Now here’s what I want y’all to do for me – listen, just listen and perhaps listen again. I know sometimes(ok who am I kidding)most of the time you see posts from us on your Social Media Channel of choice and you glance and you don’t see a name or a tune that you’re familiar with and you keep scrolling. I get it and I especially get it if you are like me of a certain age and raised on radio. That radio does not exist anymore. There is no incentive for that radio to ever come back. So in many ways I can somewhat see how it must have been during those decades of transition from the horse to the horseless carriage. Some people just refuse to let go and are waiting for radio to be what it once was a vessel of discovery for music just like people were holding on to ‘Ol Bessie as she got better miles to the gallon than her combustible engine and steel counterpart.
Listen, if radio existed as it did and records could be broken like they were in the days of yore where that one DJ took a chance and flip the record over to the B-side or did some sort of custom mix or just simply loved a song “Mile High” from Raquel Rodriguez would be that kind of record. I love to hear the old guys who were in the music business when it still had some modicum of interest in music talk about “A hit record” as in we cut or got a hit record on artist so and so. I don’t know what qualifies as a “hit record” these days but to these ears, this right here is what we used to have back in the old days “A song of the Summer”. Oh I know people still refer to that phenomenon as existing but to me “Mile High” captures the essence of how it used to work. There would be a song(actually songs)that would have the right vibe and be released at the right time(right when school was about to get out for the Summer)and from there the movement would begin and the next thing you know cars with the windows down driving by would be playing that song .
That’s “Mile High” don’t believe me? Press play.
P.S. This is another post dedicated to all the folks out there who go on constantly about “They don’t make music like they used to…” sure they do. The real debate is not whether the music is being made but whether or not you are listening or are you complaining because you’re looking for this music love in all the wrong places? Turn of that radio turn off that, you know the rest.
Ivan Orr is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, performer, and writer. A native of Charlottesville, Virginia Ivan was involved with the forming and nascent days of The Music Resource Center as its first Program Director. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Music, Ivan currently resides in Richmond, VA where he maintains an active performance and production schedule while serving as the Music Editor for Grown Folks Music, a position he has held since 2010.
