Music: Thinking of my Dad

I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s and my father was a computer programmer at Lockheed Missiles and Space (Sunnyvale California, once declared the best run small city by some pompous news source) and his passion in music was to listen to plenty of classical, and he (tried to) played folk music. He had a Martin tenor guitar (smallish, 4 string) and a banjo. I inherited these, and they have been cleaned up and hang on my wall. But my childhood was replete with songs like “She’ll be comin’ round the bend” and others that are perennial camp favorites.

But at his memorial we all reminisced about his passion and utter lack of talent. Didn’t matter that he was at best a strummer, it was fond memories.

As part of that memorial I recalled a conversation I had with him in my early twenties. He really wanted to learn to play the banjo parts of Dueling Banjos, and he saw the sheet music (tablature for the banjo) at his local music store, and plopped down the $5 for it.

When he got home, he eagerly tuned up his trusty banjo, and opened it up. Then he was surprised to see that it had the first 8 or so bars, the “intro”. That was followed by the text: “68 bars - improvisation”. Alas, he wasn’t going to learn to play like Roy Clark and that made him sad.

This morning, my playlist rolled up Roy Clark at a late in career show in Texas, and the playing is typical Roy Clark, that is to mean FUCKING FANTASTIC, but what makes this really special is the story telling that Roy, the consummate storyteller, intersperses between the tasty licks.

I am not going to lie, as I write this, remembering my Dad who passed in March 2021, I am leaking more than a few tears.

So I will take leave and encourage you to click through and listen to one of the all-time greats, playing something my old man aspired to, but couldn’t reach.

Thanks pop!