Music and memories...

When I was growing up, my older sisters (11, 15 and 18 years older) were playing the music of the fifties. I grew up listening to the sounds featured on the first youtube video below. My sisters were wonderful dancers. By the time I was ten and Sharon was eight, we could dance. I don't know...maybe we had watched my sisters enough. I don't remember that part. Neither Mama nor Daddy ever owned up to where (from which one of them) we all got the rhythm we had, but we could dance.

On the weekends, my sisters would occasionally go dancing. They would get all dressed up in the wonderful 1950's fashions with high heels and go dancing with their boyfriend/husband/fiance. Sharon and I were, of course, much too young, so we'd get in the hallway of the house on Victor Drive with the polished hardwood floors, turn the music up and "bop" (the swing music or boogie-woogie today). I don't remember Mama ever complaining that the music was too loud or that we were under foot. Most of the time, she and Daddy would be laughing at us. Eventually, we would get tired.

I was listening to some great fifties music this afternoon. Those mellow sounds of the wonderful saxophone of Ace Cannon were coming across the built-in speakers all throughout the house. I was dancing to Alley Cat as I cooked supper. I couldn't help it. The memories were tumbling in and I was a very young teenager again...dancing in the hallway of a little house in Memphis.

Of course, the music of the sixties brings back a whole new "set" of memories: high school, college, falling in love, being a young newlywed and, later, having two small children fifteen and a half months apart. Amazing, isn't it...?



*Remember to scroll down and pause the blog playlist music before you listen to the videos.

This is a neat youtube video with snippets of all the top songs of the fifties.

If you remember this time, you'll enjoy it.

If you don't remember it, you should enjoy it anyway!

These dancers are doing "the swing" but it looks a whole lot like "bop" to me!

After all these years, this is still fun...wonder if I could get my non-dancing husband to take "swing" lessons?!