It's Kids Music Week at Colorado Public Radio. From Sept. 8 to 12, CPR News, CPR Classical, and OpenAir will feature programming that highlights young people who have taken up the art of music and the organizations who provide the opportunity for them to do so.
In honor of Kids Music Week, the OpenAir hosts have shared some favorite musical memories from childhood. Read how music influenced each of our hosts to pursue a career in radio, and share your own formulative music memories in the comments below:
Keefer Fulgham
It was 1965, my first trip to Florida and to the beach. I had never seen the ocean and I couldn't wait. I was sitting between my mom and my grandmother in one of those old Cadillacs, the ones with the bat wings. As we cruised up the levy, there it was: the Atlantic Ocean, the biggest thing I'd ever laid my eyes on. But then, out of the AM dash radio came a sound like I had never heard before: "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah." It hit me like a lightning bolt. My six year old brain was being fried. The ocean, who cares? It was a mere puddle to me now. I was listening to the Beatles and life would never be the same....
Alisha Sweeney
Jessi Whitten
Mike Flanagan
Scott Carney
Kegan Warner
Dave Fender (audio engineer)
I was a textbook example of a band geek growing up in the '80s, so a lot of my music memories were formed while playing percussion instruments in the back of the band. I went to a military school in the midwest, and during the spring of my senior year we put on a special outdoor concert featuring the "1812 Overture." We were set up on the steps of the chapel, which was situated on top of a small hill that looked out over a parade field and a lake just beyond. The chapel had a 51-bell carillon and, being a military school, we had a set of Howitzer cannons down by the lake for the big climax.
A storm started to roll in over the lake with lightning dancing in thick black clouds. The wind began to pick up just as we got to the part where the bells kicked in and the cannons started firing and I was wailing on the tympani: it was glorious. I have no idea how we sounded in reality -- but I was a rock star that day.
