Maturity Journal - December 2020 Issue

Maturity Journal
Page 22 December 2020
were sitting around were country fans, we
joined right in for the serenade. And we
knew almost all the tunes and the words.
After we had been singing into darkness,
he began to share with me some of
his background in music. It seems that
he had begun to play at the hands of his
father at the ripe old age of 5. My hands
will hardly go around the neck of a guitar,
and I could only imagine how his little
fingers could withstand the pressure of
pushing on the strings.
He stated that his father had been
an engineer on a train and that he shared
much of his life with him. His father had
taught him all the old country songs,
although he was much too small to have
had any idea that he was being schooled in
what was the beginning of the popularity of a new trend
in music. Many people may not like country music, but
you must admit that it became a very popular music
genre during the war years and after. Much of the music
of that time was performed by people with no musical
Picturing Our Past
by Pat Sides,
Archivist at Willard Library
Carlton Theater
This photo was taken in late 1959, when the Carlton
Theater at 216 Main Street was about to be razed to
make room for a parking lot.
The theater had opened with
fanfare on Christmas day in
1937. A newspaper article
noted the building’s “strikingly
beautiful front,” which was
composed of polished black
glass and highlighted with red
and gold, colors that matched
the plush lobby. The Carlton
opened during the Great Depression, when at least
ten other theaters were still operating in Evansville.
Film historians have argued that this dreary era created
the demand for films, which enabled audiences to
temporarily forget their worries and gave rise to the
“Golden Age” of Hollywood. MJ
education at all and was simply played
from the heart. Hank Williams became a
star with not one note of musical knowledge
but with a head full of musical poetry.
Who could ignore the poetry in the song
“Have you ever heard a Robin cry, when
he’s too blue to fly?” He eventually became
known as the Shakespeare of Country
Music. Another poetic genius was Merle
Haggard who penned “I’m an Okie from
Muscogee” as an answer to the hippy
movement that was sweeping the country
during the Vietnam War. And, of course,
the very beginning of country music came
from a man named Jimmy Rogers, the
singing engineer, who learned to play from
black field hands in Louisiana.
My troubadour stayed and played his
music as we sang and entertained a neighborhood of his
mother’s friends, and he promised to return in the near
future with the list of the songs his father had taught him
to play. Those lists would have all the lyrics to the songs,
and we would not need to fill in the spaces with “na, na,
na,” or “tada, tada, tada”, or any unknown noises when
the words to the songs didn’t come.
Maybe some of my other neighbors have some rusty
musical instrument hiding in the closet just waiting for
someone to bring it back to life. I still have my autoharp
that the guitar player plans to test when he returns. Stay
tuned!!! MJ
Emily’s Quest ....................................................... $15
The Making of Mary Ann .................................. $15
Life & Times of Rachel Marley ......................... $10
Lilli & Dr. Grayson (2 bks) ............$15 ea or 2/$25
Cora.seaman@hotmail.com
or (812) 455-9260