Daddy sang bass.....

Today has been a Johnny Cash-a-thon. That was my Dad's music. My earliest memories are listening to Johnny on 8-track in my Dad'd white Ford pick-up. I didn't listen by choice. There just wasn't any other option so I just learned to like it.
I went to see Mr Cash twice in concert. My parents took me. Well, my Dad went and Mom and I had to come along. That was back when you could bring your child to a concert. My Dad used to try to play Johnny's music and he would force me and my best friend Lois to sing along.
As I grew older, I moved away from my Daddy's old fuddy music. But I never forgot the lyrics or the melodies. They stayed hidden in some strange recess of my mind. I actually won a $100 bet in college due to my repetoir of JC lyrics.

When my father was diagnosed with cancer in 1999, I came across one of his Cash cassette tapes. I popped into my tape player and smiled at the familiar songs of prison, drunkenness, and finding redemption in the Lord. The sounds from my childhood filled my little sedan and my oldest son instantly fell in love with the style. Over the next years, I started buying my own Cash CD's and buying a copy for my Daddy too.
The boys came to know Johnny Cash's music as "Granddaddy's music." I have calle my Daddy many times to share with him the love his grandsons had for "Johnny Yuma," "Teen-age Beauty Queen," and "One Piece at a Time." I went and bought the CASH 4 CD with DVD just to show my father the video of "Hurt" which was being played on MTV.
When Mr. Cash died in 2004. I mourned. He had served in the Air Force the same time my Daddy did. He had a son my age. And he had sang the soundtrack of my time with my Daddy.
I had known for years that my father would most likely die from the cancer that he had been fighting. I knew he would be gone before I would be ready but I never really accepted it until Johnny Cash died. If he could die....then my own father could.

So now I listen to this music by choice. I find great joy and comfort that my favorite little boys are learning to sing the songs I listened to with my favorite little man. I hope they are scarred by "Cocaine Blues" but I figure since I wasn't...they'll be okay. I love sharing this with them. They are things their Granddady would have loved to share with them. It's my way of keeping him with them.

And when they finally do get to see him again...they'll already know all the words to sing along.

Daddy sang bass, Mama sang tenor
Me and little brother would join right in there
Singin' seems to help a troubled soul

One of these days and it won't be long
I'll rejoin them in a song
I'm gonna join the family circle at the throne ...

No, the circle won't be broken
Bye and bye, Lord, bye and bye ...
Daddy'll sing bass, Mama'll sing tenor
Me and little brother will join right in there
In the sky, Lord, in the sky.
In the sky, Lord, in the sky.