the mamas and the papas - california dreamin'. guest post by my mama.

howdy y'all.  you may remember i mentioned a few posts back that i was hoping to have some guests do the song of the day now and then.  we have our first guest today!  today's post is brought to you by my lovely mother, patty, and it is quite the post.  my mom exposed me to so much great music throughout my upbringing and continues to do so today.  she's got a great one for you guys today!

okay, so kyle asked me to post on his blog. you’ll notice that i am not using capitalization, staying with kyle’s minimalistic style, but i just can’t resist a smiley face every now and then :-) i won’t be using terms like pitch, vibrato or crescendo and those of you who know me won’t be surprised. i once considered buying a copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Classical Music. this, from the mother of a northwestern trumpet player and an eastman oboist....go figure! whenever i am asked about my musical background, and it happens often, i always reply that i’m a very good listener!

so the hardest part of this was choosing a song and kyle actually reminded me of one....california dreamin’ by the mamas and the papas. i grew up the youngest of four in a house with lots of music and a lot of that music was from the fifties and sixties. i have lots of memories of everyone singing. there was always music in the house. we would sing with the songs on the radio or records (remember those?), or old folk songs with mom playing guitar and Christmas carols with cindy on the piano.

i love when music takes me back to a place and a feeling, which it usually does. this song takes me back to about 1991 or so. we lived in avon lake, ohio at the time and made the three-hour drive back to pontiac, michigan many, many times. in fact, we came back for every holiday or family gathering, unless the family came to ohio, that is.

when i hear this song i think of three year-old kyle in his car seat in the back of the ford bronco (or whatever we were driving at the time) singing to the top of his lungs. he actually would request this song by saying “pway all da leaves are bwown, mama.” i think he especially liked songs with harmonizing...john would be singing, too :-) kyle also enjoyed traveling to music such as “ice ice baby” and anything by wilson phillips, aretha franklin, the beatles or michael jackson; just to name a few.

i guess i should talk a little about the song now. i tend to think of fall when I hear california dreamin’, instead of winter like the lyrics would suggest:

“all the leaves are brown/and the sky is gray/i've been for a walk/on a winter's day”

it’s just a great song! i’ve never tried to dissect the words, so hopefully there is no hidden message about war, drugs or communism - you know those hippies! :-) i just love this song- you can’t hear it and not sing along.

like kyle, my taste in music is very eclectic (some would say it hints at bipolarism :-)). i love prince, michael jackson, and eminem but i also love the old stuff by the judd’s , anything by patsy cline and old church hymns. if i had to pick my favorite trumpet piece off the top of my head, it would be “the prayer of st. gregory” as performed by kyle. it’s a five-minute work for trumpet and strings, which began life as an intermezzo in hovhaness’ opera etchmiadzin, composed in mid-1946, and premiered in new york in october of that year (thank God for google) i need to mention my favorite oboe piece now, just to keep things fair from a mom’s perspective, and at the moment that is madeleine dring’s trio for flute, oboe and piano, which i was lucky enough to hear recently, performed by my favorite oboist :-)

wow, this is getting to be quite the blog, guess i better end it now and send it on to kyle.  hope you enjoy hearing this old classic!

~patty (kyles’ mom)