Summer Heat and Cool Guitars

It’s summer in Oklahoma, the weather hot and humidity out of sight. As I drink a beer and dink on my laptop, I’m reminded of the many similar summers I experienced while growing up in northwest Louisiana.

We had no air conditioning then, only a ceiling fan and a lot of open windows. As I pay attention to my new Eagle’s CD I’m also reminded that the music we listened to back then was either on scratchy LP’s or radios with tinny speakers.

I like the new Eagle’s album. It has some good songs on the two CD’s, although most a little too country for my tastes. My personal favorite is Last Good Time in Town sung, and I guess written, by Joe Walsh.

Age-wise I’m contemporaries with the Eagles and I’m happy to hear that in their sixties the boys haven’t lost their creative spark. I grew up about thirty miles from the equally tiny town where Don Henley lived but hey, thirty miles across the Texas border may as well have been a thousand miles away.

Walsh’s song features one of his patented guitar riffs, his style as catchy as any musician that ever played the instrument. The lyrics are meaningful but don’t weigh your soul down with some maudlin message. The beat and back-up instrumentation keep enticing you to get out of your seat and start dancing. Yes I did!

A new steamy summer and a fresh Eagles album make me happy and I’m glad the boys, in their sixties, haven’t lost their creative spark. Maybe there’s hope for me yet!

Fiction South