COLUMN: Don’t Mind the Mess – Country music memories

By the time I was six, I was a country music star.

At least, that’s how it felt when I stood in the middle of our living room, gripping a wooden spoon like a microphone, belting out Dolly Parton’s greatest hits while my family cheered me on. I grew up in a house filled with music, where the voices of country legends like Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, Kenny Rogers, Johnny Cash, and Charley Pride echoed from the speakers.

My older brother owned all their albums – some on vinyl, but mostly on those bulky 8-tracks and cassettes. They were fickle little things, prone to tearing or tangling in the player, forcing us to fish out the ribbon and wind it back with a pencil. But it was a risk worth taking because those tapes held the soundtrack of our lives.

My brother, a legend in his own right, could play and sing most of those country hits by heart. Music was his gift, his escape, his way of winding down after a long day at work. It was also how he wooed and won his beautiful wife back in the seventies – crooning love songs with the sincerity of George Jones himself. His room became a makeshift studio, where friends gathered on Sunday afternoons, guitars slung over their shoulders, ready to make some serious tunes. And by “record,” I mean on an old cassette tape recorder – no fancy mixing boards or soundproofing, just raw music captured in the moment.

Of course, recording in a house full of siblings was no small feat. There was no drowning out the background noise of daily life – the chatter of sisters, the clatter of dishes, the occasional slam of a screen door. But my mom didn’t mind. She delighted in my brother’s remakes, and my sister and I were often called in as backup singers. We were pint-sized performers, taking center stage in front of a crowd of aunties and uncles who, in spite of the squeakiness, marveled at our pitch-perfect harmonies at the tender ages of five and three.

I can still sing most of those Dolly Parton songs by heart. Even after all these years, I have yet to nail the soaring high notes in I Will Always Love You, but Jolene and Coat of Many Colors? Those, I must say, aren’t too bad.

Music wasn’t just confined to the house, though. It followed us everywhere, especially in the summertime. After long, hot days hoeing sugar beets in the fields, we’d all gather around the front porch to cool off, my brother’s car parked nearby with the stereo filling the air with country ballads. Mom and Dad perched on the front steps, my sister and I ran barefoot in the yard, chasing our two scrappy farm dogs, and the rest of the family leaned against my brother’s car, nodding along to the music.

It was simple. It was wholesome. It was, in a way, our own version of The Waltons. I can almost hear Earl Hamner Jr.’s voice narrating those golden moments, painting them with the warm glow of nostalgia. Mom, still wearing her apron from making supper, leaned close to Dad, singing along to the songs of love lost and love found. The rest of us soaked in the summer air, letting the music wash over us, unbothered by the worries of the world.

I’m not saying my childhood was perfect. No one’s ever is. There were shadows, just as there are in every life. But those moments – the ones filled with laughter, music, and family – outshine everything else. They are the ones that color my memories in shades of rose and gold.

Five of those beautiful souls have moved on to the Sweet By and By, and we’ll never be able to gather on that front porch again – not on this side of Heaven, anyway. But the music, the love, the memories – they remain. And sometimes, when I hear John Denver singing, Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong…, I feel that lump in my throat, that familiar mist in my eyes. And I am so incredibly grateful. Because no matter where life takes me, I’ll always have those songs, those voices, those moments, wrapped around me like a melody that never fades.