Musical Memories from Last Century

While I’m recalling musical memories, here are two more.

First, I remember being in Newport News, VA with my family sometime in the 1970s on our way to or from a late-winter trip to North Carolina. We were driving, I think, the 1969 green Plymouth Satellite. Gas cost 50 cents a gallon (I remember the signs). The song Afternoon Delight by the Starland Vocal Band came on the AM radio. I remember asking my parents what “afternoon delight” was. I remember that they didn’t give me a straight answer.

Next, I remember being at Camp Kitchikewana in Georgian Bay. Would have been the mid-1970s, as I was 8 or 9. Our camp councillor, Dave Hamilton, was a great guy, full of life and humour. He used to make us play musical trivia for extra desserts (the answer to one of the questions was Jethro Tull, the question involving the Beverly Hillbillies. The only strong AM station on the dial was 680 CFTR (before it became the all-news 680news). The song of the summer was Summer in the City by the Lovin Spoonful. What a great song.

My next strong musical memory is from the mid-1980s. I was living at 107 Hazlitt Street in Peterborough with my friend Stephen. We had a record player, and two records: a Meho Puzic 45rpm and an album by Sade (the one with Smooth Operator). You could stack records on our player, and have them player one after another. So we stacked up Meho and Sade, and listened to them over and over and over. We ate lots of chick pea curry that summer.