot of people have wondered where my interest in these modern day 'Grateful Dead' bands come from. All these wonderers have to do is ask, because it came from the summer days I've spent in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and the zest and desire for a new type of music that makes you feel free, accepted, and understood. It's not because of any cocaine-high or pill-popping experience that many people deem the only reason behind this type of music can be. That's not the way I found a relationship between these funky, psychadelic sounds and I. I found a relationship because of the truths and beliefs that I have gained through my own personal struggles, growing up in my teenage and young adult years with a war being fought overseas, and a desire for rights and a passion for making a difference (and mine just happen to be for Americans with disabilities, not Americans with draft cards or the need to flee from coast-to-coast on a painted school bus).
The 'jam-band' era of today is unique to my generation, my crowd, and my diversified outlook on the art of music. My generation desires to mimic the women of Woodstock, the brains, beauty, and fun of Cal-Berkely girls and Greenwich Village youngsters. The musical era of my age is like the grandchild of Jerry Garcia, the beloved Grateful Dead leader. It's the combination of Southern rock, Liverpool's Beatles, the conflicting and controversial issues and icons like James Taylor and Michael Jackson, Carly Simon and Britney Spears, Carole King and Courtney Love, and instrumental, not just lyrical, talent that can sing bluegrass, soul, with one's own unique pop twist. Whether at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado or The Haight/Ashbury corner of The Mission District in San Francisco, the new-age hipster movement will be there. Whether in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Asheville, NC or Athens, GA on a football gameday, you'll find them. Austin, Texas and New Orleans, LA. Destin, FL and Baltimore, MD. My appreciation for this type of music comes from the wide acceptance that spans out across all of the nation's geography.
The bands and musicians that define my generation of milenial hipsters other than Widespread Panic and Phish, are The Dave Matthews Band, Umphrey's McGee, Pretty Lights, Drive By Truckers, Ben Harper, The Mars Volta, Citizen Cope, Goverment Mule, Kings of Leon, Radiohead, Robert Earl Keen, Les Claypool, The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, The Disco Biscuits, The Avett Brothers, and Keller Williams; to name a few. The veterans that still move the twenty-something year olds like Tom Petty, Elton John, Phil Collins, Billy Joel, James Taylor, and The Allman Brothers are definitive of my musical culture as well.
Even my beloved country music and bluegrass roots have changed some of their sounds to interest the "musical mutts" like me. Jimmy Buffett gives credit to The Dave Matthews Band and Phish and has been quoted numerous times praising the two bands for what they've done to music lovers of the new age and he himself has created songs that differ in extremity from his well-known 'Cheeseburger in Paradise' and 'Margaritaville.' The Zac Brown Band is a mixture of Dave Matthews sounds, Kenny Chesney's laid-back islander feel, and Jimmy Buffett's southern-coastal rock. Nickel Creek combines bluegrass, country, and funk and performs at the infamous Bonnaroo festival in Manchester, Tennessee. Kid Rock can sound like Hank Williams on one track, Phish on the other, and can give his own spin on a Prince or Michael Jackson cover song. And, with the heavy influence of peace, love, and rock 'n roll in the state of Texas the country music that is unique to the Lonestar state is a mixture of all the inspiration from the cities state-wide. Luchenbach, Texas inspires the sounds like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings sang. Port Arthur was home to Janis Joplin and the place where bluegrass inspired a feminist rock and roll attitude who hopped over to Austin to study before dropping out and heading to Greenwich Village, New York and then to share a loft in The Mission District of San Francisco with The Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix. Austin is the 'Live Music Capital of the World' and Dallas is proud of the Pat Green and Cory Morrow type spin on country music.
So, my genre of music is simply: southern, hippie, and chic. It's shabby, traditional, laid-back, and funky, and sounds best on classic black vinyl with an artistic cover to package and preserve a generation of music that may have died out once but my peers brought it back to the mainstream. So I do find a certain truth to the claim that music defines who you are. It's the easiest form of art to relate to, for those of us who can't seem to make anything of a $50 million sculpture other than "why the hell did someone spend that much money on that crumpled up mess of material?" And the claim that romance will be hard to find, and especially hard to keep when you don't share musical interest also deems true, at least in my life. The boyfriend who only listened to rap - bouncing his head without the slightest clue of what the lyrics portray or mean - well, he and I didn't work out. The boyfriend who liked the ninety's style grundge rock - who spent just as much money on graphic t-shirts, Incubus and Nickelback CD's, and out of this world styles, as his college education was worth at his nearly Ivy-League college - well, he and I ended things as well. And the boyfriend who was born and raised in the Bible belt, that wore faded Levi jeans with holes in them and 'shit kicker' boots, and looked like he wouldn't listen to anything but old Merle Haggard type country yet only listened to rap-icon Lil Wayne - we didn't stand a chance after a couple of long road trips together that consisted of more fights over the radio than songs played. So, if you don't know one another's music then it must be a certainty that you won't be able to find a song to dance to at your wedding, if you surprisingly reach the point of engagement in your doomed relationship. (Especially if your dance is a flower dance and would only be more complete with a daisy in your hair or a line-dance only to over-do the country theme of your attire of denim and cowboy boots if you added the Stetson hat, and his is either an emo-ish, dark, grundgy mosh-pit type jump or a baggy, free-style 'dance-off' type swag. And can you imagine what your children would listen to? Other than the psychadelic funk sounds that interest me, my parents and I share an appreciation and interest in music such as The Eagles, The Rolling Stones, Nashville's country, the sounds of Myrtle Beach, James Taylor, Neil Diamond, and Mo Town's oldies but goodies.
So, as I look back on four complete years in Tuscaloosa and recall the different playlist on my iTunes, I can find direct correlation to who my friends are, who my dates have been and will be, and why there's such a similarity in my life and in my music.
Like I've said in earlier postings... who I am is because of where I've been. So, the part of me that is Asheville is maybe the bluegrass, beach shag, country, and hippie funk parts of me. The Orlando/Oviedo part of me is maybe some of the country, the pop, and the rap. The Tuscaloosa part of me is the Southern rock, flower-child jam, and the new-age country. And my desire to go to Austin, Texas is the part of me that hopes to enjoy live music of all types and see the places where past legends, like my favorite - Janis Joplin, and future legends have gotten their start.
I'll end with a few of the songs I've listened to while I wrote this blog - and like always - you just never can tell exactly what's going on in that complicated mind of mine.... but it's all in the music.
"I can't talk about my singing, I'm inside it. How can you describe something you're inside of?" - Janis Joplin
Peace&Love,
baily j. jones 'the other sister'
