Music & Family With Granna & Tompaw

MB: I'm here with Kay Miller, AKA Granna. 

Granna: Martha Kay Miller. 

MB: It's true - you gave me my Martha. [laughing] 

Granna: We're the Marthas. 

MB: Okay. So, to start, do you have an earliest memory of music? 

Granna: Well... I guess my earliest memory is just banging on the piano, you know, and just thinking that I could just make music come out of it without any training... And then Sunday school after that. That's where I learned how to hold a note. 

MB: About how old were you during that time-- from banging on the piano and into Sunday school?

Granna: Probably two or three, and then my first, earliest memory of Sunday school was probably about three or four. I loved to sing. Wasn't great at it but I loved it. [laughing]

 (…) 

MB: What was your favorite type of music growing up? 

Granna: Just silly children's songs, if you want the very beginning… But, believe it or not, at about the age of ten, I fell in love with musicals. I didn't go to a musical or even see it on a movie. I did later-- South Pacific was the first one I fell in love with-- and, uh-- I think I was about ten. I may have that time frame wrong but.... I know a lot of my sister's older friends say they remember me running around the playground singing, like, ‘’Happy Talk” and “Valley High” and-- but I later did see the musical at the movies-- but I had borrowed an album from one of my friends, or she left it at the house, I can't remember… but I played that thing until I wore it out. So, musicals, and then, as any teenager, the top ten. I was the “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” era. [laughing] 

MB: Great song. [laughing] 

Granna: Then, I got really into Motown, and,  as you all well know-- my grandkids-- I was really ticked off at The Beatles and the British Invasion. They diminished my Motown, but… I just like all music. I like, like, Musicals, pop, rock. I don't like - what is it? That hard rock? 

MB: Like metal? 

Granna: Yeah, I don't like that. I like the blues. 

(...) 

MB: So, I was going to ask what the most popular genre was when you were growing up, but it sounds like it was mostly Motown. 

Granna: Yeah, especially when I hit teenage years. Now, right before that-- and I Ioved this music, because I used to always go everywhere with my sister, and it was always playing in the swimming pools and the lakes and the skating rinks-- It was the Ricky Nelsons, Elvis Presley, but I was a preteen during that time. Motown was... my favorite. My favorite radio station, me and your Granddaddy's, was Wolfman Jack. I think that was out of Chicago... and as far as music, I started taking piano lessons, I think in the third grade, and I was so terrified to perform in front of people that I would try and find a way to get sick. One time I picked a bag full of green plums and sat on the curb in front of my house and ate them so I would get sick. I didn't get sick and I still had to perform - I had a tummy ache, but I still had to perform. [laughing]  Mother and Daddy finally let me quit in the 5th grade - I wish they hadn't. I had a wonderful piano teacher. 

(…) 

MB: You've already talked about this a little bit, but where did you listen to music? 

Granna: Everywhere. I mean, I had a hi-fi - a high fidelity - that I got in the ninth grade, and I thought I was just the stuff [laughing], and I had records and albums and listened on the radio. Anywhere you went back then, if you were in a restaurant— mainly, I hung out with my sister and her friends— so it was just all the Jukebox stuff and that kind of thing. If you went to a skating rink— anywhere. Anywhere you went for recreation, besides the movies, there was always our type of music playing… And then I even married a musician. [laughing] 

MB: So we said you play piano, but why don't you talk a little bit about choir and where you sang. 

Granna: Choir? Oh, I started signing in the children's choir, I guess at about seven years old and then sang in that until I went up to the big choir, and I also sang in— the lady who taught me to love music was my first grade teacher. She loved music, and she later became our music teacher once she retired from teaching the first grade. We always started our mornings out by singing "Oh What a Beautiful Morning," and I fell in love with music through her— I mean, it just made me feel better, and I actually got to sing that song with her after she was in a nursing home. Her daughter took me to see her, and it was just one of the highlights of my life. That was Miss Kathryn. I am forever thankful to her for instilling that in me. I loved it anways, but she really broadened my horizons with music at a very early age… But I've sang in the choir off and on all my life-- much to some peoples consternation. [laughing] 

(...) 

MB: How did MeeMaw (Granna's mother) feel about the music you listened to? 

Granna: She didn't say a whole lot about it. She never complained... In fact, I think she may have listened to some of it too, I don't know… But, backing up a little bit, we always had the radio on, too— Daddy did before TV— TV was just a glimmer, but I can just remember listening to all kinds of music on the radio, from like the early 50s. Yeah, the late 40s, early 50s… But Mother didn't have a melodious voice, but she had a good voice, and she could carry a tune, and, she and her sister, they used to perform at a community center here-- like, they had some pretty big names come to perform— a lot of bluegrass people. They would open for them. They were Sal & Val, or something like that, and they would sing. They'd do little jokes, and then they'd sing, like, "Going Down to Cripple Creek," or something like that. So, they were pretty good. Listen, we have hams in our family, as you well know. Performers, a couple, but a lot of hams. [laughing] 

(...) 

MB: What do you think is the purpose of music? 

Granna: It always lifts my soul— it lifts my heart; it lifts my soul. I'll even say that when you're sad, sometimes it helps bring it out-- it’s like lancing a sore, you know? When you're sad and you listen to some sad music— not too sad, don't get all up in it— but music just fulfills, with me, every mood of life. I mean, you know it— I love music. 

(...) 

MB: How did your relationship with music change, if it did at all, as you got older? 

Granna: It's changed... Not much, but I just don't like a lot of the— my relationship with music... I don't know if my relationship has changed or music's changed. I don't like a lot of the stuff today, and you know how much you and your cousins love these songs from the past that you've never heard of. They just were more carefree. I don't like the heaviness of songs today. I mean, I know some of them serve their purpose, but… it’s like, I want to get away from that when I'm listening to music. 

While I was wrapping up the interview with my grandma (and listening to her beautiful rendition of "Oh What a Beautiful Morning," my grandpa got home and wanted to join in! 

MB: Okay, so I'm here with Tompaw! 

Tompaw: Hello there. 

MB: What's your earliest memory of music? 

Tompaw: Oh... I was probably about five years old. It was at my aunt and uncle's wedding. I just remember— they had, like, a dance band at the reception afterwards playing, like, square dance music and— "Alabama Jubilee" was one song they played all the time... but it was live, of course, so I guess that's why it stuck out to me. 

(...) 

MB: How has your relationship with music changed as you've gotten older? 

Tompaw: Well, of course, when I was young, I liked pop music, like The Monkees and The Archies and things like that, and then, as I got into my twenties, I got more into hard rock and then acid rock. Then I went through a country stage for a while, until it got a little more popular— which I don't like country music hardly at all anymore, 'cause it doesn't feel country. Then it became a little more, I guess, sophisticated, where I got into a lot of classical music— 

Granna: Oh I love classical.

Tompaw: Yeah, and I just got into all different types of genres— from blues to light jazz, even— something I really enjoyed was— just watching him play— was Liberace. That guy was phenomenal. So yeah, it just kind of evolves as you get older— and now it's a lot more mellow type stuff, but you know I'll still head-bang with the best of them. 

MB: It's true— I can attest to that. You've got probably the most eclectic music taste of anyone I've ever known. It's insane. 

Tompaw: Yeah, I could just surf YouTube for hours listening to new music. 

(…) 

MB: So, in your opinion, what is the purpose of music? 

Tompaw: For me, anyway, it's entertainment, but then, also, certain songs will... make you very contemplative, where it, you know, really puts an idea in your head— thought provoking, and it make you see something that... maybe you never would have seen before— someone else's emotions or view point on something, and it kind of opens up a whole new view of it for yourself. Like, "Oh, I never really thought about it like that." 

MB: Where did you listen to music the most? 

Tompaw: Just on a little transistor radio. Be out in the yard, or whatever, and have the little radio going. Then we did have a-- one Christmas Mike (Tompaw’s brother) and I got a stereo—  just a turntable with speakers, you know, and… I had a huge collection of albums. 45s and albums— even had some 78s. 

MB: That means nothing to me— would you like to elaborate on that? [laughing] 

Tompaw: [laughing] Well the old turntables, you had different speed controls. The big albums— the big platters— were usually played at 33 1/3. That’s how many revolutions the turntable made in a minute— 33 1/3. ‘Cause the album was so big that the speed had to be slowed down… And the small ones— about seven inches— were played at 45 rpms. Then they had some bigger ones, which you played at 78 rpms— that really went fast through it. You couldn’t get but a couple songs on it, ‘cause it would spin so fast. The 45s had a flip side— well the albums did too— but you’d usually have about 12 to 16 songs on it. That’s why you ran it so slow, and the 45s had two songs, and the 78s probably had... maybe six? About three on each side. 

(…) 

MB: What were your parent’s opinions on the music you listened to? 

Tompaw: Eh… “Hippie Music,” is what they called it. “Turn that hippie music off!” [laughing]. But then, later on, when— I mean, Mom used to buy us albums and stuff, she would— she knew that… things that we liked and got into— she would, maybe for a birthday or something like that, would buy us an album of some of our “hippie music.” [laughing] I know when— actually when I was in the Air Force— I was probably 17 or 18— she sent me a— for my birthday— she sent me a— we used to have 8-tracks, that you could shove into your car— they were great, big, huge— almost looked like a VCR cassette. It had eight tracks on it, and she sent me a Blue Oyster Cult— they did “Fear the Reaper.” She sent that to me one year on my birthday, when I was in the Air Force, and, all my buddies, they were impressed. They said, “Whoa! Your Mom’s got good taste in music. [laughing] 

One thing about my grandpa is he gives the best music recommendations (he has single-handedly saved me from many a music drought,) and, while I was there, he showed me a new song, so I figured I would share it with all of you as well! 

Timothy - The Buoys

- Fun fact: because this song tells a pretty dark story (especially for its time,) it was banned from being played on the radio in several areas. To get around this, they changed the cover of the song from the three miners you see in the above video to two men and a mule (which was wearing a sash with "Timothy" on it,) changing the meaning of the song and allowing it to be played on the radio again. -

Oh What a Beautiful Morning