151026 October 26, 2015

        Memphis, TN - Starting a little fun with some music of our times this week and I invite all of you to join me in the memories. Music has always been one of my passions, and my biggest regret is I was never able to find an instrument I could learn to play. I always wanted to be in a band, but never was. The closest I got to the feeling of being onstage and entertaining people was when I became a part-time DJ and would play oldie-goldie records for groups and clubs. I was never like the DJs of today, but was really just a record spinner, kind of like a human jukebox. People would tell me what they wanted to hear and I would play their requests if I had access to the songs. With over 2,500 45rpm records and 100 vinyl albums with 10 to 20 songs each on them, I amassed quite a library. This week I return to my human jukebox role again and am taking your requests - see the story below.

The Virtual Jukebox

Tommy Towery

LHS '65

        It is hard to go out today without seeing someone walking around or sitting somewhere wearing a pair of earphones and listening to some unknown song being played on an MP3 player or smartphone. I don't think that is all bad considering how little I personally care for any of the music which is popular these days. This is part of today's culture and these people would rather drift off into their own world than socialize with others.

        I remember growing up in a world where the "personal" music devices did not exist, save a rare transistor radio with a single-ear earphone. For most of our generation, our musical entertainment outside of our own home was provided either by radio or Jukebox. Bowling alleys, skating rinks, and cafes and diners offered us a chance to listen to popular songs, normally from a list of 100 selections, while we were patrons of those establishments. The big catch to this form of entertainment being it was a shared experience, and everyone in the place was forced to listen to the chosen songs picked by someone else. Genres included all types of music and even if you didn't care for the song being played, you had to listen to it anyway.

        Before I graduated from Lee and moved away, you could listen to one song for 10 cents, or get three selections for a quarter. Later the prices went up, but the concept stayed the same. I could never tell you how much of my limited income went down the slots of these entertainment robots.

        I could write pages about jukeboxes I encountered in my life, but rather than doing so, I want to concentrate on the basic concept of the jukebox instead and do so by establishing a virtual jukebox in the Traveller for the readers to enjoy. I am going to give each of you a virtual quarter and allow you to pick out three songs which you remember as you personal jukebox favorites before you graduated. These are the songs you have some memory of actually playing on a jukebox back during those days. If you would like to expand on where you remember playing them, or why you played them, or who you were with when they were playing that would be even better.

        Below is how I am spending my own virtual quarter, and the songs I have a vivid memory of playing more than once as a teenager. My first selection is "Talk to Me" by Sunny and the Sunglows, which is a song I learned to love because it was the best song to slow dance to at the parties where the Continentals played. Oh, I have so many great memories of the girls I held close to my body and swayed to this tune.

        My number two choice is "Young Love" by Sonny James. This was the song my first girlfriend and I chose as "our song" and whenever we were at a bowling alley or diner that featured it on their selections we would play it.

        My final choice is "409" by The Beach Boys. I remember falling in love with the beat of this song which I first heard bellowing out of the jukebox at Plamor Bowling Alley on South Parkway. This song was the "B" side to "Surfin' Safari," one of the Beach Boys hits and was very seldom played on the radio, but it was one of my favorite surf and hot rod hits of our time.

        So, I invite you to listen to my quarter's worth of music, and extend an invitation for you to spend your own virtual quarter and send me the names of your own personal favorites and I'll play them for the whole crowd. Just email me with the names and sit back and enjoy.