Coping with Dad's passing...4 years gone
My Dad died four years ago, today.
I sang and played music with my Dad for years and it was really the best thing he and I had ever done. We did it together.
His musical stylings influenced me and I was able to meld them into our music.
All he ever wanted was "drive". That's the word he always used and to us it was well defined. The melody had punch and we accentuated it with our instruments. If your feet weren't tapping or your chin bobbing in time with our strong, percussive rhythm then our music was missing something.
When I play the guitar or mandolin I am treating them as a percussive instrument as much as a stringed one. I was essential to my Dad's bluegrass music vision. I was his disciple and he the teacher. I never put that idea into words before but when I play or sing he is definitely moving through me.
I never sang lead the whole time I sang with Dad. I did the things he couldn't. He judged and critiqued when I did something he could, but when I sang harmony, played mandolin, or played lead guitar he couldn't say a word and all he ever did was watch. That's the sad thing, I couldn't stand his comments. They grated upon my nerves and caused such tension that it hurt our musicality. We were not in harmony so I chose the road not traveled and that resulted in a pure tone between us.
We had many things we didn't agree upon. Church, politics, sports, insurance, you name it and we would probably argue about it.
A few things on which we did agree: good steak, Granny's breakfast, and hard, driving Bluegrass Music.
