As I've been writing these blog posts and the beginnings of a book I plan to publish about my adoption story, I've put on music from the era of the late 1960's. I churn out whatever I feel to the sounds of The Beatles, Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, and Otis Reading, just to name a few. I choose this music for two reasons; 1) I love it, 2) I imagine my birth mother Rosemary listening to it while she went about her day. I recently asked my Uncle Jerry what his sister liked to listened to, but it was a long time ago and he couldn't recall any of her favorites. I've always taken pride in the fact I was born in the 1960's (albeit, 1969) during the Flower Power era of music and before The Beatles broke up. My mom and dad liked music and I grew up listening to folk artists, Motown, the standards, and even early Elvis. I didn't listen much to Top 40 until the late 1970's, which was rather bad, looking back. I also missed the hard rock period and didn't know who Led Zeppelin was until my younger sister started listening to them during her teenage rebel phase in the early 1980's.
Through Uncle Jerry, I connected with a friend of Rosemary's who was able to recall some of the music she listened to after I was born and given for adoption. Wendy revealed to me Rosie liked music which was "happy, upbeat and positive." She also became a Christian in the early 1970's and enjoyed contemporary spiritual music, as well. But Wendy recalls her listening specifically to quite a bit of Classical music and remembers her favorite piece being Pachelbel's "Canon in D." She also said Rosemary liked country, but not the "dog died, my truck was stolen and my wife left me" type of country music. I'm guessing she wouldn't have cared for the parody I recorded years ago called "Beer Drinkin' Drifter." It was done under the pseudonym T-Bone McGee while I was producing a radio show at WHIO-AM. Our hope was some Nashville record label would be foolish enough to pick it up and release it. No one did, but it will live forever on Youtube (listen at own risk).
Over the past few weeks I've been compiling a soundtrack of music which reminds me of Rosemary. Of course, I never got to met her before she passed away in 2005 but all of the songs have special meaning. Some of the tunes are from the late 60's but others are more recent and convey relevant messages or feelings in regards to her. I will listen for inspiration when ever I sit down to write about her. For example, right now I'm listening to Pachelbel's "Canon in D." It's quite fitting, after all. Not only was it Rosie's favorite, the piece was also playing as my wife Mary walked down the aisle at our wedding in 2012. I'm sure that day somewhere Rosemary was enjoying it once again.
