I spent a lot of my childhood riding the bus. It had to have been at least an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon every day.
One thing I got on the bus was a lot of exposure to country music. That's what my my bus drivers in rural Iowa always listened to. My folks listened to it too: KHAK (K-Hawk) from Cedar Rapids. To this day I can sing almost any country song released between 1978 and 1984.
Just what country songs were they? you ask. Kenny Rogers was huge in those years: 'The Gambler', 'Coward of the County', 'Lady' 'Don't Fall in Love with a Dreamer', 'We've Got Tonight', 'Islands in the Stream', and 'Real Love'. Takes you back, doesn't it?
How about Ronnie Milsap? I still have a big ol' soft spot in my heart for Ronnie Milsap. I like his voice and I like his melodies: 'Pure Love', ' It Was Almost Like A Song', ' What A Difference You've Made In My Life', 'There's No Gettin' Over Me', 'I Wouldn't Have Missed It For The World', 'Any Day Now', 'She Keeps The Home Fires Burning', and 'Happy, Happy Birthday Baby'. Man, I like those songs. It was a sad day when I was at a Charlotte Hornets game where Ronnie Milsap happened to be playing at halftime. Seemed kind of low for Ronnie to have sunk.
Did you know Eddie Rabbit wrote 'Pure Love'? Neither did I. That's like Willie Nelson writing 'Crazy'.
Let me break in here, for the sake of reputation and good taste, to share with you my friend Robbi's rationalization of musical taste: Songs that slip in before you develop good taste don't count as bad taste. You can like as many of these songs as you want to. You don't even have to go back and evaluate them. Robbi is the biggest music lover I know, with the highest value on nostalgia of anyone I know. Shazam: you see where the rationalization comes from.
Check out the Grammy Awards for 1978:
Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, "You Needed Me", Anne Murray
Best Country Vocal Performance, Male, "Georgia on My Mind", Willie Nelson
Best Country Vocal Performance, Female, "Here You Come Again", Dolly Parton
Best Country Vocal Performance By a Duo or Group, "Mamas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys", Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson
Yep, those were my songs.
I also really like Anne Murray. I think she has a beautiful voice. When I look at the singles she sang that I knew (like the Greatest Hits album on this page, plus a few other songs, like 'Another Sleepless Night', I remember being uncomfortable. What was all of this 'making love' stuff about? To this day I still can't use that phrase. I feel like I'd turn into cheese if I uttered it. To even think of the phrase makes me think of Alabama's 'When We Make Love', and that makes me want to break out in hives.
I'm generally the kind of guy who gets really embarassed about things that are far away from me. I don't know if I ever made it through a whole episode of 'Three's Company' without leaving the room because I was so embarassed for Jack.
One song that really embarrassed me (later on) was 'Centerfold' by the J Geils Band (released in 1981 when I was 9). I vividly remember hearing it over the sound system in Target across from Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids and wanting to sink throuh the floor.
I learned a lot of things on the bus that were not, strictly speaking, educational. Of course, I learned them other places, too, like on the playground.
My bus route was a pretty good one because two of my closest friends, Chad Colony and Kevin Klein (those were their real names, alliteration notwithstanding), were on it. None of the rest of our circle had such a 'rich' route in terms of friends.
When I get on a school bus nowadays, I can't believe how uncomfortable they are and how much of my childhood I spent riding one.
