Happy Birthday Dad!

41 Tunes -- two hours and 17 minutes of music -- for [what would have been] Dad's 81st birthday.

December 30, 2022

Today would have been Dad’s 81st birthday. We celebrated his last birthday with us 20 years ago today.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my parents’ taste in music was enormously influential on me. Neither Dad or Mom were the kind of record collecting geeks that I became, but both of them knew what they loved and clearly transferred this love to both Lisa and me. Several years before Dad passed on, I absorbed their record collection into mine, but the influence of those 100 or so albums on the couple thousand albums that make up the rest of my collection cannot be overstated.

I traditionally spend Dad’s birthday with the music he loved. This could be a melancholy exercise — and even after 20 years, there is some sadness, of course — but mostly playing these tunes is a celebration for me, as I love these songs too. I’d like to think that, decades down the line, Dylan’s Nashville Skyline album is as much my album as it is Dad’s, which is why I make no apologies for including for nearly every song from that album on this playlist.

Those of you who knew my dad will recognize the usual suspects on this playlist. Dad was a Ry Cooder fan the moment he first heard songs from the early Cooder albums. Uncle Charles introduced Dad to the great bluegrass band The Seldom Scene. And Bob Dylan’s voice was probably the first voice outside of my own family members that I was familiar with.

Dad only had one album by the Guess Who, American Woman, and I don’t recall him playing it much after about 1975. He must have played the hell out of it for a few years though, because even the long-lost album tracks hit me, decades after I last heard them. I remember “8:15” being a favorite of mine. I still love it, but I don’t even know if I like it for the same reasons that I liked it as a kid.

There are some outliers here. You might not expect Dad to be a new jack swing fan, but I distinctly remember him giving Bobby Brown’s “My Prerogative” his seal of approval. Maybe that was a fever dream of mine though.

I do remember very clearly that Dad loved “Regrets”, a non-hit album track on Eurythmics Touch album. This makes me think that if Dad somehow has celestial access to Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia album, he’s found some deep track other than “Levitating” or one of the other hits, to love. Dad could be weird like that.

He’s right though: “Regrets” is an underrated Eurythmics tune.

Here is the track list for this playlist. Note: for maximum impact, these tunes should be heard in shuffle mode. I’ve included the Apple Music link to the playlist below as well.

  1. Appalachian Rain — The Seldom Scene

  2. Old Train — The Seldom Scene

  3. Through the Bottom of the Glass — The Seldom Scene

  4. Brown Sugar — Rolling Stones

  5. Let It Bleed — Rolling Stones

  6. Maggie’s Farm — Bob Dylan

  7. Damn Right, I’ve Got the Blues — Buddy Guy

  8. My Prerogative — Bobby Brown

  9. Regrets — Eurhythmics

  10. One Meat Ball — Ry Cooder

  11. Available Space — Ry Cooder

  12. I Think It’s Going to Work Out Fine — Ry Cooder

  13. FDR in Trindad — Ry Cooder

  14. All Shook Up — Ry Cooder

  15. I Think I’ll Just Stay Here and Drink — Merle Haggard

  16. Girl from the North Country — Bob Dylan w/Johnny Cash

  17. To Be Alone with You — Bob Dylan

  18. Nashville Skyline Rag — Bob Dylan

  19. I Threw It All Away — Bob Dylan

  20. Peggy Day — Bob Dylan

  21. One More Night — Bob Dylan

  22. Tell Me That It Isn’t True — Bob Dylan

  23. Country Pie — Bob Dylan

  24. Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here with You — Bob Dylan

  25. 8:15 — The Guess Who

  26. American Woman — The Guess Who

  27. No Time — The Guess Who

  28. No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature — The Guess Who

  29. Purple Haze — Jimi Hendrix Experience

  30. All Along the Watchtower — Jimi Hendrix Experience

  31. Hey Joe — Jimi Hendrix Experience

  32. The Girl I Love She Got Long Black Wavy Hair — Led Zeppelin

  33. Dirt Road Blues — Bob Dylan

  34. Hit Parade of Love — The Seldom Scene

  35. Panhandle Country — The Seldom Scene

  36. Alimony — Ry Cooder

  37. Do Re Mi — Ry Cooder

  38. Paris, Texas — Ry Cooder

  39. Subterranean Homesick Blues — Bob Dylan

  40. One Way Out — The Allman Brothers Band

  41. Little Martha — The Allman Brothers Band

Here is the Apple Music link to this playlist:

https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/its-dads-birthday/pl.u-jV89akWudqmKgZ