Music Can Transport You - Dr. Ed Iannuccilli
Monday, March 20, 2023
Music can define you, relax you and transport you to another place. You listen, think, glide and travel to other worlds round and round, and it comes out somewhere, but who knows where? Bill Haley and the Comets, Gene Autry, and Red Prysock did it for me years ago. So too does opera, jazz, country, zydeco, etc. today.
Our third-floor tenement was full of sunshine on Saturday mornings when Mom listened to WHIM and DJ Bob LaChance. Bob’s enthusiastic singing with big bands added to the glow. She loved him.
While roaming about, she sang along with Bob. She danced around the kitchen, singing as close to soprano as she dared. Unlike Dad who, if he ever sang, did it in monotone, Mom was skilled, save for her early morning march-around while singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” to wake us on school days.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTOne Saturday, Bob introduced a tune that was entertaining and fun. “I’m going to play an oldie that many of you will remember. Here goes.” He played “The Music Goes Round and Round” by big band Tommy Dorsey.
“I love that song,” Mom warbled. “Your Dad and I danced to it years ago. In fact, it was so popular that one radio station played it over and over for the whole day.”
Bob, a tenor, sang along with the Dorsey band. Mom accompanied him.
I blow through here
The music goes round and around
Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho
And it comes out here.
I push the first valve down
The music goes down and around
Whoa-ho-ho, ho-ho
And it comes out here
Bob commented, “This is a song about a tuba. You blow in the mouthpiece, and the music goes around and around and comes out the big bell.” Of course. I loved it.
Some years later, I was working at the City Hall Store for Christmas and heard a distinctive tenor voice behind me “Do you mind waiting on me?” I knew immediately who it was.
“Sure, sure,” I replied, turning on the ball of my foot and blurting, “I know who you are! You’re Bob LaChance.”
He was smaller than I thought. He was wearing a black topcoat and a soft black hat; dressed, not at all like what I thought a disc jockey should. Then again, I never thought about what disc jockeys wore. The voice was the only thing that mattered.
“You do? How?”
“My mother listened and sang along with you every Saturday morning. I remember the morning you played ‘The Music Goes Round and Round’. I loved it.”
“You remember that? Why, thank you.” He seemed pleased.
Round and round. Really. Just the other day, I thought of the song. It reminded me of what music can do for you; it makes you go round and round to another world and out of yours. I tapped my fingers, recalling the tune… whoa, ho ho ho ho, ho…and it comes out here.
Yes, music comes out here or wherever, who knows where? Maybe even transporting me to our sun-drenched tenement.
Dr. Ed Iannuccilli is the author of three popular memoirs, “Growing up Italian; Grandfather’s Fig Tree and Other Stories”, “What Ever Happened to Sunday Dinner” and “My Story Continues: From Neighborhood to Junior High.” NOW, he has written his fourth book "A Whole Bunch of 500 Word Stories."
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