Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images
Alan Aymie, my father, on his personal experiences and sentiments in all music realms, and why music “adds color” to his world.
Alan Aymie grew up in Boston, Massachusetts in the ‘70s and ‘80s and experienced the social effects on music as genres were transforming and people’s “looks” were adapting.
Here, my father, discusses his own personal story with music. He captures the raw relationship one can form with bands of their time. Whether mentioning Prince, The Rolling Stones, or David Bowie, Alan’s attachment, passion, and dedication to music is quite evident.
I took the time to interview my father to glimpse into his musical world and contrast it with the musical world experienced in the 21st century. He captures beauty in the power music holds over an individual and the power it holds over a society, community, and the world.
Here is Alan Aymie.
Emma Weaver: What artists/bands do you remember being the most popular in your high school/college years?
Alan Aymie: In high school, the bands that were most popular focused around the ‘Rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Fame’ bands such as The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and The Doors. It seems like each year there was an album that resonated with our school as a whole. My freshman year it was Supertramp and Bad Company, my sophomore year it was the Kinks’s live album. At every “woods party” you were sure to see a bunch of drunken high school kids singing Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and other popular rock bands. My senior year, The Rolling Stones were on tour and their Tattoo You album was very popular, but it was all rock ‘n’ roll with very little punk and very little New Wave, which wasn’t as accepted or popular. In college, my freshman year was pretty eclectic – I was just kind of developing my own musical tastes, and at that point would listen to whatever anyone else was listening to, but I was slowly and surely becoming a fan of Prince—who I first heard in high school during his Controversy Tour—but he hadn’t yet become the megastar he was about to become. The summer between my freshman and sophomore years in college Purple Rain was released and his song “When Doves Cry” took over the country. It was also during that time that Madonna released her first album which became huge as well… I tended to focus more on soul, rhythm and blues, and funk. Some of the artists I listened to besides Prince, were Rick James, the Gap Band, and other dance groups that I would hear in the clubs when I would go out in Boston. My embarrassing claim to fame each week was I would go with my friends to the local Holiday Inn where they held a weekly dance contest every Friday night. I went almost every Friday and would win the $25 and complimentary bottle of champagne. My best friend in college was a huge Bruce Springsteen fan and in 1984 Prince and Bruce Springsteen were the two greatest performers in the world. In college, a couple of soundtracks from those big 1980s movies were very popular like Footloose, Top Gun, and Dirty Dancing. As embarrassing as it sounds, these soundtracks were very popular with everyone. While I was in college, I was also disc jockey for the college radio station at the local college club and I quickly got a reputation as the Boston Funk guy because I knew a lot of funk and R&B bands which some people liked and some people hated. I was kind of shy, but my junior year in college, I went out with Miss New Hampshire who happened to be at our school. I couldn’t believe that she liked me, but it turned out that with my long black trench coat and long black hair she thought I looked like Prince…
EW: What differences can you note between the popular artists of your time versus modern times? Do you notice any differences in the quality of music in modern times?
AA: The greatest difference between music of today and music when I was a kid was that we bought albums back then, not singles through iTunes. A band had to make an album and it had to have more than one song for it to be successful. Social media hypes current band’s albums in ways that could never happen before the Internet. Plus, artists today don’t necessarily need an album – they can release one song and see if it sells. In the ‘70s and ‘80s there was definitely “one-hit wonders,” but that was the exception, not the norm. Bands simply weren’t considered as legitimate without their album, tour, etc…
Also, because bands actually sang and played their own instruments there was a real debate about talent and artistry. We talked about the wizardry of Eddie van Halen’s fretboard fingering and the windmill chords of Peter Townshend; Keith Moon and John Bonham were monsters behind their drum kits while Neal Peart of Rush was a musical genius behind his drum kit…
Bands had talents that could be compared, contrasted and individualized as much as your favorite baseball team or player… Now with the aid of computers, synthesizers, and technology in general, almost anyone can sing, make a record. The “magic” of it is lost.
EW: Can you think of any modern comparisons with older artists?
AA: They say Prince is our generations Mozart.
EW: What was/is your favorite decade of music?
AA: I guess my favorite decade for music would be the ‘70s because that was the first decade I was really exposed to music and it brings back so many great childhood memories, like sitting on the swings and singing along to David Bowie’s “Sound and Vision”, or riding my bike to my first middle school woods party with a transistor radio strapped to my bike playing The Cars “Let’s Go” or Supertramp’s “Logical Song”.
EW: How would you define music?
AA: I can’t really define music, except to say that without it life seems a lot more gray. It seems a lot less happy and sad. Music adds color to my world.
EW: What does music make you feel?
AA: Music always made me feel invincible and really happy. It gave me an identity, made me feel cool, and it made me feel like I wasn’t alone. The emotions it draws are so diverse: “I Do Love You” by GQ and “Wishing on a Star” by Rose Royce makes me think of old loves in my life and “You’ve Got Another Thing Coming” by Judas Priest makes me want to run through a brick wall.
EW: In your opinion, what are five songs every college student should know?
AA: Five songs every person should know is a really, really tough question, but I guess I would say one song by Frank Sinatra, one song by Elvis Presley, one song by The Beatles, one song by Michael Jackson, and one song by The Rolling Stones. If you ask me personally what my all-time favorite desert island songs, off the top of my head, they would be “Desperado” by The Eagles, “Logical Song” by Supertramp, “Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits, “Feel Like Making Love” by Bad Company, and “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin only because these are good songs to sing. I purposely left out Prince because I couldn’t pick just one song and I feel like I know his music so well I would never forget it.
EMMA WEAVER | KXSU Music Reporter