This Little Light of Mine

When I was 2 or 3 I got my first turntable, used mostly to play my books on record(Ding!). My favorite was Thumbelina, even though the music during the kidnapping scene always scared the bejesus out of me.

And speaking of bejesus, I owned, and according to my mother thoroughly enjoyed, a large collection of Little Marcy albums. For those of you luckily not in the know, Little Marcy was the ultimate in Creepy Christian Puppetry and frankly, it's a wonder I'm not more mentally deranged from her. On that last link, go through to Lil' Markie, who we actually listened to in bible school. The evil genius behind Little Marcy was Big Marcy Tigner, a failed musician with a voice that reminds me of chewing on tin foil. High, sharp, child-like and cringe-inducing.There was even one song where she essentially "dueted" with Smokey the Bear. My collection is still at my mother's house with the exception of a couple of them which I found as an adult at thrift stores.

My childhood listening habits were formed entirely out of my mother's album collection, with the exception of Marcy. I blame her for that creepshow, but all she really knew was it kept me from constantly talking her ear off, which was my usual pasttime. I usually listened to the Bee Gees, Dave & Sugar (the bland, "country" Tony Orlando & Dawn), Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. A note on Dave & Sugar, despite the fact that most of you have probably never heard of them, they actually won the Country Music Association's Vocal Group of the Year for 4 years running, 1976-79. I can't find the exact album cover I'm looking for, but it was awesome. It was like the old Olan Mills photos my brother and I always had taken with his floating head in the foreground and my smaller floating head in the background, all against a misty black backdrop.

The music we listen to as kids does influence us to some degree certainly. If anything, I know that in my teens and early 20's, I shunned anything resembling country, classic or not. Somewhere in my mid-20's, I began to embrace the solid country of my childhood and now in my early 30's I derive most of my comfort from that music. Unlike Listmaker, I don't have record of my annual song listening habits, but I wish I did. I can only hope to expose my kids to a wide variety of music without scarring them with through maniacal Jesus loving puppets.